And three days later, Comma finally finishes the next chapter. AGH. I hate it when it takes me that long to write.

Anywhozles.

imadoodlenoodle: Thanks :) but honestly, he only has a believable family tree because I overdevelop everything. I started on A Gaunt Tale, developed the father's past because I was wondering how the eff Voldy could befriend anyone and how I could make it possible. The father in that story is indeed TG in this story. Then I wondered after writing a few chapters of this, hmm, how exactly did his mother die, and who the eff would marry Morfin Gaunt in the first place? Then I mixed that in with all my wonderings of what Grindelwald might have been doing between the time he left Godric's Hollow and when he found the Elder Wand some-odd years later (I doubt he was sitting on his butt, he had to be doing something productive, and what with all the bragging Marvolo Gaunt did over his ring he had to hear about it and think "Hey! Deathly Hallow! Dude, awesome!" ... though not in quite that context, probably), and mixed both of those in with a plot bunny I had of "what if that snake that Morfin Gaunt had in the scene in book 6 was actually an animagus?" Love them bunnies. And everything just kept developing into back stories. I'm already working on a sequel to this that'll take place durring the summer after Timothy's sixth year, and I haven't even finished this story yet. So yeah... I overdevelop too much :P

Disclaimymabobber: No owns. For the last time. I own nothing. Really. I promise.

Warnings: OC Abuse (which is a fancy way of saying "I'm so cruel to my characters")

Quick Quotes Quill: "Yeah, some great threat to the wizarding world you're going to be, Voldy."
The glare I received for that did nothing more than further my amusement. "Gaunt, for the last bloody time –"
"All right, all right, I swear on pain of death that I will not call you Voldy again."

The first thing that occurred when I found myself back in Hogwarts was that I was rushed away by my head of house to see Headmaster Dippet. Malfoy didn't offer any of his usual snide remarks, and that was my first sign that something was wrong. I even tried provoking him. I asked him the inevitable "Did you miss your favorite student?" question, but it was with no results. He merely shot a glance at me over his shoulder as I followed him. It wasn't a glare, just a glance.

The next sign was Dippet himself. This was the first time this year that he and I had been in his office, alone, without any other teachers. He wasn't his normal strict-yet-feeble self, either, not this time. I noticed that he looked paler, perhaps even more feeble than usual, and utterly stressed. He looked at me almost pityingly as he addressed me.

"Timothy, in light of the most recent attack that has occurred within the school, you are indeed cleared of suspicion. It will still be required that you have an eye kept on you, but even I doubt that you are the

'Heir of Slytherin' that is committing such atrocities amongst the student body of Hogwarts." He observed my reaction, and then frowned when I offered no response. "I do assume that someone has informed you of it?"

I shook my head slowly. "Care to enlighten me, sir?"

Even my sarcasm didn't faze him, and his somber expression remained. "I admit that I lied about my intentions of letting you back into Hogwarts. A total of four attacks have occurred since you were expelled – albeit temporarily. All petrified. I had decided that unless one of a select few was petrified, you would not be allowed back within the school. If one of them was, you would be, and all suspicion removed."

He paused as though waiting for some sort of reaction from me. I, however, was still entirely lost, though I had a strange feeling I really shouldn't have been. Whatever it was, was staring me straight in the face and I was failing to see any of it. This was no doubt what Tom had sent me a letter regarding, and I felt a bit thick for not catching on like Dippet seemed to think I should be doing. I continued staring at him, bemused, as I waited for him to finish.

"The first attack was a Gryffindor first year, a Muggleborn by the name of Sarah Burne. She was found on the seventh floor. Then there was a Hufflepuff seventh year, a pureblood called Harold Bones, whose family would be recognized by some as 'blood traitors'. The third and fourth were what redeemed you most of all.

"It was my suspicion that you might ask someone in the castle to continue the work for you when you left if you were indeed the so-called Heir of Slytherin, and I had one theory of who it would be. That one person was petrified. I would have suspected you had asked this student to do it to themselves, suspecting my plan, and I waited to see if another student would be attacked. I was almost certain none would be. Then third year Ravenclaw Marcy Allen was found in a bathroom, and I could think of no one else you would have entrusted with the task who might have accepted it." So of course, he hadn't considered Tom at all.

