The two men that had tried to adopt her as a cat, it turned out, were the uncles of Charles Potter and the newest defense professors. They were co-teaching, as Mr. Black was an Auror (on leave for the year) and knew more of the application, whereas Mr. Lupin was more theory-based (though she bet he could still hold his ground in a duel).

Black was lounging on one of the desks that had been pushed to the side of the classroom, for all intents and purposes looking quite like one of those boys in the orphanage that thought he was the greatest thing to walk the earth, while Lupin talked about their lesson: boggarts.

But Lena was too busy watching the wardrobe to listen to the sandy-haired man, lost in thoughts of fear and it's possibilities.

She knew she was afraid of being forgotten... but how would that appear?

The other kids formed a line around where she stood frozen in thought, their fears things like clowns or spiders or snakes.

However, Theo's boggart was a man that Blaise whispered to her was the boy's father, though the boy had no explanation and merely turned it into a clown (much to one girl's horror). Blaise's was what looked like a bloodstained bed, but he just turned that into a small kitten chasing its tail with a smirk to her. Daphne's fear was a mirror where her reflection was crying, signifying weakness, and Draco's was his father.

Children were not born cruel, they were forced to choose that path.

"Miss Farland." The other Professor, Black, looked at her with unreadable silvery eyes and she realized she was now in the front of the line. "You're up next."

Nodding, Lena stepped forward, wand slipping into her hand.

The boggart changed, leaving a figure standing there in worn paint-stained clothes. He looked the same as she remembered with his wrinkle-lined face, his close-cropped salt and pepper hair, and the tern tilt to his lips.

"Jack?" Her wand was limp at her side, blinking and taking a step forward. "Jack, I missed you so-"

But the look in his eyes stopped her, something cold and hateful that the man reserved for the Matron when the woman had done something to her. His mouth moved, and she could almost hear his words in her ears.

"Monster."

Her hand shook, wand almost slipping from her grasp as her hand started to shake, reaching up to clutch at her dog tags as if they could protect her from the sharp pain in her chest where she felt like her heart had fractured. "I had to. You know I did."

Again the figure said a single word, eyes like ice.

"Worthless."

Flinching, Lena closed her eyes even as she felt tears on her cheek, swallowing thickly. "You- you don't mean that Jack." Looking at the man through tears she couldn't seem to hold back, her voice broke and she'd never felt more like that nine-year-old standing next to a gravestone pleading that he just come back. Just please- please I'll do anything, just come back to me. "You'd never-"

The man's eyes were resolute glaciers as he stepped forward slowly, advancing on her like a twisted version of the old man she'd relied on for so long- as if he was here to punish her for her mistakes.

"You should have died instead of me."

Gasping for her breath, her hands shaking almost comically where they clutched at her dog tags, she nodded through the tears that wouldn't stop. "I know Jack. I… I know." Then she pointed her wand at the man and took a shuddering breath. "I-... For what it's worth... I'm sorry... Riddickulus."

The figure whirled, a single silver bracelet lying where the man had been.

Laughing softly through the tears in her eyes and the pain in her chest where she was sure her heart had been crushed, she looked to the door where Dumbeldore stood with saddened eyes. "First birthday gift he gave me… and I sold it for a bag of peppermint candies." Her body shook with soft sobs as the Headmaster watched her with sad eyes. "Peppermint oil... suppresses appetite." Her bitter smile was tear-stained and she could guess she looked pretty pathetic.

"Remus, please excuse Miss Farland."

Professor Lupin blinked. "Yeah… right. Of course." The man in question was still looking at her with furrowed eyebrows.

"Come, Lena. Walk with an old man." Moving forward, the Headmaster put his hand on her shoulder, steering her out. They walked in silence, both ignoring how every student they passed gaped at her- most likely because her cheeks were stained with tears. "Jack would never say anything like that, my dear."

Lena nodded. "I know... but it's still my fear. I think that Jack was just the best way to get that message across for-... for the boggart."

Dumbledore was silent, looking somewhere in the distance as if he was seeing something she was not. "Did I ever tell you about the time Jack got so drunk at the Hog's Head, he bet Aberforth he could wrestle the giant squid?

