OOO
"Made it, did you?" Myrtle drawled as the five children tumbled of the pipe.
"You sound relieved," Draco muttered with sarcasm as he stood up.
"He's still not awake." Harry tried to support Theo as Dragon came over and licked his face. "What do you think we should do?"
"Have you tried rennervate?" Draco suggested, giving Fawkes a last pat before the phoenix flew off – presumably, Draco thought, to go and find Dumbledore.
"I will now."
"And what are we supposed to do with these?" Ginny hefted the sword Harry had stuck into, and then subsequently pulled out of, Riddle. "I don't suppose we're going to be allowed to keep them."
"Why not?" Draco clutched the bow. "I'm keeping mine, it was a gift!"
"It worked, he's waking up," Harry interrupted, and then lifted his head. "Do you hear something?"
"Master Draco!" They all heard a high-pitched scream and Draco felt a minute pair of arms suddenly wrap themselves around his waist.
"Hello, Dobby," he gasped.
"Master Draco, you is alright!" Dobby's round eyes were brimming with tears. "Oh, we was worrying so and you mother, she is crying since you has left her, oh you should not have left! And Master Harry Potter!" He wailed. "You made it back also!" He released Draco from his vice and Harry braced himself, but Dobby clasped his hands. "Dobby must go to be informing Master Malfoy right away!" He vanished with a pop.
"Master Malfoy?" Draco repeated.
"I think he means your father," Luna said.
"Why would my father be here? Come to think of it, why would Dobby?"
"They probably found out we'd left," Harry said, helping Theo to his feet. "We didn't do that much to hide the fact we'd gone."
"And your father is very good at his duties," Luna pointed out as she held onto the rooster, now asleep despite the excitement. She came over to look at the bow, tracing her finger along the curve. "Did you ever think he wouldn't come?"
"Theo?" Ginny looked at him hesitantly. "Are you alright?"
"I'm going to be expelled," he whispered as tears started spilling over.
Before any of them had an opportunity to reassure them, Lucius Malfoy came bursting through the door.
"Draco!" His voice nearly cracked. "Draco, what were you and Harry thinking, doing something so foolish? You could have been maimed or killed or worse! Who knows what kind of curses were cast over that place?" He looked at him with a gaze torn between relief, anguish and severity. "Why didn't you get your mother and me if you knew Theo had gone into the Chamber?"
"There wasn't time," he murmured. "We weren't sure were it was and we didn't think…" He swallowed. "We didn't know if you would help."
"Draco!" Lucius felt his heart twist. "How could you even think that?" He turned his head to the boy who was shrinking back from the rest of the group. "Theodore!" He reached for him. "Theodore, this was not your fault and I apologize. This was a mistake." He looked down into the boy's eyes, as if trying to wordlessly convey his irresponsibility in the matter. Theo only shuddered and cried more.
"I don't… I want to sleep." He said.
"Of course. We'll get you to the hospital wing at once." Lucius straightened up and turned with a sweep of his robes. "Hopefully by now they'll have the place staffed."
"Um, dad?" Draco ran up to his side and held out the bow. "What do we do with these?" Ginny stepped forward, nervous, and held out the sword as well.
"Where did they come from?" He regarded the weapons with surprise.
"I got mine from the centaurs."
"And the sword somehow came from the Sorting Hat," Harry told him.
"I see. Well whatever they are, I'm not about to let them get confiscated by Dumbledore. They'll be no good to anybody gathering dust in that fool's office." He snapped his fingers. "Dobby!" The elf appeared with a pop. "Return to the house and get the leather bag with the extension charm and bring it here. Also," he said as a look flashed across his face, "find Narcissa – she should be at St. Mungo's – and tell her that Draco is alright. Have her get things ready back home and tell her we'll all be there soon."
The elf popped away with a nod and a last, tearful smile at Draco.
"Theo, they won't throw you out!" Ginny clutched the ruby-adorned handle. "They'll know this wasn't your fault, this was dark magic!"
