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Tale of a Shattered Soul (Potter-verse Diary Riddle quest)

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[X] Plan RAG
-[X] Slowly animate what happened/what you're saying to buy yourself some time to think.
-[X] "My Name is Tom Riddle, and I was a fool. I/My Father was a genius. Gifted, oh so gifted, but oh so afraid. I/Tom Riddle lived during The War, it was....not a very good time and place to be alive. Not to mention the orph well, that's a story for another time. Either way, I/He truly did not expect to survive. But I/He wanted to. I/He wanted something of me to remain. So I/He did something foolish. He broke us into two. Part went into my diary (it had the strongest connection to us, closer than even a painting would, since he had poured my life into it for years), part stayed with him."
--[X] Just planning ahead so you aren't immediately killed in case someone realizes who you are: "It wasn't perfect. I seemed that when we split, bits us were lost here and there. Our memories weren't quite the same. We weren't quite the same. His memory wasn't as good as mine anymore, and he was also somewhat more aggressive...
Talking to each other helped us fill in the missing bits (me more than him since he could just write the bits in). Some bits he simply wouldn't tell me, like how he split us, other parts were just plain missing. Thankfully, it was mostly minor stuff as far as we could tell."
--[X] Milk that loneliness: "While he was alive I wasn't completely alone, even after he hid me away I would get glimpses of life...but it seems he wasn't wrong. He did die soon enough, and I'm all that's left. You are the first person to write in me in decades."
 
[X] Plan RAG

Though it does describe a Horcrux, Ginny is years away from even being able to know about the part of the library about such things
 
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Part VI: Gambling for the Highest Stakes
  • Threadmarks
    • Gambling for the Highest Stakes​

    A lesson you learned early and well is that the greatest lies are woven of truth, missing few pieces, pieces the other can add at his or her leisure. The greatest lies are the ones people tell themselves for all thinking being love nothing more then to tell themselves tales. All that is needed is a little encouragement. The thought that comes to you is strangely reckless, a gamble with your very soul...have the years of nothingness made you careless? No a single great gamble now in this place faced with a child a sheltered trusting child is better than a thousand lesser risks over the years... To make her a worthy servant is also to strip away that trust, the die must be cast now.

    You pull experimentally on the bond between you, wondering if you are strong enough to pull her into a waking dream and show her the story you have concocted... not quite. Instead you set upon your pages images in blacks and greys more lifelike and perfect than any painted could hope to achieve animated by your will.

    My maker was a brilliant man, a great wizard, but the days were dark as Grindewald's War raged and and muggles rained fire from the sky over Britain.

    Dark skies.. falling shapes... a flash of white and a glimpse of a broken figure clearly a witch or wizard sprawled in moving upon the ground, nothing bloody, but just graphic enough to ensure Ginerva would be feeling before she thought.

    His name was Tom Riddle and he greatly feared death, for he had no place to hide and few means of escape from the danger... He was far indeed from being wealthy enough to flee abroad or cower in warded mansions like the wealthy of the time.

    The flash of understanding of empathy rooted in her own resentment at her family's paucity welcome indeed. Excitement and dread mix in her thoughts as she dimly intuits this shall be a tale beyond her petty experiences so far... a gateway into the extraordinary she craves. You are an actor upon a stage playing for his very life and you have never felt more alive since you have been sealed in these pages.

    That's awful, she writes unaware that you can read her emotions.

    My maker desired that something of him would survive so he crafted me not just in his image but of himself, a fragment broken from larger whole. You continue, the most damning and perilous element though the ones who could guess how this split was enacted are few indeed and far from this place. Poured into a diary that fragment is what I am... He was right to fear death for I am alone or at least so I as before you came along for offer me your friendship.

    We are friends aren't we? you add, your writing slightly uneven as if you had been overcome by some emotion.

    Always, she writes inc dripping from her quill. I... her hand trembles. I won't let you be alone again. I promise. There is a determination behind the word, hard as iron, the kind of thing you know form experience is hard indeed to overcome. You might almost call it heroic. You laugh at the irony and the grey silence swallow your mirth, unheard by any other.

    After a moment's pause she asks another question with the inquisitiveness of youth: How old were you when you make the... split?

    Sixteen,     you reply, I had just finished the year at Hogwarts, looking forward to a summer as perilous as it was dreary.