"Who did you believe I would have trusted?"

"First and foremost," he said, and I could see he was finally getting to his point, not skirting around it in fear, "I suspected you would have entrusted the task to Annabelle Potts."

I could see why he had been skirting around the subject. While I may have felt surprise for a moment, what I felt after that made me have to clench my hands into fists around the arms of my chair to stop myself from upturning Dippet's desk and telling him off just on general principle, just to blow off the steam that was rising up from my blood as it began to boil. So this was what Tom had done…. My fists clenched a bit more; it took some amount of force for me to loosen my grip slightly as I heard the arms of the chair give groans of protest. I kept my eyes pointed off to the side, away from Dippet, and spoke as levelly as I could.

"And I'll still be watched closely after this," I said slowly. "Why?"

"It is only a precaution. The governing board seems to think it is necessary, given your heritage." Dippet was speaking very cautiously now. "Also being that you were the only suspect in the attacks since they began –"

"Then continuing to watch me won't get you anywhere, will it? Look for other possibilities. Watching me is going to hold the search back."

"This isn't my decision to make," he said apologetically, though his regular tone of impatience that he usually took when speaking with me was beginning to find its way back into his voice. "If the governing board still sees you as a threat, then you will be viewed as such."

I nodded. "Right. The fact that at least one Muggleborn generally dies every time the Chamber of Secrets is opened is no big deal, of course. It's more important to keep watch on someone who didn't do it just out of bias towards them."

"I can understand fully why you think this seems unjust, but –"

"But you can't do anything about it unless the governing board says otherwise," I finished for him, looking at him finally. "I know. You've mentioned that a couple of times."

Dippet gave a weary sigh. "I do sincerely apologize for how this all turned out. It was a horrible mistake on my part."

"No kidding…" I grumbled sardonically.

Either he didn't hear me or he chose to pretend he hadn't. "You may head to your common room if you wish. I am sure you need to unpack your things."

I gladly stood from my chair and headed for the door, resolving not to turn back even if Dippet called after me for something. He didn't, and I left, slamming the door shut behind me.

As I suppose I should have suspected, Tom was nowhere to be found when I made it to the Slytherin common room. It was the day before winter holidays, and therefore everyone was still here, packing their things to go home and spend Christmas with their families. Many were merely sitting around the common room. Their attitudes toward me seemed to have changed since I had left.

The glares that rested upon me when I entered the common room were Gryffindor worthy.

I was careful about crossing to the stairs that led up to the boys' dormitories, as though crossing a field laden with mines that could go off beneath my feet at any moment. They were either disappointed that I wasn't the heir, or disappointed that I was and had sent one of my own house to the hospital wing as a statue just for the sake of avoiding suspicion. Both assumptions were wrong, but none of them could have known that. None of them would have believed me if I told them. They didn't believe me when I told them that I wasn't the heir that had opened the Chamber, and they wouldn't believe me if I told them the same thing again, that I hadn't – that I never would have done this.

The sixth year dormitories were empty, everyone else that was leaving already packed and downstairs. Tom was an exception to this. He wasn't downstairs, he wasn't here, and I didn't know nor care where he was. I also didn't particularly feel like unpacking my things, though I did give the trunk at the foot of my bed a good kick before falling onto the mattress. Soon enough, I was sitting on the bed cross-legged and glaring at that same old patch of stone wall. I was home again, and the home was just as horrible as it had been for most of this year. I might have been better off staying with my father.

I flinched even as I thought of that and immediately disagreed with myself. Being that I could still only see out of one eye – which meant my depth perception was gone and I had already done a fair bit of tripping and walking into things like a drunken fool – I would be better off here at Hogwarts. I didn't need my other eye swollen shut, and that was all that would happen if I went back to him.

