They said that when the giant Hagrid first said the words, "You're a witch, Harry." That she did not cry, smile, or react in any true manner at all.

Her eyes merely grew wide and her face paled, she seemed to fall into herself as if shattered, and her trembling pale fingers reached up to her face as if to feel the horror imprinted on her skin, "Oh God no, please no."

However, this was only what they said.

The first time Tom Riddle saw Harriet Potter it was through the eyes of little Ginny Weasley in the Hogwarts halls. She was smaller than he expected, her thick curling black hair almost larger than she herself was, but her eyes were sharper than daggers and when they cut across to find Ginny Tom almost thought, for a moment, she was looking straight through to him.

Another surprise was that she did not wear the proud gold and red but rather it was a silver and green tie hanging about her neck. This had seemed unimportant at the time.

There was something odd in the way she stood, a sort of stillness that commanded attention, as if no movement was truly wasted and every step was just as deliberate as the last. She looked distant and focused all at once as if Hogwarts was a battlefield rather than a school. He'd remembered seeing her and wondering if he'd ever noticed a girl who stood like that but he'd dismissed it easily enough at the time, because a girl was still a girl no matter how she walked.

He didn't truly see her in that moment though, she had only been a glimpse in the hallway, and in her he had only seen his own hatred reflected back at him in her sheer indifference.

He'd heard quite a bit about the girl who lived before he ever saw her eyes. When Ginny had found him there had been nothing, only that white expanse of emptiness lingering back at him, and he'd wondered if that was what eternity was meant to be; the dreaded nothingness of his own soul. He'd felt as if he was losing his mind in that place, if horcruxes even had minds to spare, and to keep his fraying sanity he'd told himself of the glory of Lord Voldemort the man he would/had become and sacrificed Tom to be.

Sacrificed, by his own soul, self-sacrifice as it was; there was irony in there somewhere if he had the courage to look for it.

Ginny, little Ginevera Weasley, ordinary and unremarkable as she was had seemed like divine light in that place. With her words he had been blessed with an opportunity and as soon as those first words had been entered into the diary he had known with certainty that he was not going to waste it. He would be free of this self-imposed prison and walk in the world once more and see what his other half had made of it.

He couldn't help but rush even though he knew that he must be careful, because the end goal was freedom, but he distracted himself constantly and was always slipping and teetering on some brink. The basilisk appeared in his mind, like an epic waiting to be written, and then he couldn't help himself. He told himself it was to distract the school, her brothers, anyone else who might be watching and provide a means for her eventual death but he suspected it was that itching need to do something, to see glory and greatness for what it truly was instead of its shadow.

He carried himself away and looking back that had always terrified him, how reckless he had been, but then had he been any more careful he likely would have never known her for what she truly was.

And in many ways he considered it necessary that he know Harriet Potter for more than the clever illusion she half-heartedly upheld.

She was called the girl who lived because when shot with the killing curse as infant her family slaughtered around her she had refused to die and instead had stolen the life of the Dark Lord Voldemort who had attempted to end her. She was spoken of in a hero worship that was almost absurd considering her age in the story and the fact that she did nothing but fail to die. Some part of him had resented that other Voldemort, the one who moved past him, securing his immortality by placing Tom in a notebook. However when he heard those words, so casually damned by an eleven year old girl writing in her diary, he had felt such helpless rage.

He could not even begin to guess why Lord Voldemort would attempt to murder children in the first place but that was secondary to the fact that he had been defeated by an infant.

In that first moment, of hearing little Ginny's star filled praise, he vowed that he would find this Harry Potter and kill her slowly and painfully so that she might suffer for his humiliation and horror.

So in that first moment it was only a glimpse and a thought, "I will end you little girl."

The first time he exchanged words with the girl was little better than the time he first glimpsed her, but it did remain in his memory later. It had been the beginning of the end of Ginevera Weasley and the girl was beginning to catch on. The black-outs were more frequent and the roosters' blood would stain her hands in the morning, she'd wake staggering and confused in hallways late at night, and knew what it meant to be losing one's mind.

He couldn't say he hadn't expected her to fight back but that didn't mean he enjoyed it either. Ginny was trapped, she probably knew it too, too much of her soul was inside the notebook for her truly to be free of it. Tom had already won the war it was now simply a matter of starving her out. Still, it was only natural that she have one final act of rebellion.

He didn't feel it, not directly, not the flooding of the overflowing toilet or anything physical like that. There was an aching chill as he felt her absence, that descent once again into the blank, into the emptiness that forever crawled into his mind.

In the midst of that Harry Potter appeared in the form of a single question, "Hello?"

He didn't remember the specifics of their conversation, only the intent, to throw her off of Ginny and thus his own scent and to draw her in so that he could stare her in the face before they met one final time. A prelude, he had thought to himself, as enemies they should meet at least once before the true battle.

The moment she entered the realm of the diary he had known that something was off about her. He'd felt it, a surge of power, unlike anything he had felt with Ginny when she entered the notebook. It was as if there was light everywhere, rebounding off the walls of his existence, and then she stood before him dressed in a way he should have found ridiculous and yet couldn't. She was in white but there were splashes of gold, red, and blue here and there found in her buckle, hair ties, and gloves. In her hand she held a broadsword inscribed with lilies that almost seemed to glow and her eyes again they seemed to know him exactly for what he was.

