Difficulties of Avoidance
by dead2self
A/N: Wow, I don't want to jinx it, but I've been making progress on this story like I haven't in years! I've even got a bit of buffer built up so I'll be able to update regularly in the next month. Can't promise how far I'll get, but for now I'm really enjoying getting back into this story. Please review! I'd love to hear what you think.
I've also started posting this fic on ao3 under the same name. It's not all up yet, but once I'm caught up, I'll be posting new updates on there as well.
"We ought to disguise him. Even if we do a Disillusionment Charm, if something were to go wrong it would be better for him to look like anyone else."
Ginny frowned, running her wand along the mirror in the fourth floor corridor to check it for curses. Her first foray into investigating all the hidden passageways out of the castle on the Marauder's Map had ended in disaster. She had tripped a curse at the entrance to the passageway behind the statue of the hump-backed witch. Snape had apprehended her curled up and groaning gibberish in the middle of the corridor. He dumped her in the hospital wing, impatient to bring her to her senses so he could award her with another private detention. All her Occlumency practice with Riddle was about to be put to the test.
The only good that had come of the whole endeavor was that Madam Pomfrey had sent Ginny away juggling half the potions in the Hospital Wing for fear that the Carrows would keep her from coming back.
Now she and Luna were investigating the other passageways more carefully with a variety of charms meant to reveal curses. So far every entrance they had checked was covered.
"Should we brew Polyjuice Potion, just in case?" Ginny asked, moving on to the next detection spell.
"I doubt Riddle will walk out of the castle quietly with us, no matter what he looks like."
"Could we Imperius him?"
They did know the basic principles of the spell now that Amycus had been forced to move on from the Cruciatus Curse in class. It had to be said, it was far more practical than the first Unforgivable Curse. Every class period was giving Ginny ample opportunity to practice throwing off the curse. As long as she had her wand in hand, she could resist two or three times out of five now. The trick seemed to be in being very aware of yourself, of your voice, of what you wanted and what the voice commanding you wanted that you didn't want. It was hard to put it into words what worked and what didn't, but she was getting the hang of it.
Luna was a natural. She'd thrown off the curse nearly the first time it was cast on her, and had even done it with once without her wand. Harper had gone white as a sheet watching her do it, and Ginny wondered if he had been scheming to use the Curse on her now that they knew how to cast it. Hopefully Carrow took his time realizing that he was actually teaching them how to fight back.
"I don't doubt he's worked at resisting it. Besides, there isn't time to brew Polyjuice Potion before the end of term, the full moon when the fluxweed needed to be harvested was last week," said Luna. "But I think we can manage with Transfiguration and some imagination."
Ginny snorted as she imagined Riddle with the orange handlebar mustache that some girls had Conjured in class. Then she cursed. She'd detected a jinx on the mirror.
"Merlin's beard, this one's even caved in and they cursed it," she groaned, backing away. That only left one unchecked, the passage behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, but since Filch knew of its existence she did not have high hopes. They'd even found curses on the passageway under the Whomping Willow.
"Why do they suddenly care so much about secret passageways?" she asked. "No one's cursed them before."
"Do they think Harry might come back to Hogwarts?"
"But then why curse this side of the passageways?" She shook her head, answering her own question. "Filch has probably wanted to curse them for years, the Carrows are just the first ones who obliged him."
"Oh!" cried Luna, ducking suddenly beside a bust of Beaumont Marjoribanks. She came back up holding aloft a paperclip and beaming. ""My lucky paperclip! I thought I'd lost it forever."
Stunned and bemused, Ginny shook her head. It was nearly a year ago that they had found Tom while searching for Luna's lost things. It was hard to imagine what had terrified her so much about his presence at the beginning, guarded by Dumbledore, behind enchantments she could not pronounce. Compared to what they were doing now that had been child's play.
Two years with Riddle, one in her first year and one in her seventh. She'd thought she'd known Riddle after the first, but the last year had been so much more. The way she knew him now was different, more real. Equally terrifying, but she was no longer a child either.
So much had changed, and here was the stupid paperclip. She could not believe Luna had spotted it.
