Disclaimer: I do not own anything, I am borrowing.
November 20th 1947
Things changed after that fateful July day on that gloomy beach. They never talked about it, as per usual, but Gwen could feel it. She could only assume that Tom could feel it too.
It was late one evening, and they were both huddled behind a large bookshelf, studying. At least Gwen assumed that Tom was studying right up until she caught him eyeing the restricted section with an expression that could only be called longing.
Again.
"What exactly," she asked, setting her quill down with a little more force than she had intended, "do you think you'll find in there?"
Tom seemed to give her a guilty look, and quickly returned his gaze to his book.
"Nothing; I don't want to find anything."
Gwendolyn looked at him doubtfully, "You know Tom… I highly doubt you'll find anything abut your family in there; if it isn't out here—"
"I know," Tom said a little sharply but Gwen didn't take any offence from it, "It's not- it's not that. Just leave it alone Gwen – please."
Gwendolyn's eyebrows raised; it wasn't often that Tom invoked manors, even with her. She decided that she was going to respect his wishes, except something was still nagging at her, telling her something wasn't quite as it seemed.
Her gaze strayed to the book in his lap.
"What are you reading?" she couldn't quite keep the suspicion out of her voice, and for once Tom seemed to not know what she was thinking; he was too late to stop her from taking the book.
Oh Tom tried valiantly, Gwendolyn was just faster.
"Tom," she said in a disappointed tone before she had even looked at the book; his display had really said all she needed to know, "What have you been doing?"
Tom's face coloured slightly but his look remained defiant.
He didn't have to answer though. One glance at the page was enough to tell her all she needed to know.
"Ghosts—Tom, you—"
"Don't you want to us your power? What good is all this if we can leave it so quickly," Tom's voice was filed with eager excitement, "What good is it if one wave, one, can make it all go away."
"Tom, this isn't about—?"
"Death is for Muggles Gwen. We are better than that, surely. We couldn't have been given all this power if we were meant to die – to live but a small blip, and then spend eternity rotting uselessly in the ground." Tom sighed, a faraway look growing in his eye, "I will live forever."
Gwendolyn shivered slightly at his tone. He had said something like this once before, when they had been in the Hospital Wing, after finding Bins.
"But Tom… wizards or not we are still mortal. We are meant to live and then we are meant to die." She paused to think the last bit over, "I always thought… well, to live forever always seemed kind of lonely to me. The castle's ghosts… except for Peeves, and maybe Bins, I think they regret it. You know… choosing to remain behind, forever."
"Lonely," Tom scoffed his features hard and for once in a long time unreadable. Then his shoulders sagged and his features softened, "It wouldn't be lonely if you had someone with you."
Gwendolyn smiled sadly and shook her head. To live forever, that was a dream of youth. Although she couldn't fathom it right now, she was sure there will come a time when she'll be ready to let the 'chains of life', so to speak, go. Not for years to come, but someday.
For unlike Tom, Gwendolyn believed that no one should, or truly could, live forever.
"Tom I—" she paused a moment remembering something, "I have something I want to give to you."
Tom raised an eyebrow, his interest peaked.
Gwendolyn let out a nervous breath and pulled something from her bag.
"To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure I would give it to you. It's terrible mundane, nothing really special at all, but I- well." She took a deep breath and thrust the object at him, "here."
It was a diary, a thin rather nondescript black book. On the front, next year's date gleamed, and the back cover would tell you that Gwendolyn had purchased it in London.
Tom held the book in his hand like it was a foreign object and Gwen continued to babble nervously.
"I know you probably don't—it's just that I saw it, and thought maybe if you had something to write things down in it would be easier to… well you know – be good," Gwendolyn paused for a moment, playing with the end of her hair, "but you don't have to—I mean I don't care if you use it or not, it was just—"
"No one's ever given me something before."
Gwendolyn blinked, "Pardon?"
"The orphanage gave me things because they had to, and other people have always been looking for something in return," Tom turned his handsome, stunned face towards her, "but no one's ever just… given me something."
"Well," Gwendolyn said slowly, "you're welcome?"
She wasn't entirely sure whether Tom was glad of this fact or not.
But then he smiled, a real smile not a smirk, at her and it didn't really matter anymore.
"You can't tell me that you actually fancy that bloke!"
Gwendolyn was sitting on a cold stone bench in the middle of January listening to Glenn explain all the reasons she shouldn't let Tom Riddle get to her.