Horcrux, they seemed to say.

She did not look like a child in that moment, not at all.

"There was something you wanted to show me." She said passing through the notebook as if it was mundane, something perfectly ordinary that she saw on a daily basis, and once the shock of her had receded he had found himself insulted.

This was one of the greatest of magical accomplishments, a human soul separated from the body yet still tangible, and she passed by it as if it was routine.

It just revitalized his conviction that Harry Potter must die. In those days he had not been prone to deeper thought, he had been so distracted by himself.

With a hand motion he'd let the scene play out and watched Harry's unchanging reaction, those cool dead eyes that took in Hagrid's framing as if they were nothing.

His only accurate thought on her that day was that perhaps, with ruthlessness like that, she did deserve to be in Slytherin after all.

What should have been the end game turned out to be only the beginning, he should have known that things were never that simple, but the diary had allowed him to forget the harsher aspects of reality.

As he had hoped she'd followed him into the Chamber of Secrets, having found the clues for herself and followed him down into the depths, it was better this way then chasing her down later. More dramatic, and really at this point wasn't it the drama that counted?

"You're late, girl who lived."

She looked worn and yet strong in the same moment, curling hair pulled back away from her face with a tightness that spoke of necessity rather than style, her robes having been abandoned and the tie as well so that she was looking more like a Catholic school girl than a proper witch. Her wand was strapped into some kind of holster on her arm, not yet in her hand, and Tom remembered smirking at that amateur mistake, to not have her wand at the ready.

She did not smile, merely tilted her head and regarded him with narrowed eyes as if analyzing him, "A wizard is never late nor early but rather arrives precisely when he means to. You're transparent, Mr. Riddle."

He'd blinked at that, stumbled a bit, expecting something else he wasn't sure what perhaps her running over to Ginny and demanding aid from him who had been so kind in the diary. Perhaps he had expected accusations anything besides this eerie calm, looking down at Ginny as if she was already dead.

"So I am, thank you dear Miss Potter, for pointing out the obvious. However, it isn't my state of affairs I'd be worried about if I were you, haven't you noticed the condition of Ginny Weasley? She's not looking too good, is she?"

Again that tilted head, the eyes flicking down to Ginny's prone form momentarily, before coming back up to his, "No, she isn't. That's very interesting though, very interesting." The last bit was almost muttered, still looking at Tom, and for the first time looking unsure as if she couldn't quite tell what she was looking at.

It was at this point that he decided to take over the conversation for her as she wasn't heading in the right direction at all, "Yes, because you see even if you meant to arrive now you are a bit too late to help her. She's doomed and now by arriving here you are as well, because while I might be Tom Marvolo Riddle I'm something else as well, care to guess?"

He didn't give her a chance but instead rearranged the letters in the air for her. When they reached their final destination, I am Lord Voldemort, she did not move did not react in the slightest merely continued to stare.

"Well, do you not get it little girl? I am the dark lord, I am that being that murdered your parents and almost took this country. Aren't you afraid? Aren't you wondering how it is that I am that I am, that I exist in this diary? Aren't you curious?" It was meant to be scathing but it was almost desperate, the things he shouted at her, and she did nothing merely stared coldly back.

Her response, after his shouts had faded and he was left panting and staring at her, the immovable object, "I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds."

He had planned to tell her something of his true nature, of what would become of Ginny, of all of it but those words had decided her fate for her. There were no other paths for her in that moment.

"Really, is that so?" He asked his lips twisting into a wolf's grin, "Well then, girl who lived, let's see if you can destroy something a bit bigger than last time. I believe you've heard my pet slinking through the walls and I hear he's quite excited to meet you as well."

He called and the basilisk came and in that instant the transformation began there was brilliant light and perhaps music as well, the chiming of distant bells, and then there she stood in white once again in that same outfit she had entered his diary in and the glowing white sword in her hand as if it weighed nothing at all.

It was like watching a shooting star, having more grace than any dancer or any bird, her feet propelling her forward without hesitation her eyes closed shut as if she was merely dreaming and yet there she was dancing to avoid the basilisk's blows. It was almost over before it began, suddenly she was red and the sword was through the basilisk's throat, she turned then to look at him stowing her sword in a scabbard over her shoulder and walking toward him with that same cool purpose with which she had approached him before. She looked like a worn but determined soldier who had fought through numerous trials and could not be halted by one more.

That was the first time he would have the thought that she was somehow less human than he himself managed to be.

"What are you?" He remembered whispering as he backed from her in his transparent half body, his eyes darting to the notebook hoping that she somehow didn't make the connection that it was the notebook and not the body that she needed to strike.

She didn't answer him, not then, but when she grabbed the notebook and flipped through the pages she did not destroy him either. At the time though everything was darkness and he felt himself blown out like a flickering candle.

Author's Note: So that was pretty much a prologue... More from Harry and what the hell is going on next chapter for the moment our dear narrator Tom Riddle the horcrux is more than a little confused. Thanks for reading reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Puella Magi Madoka Magica or Harry Potter