Still, the wall, the stupid, brainless patch of granite or rock or whatever the bloody hell else it was. I didn't know and I didn't care. The knuckles of my left hand were already broken, so attempting to punch a hole through it (and most likely failing) would hurt rather much. My right hand was required for schoolwork, so I had to be a bit more careful with it. Nothing to take any sort of anger out on. I was here alone.

I supposed that, for that instance, alone was good. If Tom was here, I would have been more than happy to kill him for letting this happen. I definitely would have rather stayed home than come back to school to find out that my redemption had been because of this. Perhaps it would be better if I was left alone to seethe. Maybe I would calm down enough to only injure him by the time he drew up enough courage to face me. He had good reason to show fear in that letter, was right in assuming that his life was most definitely in danger.

I looked up five minutes later when the door into the sixth year dormitories opened. My alone time was ended by the very person that my thoughts (homicidal though they were) had been revolving around during said alone time. Tom stopped at the door as soon as he saw me, looking surprised. I didn't really look over more than to glance, so I couldn't see if there was fear beyond the surprise, or if he was confident that I would be able to control myself now.

"You're back."

"That's awfully perceptive of you," I said through gritted teeth, narrowing my eyes at my patch of wall. I watched out of the corner of one eye as Tom crossed the room over to his own bed, until he was out of my line of sight entirely. "I did get your letter, by the way. Found out exactly what it meant as well."

"Did you?"

"Yes, from Dippet. Apparently, you discovered his intentions and sent your pet snake after Annabelle." I turned to sit sideways on my bed and look over at Tom. He was now sitting across the room on his own bed, flipping through a book disinterestedly. "Care to explain?"

"I did mention in the letter that it was not my idea in the least," he said, voice completely toneless. "In fact, Annabelle took it upon herself to spy on Dumbledore and Dippet to figure out exactly why they hadn't let you back in the school after the second attack. I had planned to myself, but I found the invisibility cloak to be missing. She had already taken it and gone herself."

"Without anyone suggesting that she do so?"

"I hadn't said a word even of my own intentions, so no," Tom said. "When she told me Dippet's idea – that you would not be let back into the school unless she was the subject of an attack – and then told me her own idea – to make her the subject of an attack as it was the only way – I disagreed. I'm not an idiot. I know how dangerous the Basilisk is."

"And then you changed your mind."

"Only after she described, in a detailed manner, exactly how she was planning to kill me if I didn't."

"So, getting this straight," I said, slightly amused in spite of myself – I didn't want to be amused, but the situation called for it – "you're not afraid of a Basilisk – or of how I'm planning to kill you, for that matter – but a five-foot-one, ninety pound girl does." I scoffed. "Yeah, some great threat to the wizarding world you're going to be, Voldy."

The glare I received for that did nothing more than further my amusement. "Gaunt, for the last bloody time –"

"All right, all right, I swear on pain of death that I will not call you Voldy again. But honestly," I continued, "I figured you would have just Imperiused her into not killing you if you saw her as that great of a threat."

"You think that idea didn't cross my mind?" He still sounded irritated. "I tried – as a matter of fact, she told me to try it."

My brow furrowed. "And she blocked it out?" I asked, slightly alarmed. "She'd have to know –"

"Occlumency," Tom finished for me. "And she knows Legilimency as well."

"How?"

"She's been borrowing your books on the subject for quite some time, apparently. Since last year, I believe she said. And without you knowing, judging by the look on your face. She hasn't completely mastered them yet, but she knows Occlumency well enough to completely avoid the effects of any Imperius Curse that I could cast. You, I'm not sure."

"And never will be because I would never use the Imperius Curse on her for any reason. You, on the other hand, might want to keep your guard up unless you fancy being Imperiused into jumping off of the top of the Astronomy tower."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," he said in annoyance, though I noticed a slight flinch. Tom detested anyone being more powerful than him in any area of magic. One of his strongest powers to this day is Legilimency, and I'm still better at it, and I can tell that it still angers him to no end. The student has yet to pass the teacher.