"You don't understand," he whispered.
"Hospital," Lucius broke in. "Think about everything else once you've gotten some rest." He guided them down the halls with a confident air, though inside his mind was reeling.
OOO
"Fred! George! You're alright!" Mrs. Weasley nearly burst into tears as she came through the door. "We were worried all the way back to England!"
"Love you too, Mum," George gasped as she crushed him in a hug.
"You've been behaving, haven't you?" She withdrew suddenly and gave them a look. "We came home as quickly as we could but you've been alone…"
"We're fine, we didn't do anything." Fred stood up from the table, holding out a letter. "This came for you about an hour ago."
"What's this?" Mr. Weasley came in with the suitcases. "Did something else happen?" He asked with worry.
"Theodore Nott got dragged into the Chamber of Secrets," George told him. "But I'm sure they told you that when they sent us home. This is good news, though."
"Oh Theo!" Molly sniffed and then looked at her husband. "He's asking for us."
Mr. Weasley took the letter and looked it over. "He's asking for you." Setting down the letter and the last suitcase, he went for the fireplace. "I'll get the Floo Powder."
"Do you think he's alright?" George asked, looking agitated. "We wanted to go down ourselves…"
"Well thank goodness you didn't!" She hugged him again and then hugged Fred. "I don't know what I would have done… but how did Theodore end up down there in that awful place?"
"I don't know," whispered George.
"He might have been the one opening it," Fred said morosely. "Not really clear on the details."
"Opening it?" She gave a disbelieving laugh. "Freddie, he's a Gryffindor, that's not possible."
"I don't know any details. All I know is that Milli said something happened with Theo and a book, and then he got taken down into the Chamber." He looked unhappy. "We couldn't do anything."
"We'll come now, though," George added. "Also, before I forget – Draco and Harry left this note too."
"Draco and Harry? What were they doing here?"
Fred and George exchanged glances.
"Borrowing a rooster?" Fred said with a small grin.
Her eyes narrowed. "You two sent then after Theodore didn't you?" Her voice rose in pitch. "You should have waited for an adult! The two of you are going to be grounded for the next fifty years if anything happened to any of them, do you understand?!"
"Molly, darling, the Floo port?" Mr. Weasley interrupted before she could work herself up any further.
Fred and George exchanged looks of relief, and then trailed their parents into the fireplace.
OOO
"Do you think it's true, what Riddle said?" Harry looked out of the tower window; snow had started to fall again and was slowly forming a blanket on the ground.
"No, I don't. He was a liar," Draco replied resolutely and scratched behind Dragon's ears. "I wouldn't believe anything he told us. He was only trying to make us upset."
"By why won't he talk to any of us?" Ginny murmured from the foot of the bed. "He started crying and then when he got to the hospital ward he closed the curtains and acted like we weren't even there! Why would he do that?"
"That diary did something bad to him." Draco rubbed Dragon's head, distressed. "And my dad…"
"Your dad wouldn't do something like this on purpose, would he?" Harry asked.
"I think he likes Theo," Luna mused as she too gave the dog a pet, "but sometimes things happen that people don't mean to happen."
"I want to know what that thing was, anyway," Ginny muttered. "I don't like it. If it was supposed to be Voldemort then it should have been a ghost. But why would it be young? And why would Harry have been able to stab it?"
"Maybe it's like portraits," Harry suggested. "But with words instead of paint."
"Portraits don't step out of their paintings the way that thing could step out of the diary!" She protested. "And anyway, whatever it was, it seemed unusually smart."
"Well so are the portraits," Draco pointed out. "Did you tell me you got help from a relative of Sirius'?"
"Yeah, we did. Who, by the way, was a complete git, I'll have you know," Ginny told the dog, who barked. "But even though they can move and talk, portraits can't think. Whatever that was, from what you told me and what I saw, it seemed self-aware, able to learn and remember things. That's not usual, even for Dark Magic."
"Because you're an expert on Dark Magic," Draco shot back.
