Year 3, Chapter 4:

It was the day before Tom would return Hogwarts. A harsh storm took place outside his window and the radio was greatly muffled.

A light flashed onto the bed next to his, Mrs. Cole stood in her nightgown, dark circles under her eyes. "Bobby, what are you still doing up?" Tom cocked his head slightly to see Bobby peering out the window.

"It seems awful violent out and I could make out on the radio somebody's been killed!" Bobby exclaimed.

"Ohh, come now Bobby, there is no such truth in that! Get back to bed," She paused for a moment, "You too Tom." Almost in an undertone and she left.

Bobby fell asleep with ease and Tom held his ear toward the radio, interested in the news about the death that had frightened his roommate. He could barely make out the words, having to continually adjust the antennae.

"Continuing on the story, if you can believe it this is an actual event. For those just tuning in the disaster occurred just outside Crawley, investigators are still searching the Sullivan household," No, he thought. It couldn't be, it just couldn't.

But it was and he knew it, Nicole had mentioned before her residence outside of Crawley. He suddenly felt quite ill. He stared outside his window at the storm taking place, numb, at a loss for words.

The ride on the train the next day was dull and particularly annoying, filled with excitement and chatter. Was he the only one to notice someone that was supposed to be there had died? This could be so, seeing as wizards didn't typically have access to muggle radios. He found an empty compartment, remembering his first ride on the Hogwarts Express, when Nicole was still alive.

"Tom, what are you doing by yourself? I'd think you'd be with your friends," laughed Nicole as she sat down next to him.

Tom looked over at what was surely a delusion, the little color in his face had vanished and he stared at her, openmouthed. Nicole was dead and he had gone completely mental, of course the second was what frightened him. "You, you're, dead!" he cried, his voice cracked.

"What? Oh yeah," she said quietly. "I had been trying to forget you know? You must have heard the wrong part of it or something," she smiled faintly.

"Try to forget about being dead? What, wait," he said regaining his senses and laughing nervously. "You're not dead are you?" he laughed at the question. So he wasn't losing it. Good to know.

"No, I'm not, my, umm, my dad died." She said. "They think he committed suicide but I don't feel a bit guilty," she looked up.

"Why would you feel guilty?" He asked, forgetting to be supportive of her loss. "It couldn't have been your fault."

"But it was," she paused. "Promise you wouldn't tell a soul? I could get in a lot of trouble for this, you have to promise?" she looked rather scared.

"Okay, I promise…what is this big secret you have had to keep," he concealed a smile, seeing her alive again brought about a change in his demeanor.

"My father forbade me from returning to Hogwarts this year; he said the whole idea of it was nonsense. Said I should attend muggle school, and that if magic couldn't help my mother, it wouldn't help me either. I got so angry with him, I wouldn't stay with him, I just couldn't. I missed you and the school terribly already. I-I, like I said, I got angry." She stopped completely and looked him in the eye. "Are you mad at me Tom?"

Tom was shocked; he looked at her as though she was some form of abstract art. He thought to himself in amazement, she really could be useful. "I don't know what to say," he told her which was not at all far from the truth. He just simply looked at her. He just couldn't quite picture returning to Hogwarts with such information, seeing the teachers, what a day this had turned out to be.

"Franklin, Thomas!" roared Professor Dumbledore. Another one with the same name as he, and he's going off to Hufflepuff as well, a rather depressing moment for Tom.

All of a sudden a note zoomed out of no where and onto his lap. It was written in handwriting that could only be classified as Nicole's. Did you see them? He reread it over and over again and still did not understand.

He slipped the note into his pocket and waited till after the feast to corner her. But unfortunately he did not catch her. He looked down at his schedule for the next day.

She was in his first class: Potions, perhaps he could corner her there. He started to clear his thoughts before he went to sleep that night; he had learned to do it with great succession. But doing this always seemed to leave room for others thoughts to linger.

He saw Nicole that day but never got the chance to talk to her, something was holding him back, in fact the whole month of September seemed to be a blur without her presence.

It was not love he felt for her, surely not, but an attachment, or one of the closest things he had ever had. And what comforted even more is the fact his relationship seemed to be helping him.

He thought about it often but never took the initiative during that September to take action. It was October 13th, when he met up with her after yet another Slug Club meeting, the question of what she had seen still burned in his mind.