"No." She sniffed and finally wiped at her cheeks.

"Then I'll tell it to you now." Smiling, the old man started into a long story that had her feeling much better.

At the end of their walk, they traded candies, the Headmaster looking at the peppermint curiously before putting it in his mouth. "Do these really suppress appetite?"

Lena clacked the lemon drop against her teeth, nodding, her voice sarcastic. "And I poisoned it."

The old man looked at her with serious eyes. "Same here."

Staring at each other, she shared a smile with the man- something real and humorous that only a few had only seen before- chuckling slightly. "Well played." But then she looked away, sucking on the lemon drop. "I- I have a question... Do you think Jack would like who I've become?"

"I guarantee he would." Dumbledore smiled softly.

"...Thank you." With one last look at the man, she turned to the doors of the castle so she could walk down to the lake and think, hoping that the others had taken her stuff with them.

Surprisingly, Draco was the one to meet her at the entrance of the Common Room, holding out a thick blanket. "I'm sorry I've been such a prat lately."

Shaking her head, she took the blanket. "It's not anything to be sorry for. Not since you've obviously made an effort to change." Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, she looked past him at the room and then blinked slowly. "Why are the Hufflepuffs here?"

A group of yellow-and-black robed students stood off to the far side of the room, eyeing her.

"You missed the excitement while you were out." Marcus grinned from across the room, lounging on his chair like the (crownless) king he was. "Pettegrew got in the castle somehow and tried to curse Potter. He escaped somehow… but the Headmaster said that since they have the weakest password, that they're staying with us."

"Ah."

Ginny looked at her worriedly. "You doing alright Lena? The- uh- incident in your class circulated the school already."

Lena sighed and moved to sit by the fire, writing a note for the elves for more couches and chairs, looking up at the snakes watching her a second later. "Jack was the only person who cared whether I lived or died when I was a kid. His death… It's been almost four years and I still don't know that I'm over it." Tossing the note on the table, watching it disappear and more couches appear around the room, she shrugged. "I'm fine now. I had a lovely time talking to the mermaids down by the lake."

"Mermaids?" Susan Bones seemed to perk up at this but cowered back when the whole of Slytherin glared at her.

"Snakes… is that really how we treat guests? Come now, set aside whatever petty feud you have and understand we are being asked to protect them." Lena huffed. "Nothing will change. I'll still be sleeping down here and those with nightmares are more than welcome to come to talk to me or just request some hot chocolate… but now our rules just include not letting strange men into the common room and playing nice with the 'Puffs."

Adrian Pucey scowled. "Do we have to?"

Eyes narrowing, she looked to the boy flatly, the air chilling around her slightly. "Do you wish to try to oppose the set rules, Pucey?"

"N-no… but, well, they treated you like rubbish last year!"

Sighing and rubbing the bridge of her nose as more than a few others muttered their agreement, she nodded. "Then beat them in Quidditch or- or make them read 'Pet Sematary'… just don't bring it into this house or I'll charm all your clothes to look like Dumbledore's robes." Looking at the other house, she found where Diggory stood in the crowd. "You too. I'll find some way to make your lives miserable if you're bad guests. However, if you are nice… I might share my books and chocolate with you, as well as talk to whoever is having nightmares."

Diggory looked around his house, getting small nods in return. "Fine. But none of you get to talk bad about us and no matter who wins Quidditch, we all party together, okay?"

The house of Slytherin nodded, coming to an agreement.

The pretty headpiece's scenery hadn't changed the next time she put it on alone in her room, strolling to sit across from the man in the strange ghost-like bar. "Why a bar? What's so special about this place?"

Riddle watched her with the same intent red eyes as before. "This diadem was combined with my consciousness here... Thus, I must stay in this place forever."

"Sounds lonely… is there a way for me to get you a book or something? It must get incredibly boring in this place."

The man stared at her for a long moment as if wondering if she was telling the truth. Finally, with no little bit of curiosity in his eyes, he let the corners of his lips curl up. "The easiest way would be to take a memory of a book and push it out past your mind-barriers, as then I will be able to see it."

