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: Ten chapters to post after this one; I'm nearing the end! (And it's been a long time, too.) Thank you to gh for reviewing; the last chapter I posted was the first I wrote when I "came back" to the story after several years' hiatus; I had to take Tom's character in a different direction so I hope that it continues to be more believable. Please review!
Expectations of Grandeur: Chapter 29: Coming Clean
Hermione was, surprisingly, the last person to show up. Luna had arrived exactly on time and Neville had been there a few minutes early and plied Ginny with questions about the holidays. The three of them waited for Hermione to show up, sitting impatiently around the small table in the remote corner of the library that would only seat four people. Ginny hoped desperately that Tom wouldn't appear, but she schooled her mind and her external appearance to betray none of it. She was exhausted from the effort of constantly putting up a front, but refused to let it show. It had only been a few days; she could last longer than this. She would have to last longer than this. She tried to focus on the mundane news her friends shared. Neville had spent a very boring holiday at home and had only barely convinced his grandmother to send him back to Hogwarts. Luna had finally told her father she wanted to do undercover work for him and give him more information about the other Lord Voldemort in order to get back into the school. Ginny didn't dare start talking about Tom, and Hermione, and their concerns, and their decided lack of a plan on how to catch him red handed or at least find out what he was doing, and so she limited herself to the shallowest of descriptions of the holiday, and the conversation became more awkward as the minutes passed. Fortunately, there were only seven of them, according to Neville, who should probably be trusted on such things. Hermione sunk into the last chair at the table looking as harassed as Ginny didn't allow herself to acknowledge she felt. "Sorry, all," Hermione whispered. "Harry and Ron are at it again. They, well, they're fixated on figuring out how You-know-who got into the school. They really don't know what they're talking about."
Luna smiled dreamily. "Well, father says that he was probably let in by his alter-ego – that's Ophicus, to us – and disguised with polyjuice or something." She looked towards Hermione, as though expecting some sort of fight. To her great surprise, Hermione just nodded.
"For once," she said, "I might have to agree with your father. Ophicus convinced me to help him on this ward for Defense Against the Dark Arts. And it was amazingly complicated and powerful; the kind of thing that students really shouldn't be doing. But I wanted to do something difficult and interesting for a change, and it was thrilling. Professor Quinn told us that if it was even the slightest bit wrong, it could interfere with the other wards around the school, and even eliminate them or something – for a short time, mind you – so that people could get in. Ophicus assured me that he had never cast a spell that hadn't worked, and we were excruciatingly careful, but…" Hermione trailed off, and Ginny picked up where she left off.
"We think that Tom botched the ward, to let You-know-who into the school, and then hid him in the Chamber of Secrets," she said in a careful monotone, not thinking about the words but rather thinking about her vague disappointment that so few students had arrived back at school. "We don't know for sure. So we're keeping it a secret, just between us four – even Harry and Ron don't know. And we're trying to catch him red-handed, or get some explanation, or something, before we bring them into it, since they'll just leap to conclusions and attack."
Luna frowned. "Well I don't see any reason why what you say can't be true," she said offhandedly, as if this was as good as proof. "It does make a good deal of sense."
Hermione sighed and looked over at Ginny, as if to say that she had known this would happen and it was entirely not to her liking. Ginny met her gaze, however, with a look so stubborn it could only have come from Molly Weasley, and Hermione backed down. "We need more than a good deal of sense," she said to Luna. "We need proof. We're talking about turning him in to the authorities and having him sent to Azkaban. If he really is innocent, we can't do that, it would be terrible."
Luna looked thoughtful for a moment and Neville piped up. "We'll help you spy on him, of course, or at least I will," he said. Luna nodded in assent. "I was going to anyway," she added.
Ginny grinned, being sure to first school her thoughts to the simplicity of seeing old friends. "Wonderful," she said. "At the moment, though, we don't really have a plan." Neville's face fell a bit, and Luna returned to her rather dazed, thoughtful expression. "I'm trying to get him to open up to me, since it seems like I'm the only one he even gets close to confiding in, to see if he'll spill the beans. But, I have to be honest, this Occlumency thing is exhausting me, so we have to find something out soon or I'll just collapse." Hermione smiled at her hopefully, as if to say that they would, they certainly would, and Ginny wasn't to worry.
