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: We interrupt this fanfic to bring… a chapter that is mostly useless but for the fact that it builds character and I wanted one that didn't involve life-threatening danger after the last few. Don't worry, it's all downhill from here, no more questions – only answers. But those come slowly, I suppose.
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 25: What the Bloody Hell Was That?
Tom awoke the next day to the sound of a quill scratching against a parchment. Yawning a bit he looked over to see Draco Malfoy bent over his desk, apparently thinking very hard about what he was writing. The blonde boy stopped writing, sat back in his chair, and wondered aloud; "Do you think she'd rather hear that the weather is superb for midwinter or that the mudbloods live in constant fear of being killed?" he asked the air.
"I'd go with the weather, the thought of killing doesn't sound too savory to me, not the kind of thing a woman would enjoy," Tom answered snidely. Draco spun around in his chair and glared at his housemate.
"I'd keep my thoughts to myself, if I were you. If I wanted advice I'd ask for it."
"But you did ask, Draco," Tom said with a smile, as falsely kind as he could make it. "I was only trying to help, after all."
Draco turned back to the parchment before adding, "I took some of your parchment, as mine was all packed into my trunk. I hope you don't mind – or rather, I don't much care either way but my parents taught me to be polite to my housemates."
Tom felt a cold stone forming in the pit of his stomach. If Draco was writing this letter on the parchment that Tom thought he was using, well, he certainly did mind. "Where did you find it?" Tom asked cautiously, knowing far too well the answer.
"It was just lying on your desk – if it was really important you would have hid it somewhere, or you should have, but knowing you, Marvolo, you'd be idiotic enough to leave it out."
Tom shook his head and moved to stand behind Draco. "I don't think you should be using that parchment, Malfoy," he began, as the words at the top of the page began to disappear. "Mother," Ginny must have been reading, "I am sorry to inform you that I will not be returning to the manor for the Winter Holidays. However, as there is always good news to accompany the bad news, it was our most esteemed Dark Lord who closed the doors upon the leaving students. He left a personal message saying that Dumbledore, that great oaf, will fall within the year, along with Scarhead and his friends. I eagerly look forward to seeing firsthand the power of the Dark Lord, and although I regret that I will not be able to see you for the holidays you will admit that I am very lucky not to have left – or I would certainly not have been witness to our Lord's great victory."He felt he was breaking into a cold sweat, but the only outward sign of his fear was his slowly blinking eyes. "In other news, the weather continues as it was – we had quite a mild and long fall and the temperature has hardly dipped below freezing. Snow covers the castle, however, and the grounds are picturesque in their beauty, although nowhere near approaching the grandeur and scale of the Manor in winter, of course. Thank you for the sweets you sent with your last message, although if you continue to send them I will surely lose my physique for Quidditch. Do you want your son to grow a pot-belly, mother? I thought not. The fat-reducing ones are only twice as expensive, and you know I vastly prefer them." Draco, himself, watched in paralyzed confusion and interest as every last word disappeared from the page. "Something like this might happen," Tom muttered, more to himself than Malfoy. He prayed that Ginny figured out what was going on.
For a long time, the parchment was blank. Draco stared at it for a few minutes, and then picked up the quill to begin writing again. "Hello?" he asked the parchment, and it too disappeared.
"Tom? Is that you? What's going on?" Came Ginny's slow, cautious reply. Soon it too disappeared and nothing more appeared. A mischevious grin came upon the blonde boy's face that Tom could sense from behind him, without even having to see his face. Tom tried to continue to breathe, but it was a very difficult proposition.
"Oh, sorry there, I just wrote on the wrong parchment on accident. I was writing home to mother, although I suppose you know that by now." He sniggered. Tom winced.
The ink sank into the parchment, disappearing almost apologetically to Tom's eyes. Ginny had to know he was an orphan, that this game wouldn't work. He willed for her not to give away her identity. Tom held his breath and Draco fidgeted in his seat, twisting and turning to try and see Tom's face, but without standing up, he couldn't. Finally Malfoy swallowed his pride and jumped from his chair, turning on Tom and slurring, "What the hell is going on?"
