Ginny didn't see Tom again after she'd left him at the Great Hall and encouraged him to at least try and make friends. She didn't see him the entire day after that either. In fact, she hadn't seen him for three days now.
She was starting to get concerned. That was a lie, she was already very concerned, this wasn't like him. Had something happened to him? Had he decided that she wasn't necessary, now that he was at Hogwarts? Surely not, he was her friend just as much as she was his. Maybe he was wrapped up in his schoolwork, he was the type to dive headfirst into his latest passion and not look up until he was good and ready.
She should honestly just take the time to research her damn books and find a way to get home.
But… she was worried.
And she was lonely.
She was ready to march over to the Slytherin Common Room when she heard a thump.
The other girls were still asleep, but maybe one of the boys fell down the stairs? She left the dorm to check.
There, at the bottom of the stairs leading to the girl's dormitory, was a boy picking himself up. He must have tried to climb them, not knowing they were enchanted such that boys would slide right back down.
The boy looked up. Ice blue eyes met her own.
"Tom?" Ginny asked, rushing down the stairs to meet him. He was alright, he was safe he… was in the Gryffindor Tower trying to break into her dormitory.
She stopped a few feet away from him. "Tom what are you doing here?"
He smiled at her, "What, I can't come and see you? I've had a busy few days, I missed you."
His smiled looked all wrong. Ginny narrowed her eyes at him.
"Tom. Why are you here?"
His smile fell instantly, "You don't believe me. You're calling me a liar?" His emphasis was… strange.
Ginny clenched her jaw. "I know you, Tom. You were avoiding me on purpose, the Hogwarts schedule isn't that busy, and now you're trying to sneak into my dorm. Why?"
He was silent, looking her over like he was analysing her. She felt like an insect under a microscope, which was stupid because she shouldn't have anything to fear from a damn first year.
"Aren't you going to ask how I got in?"
She blinked, the sudden change in track putting her off guard.
"I overheard you. That first day, when you let me come with you to the Tower. I overheard the password. I did block my ears, I promise, but it didn't help that much."
"I don't care how you got in," Ginny growled, "I care about why, and you're hiding it from me. You're lying to me. Why are you trying to break into my room?" she demanded, nearly yelling at him.
She felt a flare of magic coil itself around Tom like a spring. She'd felt it a thousand times before when he got mad, and nothing ever became of it. It was just how he was, a loaded spring trap of magic and emotions that he didn't know what to do with.
But he didn't yell back. He didn't even look angry. He looked cold. His usual impassivity could be unnerving, but his face wasn't impassive now, it was hard and contemptuous and icy. It was uncomfortably familiar.
A shiver went down her spine. She took a step back.
In that moment, the cold was gone, replaced by hurt. The pain and confusion in his eyes was achingly raw, and then it too was gone. His jaw clenched. Then he relaxed, but there was nothing calm about his expression, he just looked… blank.
He turned around and walked away.
"Tom wait, what happened? What's wrong?" Ginny called out, following him a ways, "Tom!"
He ignored her.
And then he was gone.
Ginny was utterly confused as to what to make of what happened that morning. It haunted her all through breakfast, where Tom sat at his own table across the room, his back to her.
She didn't see him at all on her way to class.
Enid chatted to her at lunch. Ginny wasn't a very good conversation partner.
They passed each other in the hallway to their respective classes. She tried to talk to him. He spared her a single hollow glance, then ignored her.
It was hard to focus on spellwork when you were distracted. Then again, at this point Ginny was less concerned than outright angry. Whatever the hell had gotten into his thick skull this morning was his own damn business and he had no right to take it out on her, especially if he was going to straight up ignore her afterwards. He tried to break into her room without explanation, and then made it all about himself!
Rage is a good fuel for certain spells. It can also backfire.
The Professor put out the fire very quickly, and used her as an example of what not to do. Ginny found she didn't really care.
She didn't see him at dinner. She didn't look.
She spend the next week head down in her schoolwork and her own research into the Veil of Death. It was coming along nicely, she had a notebook filled with theories and notes. Into the Void was mostly stories and anecdotes of Jonah Pristish's own journeys through the portal.
And it was a portal. Jonah had successfully travelled across various worlds, each to a different time and place, and in each he lived a different possible life. He was always himself, be he old or young or somewhere in between. Sometimes he was a nobleman, other times an urchin.
Unfortunately, the man himself seemed to have no idea what determined either where or when he would end up. It seemed random, and Jonah had noted that he was risking his life every time he stepped through that portal.
One thing that Ginny noticed, was that the Veil was always located in the same place, no matter what building had sprung up around it.
So, the Veil existed, and it would be in the Department of Mysteries, assuming of course that was in the same place. This was excellent news! But, if she jumped through the Veil now, even assuming she could get in the doors of the Ministry, she would just be dumped somewhere random and have to do this all over again.
Maybe she should just jump in anyway, and then next time she wouldn't be stuck with Tom Bloody Riddle for five goddamn years. Even as she thought it, the idea clenched painfully in her throat.
Merlin, what was she doing?
She wanted to get home. She needed to get home. But… Once she did, where did that leave Tom? She didn't want to be one more person who abandoned him, even if he was a little bit scary sometimes. She liked him. He was her friend, even if they weren't talking right now.
She let her head fall onto the table. She wanted her mum.
Tom felt like a cauldron boiling over. He was still angry and upset, and avoiding the object of his ire hadn't helped near as much as he had hoped.
He glared at the half-written parchment of essay in front of him. He couldn't even concentrate anymore. His quill snapped under his grip, splashing ink all over the parchment. Why the hell did wizards have to write with ink and quill instead of a damn pen like sane people!
He growled and backhanded the ridiculous glass ink pot off the table. It shattered, spilling black ink all over the table and rug beneath him.
