Tom called a Knights of Walpurgis meeting about a week after he tried to destroy his research. As usual, he took note of whom sat around the table with him in the abandoned classroom in the dungeons. It was a rainy May and it was cold in the basement of the castle so they were huddled around a roaring fire.

Lestrange, Nott and Avery were there, of course, their eyes focused on his face and Cygnus and Orion Black were playing cards while waiting for Tom to speak. Walburga Wilkes was braiding Lucretia Black's hair, and Rosier had his nose in a book. He frowned. Augustus Rookwood had yet to show up.

Tom addressed the group. "Knights." Everyone in the room immediately ceased what they were doing and turned to look at him. "Recently I… lost some important documents. They were most certainly stolen from me and it is imperative that they are returned to my possession. I need you to look for a person who is suddenly spending a lot of time in the library, presumably with lots of papers or black notebooks. Do not attempt to steal the notebooks back. Tell me who it is and I will deal with it."

The Knights of Walpurgis nodded their consent. Two years ago they would have questioned him, but no more.

"What's on the papers?" Orion Black asked, quickly adding, "my Lord" to the end of his question.

Tom frowned again, glaring at the second year. The silence in the room was palpable. "It is none of your concern."

He could not stand the atmosphere in the room anymore and left. None of the members of the group would question him, since he had taught them long ago to fear him. He had only told them after searching everywhere he could think of himself, first. He was wandering down the dungeon corridor, nearing the potions classroom, when he ran into a girl, sending both of them sprawling.

He almost groaned in irritation as her books scattered all over the hallway. He would need to help her collect them to maintain his perfect prefect stance. Then he saw who it was.

"Myrtle!"

"Hi, Tom," the bespeckled second-year said, pushing the glasses up her nose. "What are you doing here?"

He grit his teeth. "I live down here, you dolt! What are you doing down here on a Saturday?"

"You're polite to everyone but me, you know. You're weird at home, but at least you're not a ponce there," she sighed and looked away. "I'm avoiding Hornby."

He realized that her eyes were red from crying. The light from the torches on the stone wall accentuated it. "Are you okay, Myrtle?" he blurted out. He was astonished with himself. He had actually meant what he said.

She was just as astonished. "Why would you care? You've ignored me when we come to school for two years!"

Tom stared at her. "It's not like I talk to you when we're in London," he explained. Myrtle Cook had come to South Lambeth Home for Orphans when Tom was nine and she was six. Amy Benson had taken her under her wing, and Tom hated Benson so there was no reason for Tom to ever associate with her. Now, for some reason he felt badly, only confirming his hypothesis that something was seriously wrong in his mind.

"Why don't you write to Benson if you feel sad?" he suggested stiffly, watching her gather her books.

"I do! I do!" wailed Myrtle, sniffing. Tom grimaced. "But its not the same as having friends here! I want to go home. I thought I'd like it here but I hate it!" She dropped the books she'd gathered up again.

"For goodness' sakes, Myrtle, don't have a bloody breakdown," Tom said, while bending down to pick up the books. "Why don't you go to the library and study?" he asked, hoping to brush her off.

"You're not listening! This is worse than the orphanage!" She was really crying now, the tears dribbling down her cheeks. Tom was at a loss. In his emotionally unstable state, he was having trouble dealing with this.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," he tried. "But there's only two months of school left."

"That's too long!" Myrtle sobbed. "Don't you miss Eric?"

A rush of anger forced its way through Tom. How dare Myrtle speak of this? He'd forgotten about that whole situation, too. He gritted his teeth. If he hit Myrtle now, his whole reputation as perfect prefect would be shattered.

"No, I do not," he replied, at a loss of how to console her. "I suppose you can come and study with me in the library."

Awhile later, sitting across the table from Myrtle, he came to the conclusion that he needed his head examined. She moaned on and on about some girl named Olive Hornby while he tried to concentrate on the book he was reading about mood charms. "Maybe I should put a Cheering Charm on you, Myrtle."