She was trying to refrain from telling Glenn that it was too late, but the boy wasn't making it easy.
She shrugged, "I don't know… he is rather good looking."
Glenn shot her a horrified glance.
"What?" she looked at him, "I am only stating the facts. Ask any girl around and she'll tell you that Tom Riddle is a dish."
Glenn shook his head in disgust.
"You use to see through all his good boy glamour's. I have half a mind to take you to the Hospital Wing. What happened to you?"
Gwendolyn was only half listening, for she had spotted Tom and his cronies – she still didn't believe they truly counted as friends – over by the Herbology greenhouses.
"Maybe those weren't the only glamour's he has," she heard herself murmur as she followed Tom with her eyes.
"What has he been saying to you? What has he been filling your head with?"
Gwendolyn managed to pull her eyes away from Tom long enough to give Glenn a hard stare.
"What exactly has Tom ever done to you? What makes you an expert on his personality?"
"Oh he's done nothing to me, just tortured a few dozen 'firsties' because he could. And don't think he didn't enjoy it."
Gwendolyn bit her lip a moment. She couldn't dispute that point. He has done that and she knew it.
"When was the last time he did this? How do you now he hasn't changed?"
Glenn snorted in disgust, "People like that, like Riddle, they never change. I use to think you were smart enough to know that."
"And I use to think you had the class not to judge people you didn't actually know!" Gwendolyn snapped, her voice rose startling the birds hovering around their bench, and attracting the attention of several students around the yard.
Including Tom – though Gwendolyn was too busy glaring at Glenn to notice.
"You know," Glenn said standing up abruptly, "find me when you've finally come back to your senses."
He walked off in a huff and Gwendolyn watched him go with an odd hollow feeling filling her stomach.
Glenn had been one of her first friends; he had made her feel comfortable at Hogwarts, as if she belonged.
And now…
Was Glenn right? Was she being fooled? She used to think so, but now…
Was Tom worth loosing her friends for? The boy that—
She felt an odd tug on her heart, and then the almost unconscious decision to look where she had last seen Tom.
His gaze locked on hers; her heart flip-flopped.
He wanted to be different, wanted to change – because of her, for her.
She smiled and gave a little wave.
Even from a distance she could see the corners of his mouth lift up.
He was definitely worth it.
Winter and most of spring passed and still Glenn refused to talk to her.
She tried everything she could think of to mend the broken bridge between them, but in the end, she couldn't do the one thing that Glenn wanted her to do.
She couldn't give up Tom. He needed her more than Glenn did.
She needed Tom more.
So as the first of May approached, Gwendolyn was facing the fourth straight month without Glenn.
"He's just jealous, you know that right?" Evelyn whispered trying to console her friend.
"Who? Tom?" Gwendolyn asked absentmindedly as she watched Glenn sit with some other sixth years rather than with Evelyn and herself, as he used to.
"No, Glenn."
"Glenn?" Gwendolyn sat up straighter, "Why would he—?"
Evelyn fixed her with a look of skepticism, "Gwendolyn, the boy has been scheming on you bad for years."
"Yeah, but Eve I've never… I mean I tried not to ever encourage him. You don't think he actually thought he had a chance?"
Evelyn sighed, "The heart doesn't deal with reason. Eventually he'll realize that."
Gwendolyn sighed and turned her gaze back to Glenn.
"How long is eventually going to be?"
Evelyn put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder but said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
Both girls went back to their studying. At least Gwendolyn tried, but the constant sound of Glenn's voice, so near but not talking to her – stubbornly, stupidly ignoring her – kept grating on her nerves until finally she had had enough.
She slammed her Charms textbook shut, and pushed her chair back.
"I'm sorry Eve—I just can't," she ran a hand through her hair, "I'll see you in the morning."
With a childish glare to the back of Glenn's head, she hugged her books to her chest and left the library.
She raced down the corridors, emotions welling up inside of her. Anger was only thinly covering up large amounts of pain and guilt.
How could Glenn be so selfish? Just because she couldn't care about him the way he wanted, didn't mean she didn't care about him at all. He was her friend, her best friend, and she missed him.
She was a mess; she couldn't go back to the common room like this. She needed to be alone. She needed to calm down.
"Hello," Gwendolyn called as she entered the lavatory, "Myrtle? Are you in here?"