The only other student in the Common Room turned at the commotion.
"What?" Tom snapped at him before he could say anything. The student frowned, eyes wide, and walked away.
Tom watched him leave, then turned back to the mess of glass and ink. He would need to clean it up.
He didn't know any spells that would fix it. He'd have to look it up. Or he could just leave it for someone else to clean up. That would be easier by far.
He looked over at his half finished, ruined essay, sighed, and went to find his spellbooks. What chapter would cleaning spells be under, he wondered.
Just because he was too angry to even look at Ginny right now didn't mean he was going to let her mystery go.
It occurred to Tom that perhaps breaking into someone's dormitory shouldn't be the very first thing to try when you want something of theirs, if only because it ends in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
No, there were other ways to get to that book. At first he considered talking to the girl he'd seen chatting with Ginny a few times, but even if he was confident in his ability to convince her, Ginny would absolutely notice that the book was gone. Which was another problem with immediately trying to steal it.
However, Ginny got that book from the library, and a library would have to be very stupid to stock only a single copy of a book.
The library was not stupid, but Into the Void had only one other copy. The book itself, however, was almost nonsensical. Portals to other worlds and times? Possessing different versions of yourself? It all sounded ridiculous.
If Tom was honest with himself, he didn't know that much about magic, his education was too basic, too new. So he couldn't say for certain that it was all nonsense. Perhaps this was a field of magic that was simply more obscure.
That all still left the question: Why would Ginny even be interested in this? And why would she try to hide it from him?
Having two Houses attend the same class was common for larger, more complex lessons, but usually Gryffindor and Slytherin did not share the time slot. There was too much rivalry between the Houses, and it ended up disrupting the lessons more often than not.
Today, however, was teaming up Gryffindor and Slytherin. The class was Defence Against the Dark Arts, a class that Ginny had once considered to be her favourite.
The room was much the same as she remembered, even if it was decorated differently. The Professor, Professor Merrythought, was even teaching a familiar lesson. One about Boggarts.
Ginny payed attention to the lecture with rapturous focus. Sure, she remembered her lessons with Professor Lupin quite clearly, but when dealing with what was basically a fear spirit one couldn't be too careful.
Either that or she was studiously ignoring a certain Slytherin boy who was boring a hole in the back of her head with his eyes.
The Professor had enlarged the space in what was normally the supplies cupboard, so that each student could face their fears in private. Ginny thought that was a better way than all in the open like Lupin had it. It was all well and good while people were fearing snakes and spiders and other simple things, but some people had encountered horrible monsters, and some had lost family members. Some things should remain private.
Ginny herself wasn't too sure what her Boggart would be this time. She used to be scared of Merpeople, then the Triwizard Tournament happened and they weren't so bad after all.
Maybe her Boggart would be the Veil sucking her into another strange place. Maybe it would be never seeing her family again.
Her turn was called. She walked up to the closet, the Professor smiling at her reassuringly, and she walked in.
The door clicked shut behind her.
It was very dark. She walked in further, curious more than anything.
She saw Tom, standing there with his normal, neutral expression. That was ridiculous, Tom was her friend, she hadn't been truly scared of him in years.
"Ginny!" Tom exclaimed as he spotted her, running towards her, his voice suddenly fearful. Ginny's heart spiked in her chest. Was this it? Did she fear something happening to Tom? She pulled out her wand.
Then there was a wand pointed right at her face. "Petrificus Totalus."
It was Tom's voice. She froze stiff. She stared up at Tom's familiar pale eyes, they no longer held his usual calm impassivity, but were now cold and hard like they were so long ago. Like they were barely a week ago. His handsome face twisted in a cruel smile.
Ginny's heart pounded in her chest, her breathing almost panicked. He was her friend, he wasn't- he wouldn't-
"Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice?" he wagged his finger and tutted, "Shame on you, Ginny."
Tears started streaming down her face as her heart tried to beat out of her chest. She was going to die here. Tom had tricked her the first time with friendship, he was so, so good at pretending. And now he would kill her, finally finish the job.
A small, familiar black book appeared in his raised hand.
She screamed. Then she realised all in a flash, she wasn't petrified. She could talk, and if she could talk she could move. She shot a bat bogey hex at him to buy time. He flailed, dropping both his wand and the book to swat at the snot bats flying out of his nose. This wasn't real, this was a Boggart, she could make this funny, she had to make this funny.
She couldn't make this funny.
She turned and bolted out of the room as fast as her legs would take her, her face wet and her heart pounding. She ran out of the obstacle course and promptly fell to her knees on the grass. She couldn't get enough air, she was breathing too fast and too hard but she couldn't get any air.
Professor Merrythought rushed over, hands on her shoulders immediately. "Sit properly, dear. There's a girl. Breathe with me. In, and out, in, and out."
Ginny gasped in time with Merrythought's breaths, trying to focus on the woman, trying to not think about Tom's cruel, icy eyes.
The professor looked up and over Ginny's shoulder, "Mr Riddle, could you please escort Miss Griffiths outside?"
"Yes, ma'am," Tom replied. Ginny froze all over again.
"Ginny?" He asked gently, rubbing a hand across her back. Ginny flinched. No, no she couldn't react like that this was Tom, the real Tom, he was her best friend. She turned to face him.
"Please don't be scared of me, Ginny," he pleaded, softly, "I wouldn't ever hurt you, not ever, I promise."
Ginny swallowed, staring into his worried blue eyes and trying to believe him.
"I hate the thought that you're scared of me," he whispered roughly, like it was hard to say the words. Tom always hated showing weakness.
Ginny couldn't smile reassuringly, she couldn't say anything, she could still barely breathe. She leaned forwards and tucked her head into his shoulder, clinging to him. He was so warm.
He wrapped his arms around her and gently led her out of the room.
