AN: Thanks to reddit users Fett_deFacto and brighthour for being my Betas this chapter! I struggled with the time hop and needed outside perspectives. Hope everyone is enjoying the story :) ~ Justalittleconfusing
Harry swept his arms over his fallen possessions. His eyes bulged at the latest failed attempts to stuff his scattered things back into the broken bag. The diary skidded to her feet.
If she wanted she could grab it, but then everyone would see her picking up Harry's diary. Paralyzed by the internal war of whether or not to blatantly steal back the diary, Ginny froze. The hall could feel Harry's frustration mounting. Ginny's heart beat thrashed in her ears as Harry reached for the diary. His hands brushed against her shoelaces and her breath momentarily stopped. He picked up the wayward diary.
"What's going on here," drawled Malfoy joining the confusion. Harry's back stiffened in response to Malfoy's voice. Ginny was close enough to see a vein throbbing in Harry's neck. Harry tried to stuff everything back into his ripping bag. Pieces of parchment and quills burst through the open seam. He continued the scramble picking everything off the floor.
Ginny tried to swallow, but her mouth was drier than usual as if she stuffed it full of cotton balls. Ginny angled her shaking body to get closer to Harry's bursting bag. She had to grab the diary during the commotion Malfoy's presence brought.
"Right," the dwarf cleared his throat. He strummed his harp in a crescendo preparing to sing.
"What's all this?" Interrupted Percy as he took stock of the chaos invading his halls. Harry gave up rescuing his last pieces of parchment and sprang into a run. The dwarf, needing to fulfill his melodic obligation, grabbed Harry's knees and tackled him to the ground. Harry hit the stone floor with a painful thud.
"Right," the dwarf cleared his throat again while remaining seated on Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing Valentine."
Ginny's could not focus on her words sung. All she could see was Harry's humiliated face falling deeper and deeper into a painful grimace. By the time the dwarf reached the last line, Harry's head hung in shame and defeat.
"Don't worry, I will comfort him from this embarrassment."
Students ignored Percy's attempts at dispelling the crowd. Heat radiated through Ginny's body. Cold sweat poured across her skin leaving her nauseated and clammy. The sound of the surrounding laughter dulled. The familiar pressure and buzzing surrounded her. She couldn't stop Tom. Her emotions scattered away from her as she tried to reclaim her calm and stop his onslaught. The pressure and buzzing continued to descend.
"Give it back." Harry's growling voice jolted Ginny back to the present. His argument with Malfoy escalated. Malfoy held the sleek ebony diary. How did Malfoy get the diary? Ginny tried to form words to warn them not to touch it. To drop it and leave it alone but her field of vision narrowed as darkness closed in.
"Why would they believe anything you say?"
"Wonder what Potter's written in his special little Diary?" Malfoy's voice jarred Ginny out of her stupor. Her face felt ice cold and her arms tingled to her fingertips.
"Want me to show them all what you wrote?"
"Hand it over Malfoy," Percy boomed, squaring his shoulders, and thrusting out his chest. Ginny had never been so grateful for Percy's imposing sense of authority.
"It would be so easy to show them all you had to say."
"When I've had a look," Malfoy waved the diary around by the spine ignoring Percy's direct order. Percy's face flushed as he strutted towards Malfoy. The cover opened and the pages ruffled in motion. Her voice and words rang from the pages. Ginny's heart pounded so hard she was certain the rest of her classmates could hear the drumming beat.
"Perhaps, you want them to know everything. You want them to know you went insane and hurt all those people. You hurt your friends."
"Expelliarmus!" The diary flew away from Malfoy into Ron's outstretched hand. The drama over, her classmates stopped lollygagging and funneled into the classroom. Xenia walked into Ginny's back, her attention focused on the resolving scene instead of who was in front of her. Ginny looked back to Percy admonishing Harry over magic in the corridors.
"Don't worry, I will take special care of him for you."
The image of Tom possessing Harry consumed Ginny throughout her transfiguration lessons. Partnered with Beryl, Ginny struggled to maintain her focus. She missed steps in Professor McGonagall's instructions on turning a soup spoon into a bowl.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing! Why would you say that?"
"You are acting distracted." Beryl picked up the silver ceramic spoon that Ginny dropped as if to prove her point. "Is it because of his reaction to the poem?"
The poem. Ginny's face fell as her cheeks flushed. Ginny grabbed her spoon out of Beryl's hand harsher than she intended. Beryl humphed and turned her back to Ginny. She focused on creating an elaborate scene of white ballet dancers on her perfect blue bowl. Ginny sighed and continued to work on her spoon in silence. She didn't have time to worry about poems or embarrassment. She needed to save Harry from Tom. She needed a plan to get the diary back.