But Tom just watched, entranced, as a very familiar, curved hand started writing on the parchment. Ginny was responding. Draco followed his line of sight and gasped when he saw the message on the parchment, his normally pale face turning even paler in shock. "Well, I don't know what you're trying to play by calling me your mother (honestly now, that would just be kinky, darling) or by pretending to write to her – I know how you despise the beast, but I think I've found the answer to your questions – you know how he was the head of the 'Inquisitorial Squad' towards the end of last year? Well, they almost caught Potter and a bunch of his friends, but the Gryffindors got away from him. I hear the youngest Weasley girl got him in the face with a wicked Bat Bogey hex, his complexion was off for a week. Can you imagine the shame? Little, innocent Ginny Weasley hitting you square in the face with a Bat Bogey hex that sends you crying to mummy dearest!"
Tom couldn't help but laugh, slightly, to see Ginny's comments. Judging by Malfoy's reactions to them, they were probably true. He laughed a bit harder at that, but it didn't take long for Malfoy to come to his senses and turn on him, so he made sure to be across the room in case of that eventuality. "I repeat," Malfoy said, approaching him steelily, "who the bloody hell is this tart, and what the bloody hell is going on?"
Tom just laughed. "I picked it up off of some Ravenclaw I saw meddling with it in the hallways – no magic in the corridors and what not – and I've been trying to figure out who it leads to. Of course, whoever it is probably figured it was you with your Quidditch comments, infantile pride, and the fact that there aren't any other sixth years that would still be getting sweets from their mother."
Draco's formerly abnormally pale face was now red with fury. "You're lying, Marvolo. I know you're lying and it's time for you to tell me the truth. What the hell is that?"
"I'm telling the bleeding truth, Malfoy," Tom snapped, and rolled his eyes. "The fact that you can't accept the idea of anyone but a Gryffindor putting you down like that is your own business, not mine. I've been telling the truth since I got here."
Draco shook his head. "That's not true, Marvolo – Snape has told me as much, that Ophicus Serpens Marvolo isn't your real name at all, but he won't tell me what it is. You're a dirty liar and you have been from the first day I met you. But you're turning a new leaf over, at least in regards to me. From now on you tell me the truth. Or perhaps you want the rest of the school to know that you've been lying as well, eh? Now what's going on with that parchment?" After a pause he added, in a sick, sinister drawl, "And who's the tart you've been meeting?" He laughed. "I can't imagine anyone whose standards are so low they'd take you."
Tom didn't have to fake his slight look of fear, or the appalled disgust at the idea of Malfoy's comments being applied to Ginny, or the strange half-desire to forget all about being a wizard and pummel the other boy where he stood, but the crestfallen submission was something he worked hard at. He hoped Draco bought it, but the fact was that Malfoy didn't have a thing he could use to blackmail Tom with. The boy didn't know enough to tell anyone who mattered – and in any case, the people who were likely to have the most painful reactions – Potter and his acolytes, Dumbledore, apparently Snape as well – knew the truth, or at least they certainly knew more than Malfoy did, and so long as that remained the case everything was fine in Tom's book. (Well, not exactly fine, he allowed, but certainly not something to be overly concerned of blackmail about.) Like it or not, Dumbledore was headmaster as well as being a Gryffindor-favoring, soft, and slightly mad old codger, and like it or not, what went with being Gryffindor was being chivalrous and what went with being soft was being obscenely forgiving. That was probably Dumbledore's weakness, Tom thought, that he was so chivalrous and forgiving he'd give Lucifer a second chance if he thought it might help him make a new life for himself. Draco had no weapon, really – the knife that he had thought would stab Tom in the back did no such thing, but the important thing to do now was to get Malfoy away from the parchment before he found out something that would – such as the person on the other end of it being Ginny Weasley.
Now that would be something Dumbledore would just love to hear. Not only were there messages again, not only was Voldemort apparently getting back into the school, but Tom Riddle was getting back into Ginny Weasley's mind. Tom didn't want to think about the absurd conclusions Dumbledore would jump to then.
The parchment was talking again, however. "And now his father's in Azkaban, no less. So he's not running the school, that's for certain. Imagine that – beaten up by little Ginny and then his father shipped off by none other than the famous Harry Potter himself. And now there's no one to keep him out of trouble, so he has to mind which side of the line he walks on, but he's never had to do that before, you can be sure."