"What exactly did you see Nicole?" He asked with much excitement as they exited the dungeons. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it and gestured for him to follow her.

"What is it that is so important?" he asked as they walked out near the Forbidden Forest. "You are absolutely insane you know that!" he replied, just after the words escaped his lips he thought of how true they were.

She just smiled. "See, right over there," she pointed off to a tree in the distance. "And there's another one, they're rather hideous aren't they?" She looked back at them.

"Well tree's are rather interesting, by the way Nicole, unless it's a tree you're pointing to I don't see anything at all."

"Damn! I thought for sure if anybody else could see them it would be you!" she yelled and fell to the ground out of frustration. "Maybe I'm just insane." She awaited his response.

"Insane, yes, but not just that, don't belittle yourself!" He grinned, and she started to laugh. "What do they look like?" he feigned mild interest.

"They're like horses, only reptilian almost, they pull the carriages, or at least that's what I saw them doing," she added as if to state she was not trying to be confrontational. Tom sat for a moment next to Nicole.

"Why do you suppose you're in Gryffindor Nicole? I mean you just seem so…" he trailed off; the words he wished to use escaped him.

She simply shrugged then added "Well, you know if you knew much of anything you'd know that Salazar and Godric were the best of friends," she smiled, "I wonder how they could have been sometimes, they were so different and then Salazar supposedly goes off and builds some hidden chamber in the castle."

"Where exactly did you here that?" Tom asked as if waking up from a daze. He looked over, content to hang on her every word.

"It was very briefly mentioned in the book with your family tree, but they never found it, all it said was that they supposedly never knew where to find it but had 'strong beliefs' it existed," she looked at him to see if he was satisfied.

"That's all? Are you sure?" he asked, he could suddenly feel his heart pounding with excitement.

Nicole pulled herself up off the ground. "I'm positive; I am not well known for forgetting things am I? We should probably get going, we don't want that god awful caretaker on our tails," she helped him up a started to walk towards the castle.

"You seem disappointed, How come?" He asked, he was surprised he picked up on it considering his head was bursting with ideas about the hidden chamber.

"I thought you'd see them Tom, you and me, well, we're different from everyone else, and well, you have always been good at things, I thought you could help me in knowing I'm not alone."

Tom thought to himself, they were as close as one could get to not being alone and yet even then they were still separate. It used to be the two of them loners just as alone as they were when they were apart, but the relationship was changing, they were becoming closer.

But was that good? Tom felt as if he was helplessly being drawn in. He liked to be in control, was she really worth the risk of losing himself? Big thoughts for a boy of only thirteen, but for the moment he decided the situation did not need to be altered.

Only weeks had past, though it seemed like years for Tom who was forcing himself to endure looking for every scrap of parchment relating to the chamber of secrets. He sat in the Slytherin common room hopeless at three in the morning when the door creaked open.

"Thought you'd still be up," Nicole smiled and handed him an old book with the Slytherin Emblem drawn out on the cover. "Open to chapter eight, it talks about how Salazar 'might' have come across the idea and a bunch of different theories on what it's all about, helpful?"

"Where did you…the restricted section." He had just answered his own question. "Well I must say thank you, and how did you get in here?" He asked surprised he hadn't thought to ask the question sooner.

"Ohh, it was quite funny actually," she said sitting down next to him. "I walked up to a Slytherin in first year, pulled my hair back and asked in the sweetest little voice "I'm lost can you help me?" She laughed slightly, "He gave me the password as well, were we ever that gullible?"

"Never," he replied simply. "You should probably go, don't want Slughorn to catch his 'prize students' up to something now do you?" he smiled faintly but it was easily seen he wanted to be alone.

"Alright then, we haven't been in the kitchens in forever, meet me next Sunday around noon," she trailed off. "If you can that is," she walked out.

He nodded and went up to bed a few minutes later. "What are you doing up Tom?" asked a grungy prefect named Henry.

"Nothing, I just couldn't sleep," he didn't usually sleep in the dormitories but then again his roommates were usually fast asleep. He looked at the book continuously for days memorizing its context.

It was an obsession; he thought about it more and more for weeks, forgetting completely about the kitchens, even though he had trained himself to clear his mind with every passing night he became more and more restless.

He even forgot briefly about his trip to Hogsmeade. He remembered having to ask the wretched woman Mrs. Cole for her signature. A very large group of people third year and above surrounded him, one of them being Nicole.