T.M Riddle

On the second day of January, when the children were already in their beds, a thought occurred to Lily and she decided to say out loud, even though she knew Hector would hate it.

"Why don't you stay home?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why don't you stay here and wait until it's all safe again at Hogwarts?"

"Have you lost your mind? It would mean to lose the entire year, if I was lucky."

"Seriously, we don't know what is in the Chamber of Secrets. We don't know if Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletscher and Mrs. Norris are ever going to wake up. If you stay home, we will deal with whatever happens and then you will go back. You will lose the year, but not your life."

"This is what the heir of Slytherin wants, you know? He wants us to be too frightened to go to Hogwarts, so only pure-bloods will be there."

"Yes, but that responsibility isn't yours! You are twelve years old!"

"Lily, last year I stood in front of Voldemort's wand. Danger isn't quite new to me anymore."

"I remember, I stood there with you. We were in that situation for about two minutes, and we were lucky enough to escape alive. Going back to Hogwarts sounds like tempting fate."

"I won't be coerced out of school," said Hector, sounding like he was done with the argument.

Lily took a deep breath, feeling her cheeks hot with blood, and angrily folded her arms like a child, which made her feel ridiculous. Was it too much to ask Hector to be safe? Should she tell the adults? Maybe they would agree that it would be best to keep Hector from going back to Hogwarts until it was all over. But that would mean to betray him. Was it worth it? She fell asleep with the thought in her mind, and it was still in her mind when she woke up all sweaty and panting after a nightmare she didn't remember.

It was still dark when Rachel knocked on the door and told the children to wake up, and Lily didn't have much time to elaborate her thoughts on the matter of whether telling or not about the Chamber of Secrets because within only a few hours after waking up and having breakfast, they had already finished packing and were leaving to The Chocolate Tree to get to London via Floo. Lily felt her heart heavy in her chest, anguished by her lack of ability to make a decision. She wanted to sit on the floor and cry and ask for someone to decide for her. Then it occurred to her that it wasn't her decision to make, but she wasn't quite sure about that, and it piled up on the list of choices she had to make that morning.

In the end, the children boarded the train before Lily could decide, and she felt powerless while looking out of the window through the entire trip to Hogwarts, absently holding the tiny pendant on her new necklace. She almost hated herself for a moment for being such a coward, afraid to look into Hector's eyes if she exposed the situation to their mothers. She also wanted to yell at Hector, call him stupid and irresponsible for not staying home. Hector seemed to acknowledge that she was angry, because he didn't say a word and eventually left to see if he could find Amanda somewhere.

"Thank you for trusting me," he said before leaving the compartment. It caused a lump to form in her throat, and she said nothing in response.

It took her about a quarter of an hour to swallow back the lump, and then she decided to go looking for Megan and Susan – she was still a little resentful of Hannah. The girls were in a compartment not far from the one Lily had been, talking about something they had read on the Witch Weekly.

"Hey, Lily!" said Megan. "How were the holidays?"

"It was nice. We went to my aunt's home in Edinburgh."

"Hector's mother, right? She is a muggle, isn't she?"

"Yeah. It was nice to be around muggle stuff again. Especially the central heating."

"Oh, I know about that!" said Susan. "I don't know why wizards didn't come up with a spell for that purpose."

"I thought the same," said Lily.

"I'll invent it!" said Megan. "I want to be a spell creator and get my own chocolate frog card."

"That's nice. Have you ever invented any spell?" asked Lily.

"Yeah. I invented one for drying my hair."

"Really?" said Susan

"Yeah, haven't you noticed my hair is always completely dry when I get out of the bath? It's a shame I can only use it at Hogwarts."

Actually, Lily had never paid attention to that. But she was very interested in learning that spell herself, because her long, thick hair took hours to dry completely, which always made her think twice about washing it at night.

"You have to show us that spell," Lily said.

It was weird, but within the few minutes Lily had spent with Susan and Megan, she was already feeling safer. It occurred to her that Hector also felt safer around his friends in Ravenclaw, and that stopping him from coming back to Hogwarts would also keep him apart from his housemates, and from herself. Finally she thought that if it was the opposite, she would prefer to risk everything and go back to Hogwarts, and that it had been only fair that Hector could do the same.

"What about you? How were the holidays?" Lily asked.

"It was fine. We went camping in the Highlands," said Megan. "I saw an unicorn!"

"Wow, really? How was it?" asked Susan.

"Beautiful."

Lily had never seen a live unicorn. She had only seen a dead one, in the previous year, killed by Voldemort – or by Quirrell, who was sharing his body with the dark wizard.

"Christmas is never very cheery at my house. Half of my family died in the war, so all the adults always get gloomy this time of the year. But my aunt took me to see the national long distance broom race in Manchester."

"Awesome! How was it?" said Lily.

"Great. Louis Smith, was everyone's favourite, and he had the lead for most of the time. But all of a sudden a younger racer called Laura Ray started making some kind of maneuver I had never seen before and she sped up so much that Smith still had a confused face when he arrived at the finish line. It was awesome!"

