That night, for the first time since she'd hurled the diary down Moaning Myrtle's toilet, Jeremy steamrollered her at chess.
Her mind had not been on the game. All her concentration had been on the diary. She'd stuffed it deep in her trunk when she'd gone in for her chessmen, in the hopes that "out of sight, out of mind" was a truism.
Within minutes, she found out it wasn't.
It seemed to her that if she ventured back into her dormitory, it would shine out like a malevolent swamp-green beacon, bathing her in its unhealthy light. Everyone would know. Everyone would turn on her, and she would lose everything she'd gained since she'd thrown him away . . .
"Right," Jeremy said, "now I know something's wrong. Snap out of it, Ginny, do. I want a decent game."
. "Ginny, are you sure you're feeling all right?" Carmen asked.
Ginny put her hand to her head. Every sound echoed strangely in her skull. "I dunno."
Jeremy was examining the two pieces of a pawn that had really suffered in the game. "Reckon you should go to bed?"
"You should go to the infirmary." Carmen got up. "Come on, I'll go with you."
"I don't need the infirmary," Ginny said automatically. She hated even the thought. She got up from her chair, wobbling slightly. "I'm going to bed." Her bed, her warm bed with its thick duvet and velvet curtains . . . "I'll be better after a night's sleep."
"All right, but if you're not, I want you to go to Madam Pomfrey in the morning, okay?"
"I'll be all right," Ginny said.
She wasn't so sure of that in her own mind. She had to hang on to the railing on the way up. She felt disoriented, as if this staircase that she'd climbed hundreds of times since September was completely unfamiliar, and she had to carefully think of where each step was before putting her foot on it.
And her head was spinning, spinning, spinning . . .
The dormitory was still and silent, completely free from swamp-green beacons. She marveled at it. How could it be so peaceful, when he was in it?
Her bed was as warm and cosy as she'd looked forward to. She curled down under the covers, snuggling deep into the promise of safety and rest it offered.
Rest, however, didn't come.
Before long, her covers were a tangled, twisted mess as she tossed and turned, desperately seeking a cool place that would let her mind and body calm themselves long enough for her to fall asleep.
It wasn't that her thoughts were confusing. They were not at all confusing. They focused like the sun through a magnifying glass on one single thing.
Tom.
Tom, Tom, Tom, TomTomTomTOM.
His name throbbed in her head like the pounding of a rotten tooth.
She'd thrown him away so quickly after realizing what he'd done to her that she'd never been able to ask him about the one thing she didn't understand.
It won't be so bad if I just write in it once, she argued with herself. Now that I know . . . and I just don't understand WHY . . . and maybe if I know that, I can fight him even better . . .
Quickly, before she could think herself into a corner, Ginny kicked off her duvet and scrambled for her trunk. She had to dig for it, but the precise location was branded in her mind.
In half a moment, the diary sat in her hands once again. Feeling the cheap cardboard against her fingtertips, it was if she'd never thrown it away. Her constant--and only--companion for five months.
Automatically, her left hand opened it while her right hand reached for a quill.
Are you there, Tom?
Ginny! What happened? How did you lose me? It's so good to hear from you again--
Stop lying, she scrawled, her hand shaking with rage.
Lying? I don't know what you mean--
Just shut up. I know what you did. I know what you made me do. I know all about you, Tom Riddle, and I'm never, ever trusting you again.
There was a pause of several seconds, while her ink sank into the page and disappeared. Then slow, thoughtful handwriting appeared. You do, do you. And yet, you came back to me. You're writing in me again.
Not because I want you back. I don't need you anymore. I have friends of my own, real friends who would never use me for their own sick purposes.
Very good, well done you. If words on a page could be said to sneer, these did.
I'm not writing because I even want to talk to you again. Believe me, when I find out what I want to know, I'm going to BURN you.
And what do you want to know, little Ginny?
Why? she scribbled furiously. WHY, Tom? Just tell me that!