"I know enough!" She flushed. "Don't be mad at me because it was something connected to your dad!"
"Don't talk about my father!" His voice grew louder.
"Stop that," Harry interrupted. "We don't know anything for sure about what happened with Theo and the book or how he got it. Let's not assume anything until he tells us."
"If he'll even talk to us," said Ginny.
"Well let's go down and check again." Harry left the window sill. "Maybe he's feeling better now."
"Guess it couldn't hurt," Ginny agreed and followed him down the steps.
Before they could exit the common room, the door swung open to reveal two familiar faces.
"Fred and George?" Ginny looked at her brothers, confused. "What are you doing here?"
"Could ask you the same thing," George said with a lopsided, relieved grin. "Weren't you Petrified?"
"I got better," she teased. "But why are you here? Draco and Harry said you'd all been sent home."
"We were. We came back with mum and dad and we were going to see about finding you lot," Fred told them.
"Mum and dad are here?" She looked back and forth between them. "For what?"
"Theo wanted to see mum. She flooed over as soon as she found out." George backed out of the portrait. "I assume you were hoping to see him yourselves?"
"If he even wants to see us," Ginny sighed.
"I'm sure he will." George glanced at them with apprehension. "What happened down there, anyway?"
"We'll see if Theo's up and what he's got to say," Harry told them. "He knows more about the diary. And Draco and I can fill you in on the Chamber after that."
OOO
"Theo?" Mrs. Weasley hovered at the edge of his hospital bed. "I got your message. You wanted to talk to me?"
He lifted a tear-streaked face up towards her and trembled. "I killed my mother," he whispered. "I killed my mother!"
Mrs. Weasley hugged him, tight as she had ever held her own crying children, and stroked his hair. She didn't tell him it would be alright or assure him that he hadn't killed her. She didn't say anything at all for the moment, but let him sob and sob, until his cries grew soft and his body still. Then she set him back down carefully on the bed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He turned into the pillow, clutching it and trying to stop the tears.
"I didn't mean to, I didn't know." He flipped back over. "I was so stupid, so incredibly stupid!"
"What happened?"
"Theo?" Ginny peeked into the infirmary. "Hi mum!" She hesitantly waved. "If you don't want us in here, we can leave…"
The boy scoffed through his tears. "Too late now. You already heard."
"I didn't believe Riddle!" Draco declared resolutely. "Not a bit."
"You should have. He was right." The kids looked at each other while Theo stared down at the blankets. Reaching for Mrs. Weasley's hand, he gripped it tightly. "It can't be helped now. You ought to know." He took a breath and wiped away his tears, taking the tissues that Mrs. Weasley proffered from the bedside table.
"When I was about three or four, my mother fell ill." His eyes welled again at the memory and he paused for another breath. "She fell ill and I didn't know what was wrong with her but something was strange between my father and mother once she did get ill. They had conversations behind locked doors, conversations I couldn't overhear save for sounds and impressions. I didn't understand but I should have known something was wrong.
"Very quickly it progressed to the point where she was bedridden. And every day, like a dutiful son, I brought her tea. Father told me she needed to eat to be well again. I obeyed. I never thought…" He broke off again, took another tissue. "Last year, when Harry was poisoned, there was a reason I knew it was poison. It wasn't clear then, I still couldn't remember fully, but I recalled the scent, as soon as it touched my nostrils. That fragrance… that was what my mother's tea smelled of the last day I brought it too her.
"It was pleasant and flowery. I didn't think it would hurt her." His expression darkened. "I didn't think at all, stupid child. She touched it to her lips and she must have known. She did nothing to startle me though. She drank the tea, then turned… she turned… I'm sorry!" He started crying again and the last was finished through sobbing gasps. "She turned and told me she loved me! She told me to be a good boy, to be a gentleman, and then she… she just laid her head back and her hair was spread out everywhere and her breathing had been so… so shallow you could… could hardly tell when it st-stopped, she was… she was my mother and I killed her, I watched her die!" Tears poured unabated, and he did nothing to stop them but went on in a ragged fashion. "I was too dumb and stupid to see what my father was doing and I killed her, I poisoned her!"
