It was on that same Saturday that I was nearly caught in the girls' dormitories that I discovered the worst form of torture ever known to mankind: revenge. Not just any revenge, however – I've had experience with revenge before. Around a week after mutilating Algie Longbottom's face (such fun times), I found myself in the hospital wings with front teeth the size of dish plates, as the filthy blighter had gotten me in the corridor while my back was turned. So, yes, I had become acquainted with revenge before that Saturday, but it became my worst enemy then.

As I said, it wasn't just any revenge that may as well have caused me to drop dead on the spot – it was the revenge of a woman scorned. Come to find out, Annabelle was at least a hundred times better with revenge than anyone I had ever met; I was of half a mind to kill when I saw her heading into the Great Hall that afternoon at meal time. Not her, of course, but Malfoy? I'd have killed him were it not for the simple fact that I was in school. If we had been anywhere else at the time, he'd have been drowning in a pool of his own blood.

Perhaps I should explain? Yes. Annabelle's revenge for my not going to Hogsmeade with her, for not forgetting Tom for the day as she had asked me to, was Malfoy. She returned with him. Meaning with him – they weren't just walking together, no. I spotted them walking into the Great Hall, where I was already. Tom had been talking about something regarding the chamber of secrets (my mind had been miles away, off at Zonko's and Honeydukes and everywhere else I had missed going today for the sake of thievery), but upon seeing Terentius Malfoy's arm around Annabelle, I immediately lost what little focus I had managed to maintain up to that point on what Tom was saying. Tom must have noticed, as I heard him snigger; he had never found much interest in what he referred to as "general teenage drama," but he did find it amusing to watch.

"So, when will tickets for the fight go on sale?"

I continued glowering at Malfoy who, as I noticed, glanced over in my direction after a moment and began to look particularly nervous. "If he doesn't walk away from her in five seconds it's going to be a free show."

"You do realize Dippet is here, don't you?"

I shot a glance back at the High Table. Dippet was, indeed, sitting in his chair, as balding and cheerful as he ever had been. I quickly directed my glare back at Terentius Malfoy, who was taking care in sitting as far away from me as possible. "Dippet despises me anyway, what more could this hurt me? He's too afraid of my father to throw me out of school. Besides, you sound more amused than concerned."

"That would be because I am."

"I figured so," I said, looking around the Great Hall. The sounds of the regular afternoon din of the room were reaching their highest volumes, so I could easily get Malfoy's attention without seeming too suspicious. I stood and looked down the table, where Malfoy was sitting in the company of Patrick Parkinson, Harold Goyle, and Orion Black. He was still shooting wary glances down at my end of the table. His fear wasn't my problem in the least – he had brought this upon himself. "Oi! Malfoy!"

As I had hoped, no one had seen this as out of the ordinary at all – it was a common occurrence for someone to call across the long table in the Great Hall to get others' attentions, and the Great Hall could grow so loud that it was often a difficult task to speak to even a person sitting next to or across from one without yelling.

Though I did despise him at that moment, I wouldn't have ever said that Terentius Malfoy was a complete coward. I might have, but it would have been untrue. He wasn't bold to the point of utter stupidity, or he'd have been in Gryffindor – everyone did have their moments of teeth-chattering fear. Judging by the look on his face that he was trying to conceal, this was one of those moments for him. I did have a sort of a reputation at Hogwarts for being a bit on the violent side when I grew angry. Even I knew I had inherited my father's short temper. Other students generally did their best not to cross me, but Malfoy had done one hell of a job at infuriating me now, and there was no doubt he knew it. Granted, Madam Pomfrey could mend broken bones easily enough, but they were rather painful while they lasted.

Malfoy looked down the table reluctantly and raised his eyebrows in recognition. I motioned for him to come over. He said something to Annabelle (for which I clenched my fists, but managed to refrain from throwing the butter knife on the table in front of me at him), and then stood, walking down the length of the table as though to his death. I turned to face him as he reached my end of the table, still glaring. He flinched.

"Care to explain why –?"

"I swear it wasn't my idea. She said she needed to get back at you for something and she threatened to leave me behind the Hog's Head under a body bind hex if I didn't do as she said." I raised my eyebrows. "Really."

I was a bit skeptical, but with as long as I had been friends with Malfoy, I supposed I could trust him. It was just like one of his family to surrender when threatened, particularly by someone as threatening as the angered form of Annabelle. Even so, I had never seen Annabelle act quite so callously about something, but every human being was perfectly capable of it. We had only really been acquaintances until last year, so I couldn't say I knew her well enough to know what to expect from her at every turn.