"This is an encouraging portent," said Luna, attaching the paperclip to the collar of her robe just under her Head Girl badge, upside-down as usual. "We ought to do something dangerous."
"More dangerous? First the last passageway, then danger," said Ginny, but Luna started affixing loose pages of the Quibbler to the chests of suits of armor as they walked.
"Luna," she hissed.
"Do you think if I get detention enough times they'll have to remove me as Head Girl?" she asked.
"I already have detention. Have mercy and paint the walls during your rounds. Why don't you take this portent of yours and turn it towards getting Tom out of the castle?"
Humming, Luna reshuffled her armful of parchment and said, "This isn't the first I've thought of it. I've made a whole list, since Dumbledore died."
The parchment she unrolled was dauntingly long and a quick glace showed Merpeople figured more prominently in Luna's plans than was perhaps practical.
Ginny chewed the inside of her cheek. The passageways being blocked severely limited their options. The only way she'd truly feel comfortable taking Riddle out of the Room was unconscious, tied, and possibly Imperiused. Leaving through the front doors did not seem an option.
"Mad-Eye," said Luna abruptly as they drew even with the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. Ginny raised an eyebrow. There was not much of a resemblance.
"Our third year, didn't the fake Professor Moody keep the real Professor Moody in a trunk? We could enlarge a trunk, use an Undetectable Extension Charm, and carry Tom out with all our other school things."
Blimey, or perhaps walking through the front doors was their best idea yet. "That's brilliant, Luna. I'm starting to believe in your lucky paperclip."
Ginny took the list with more interest than before and Luna frowned. "The Merpeople have been less accommodating than I would have hoped, so I suppose we can rule out taking him through the lake. But we don't have to take the train if we don't want to. We could steal Thestrals from the carriages."
Scanning the list, those were not their only options. Merlin, Luna really had thought of everything.
"There are lots of ways to take Tom out of the castle," continued Luna, taking her turn at the detection spell on the statue. "What we do with him once we're out is the hard part."
"I'm working on how to write my family. Fred and George sent me a Charmed letter, but they're bribing postal workers. It would be risky. Can you work out the Extension Charm?"
"Oh yes, I have already been practicing. I can climb full into my trunk now, even walk around if I like. It's the Undetectable part that will be difficult. "
"I'd ask Tom, but he'd have a vested interest in making sure it goes wrong. If I can think of a way to ask him that doesn't make it obvious we're using it for transporting him, I'll try."
Once they found the not-so-shocking curses on the last passageway, Ginny was free to move on to her next task of the evening, a far less glamorous study session for their N.E.W.T.s. After the rounds of bogus examiners in the school, Ginny was not leaving anything to chance. And if some confounded Ministry lackey still tried to tell her that she had to repeat her seventh year, well, the Imperius Curse was part of their curriculum now.
"Sure you don't want to join, Luna?" asked Demelza when they met in the Grand Staircase.
"Oh, no thank you," Luna replied, "I'm off to do some danger. After all, I've found my paperclip."
"Still Looney, our Lovegood," Demelza chuckled, watching her drift down the stairs.
The Gryffindors were able to read nearly the entire recent issue of the Quibbler on their way down to breakfast in the morning. It was painted word for word on the floor. When Ginny came down the Carrows were berating Harper and Luna in the Entrance Hall, where the cover had been painted large over the House hourglasses. Harper was red in the face, from shame or anger it was hard to tell, but Luna was peering at Alecto with overly large eyes.
"It was probably the Wrackspurts, why we didn't see any students out of bed, Professor. They were out in droves last night. They float in your ears and make your brain go fuzzy, but you must know that."
Alecto's lip curled, perhaps sensing the insult if not entirely understanding it. Ginny tensed until Harper stepped forward, pushing Luna aside. "We'll be more attentive, Professor. We don't have all the prefects we need to patrol effectively, some of them were pulled out of school by their parents."
Amycus shoved his wand nearly into Harper's nose. "It's bloody well in every hallway innit? Only an idiot could have missed it no matter how many of you there were. I'll have your badges for this. We'll see what the Headmaster has to say."