Because I could, was his cold reply. And because you wanted them to suffer.
Her mouth fell open, and tears sprang to her eyes. Her worst nightmare . . . I didn't! I didn't want to hurt Colin!
Oh, I'll admit that he was mostly for expedience's sake. Couldn't have you with a friend other than me, after all. But the other two . . . that cat scratched you, and you hated it, remember? And you hated the Hufflepuff because he'd shouted at Harry. You were even a little annoyed at Colin, for all his photos. You did want them to suffer, Ginny. I just gave you the means to.
You're lying!
We've all got a dark side, Ginny. Yours is just a little stronger than most.
Ginny put her hands to her face and whimpered into them. No, no, noooooooo . . . this wasn't her, it hadn't been her, it was Tom . . .
More writing appeared on the page. I really must thank you for the fantastic fun it's been. Anything to mess with those cursed Mudblood's minds--
Furious, wanting only to cut back at him the way he'd cut at her, she grabbed up her quill again. But YOU'RE a Mudblood!
The reply was instantaneous. You dare! YOU DARE! I am the Heir of Slytherin, heir to the greatest wizarding blood in all your pitiful little world! My bloodline goes back beyond written history, back before the Egyptians, absolutely pure--
Only the one side, she sniped, so delighted to be angering him that she didn't think about the wisdom of it. On the other side is a common Muggle! His father was a common Muggle, his mother was a common Muggle--common Muggles all the way back to those stupid Egyptians of yours! You're just as "inferior" as all those helpless people you've Petrified, and you know it, don't you?
You'll pay for that, Virginia Myrtle Weasley. You will pay.
Suddenly frightened, she snapped the book shut and flung it under her bed. Then she scrambled under her covers and huddled up against her pillow, gnawing her pinky nail in trepedition.
What would he do to her?
Then she thought, It's only a book. It's only a diary.
But he'd made her attack all those people before.
But I didn't know what I was doing then! Surely now I do, I can hold him off. Surely I'm stronger than he is. He's just a ghost, after all. Even less than a ghost. He's words on a page. He's nothing.
Surely I'm stronger than he is.
Surely.
Carmen paused by Ginny's bed. The curtains hung open slightly, just enough so she could see her friend's face. She looked as if she were having bad dreams. But at least she was asleep . . . Carmen had heard her tossing and turning for hours after she'd gone to bed herself.
Should she wake Ginny?
Her friend had looked terrible last night, as if she were going to be sick to her stomach any second. She needed the rest, Carmen decided, more than she needed breakfast.
But there was the game this afternoon. Ginny would just go mad if she missed seeing Harry on the pitch.
I'll let her sleep, Carmen told herself. Surely she'll be awake by the time the game starts.
Twitching the curtains closed, Carmen slipped out of the dormitory and went down into the common room to wait for Jeremy.
Get up, Ginny.
She was dreaming. It was a dream-voice, a nightmare Tom . . .
Get up.
She saw her hands push back her covers, and she thought wildly, Stop that! Stop it!
Her legs swung around and her feet landed on the floor and her toes crawled into their warm slippers all on their own. She wanted to shout out, so loud that she would wake herself from this horrible nightmare, but her mouth wouldn't move.
Tom?
I let you sleep through the other times, Ginny. I'm not going to be so nice this time. You're going to see everything, and you're going to know exactly what you're doing.
She wanted to pull away, but her body was so thoroughly not her own that she couldn't even struggle. She had to fall back on the poor substitute of pleading. Tom, no, please! I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry! Please let me go back!
Too late for that. Shoe's on the other foot now, isn't it?
Downstairs, through the still silent common room--please--out through the portrait hole, down to the third floor--where are we going? Oh, please, Tom, let me go!
You ought to recognize it.
Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
What are we doing here? I want to go back, let me go back!
You know. You've been here before. You know what to say.
It was someone else who opened her mouth and hissed, "I command you to open."