Myrtle stared at him, but she didn't have time to answer because McGonagall, the sixth-year Gryffindor prefect, came through the main doors of the library and addressed the studying students, having magically amplified her voice. "Students please return to your common rooms. There is no need to panic, but for security reasons please proceed straight there."

"Myrtle, you should go right back to the Ravenclaw common room, do you understand?" Tom said, gathering his things. Myrtle gave him a reluctant nod and went on her way. Tom made his way over to McGonagall.

"What's going on?" he asked her, as students crowded through the doors right behind them.

"I could use a little help, Riddle," she snapped, gesturing to the crowds. "We have to round up everyone in the school and get them back to the common rooms."

"But why?" he protested. "Did something happen? In London?" he guessed.

"London? What?" said McGonagall, bemused.

"Bombs," Tom reminded her, as a sharp rush of anxiety coursed through his body. He might not care for everyone at the orphanage, but he didn't want them dead. But then he pushed the thoughts away. Since when did he care?

"No," McGonagall said, being a pureblood and therefore sheltered from the horrors of the London bombings a couple of years previous. "I don't know. I think a student was injured."

Tom frowned, confused. "Okay. It must be really bad for this kind of reaction."

McGonagall turned to leave. "Are you going to come and help me, or not?"

He followed her, curious as to what had happened. He did not find out until an hour and a half later after they had traipsed about the school instructing students to return to their common rooms. The prefects convened in front of the Hospital Wing, waited for a teacher to come and instruct them. The group of twenty-four students immediately began to gossip about the event causing all the chaos.

"Anyone know what happened?" McGonagall asked, as bossy as ever.

"I heard a Slytherin was really injured," Crouch said.

"Who?" asked Tom. It couldn't have been any of the Knights, since he had just seen them hours before.

"I don't know," Lucretia Black said. She was the sixth-year prefect for Slytherin, and being generally nosy, usually knew stuff like this. "I think it may be a student in the younger years."

Dumbledore arrived in front of the group. "I'm sure you all are curious to know the details of this unfortunate situation. For the sake of preventing gossip, I am going to tell you, the prefects, the frank truth. Cygnus Black, a Slytherin third-year, was found petrified in the dungeons a few hours ago. With the use of a powerful Mandrake Draught, he will recover in due time. Rest assured that the staff are working to find the perpetrator of this act of dark magic. For now, please be cautious. You may go."

As Tom turned to leave, Dumbledore called out. "Mr. Riddle, I would like to speak with you in my office."

His stomach sank. Dumbledore would most certainly suspect him of petrifying Cygnus Black, since Tom had stupidly told him that he was able to speak to snakes years ago when Dumbledore had delivered his Hogwart's letter. After all, he had schemed to put a similar plan into play at the beginning of the year, but after the unfortunate event with the basilisk and his missing research, he could not possibly go through with it. But, after all, Cygnus Black was one of his Knights. What would his motivations be for attacking him?

He stood in front of Dumbledore's desk at the front of the Transfiguration classroom. "Mr. Riddle," Dumbledore addressed him. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

Tom swallowed. What could he tell the teacher? I think I'm turning into a Hufflepuff because I think I actually care about some people. Or, better yet, A week ago I maybe found the Chamber of Secrets and then confronted a basilisk. Just so you know, I did extensive research on how to exterminate muggleborns and then lost it, so someone may be in possession of it right now. Right, and have Dumbledore expel him and really think he belonged in an asylum.

He shook his head and managed to choke out a, "No, sir."

Dumbledore gave him a long look. "I always find it's relieving to tell someone when something is bothering you, Mr. Riddle." Tom scowled at him. Dumbledore's bright blue orbs pierced his eyes. "But I see you are not in the mood. On another note, we have a detention to schedule. Shall I see you Monday night after dinner?"

