Winter passed slowly. Despite all of Filch's attempts to clean the Chamber wall, the words were all but immovable. The only student less popular than the Slytherins was Harry Potter himself as people hissed insults as he passed. The thoughts that Evanna overheard from the other students about the supposed heir of Slytherin and the Slytherins themselves made her shudder. Who knew that schoolchildren could be so vicious? Though Luna continued to act as though nothing was wrong, Bridget Travers was back to avoiding Evanna and it seemed that Ginny Weasley was ignoring everyone.

The night Evanna had returned from home, she had sent a letter to her mother to let her know she had arrived safely, but dared not mention her suspicions about Severus Snape. Who knew what Lucius might monitor? Yet, it did not matter. Narcissa sent no owls to either her daughter or her son. For that matter, Professor Snape steadily ignored Evanna in all her classes, despite her attempts to talk to him. He carefully avoided eye contact with her and when she annoyed him too much, he had even assigned her detention with Filch.

"What are you in for?" Potter said as he made his way into the trophy room where Evanna was serving her detention.

"Annoying Professor Snape with my "incessant staring"," she said, doing a fair imitation of the man. Potter snickered.

"I thought Snape would never give a Slytherin detention," he said.

"Oh, he does," she replied. "Just not with other Houses looking on. He has a thing about House loyalty."

"Never would have guessed," Potter said drolly.

"Less chattering, more polishing!" Filch snapped from the corner of the room. Both students quietened, passing each other rags and polish as needed. Evanna waited until the caretaker was turned away again.

"Granger out of the Hospital Wing yet?"

Potter blinked. "How did you-"

"My brother loves to go on about her cat tail," she said. "Loves the sound of his own voice, really. What did you all get into over break? Does McGonagall never check up on her Gryffindors?"

Potter flushed bright red, making his eyes pop even more than usual. "It's not as if she holds weekly check-ins in the Common Room. We're not children."

"Technically, we all are children, except maybe some of the seventh years," Evanna said, trying to catch Potter's eye. Something fishy was going on and she desperately wanted to know what it was.

"Oi, look at this," Potter said in an obvious bid to change the subject. "This Riddle dude has like five awards."

Riddle. The word echoed in Evanna's mind. Riddle. She had seen it before somewhere, emblazoned in gold on black leather, the inverse of the little gold shield that was sitting in the cabinet. She froze.

"Cover for me, Potter," she said.

"Wha-"

"Cover for me," she repeated. "And for that matter, you wouldn't happen to know where Ginny Weasley is tonight?"

"Why would I know-"

"Never mind," Evanna said, surreptitiously looking behind her shoulder. Filch had left, likely to go find misbehaving students. "There's some dirt on that one there."

"You're leaving?" Potter said incredulously.

"Yes, do keep up, Potter," Evanna quipped, then clutched at her lower abdomen, putting on a fake pained expression. "I'm not feeling well. Woman problems."

Potter went beet red and waved her off. Evanna smirked, ducking out of the trophy room and heading toward the library. After all, McGonagall had assigned a killer essay over the weekend, and Evanna knew that the Gryffindors had Transfiguration in the morning...

Sure enough, when Evanna walked into the library, she saw a redhead bent low over a table in the back, writing something. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on her sometimes friend. The waves of shame and even fear coming off of Ginny Weasley did not make sense for a one foot essay. Making a decision, Evanna slipped into the shelves of books and made her way over to the tables as sneakily as possible, until she was standing just behind the girl. She glanced and saw that Ginny was not writing on a piece of parchment, but in a thin, black diary. Despite not looking her in the eye, Ginny's thoughts were loud enough to pierce through all the protections on Evanna's bracelet.

Tom, I think that I am the one doing this. I think I was sleepwalking or something last night because when I woke up I was by the greenhouses with chicken blood on my hands…

Evanna shoved down her alarm, hoping not to scare Ginny. She remembered why she had found that diary familiar when she had last saw it-it had once been sitting on the desk in her father's study and anything that was something that had once belonged to Lucius Malfoy… Well, there was reason to be scared.

"Hallo, Ginny," she said, coming out from behind the other girl. Ginny jumped and tried to hide the diary, but Evanna didn't let her, hopping up onto the table and placing a hand on it. She felt a tingle like static electricity when she touched it. "What have you got here?"

"None of your business, Malfoy," Ginny hissed.

"But I think it is," Evanna said. "And what I think is my business I make my business."

"That… that makes no sense," Ginny said.

"Makes perfect sense to me!" Evanna said, before hopping off the table with the diary in hand. There were two distinct handwritings all over the page. In fact, as Evanna watched, more writing in a thin, elegant script appeared.

"You're just tired, Ginny. There is no need to worry. Perhaps you fell and scraped your hands on the flagstones-the pavement really is most uneven."

"Who is writing you?" Evanna asked, a terrible feeling in her chest.

"Give that back!" Ginny said, grasping for the book. Evanna quickly pulled her wand.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she said, sending the diary shooting up in the air.