No . . . no . . . her voice after all, it seemed, but--Tom, stop it, please stop it, please let me go--
Then what little was left of Ginny inside the eleven-year-old girl's body recoiled in terror as an enormous hole appeared in the floor.
Her mouth said, "Come to me, thou monster of the deep, thou creature of night . . . come to your master . . ."
If her body had been her own, her breath would have been bottled up in her chest, and her knees would have been shaking. She might even have been weeping with sheer animal terror.
But her lungs worked regularly, and her knees supported her, and her very tear-ducts were under Tom's control. For a moment, as Tom turned her head, Ginny saw herself in the mirror. She didn't recognize herself. Her eyes were flat and cold, and her lips, red as blood in the midst of her bloodless face, curved in a triumphal smirk. Only her hair was the same brilliant shade as usual.
Somehow, that made it all that much worse. Real Ginny and this Ginny had that same fiery horrid hair, which meant they were the same . . .
I'm sorry please please let me go please stop
And then the hole was no longer gaping. It was filled instead with the head of some great, scaled creature that dipped its head before her, so she couldn't see its eyes, only the top of its head and down its long, long neck . . .
Such a very long neck.
There didn't seem to be a . . .
At the chilling realization that washed over her, Ginny fell abruptly silent. She had been begging with Tom, pleading, all this time, to let her go, to let her return to her bed, to make this all a dream. It had become a mindless wailing litany, almost unconscious on her part.
But the appearance of the huge snake cut her short, forcing one diamond-hard truth into her understanding. Tom wasn't going to let her go. He was going to use her body precisely as he wished, and he would only return it to her control when he was done.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
The sun was shining in her eyes, and Ginny turned her face away.
I can move my head. All on my own.
She experimented with fingers, toes, testing them out. They were hers once again. Tom was gone . . . but for how long?
She dodged away from that question and pushed herself up from her bed. Her knees shook in remembered terror.
She was still in her nightgown, but it was dirty and damp from the disgusting slimy walls of the pipes. With a head-to-toe shudder, she ripped it off and thrust it under her bed, where she'd never have to look at it again. Bundling her wrapper around her trembling limbs, she headed mindlessly for the showers.
Ginny turned the water as hot as it would go, until she almost couldn't breathe for the steam. She scrubbed herself raw and tender, trying to rid her skin of the sensory memories of the pipes and of the cold, silken snake-skin against her--
No!
When the water turned suddenly cold in response to the twenty-minute charm on the shower-head, she had to get out. She didn't bother with towels or combing her hair. She simply bundled herself up again, yanking the belt of her wrapper as tight as she could. Dripping, she crept back up the stairs.
The sun still lay in a bright patch across her bed. Ginny climbed into it and sat, feeling her hair drip onto the back of her wrapper and create an unpleasant damp patch. She closed her eyes and turned her face into the sunlight, seeking warmth like a newborn baby.
Closing her eyes had been a mistake. Disjointed images flashed across the back of her eyelids, as clear and bright as a stained-glass window that had been shattered and lay in pieces on the floor.
Ginny opened her eyes hastily and concentrated on the pattern of the rug. Her fists clenched with the effort of tracing the lines and colors, and not letting anything else into her mind.
"Ginny!"
She gasped as her concentration broke.
Carmen raced across the room and threw her arms around her. "Ginny! Ginny! I couldn't find you anywhere, and I was scared that--"
Ginny felt forced to give an account of herself. "I--I just got up a little while ago."
"Have you heard? About Hermione and the Ravenclaw girl? Oh, but you must have--you look awful."
She'd heard. She'd heard their voices around the corner, Hermione suggesting a mirror, the sickening thud as their Petrified bodies had given way to gravity . . .
And Tom's voice, self-satisfied. Perfect.
"I heard," she said.