"I didn't know you liked sports, Su."

"I like broom races," said Susan.

The rest of the trip went by and Lily felt the tightening in her chest slowly dissipate. That is, until they arrived at Hogwarts and she heard that Hermione was in the hospital wing for some unknown reason. Had there been another attack? Wouldn't Ron let her know if there had been? Why, why had Lily let Hector get back to Hogwarts? She had been so stupid! Of course there would be other attacks!

However, Lily was tranquilized again a few days later when she finally ran into Ron, who clarified things for her and said that actually Hermione had accidentally added a cat hair to her dose of Polyjuice Potion, and it had made her look like, well, a cat. This made Lily chuckle a little bit, and be filled with relief.

"So you managed to finish the Polyjuice Potion?"

"Yes, and me and Harry turned into Crabbe and Goyle. But there wasn't much use to it. Malfoy knows nothing."

"Crap!" said Lily. "Well, at least we crossed out a name on our suspects list."

"Yeah. But now we are out of names to cross," said Ron.

On the next day, after class, Lily went with Harry and Ron to bring Hermione homework, like the two of them had done every day ever since the term started again.

"If Id sprouted whiskers, Id take a break from work", said Ron, tipping a stack of books onto Hermione's bedside table.

"Don't be silly, Ron, I've got to keep up," said Hermione briskly. She didn't have any more hair on her face, but her eyes were still a bit yellowish. "I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.

"Nothing," said Harry gloomily.

"I was so sure it was Malfoy," said Ron.

"What's that?" asked Harry, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a get well card," said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron was too quick for her. He pulled it out, flicked it open, and read aloud:

"To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most- Charming-Smile Award."

Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted. "You sleep with this under your pillow?"

But Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening dose of medicine.

"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" Ron said to them as they left the infirmary. Lily was waiting for Ron to finish his comment about wishing he had asked Hermione how many rat tails you had to add to a HairRaising potion to say goodnight and start climbing down the stairs to her own common room to do her massive amount of Potions homework. But when he did, an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.

"That's Filch," Harry muttered as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.

"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" said Ron tensely.

They stood still, their heads inclined toward Flich's voice, which sounded quite hysterical.

"Even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore -"

His footsteps receded along the out-of-sight corridor and they heard a distant door slam.

They poked their heads around the corner. Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post: They were once again on the spot where Mrs. Norris had been attacked. They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Now what's up with her?" said Ron.

"Let's go and see," said Harry, and holding their robes over their ankles they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its OUT OF ORDER sign, ignored it as always, and entered.

Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet. It was dark in the bathroom because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.

"Myrtle?" Lily called softly, hoping not to distress her even further. But the ghost didn't answer.

"What's up, Myrtle?" Harry tried, a bit louder.

"Who's that?" glugged Myrtle miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Harry waded across to her stall and said, "Why would I throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me ...

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," said Harry, reasonably. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

Lily glanced at Harry knowing he had said the wrong thing, and braced herself for another splash of water. Fortunately, Myrtle didn't do it. Instead, she puffed herself up and shrieked, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha, ha, ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"

"Who threw it at you, Myrtle?" Lily asked.

"I don't know... I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head," said Myrtle, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out ...

The three of them looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What?" said Harry.

"Are you crazy?" said Ron. "It could be dangerous!"

"Dangerous?" said Harry laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"

By the way Ron had held Harry, Lily wasn't so sure about how safe it was to hold the book.

"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated Dad's told me - there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And -"

"All right, I've got the point," said Harry.

Lily looked at the little book laying on the floor, nondescript and soggy.

"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," said Harry, trying to duck Ron to grab the book. Lily was faster. She picked it up off the floor before Harry's hand could reach it. It was obviously a diary, and the faded year on the cover told her that it was fifty years old. She opened it eagerly, half expecting to be set on fire on the moment she looked at the first page. It didn't happen. She didn't feel like she couldn't stop looking at the page either, so it was probably fine. On the bottom of the page, she could just make out a name. T M. Riddle.

"I think it's safe," she said. "Look." And she handed the book to Harry, and watched as he looked at the book in the same way she had done.

Ron cautiously looked over his shoulder. "Hang on!" He said. "I know that name... T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."

"How on earth d'you know that?" said Harry.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," said Ron resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it, too."

Lily approached them and looked as Harry peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely and frustratingly blank. There wasn't the faintest trace of writing on any of them. Not a word.

"He never wrote on it," said Harry.

"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" said Ron curiously.

Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.

"He must have been muggle-born," said Harry thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road."

"I don't know," said Lily. "I could have bought one, and I'm… half blood." Lily stuttered, nearly spilling out her secret.

"But you are an exception," said Ron. "Not many witches from magical families live among muggles."

"But it's not an impossibility," she said. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway."

"Yeah, it's not much use to you," said Ron. He dropped his voice substantially. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."

