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: Another chapter! I might actually stick to my roughly-once-a-week schedule for a bit! There are 11 more chapters (including this one) of which six are written. Please review! It will help me get to the end more quickly!
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 28: Occlumency
By morning, Tom realized that his fascination with Ginny Weasley had reached the level at which it could no longer be called anything but an obsession. Her thoughts were fascinating, complicated, and more than anything, confused. Oddly enough, the confusion only made them more interesting; it didn't cause him to discount her as a foolish girl and be on his way. He still wanted to pick them apart, wanted to pick them apart even more, if that was possible. He had always rationalized that this was because of the challenge they offered, but the more he realized how interesting reading the parchment was, the more he realized that his interest in picking apart Ginny Weasley was not purely a matter of academic ambition. Frighteningly enough, it wasn't simply for the challenge of the game that he played it. There was something else there. This bothered him greatly; he was supposed to be a Slytherin, the chief Slytherin, so very ambitious and uncaring that it was impossible to define him any other way. And what was more, his action in deciphering Miss Weasley was supposed to prove to himself that he was still the ruthless, ambitious, and power-hungry Slytherin he had always been. But the more that he thought about it, the more that he realized that as much as he would have pegged himself as a being of pure ambition, that wasn't what he was.
The problem wasn't that there weren't interesting things to figure out on the level of her relationships with other people – Harry and Ron in particular gave him hours of entertainment. The element of a challenge was certainly there, as was the element of prevailing over that challenge. And the fact that she wouldn't want him doing this only added to the fun of the situation; she couldn't stop him from figuring her out; no matter what she didn't say or what she said, he had first class access to her inner workings through the parchment. It was amusing how fate, for the first time all year, appeared to love Tom Riddle, but maybe that was simply because he knew how to use a situation. So, he reasoned, suitable Slytherin rationales weren't totally missing from this situation; but nevertheless a little feeling in his gut told him that he wasn't really being cold-hearted, proud, and ambitious when he decided that he needed to sort Ginny Weasley out. That he had partly honorable motives, even. That maybe, and this was the thought that bothered him so incredibly much, maybe he really just was fascinated by the girl and wanted to keep up the connection from his previous year. Maybe he just liked her.
Of course, right up there with the distressing thought that his interest in Ginny Weasley was not the familiar interest he had in many other people – how could they be used as tools – was the more comforting thought that, more than anything else, Tom Riddle wanted to control Ginny Weasley. He wanted to take her impetuous spirit and her assurance that she was his equal, and, well, prove her so wrong that she recognized his greatness, and bowed to his infinitely superior will. He wanted to control her completely, if only because he had not been able to so far.
But these were thoughts that were only appropriate for the early morning hours, and he didn't even realize how long he had been reading the parchment until the parchment itself woke up – he glanced at a nearby clock to see that it was almost eight in the morning and Ginny, evidently, was waking up. He almost sat back in horror. He had honestly spent the entire night, more than twelve hours, having a make-believe conversation with a Gryffindor, and not just so that he could better take advantage of the foolish girl. He must be losing his touch, or something.
Or perhaps he was just tired. He had heard of people hallucinating upon sleep deprivation, he had heard that it caused the victim to act like a drunken fool. Perhaps this was what he acted like when drunk, soppy and emotional and not his normal self. That wouldn't be too hard to believe. He decided to get some sleep, as that would certainly be the only thing that would help with his Ginny problem. After all, with a good nap behind him, with his brain functioning again, he would go back to viewing her, and everyone else, as a means to an end, as a potential helper or a potential hurdle but certainly not as anything other than an object in his path to success and glory. He was, after all, still a Slytherin.
At about the same time, Ginny was waking up with a splitting headache and a sour mood. Her identification with Harry, Ron, and Hermione had worn off with the night and she couldn't help feeling, with a stab of pain between her eyes, that no one was really on her side anymore. Perhaps if this blasted headache would go away she could properly think things through, but it hurt to the point of distraction. Wearily she pulled the covers back over her head, trying to pretend that the day did not need to begin. What was the point, anyway? Classes did not resume for another week, she could afford to put off her assignments for another day while she nursed her aching head. Maybe when she felt a bit better she could wander down to the hospital wing and see if Madame Pomfrey could do anything to dull the pain. And then she ought to start on her Potions work – Snape had assigned a ridiculous amount, to prepare them for their O.W.L.s, and if Ginny was certain of one thing it was that she was not going to Tom Riddle for help on Potions any more. Even though it would mean that her marks in Potions would probably take a nose dive.