In Carmen's company, she was forced to rouse herself and put on proper clothes. The other girls came into the dormitory room, clinging to each other and speaking in scared but excited tones, as if a bomb had gone off in their midst and might very well do so again. The common room was the same, when Carmen dragged her down into it. Everyone was wandering around whispering to each other. Perversely, Ginny felt safer here among all the other victims than she had alone. Her own numbness wasn't as noticeable, and watching everyone else was a perfectly suitable distraction, much more effective than the rug had been.
They all fell silent when the portrait hole creaked open and Ron and Harry clambered in, followed by Professor McGonagall. Even in the midst of her haze, Ginny blinked. She'd never seen the stern Transfiguration professor penetrate this far into student territory.
The reason was clear when she began reading off the list of new restrictions.
Confined to houses after six . . . escorted to lessons and meals, even the bathroom . . . no more evening activities . . . the rules were simple and binding. Nobody was to be given the chance to wander about on their own.
If Ginny set the creature loose a thousand times more, she couldn't harm anyone else.
She barely had a moment to extract a sort of dank reassurance from this thought before Professor McGonagall said, in an obviously unscripted moment, "I need hardly add that I have rarely been so distressed. It is likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught."
Ginny froze, and the next words rang in her ears like the bells on Judgement Day.
"I would urge anyone who thinks they might know anything about them to come forward."
Hardly had the professor left before people started talking again, in loud indignant voices--something about chucking the Slytherins out. Ginny didn't hear.
The school will be closed . . .
The culprit.
That's me.
Anyone who thinks they might know anything about them . . .
That's me too.
"Ginny?" Carmen said loudly.
Ginny looked around sharply, and her mouth launched into gear without prompting from her brain. "Isn't it horrible?" she gabbled. "Poor Harry. No Quidditch." At that point, her brain clicked on. "And Hermione Granger Petrified, too, of course," she added quickly.
"Of course," Carmen said.
The afternoon passed much slower than it should have, as if time had suddenly become a form of taffy and could be stretched out in long strings.
"Your brother's practically catatonic," Jeremy commented at some point during the interminable hours.
"Ron?" Ginny looked around. Harry and Ron were huddled in a corner, talking in low intense voices. Ron was looking pale and a little sick.
"No, no, Percy. The Ravenclaw girl was a prefect, you know. He must have known her."
The Ravenclaw girl . . .
Percy, white as snow, hadn't moved from his chair once since Ginny had come downstairs, even to scold her about not coming to breakfast. Dread formed itself into a tight ball just under her breastbone. "Who--what's her name?"
"Um--" Jeremy's brow crinkled.
Carmen chewed her lip. "Patty? No. Penny."
Penny! That Penny!
"Yeah, that was her name," Jeremy said.
"Don't talk about her like that," Ginny snapped.
"Like what?"
"In the past tense!"
"All right. Calm down. Sorry."
"She's getting revived," Ginny said fiercely. "They all are. Soon. Don't talk about them like they're dead!"
Her voice, on the shrill verge of hysterics, was the loudest sound that the common room had heard since the cancellation of the game. People turned to stare. Ginny clamped her mouth shut.
Hers wasn't the only outburst of the interminable afternoon, though. There were little spats of them, as people broke for a second and their tense whispers become louder-than-meant shouts.
Unable to bear the atmosphere in the common room another moment, Ginny made her way up the stairs. The dormitory was empty, everything exactly the same as she'd left it.
Ginny stood in the doorway and looked at the peaceful, comfortable little room. She thought of the warm, cosy common room, now wall-to-wall with sour fear.
They should have been safe here. She should have been safe here.
Ginny threw herself flat on her stomach and wiggled like an eel under her bed. Her questing fingers found the little book, and they closed around it vindictively. She hauled it out and gripped it in both hands. She stared at it until her eyes burned and her teeth hurt from clenching them together.
I'm going to burn you. I am. I am.
She opened the door of the little potbellied stove that sat in the middle of the room, warming the air. The coals glowed at her, beckoning.
She pushed the diary at them, but stopped just before it would have caught fire. Her arm muscles quivered, as if a battle were raging down among the very cells.