    An image of the orphanage its black bulk shrouded in mist with only faint lights in the window, no other explanation given followed. Just as countless times before you know that allowing others to discover the sordid tale by inches draws more sympathy then doing so all at once.
    What was it like at Hogwarts them? she asks, seemingly determined to break you from your supposed melancholy. What House were you... the question breaks off and for the first time you hear something that is not your own thoughts... some kind of howling?

    The ghoul is making a racket, Ginerva scribbles in haste to your satisfaction. Ever closer you grow.

    I have to go. Goodbye Tom.

    Fare thee well my friend

    As you feel the diary closing you ponder what you shall tell her of your Hogwarts experience. There is something to be said for shaping her perception of it before she even sets foot on the Express. Perhaps you could even nudge her into Slytherin for she is not a creature wholly without cunning or ambition. Distancing her from her family and immersing her into the proper values of wizarding society.

    What do you tell Ginerva of your time at Hogwarts?

    [] Write in
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • TERRIBLE IDEA.

    She is a child. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who she idolizes, have had trouble with Slytherin. They, at 12, decided that Malfoy was the heir because they hated him the most. So they drugged two of his friends and used restricted potions that they blew up Snape's classroom for (a highly dangerous thing to do, even ignoring Snape) so they could get the ingredients to make the body-stealer.

    Ginny has already met Malfoy, as well as his father, and she idolizes Harry. Associating ourselves with Slytherin would be a terrible move.
     
    boo600 said:
    TERRIBLE IDEA.

    She is a child. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who she idolizes, have had trouble with Slytherin. They, at 12, decided that Malfoy was the heir because they hated him the most. So they drugged two of his friends and used restricted potions that they blew up Snape's classroom for (a highly dangerous thing to do, even ignoring Snape) so they could get the ingredients to make the body-stealer.

    Ginny has already met Malfoy, as well as his father, and she idolizes Harry. Associating ourselves with Slytherin would be a terrible move.
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    Well you did give the name Tom Riddle, Slytherin prefect and head boy.
     
    boo600 said:
    So don't make the Slytherin loyalties obvious. In the fanfic Fanfic: The Evil Overlord List Ch 1, Harry Potter | FanFiction

    , Tom is sorted into Slytherin and insists it's because of ambition: he wants to make the world a better place. He didn't choose Slytherin.; he didn't know what house to take. The hat chose.
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    Here's the thing... that is vastly out of character. You are talking about the boy who figured out where to find the Chamber of Secrets and proudly declared himself the Heir of Slytherin in canon. That is not to say that he can't lie, indeed he lies like he breathes but his house affiliation and discovery of his heritage is a core part of his self-image.
     
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    boo600 said:
    In the fanfic Fanfic: The Evil Overlord List
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    1) that's social image-wise (and more) buffed up version of Tom, who could charm your pants off on his own. Ginny isn't that. Our Tom isn't that.
    2) we're not Jerry, we can't help and teach nearly as often and as quick.
    3) that's by definition pre-Voldemort version of Slytherin, with Slughorn parties and all. Ginny would go into "death eater spawn" Slytherin.

    Totally different situation.
    Edit: Sorry, I thought you were saying Ginny could pull off going to Slytherin without damaging relationships. Yeah, if we don't want to break her, it's best to ease up on snakiness.
     
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    We could always tell her about each of the houses and play up Slytherin before admitting we're probably biased since it was our house. She probably won't go to Slytherin, but it would increase her chances. If she brings up how bad Slytherin is we could say something along the lines that its too bad more people like her didn't get sorted in, but not in a pressuring way, more like a lamenting way.
     
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    The fanfic has an excuse: TOM DIS NOT CHOOSE SLYTHERIN. The hat chose it because he had an admirable ambition! The fanfic is just an example; this has nothing to do with Jerry!
     
    Not pushing Ginny towards Slytherin, and making it clearness that Tom is a Slytherin because true hat thinks wanting to help the world is ambitious. Not because he's a nasty evil little psychopath like Ginny likely imagines them to be after all she has heard.
     
    From the Evil Overlod List

    Fanfic: The Evil Overlord List Ch 7, Harry Potter | FanFiction

    "Funny story, actually – the Sorting Hat had a bunch of trouble with me, too."

    "Oh, yes, I noticed you sat under there for a pretty long time."

    "We also started out in Ravenclaw, but started discussing all of the Houses, and ended up being even less sure of where I was supposed to go than at the start."

    "Now that is ironic," Professor Dumbledore sipped his tea. "But quite amusing. Do go on, Tom. How did you finally decide?"

    And here came the magical insert. "Well, finally, the Sorting Hat decided to ask me what I thought defined a great man."