"Yes, sir," Tom muttered, desperate to leave. When he finally found himself standing in the hallway outside the Transfiguration classroom, he leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. He was certain it was the basilisk that had petrified Cygnus Black. He would have thought the basilisk would attack muggleborns, but apparently not. With a jolt of horror he realized that it could kill anyone, himself included.

Tom almost had a panic attack right then and there. The thought of death scared him more than anything. He decided to hurry back to his dormitory as fast as possible, acutely aware that the hallways of Hogwarts were no longer safe.

He went through the next few days of classes in a daze. He found it hard to interact with other people because he was so stressed about the basilisk. He felt inexplicably guilty about Cygnus Black, only further confirming his fears of his emotional problems.

In detention, Dumbledore constantly asked him if he had anything to tell him, and Tom's constant answer was "No, sir," as always. But, leaving his third detention with Dumbledore on Friday night, Tom met Walburga Wilkes in the hallway.

In the moonlight of the large first floor windows that looked out into a courtyard, he soon realized she was petrified. He was unsure of what to do. Should he run back up to the Transfiguration classroom and get Dumbledore? While he was hesitating, McGonagall came around the corner, doing her nightly patrol.\

"What's up, Riddle?" she asked upon seeing his stricken face.

"Wilkes' been petrified," he answered breathlessly.

McGonagall frowned for a moment, but did not seem fazed. "I'll stay here with Black and you run to Dumbledore's office," she commanded, tucking one long black braid behind her ear.

Tom did as she said. But when he arrived at Dumbledore's classroom, out of breath and panting, he paused outside the door. A long forgotten feeling of apprehension came over him as he raised his fist to knock.

He shook his head to rid himself of the unwanted feeling and knocked. Dumbledore came immediately. "Mr. Riddle."

"Sir," Tom said, still short of breath. "There's been another attack. This time it's Walburga Black! McGonagall is still with her now."

Dumbledore gave him a long look. "That is grave news indeed, Mr. Riddle. We will go to them immediately."

McGonagall was waiting for them in the first floor corridor, calm but pale in the light of the torches that lit the hallway. She stood beside the petrified sixth-year Slytherin prefect, as if standing guard over her.

Dumbledore seemed to inspect Wilkes for a moment and then turned to the two prefects. "I would like to get Ms. Wilkes to the hospital wing, and then I should like to meet you two in my office. I would like to ask you some questions."

Dumbledore conjured a stretcher and levitated Wilkes onto it. He flicked his wand and the stretcher floated beside him as he walked towards the hospital wing. McGonagall and Tom glanced at each other and began to walk to Dumbledore's office.

They were mostly silent, but then McGonagall turned to Tom. "It wasn't you that did it, was it?"

Tom stared at her. Did Gryffindors have no subtly at all? You did not simply ask someone if they had attacked two people with advanced dark magic.

"No," he said bluntly. "If you're concerned about it, though, I was with Myrtle Cook at the time Cygnus Black was attacked, so it isn't me who's doing this."

"You were with Myrtle Cook?" McGonagall asked as they passed by a row of suits of armour. Her tone of voice made it clear that she would not expect Tom to associate with the likes of Myrtle. She tried to correct herself, "I do think its great, though, if you were. She looks like she needs some friends."

Tom scowled. "I've known her for awhile. She lives in London, like me." He doubted she knew he lived in an orphanage and he wasn't going to enlighten her. He found it humiliating.

When they found themselves sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk in the little room off the Transfiguration classroom, they did not speak. Tom was not a talkative person and did not want to speak to McGonagall, whom he found to be a bossy know-it-all.

When Dumbledore finally entered, it was late and both Tom and McGonagall were tired and stressed from the attack, making the atmosphere tense. The teacher sat down in his chair across the desk from them. He stared at his two students over his half-moon glasses, taking awhile to actually say something.

"I sincerely hope neither of you are in any way involved in these two attacks."

The two prefects answered that they certainly were not. Once Dumbledore had ascertained that McGonagall had come across Tom who had been the first to find the petrified girl, he dismissed the Gryffindor.

