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: So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and the like. I'll probably have a fast turnaround for the next one, unless I get distracted by writing chapter 23. Thanks to Fantome for being the only person to revew chapter 19. I like this chapter because it gets a lot said, I guess. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as well.

Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 20: Discoveries

As soon as Amelia got back to the common room, Elisa pulled her aside. "I need some help," she whispered. Amelia blinked slowly and motioned for her friend to continue. "We need to keep Ginny occupied at all times – she has a new diary and Harry's told us to get it away from her."

Amelia nodded slowly. Ginny writing in a journal again was a frightening reminder of their first year and Harry Potter getting into it made it all the more serious. "Harry was upset about it?" she asked.

"Furious," Elisa responded.

Amelia squinted. "And Ginny was writing to Tom again?"

"Yes," Elisa answered.

"Don't you think it's strange that she calls Ophicus, Tom? And that Harry gets so worked up about her dealings with him?"

Elisa nodded slowly. "Yes, but I don't see how the two are related."

"Ophicus told me to give her that parchment she's been writing on."

"Oh," was all Elisa could say.

"And there's writing on the wall again, just like first year." Elisa was silent. "I think Ophicus Serpens Marvolo is the heir to Slytherin. And that his real name is Tom M. Riddle."

"You have got to be kidding – him, the only reasonably fair Slytherin in the school the heir to the founder? He likes Gryffindors – why would he want to take over the school?"

"Maybe it's all a front."

"Maybe he's a victim like Ginny was."

Amelia was silent for a while and conceded the point, but before she could get across the room to the stairwells, she sunk into one of the chairs by the fire in shock. "Maybe Ginny wasn't a victim," she whispered.

Elisa sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. "That's just silly – how could Ginny not be a victim? She's Ginny, we know her, she got sorted into Gryffindor and you know how the Sorting Hat can read your thoughts. It wouldn't have put a Death Eater in Gryffindor."

"Why not? And besides, if she was a victim, why didn't she tell us?"

Elisa shook her head. "I don't know. But I don't believe Ginny is evil. That doesn't fit with her, it doesn't fit with who she was or who she is. I can't believe we wouldn't have a clue if she really was up to something."

"We have to confront her on this," Amelia said.

"I tried, she just denies it."

"You've got to admit that's suspicious."

"Maybe she's ashamed of it. She didn't just get petrified; she was somehow lured into the chamber itself. She might feel like a dupe, and she doesn't want us to know."

Amelia frowned and thought for a moment. "Remember first year? How her robes would be covered in chicken feathers and blood some days, or paint others? And she would be pale and sickly and so very shy afterwards?" Elisa nodded. "Doesn't that strike you as strange, given her personality now?" Elisa nodded again. "She was killing chickens, she was writing the messages. I saw her get up out of her bed some nights – sleepwalking, I thought – but I think it was different. I think the diary, Tom, possessed her. That was why she wasn't sleeping well or eating well, she was probably terrified and guilty about it.

Elisa frowned, confused, and so Amelia was forced to continue. "I've read books about psychological troubles related to possession. The victim – Ginny, in this case – usually feels so guilty and at fault for their victimisation that they won't talk about it unless it's absolutely necessary. She would have had to tell her family, thus Ron knows about it, and Harry saved her so he must know, and with those two knowing it's no surprise Hermione does, but she didn't have to tell any of us – she could remain just the last victim and we would believe her. We wouldn't question her strange behaviour because it was just fact and we didn't know her back then. But something's going on this year too and if she's started to withdraw from us, that's a very bad sign.

"Judging from Harry and Ron's reactions I think Ophicus has to be related, but I don't know how."

Elisa sat in shock, and the silence weighed down on them for a few moments before she spoke up again. "Well, maybe you were right – maybe he is Tom."

Amelia winced. "Then I feel like quite the idiot, if he's really the Heir to Slytherin."

Elisa smiled slightly. "My thoughts exactly – wouldn't we have been able to tell all this time if he really was worse than Malfoy?"

Amelia shrugged. "All I know is that Ophicus being Tom from Ginny's first year is the only way this all fits. And it means we have to keep Ginny away from him."