Do it! her mind shouted at her. Burn it! But her hands wouldn't move.
The corner closest to the coals started to darken, and a faint smell of smoke reached her nose. With a gasp, Ginny jerked it back to safety and slammed the stove-door shut.
Stupid! Stupid stupid!
But she just couldn't. Whether for the months and months of companionship that it had given her, or some other reason that she was afraid to think of, Ginny couldn't burn the diary as she'd intended.
She spun around and found herself facing her open wardrobe. Rolling the diary into a tube, she thrust it into one of her dirty socks, then put another one on the other way. Ripping the pillowcase off her pillow, she wrapped that around it and tied the whole bundle up with an extra-long hair ribbon, knotting it over and over again with vindictive thoroughness. Finally, panting slightly, she climbed atop her nightstand and deposited the odd bundle among the dust bunnies on top of her wardrobe.
Get out of that, Tom!
She leapt onto her bed from her night stand, then collapsed to sprawl on her back, panting, tears stinging her eyes. She blinked them back furiously. Tears wouldn't help. Even imprisoning Tom in layers and layers of cloth hadn't helped.
She lay on her bed, staring at her canopy, for several minutes. When she heard voices outside, she rolled onto her stomach and grabbed a notebook at random, burying her nose in it as the other girls came in.
The evening was almost worse than the afternoon had been. With the darkness came fear, permeating the tiny room. It suffocated her like a pillow over her face, until she wanted to gasp for air.
She wanted to get out, but there was nowhere to go. Everywhere in Gryffindor Tower would be the same, and thanks to that morning, she couldn't leave the tower.
Still, she pushed her way through the thick atmosphere and went to sit on the stairs, huddling next to the coolness of the central pillar. People kept climbing past her, grey-faced and murmuring to each other, so she couldn't even escape there.
Ginny climbed down the stairs to the common room, hoping everyone had gone up to bed. But Percy was still in his chair in front of the fire, staring blankly into the flames.
She stopped in the doorway, biting her lip. They hadn't properly spoken to each other since the day she'd called Penny a Mudblood. She'd been too afraid to make a move and fall into the deep chasm she'd carved with that ugly word.
And now Penny had suffered even more at her hands . . .
She crossed the room and sat delicately on the sofa, her legs dangling. He didn't seem to notice she was there.
"Percy?" she asked softly.
His eyes flickered over in her direction, but he didn't move otherwise.
"Percy," she said again. "I'm--I'm sorry, Percy."
His hand lifted jerkily, like a marionette's, and he patted her awkwardly on the knee. Thanks of a sort.
He cleared his throat. "Y--you should be in bed, Ginny."
"So should you," she said.
He shook his head and went back to staring at the fire. After a little while, she got up and tiptoed away.
"I wish," Carmen said one day, "you would tell us what's going on, Ginny."
"Nothing's going on," Ginny denied.
"Stop lying," Jeremy said sharply.
"I'm not lying!"
"You are! You're pale and you don't eat and you've been chewing on your fingernails again, haven't you?"
Ginny hid her hands under her robes. "No I haven't."
Carmen said, "Look, you've got to tell us what's wrong before we can help you with it, you know . . ."
"Nothing's wrong! Would you stop bothering me about it? Who died and made you my mother anyway?"
Straight away, Ginny regretted her harsh words. Carmen's mouth fell open, and a wounded look stole into her eyes. Jeremy's face darkened. "If you're going to be that way--"
Ginny reached out. "Oh, Carmen, I'm sorry--I didn't mean it--I didn't, really, I swear--"
Carmen was easily forgiving, but Jeremy was more persistant. "Then why'd you say it, eh?"
"I--" She had to tell them something. She couldn't tell them everything but something--
No, no, no--they'd want to know what it was. Jeremy didn't like not knowing something, and Carmen would never let her keep a secret like this. They'd worm it out of her eventually, and then--and then--
She leapt to her feet. "I'm not feeling well. I'm going to the infirmary."
