Of Slumber and Death
For almost as long as you can remember you have known how to inflict pain and fear upon another. Long before you ever heard the word Legilimency
you had mastered the art of bending others to your will without deed or even word. However you had also discovered in those illicit magic lessons you taught yourself in the lightless nights within the walls of Wool's orphanage that it it's unaccountably difficult to strike a truly soothing note within the vaults, much as a loud noise is far simpler than singing. Alas the mind is a by far more critical then the ear.
However your position gives you far more insight into young Ginerva's mind than any flesh-and-blood Legilimens could posses. She has poured her questions... her fears her joys and her sorrows into pages first inked in your own blood. Upon this silvery bridge woven of a thousand and one threads you set your power seeking.
What do you want? Your questioning will seeks images and concepts far beneath the reach of the conscious mind. A vague image presents itself before you, colors smudged and running together the contours so soft it takes you a moment to recognize a face a red-haired woman... singing? Her mother perhaps... it is only then that you realize it is not just the feebleness of the connection that impairs your sight. This is the memory of a very young child.
That is all the insight you manage to wring from the memory. The song eludes you... perhaps you can substitute your own, you finally decide. Dimly you remember a sandy-haired boy who had once slept two beds from you when you were six or seven. He used to sing himself to sleep... he had a pleasant voice so you never stopped him.
Blow the wind, blow;
Swift and low;
Blow the wind o'er the ocean.
Breakers rolling to the coastline;
Bringing ships to harbor;
Gulls against the morning sunlight;
Flying off to freedom!
The song had always made you envisage the sea, a strange fancy as you had not seen the sea until the sandy-haired boy and his songs had gone. As you allow the melody to flow through you and into Ginerva's mind you find yourself falling into a soft grey shadow that you could almost imagine was the sleep long denied you.
***
Hours pass... you distantly feel the girl awake: a sort of muted shock followed by resignation that cannot quite contain the underlining excitement beneath it all that confirms you had not misjudged her. Only fools can pass the gates of Hogwarts without appreciating the greatness, the power that resides here, awaiting those who study here to pluck them for themselves... each by their own measure.
A few needle-sharp moments on annoyance follow and one spot of genuine anger... then you sense her attention turning towards you, blindly reaching.
Odd, shouldn't she be at her classes?
Greetings Tom, she scribbles quickly.
Good morning Ginerva, you reply neutrally.
Do you want to want t talk about it? You offer though from her emotions you can sense the refusal before she sets quill to paper. Her next question surprises you:
Do you know anything about History of Magic?
Are you asking this in class? The last damn thing you need is to be confiscated like some joke-shop distraction.
Binns won't notice, she is so sure of herself it stirs your curiosity further.
Cuthbert Binns? I remember him giving a short stiff to those who would not pay attention in his classes. You idly wonder just how old the man would be now. Almost two centuries. Odd that he would live so long.
You actually remember him when he was alive? Ginerva asks, fitting so neatly into your own thoughts that for a instant you wonder if she can sense your mind. Then the actual import of the words penetrates.
Dumbledore has a ghost teaching? Does he even know his students names? Studying the matter of specters had been your first disappointing foray into the possibility of immortality. The evidence had been as overwhelming as it was damning. Even the most vivacious ghost is only a pale imprint of their living selves moving through the ages as if in a dream, mixing present and past haphazardly doomed to be little more than a curiosity and a frustration to scholars.
Not according to Ron, Ginerva seems amused at having flustered you.
He said it was a good time to catch up on your sleep, but I don't need that. I want to talk.... well write I guess.
Of what shall you speak?
[] Do your best to teach her what Binns is manifestly unable to do in order to prevent deficiencies to her education
[] Gently bring up the subject of her Sorting and how one survives and thrives in Slytherin
[] Let her take the lead
[] Write in
OOC: You will notice Riddle does not know the name of the boy who used to sing to himself. That's not because he forgot but because he never learned it. The orphans Tom Riddle could not name were the lucky ones. 