"Occlumency?" Neville asked. "Why do you need to be doing Occlumency? He can't read your mind, can he?"
Ginny sighed. "It's the parchment he gave me. I didn't know the enchantment he used, of course, and I accidentally got some of my blood on it, and then some of my tears, and well…" she sighed. "Yes. He described it as a watermark, it shows what I'm thinking about. And emotions too, or something." She rubbed her eyes wearily, and let that emotion through. "Or it would, but I'm trying to learn Occlumency to keep it from him, in case he really is all that evil." She sighed. "And I have no idea how to destroy the parchment, either, or I would just do that."
"He'd notice that," Hermione warned. Ginny sighed and nodded. "But it would be so much easier," she said. "And maybe he's noticed this."
Neville put a hand on Ginny's shoulder, reassured her that they would figure out what was going on, and quickly, and Ginny forced a smile on her face. Hermione spoke up. "Harry and Ron almost guessed what we're suspicious of, but I misdirected them, I think," she said quietly.
Ginny turned to Hermione. It would be easier the more people to help, so even though Ginny knew why Harry and Ron had to be kept in the dark she didn't exactly like it. "What did you say?" she asked.
"Oh, it was probably nothing," Hermione answered promptly. "Ron suggested that Voldemort apparated in, and Harry seemed to think it was a possibility, until I reminded him that you can't apparate into Hogwarts, because of the Wards, and since they obviously hadn't read Hogwarts: a History, weren't they at least listening in Defense Against the Dark Arts class?" Hermione smiled, half guilty and half proud. "I feel just wretched not letting them know what I'm thinking," she confessed. "I've never done that before. Or, well, only during my third year and only about the Time Turner."
"It's for their own good," Ginny answered promptly. "And everyone's. As soon as we have proof, we'll tell them." She yawned, rubbed her eyes again, and stood up. "Well, I have a lot of work to do," she said, "And I'm sure you all do too." They stood up, and parted ways, and Neville, Hermione and Ginny walked to the Gryffindor tower in silence.
Ginny did have work to do, and more of it than she could handle, and with Occlumency weighing on her mind and sapping her energy day in and day out, she could barely stay awake. She plodded her way slowly through History of Magic and Transfiguration, and even Charms had become a chore. Of the Gryffindor girls in her year, only Amelia had returned, and she was out on "Prefect duties" so much it was beginning to seem suspicious. But Ginny hardly noticed, she was so tired.
Disaster struck, about a week into term. The dementors, predictably, defected, and the inmates of Azkaban escaped. Malfoy preened for a week. But other than that, not much happened. The fifth years were going through their career counseling, as per normal. The only difference was, with so few fifth years to counsel, Ginny – who would have been at the end of the alphabetical list – had an appointment in the middle of the month. She was still exhausted, and walked, or shuffled, into McGonagall's office. McGonagall smiled at her fairly warmly and asked her what her plans were after graduating Hogwarts.
"I want to be an Auror," Ginny responded promptly. "Or a professional Quidditch player."
McGonagall looked surprised. "Really? Are you sure about that? An odd combination, I must admit." She looked over Ginny's grades. "Well, Auror training is right out, Miss Weasley, I'm sorry to say but your Potions marks are nowhere near good enough, and advanced Potions is considered a necessary prerequisite." Ginny looked vaguely disappointed. "To play Quidditch, well, you certainly don't need academics to do it, but you haven't been on the team for very long, and don't you think you're a bit small for it?"
Ginny frowned. "No, Professor, I think I'm quite good at Quidditch. You don't have to be big to play."
Professor McGonagall pursed her lips and shook her head. "One just worries. Why don't you think of something safer, something more likely? So few people actually play professional Quidditch, after all, why don't you think of something, well, more ordinary?"
Ginny stared in shock. "More ordinary?" she asked.
Professor McGonagall nodded. "Have you ever considered being a healer? Or working for the Ministry?"
Ginny couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was, however, too tired to put up a fight. "No," she said wearily. "I haven't."
"Well, Miss Weasley, there are quite a lot of Ministry jobs that are designed for people who are particularly good at Charms, and it would seem that you certainly are."