Then again, she thought ruefully, Hermione might not agree. Hermione, the perfect little child, would say that she should ace Potions without Tom's help. Or that she should ace Potions with Tom's help and somehow stop him from letting Voldemort into the school as well. Or some such unlikely scheme that even Hermione would think could only work if you were as powerful and as perfectly studious as Miss Granger herself. A witch like Ginny didn't stand a chance. And so Ginny decided, in her pain-clogged mind, to ace Potions without any help, partially to spite Tom and partially to spite Hermione.
Of course, in reality, Hermione would have been thrilled with Ginny's new resolve, especially as it got the weary girl out of bed, through a cold shower, and to the hospital wing for some pain relief. Madame Pomfrey gave her a tonic to drink, and although it tasted wretched it dulled the pain. Breathing calmly again, and no longer clenching her jaw from pain, Ginny made her way to the Great Hall to get a bite to eat before heading upstairs to study. She ended up only picking up a roll and heading back out, the combination of the ceiling which portrayed an impossibly bright day outside and the noisy students excited over the various parcels they had received for Christmas made the Great Hall an excruciating place to be, even considering the tonic. Sighing, Ginny made her way back to the Gryffindor Tower. Perhaps the library would be better, she thought, but the very idea of running into Tom accidentally was enough to persuade her against using the library to study. The Gryffindor Common room would be better.
She climbed up to her bedroom and retrieved her study materials and then flounced into an armchair by the fire in the common room, Potions text in hand and notes parchment beside her. Tom's work had caught her up and put her ahead of the game in the class, and she wanted to stay that way without his help, and so she carefully began transcribing the contents of the text, now in bullet form. Perhaps she could color-code it later on. That sounded altogether too much like something Hermione would do, so she decided against it.
After wading through the same three pages of her Potions text no less than six times, and retaining none of it, Ginny was feeling much more amenable to Mr. Riddle. She found it hard to imagine how much easier it had been to understand Potions when he had been teaching. Then again, maybe her headache had something to do with it. She pulled out her Charms assignment and skimmed through it – Charms was easily her best subject. When it was completed, an hour later, she decided that the problem was not in her head but in her mastery of Potions, and that there really was only one solution.
It, however, was a solution she had decided against, at least until Tom apologized for the diary and for acting like a child, and as such she decided to simply blame her difficulties on her headaches and put off her Potions assignment until she felt more up to the challenge. She had no assignment in either Care of Magical Creatures or Herbology, which left Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Divination, and Ancient Runes. Gulping down her worry that a week would not be enough time to finish all that, she bravely picked up her History of Magic text, hoping to get the essay on whatever goblin revolution it was this time over with.
She caught herself drifting off about halfway through the reading, but found her place again fairly quickly and finished the essay as Hermione sat down beside her with a sigh. "I've wanted to talk to you all day," Hermione whispered. "I mean, just watching him won't do very much good – if he's conspiring with You-know-who he won't be likely to hint at it to us, now will he? So we need to pry it out of him, and the sooner the better, but how are we going to convince Ophicus to tell us anything?"
Ginny set her essay aside. She looked wearily up at Hermione. "I'll think about it, Hermione. I can't do much until classes start, though, I've put off my work so long that I barely have time for all of it," she confided. Hermione looked appalled, and reminded Ginny that she had spent most of her holiday in the library.
"With Tom – Ophicus," Ginny replied defensively.
"Working on Potions? Did it really take that long?"
Ginny sighed unhappily. "No, I haven't even asked for help on my Potions work. The thing is, the parchment seems to be acting strangely, we were trying to figure out what was wrong with it."
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "You didn't destroy it," she said suspiciously.
Ginny shook her head. "I couldn't, and anyway it doesn't matter, does it, because it means that now you have my help, and if I had done what you lot wanted me to do and alienated him completely you wouldn't have anyone to help you figure out what he was up to at all." Hermione looked wary for a moment and then nodded, admitting Ginny was right. She asked what was wrong with the parchment.
"It started," Ginny began, and then realized a horrible, horrible problem. "It started to broadcast my thoughts – I couldn't control it. Hermione, he knows I'm suspicious, he probably knows that we're spying on him, or if he doesn't he'll figure it out soon enough." She winced. "Why didn't I think of that earlier?"
