The Difficulties of Avoidance
by dead2self
A/N: Well, this took rather less time than I expected it to. I guess that's what happens when a new movie comes out and I'm barreling through all seven books - inspirations is bound to strike! The story has taken an interesting turn now and I have a clearer picture of the plot, so hopefully I'll be able to write even more soon! As for now, enjoy this chapter, enjoy the new movie coming out tonight (as I am studying abroad and a host of circumstances have reared up against me, I will have to wait until Saturday to see it in Prague), and leave reviews!
Though it hardly seemed possible, the word "Sugar Quill" had taken on an imposing tone for Ginny. It was, of course, the current password to the door to the Room of Requirements, a door that she was currently facing. Or rather, should have been facing. Beside her, Luna was biting her lip.
"He's late," she said to fill the silence that only midnight at Hogwarts could bring. "And the door isn't here."
"Maybe he couldn't come tonight," Luna offered. Ginny did not answer her, but she sorely doubted it.
The rest of the holidays had been a blur for Ginny. She spent her days with Luna pouring over tomes of defensive spells. She barely saw Harry but for the handful of times he tried to impart what little knowledge of Occulmency he had retained, an exercise that Ginny secretly found futile. She could not imagine being able to keep Riddle out of her head if he had an opportunity to read her memories. Her only real defense as far as she could see was keeping him from getting close enough to try.
A few days before the beginning of the term, Dumbledore had once again shown up unannounced at the Burrow, this time to inform Luna and Ginny of changes he had made to the security spells on the Room of Requirements. The room still required a password for entry, but to open the door from the inside required both Ginny and Luna to produce a Patronus, one from the outside and one from within. The remainder of the holidays gave them a bit more time to practice the charm until they could each hold their Patronus for extended time over long distances, and Luna's could even relay a few words.
Producing a Patronus now would likely do no good at all, although Ginny felt as if a Dementor was breathing down her back. To distract herself, she ran through their checklist one last time, like her mother rattling off some demented list of chores. "Whenever we enter the room, we will immediately cast a full-body bind and a silencing spell." Luna nodded mutely. "Then we will leave the food, quickly check him for wounds or anything suspicious. Absolutely no eye contact. When we're ready to leave the one inside will cast the Patronus through the door and the one on the outside will answer. We will leave without removing the spells, allowing them to fade naturally."
"And we will do this twice a day," Luna added, fiddling idly with one radish earring. "Alternating who goes inside."
Silence clouded over them again, and it came as a relief when Ginny caught a flash of silver round the corner. Even with his blackened hand, the Headmaster radiated a steady cheerfulness. "Good evening, Ginny, Miss Lovegood. I trust you've prepared yourselves?"
"As best we can, sir," Luna piped.
"Wonderful. Then the three of us will enter together to have a few words with Mr. Riddle – I have explained the new arrangement, but I think it best that we are all on the same page, so to speak – before testing the new security. I should mention that Tom was quite interested in why I would be unavailable to care for him in the next months, but under the circumstances it would be ideal if he were not informed. I trust you will take all the precautions at your disposal?"
When both girls had nodded their emphatic agreement, he turned toward the blank wall. "Ah yes, I thought it more appropriate to not leave an impassable door hanging about." There was a twinkle in his eye. "Not that such a door would be out of place in our dear Hogwarts, but it is my experience that some students might rather enjoy the challenge." Ginny snorted despite herself; she had no difficulty coming up with two such people off the top of her head.
Facing the quite empty wall, Dumbledore said, "Sugar Quill," and then tugged on an invisible handle and stepped through first. Ginny imagined they would be doing quite a lot of groping for the door handle when they did it on their own. Luna gave Ginny's hand a squeeze and followed him. Ginny was the last through the door and it slammed shut behind her as she passed through the familiar barriers and her vision cleared.
Tom Riddle was not groveling on the floor this time. He sat in the chair, fingers peaked in his lap, slouching slightly with his legs crossed jauntily. He watched them steadily as Ginny joined Luna and the headmaster, and she found herself strangely off-balance. She had never seen Riddle looking quite so casual before.
"Professor," he said, voice decadent with irony.
"Good evening Tom. I had hoped you would still be awake." Riddle blinked languidly. When it was clear he had no intention of responding, Dumbledore gestured to Ginny and Luna. "You remember Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood, of course. And no doubt you remember our conversation."
