Disclaimer: This story includes characters and situations that are part of the Harry Potter universe, which is copyright J.K.Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, etc. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made in the production of this FANFICTION. Not many outside resources were needed this time, but I (as always) made extensive use of the Harry Potter Lexicon when writing this chapter.
Author's Note: Being as this will probably be the last chapter before November, I'm going to tell all of you that during that month I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, so I won't be posting any of this, in all likelihood. But the clear solution is for all of you to participate too, so you'll be so crazily busy that you won't care about silly things like reading other people's fics. In any case, thanks go to all my reviewers (and there were a lot this time!), Fantome, Slytherinbabe (like I said somewhere before – this isn't a T/G fic for smut or fluff, it's a T/G fic for exploring the psychology. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even 'get together' at all in this fic), Ray1, g21lto, Mango (Actually, as the only people who associate Tom with the Diary are Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and they already hate him, I don't think that Tom stands to lose anything by enchanting the parchment.), and Cassie (Glad you liked it!). And as this author's note is way too long already, I'll let you get to the chapter.
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 17: The Luckiest Girl on the Face of the Planet
The fact that it was past curfew barely registered to Tom as he strode through the deserted Hogwarts corridors so late at night. Had he thought about it, he might have waited until morning, but in his panicked, furious state, he certainly wasn't going to wait for anyone, least of all Dumbledore. He rounded on the gargoyle and suddenly realised that although he had been inside earlier that afternoon, he hadn't heard the password. He counted himself lucky, for the first time, that he had heard his share of old passwords over the course of the summer – he at least had some idea what his sweet oriented headmaster would use.
"Pumpkin Pasty!" he shouted, but nothing happened. Then, "Chocolate Frog! Cockroach Cluster! Lemon Drop! Fizzing Whizbee!" Still nothing.
"I should try 'Ton-Tongue Toffee' were I you," came a growl behind him, and he spun on his heel to find an entirely unappealing old man with a glass eyeball. The Gargoyle spun forth as if on a pivot, however, and Tom ignored the man, marching up the moving staircase with one thought on his mind.
However, upon opening the door to Dumbledore's office, his resolution wavered. All conversation halted, and he saw Harry Potter, Professor Snape, Dumbledore, what had to be six Weasleys, and several others, all staring at him angrily. Harry, however, was the only one to jump to his feet.
"What's the meaning of this, Riddle?" he shouted, "I knew you were up to something! You're not going to get away with it, you know!" he was furious, waving a parchment in Tom's face. Tom bit back his anger enough to pick the parchment away and read it – effectively, it said the same thing as his own.
"Honestly, Harry, I should be asking you the same thing," he said with as much diplomacy as he could manage, handing the other boy both parchments. Fortunately for him, the amount of consideration he could manage with the unpleasant old man with the glass eye directly behind him was considerably more than the amount he normally found his limit. "I found a letter on my pillow, I thought you should know about it," he told Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's eyes, however, were bereft of their usually kindly twinkle, and several of the Weasleys looked ready to burst. "Riddle, is it?" asked one of the older boys – this one had a dragon fang earring that dangled down to his shoulder and looked like it must have hurt considerably when the hole was punched. "Not Ginny's Riddle?"
Tom wasn't entirely sure what to say, but Harry answered for him. "Yes, Ginny's Riddle – how many do you know?" he snapped, handing Dumbledore the letter. "I say he should be sent to Azkaban immediately, Professor," he insisted. Tom was ready to pounce on Harry, but he looked around at the various people sitting in the office, and decided not to. He was unsurprised, if not pleased, when several of the Weasleys showed their support for Harry's conclusion.
Professor Snape was taking turns staring at Tom and Dumbledore, and finally broke his silence with a very agitated, "I believe something is going on that I don't know about. What do you have against my star Potions student, Potter, and why do you insist on calling him Riddle?"
Dumbledore sighed slightly and cleared his throat. "The fault is entirely mine, Severus," he said, sounding truly repentant. "This young man's name is, in reality, Tom Marvolo Riddle."
Snape looked stunned for a moment and immediately pulled out his wand. "You mean…" he began, but Dumbledore interrupted.
"Yes, he shares a name with Lord Voldemort." Snape was silent. "You all recall the Chamber of Secrets incident and Ginny Weasley?" There were some nods. "She thought she was talking to Tom here throughout the year," he said. "Previously, I had imagined that Tom was as innocent as young Miss Weasley, but I must admit that recent events have me confused." He turned to Tom. "However, although Mr. Potter seems to be very eager to see you arrested, I see no reason to utterly condemn you for it."