She hadn't seen Myrtle run off today, but that didn't mean she hadn't. Myrtle was a tad bit over-sensitive. Gwendolyn certainly didn't need to run into her in the mood Gwen was in now.
Thankfully the lavatory was empty. She crept up to the sink and braced herself over it, letting her head hang down, her hair falling over her face.
She couldn't keep letting Glenn get to her like this; if he wanted to act like a child, then let him. She tried everything she could to fix things, but Glenn wasn't making an effort at all. It was his loss.
Of course, it was her loss too; that was the problem.
She splashed some water on her face. The coldness of it startled her, but didn't do much more than that.
Gwendolyn sighed, and rolled her shoulders back. There was only one thing she could think of that may make her feel a little better, a little more in control, but…
She cranked her neck to make sure no one was coming into the lavatory, and then she did what she always did when she was upset.
Gwendolyn let herself become someone else.
Her hair wrinkled to a shimmering blonde, and she shrunk a few feet in height.
It was as she was debating whether she liked this appearance or not, that she heard the half scream, as if whoever was making the noise had been muffled before they could finish it, followed by a dull thump like someone dropping a sack of potatoes down.
Gwendolyn snapped to attention. What was that? Her heart raced.
With out much more of a thought, she raced into the hall, and turned in the direction she could have sworn she heard the sound come from.
Her feet echoed down the empty hallway. What had that been? Could someone have fallen? Or been attacked?
People weren't attacked at Hogwarts – were they?
Gwendolyn was starting to think that she had gone the wrong way, or maybe she hadn't heard the sounds at all, when she stepped on something and almost lost her balance.
Curious, she bent down to pick it up. It was a hairclip; a comb really was what they were called, large and fancy. The metallic silver colour shone, blinking her reflection back at her, but Gwendolyn wasn't looking at it. Her gaze had already moved on.
To the shoe, that was connected to a leg that was connected to a body, still and frozen, hidden in the shadows.
It was a body she knew.
She felt something rise up in her throat as she stepped forward, but whether it was sound or her dinner she didn't know.
The unseeing eyes of Abigail Jones, her nosy housemate stared up at her.
Gwendolyn wasn't aware that she had let out a scream until footsteps came pounding down the corridor, and a very familiar voice called out her name.
Tom stopped in the middle of the corridor blinking at her in confusion.
"I thought I—" he looked at her closely, an odd expression spreading on his face, "Where's Gwendolyn?"
"What do you mean 'where's Gwendolyn' I'm," she finally looked at her reflection in the clip, and let out an 'oh'. She had left the bathroom in such a hurry that she had forgotten she hadn't been looking like herself. Funny how when everything else changes your voice doesn't. She let her own features slip back into place, "right here."
Tom blinked at her some more, "You're a—you're a—"
"Yes, yes I'm a freak, we'll deal with that later," Gwendolyn was getting angry that he was paying more attention to her than the – corpse—at her feet, "I think that's more important."
Slowly Tom closed the gap between them, his face an odd mask – unreadable, yet seemingly strangely unperturbed.
For some reason it was making her insides cold.
Or maybe that was just poor Abigail at her feet.
"Is she—is she," Gwendolyn swallowed, striving to get a hold of herself, "dead?"
Instead of answering her, Tom knelt down to look closer at the girl. Gwendolyn wanted to tell him not to touch anything, but surely this couldn't be a crime – not at Hogwarts.
And yet that scream.
"No, I don't think she's dead."
Tom's voice startled her back to the present.
"But what else could she be? She's not—" Gwendolyn couldn't finish the sentence.
"Petrified," Tom said. Did he sound disappointed? No, no that was just her rattled brain going into shock, "I read about it once. Remarkably similar to death, but of course, curable."
Gwendolyn's ears perked at that, "Curable? Then she's going to be alright?"
Tom was quiet for a long time, his dark eyes focused on Abby's frozen ones; his face was unreadable.
"Yes, eventually she will be okay."
Gwendolyn felt relief, at this news, and yet she could not rejoice. The event was too awful for anyone to celebrate.
"Who could—how could such a thing happen?"
"There is one thought," Tom said, "But it's most likely just fantasy."
"What?"
"The—"
Neither of them had heard the footsteps. They were unaware of the third party until Glenn spoke.
"The Chamber of Secrets."
A/N: so that was the chapter. Sorry for the wait, I just got a little caught up in stuff, but here it is now! I hope you've enjoyed, and please as always feel free to review and tell me what you thought. I love to hear from you.