Hermione's eyes widened in surprise and a bit of fear, and then after a moment of thoughtfulness she told Ginny to wait one second and rushed up to her dormitory, coming back with a pile of unwieldy books. She dropped them in front of Ginny. "These are a bunch of books on Occlumency. I took them out of the library to help Harry, but he's not much interested since the lessons with Dumbledore are going swimmingly. You're welcome to them; obviously we just need to get you good enough at occlumency to block the parchment, or to control what the parchment says." Ginny looked wearily at the pile of books, and thought about all the work she had to do for Transfiguration and Potions.
"Hermione," she whined. "I don't have the time to become an occlumens. I have so much else to do."
Hermione shook her head tersely, indicating that this was of the first importance, and that if Ginny's marks had to suffer in order for them to get to the bottom of Tom's possible connection with Voldemort, well, then Ginny's marks would suffer. "You know that this is more important, Ginny," she warned, and then added, with a smile, "You'll be good at this, Ginny. You're clever and you're a good liar, and you're marvelous at hiding your feelings, most of the time. It just takes a bit of focus and a bit of learning."
Ginny picked up one of the books – a theoretical history of occlumency – with a sigh. She began reading. This was looking dreary.
Tom, on the other hand, was faring much better. He was progressing through his assignments with a fair clip, he had yet to be accosted again by Ron, Hermione, or Harry, the Slytherins avoided him instinctively as if sensing, and obeying, the interdiction implicit in Malfoy's hatred for him. There were a couple Ravenclaw girls at a table behind him who would titter every so often, but besides that his time in the library had been peaceful and productive. He took a break between Arithmancy problems and glanced over the Parchment. Ginny was thinking about her Transfiguration work, and how she would never get it done, and looming in the back of her mind was the fact that she still hadn't started her Potions work, and she was so hopeless at it that she was in desperate need of help from Tom, but she was too proud and angry to ask him for assistance. Tom grinned. This was perfect, he thought – her desperation would overwhelm her pride, he was sure, and she would play right into his hands. He chuckled a little bit.
And then he saw in a fuzzy corner, a single word: Occlumency. It was getting bigger, and bigger, and eventually it grew to take up almost the entire page. He stared, angry. She was fighting back. She was so angry with him that she was cutting off the connection, finding a way to stop him from using the parchment. She was really serious about her suspicions, she was really serious about stopping him, and she was especially serious about not trusting him as a confidante any more. He momentarily forgot himself in his rage and tried to rip the paper in half, which of course it wouldn't do, and then crumpled it up and threw it into the litter basket. His hands were shaking. He had been so close, so tantalizingly close, and she had outsmarted him. Or not outsmarted him, but at least her mistrust had outweighed her curiosity and he had failed.
He forced himself to take a deep breath. She hadn't outsmarted him, not yet. And he could even use this to his advantage, he figured, make her guilty for hiding herself from him once his name was cleared. Perhaps. Probably. That would work. He could do that, trick her into opening herself up to him again, and possibly in the meantime take some precautions to prevent this happening again. Of course, once he prevailed she wouldn't do it again. He just had to be careful these next few weeks. Get back on her good side. Make her grateful to him, guilty that she had slighted him. And he would never pass up an opportunity to use the watermark in the parchment again. It was, after all, foolish to think that she would ever find out he had done it if he didn't tell her. It was untraceable.
And so it was decided, he would have to butter her up and befriend her, as much as he hated it he couldn't simply wait until she came to him with a failed Potions assignment. He shook his head and turned back to his Arithmancy.
It could wait until the morning.
And, in the morning, a pleasant surprise waited for him. On the parchment was written a note, in big bold letters. Tom, it said. I'm so sorry for what I said at our last meeting. It was rude and inappropriate. Please accept my apology. And, as if my profuse apology were not enough humiliation, if you could look kindly on me and help me with my Potions work, I would be most grateful. I've read through the section several times and it simply doesn't make any sense. Tom grinned. He knew she was lying through her teeth, or at least, he was fairly confident that she was lying through her teeth, but he was willing to accept that because it would allow him an in. And she was a good liar – her lies had a spark of truth in them; she did, after all, desperately need his help in Potions still. He looked at the watermark underneath the words as they disappeared. It was all flowers and butterflies and her feeling sorry and the dread looming of Potions work that she couldn't understand.
Oh, she was good. All that after only one night of study? She was very, very good.