Draco was livid with rage. "That's a Gryffindor and I know it. Who is it?"
Tom shrugged. "I have no idea, Malfoy. None whatsoever." He applied his best, most pitiful look to the other boy. "I'd tell you if I knew, I swear by Merlin I would. But what with classwork and homework and all the prefect duties I used to have, I haven't been able to track her down – and she seems entirely opposed to meeting anywhere, so I can't just do that."
Malfoy looked into his face for a moment but he was no legilimens and couldn't find anything too dishonest there, and then stalked out of the room. "Tell your girlfriend to learn some respect for her superiors, Marvolo," he called back to Tom, but at least he was leaving.
As soon as the other boy left the room Tom pounced on the parchment, rapidly writing a thank you to Ginny. He took a deep breath of relief. But this put him in a rather odd position – he knew, now, that Snape had told his favorite student that Ophicus Serpens Marvolo was not what he seemed. What did Snape expect would be Malfoy's reaction upon hearing the truth, and why didn't Snape trust the other student to that? If he truthfully favored him as much as it appeared that he did, why didn't Snape say, "Your new housemate's name is Tom Marvolo Riddle," and have out with it? He supposed that perhaps "Your new housemate's name is Lord Voldemort, play nice," would be more likely Snape's words, but he didn't want to think about that possibility. Could it be that Snape was worried finding out that version of Tom's 'true' identity would send Draco to actually liking him, and Merlin forbid anything good actually happen to Tom as a result of his Potions master's newfound hatred. That was an interesting idea, though, the thought that Malfoy would actually like him better as the young Dark Lord.
Perhaps, even, be subservient?
Tom had to laugh at that idea.
"Tom, what the bloody hell was Draco Malfoy doing writing on this parchment?" Came the response, jarring Tom out of his pensive reverie. The watermark behind was a frenzy of confused motion, Tom hadn't been able to see it before but it was brutally clear now, that Ginny's mind, her thoughts, were a panic of motion and confusion. Except now it was oddly swollen, diluted, and blurred. He squinted to make out what was on the page. She was angry, a little, but alternated from being mostly confused and mostly betrayed, he thought, and everything was as though written on paper and soaked in water, blurring and falling apart.
He was a bit concerned about this change in the character of Ginny's thoughts, but he decided not to push it for the time being. He laughed a bit, thinking of and clearly seeing the disdain and downright hatred that existed between Ginny and Malfoy – between Ginny and every Slytherin except himself, really, and then sighed and picked up a quill to begin writing his answer. "He stole it, to write a letter to his mother," he began.
"Well, I could tell that!" came a hurried reply. He could almost imagine her anger, or rather, he could clarly see her anger reflected in the parchment,and he could clearly extrapolate her flushed face as she wrote the words, perhaps sighing in frustration at his density – she wasn't that stupid, after all, she'd be telling herself, and why did everyone always take her for the fool? There would be betrayal there, too, the idea that perhaps Tom was passing her between all the Slytherin boys – as disgusting a proposition to him as it was to her, when all was said and done. And he saw that in the watermark as well, the echoes of the same old 'china doll' and 'baby in a pram' that he had seen before. She seemed rather obsessed with that, he thought vaguely.
But she was waiting for a response and he could read her impatience in the watermark, so he scribbled back onto the parchment. "Beyond that, I don't know. I left it on my desk last night, I suppose, so that explains how he found it." It was, in truth, all that he could write, because he had decided that lying to her, especially here, would be absolutely useless. The thought of a fanciful story was appealing to him in its possible amusement, but it would do no good. Ginny was not trying to pin something on him, she was merely shocked and confused that Malfoy had written to her through the parchment. Besides that, and probably more important, was the fact that if he wanted to build her trust in him, which would almost certainly be necessary for him to get anywhere in dechiphering her thoughts, he would absolutely have to be honest with her.
Most of the time, he told himself. He would have to be honest with her most of the time. "But you handled it excellently – I wish you could have seen his face after he read what you said to him – absolutely shocked, he was." Tom smiled, almost laughed, and he could tell that the tension was lessening. The faint watermark behind his words calmed and stopped its frantic, angry, confused motion. The crisis was over.