Once McGonagall had left, Dumbledore gave Tom a disappointed look. "To be quite frank, Mr. Riddle, it is suspicious that you came across Ms. Wilkes alone late at night to find her petrified."

Tom clenched his fists in his lap, angry at the teacher's accusation. "I was coming back from detention, sir, you can vouch for that. And this Saturday I was with Myrtle Cook. She'll vouch for that, too." Sometimes Tom thought that Dumbledore could see through him, but on this occasion he was actually innocent and the professor still saw him as the culprit. It was probably because he knew what he was really like behind the façade that he put up at school.

Dumbledore smiled grimly. "There's no need for that, Mr. Riddle. We are innocent until proven guilty. However, I would like you to know that if these attacks continue, the school will be shut down early. I believe you should be getting to bed. It is rather late. Before you go, is there anything you would like to tell me about?"

Tom gave his customary, "No, sir."

The next few weeks were hard for Tom, as his Knights of Walpurgis were beginning to turn on him. They suspected that Tom was responsible for the attacks, and after Orion Black, Cygnus Black's twin brother, was found petrified two weeks after his brother, things really got bad.

Tom was gifted with amazing magical power, but against Nott, Avery, Lestrange and Rosier combined, he was in trouble. After it was announced to the prefects about the third attack on Orion Black, he came back to the common room, worrying about the basilisk, as usual, when his five most loyal Knights accosted him.

"Its you, isn't it, Riddle?" spat Rosier, who was somehow related to Wilkes.

Tom sneered at him. "Of course not. Why would I attack my own people?"

"They're not your people, mudblood!" Avery cried, pushing Tom back against the wall of the common room, jabbing his wand into his neck. It had been a long time since he had been called a mudblood, and it made him furious.

He did not need his wand to cause pain. He had perfected this trick at the orphanage, when other kids would beat him up. Avery recoiled from Tom, clutching his hand that had previously been around the other boy's neck.

"You unnatural bastard!" he cried. "You're fucking with us, aren't you, you little mudblood! You talk like you want the stuff we do, but you're no pureblood! Its us you're after, isn't it?"

It was the first time since years ago at the orphanage that he'd been beat up. He'd gone to the lavatory after they had left him bleeding on the common room floor and attempted to patch himself up. Unfortunately he had done so much research on dark magic, that he had neglected the field of healing, but he managed to fix the broken nose, but he was left with a sore body from all the bruises.

From experience he knew that a trip to the hospital wing was out of the question. He had leaned young that adults should never be involved in such situations.

However, in his detentions with Dumbledore, the meddling old man constantly questioning him. "Do you have anything to tell me?" he would always ask and Tom came rather close to telling him about the basilisk a few times, but that would certainly end in Tom's expulsion, which was out of the question.

On night he was organizing a filing cabinet in Dumbledore's office while the man sat at his desk, marking papers. He had accidentally fallen asleep, only to awake a hour later stretched out on the professor's floor, his shoes removed, on a mattress with a blanket over top of him. He had been so tired from trying to stay up all night (his housemates had taken to vandalising the few belongings he had, and he had become worried for his safety, so sleep was not an option), that he had actually fallen asleep in his least favourite teacher's office.

Mortified, Tom sat up and turned to look at his Transfiguration teacher, who was still marking essays at his desk.

"You looked tired," Dumbledore explained. "You look like you could use more sleep, Mr. Riddle. Is anything on your mind?"

Other than his constant pain sessions with his fellow Slytherins, the basilisk that was on the loose in the school, his emotional state and his worry about bombs in London, nothing was on his mind but his upcoming OWLs.

"Nothing particular, sir," he answered. "I guess I'm just stressed about my exams."

"Nothing helps for that like a good nights sleep," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "If you're awake enough to walk back to your dormitory, you should go to bed now."