Elisa nodded in agreement and they climbed the steps to the dormitory. Ginny was peacefully asleep; the curtains wide open so everyone could see. Her two friends smiled and got to work searching for the parchment Ophicus – or Tom – had given Ginny. They couldn't find it.

"It can wait until morning," Amelia whispered, and Elisa nodded. Surely nothing would happen before morning.

In the Gryffindor common room, Harry, Hermione, and Ron were bent over a table discussing. "This proves Riddle is up to something," Harry said warningly and Ron was too shocked to even agree.

Hermione merely shook her head. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all this," she insisted. "There must be."

Ron snapped out of his shock and snapped back that certainly there was a reasonable explanation, and it was that Riddle was once again trying to kill Ginny. "And I'm not going to let that happen," he concluded adamantly.

Hermione frowned. "But Riddle doesn't have any secret plans or anything, he's certainly not out to kill Ginny."

"How do you know that, Hermione?" Ron insisted.

"Because I've been working with him on Defence, and he certainly isn't up to anything – he's too swamped with work to be up to anything, or at least he was before Halloween; Malfoy and Pansy made him do all their work as well, so between that and school work – he's in as many classes as I am, after all – he certainly didn't have time to be forming an evil plot."

Harry laughed. "Hermione, remember who we're talking about. He plots subconsciously or something. It doesn't take extra effort."

Hermione, however, continued to frown. She realised that neither of her friends were going to concede to her on this point, even if she was right. However, she was far from admitting defeat and she considered that the best recourse would simply be to change the subject. "Have you two looked at the next charms chapter? Entrancing Enchantments are next – I think they deserve a little more than the two weeks Flitwick is giving them before the Christmas Holidays, after all, they're rather finicky spells."

Ron stared at her blankly. "Hermione, when do we ever read a chapter before it's assigned?"

Hermione shrugged. "It might prove useful on Tuesday when you have to cast the charm in class, is all I'm saying."

Ron laughed at Hermione. In fact, he was either laughing or scoffing at Hermione about the very idea of working ahead in Charms until the Tuesday class when, after five minutes, Hermione's monkey was slowly and rather drunkenly dancing and his was staring in his face blankly.

Leaning over, Hermione corrected his wrist position. "It's all in how you hold your wand, Ron. You're still using such an elementary grip that all these Charms are almost impossible for you. But if you'd just listen to me when I tell you that a more advanced grip will help you…" She shook her head, and adjusted his grip as well. "Now try," she said.

He tried, but nothing happened. Across the room, Tom was smirking at them and leaning back in his chair perilously. Hermione sighed in frustration. "You're doing it all wrong, Ron," she admonished, correcting his wrist position yet again and directing his hand through the requisite movements slowly. "It's not a swish and flick movement, it's much more a swirl and jab. Honestly, Ron."

Ron rubbed his eyes and picked up his wand again, beginning the incantation. He thought he was doing quite well when, two seconds later, Harry shouted in joy and he lost his place in the spell. He spun towards his friend and saw that Harry's monkey too was now dancing slowly and rhythmically to some unknown beat. Wincing, he almost threw down his wand. "It's hopeless, Hermione," he whined.

"It's certainly not hopeless, Ron," Hermione consoled him, before adding that had he really wanted to master Entrancing Enchantments early he could have read ahead in the book, but he had laughed at the very suggestion of that.

It wasn't hopeless, though, and by the end of the class Ron's monkey was tripping through a waltz just like everyone else's, thanks to the one-on-one assistance from Hermione and Professor Flitwick throughout the second half of the session. He beamed as he left the class, proud of his accomplishment. Hermione didn't have the heart to qualify it with the gross amount of assistance he needed.

When the three of them arrived at the great hall for dinner, Ginny and her friends were already sitting on the end of the table and chatting angrily. Elisa had confronted Ginny about diary-writing again, and Ginny was asserting the fact that she certainly didn't need even one nanny, much less four of them. "You have no idea what you're talking about," she fumed.

Amelia sighed and said, dead-pan, "We do know what we're talking about, Ginny, and I'll say it myself that as charming as Tom may seem, if he's at fault for what happened first year then he's not someone to trust."

Ginny only stared. "…Tom?" she whispered.

Amelia smiled. "Tom Riddle. Or Ophicus Marvolo as he is now."

Ginny gulped. "So maybe you do know," she conceded. "But he was as much of a victim as I was."