The next few weeks passed in a haze. Ginny abandoned her classwork and focused her energy on coming up with a plan to save Harry from Tom. She was the only one who knew how much danger he was in. The weight of the responsibility wore her down like a river chiseling its way through bedrock.
Her strategies for saving Harry germinated in several erratic directions. Her main plan involved rehiring the singing Dwarf to follow him around. The dwarf could tackle Harry when distracted so she could grab the diary from his fallen bag. The biggest hurdles to this plan were her lack of Dwarf contacts and Gallons to hire one. Conversations with Professor Lockhart left his eyes twitching as he stammered, "It had been a good idea at the time. I know what you and your friends want, how about another autographed picture for your room?"
Her next plan involved a dragon and Scabbers. She would distract Harry and Ron with a dragon in the courtyard. While they stared at the dragon in terror she would release Scabbers. Causing them to drop their things and go on a rescue mission to save Ron's beloved pet. She tried speaking to Hagrid about arranging this with Charlie. She positioned it as a learning exercise for the care of magical creatures, citing the complaints from the twins about the lack of excitement over the animals. Hagrid seemed enthusiastic at the time promising he would talk to Professor Kettleburn. Professor Kettleburn sternly informed Hagrid that dragons, even small ones, were inappropriate creatures. The substitute animals agreed upon would not invoke the same range of terror. A Hippogriff would not cause the boys to drop their bags and spring to action to save Scabbers.
So late one night Ginny sat in the common room trying to come up with a new plan. The twins' birthday was fast approaching and she sat no closer a viable solution. Harry and Ron sat down without Hermione in the corner of the common room. Ginny felt Tom in her body's flu-like reactions before she saw Harry pull the diary out of his bag.
To casual onlookers, everything seemed normal. Harry flipped through a book while Ron set up a chessboard. But Ginny could see they both were different in small subtle ways. Harry was studying the diary as if trying to crack some code. He kept turning it over in his hands as if expecting it to do something. He turned through several blank pages, before finally writing with his head turned away from Ron. Ron watched the diary from the corner of his eyes as fiddled with the pawns. Neither played the match set out before them. Watching Harry write in the diary turned Ginny's stomach. Tom lingered feet away, but he remained unnervingly quiet.
The weight of the secret was harder to bare every day. She noticed it was harder to get out of bed in the mornings and do small things like brush her teeth. All she wanted to do was stay asleep curled in her safe cocoon of blankets and curtains hidden away from the world. Her grades were plummeting. Professor McGongall was watching her a little too intently during Transfiguration. She wanted to confess to Ron and Harry what she knew, but something held her back. Every time she was close enough to talk to them she felt her throat close and coldness wash through her veins.
How could she explain she needed help because Tom stopped speaking to her? That he had not spoken to her since Valentine's day? That she needed help because she stopped going crazy? Tom silence was more unsettling than his previous taunts. His silence signaled he was focusing his attention on his new friend. Even in Harry's presence, when she knew Tom was feet away, he remained dormant.
It was only the burning sensations in her hands that confirmed her suspicions of Tom sitting in Harry's bag. The closer she sat to the `diary the stronger the prickling sensation in her hands and fingers. Ginny followed Harry, Hermione, and Ron through the shadows feeling for signs of the diary. Harry always had the bloody diary with him. Every class, every meal, every study session in the library. She dutifully followed the trio through the shadows of the castle. For weeks she waited for the burning sensation to dissipate, signaling the diary was left unattended.
Once Harry's regular Quidditch practices restarted he began leaving the diary in his dorm. The weeks leading up to the Hufflepuff Quidditch match she felt the burning in her hands lessen. Harry had practice almost every night leaving large gaps of time when she knew Tom was lying exposed. She had to wait and time everything to catch all five boys out of the room at once.
Ginny documented the quintet trying to discern any predictability to their movements. The only opening was when Harry would leave the diary for Quidditch and the room would lay dormant. But planning for this was close to impossible. Saturdays were the only predictable day for long stretches of unaccompanied time. Dean and Seamus spent their time outside rather than in the corner of the common room. If they were inside one of them would always leave to retrieve a forgotten quill or book. On Saturdays, they spent their days by the lake enjoying the sun with Lavender and Parvati. The walk from the lake was too far to retrieve any forgotten possession making their absence from the dorm guaranteed.
Ron was the easiest to plan around. He followed Hermione's predictable timetables like a loyal puppy. Saturday afternoons the two of them would hole up in the library for hours. Ron cracked jokes trying to break Hermione's concentration while she feigned annoyance. He would stay with her helping with revisions for at least four to five hours. Then he would follow her to the common room after retrieving his chessboard from the dorm while she read. As long as she was out before 4:30 she would not run into Ron.