    "And how did you answer?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

    Tom shrank down shyly and gave Professor Dumbledore his most innocent, cheerful, hopeful, naïve smile. "It took me a while to arrive at the answer, but I finally thought I had the right one. 'A good man is defined by his kindness, but a great man is defined by his dreams.'"

    There was a silent pause in the room.

    God, there was so much revolting sweetness in that one action Tom could have sworn he was getting diabetes. Either that, or he had just sprouted a set of ovaries.

    But the show had to continue, so, following this statement, Tom willed his cheeks to color slightly (being able to cry and blush on command were the two most useful skills in the average poor little orphan's toolbox since forever) and looked down even further, all the while pressing the tips of his index fingers together.

    Finally, Professor Dumbledore broke out into a genuine smile and lifted his teacup.

    "A very profound statement, for someone so young."

    Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeecccccccchhhhhhhhhh…

    "I guess the Hat just interpreted my statement to mean ambition, so…" here Tom inserted a nervous chuckle, "Slytherin it was!"
     
    [X] Redirect her attention to the Hogwarts of the past, reminsce about the teachers, secret passages, and generally distract her with hints of hidden surprises in school.
    -[X] Then segue into the problem students of every House, how it was a pain to get Slytherins and Ravenclaws interested in anything but their own projects, how Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws kept to themselves, how the Slytherins and Griffindors constantly got into trouble over the silliest things. Highlight this with tales of the worst troublemakers on all sides, sure to get her interest.
    -[X] Then ask her about how things have changed since then. It has been a long time.

    I think outright deception about our House is liable to backfire, it's something easy to expose with a simple look up on publicly available records.

    But she's still born in Griffindor aligned family, so we need to prime the pump first.

    Establish something she'd easily understand first(like she's had YEARS growing up around Fred and George getting into trouble to comisserate over "yeah theres a bunch of idiots in there").

    THEN change the topic to learn how things are, without actually answering the question. Gauging from her reaction, we can then tell her about our House.
     
    Let's not push her to Slytherin. Assuming we want to build up allies or outright regain our form, we're better off if not in the house considered most suspicious. Half the reason Ginny went unnoticed in canon, is because nobody even thought to look for the Heir in Gryffindor.

    Also, we're better off without Ginny learning how to spot manipulation. Being the brave and unquestioning, Gryffindors are easier to trick into being our allies.
    ~~~
    The only times we should outright lie is when it's unverifiable. Everything we tell her has to be grounded in truth if don't want things to fall apart the moment she decides to check on things. So, we tell her Tom was in Slytherin. We lead with him being a Muggleborn (Tom effectively was), who grew up in an orphanage in terrible conditions. He wanted to rise above that, to be great. Tom Riddle was going to be the greatest wizard in the world, so when the hat offered him a choice between Slytherin and Gryffindor, he chose the snakes...admittedly, part of it might have been because green is his favorite color.

    Then we outright lie. Say we regretted it. Followed with some truth, there is not a single person in Slytherin he could truly call a friend. He had allies, at best.

    All of the body of the post is above this, but I need some sort of actual plan, so:

    [X] Plan RAG
    -[X] Don't push Ginny towards Slytherin.
    -[X] Take the opportunity to make her trust/like/believe you more via your own background.
    -[X] Lie (unless it's not a lie) about your own sorting. Make it seem like you didn't understand how bad Slytherin was, and regretted it.
     
    [X] Redirect her attention to the Hogwarts of the past, reminsce about the teachers, secret passages, and generally distract her with hints of hidden surprises in school.
    -[X] Then segue into the problem students of every House, how it was a pain to get Slytherins and Ravenclaws interested in anything but their own projects, how Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws kept to themselves, how the Slytherins and Griffindors constantly got into trouble over the silliest things. Highlight this with tales of the worst troublemakers on all sides, sure to get her interest.
    -[X] Then ask her about how things have changed since then. It has been a long time.
     
    [X] Redirect her attention to the Hogwarts of the past, reminsce about the teachers, secret passages, and generally distract her with hints of hidden surprises in school.
    -[X] Then segue into the problem students of every House, how it was a pain to get Slytherins and Ravenclaws interested in anything but their own projects, how Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws kept to themselves, how the Slytherins and Griffindors constantly got into trouble over the silliest things. Highlight this with tales of the worst troublemakers on all sides, sure to get her interest.
    -[X] Then ask her about how things have changed since then. It has been a long time.
     
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