"Now," I said, coming back to the subject at hand before it could get too far away. "Annabelle. Why didn't you inform me of her plans before you helped her with them?"

"That was yet another demand she made," Tom said. "She figured if we told you, you would disagree with it and say you'd rather be expelled permanently than take a risk like that or something to that extent, and tell her not to do it. She knew she wouldn't go against you if you told her not to do it, and decided it would be better if she just didn't tell you."

I eyed Tom suspiciously at this, truly wishing that I had some means of obtaining Veritaserum. I would question him again if I could get a vial of it, but it was nearly impossible. That would require Slughorn's cooperation and he would definitely need to know why I needed it. Oh, you see, sir, I helped Tom open the Chamber of Secrets. Now he's gone and petrified my girlfriend while I was away and I want to find out exactly what happened to cause it. No big deal, I just completely fooled both you and Dumbledore about the whole Chamber ordeal is all.

I had a strange feeling that that conversation wouldn't go over particularly well.

"No, it probably wouldn't," Tom agreed, rolling his eyes.

"Oi, you weren't supposed to be listening to that!"

"I wasn't trying to. Honestly, you broadcast the most arbitrary thoughts. And I suppose I can't blame you for not believing me."

"That's good, being that you have been carefully blocking all of your thoughts since you walked in the room," I said.

"That has nothing to do with you," he assured me. I looked at him skeptically. "I'm dead serious. And you'll want to start keeping your guard up as often as possible as well. It seems Dumbledore has become more suspicious since your… temporary expulsion, I suppose you could call it. I would guess it was because of your employment of Occlumency, and that he is suspicious that you know who opened the Chamber and don't want to incriminate them more than anything else."

"Hence why he's targeting you."

"Dumbledore has never trusted me, and it seems he always has trusted you to some extent," Tom said. "I suppose it's because you're more predictable."

"That's nice…"

"I'm being serious. You act as you feel towards Mudbloods. I don't, but he has a suspicion of how I think of their kind from the first time I met him. Despite the fact that I did behave myself when I got here, he was always suspicious. This is part of the reason I have built my good reputation up over the years, so I could open the Chamber of Secrets and not have to worry about anyone pointing the finger at me. I never really suspected Dumbledore's paranoia of me went quite this far."

"Well, he does have a right to be paranoid," I said. "You are sort of looking to rid the world of all bad blood."

"But there isn't any way he could know that for a fact."

I shrugged. "Where've you put her invisibility cloak now, by the way?"

"Under the mattress," he said, his voice vague and distracted. I took it as incentive to leave him alone for now. Some revenge would be had for this, for what he had let happen here.

I was left wondering quite a few things – at least until the ingredients were ready to make a potion to heal the near victims of the Basilisk. I didn't know just how serious Annabelle was about threatening to kill Tom, or even if she had. How she had managed to steal by books on Legilimency and Occlumency was completely beyond me – I kept them in my trunk at the foot of my bed, locked up, and the only time they see daylight is if I decide to retrieve one to flip through. I also wondered just how well she had learned them; both were quite far from remotely easy subjects, and one year of practice generally didn't get anyone far enough to block even the most feeble Imperius Curse. And from that, my mind clicked to another question entirely.

Did those victims, lying in the hospital wing and looking as much like statues as they possibly could, have any distinguishable train of thought? I glanced at Tom, who was still flipping disinterestedly through a book he had most likely read hundreds of times before. Then I hadn't been thinking loudly, that was good to know. I would have to get the invisibility cloak later, somehow.

And then, perhaps I would discover whether Tom's story had truth behind it a bit sooner than expected.

Oh how I do love cliffhangers.

I don't know exactly how much is left to this story - I've got to find my Chamber of Secrets book and remember exactly when the school almost got closed and Riddle framed Hagrid to know that. I know where the book is, so no need to worry. In fact, I have more than one copy of it. I've got an entire shed full of HP merchendise that's set up like a shop with shelving and everything. We call it Hogwarts. It's beautiful.

Incidentally, all my Stephen King books are also in there. They all seem to be getting along fine, so no worries.