Riddle sighed, eyes roaming over them. "Yes, and now the only question remaining is why you are still prattling on at all. I'm sure you are leaving me in quite capable hands." A rather nasty smile played on his lips as he surveyed Luna and Ginny. In the meantime, Dumbledore summoned three armchairs and a short table, and quite without warning, Riddle found himself sinking in to a deep, lumpy easy chair that looked like it was swallowing him.
"Tea, Tom?" Riddle only glared at him as he struggled to sit up. "Miss Lovegood? Miss Weasley?" Ginny and Luna both nodded and Luna said, "With some honey, if you don't mind," which made Ginny realize that she wanted a bit of milk and sugar herself. Dumbledore also produced some scones and jam, and the girls helped themselves. Riddle sat back in his chair with barely veiled distain for the food until Ginny heard an unmistakable growl come from his stomach.
"Just eat the food, you prat," she sneered, shooting a scone into his mouth and delighting in the fact that he almost choked. She took a delicate sip of her tea. "I refuse to force feed you every time I come in here."
"How altruistic of you." He had, however, been forced to eat the scone rather than let it fall into his lap, and chewing kept his glares from being too directed. It probably also helped that the jam was rather delicious.
Dumbledore was stirring his tea absently with his wand when he said, "Tom, as they will be taking care of you over the next few months, I believe you owe these two ladies an apology."
Riddle licked a bit of jam off his fingers. "The only good thing about this whole situation is that I don't have to pretend to be apologetic anymore."
"Well, I'm sorry," Luna said abruptly. "For your hand." Ginny could not help gaping at her.
Riddle, on the other hand, looked vaguely annoyed. "You don't mean a word of that."
"I do mean it."
"My, then they certainly do let anyone into Ravenclaw these days. You do your house little credit with your foolishness—"
"Oh, shut up!" Ginny snapped, suddenly quivering with anger.
Dumbledore held up a hand to Ginny, and the voice he used with Riddle was quiet but terrifying. "That is enough Tom." Riddle, however, was fixated on Dumbledore's blackened hand, eyes narrowed. Ginny's heart leapt into her throat, but Riddle did not say anything, instead reaching for a second scone. They drank their tea in relative silence, punctuated only by passing remarks from Dumbledore and Luna's observance that the room had fallen into quite disarray since she had last been there. "It's a veritable breeding ground for Dust Mice," she confided to Ginny.
Dumbledore was still sipping his tea, but silence had fallen over the other three and Ginny felt her eyes growing heavy. Abruptly, Tom struggled out of the easy chair and took three easy strides over to the bed, where he lay with his back to them. Dumbledore coughed, bidding the girls to rise, and then vanished the furniture, leaving behind only Tom's armchair and the table.
"Only one thing remains before we can all follow Mr. Riddle's example," he said, speaking softly. He flicked his wand at the door. "Miss Lovegood, if you would please step outside?"
Luna disappeared into the corridor, and then Dumbledore nodded to Ginny, who took one look at Tom's back, and fairly shouted, "Expecto Patronum!" The horse burst out of her wand in a blaze of silvery light and galloped through the door. Not a moment later, Luna's hare hopped lazily through the wall. "Goodnight," it said in Luna's sweet, wispy voice. Ginny wasted no time in leaving the room.
"Alas," sighed Professor Dumbledore when the door closed behind them. "I always forget that a good tea time leaves my wand quite sticky."
Dreary eyed and wishing dearly to be curled up in bed, Ginny stood with Luna in the seventh floor corridor the next morning. They had decided to do this early in the morning before many students were up, but Ginny already had serious doubts that this routine would stick. Nonetheless, this morning she was carrying a plate of breakfast procured from the kitchen and Luna was slopping orange juice on the floor as she held a pitcher loosely at her side.
"How am I supposed to hold all this and freeze him all at the same time?" Ginny said irately. It had been decided that she would go first.
"You could just levitate it beside you," Luna said, an odd note of annoyance in her voice. But then, Ginny had never seen her awake this early.
Ginny flicked her want and the pitcher of orange juice jumped out of Luna's hand, joined shortly by the plate of food. Reassured now that she had two hands free, she said, "Sugar Quill." It did indeed take a bit of groping, but then she opened the door and strode inside.
Riddle was nearly on top of her. "Stupefy!" she shrieked, toppling him with the spell. There was a crash and when everything spun into focus again, she realized the orange juice had smashed to the ground. The plate was still floating steadily. Quivering, she directed the plate over to the table and then advanced on the prone Riddle with wand raised. He was groaning.