Well, that was one way to say it was possible for him to get in her mind if she wore the diadem.

Lena just nodded, as she wasn't too concerned about him meddling in her mind if Dumbledore himself had trouble reading her, and pushed forward the memory of her reading Dr. Suess to the Great Hall during Halloween first year.

Blood red eyes flickering shut as if seeing the memory behind his eyelids, the man was still for a moment before opening his eyes and looking at her critically. "You weren't lying."

"I try not to. If you lie, then there's a risk that eventually the truth will see the light of day." Looking at the table, letting her fingers map out the carved indents and raised warpings of the wood, she thought over her next words. "May I ask… what were your goals? The diary was pretty set on changing things, bringing back old magic and banned books like me, but I've heard from children of your followers that you went a bit off the rails and started to lose your way… even attacking children."

When the man's face twisted into a sneer, she pushed forward the conversation between her and Theo when he told her about Pettegrew and a bit about the Dark Lord.

Stilling in his defensive anger for a moment, the man scowled after having obviously seen the memory. "I would never do such barbaric things. I wished magical children preserved- children with magic taken from muggle homes and put in homes that would respect and treasure them, though I thought my other self would do something like go through the Ministry to achieve it… you said I became a Dark Lord?"

"Dark Lord Voldemort."

"Ridiculous." The man looked upset at this, before seeming to consider something. "However… there was a ritual I did, splitting my consciousness into such items as this… I wonder if that was where things went wrong."

Lena shrugged, stifling a yawn. "Might be."

Riddle looked to her, a glint of fear and anger in his eyes though he kept his voice calm fairly well. "You said you destroyed the diary?"

"Lit it on fire." Lena gave the man an unamused look. "He refused to respect my personal space boundaries and I thought it was annoying. Though he did say some nonsense about seeing me again... but I guess he meant there was more of you."

He didn't say anything about that, instead seeming more curious about something else. "He wanted to touch you?" At her raised eyebrow, Riddle rolled his eyes. "Not meaning to be offensive- I'm just surprised. I remember thinking other people quite repulsive when I was young."

Pushing forth the whole interaction between them in the Chamber of Secrets, Lena brought her hand up to cover another yawn, crossing her arms and putting her chin down on her arms to watch the man lazily.

After a bit, the man blinked at her slowly. "Interesting..." Watching her yawn yet again into her elbow, eyes feeling heavy, the man patted the space beside him. "Come. Lean on me."

"I thought you don't like people?"

"I said when I was young I didn't like people. Now… I can make exceptions." This seemed to be funny to the man because he sent her a smirk that she pretended didn't chew at her insides.

Blinking slowly, she moved to the other side of the table and stared at him for a long moment before sitting down and closing her eyes. Leaning into his warm presence, her voice was a mutter. "I still don't fully trust you."

"Just as well." Riddle chuckled, turning himself slightly so he could pull her closer. "I wouldn't trust me either with much… but you are far too interesting to hurt."

Lena just hummed under her breath. It was unusual for her to allow anyone to hold her like this, much less when she was in a state of tiredness, but all she could feel from Riddle was warmth- as if the sun was wrapping her in a cocoon of soft sunbeams- so she figured she could trust him enough to fall asleep here…

That and she really didn't want to get up at the moment.

Feeling a hand running through her long hair, gently untangling the few knots as it went, she let herself slowly slip off the cliff into the void of sleep.

Sitting next to Blaise again in the incense-heavy room of the Astronomy tower, she tried to stay awake and coherent with the thick environment making her brain slow and her eyes abnormally weighted.

"-iss Farland!"

Lena blinked, looking to where Professor Trelawny was moving her way and then giving Blaise a longsuffering look of pain.

"Yes, Miss Farland can feel it- the mists of the veil is slowly being pulled back for her…" The woman gestured from her to the intricate tarot cards in front of her. "Come now child, let us see through you- tell us what the cards are telling you about Mr. Zabini."

Taking a deep exaggerated breath, she half-lidded her eyes and mumbled under her breath what sounded like nonsense (but was actually a recipe for brownies), hands brushing over the cards that she'd ordered by rank and number.