I sat back down as Malfoy headed quickly back over to the other side of the table. Though the idea scared me a bit, I knew I was probably going to have to say something to Annabelle soon. She would only get angrier if I didn't, as she definitely wasn't the most patient person in the world. Then again, neither was I, so thinking negatively of her because of that would have made me a hypocrite. I would have to arrange some time to talk with her tonight.

"That probably isn't the most brilliant idea you've ever had."

I looked over at Tom. "I didn't teach you how to use Legilimency so you could invade my mind," I said sourly.

"Then stop thinking so loudly." I rolled my eyes and instead looked down at the plate on the table in front of me. "Well, it's not my fault you are, is it? All I'm saying is that it would be too soon and she'd refuse to talk to you. Tomorrow, however, would be late enough that she would grow angrier."

"Oh, and you know all about relationships."

"I know a fair bit from seeing all of the ones you've had that fail miserably."

"Oh, that's nice…"

"You might think so, but I'm the one that has to deal with all the complaining afterwards," said Tom. "And besides, you're not the source of the problem in this matter to begin with."

"I know, you are," I said, annoyed – of course, I'd have been annoyed with the wall at that point, had it been sitting next to me. The fact that Tom was making any noise at all only furthered my irritation with him. "So what's your point? It's not like I can particularly talk to her according to your logic, which is unfortunately almost always correct."

"Would you mind letting me finish?" said Tom, sounding as though he was growing equally annoyed. "As I'm the source of the problem, I should talk to her. I could even lie and say I had you under the Imperius Curse, couldn't I? Then she'd both forgive you and feel bad for you. Besides, she'd be a useful follower. She despises blood traitors and muggles from what I understand, and she's probably best in our year in more practical subjects based solely on spellwork."

I laughed. "She bloody hates you, all you'd manage to do is make matters worse."

"Maybe for myself," he said, "but I'm not about to put up with another three months of you whining about another failed relationship."

"How friendly of you," I said sarcastically. "And what do you plan to say, exactly?"

"That I controlled your mind somehow, for one," he said, "and then mention why, but not specify. She would support the purging of Mudbloods from this school, I imagine, so I suppose mentioning that it has something to do with them would help my case a bit. You know I'm good at convincing people, I wouldn't have as many followers as I do now if I wasn't. It might be a bit of a harder job if she discovers that her invisibility cloak is missing," he added, "but I suppose I might be able to manage anyway."

The day drawled on for the few remaining hours of that were left of it. I chose to head back to the Slytherin common room early, then into the sixth year boys' dormitory when Annabelle entered again, Tom following me and still talking about plans with the Chamber of Secrets to the point that I almost wanted to hex him, though I suppose I might have been a bit more enthusiastic if I hadn't been in such a terribly foul mood. We were joined later by others in our year. Among them was Orion Black, who told me in quite an amused manner that Annabelle had discovered her invisibility cloak to be missing and was out to kill.

"Is that so?" was my bored reply as I examined the back of my hand with equal disinterest.

"Oh, yeah," he said, "she's already started an official inquiry with all of the girls who stayed behind from the Hogsmeade trip. She's got a few others that were in Hogsmeade helping her, but they're apparently not her main suspect."

"Judging by your tone," I said, starting to grow a bit annoyed, "I'm guessing it's probably me that she suspects the most." I sat up on my bed. "Right?"

"It's because you insisted on staying behind," he said, though he obviously sensed danger now, as he backed up a bit.

"Thought so." I laid back down on my bed and continued my examination of the back of my hand.

"Well, did you take it?"

I scoffed. "Why don't you try walking up the stairs to the Girls' Dormitories and see what happens?" I said. "Bet it's not half as easy as it sounds. Hogwarts a History states that the founders trusted female students more than males, so while they're allowed to enter our dorms, we can't enter theirs without setting off some sort of alarm."

"That's the thing, though," he said, sitting down on the bed next to mine (which wasn't his own, but I never did say that Orion Black had much of a respect for other peoples' property). "All of the first and second years she's talked to said the alarm went off earlier, which means someone tried to break in for something."

And there was my one mistake. She had every reason to suspect me, then it wasn't just some sort of strange instinct or inclination. She had evidence that a boy had attempted to go up those stairs (though I doubted she suspected that I would have set off the alarm coming back down), and she would immediately suspect me because of my insistence on staying behind this morning. Nevertheless, the only solution would be to keep calm and not give myself up, not to anyone.