Lily glared at him. Harry smirked, and pocketed the book anyway.

"I'll ask Hector if T M Riddle's name was in any book he read about muggleborns in Hogwarts. At least it's a start," she said as they walked out of Myrtle's bathroom, always keeping an eye out for Filch.

"There's no harm trying," said Harry.

However, on the next morning when Lily asked if Hector knew of anyone called T M Riddle, who had studied at Hogwarts fifty years before, he said he had never heard or read the name.

"Why do you want to know anyway?" he said, having a sip of his milk.

Lily suddenly knew she shouldn't leave him in the dark anymore.

"I'll tell you at the lake. Come on," she said, leaving the table.

"Well?" said Hector, when they were by the dark lake.

After a quick look around to make sure there was no one around them, Lily proceeded to tell everything she had been hiding from him. Hector didn't interrupt her, but she could tell he was growing angrier and angrier with her. She only hoped it wouldn't result in another duel.

"They used polyjuice potion to interrogate Malfoy?" Hector finally said. "That was brilliant."

"Yeah. But it was a waste of time."

"Not necessarily. We know that his father doesn't want him to poke around this. Can you imagine Lucius Malfoy staying away from something that can literally wipe away muggleborns from Hogwarts?"

"Well, no," said Lily. She was about to say that she didn't actually know the man too well, but Hector spoke over her.

"What if he knows something, but won't tell Draco because he is too stupid and proud to keep discretion."

"That is a bit of a stretch, isn't it?" said Lily.

"Maybe. I'm just theorizing."

"I'm not saying I doubt that, but we should work with other possibilities too."

"Like T M. Riddle's diary?"

"Yes. Except that…"

"It's blank." Hector finished the sentence.

"I'm sorry I kept stuff from you again," said Lily.

"To be honest I have been doing my own investigation on the matter. I studied the Sacred Twenty Eight families last term."

"Oh. What have you learned about them? Are any of them relatives of Slytherin?"

"Well, yes. All of them, somehow actually. Including you."

"What?"

"Pure blood families married each other. Few of them are still all pure bloods. All of them are somehow related to each other. I think your parents are distant cousins."

"Isn't it a bit weird?"

"I think it's distant enough. Anyway, the closest bloodline to Salazar Slytherin was the Gaunt family. But none of them were at Hogwarts when the Chamber opened fifty years ago."

"Maybe it was someone from another bloodline."

"There are too many names to track. And they only registered the male lines on the book I found, anyway, so it's kind of useless."

"Maybe I can ask Snape," said Lily, although she wasn't sure they were at speaking terms again.

It wasn't until the beginning of February, on the day when Hermione finally left the hospital wing, that Lily considered she had gathered enough courage to speak to Snape. She went down to the dungeons after class, where she knew Snape could always be found.

Again, as she walked down the steps to Snape's office, she had the impression that the air was freezing around her. Lily was actually shaking when she lightly knocked on the door. She felt like a puppy wagging its tail, and the thought angered her. She had lied to him, yes – as well as she could – but she had done it for a good reason.

"Yes?" Snape's low, yet ambient-filling voice, sounded from inside.

"It's me," he said with a trembling voice.

"Leave," said Snape.

"Please?" she asked.

She heard the sounds of two steps and the door swung open. Snape stood in front of her, his black robes making him look like a cliché portraying of the Grim Reaper.

"I don't want to see you, Lily," he said coldly. "Leave."

"I will. Just do something for me. Check the female bloodlines descending from Salazar Slytherin. I think you might find out who opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago," Lily said as fast as she could while Snape shut the door on her face.

"I will," he said from inside his office, and she heard his steps moving away from the door. Lily stood there for a minute until she was absolutely sure he wouldn't open the door again, and then she left with her heart heavy in her chest.

On the next day, at break, Lily was absent mindedly practicing a transfiguration spell with Susan at the Great Hall when Harry, Ron and Hermione rushed past them, looking like they were going to do something important.

"I'll be right back," she said to Susan, and followed the trio.

They went to the trophy room. Lily didn't quite know what they were doing there, until she saw a very well polished gold shield tucked away in a corner cabinet. It was a special award for services to the school, given to a T M. Riddle. There were no further details, but Lily could see why the trio had gone there. Maybe T M. Riddle had something to do with catching the Heir of Slytherin years ago. They searched further for other informations on Riddle. There was a Medal for Magic Merit, and his name was on the list of Head Boys, too.

"He sounds like Percy," said Ron, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Prefect, Head Boy ... probably top of every class -"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Hermione in a slightly hurt voice.

Lily went back to the Great Hall to practice more with Susan.

"What was that?" She asked, confused.

"I just wanted to see if Hermione was better," Lily lied as she took out her wand to keep trying to transfigure the toast into a wooden box. It wasn't that she didn't trust Susan, but she didn't want her to get involved.

A.N: As promised, no delays this week! I hope you like the chapter. Please, let me know what you think in the comments :D

See you next Monday