She knew exactly where every card was and the order she'd put them.

So, fingers bushing the cards- counting them as she went- she pulled out the fool card and gasped dramatically when she looked at it, looking to Blaise with wide eyes.

"What? What is it?" Trelawny's eyes were as wide as saucers as if she'd predict a gruesome fate for her friend.

Instead, with a trembling hand, she reached up so her fingers were pointing lazily at her temples. "The cards are telling me that…" She flipped the card around and then smirked. "You're a nerd."

The darker-skinned boy burst into a fit of wheezing laughter, Theo and Draco snickering from off to the side while Daphne grinned behind her hand.

"Miss Farland! This is no joke! The fool represents a meaningless life, taken for granted by someone of a higher power!" Trelawny waved her hands. "The cards are telling you, Mr. Zabini, that you'll devote your life to someone that will always have power over you!"

If anything this made the boys laugh even harder, Blaise nodding as he wiped tears from his eyes as he nodded. "I know, Professor."

Draco wheezed. "Devote… higher power…"

Lena raised an eyebrow but kept her wide smile as she watched the four laughing Slytherins.

She didn't understand, but that was okay because they looked to be having fun.

Finally realizing that she wasn't going to get the class back under control, they were dismissed and she caught Blaise's hand as they started to walk back to the Common Room, intertwining their feelings. "What was all that about?"

"Nothing bad, don't worry about it." The Italian boy grinned fondly, squeezing her hand gently. "She just confirmed something I already knew."

Frowning slightly, but not about to push him, she nodded and kept their hands intertwined as they walked.

"Miss Farland!"

Looking back at where both of the Defence teachers were walking towards her group, she looked to Blaise, who nodded. Ducking around the corner and looking to see no one in sight, she transformed into her animagus and snuck under Theo's cloak.

Gaping, the boy looked down at her and gave a silent 'what' under his breath, but then seemed to shake it off as he picked her up, apparently not about to freak out now.

"Mr. Zabini… Where did Miss Farland go?"

Blaise stared at Professor Black blankly. "Who?"

The man scowled. "Lena. Lena Farland. We wished to talk to her outside of class and yet she left right at the end of class."

Nodding slowly, as if the two were saying something in a different language, the Italian boy just hummed. "Did you ever think that maybe she doesn't really want to talk to you two? That's a possibility. She did avoid Lockhart pretty avidly last year- in fact, the only defense professor that hasn't made her see her dead father-figure or tried to hit on her… was Quirrell."

Both men twitched slightly at the name.

Black narrowed his eyes. "What's with you snakes and the attitude all of a sudden? None of you were like this before-..." He drifted off, seeming to realize something.

"Yeah. Think about what you were just about to say, then think about why Slytherin could possibly hate your guts." Blaise's smile was sickeningly sweet. "Maybe because you reduced a thirteen-year-old to tears and didn't even think once of stepping in."

Lupin looked pained. "Still... We need to talk to her-… we might know something about her parents."

Lena bristled.

How dare they try to lie to her about some fake family that never even looked for her when she had been raised by Jack!

Daphne sniffed haughtily. "Jackson Farland, you mean? Because I wouldn't tell Lena you think that the family that abandoned her when she was a little less than two years old matters. She might just kill you for that."

She might for even suggesting it.

Still frowning the next day as they walked to Hogsmeade, Blaise threw an arm around her shoulder with a sigh halfway through the slightly muddy trip. "What's going on in that brain of yours?"

"Plotting."

"You know you can't just kill them for being disrespectful." At the glance she gave him out of the corner of her eyes, he sighed. "Well, not easily, at least. Plus, killing an Auror wouldn't help with Potter. Not that he seems to care, staring at you all the time."

Her eyes followed his, finding Charles frowning at her from across the path of Hogsmeade as if confused. Rising an eyebrow at the boy, he turned away as if he hadn't seen her and she rolled her eyes, tugging on Blaise's arm to get them moving again. "Fine. No killing." Watching Draco and Theo argue about something that sounded suspiciously like Quidditch, Daphne watching them as if their argument was a particularly interesting rugby game, she pushed the ugly thoughts from her head.