"I didn't finish the filing cabinet, sir," Tom said. By this time, he had gotten used to his treatment by other students, but he still did not want to return to the Slytherin lair. The entire Slytherin house shunned him. The saying was true, the more you have, the more you have to loose. Tom had forgotten what it was like to be the pariah, but apparently it was his destiny wherever he went. It was almost worse than the orphanage.

Still, Dumbledore dismissed him and sent him back to his dormitory to sleep. Tom obeyed, but went and slept on another conjured mattress in the abandoned classroom in the dungeons. It might be chilly, but it was better than his dormitory or the crowded air raid shelter at the orphanage.

At breakfast the next morning, he found out that another Slytherin girl named Dolores Umbridge had been found petrified. His situation was getting worse.

Myrtle seemed to be taking pity on him, although, she too had no friends or even acquaintances. They studied regularly together in the library.

Myrtle at least received letters from people at the orphanage. Tom found himself to actually be jealous, which horrified him. She would read them out when they sat in the far back corner of the library, hidden between two bookcases.

Amy Benson sent long letters, mostly going on about mundane happenings at the orphanage. To Tom's consternation, Myrtle had told Benson that the two of them were both shunned by their peers. She'd given the reason that they were poor, and that the other students came from rich backgrounds and liked to make fun of them for their humble beginnings. Benson replied that at least they were getting a good education, but she understood the way they felt. Last year she and a couple others had been evacuated out of London during the Blitz, to a huge manor house in the countryside.

The owners' children had been "intolerable snots" and she was glad to be back in London though the food was terrible. She also talked about the war. Many of the older boys at the orphanage had enlisted and gone off to fight, even if they were underage.

Tom's throat had closed up. As a young child, a slightly older boy named Eric had always looked out for him, basically raising him, but as Tom grew older they had grown apart. Of course, Eric had probably distanced himself because of Tom's disturbing behaviour.

Tom had gotten Myrtle to subtly ask Benson if Eric had enlisted. Thankfully he hadn't, much to his relief. He was not sure why he was now thinking of Eric, even missing him. He hadn't thought of him in years! After all, he was just another orphanage brat.

He began to take on more prefect duties to avoid other members of his house. One night on patrol, he ran straight into someone coming from inside a classroom off the hallway. This time, he went flying, landing painfully on his arm. He looked up to see a huge figure looming over him.

"Are you alright?" Rubeus Hagrid, a Gryffindor third year, in the kind lower-class accent that Tom despised.

"Fine," Tom gasped, the wind knocked out of his lungs. "Watch where you're bloody going!"

"Sorry, sorry," the giant thirteen-year-old apologized, scrambling to pick up a cardboard box he'd dropped. "Ah, no, Aragog," he moaned.

Tom was about to inquire as to what an "Aragog" was, when he felt something crawl across his hand. Having propped himself up on an elbow, he glanced down at his other hand and choked.

It was a giant tarantula. He sucked his breath in. "What the hell is this?"

"A-an Acromantula," stuttered Hagrid, bending down over Tom and holding out the box. "Back in here, Aragog. C'mon, back in here."

Tom was panicking. Even a baby Acromantula was dangerous. They had highly toxic venom and could easily kill him. "Get it away, you lunatic!" He shrieked, loosing control of his well-versed calm. He scrambled back so his back was against the wall.

"It's okay, Tom," Hagrid said. "he's really very friendly."

He swallowed convulsively, barely noticing that Hagrid had called him Tom, something that would usually anger him. "Just put it in the box, please."

"What's going on here?" Rookwood emerged from the shadows.

Hagrid looked sheepish. Tom was more concerned about the spider that was once again moving towards him. Tom finally thought to take out his wand, but as soon as he reached for it, an odd feeling overcame him.

It seemed like a good idea to put it away. It also seemed like a good idea to begin flapping his hands in attempt to get the spider to go away, even as Hagrid yelled, "Stop that, you'll just aggravate him!"

"What have you done Hagrid?" Rookwood was saying loudly, as Tom felt the spider's fangs sink into his hand.

The next thing he knew was intense pain as he blacked out.