He laughed and picked up a quill, beginning to write. He wondered, for a moment, if he should lay it on thick and hope that Ginny didn't realize she wasn't quite in time to keep him from knowing the truth, or be sullen and proud and more believable. But another look at the deceptive watermark taught him not to underestimate her. He went with the more conservative, latter option. He didn't want to give away all the cards in his hand, after all. Apology accepted, he wrote. Meet me in the library. And nothing more. The words slowly disappeared, and he packed up his things, pulled on his robes, and made his way to the library, where he found Ginny Weasley waiting, the picture of grateful, pitiful, remorse.
"Thank you, Tom," she whispered as he sat down. "Thank you so much." Anyone would have believed her, he thought, had they not known better. She opened her Potions text. "I can't understand this," she said, pointing to a page that even Tom had to admit was cryptic and difficult. He began explaining, tersely, and gradually allowed himself to warm to the subject, so as to make it appear that Ginny's repentance was breaking through to him and he was beginning to forgive her, if unwillingly.
She didn't seem to even notice it; she played her part absolutely perfectly. Tom even doubted himself for a moment. But only for a moment.
By lunchtime, they were finished, and Ginny said, offhandedly, as she closed the book and organized her notes, "I've been thinking, Tom, about the parchment. It seems rather unfair that you have a map of all my thoughts and emotions and I have a parchment that shows me only what you want, doesn't it?"
Tom stared at her. It was her own stupidity that had put her in this situation, and he wasn't going to allow her to know his thoughts and emotions when they were in the middle of playing this game of cat and mouse. It would ruin his poker face. "It's your own fault for not being more careful, Ginevra," he said sullenly.
Ginny looked truly crestfallen. "I know," she said meekly. "Of course I know. And I wouldn't expect you to add your tears, after all, I can't imagine you crying," Tom almost laughed. Flattery. "But perhaps just a drop of your blood. To even the field. You understand."
Tom stared at her, schooling his face to be wary and proud and not incredulous. "Perhaps," he said. Ginny smiled hopefully, thanked him again, and was gone.
What she had said was true, Tom had to admit. If this came down to a game of wits, he had the upper hand quite decidedly. But Tom wasn't sure he felt particularly bad about it. Then again, she was a year younger than him, and a Gryffindor, and he could hardly believe that she would outsmart him in the end. He knew her plot, he was watching her, and she was under the mistaken apprehension that he was falling for it. And, he thought as he wandered into a section of the library most likely to contain texts on Occlumency, he had the advantage of learning to hide his emotions before he pricked his finger. He had to be better at this than Ginny, he decided. After all, he was a Slytherin.
He studied all day, and it seemed elementary enough, and so in the evening he wrote on the parchment, quite simply, "You were right," and then filled his mind with a sense of justice, of trust, and a sincere desire to prove his worth, cut his pinky finger with a pen knife and squeezed the blood onto the parchment. The drops splattered onto the paper, dissolved away, and for a moment it seemed like nothing had happened on his end.
Then he had the most peculiar feeling; as if a door in the back of his mind were opening and he could sense, through the doorway, happiness. He looked at the parchment, and it nearly glowed yellow with joy and relief. He could feel her laughter, ringing in his head. She must not know that she had been bested at her own game, he decided. And it was novel feeling. It wasn't just knowing that she was happy, her happiness bled over into his own mind. He halted its progress. He turned it around, blocking it at the door, keeping his thoughts his own. The same thing must have been happening to Ginny, he decided. He pictured how it could be used to his advantage, and he smiled.
And, without further exploit, the Christmas holidays ended, and the Hogwarts Express returned to the school only a quarter full of students. It was a sad sight, watching the few children file back into the great hall, knowing that their comrades and compatriots were at home, stuck there for fear that there would be a serious attack. Dumbledore was grim, and the Professors' faces were full of dread. It looked, Tom had to admit, like the end of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Again. That, he had to admit, saddened him immensely.
Hogwarts was his home, after all. And to leave it without so much as a diploma would be more disappointing than he could imagine. He had always hoped, somehow, to return as a Professor in due time. He couldn't do that if it closed. He decided that this was a suitable emotion for Ginny to know he felt, and didn't stamp it down before it seeped through to her. He didn't know if it worked or not, but he could only assume the best when a little wave of pity, too small to be intentional, was reflected back at him. Everything was, shockingly enough, going according to plan.