"Then I suppose she has reason to suspect me," I said calmly. "It could have just as easily been any one of the first or second years that stayed behind, but she's angry. So I suppose she's bound to jump to conclusion."

"Did you take it, though?"

"I wasn't even aware the alarm went off, I haven't been in the dormitories all day," I said, growing more annoyed with each passing second. "Now, would you please go away? I'm busy."

"Doing what?"

It was a desperate excuse, but it could work… "We're practicing palm reading in Divination. I'm studying."

Granted, Orion Black wasn't a complete idiot, so odds were he didn't believe my feeble excuse. Of course, he was also smart enough to know when he was about to be hexed, and as this was one of those moments, he got up rather quickly and headed over to the other side of the dormitory. His irritating had at least done a decent job of alerting me that Annabelle was now quite angry with me for more than one thing, which wasn't particularly good at all. It was fine for me, considering I had absolutely no plans of going downstairs without an invisibility cloak on. I had no doubt, however, that if Tom held true to his word and made a sore attempt to talk to her, he would definitely be decapitated.

Even so, when night rolled around and the sounds of laughter and studying subsided into a sea of snores, Tom finally stood up from his bed and tossed his book off to the side, on top of his trunk. He walked to the trunk, picked up the book, and put it inside, then proceeded to pull out a long, silvery cloak; Annabelle's invisibility cloak. I sat up at the foot of my bed and spoke quietly.

"You realize she's probably still sitting down there, don't you?" I said quietly.

"Yes," he said, "but I have a plan."

I looked from him to the cloak. "If it's to get yourself killed, I say you'll probably do a fine job of it. You can't let her see that!"

Tom rolled his eyes and slung it over his shoulder. "I have a plan," he said again. "I'll tell her I took the cloak –"

"And we come to the conclusion that Tom Riddle has truly lost his mind."

"No, not quite."

"But almost."

"Would you let me finish?" I chose to remain silent and allow him to continue. "Thank you. Before she can attempt to kill me, I'll explain to her why I took it. Again, I'm sure she'll support the cause. I might also add in that if either you or I back out, then we both are in danger of losing our lives, which should put it into perspective for her a bit better, and I'll allow her the chance to join in on the cause. I might be forced to use a bit of Legilimency –"

"If you even think the words Imperius Curse, you're dead –"

"But I won't go as far as using the Imperius Curse, you're really not good at holding back your thoughts, are you?"

"I'm surprised you feel the need to ask."

––

I slept decently that night, in contrast to the previous. There was the fear that Tom speaking with Annabelle would only further infuriate her infuriation with me and I might wake up to find an insanely angry redhead standing over me with a knife, but I was able to ignore that fear and sleep soundly until morning with visions of giant snakes and dead roosters playing on the backs of my eyelids. Needless to say, I was quite happy to be awake when morning rolled around, and there was no doubt in my mind that the nightmares would continue for as long as I kept on with this chamber of secrets business.

As though on some strange schedule, I awoke at exactly six o'clock the next morning. I didn't understand it well. I had no alarm clock of any sort to my name, and I didn't believe I had any sort of internal clock, as I somehow managed to wake up late four out of five times on weekdays when I actually had classes to worry about. It was simply annoying that I had to awaken at a decent hour on weekends, when I was supposed to sleep in.

Tom was already sitting in his bed reading, but the same definitely couldn't be said for anyone else in the dormitory. I managed to stand, rather shakily, and walk across the room over to Tom's bed. "Did everything go according to plan?"

"Definitely," he said, though not looking up from his book (which I now saw was Hogwarts, A History, which he was no doubt reading to find out any possible information on the chamber he might have previously missed). "Annabelle definitely isn't angry anymore – she's on my side entirely, for that matter, and definitely all for the purging of blood traitors."

"Not a big surprise considering her family," I said.

"The warning has been left for the school, and everyone will surely see it on their way to the Great Hall. I'm waiting to head up so I can see the reaction of the larger crowds." He glanced over at the clock on his bedside table and looked surprised. "Is it six o'clock already? Only another hour."

I blinked a few times in a mixture of drowsiness and confusion, shook my head, and went back to my own bed, where I chose to fall down. I doubted getting back to sleep would be an option at this point, particularly not with the amount of snoring going on that had made falling asleep the night before quite a difficult task. However, I didn't feel like standing around for an hour, so this was the next best thing, pretending to be passed out cold so no one could bother me.

I was sort of reluctant to head upstairs to breakfast, anyway. I was quite apprehensive to see how Tom had chosen to "alert" the school of the opening of the chamber of secrets, or of how many students would automatically jump to the conclusion that it was me.