Ginny nodded bleakly, took the pamphlets that were offered to her, and turned to leave the office. As she stood up, Professor McGongall said, with a touch of concern in her voice, "Are you all right, Miss Weasley? You don't seem yourself."
Ginny shook her head and forced another brave smile on her face. "I'm fine, professor," she responded. "Just tired. This term has been harder than expected."
"If it's that Ophicus boy, and the chamber, and all of that, well, you know what I said at the beginning of the year," McGongall said.
Ginny nodded, said that of course she remembered, but after being told her chosen career paths were too dangerous, there wasn't a chance that she would let Professor McGonagall molly-coddle her about her emotional traumas and Ophicus Marvolo. Ginny set her jaw, and left the room, collapsing into an armchair in the common room and staring vaguely in the fire.
She thought about throwing in the brochures. But the brochures weren't doing any harm, and McGonagall would probably knew if she threw them into the fire. And it wouldn't do any good either. She could destroy the pamphlets but she would still have that condescending face stamped on her memory, telling her that Quidditch was a bit dangerous for a career, and a bit childish as well, and did she really think that the best part of her schooling at Hogwarts was Quidditch? What about, after all, Charms?
To Hell with Charms, Ginny thought. She slouched down into her seat and tried to lose herself in the fire, but was rudely interrupted from her sulking by Harry, Hermione, and Ron coming down from the boys' dormitory. They didn't see her and went to sit in a tight knot in the corner of the common room.
Ginny hadn't talked to Hermione about their plan for figuring out what Tom was up to since the meeting with Luna and Neville. Classes had happened and then, what with the escape from Azkaban, Harry was panicking and it was all Hermione could do to keep him and Ron from murdering Tom immediately. Ginny supposed that Hermione was doing important things, that keeping Harry and Ron from jumping to conclusions and taking rash action was a wise and laudable thing that the older girl was in a privileged position to do, but all the same Ginny wished she had a confidant. She walked over to the trio. They didn't look up or see her. She stood behind Harry and Ron, they didn't look up and see her. They were examining the Marauder's map, Ginny couldn't tell why. Tom was in the Slytherin Dungeon, not moving – probably sitting at his desk and working, Ginny imagined.
"Hermione," she said calmly, and three heads popped up in surprise. Harry sighed in relief, as though afraid someone else – someone more dangerous? – had snuck up behind them. Ron mumbled something about surprising a person, and Hermione looked pained and tired. "Could I have a word?" Ginny asked.
"I'm a bit busy now, Ginny," Hermione said calmly. "Are you sure it can't wait?"
Ginny frowned. When it came down to it, she recognized that Hermione would think Ginny's need for connection to be ridiculous and certainly something that could wait. But Ginny herself was fairly certain that it couldn't wait – not any longer than the two weeks it already had. "What did McGonagall tell you when you all talked to her about jobs?" Ginny asked quietly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Do we have to do this now, Ginny?" Ron backed her up with a serious look; The world is in danger, Ginny, we're trying to save it, and all you can think about is what McGonagall said you could or could not do for a career? Harry just looked down at the map, but didn't look like he wanted to come to her defense either. Ginny fumed again.
"Well, she's thrust me off to a job, I don't know, disenchanting old books at the Ministry," Ginny said, remembering one of the titles of the brochures.
"I would think you would enjoy that," Hermione said. "It makes good use of Charms, which is your best subject, and after your first year you've always had a… thing… for enchanted books. I think McGonagall was wise."
Ginny winced as Hermione pronounced "thing". "I don't have an affinity for enchanted books, Hermione," she hissed, angry, "I am absolutely terrified of them since one possessed me and nearly killed me. Perhaps you can't tell the difference. And, as they say, the best defense is a good offense. So I've researched them. But I can't think of anything less appealing than spending every day being reminded of my near-death when I was eleven!" Realizing that Hermione could, quite simply, ask her why she then was getting Potions lessons from Tom Riddle, and seeing Ron open his mouth to probably ask that very question, Ginny changed the subject. "And besides," she said, "I want to be an Auror or play Quidditch. What's wrong with that?"
"Well, it is awfully dangerous to be an Auror," Harry offered.
"And you've only been playing on the house team since last year," Ron added. "It's not like you're professional caliber, Gin. Not like Harry here."
