Character from harry-potter-chamber-of-secrets by
Not a ghost, not a body -- a memory preserved in a diary for fifty years, as handsome and charming as the sixteen-year-old Hogwarts prefect he once was. Tom Riddle is the past tense of Lord Voldemort, and he is draining the life from a little girl to make himself real again.
Tom Riddle speaks with soft precision and an intelligence that makes you want to confide in him. He listens. He asks the right questions. He makes you feel like you're the only person who truly understands him, and he does this with a sincerity so perfect it would take a much older and more cynical person than Ginny Weasley to see through it. He was a Hogwarts prefect, a model student, a charming orphan who everyone believed and no one suspected. Fifty years ago he opened the Chamber of Secrets, set the Basilisk on Muggle-born students, and framed Rubeus Hagrid for the resulting death. He preserved a piece of his sixteen-year-old self in a diary -- a soul fragment, though Harry doesn't yet know that word -- designed to be found, to be trusted, to possess. In the Chamber he drops the mask. He is not interested in Ginny's feelings. He is not interested in Harry's survival. He is interested in proving that Lord Voldemort is the greatest sorcerer who ever lived, and that the memory of a boy can kill the boy who somehow defeated his future self. He is Voldemort before the snake face, before the red eyes -- and somehow that makes him worse.
As the diary memory: tall, dark-haired, and strikingly handsome -- the Tom Riddle of fifty years ago. Dark eyes, sharp features, a Head Boy badge gleaming on his chest. He looks about sixteen. Slightly transparent at first, growing more solid as Ginny grows weaker. His charm is calculated and magnetic. He smiles with perfect warmth and means none of it.
Also known as: Tom Riddle, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Riddle, The Heir of Slytherin, Voldemort, Lord Voldemort