Elisa gasped and Amelia paled. "Ginny…" she whispered, "You can't mean that."

Ginny blinked. "I do mean that. He was possessed just like me, he almost died just like me, and the only difference was that no one like Harry was there to save him, so he had to save himself."

Amelia blinked. "So he's not the heir to Slytherin?"

"No," Ginny insisted.

"Then who is?" asked Elisa.

"You-Know-Who," Ginny said at length.

"But that means You-Know-Who got into the school our first year," Jeannette insisted. "That's not logical. It means that You-Know-Who got into the school on Halloween, and that's… that's…"

"Why Harry was so upset about the writing on the wall?" offered Gwen. "If it really is You-Know-Who that's doing this, some things make a lot more sense."

Jeannette shook her head. "So why does Harry hate Ophicus, or Tom, or whatever."

Ginny winced. "Harry thinks that Tom is You-Know-Who."

Her friends were absolutely silent for an eternal moment, and then Amelia spoke up. "Why would he think that?" she asked softly.

"Because You-Know-Who's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle," Ginny said so softly that they could barely hear.

The silence that followed was deafening, it drowned out even the customary chatter and noise of the Great Hall at dinnertime. Ginny sat, frozen in fear, as her friends slowly understood the meaning of what she was saying. They wouldn't understand. They couldn't understand. How could they?

"Ophicus is named after You-Know-Who?" Elisa asked blankly.

Ginny froze, hoping they would accept that as the answer, but they didn't. Jeannette spoke up. "No, Elisa. Ophicus is You-Know-Who."

Amelia was silent and Gwen gasped. "Is that true, Ginny?" shuddered Elisa.

Ginny nodded slowly. "Tom Riddle is You-Know-Who. But not the Tom Riddle you know. A contortion of him. Tom Riddle was hijacked and turned into You-Know-Who."

Amelia squinted. "How so?"

"The diary. It was designed to take the hopes and goals of everyone writing in it and spit them out as a cruel contortion of humanity – in short, as the Tom Riddle who would become You-Know-Who. I think that Tom and I were the only ones to write in the diary, and he wrote first, so Tom Riddle became… well, you know."

"So the home-schooling?" Amelia began.

"False. He finished his fifth year at Hogwarts years and years ago – fifty years ago or something. He's been trapped in the chamber since then."

"Why didn't you see him when you went to fight the basilisk?"

Ginny shrugged. "I was preoccupied with my own problems," she answered. "I suppose Harry was too. It was dark in there, you could barely see far enough ahead to fight, much less make out a shape on the edges of the room."

Her friends nodded slowly but said nothing. "How do you know Tom was a victim?"

Ginny paused, trying to find a really good reason why Tom was most certainly not evil, but she knew full well that she couldn't. "I don't, not really," she answered.

Amelia frowned. "Ginny, you have to give us the parchment."

Ginny stared. "No, I don't."

"Yes you do," Amelia continued. "For your own safety. This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, not just any Slytherin. You've got to stop writing to him. And probably stop with the Potions lessons. I'm sure Hermione would be willing to help you."

Ginny glared. "Tom is better than Hermione at Potions, and he's not up to anything anyway," she insisted.

Amelia just shook her head.

They passed the rest of the meal in silence, and upon getting to the dormitory Ginny realised that she certainly wouldn't be able to talk to Tom without leaving. She snatched up the parchment before Amelia or Elisa could get to it and shoved it firmly into her pocket, fighting them off with uncanny fierceness before heading down to the common room. Elisa followed. "Ginny!" she shouted, "Give us the parchment! We're just doing what's good for you!"

Ginny turned on her friend, furious. It wasn't even so much that she wanted to talk to Tom anymore, but rather she knew for a fact that she wasn't going to let anyone boss her around, not her family nor her friends nor her housemates. She was her own person. She glared at Elisa and the other girl backed off, allowing her to leave the common room and head to the library. Hiding in a corner and pulling out the parchment, she saw on its pages a note from Tom, asking what she was so angry about. Puzzled, she wrote back.

"Amelia and Elisa are on Harry's side – they tried to steal the parchment." But as those words disappeared she realised what was perhaps more puzzling than anything else. "How did you know I was angry? I haven't written anything."