Hey everyone! Thanks for your patience. This chapter is one of the longest in the story – enjoy the relative lengthiness! Thanks to everyone who reviewed – I really appreciate it more than I can say. This site is all that keeps me sane sometimes. On to the chapter then, and if you have something you want to say, leave a review!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Fake
Chapter 3
Ginny?
Tom's script had been waiting for her the next time she opened the book, no doubt formed from the ink of the previous day. She scowled at it and bared her quill.
What do you want?
Ginny, what's wrong? I didn't know what you were talking about when you wrote to me yesterday – I didn't know how to respond.
Do you think I'm stupid? If you didn't know what I was talking about you would have asked. You've done it before.
You shocked me, he persisted. You were blaming me for something, and I didn't know what. If I had asked what was going on you would have just assumed I was lying about not knowing. I know you, Ginny – you're spirited.
She didn't know what to say to that; he had a point, after all. She just would have yelled at him and he still wouldn't have known what was going on. Suddenly her head felt very heavy. She trusted Tom, she did, but the events of last night had scared her in a way she didn't believe possible. Sleepwalking or not, she was sure that she would never have done something like painting the wall on her own. And today she had found out something had happened to Mrs. Norris. True, the cat was hated by all, and everyone was more worried about whatever it was that did it getting them than the cat's well-being, but if she'd done something to hurt it…she'd always rather liked cats. It didn't bear thinking about.
I don't know what to do. A cat's been hurt, and I think I did it. What's going on, Tom?
…I'm not sure.
The words came slowly, and she could imagine the thoughtful tone that he would use if he was speaking to her. She closed her eyes and felt her damp lashes against her skin. A tear fell onto the page and was absorbed. Ink bubbled back onto the page.
Are you crying, Ginny?
She shut the book and stashed it in her trunk, locking it securely. She buried her face in her pillow and drew in a shuddering breath. For the first time since she'd met him, Tom was unable to help her, or even make her feel better. She couldn't shake the feeling she'd had right before she blacked out. She got a certain feeling of Tom when he wrote to her. She had imagined his presence so many times she was certain she would know him if she saw him. And she had been sure that he was somewhere near her when she had fainted or sleepwalked or whatever she had been doing. He had been close, very close.
Could she trust him, really? He had been nothing but kind and helpful to her so far, but what if it was all an act? Was he lying to her? She shuddered at the thought of being fooled.
But that was stupid. It was a book, for God's sake. A book that wrote back because of a charm, and nothing more. A book couldn't manipulate her or hurt her – the very idea was laughable. She sat up and wiped her eyes on her sheet. There was an explanation for it all. She hadn't seen Mrs. Norris when she had found herself by the wall – maybe whatever it was that hurt the cat came by later. It had to be a sort of freakish coincidence. She would just get more sleep and relax and it wouldn't happen again.
She lay down again and stared at her trunk until she fell asleep, all the while picturing the book within. It seemed to burn her from its place hidden beneath her robes.
-
There was clamor on the Quidditch field. The rain beat down viciously and made it hard for Ginny to make out the blurs on the field. She forced her small body forward, heart thumping, hand over the bulge in the inside pocket of her cloak where Tom's diary rested. She squinted through the sheets of rain and a flash of bright robes caught her eye. It was Lockhart, standing over Harry. She gulped as the handsome teacher waved his wand with a flourish.
Gasps and cries started in the innermost circle around Harry and spread. She got a good look at the boy's arm and gasped. It looked like a deflated rubber glove. A faint buzzing sounded in her ears, and she felt nauseous. Lockhart was trying to defend himself and people were pressing forward to get to Harry. She stumbled backwards and ran with trembling legs towards the castle, relieving her stomach on the way.
The rain beat down on her bent head as she coughed and kept going, nearly slipping on the stairs. Thunder rolled outside as she entered the common room and sank down on one of the armchairs. A fire roared in the grate, and she drew out Tom's diary, relieved when it was only a little damp. She set it on the table in front of her and let it dry out, flipping the thick pages and breathing in their scent. It was a nice, sort of old smell that reminded her of the library. Once it was fully dry she carried it up to her dorm and sat beneath the window, the book on her lap.
Hey Tom, she wrote, you'll never believe what just happened. Poor Harry!
What happened?
It was a quicker response than usual – his handwriting looked rushed.
He was hit by a stray Bludger during the Quidditch game today. The thing was intent on hitting him, and it smashed into his arm and broke it! He still got the Snitch, but our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher tried to heal the break and ended up doing something to his arm…it looked like a deflated balloon.
It sounds like he removed the bones, Tom replied after a pause. Your teacher must be a real imbecile if he mixed up those incantations.
He is sort of…odd, she conceded, trying to be nice about it. Daft or not, she didn't like insulting her professors. Especially when everyone else swooned over him – it would have felt strange to say anything further.
Have you been feeling better? he asked, and she was touched by his concern. She had written only sparsely since the incident with the paint and Mrs. Norris. If anything, she would have expected him to be a little angry with her for blaming him, but he had been gracious about it.
Yes. I'm sorry I tried to accuse you for it. I must have been sleepwalking, but everyone was in such an uproar over it I didn't know what to do.
It's all right, he replied. I forgave you a long time ago for that.
There was a short pause, and then he wrote something she found a little surprising.
We have a connection, don't you think?
What do you mean?
I can tell how you're feeling when you write, like I'm watching your face as you put down the words. It makes it all the more real, as if I'm really talking to you. Do you feel that way as well?
That was exactly how she felt sometimes. It was like they had known each other forever, the way they communicated. She could always tell when he was concerned or sympathetic, and he always seemed to know how she felt and what to do about it.
Yes, I feel that way too.
It's nice, isn't it? Like we know each other outside these pages.
It's nice, yes.
She knew she wasn't being particularly eloquent, but she couldn't think of what to say to this, especially since she had been thinking exactly the same thing lately.
Tell me some more about yourself. How you've been feeling since we last talked for a while. Since the incident with the cat you told me about you haven't been writing nearly as much. I missed talking to you.
Touched and pleased that he cared enough about her to miss her company, she complied. She wrote about how she was doing her best to get Harry to notice her, how she planned on sending him a card in the hospital wing, and how guilty she had felt about the writing on the wall.
Even though I didn't really have control over it, I still feel like I should own up every now and then, particularly when I see how all my teachers look worried. But I'm afraid if I do that I'll get in all sorts of trouble. What if they don't understand that it wasn't really my fault?
Words of solace and reassurance flowed from his end. And the more she wrote, the harder it was to stop. She felt like she had to tell him these things, ignored the fact that there was really no reason why he should care about her pining for Harry and her worries about school and friends. It was as if he was reading her mind, and she felt like a door was opening in her consciousness somewhere.
Pain hit her like a truck, and she dropped her quill.
"Ow," she whimpered, and scooped up the diary and ink with one hand, and leaving her quill lying on the floor. She dropped the book in her trunk and lay down on her bed, trying to make it go away.
Then she felt it. The sense that she was not alone, that something was there in her head. She could feel it probing, searching, and the farther it got in the worse her head hurt.
"Go away," she whispered, batting the air above her weakly, as though the thing was out there and extending a hand into her mind. Her brain felt like it was being stabbed with a knife, her head was in a vice. She had never felt anything so terrible.
And at the same time she was curiously sleepy. She knew, somehow, that if she closed her eyes she could drop off to sleep in spite of the blinding pain around her. If she went to sleep, she wouldn't feel it. She needed no further prompting. She shut her eyes and welcomed the numbing darkness that flowed over her like black water.