Luna fairly skipped into the Great Hall, but Harper followed shooting Luna a look so baleful it could have melted the graffiti clean from the wall. He need not have worried, as the threat did not carry through breakfast. Snape dismissed the Carrows' concerns as he spread jam on toast, his black eyes locked on Luna. Ginny thought he eyed her as well over his copy of The Practical Potioneer, and so she beat a hasty retreat with Tom's breakfast.
Things started amicably enough. When she entered he asked after her study group, where they had been practicing tricky nonverbal incantations from all of their subject material. He'd given her some pointers the previous morning that had led to her finally being able to Transfigure Gregory's nose into a near identical copy of Snape's without speaking a word.
"Swimmingly, Tom. If I don't take the best marks I've ever gotten, I'll eat my hat."
Handing over his breakfast, she started digging in her school bag. Riddle ate with relish, and she watched him through her lashes, expectant. She'd noticed he liked rice pudding, little clues like saving it for his last bite, pausing to savor it when he thought she was not looking. So she'd been having a private laugh by magicking it into progressively thinner necked bottles that made getting to it a comical affair. Today he resorted to sucking it out and she counted it as a major triumph that midway through he seemed to realize that she had noticed his preferences. She could just see his skin crawl at how he hated it, and he set the vial aside with barely veiled contempt behind his eyes.
"End-of-Term is fast approaching," he said. "What happens to your faithful tutor with Dumbledore gone and your new headmaster none the wiser?"
"Excellent question, Tom. We are getting pretty serious. Shall I take you home to meet my parents?"
He leered. "Oh yes, I relish the opportunity to make good on my promises."
She paused in her search to shoot him a look. "Or fancy a holiday in France? Excellent rice pudding there, I hear." His face dropped and he scowled back.
Finding the parchment she was searching for, she held it out to Tom. "Take this, can you tell there's a charm on it? I'm not sure I got the spell right, but it is supposed to be undetectable."
Tom glanced down at the parchment, but did not take it. "What do you expect me to do with this, smell it? I cannot cast detection spells without a wand, Weasley."
Ginny nearly snorted as she realized her error – assuming that Tom's proficiency at Legilimancy without a wand would translate to charm detection. Though she supposed that was likely for the best, or she and Luna would have been dead ten times over.
"Walk me through it, how would you find out?"
It turned out there were a myriad of spells for that purpose, and also powders that could be sprinkled over the page, which the Room was able to provide. Ginny's parchment held up to three before spilling its secrets, a roster of the Holyhead Harpies that she had scribbled the night before. Frowning, she goaded Tom into helping her reinforce and hide the spell that changed the text on the page like Fred and George had done with their letter. But his mood was sour and it was even more unpleasant to work with him than normal. She was glad to leave once he was satisfied with the efficacy of her spell.
"I take it then that you are woefully unprepared to move me at the end of the term," he said as she tucked the parchment into her bag and sent off her Patronus. He drifted to the bookshelf that housed his small collection, repaired since Ginny dropped it on him.
"There's lots of ways to move you at the end of term, Tom. What I haven't worked out yet is how to do it in a way that won't put you in a real prison or get you killed."
"I can't be killed."
"You don't know that. Had you made any more Horcruxes before you got pulled here, besides the diary?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Obviously the answer is yes. You told me you couldn't die and you already knew Harry destroyed the diary. They've destroyed more since then. What was it?"
"You have not actually persuaded me to change my allegiance, Weasley. Don't ask stupid questions."
"It's worth thinking about." He turned his back on her, but he had pushed too many of her buttons that morning. She pushed harder. "You may be scared of death, but perhaps it's time to confront your mortality."
"I fear nothing," he snarled, turning back. "I am the greatest wizard alive and I can—not—die."
"You aren't the greatest wizard alive. One would assume that your older self has surpassed his seventh year knowledge in the past fifty odd years."