"Merlin, Weasley, you—"
"Silencio! Petrificus Totalus." Riddle went silent and stiff as a board, and Ginny bent quickly and checked him over for any injuries. Seeing nothing but what might become a nasty sort of welt on his stomach and a bump on the back of his head, Ginny returned to the remains of the orange juice. She repaired the pitcher with a flick of her wand and then siphoned what juice she could off of the floor. It had turned a murky, sickly brown sort of color, but a little dirt never hurt anyone, so she set it down next to the rest of the food. Duties accomplished, she sent her Patronus through the wall, and at the first sight of a cotton tail, slipped out of the room.
"Are you okay?" Luna asked, pearly white in the still-dark corridor.
"He just startled me is all. I dropped the orange juice, but I got most of it back."
"That's good." Luna pocketed her wand and then looked up at Ginny with a strange look of amusement. "Stupefy?"
Ginny could not help a grin. "It was pretty satisfying. Maybe we should do that every time instead of Petrificus Totalus. I didn't quite get it strong enough this time, but it could save on casting the Silencing Charm. Much more efficient."
Luna giggled, but shook her head. "I think prolonged exposure to Stunning spells can cause lasting damage."
"If only the full-body bind was the same way!" She glanced at her watch, pleased that the Great Hall would be prepared for breakfast soon. "Let's go eat."
Luna's turn later in the evening went off without a hitch, and just like that, Tom Riddle became a part of their daily routine. Go to class, practice Quidditch, feed Tom Riddle, do homework – it became oddly mundane. True to Ginny's prediction, about a week into their care for Tom Riddle they found themselves visiting him during their morning break instead of waking up before breakfast, and then afterhours when Luna was quite within her bounds to escort another student around the castle. Weeks turned into a month, during which Ravenclaw smeared the pitch with Slytherin, putting Gryffindor back in the running for the Quidditch Cup. Quidditch, then, tended to dominate Ginny's thoughts far more than their charge in the Room of Requirements. In fact, as they often silenced him before he could get a word in edgewise, it hardly seemed like they were caring for Tom Riddle at all. The only thing that bothered Ginny now was his pointed stares at her carefully averted face.
The more pressing issue was Harper's dogged perseverance to discover what they were doing. He was frequently annoyed to find Luna and Ginny wandering around the castle at night, and even brought the matter to Professor Dumbledore, who pretended that there was nothing unusual at all about their nighttime escapades. Ginny took to carrying the Marauders Map at all times so they could weave through passageways to avoid him. After a week of being unable to find them, Harper had accused Luna of putting "some otherworldly jinx" on him, and after that they were careful to at least let him sight them on occasion.
They had just left Harper puzzling over the stone wall they had recently disappeared through – the same passageway, Ginny recalled, where they had found Riddle in the first place – and were hurrying up to the seventh floor. But when they rounded the corner, they were shocked to find the corridor was not empty. A tall figure, wearing a high-necked robe that looked too old for his young face, was surveying the wall opposite Barnabas the Barmy's tapestry with a something akin to desperation.
"Malfoy?" Ginny said. He jumped nearly a foot into the air and wheeled on them.
"What are you doing out after hours?" he snapped.
Ginny pointed to the Head Girl badge currently pinned to Luna's headscarf. "What are you doing here, Malfoy? Back for remedial studies? I knew your graduating was just for laughs."
With a swift sneer at the wall, Malfoy walked purposely towards them. "Although it is no business of yours, I was simply applying for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position."
"You?" Malfoy stared back, oddly white, and Ginny realized he had not been joking. "Expecting Snape to kick the bucket by the end of the year? I thought you liked him."
Ignoring this, Malfoy looked pointedly at the food they were carrying. "Great Hall not good enough for you anymore, Weasley? Have you taken to eating in cupboards to feel more at home?"
Ginny bristled, but Luna stepped forward first, adopting her Head Girl voice. "Mr. Malfoy, I'm glad you could visit the school, but if you stay too long in empty corridors, you might get attacked by the Splatheries that live in less-visited portraits. If you've forgotten the castle, I could escort you down to the Headmaster's office or the front doors."
"Come off it, Lovegood." With a deep scowl, Malfoy swept past them and around the corner. Both girls waited, hardly daring to breathe, until they could be sure that he would not hear them speak the password. Luna went in to leave the food with Riddle, leaving Ginny in the hall to puzzle over what had just happened.