It wouldn't matter, she was fine without a family.

"Oh- looks like that small antique shop moved to Diagon." Daphne pointed at a small well-placed building near the town square with a sign in the window to owl a 'Rebecca Morris' about renting or buying the building for a business. "That's a shame. My mother said that it was there when she went to school and usually had good trinkets for last-minute gift ideas."

Lena tilted her head, the hand in her pocket brushing against a chocolate bar. "I need to stop by the owlery down the street if you'll save me a seat at the Hog's Head."

Theo raised an eyebrow as she shrugged of Blaise's arm gently and moving to get a piece of parchment from her bag, as she was already composing a letter in her head. "The Hog's Head? You know that's infested with shady characters and we're all thirteen? "

"Then sit on Draco's shoulders, put on a trenchcoat, and pretend you're an adult." She grinned. "Or you could tell Aberforth, the bartender, that I'll be there soon."

"Of course she knows the bloody bartender of the Hog's Head..." Theo muttered under his breath as she walked away, making her smile slightly.

The letter was hasty and written against a wall, so there was little she could say about the standards of her penmanship, but she knew that it wouldn't matter as long as it got the message across- she suspected she'd get an owl back by dinner.

Lena was not a fan of rain, hence the thin clear shield rising from her wand, surrounding the area of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins who (in all surprise) seemed to get along fairly well after the truce. As Hufflepuff was currently playing against Slytherin, the group was somewhat split in supporting one or the other, but Lena was firmly wearing green and silver just as the Hufflepuffs were wearing yellow and black.

Theo and Blaise were cheering and yelling with the rest of the house as they creamed Hufflepuff, but her eyes fell to where Charlus Potter looked as if he was feeling clammy, wavering on his broom.

Turning, she scowled deeply at the dark forms drifting through the air towards the pitch.

The game seemed to go into an intermission as the stadium started to shiver from the dementor's presence, the players grounding themselves quickly. The others seemed to wane in their energy and Lena looked around herself curiously. She felt a bit of doubt and self-loathing creeping in on her as if she had just done something the Matron didn't like, but other than that she was alright.

Releasing her umbrella ward as Potter slumped to the ground of the stadium and Theo seemed to go into a catatonic state, she ignored the rain for the sake of pointing her wand at the creature and thinking back to her in-depth (and a bit illegal) book on magical creatures.

"Expecto Patronum!" Springing from her wand was a mirror image of the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, hissing in wordless anger and moving to start driving the creatures away.

Soon enough a wolf, a big dog, a cat with spectacles, and a phoenix all joined her snake in driving away the beasts.

The professors ushered everyone out of the stands and even though she could tell Black and Lupin were looking at her, they went after where Charles was being sent to the hospital wing instead of approaching (which she was grateful for, as she had two houses to placate).

Making the Quidditch team eat half a bar of chocolate each and then immediately shower, she dried off a few of the students at a time and handed out chocolate, the house-elves sending over mugs upon mugs of hot chocolate.

The room slowly settled into a state of quiet relaxation, the whole of the two houses either sitting on the floor or lounging around on the various furniture pieces.

"Alright there, Diggory?" She moved to the older prefect last, tilting her head at the pale quietness that defied all his normal behavior and pushed a mug of hot chocolate in his hands.

"I saw my mum dying." The boy's voice was soft, staring at the floor before him. "She got in an accident when I was young and…"

Moving to kneel with a knee on the ground, she caught his eyes and pushed the mug up for him to drink, watching him regain a bit of color when he sipped it. "Know that I don't much like repeating myself, so listen to me well… Your mother would be proud of who you've become, Diggory. You're top of your class, a fantastic Quidditch Captain, an awesome prefect that everyone admires… And know this: even if your dad can't see that, everyone in this room can." When the boy looked up, startled, she smiled softly and tucked a chocolate bar into his shirt pocket. "That notebook isn't just for decoration, though many think so."

The boy smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"Of course." Moving away, she found Blaise was in her seat, and instead of moving him, just laid out across his lap. "Hey Zucchini… penny for your thoughts?"