Neville was the piece who was hard to find rhythm or reason to his movement. Unlike the other boys, he moved on his own. With no discernable group, Neville was the hardest to track. He moved quietly through the world with a general lack of purpose. Most Saturdays, he was down in the greenhouse. The quantity of time he spent with Professor Sprout was erratic at best. Some days he spent the entire afternoon only coming back to the dorm room in the evening. Other days he spent less than 15 minutes, returning to the dorm with several books and holing up for hours.
The Saturday before the Hufflepuff match Ginny had a general schedule arranged. Harry left for Quidditch after a fast inhalation of lunch. Ginny sat a few chairs away from the trio and felt nothing in her hands and fingers signaling an unaccompanied Tom in the dorm. Once she verified Dean and Seamus were heading outside she was almost home free. Watching intently, Dean and Seamus were finishing their lunch with Parvati and Lavender. The day was perfect. They had to be headed outside afterward. Ginny tried to crane her neck to see if she could see Dean's sketchbook. Lavender obstructed her view of their things. The weather was warm and the sun was shining. The four rose from the table and walked towards the door. If they turned right towards the lake instead of left towards the dorms she only needed to keep Neville occupied. Watching the four leave and turn right a rush of relief descended on Ginny. Dean had his sketchbook, they would stay outside until dinner.
Neville was her wildcard. She expected him to leave for Professor Sprout's greenhouse after finishing his lunch. He ate slowly savoring each sip of soup. Ginny's foot tapped in frustration. How on earth could anyone eat so slow? Hermione and Ron entered twenty minutes after him and were gathering their things to leave. Neville stayed at the table still sipping his soup. He appeared completely oblivious to the world around him caught up in some empty headed thought. Did he not realize how precious this time was? How desperate she was for him to leave and be gone the entire afternoon? Her stomach churned as she tried to pick at her bread to justify lingering at the table. Her small picks turned into tears as her frustration mounted at Neville's inability to drink a bowl of soup. The unknown his schedule frustrated her. How could anyone walk through life so haphazard?
Finally, Neville put down his spoon and rose from the table. Masking her ecstasy at him finally moving Ginny stood up half a beat later. She followed Neville from lunch careful to stay three steps behind avoiding detection. She crept through the shadows walking as silent as a cat. Neville meandered his predictable path until they reached the stairs to the castle. Ginny walked a few feet behind him but she lost sight when he reached the foot of the steps. Walking exposed down the steps, Neville sauntered from behind a stone pillar. He stood at the bottom step blocking her from moving forward and looked her feet.
"You are watching me." He looked up to her face perplexed and confused.
"No, I am not," Ginny replied with defiance. She squared her shoulders. Looking him dead in the eyes she dared him to press on.
"You have been following me for a few weeks." Ginny didn't have a response. She lost her nerve and looked down at her shuffling feet unable to meet Neville's prying eyes. "I am not mad, just tell me why."
"Why?"
"Why you are following me. Is this some joke from your brothers? Or do you want something?"
"I..I.."
"Yes," The simple word said with such patience and kindness. Ginny looked up from her feet into his blue eyes and round face. He wasn't angry or accusatory. He looked genuinely curious.
"I need help."
"Oh!" Neville leaned back as his eyes popped open in surprise. "You need help? Why would you need help from me?"
"I need….I need help...I needhelpwithHerbology," Her tongue tied as the lie tripped its way out of her mouth. For a moment she wondered if he would catch her and demand to know the truth. It would be a relief to be caught by someone, to share her burden with anyone. The urge to confess left as she shook her head to clear her thoughts. Not today. She can't get caught until Tom is destroyed. She is so close.
She tried looking at Neville with her most convincing smile rather than the grimace she felt bubbling under the surface. Her eyes twitched as she tried to hold the pleading grin, threatening to give her secret away. She couldn't confess today. As Ginny felt her face betraying her words, she looked at her shuffling feet on the ground waiting for his answer.
"Ah! I would love to help you with Herbology Ginny. I need to help Professor Sprout re-pot the Mandrakes today and that may be a little dangerous for you. It will take all afternoon but I can help you with your studies tomorrow. First-year Herbology isn't bad once you get the rhyme and rhythm of the memorization down. I can even put a good word in for you with Professor Sprout, let her know you asked for extra help. She loves seeing students reaching out to each other. Tell you what, I will see you tomorrow after lunch in the common room!" Neville waved with a broad smile on his face. He looked thunderstruck as he whistled cheerfully down the path towards the greenhouse.
He believed her. Even better, he was occupied the entire afternoon. It was time. Ginny sprinted back up the castle steps determined to end Tom once and for all.