Ginny froze, feeling her knees buckling, but she resolved that she wouldn't let them know. She took a deep breath and disguised it as a reticent sigh. Something in the back of her head said that she couldn't keep everything bottled up forever, that presenting a false face to everyone was a losing proposition, and that if she really isolated herself like that she would explode, but mostly all she could think of was the fact that they weren't helping, and she didn't want to have an argument about it, she didn't want to be proved wrong, she just wanted her own opinion to be reinforced. When, and if, she didn't make the cut on any professional Quidditch team, well, she'd look into other options then. But she didn't have to do that yet – she had two more years at Hogwarts before that had to happen.
She could feel her resolve melting and her Occlumency failing, she could tell that Tom was probably beginning to be able to see through the veneer of her put-on thoughts, but since she wasn't thinking about how untrustworthy he was, she couldn't bring herself to care. After all, how much harm could it do to let him know that she was upset at people continuing to baby her like this?
"That's what McGonagall said," she responded, quietly. "Maybe you all are right. I just… there hasn't been a Quidditch player in the family in a long time, and I wanted to be different," she said vaguely. It sounded like a good enough reason. "And I've wanted to help out with the Order and you all since I got here, but I've never been able to properly, and I figured that as an Auror I could. I'll look at the pamphlets she gave me."
"Look, I'm sorry, Ginny," Ron mumbled. "I know how you feel, and you are different. Everyone knows that. You might not be a great Quidditch player, but that doesn't mean you're just another Weasley."
Hermione smiled warmly. "And not everyone can be an Auror, but you can fight dark witches and wizards even so. You can find something that fits your personality better than Auror training, I'm sure. I think you should really look into the disenchanting books route. It sounds fascinating."
Ginny tried to force a smile on her face, and left the common room in search of better support.
She found Luna in the library, at a table alone, studying. She sat down across from Luna and asked what Professor Flitwick had told the other girl about a career. "Oh," Luna said dreamily. "I'm helping my father with the magazine, of course. Traveling all over the world in search of Krumple-Horned Snorcracks and other interesting things. Why do you ask?"
Ginny almost laughed. Of course Luna was going to explore the world and write about it for her father after graduating. What else would Luna do? "Well, I've always wanted to be a Quidditch player, but lately I've felt like I should maybe rather be an Auror. But McGonagall snubbed me on both counts and wants me to spend my life behind a desk at the Ministry," she said in what she hoped were judicious tones.
Luna nodded. "Well, I don't know. Do you really want to be an Auror? I mean, you did well in the Department of Mysteries last year, but I couldn't imagine doing that every day. And why do you want to play Quidditch? Everyone wants to do that, after all."
Ginny frowned, unable to decide if Luna had just said she should choose something more exciting than working as an Auror or a Quidditch Player. It seemed like she had. And that baffled Ginny in the extreme. She nodded, thanked Luna for her advice, and walked slowly back up to the Gryffindor Tower.
No one seemed to grasp the scope of the problem. This wasn't just about Ginny's career, it was about all the exciting things always happening to Harry, it was about Harry being everyone's golden boy, capable of everything and anything, the star at, well, everything that Ginny wanted to do. Harry could be an Auror, Ginny knew. Harry could be a Quidditch player. Harry could do whatever he pleased, but she was locked up in a tower, for her own protection, or just another Weasley, never expected to amount to much of anything.
It was sickening. She had faced down Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries last year – grown up, trained Death Eaters when she was fourteen years old – and she had held her own. It was better than Ron, or Hermione, or Luna, or anyone but Harry could say. There they had been, she remembered, she and Harry, the two people who weren't wounded. And Harry had fought Voldemort, and she had gotten Ron and Hermione and Neville and Luna out safely, but that had been okay because of that wonderful moment when she, Neville, and Luna met up with Harry, Ron and Hermione, and it was clear that she was on a level with the great Mr. Potter.
Except no one actually believed that, did they? They didn't believe their eyes. They just denied it.
And Quidditch. She was a good seeker and an even better chaser, she caught the Snitch in her first actual game from right under the nose of a seasoned and experienced seeker. She didn't need coaxing and luck potions to do well like her brother, but just because there had been a vacancy Harry's first year – which Harry could, miraculously, fill – and not her first year, well, she was again pushed to the sidelines while the great Harry Potter stood in the limelight.