"What?"
Jeremy and Carmen exchanged a glance. Ginny didn't like admitting that she wasn't feeling well; she'd keel over and die before staying in bed all day.
"You're not sick, you're just avoiding the question--"
"I am too; I feel sick to my stomach, Jeremy!" And it was true--Ginny felt as if she were going to throw up any minute, thinking what they would think of her if they knew--
"Do you want us to come with you?"
"No--I can find my own way there--"
"You're not allowed out on your own, you know that--"
"I'll get Percy."
"You'll get me for what?"
Trapped. She'd meant to sneak out somewhere on her own, under the guise of going to the infirmary. It wasn't as if she were in danger, after all. But Percy would make her go to the infirmary for real.
And he did, calling Madam Pomfrey up on the fire, holding on to her until the nurse arrived to escort them to the infimary. Then he announced that he was going with them.
Still sour over her unwanted excursion, Ginny said, "What? Why?"
"Mum told me to take care of you," he announced, as if it had been a mission from God.
"Percy, I'll be fine--"
He ignored her. "No offense, Madam Pomfrey," he told the nurse, "I just want to make sure. I'm going with you." He herded her toward the portrait hole. Once outside, Ginny found herself escorted along as if she were a dangerous criminal, Percy and Madam Pomfrey flanking her with wands out. The corridors were absolutely empty, and the echoes of their footsteps ran up the walls and hid in the carved arches of the ceiling The portraits turned to stare at them as they went past.
Ginny said in a small voice, "You know, I think I'm feeling a little better--"
"You'll get the potion anyway," Madam Pomfrey decreed.
"Even if I don't need it?"
"Just in case, Ginny," Percy added. "Fine thing it would be if I had to write Mum and tell her you were dead or something--"
"I'm not dead, it's just an upset stomach--"
"You've got to take care of yourself, Ginny!"
"I'm trying!"
In the infirmary, Madam Pomfrey examined her for signs of real illness, then gave her a Stomach-Settler potion that smelt of paint-stripper. Ginny eyed it nervously.
"Down the hatch it goes," the nurse said briskly. "Don't mind the green tongue, dear, it goes away after twenty minutes." She looked around her crowded infirmary and sighed. "I don't know when I've had a worse year--all these Petrifications, and more people with fainting spells and sick headaches. It's all stress, mind you. I've always said it's worse than cholera and Otto's Indigo Ague combined."
"What does that do, turn you purple?"
"If only that were all it did. Better, dear?"
Ginny's stomach had settled the moment the potion hit it. She nodded.
"Very well, then, go get your brother and I'll escort both of you back."
Ginny hopped off the chair and looked around for Percy. Surprisingly, he'd given her privacy during the examination. He was sitting over in the corner reserved for the Petrification victims. Ginny's stomach turned at the thought of going near to them, but she didn't want to shout out in the middle of the infirmary. She approached reluctantly.
"Penny," he was saying. "Penny, the Mandrakes are going to be done soon. It's going to be all right, I promise."
Ginny's mouth fell open.
Percy wiped his nose with a sniff that was probably louder than he'd meant it to be. "I'm sorry I didn't take care of you, Pen. I promised--and I broke that promise. I'm so sorry." He touched her, and if she hadn't been Petrified, he would have been smoothing a stray curl back from her forehead. "I--I won't ever fail you again."
"P-Percy?"
He jolted around, his face going beet-red in a moment. "Ginny!"
She looked from him to the Petrified girl. "What was that you were doing?"
"Nothing!" he said too loudly, leaping to his feet. "Nothing!"
"Were you talking to her?"
He bore down on her, shaking his finger. His eyes were suspiciously red. "If you tell anybody about this--"
She backed away hastily. "I won't, I won't!"
He eyed her narrowly. "You promise?"
"Yes!"
"Very well then. Come on." He drew his wand and marched away. After a moment of stunned amazement, Ginny darted after him.