Tom breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sir," he said.
"Don't think this doesn't look bad, Tom," Dumbledore warned, "Don't think this doesn't look very bad. Right now, you appear very suspicious indeed. Consider this a warning of the utmost seriousness – if I have any reason to believe your story is not true, I will not show any mercy. Lord Voldemort deserves none."
"I understand, sir," was all Tom could say, for the moment.
"Consider yourself relieved of your prefect duties, for the present. I expect you to return directly to your common room, and I don't expect to hear another word about this tonight."
"Yes, sir," Tom muttered, and, placing his Prefect badge in Dumbledore's outstretched palm, he slowly exited the room.
He was halfway back to the Slytherin dungeon when he let out a frustrated roar and kicked the wall as hard as he could. As far as he could tell, the fact that he was entirely innocent hadn't helped him a jolt so far, and it would never help him as everyone in this strange universe seemed to think him purely evil, whether he protested his innocence or not. In all, it was a wretched situation and he didn't see how it would get any better.
"Today you will make Veritaserum," Snape sneered two weeks later, to a class which was primarily tired of his disdain. "Or, should I say, attempt to make Veritaserum, for I hardly believe any of your potions will be acceptable."
Tom sighed and shook his head. Ever since his late night meeting with Dumbledore, Snape had treated Tom worse than he even treated Harry. This cheered the Gryffindor up quite a bit, and might have effectively stopped his complaining of his Potions master, but it angered Tom to no end. In all, throughout the past two weeks, Tom had been forced to put up with all the hatred and anger that would have been directed to a new Lord Voldemort, without any of the fear and deference of a single Death Eater. Surely even Voldemort himself didn't have it quite this bad.
But Snape went on deprecating his students in his greasy, whiny tone, and Tom just tuned him out and started to pull ingredients out of his bag, preparing for the Potion.
"Mr. Marvolo," Snape shouted upon seeing this, "What are you doing?"
"Preparing for making Veritaserum – as with any Potion, the longer it brews, the more effective it is. Most of the Veritaserum used today is simmered for a week in entirety – I don't expect you will allow us that much time, so I had better make the best of what limited class time you've given us to make a decent facsimile of true Veritaserum," Tom replied, mincing the small button mushrooms that featured as a base for many psychoactive potions.
Snape was silent, only glaring at him. "You will have forty minutes," he sneered. "Begin."
And as he said it, Tom poured an entire bottle of aged dragon's blood into his cauldron and the mushrooms followed shortly. He began to grind three jobberknoll feathers in a mortar and pestle, ignoring many of the students as they rushed to the front of the room to grab lovage and wormwood. He wouldn't need those until the potion turned clear, and it was still a deep red when he sprinkled the ground feathers in and set it to stir, adding a bit of daisy root wine and a whole moonstone and setting it to simmer. The potion slowly clarified as the moonstone absorbed the unwanted elements of the dragon's blood.
Tom slowly walked to the front of the room and carefully chose from what was left, slowly walking back to his seat again to stir the potion gently. It was nearly clear, so he set about slicing the lovage and cubing the wormwood, adding them simultaneously once the potion was utterly transparent and he had taken out the now dark red moonstone. He leaned back in his chair, looking around him to see several students still chopping mushrooms, and smiled. He would have to filter the potion three times through a sage and willow filter before it was quite done, but that could wait until the final ten minutes of class. He set the cauldron to stir for him and pulled out a small piece of parchment, opening it and refolding it repeatedly, pondering.
The day after Dumbledore took his prefect's badge, while he was studying in the library for an Arithmancy test, he had been approached by a prefect he recognised only vaguely, as the Gryffindor fifth year female prefect, and one of Ginny's friends. "Why weren't you at the meeting this afternoon?" she asked. Tom had never been one to miss a meeting.
"They didn't tell you? I'm not a prefect anymore," he muttered, and considered ignoring the girl from that point forward, but suddenly realised that she was a very good contact to have, should he ever need to deliver something into the Gryffindor girls' fifth year dormitory. He looked up from his book. "Dumbledore took my badge last night."
The girl – was her name Amelia? – frowned. "You didn't have anything to do with the message on the wall, did you?"
"Of course not," Tom replied, mildly annoyed that everyone assumed that, but realising that this girl wasn't jumping to any conclusions that weren't logical – after all, Dumbledore would have had a reason for punishing him. "But everyone thinks so – your friend Potter wanted me sent to Azkaban. I suppose he can't live with a Slytherin who's actually popular." Tom tried to laugh, and Ginny's friend actually did.