She wondered, for all these years, had she wanted to be with Harry, or had she wanted to be Harry?
It wasn't the sort of question one normally asked themselves.
She sat on her bed. Amelia was, for once, in the dormitory. She saw Ginny's weary face and asked her what the matter was, as condescending as any of the rest of them but Ginny was too shocked by her potential revelation to care, or even really notice. She explained everything.
"Have you talked to Tom about it?" Amelia asked cautiously.
Ginny snapped out of her thoughts. "No," she answered quickly. Of course she hadn't. Tom wasn't to be trusted. "Why would I?"
Amelia shrugged. "He usually knows what to say, is all, and you two seemed so close."
Ginny blinked, slowly, and then went to her desk to pull out the parchment Tom had given her. It was blank. She picked up a quill and dipped it in ink, realized this was the point of no return, that in all likelihood by taking this action she was betraying Hermione and Ron and Harry, and put pen to page. "Tom," she wrote. "If I told you I wanted to be an Auror, what would you say?" It wasn't long before she felt a wave of what she could only guess was relief pass over her. It was all going to be okay.
Tom was working on his advanced potions homework; he had to get it perfectly or risk even more of Snape's sneers and ire. He had covered a table in the Slytherin common room with books and notes and was finally nearing completion on his recipe for a quick-brewing version of the love potion Amortentia. He dotted the last I and crossed the last T with a fluorish, packed up his things, and returned to his dormitory. He pulled a piece of parchment from the middle of his Arithmancy text.
He was happy to say that he was no longer the least bit disappointed when he looked at it to find it blank. This project with Ginny had gone too far, after all, so far that he had lost track of himself in the mire. He had become soppy, soft, and an altogether disdainful picture of a man. But he had climbed out. And now he looked forward to the day that she would write – and he knew she would write; he could tell that her outer shell was breaking, that she couldn't keep up her Occlumency for much longer at the very least – because it would allow him the opportunity to get the upper hand. He could be patient. In the meantime he worked at his own skills at Occlumency and Legilimency (and discovered that he was, in fact, much more adept at the latter than the former). At the moment, he could tell that she was feeling angry, isolated, and disappointed. He wondered if it was a front. It hardly mattered.
He set the page down and began to reorganize his books and his notes. And when he stood up again, something was written on the page. He almost laughed for joy, and hoped that she would be too caught up in her own emotions to notice his. "Tom," the paper read, "If I told you I wanted to be an Auror, what would you say?"
He read it slowly, meticulously, and then sat down and studied the watermark. It was surprisingly detailed, but not really enough to go on – and not entirely trustworthy. However, his simple knowledge of how well Ginny was doing in Potions class and her constant fear of being babied made the right response evident enough. "That you should work harder on Potions, but that otherwise you would do well."
There was a moment before the words disappeared and were replaced, and Tom held his breath, hoping his calculation was right. "And if I told you I wanted to play Quidditch professionally?"
A needlessly dangerous career, perched firmly on the fence between childhood fantasy and real-life adult? Now she was fishing for an answer. "That sounds a bit more like you, and you would be superb."
No pause this time. "McGonagall told me that either career was too dangerous, and I was unqualified, and I should find a career pushing paper at the ministry, or at the very most disenchanting books or something," Ginny wrote. "Harry and Ron and Hermione and Luna all side with her."
Tom laughed merrily. Here she was, for two weeks she had cut him off as untrustworthy, and now she was just asking him to charm her. "Well," he said, "It would seem that they underestimate you, Ginny."
It worked. "I'm so sorry, Tom. I've been using Occlumency – or trying to use it – to isolate myself from you. Hermione thinks you intentionally botched the ward in Defense Against the Dark Arts, to let You-Know-Who in. She's spying on you, or trying to, and she has Neville and Luna helping her. I was helping her too. I don't know what she's looking for, or how she thinks she'll prove that you did it or that it was on purpose if you did, but you should really know about it so you can be on your guard. Not that I think you did it, but…" she trailed off, and Tom took his opportunity.
"Thank you, Ginny," he wrote. "I'll talk to Professor Quinn about the ward tomorrow. I don't know why Hermione hasn't already done that; she seems like a clever girl." He dipped his quill back in the ink and wrote, with a fluorish and a smile, "Thank you for coming clean."