had told me about you, I knew you would go to any lengths to solve the mystery – particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak Parseltongue ...

'So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But there isn't much life left in her: she put too much into the diary, into me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last. I have been waiting for you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many questions for you, Harry Potter.'

'Like what?' Harry spat, fists still clenched.

'Well,' said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, 'how is it that a baby with no extraordinary magical talent managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?'

There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.

'Why do you care how I escaped?' said Harry slowly. 'Voldemort was after your time.'

'Voldemort,' said Riddle softly, 'is my past, present and future, Harry Potter ...'

He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves:

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

Oh, just fucking fantastic! Amelia thought to herself. Lord Voldemort versus Pajames The Terror and Imitate Overplay. We are so fucking dead. Anagrams can kiss my ass.

'You see?' he whispered. 'It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name for ever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!'

Harry's brain seemed to have jammed. He stared numbly at Riddle, at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry's own parents, and so many others ... At last he forced himself to speak.

'You're not,' he said, his quiet voice full of hatred.