There was silence in the room for a long while, save for the persistent sounds of Theodore's body-wracking cries. Then he drew in a long breath and pressed forward, words spilling out in his desperation to finish before he could no longer go on.
"And my father told me to forget, cast a memory charm on me, but things came back in bits and pieces and all I knew was that I couldn't be stupid again, I had to be smart and clever. And then I remembered when the charm… the charm broke," he said, omitting the part about the attempt to learn Occlumency, though Harry and Draco shot looks at each other while Ginny kicked Dragon. "But I couldn't bear for anybody to know so instead of saying anything, I found this diary in my things and I wrote in that and wrote in it and told it everything I remembered." He swallowed. "And then one day I opened the diary and it was gone, like I'd never written in it at all.
"Then ink spread across the pages and he told me his name was Tom and that he felt sorry for me, and already he knew so much about everything and I should have known again – stupid, stupid – but I told him more and wrote more and he slipped in little by little…"
Theo broke down again and couldn't go on.
"You can't be held to account for what your father did," Mrs. Weasley murmured. "You were just a little boy, Theo. And you loved your mother, I know you did."
"Stupid," he repeated.
"You were a child. You were trusting. It wasn't your fault your father abused that trust." She drew up the blankets, tucked him in. "But you have to believe that yourself, inside of you." She kissed him. "Sleep now."
Ginny hugged her mother and the rest of the kids stayed gathered around him, though at a distance. At the doorway, a last but unobserved listener to the story swept away, moving out onto the snow-covered grounds in a fury, moving quickly towards the point where he could apparate.
OOO
"Welcome, Lucius." The elder Nott greeted him personally at the doorstep. "To what do I owe this visit?" He asked with a smirk.
"Your own son!" Lucius screamed, his breath puffing in the chilled air. Grabbing the older man by the collar, Lucius throttled him against the heavy wooden doors. "What were you thinking, Gaius? And to use that thing… to use me to do it! He's not some piece of mudblood trash, he's your child!" Lucius felt his throat burn from the screaming.
"He's Gryffindor scum!" Nott sneered. "He deserved all he got! Not as pure as you might think. And get your hands off of me before I have my elves alert the Ministry." His leer widened. "Perhaps they'd like to know the origin of that book."
"You couldn't incriminate me without incriminating yourself," Lucius snapped, releasing him nonetheless.
"And the same goes for you," he laughed. "I'm sure the ministry would love to know what you've been hiding all this time."
"You could have killed my son," Lucius growled. "Don't think I'm going to forget that!"
"A sound a fury, Lucius, signifying nothing." His voice was light and bemused. "You have no definite proof, only your suspicions. And you won't risk jail yourself, I know you better than that. Now get off of my property," he snapped.
Gritting his teeth, Lucius disappeared, still fuming. Tossing aside the leather case with both weapons and the incriminating book, he slumped into a chair and glowered at the fire, as if it held the answers for how to strike back at the older Nott.
"Dear?" Narcissa appeared at the doorway. "You said Draco would be back soon? Do you think he would mind terribly if we went up to the school?" She stepped further into the study. "What's the matter? You look furious."
"Gaius Nott is the matter," he spat. "And my hands are tied. I can't do anything… then again." He rose. "I'm going to do some checking around for something, I do believe. You may attend Draco at the school, help him move back."
"Very well." She nodded. "What are you looking for?"
He looked at her apprehensively. "Better that I don't say anything, for now. But if I find it I'll let you know." He grabbed the Floo Powder with a clenched fist. "One good book deserves another, after all. Knockturn Alley!"
OOO
A/N: Brief edits were made to the last chapter, clearing up the Riddle identity issue that Dimrilla pointed out and also the fact that Ginny and Luna both know who Sirius is. So with that continuity issue cleared up, I give you the latest chapter. A little has been learned but there's lots more to be revealed. :)