She smiled after a while, and said, "I just noticed you weren't there and wanted to see what was going on – Malfoy was an insufferable conceit again, and you were sorely missed." Quickly and quietly, then, she left.
Since then she had found him after every prefect meeting, waiting patiently in the library, and had told him what went on. That night, he was going to give her the parchment for Ginny.
"You have five minutes remaining," Snape sneered from the front of the classroom, and Tom would have liked to wait until the very last minute to filter his potion, but realised that that wasn't a very good idea, and instead sauntered to the front of the classroom to pick up a filter and returned to his table casually, setting it up to drain into an oak bowl. Carefully he poured his potion into the filter, and waited a minute until all the liquid had drained through. Then he tossed the mushrooms that had been caught in the filter into a waste bin and switched bowls, pouring the potion through again. It went faster the second time, and even faster the third, and he was left with a few minutes to spare during which he cleaned his cauldron out and packed up, setting a small vial full of the stuff on the corner of his desk.
Soon enough Snape shouted that their time was up and went down the rows, collecting vials and insulting each student's Potion-making ability. When he came to Tom's desk, however, he could find nothing wrong with the liquid in the vial, so he instead said, "You know, Mr. Marvolo, that a poorly brewed Potion could result in severe repercussions to whoever should try it."
Tom simply nodded, and Snape added one drop of his potion to a glass of water on his desk. "Why don't you try some, Marvolo?"
Tom confidently walked up to the front of the room, and drank the entire glass in one swig. He could see Snape sneering at him, but as he swallowed, he ceased caring. There came a voice from the back of the room that he thought he recognised as Harry Potter's. "What's your name?" he shouted.
Tom's befuddled thoughts danced upon the issue that he really shouldn't be telling the entire class his full name, but then he settled on the fact that to be quite honest, he hardly cared anymore, and as Snape shouted out "Potter! Ten points from Gryffindor for your impudence and interruption," Tom answered simply "Tom Marvolo Riddle."
No one heard but Snape, who glared at him and sent him to his seat, pronouncing his potion a failure. Tom, however, knew otherwise as his mind cleared quickly from the small dose and short brewing time.
Harry cornered him as the students were dismissed. "Who are you?" he snapped.
"Ophicus Serpens Marvolo, you twit, and the potion's worn off."
"You mean it worked?"
"Of course it worked, do you take me for an amateur?"
Harry gave Tom a sidelong glance and then pulled a vial out from his robes, quickly dipping it into the potion and taking it out again, full, before Snape was the wiser. "You will tell no one."
Tom grimaced. "Why should I do anything you tell me to, Potter?" he scoffed, as Harry slipped the vial back into his pocket.
"Because if you tell, I slip some of this into your drink at lunch, and before you know it, you're in Azkaban because you've told Dumbledore that you're Lord Voldemort." Harry glared at Tom and turned away. "That's why."
"That would scare me, were I likely to tell Dumbledore anything I wouldn't have him know, Potter," he shouted, but Harry was long gone. Tom turned, instead, to Snape, and said, "You know that Potter just pocketed some of my Veritaserum," angrily.
Snape looked up at him and glared. "You would be best not to tell tales about other students, Mr. Marvolo, because I hate to take points from my own house."
Tom wanted to say that he was telling the truth, but he saw in Snape's eyes that it hardly mattered whether it was true or not – Snape would accept no testimony from him now. "I'm not who you think I am," was all he said as he left the room.
Down the hallway and out of earshot, Harry Potter was whispering furtively to Hermione Granger. "So… I pocketed some," he finished.
"Harry!" she exclaimed, although softening her admonition to a whisper, "If Snape finds out he'll kill you! Use of Veritaserum is highly regulated; I was shocked he even used any on Riddle like that. You have to destroy it now."
Harry only shook his head. "No way, Hermione, not when I can use this on Riddle and have him blab the fact that he's Voldemort. It's perfect – he'll be sent away to Azkaban, finally."
Hermione, however, was not to be appeased and didn't so much as look at him again on their way to Charms, where Ron was waiting. Harry slid into a seat next to him and began whispering the story of their Potions class, excitedly. Ron only beamed. "You know what this means, Harry?" he whispered, thrilled. "We can finally find out what Riddle is doing with Ginny!"
"Why not just ask Ginny?" Hermione asked, slightly angry with her two best friends.
"Aw, come on, Hermione," Ron moaned. "If you thought that Riddle was up to something, would you tell Harry and me?"
"Yes."