"Hey!"

"Is it some sort of communication device?" Evanna asked. "Who's on the other end?"

"It's just a diary, and he gives good advice sometimes," the other girl said, climbing up on the shelf to reach for the diary. Evanna yanked her wand downwards and hid the book behind her back.

"He? You mean-" she flipped the diary towards her face, "-Tom Marvolo Riddle? What a pretentious middle name."

"Better than Belinda," Ginny said somewhat nastily, finally snatching the diary back. Evanna let her. "And it's none of your business."

"Ginny, I'm being serious. I'd like to consider you a friend, if you'll let me," Evanna said softly. "But this-this is scary stuff. I know you Weasleys are-"

"What? Poor? Blood traitors?"

"Light," Evanna said, feeling somewhat offended. But, there was still fear radiating from Ginny's every pore. "You Weasleys have always dealt with Light magic. But, well-"

"Malfoys are known for being Dark wizards," Ginny said. Evanna winced.

"Yeah. And that diary seems dangerous," she said. To her amazement, Ginny's eyes began to fill with tears.

"I know-I-I was just lonely and Tom was so friendly and my brothers were ignoring me and you and Bridget and Luna are all in different Houses and-and-"

Evanna awkwardly put a hand on Ginny's shoulder, not altogether sure how to deal with someone else crying. Her mother and father never showed such emotions and her brother only cried crocodile tears to convince their mother of something he wanted, but he had even outgrown that.

"First things first-let's get rid of the diary," Evanna said. "Then-well, maybe you could come sit with me in Slytherin sometime? Only, the Gryffindors didn't seem to like me much."

Ginny's eyes widened. "You-you really want me to sit with you?"

"I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

The two girls smiled at each other just in time for Madam Pince to throw them out. Ginny took Evanna to the second floor girl's bathroom. Evanna wrinkled her nose at the faint smell of rotten potions ingredients that wafted from the room.

"No one ever comes in here," she explained as they reached the door. "It's haunted-and the ghost is rather, erm-"

"Whiny?" Evanna said. "I've heard some of the girls in Slytherin complaining about Moaning Myrtle before."

Ginny laughed a little as they entered the bathroom quietly. She hesitated as they came to a stall.

"I just-I should say goodbye to Tom-"

She was reaching for her school bag to get out her quill and ink, but Evanna grabbed her wrist.

"I don't think that's a good idea. If you want, I can do it," she offered.

Ginny bit her lip, looking between Evanna and the diary. Slowly, she nodded. Evanna took the diary from her friend.

Like when she first touched it, she felt something akin to static electricity but stronger. It felt familiar, almost like when she walked into the Slytherin Common Room for the first time, but without any of the safety she now associated with the room under the lake. Instead, there was a sort of sloshy feeling in her stomach.

"See ya around, Tom," she said with forced amusement for Ginny's sake as she tossed the diary into a toilet.

"See you, Tom," Ginny said softly.

They left the bathroom with a flush and a giggle, thought that quickly ended with the appearance of a dark figure in the hallway.

"Uh-oh," Evanna muttered.

"What?"

"Well, I kind of ducked out a detention that he assigned me," she said. "You might want to make yourself scarce."

"You skipped out on a Snape detention?" Ginny said aghast. "And you're not even a Gryffindor?"

"Yeah, yeah, go on," Evanna said, waving her off. Ginny took another look between Evanna and the clearly fuming Professor Snape and did just that.

"So, you think you can leave a detention early as soon as your supervisor has to do something else?" Professor Snape said as Evanna approached him.

"You think you can just avoid me in order to keep secrets," Evanna said, folding her arms herself.

"Despite what you may believe, Ms. Malfoy, I am not beholden to you," he said.

"Don't call me that!" Evanna said. "Not when you believe it's not true!"

"Has it ever occurred to you, Ms. Malfoy," Professor Snape pressed, "that some secrets are kept for the safety of yourself and others involved? It is a dangerous world we live in, even before these Petrifications."

"I know about dangerous people-"

"You know about Lucius Malfoy, but there are more dangerous forces in the world-"

"Stop it! Just stop it!" Evanna shouted, covering her ears.

Soooo hungry…. Masters have been wronged…. MUST FIND FOOD….

"The voice," Evanna gasped. Immediately, Professor Snape's entire demeanor changed.

"Well, lead the way!"

Evanna began to race through the castle, listening for the voice. There was a faint rustling in her head and then-

There was a pair of shoes hanging from the ceiling in front of her, hanging in front of one of the windows. And beside them-

Luna Lovegood was frozen, hand reaching up for the shoes, but eyes wide. Evanna had never seen anything but wonderment and bemusement on the blonde's face, but now, etched into it, was pure fear. Evanna turned to her professor, not even caring about the tears that had sprung to her eyes.

"Sir-"

Comforting black and the scent of potions ingredients surrounded her as she cried for her best friend.