Snorting, the boy grinned at her. "They cost more than that, Lean Mean Lena Machine." When she merely poked him for the nickname, he rolled his eyes. "I was just wondering why you didn't seem that affected."

"Dementors feed on every good feeling, every happy memory until a person is left with absolutely nothing but their worst experiences." Looking at the boy, she smiled softly and patted his cheek. "I, dear Zucchini, had no good memories to fall back on until halfway through my first year here. Everything else- even Jack- was dulled down to a painful existence that seemed to have no purpose. So… I guess I am just used to their effects."

"Then how can you cast the Patronus so easily?"

Lena wiggled her eyebrows. "Magic."

The boy pushed her off of him for the comment, much to her indignant surprise and the laughter of the common room.

Laying back on her bed and putting on the diadem, she moved to sit across from Riddle with her legs on the bench and her back to the wall of the booth, not saying anything.

Riddle tilted his head. "Did something happen?"

She pushed the memory of the dementors forward and then Theo's question and her answer. Waiting for the man to look at her again, she fiddled with her dog tags, voice soft. "I used to talk to the diary late at night when he would possess this one girl I knew… and though I didn't know it was him, I enjoyed our talks. It makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me for liking to talk to someone who has caused so much death and pain."

"And yet I hadn't. As of the age of the diary, my existence had only affected four lives, and one of them was an accident. The girl that died to the Basilisk was completely accidental."

"And the other three?" She frowned slightly.

Looking at her with a soft smile, he shrugged. "My muggle father left my pregnant mother to die in childbirth so I was raised an orphan. I later found him living with his parents still. He said he should have killed my mother when he got the chance and the rest… was history."

Lena pushed a few memories of Jack forward and his advice to not dwell on the past, only to keep it in mind for when the effects came in the future, reaching out to take Riddle's hand. "Should we start up a secret club for slightly sadistic children that have issues because of their parents?"

"It exists already." Riddle grinned roguishly. "It's called Slytherin."

Laughing, she nodded.

Smiling warmly at her, he seemed to have a thought and tilted his head. "If I may ask… where is the main form of myself? You keep talking about him as if he's gone or… dead."

"He might as well be." Watching the humor fade from the man's eyes, she studied at him closely. "You already know he went after the Potter children… and I guess he found the wrong one because his killing curse was rumored to have failed. Last I heard, he became a bodiless wraith."

Looking off to the side, the man's jaw clenched, eyes deepening to a wine color in fury.

Lena wasn't sure what to say, so she just kept talking and hoped the man would see reason and calm down. "I met him while he was possessing a stuttering lump of a defense professor. He was actually fairly sane, though that might have been because enough time without a body can surely make anyone see reason… I have to admit that so far he's been my favorite Defence teacher, though his best teaching came when he would respond to questions I would ask about the in-depth theory of magic..."

"You're a strange child." Riddle seemed to breathe through his anger, looking back at her once more.

She offered up a half-smile. "I know." Then in looking around the grimy pub, she put her chin in her hand. "Isn't this like a mindscape? Can't you change the scenery?"

The man sent her a longsuffering look. "I am a master legilimens, occlumency is nothing more than a needed skill for me." When she just stared at him, as occlumency usually came first and was the building block for legilimency, he sighed. "...that might also be a reason why my other self... lost their sense of reason.

Sighing, she laid her arms on the table, forearms up and crossed to form an X. "I'll need some kind of contact if you want this to work."

"And what exactly are you doing?" But Riddle reached out anyways, his hands face up, and slotted their hands together.

Lena ignored the warmth in the contact as she imagined the diner that she knew every inch of, their surroundings slowly starting to bleed from grey into the light lavender that the cafe seemed to always glow with softly when the sun started to set. "I'm bored with the greyness of the bar."

Riddle looked around, eyeing everything with apparent fascination. "Where… is this?"

"London. By the orphanage. I worked here over the summer and helped wait tables." When the man raised an eyebrow, she grinned. "You'd be surprised what responsibility people will give you when you act older than you are."

Humming softly, he went back to studying their surroundings and she put her head down on their hands, closing her eyes.