Ron sighed. "Okay, stupid question. But if, say, Krum turned evil and started trying to use you to get Harry, would you tell us?"
"Yes, Ron, and why are you comparing Tom to Viktor Krum? It's not as though he's trying to get Ginny to be his girlfriend."
Ron suddenly became very interested in getting his notes from his bag. "Of course not, Hermione."
"That's what you're afraid of?" Hermione laughed. "That your little, innocent sister will start going out with Lord Voldemort?"
Ron blushed to the roots of his hair but nodded. "Well… yes, Hermione," he finally said.
Hermione shook her head bemusedly. "First of all, we still have no reason to think that Tom is really Voldemort. Even Dumbledore doesn't think so, but with the Order around ready to send him off to Azkaban, he had to do something to punish Tom. And even if Tom were You-Know-Who in disguise, there's no reason to think that Ginny wouldn't realize that as soon as any of the rest of us, and avoid him."
Ron nodded slowly, but stood his ground. "Okay, fine," he said to Hermione, "But even if he's not You-Know-Who, he's up to no good with Ginny and I just know it."
Hermione shook her head. "And you wonder why Ginny doesn't confide in you, Ron."
"Harry, when you use the Veritaserum on Riddle, ask him about Ginny, okay?"
Harry nodded, and their conversation was cut short by Riddle's entrance and Professor Flitwick's excited squeak to begin class.
Charms class went slowly for Tom, who was still seething about the events in Potions, but eventually it ended and he made his way to lunch, where he was effectively ignored by the entirety of Slytherin house. Blaise Zabini offered his condolences for Snape's actions in Potions class – Tom was the first Slytherin anyone had seen Snape take an active dislike towards, but beyond that no one so much as gave Tom the time of day.
He had the same trouble in Arithmancy, the numbers swam on the page in front of him and he closed his eyes and rubbed his head in frustration, but nothing would work. Finally he gave up, spoke to Professor Vector about a headache, and got dismissed to the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey, of course, found nothing wrong with him, but by the time she had checked him over thoroughly, class was finished and Tom went directly to dinner.
Afterwards, he sat in the library, waiting for the prefect's meeting to end and Amelia O'Connor to come and tell him what happened, fiddling with the bit of parchment again. He had reinforced it and fireproofed it and protected it against every sort of destruction, and now he pulled it out and folded it and refolded it whenever he had spare time, wondering if it was possible to perfect it further. He doubted it.
Amelia tapped him on the shoulder, a silly smile on her face, and sat down across from him, still smiling. "Hi," she said.
"What news from the prefect meeting?" he asked.
"They're patrolling the halls again, just like they did my first year – to protect against whatever wrote that message," she said, calmly. "So don't be out past curfew." He nodded. "Or, if you do, do it on alternating Thursdays, starting tonight – that's when Colin and I are patrolling, and we'll overlook it.
Tom smiled a bit at that, and she continued. "Malfoy's going in to be just what you were, now that you're gone – he's trying to usurp the Head Boy's spot. But he's not doing so well because no one likes him except Pansy, really. Hermione's heading up a committee to make sure the school is still safe against Apparition, Professor Quinn suggested it, but they won't start for another two weeks or so.
"We're trying to get decorations in order for Christmas, but every house wants their colours to predominate, so we're having a spot of trouble with that. I tried to tell them that Christmas colours are typically red and green, but they wouldn't listen. The Head Boy went on and on about Ravenclaw being underrepresented. But that's effectively all that is happening."
She laughed and Tom smiled, pulling out a parchment. "I was wondering if you could deliver this to Ginny for me," he said, sliding it across the table to her. Amelia looked at it, and, seeing it was blank, frowned.
"Well, I don't see why not, but why can't you give it to her yourself? And what is it?" "She'll know what it is," he assured her. "But she's been avoiding me since Halloween, so I figured I'd have to deliver it through someone else. It's a way for me to…" he paused, before continuing, "help her with her Potions work."
Amelia smiled and folded it, sliding it into her pocket. "Of course I'll give it to her. But she's worried about the Quidditch match on Saturday, so I don't know when I'll be able to."
Tom nodded and thanked her, adding, "Just one more thing – don't tell her who it's from. I'd like it to be a secret…"
Amelia's smile widened to a smirking chuckle. "All right, Marvolo."
Tom thanked her again, smiling a bit himself, and then was gone. As he left, Amelia sighed and shook her head. With both Ophicus Marvolo and Harry Potter after her, Ginny Weasley had to be luckiest girl on the face of the planet.