The dream is different this time. There's no screaming, no wild panic, no blood and destruction. The boy- Harry- is still present, though. And still dead. I kneel down next to his body, and trace my fingers over his face to close those green eyes, smooth his hair back from his forehead. There is a scar there, shaped like a bolt of lightning, and I touch it gingerly.

Next to him lies another body, this time of a girl. She is about the same age as him, and is also dead. Her hair, dyed a deep, emerald green, splays out from her head, and she wears my locket around her neck, the gold glittering lazily.

I stand up, and realise we are inside the Chamber of Secrets. But when I call out to Aristomache, there is no reply.

Tom persists in not speaking to me for the next two weeks. At first his stubbornness amused me, but now I'm simply irritated by his childish behaviour. Plus, I miss having him to talk to. Abraxas is good company, but there's something more honest, more raw that surfaces when I speak to Tom. I can't quite put my finger on it.

After a fortnight of silence between us, I decide that I have to act to bridge the gap. I'm running out of time, and I need Tom to be on my side if I'm going to get what I came here for.

I open the Room of Requirement early one Saturday morning, and leave a message suspended in the centre of the room in elegant, silvery script. It reads:

'Stop acting like a child and come talk to me, you idiot.

Love,

Evangeline'

I think it conveys the message quite concisely.

He finds me reading in the library later that day.

"I got your message," he says stoically, the first words he's given me in weeks.

"Did you," I reply, not looking up from my book.

He sits down next to me and folds his arms. "Why are you angry with me?" he asks suddenly.

"I could ask you the same question," I muse, turning over a page.

"Because—" he begins hotly, then breaks off. "Because," he continues at a quieter volume, "I thought we were supposed to be friends. Real friends. And then you go and choose him over me and I—" He stops short again.

I put my book down very carefully and turn to look at him. "You didn't even bother to ask me," I begin slowly. "I waited, Tom. I waited for you to ask, but you never did, you just assumed that I would be going with you because you're selfish and you can't even fathom that I might have a life that doesn't revolve around you. You don't see me as a friend, you see me as a pawn. And I will never, Tom, never, let you use me like that."

Tom looks stricken, and glances away. After a moment, he speaks.

"I don't see you as a pawn, you know," he says quietly. "The others, yes. But not you."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because you're not afraid of me," he replies at length. It's true, I suppose.

There is a short silence.

Friends? I ask without speaking. He needs a friend, I realise. Needs one desperately, because he's spent so long being too brilliant to have an equal that he can talk to. He's isolated, and lonely, and he needs me just as much as I need him.

Friends, he replies. And that's that.

We're eating trifle together in the great hall in early December when the list for those staying at Hogwarts over the Christmas break gets passed around.

"You going home for Christmas?" I ask him as the list comes our way, knowing full well what the answer will be.

"This is my home," he says stiffly. Fair enough. Then, after a pause, he asks "What about you? Going back to Albania?"

"No," I reply, dipping my spoon into the trifle absentmindedly. "I don't go back there often. My parents own a house in Cambridgeshire. That's where I tend to go in the holidays."

"But your parents are still in Albania," he says slowly.

"Your point is?" I ask.

"So you're not going to see them?"

I shrug. "They're very busy people. And they knew what the cost of sending me to school abroad would be. There's a woman who pops in from time to time to check up on me, but for the most part, I'm alone at the house."

"Oh," is all he says.

"You could come home with me for the holidays," I offer. "There's plenty of room, since it's just me there, and I'd be glad to have some company."

He smiles tentatively. "Are you sure?"

"Why not?" I say, smiling back. "Come on. It'll be fun!"

When the list finally reaches our part of the table, neither of us write our names down.

I don't like lying to Tom. About the house, about my parents and Albania and all of it. But what else am I to tell him? That my parents died in England over nine hundred years ago? That I built the Cambridgeshire house myself nearly five hundred years ago?

I have to tell him eventually, of course. That's the only way I can get him to do what I need him to.

I go to the library alone after class, and begin scouring through the records of past students. I'm looking for one name in particular.

I already know who she is. I've scouted out her house, looked through her belongings, followed her around. But the time is drawing near when I'll have to make my move, and so it doesn't hurt to know every last-minute detail about her life beforehand.

Her name is Hepzibah Smith.