"We are the same person, you idiotic girl, and I will not stand to repeat it again—"
She shot toward the bookshelf. "You aren't the same person! He looks completely different, he's killed countless more people and mangled his own soul – more than yours is now, anyhow – and he has experienced years of things that you and I don't know. You're the same being, but you aren't the same person."
He stalked back to meet her, face dark, and Ginny backpedaled. "I am here, plucked out of time, for a purpose. Since I first stepped foot in these halls, I have known that I would be greater, that I would delve into magical depths that no other wizard has even dreamed of, would push the boundaries farther than any wizard has dared. It does not matter that he has lived more of our life than me, I am still set to do whatever is necessary to accomplish our purpose."
Luna's Patronus hopped through the door, but Ginny fired her parting shot as she turned to go. "You won't be the one accomplishing anything."
He fetched up the bottle of rice pudding and hurled it at the door with all his strength. It shattered and she threw up a perfect nonverbal Shield Charm to ward off the glass, spinning back towards him.
"Eat your heart out, Riddle, but Dumbledore isn't here to protect you anymore. It's just Luna and I."
"I will kill you, you and Lovegood both. Do not forget—"
She Vanished the glass and cut him off. "Empty threats, Riddle. Why should the real Dark Lord care about two seventh year purebloods when he's got real battles to fight, real enemies to put down? I am no one to him." Then, eying the rice pudding she had left on the floor, she added, "Enjoy your pudding," and swept from the room.
It truly was a treat of a day. After lessons she had her detention with Snape. She arrived first, the gargoyle informing her that the Headmaster was not yet in his office. Ginny idled in the corridor, then looking both ways, quickly drew the same graffiti that she'd done there before: Death Eaters Beware – The Army Rides.
"It was here when I got here, Sir," she said when Snape billowed around the corner. His nostrils flared and he Vanished it right before her eyes.
"Another detention, Miss Weasley."
She locked her jaw and followed him up to his office ("Percival" was the new password). The first thing she noticed was that the glass case they had smashed trying to steal Gryffindor's sword was repaired. It was also empty. A knot formed in her stomach. They had surmised Snape would move it, but a part of her had hoped that they would have another chance to take it. There was no other chair in the room and she was forced to stand before his desk as he crossed behind it.
"Lines again, Miss Weasley," he said. "You may serve your next detention tomorrow with Filch. Someone needs to scrub the corridors. Perhaps it will teach you not to overestimate your abilities."
Ginny gritted her teeth. "I know what I'm doing, Sir," she answered.
He steepled his fingers on the desk, leering over her. "No, you are a child who is out of her depth, and you will pay for your presumption."
She met his eyes with defiance. "I'm right where I'm supposed to be, Sir."
She had been practicing Occlumency ever since she started the climb up from dinner, but it still came as a shock when she felt the nonverbal spell hit, and she repelled him. Snape's eyes widened imperceptibly, but he simply sat behind his desk.
"Another detention, Weasley," he sneered, and conjured a small, cramped desk for her.
Merlin, they knew this was a danger, but it still shocked her that he had done it. He levitated the tome on Occlumency down for her as she sat, feeling a trembling start in her hands. Bloody hell, what if she had not practiced?
She wrote mechanically at first, hardly processing the words. Her mind was spinning and it was all she could do to keep practicing Occlumency. In fact, if Snape tried again in that moment she would be hard pressed to empty her mind and thoughts as she ought.
The chapter Snape instructed her to copy was farther along in the book, but it was not until she had copied nearly half of it that she registered that it spoke to more advanced Occlumency. The archaic vocabulary still escaped her, but as she applied herself to reading the text, she found she understood some of the theory based on what Tom had told her. Here was the slight of hand he was always going on about, a form of Occlumency that allowed the user to suppress only certain emotions and memories.
With a swift glance to Snape, she bent her nose to the parchment and wrote as fast as she could. Her hand cramped around the quill, but she managed to copy nearly three chapters before Snape instructed her to leave his office.
She took her prize with her, but Snape had the last word as she went.
"Hold your tongue, or your classmates will suffer. Take solace in the fact that the Cruciatus Curse does not leave any lasting damage."
It was a close thing not leaving the office with a third detention.