Chapter Two: Ginny of Gryffindor
As Tom went downstairs with the rest of Gryffindor house, he failed to recognize a single one of them. I don't think I'm in 1943 anymore. The thought unsettled him.
If a new cohort of students had come through Hogwarts, at least seven years must have passed. That placed him in 1950 or beyond.
The Gryffindors came across students from other houses wearing magical pins reading "Support Cedric Diggory" and "Potter Stinks." This kind of flagrant disregard for school uniform was forbidden at the Hogwarts he remembered. Dippet would have dealt infractions like this harshly. Does this mean Dippet's no longer headmaster?
That didn't bode well. The old wizard had practically been in his pocket, after all the care he had taken to become the man's favorite pupil. Professor Slughorn had even let it slip that Tom was Dippet's guaranteed pick for Head Boy next year. It unnerved him that all the professors he remembered might be gone. All my investments in currying favor are lost!
Tom found the Great Hall changed from what he remembered too. There were still four long tables for each of the Hogwarts Houses, as if that would ever change. But there were two new tables as well—one occupied by girls, and the other by boys, both groups dressed in strange uniforms. Two other visiting schools? Could this be a Triwizard tournament year? But A Triwizard tournament hadn't been held at Hogwarts since 1792! Had they been revived?
As Tom feared, he recognized no one among the staff table either. Instead of Dippet, the Headmaster's place was occupied by some severely old man with a long white beard, wild eyebrows and a face like... Professor Dumbledore? His old Transfiguration teacher? Yes, it appeared to be the same man, but quite a bit older. How much time has passed?
Tom walked to the Slytherin table before remembering he was a Gryffindor girl now. So he found an open seat with his new house. There, beside the spread of crumpets, eggs, ham and waffles, he saw a copy of the Daily Prophet newspaper showing the day's date.
Friday December 16th, 1994.
It's been fifty-one years!?
"Morning, Ginny," said a girl with bushy brown hair and eyes, sitting down next to him. "Anything interesting in there?"
Tom realized she was talking to him. Ginny must be the name of the girl whose body he was now inhabiting—though Ginny was probably short for Virginia, Virginie, or Ginevra… He had no idea how she would respond, but he had to say something.
"Not really," Tom said in Ginny's voice. "Just more about the tournament."
"No, I wouldn't imagine there would be. It's not like other things are still going on in the world." The brown-haired girl helped herself to the food, avoiding all the meat items. "At least the muggles have more than one newspaper."
"Yes Hermione, but the muggle world's got loads more people innit, don't they?" said a red-haired boy across from them. "Our population's much smaller. Everything that goes on fits in one newspaper."
"I can think of all sorts of things The Daily Prophet doesn't report on. Foreign affairs, for instance," Hemione said.
"Foreign what?" said the red-haired boy, his mouth full of food.
"Affairs!"
"You mean like when married adults swap beds?!"
"No, you oaf! Foreign affairs as in politics," Hermione said, blushing. "Gosh, Ron! Could you be any more crude?"
The boy next to Ron cracked a smile. He wore round glasses and had shaggy black hair that covered a lightning scar on his forehead.
He, Ron and Hermione kept bantering as if they were the centers of the universe, without paying Tom much attention for the rest of breakfast. So he turned his focus to the problem at hand. He was fifty-one years in the future, in the body of a thirteen year old girl, with no clear way to restore things back to normal.
When in doubt, he always fell back on the principles of wizard chess.
You have to play the game from the board in front of you, not the board you wish you had.
Yes, the board had changed. It was 1994 and he was a girl, but that didn't mean his goals had to change.
Master the magical arts. Gain followers. Attain immortality.
As much as he would like to regain his own body and find his wand as well, he must move forward with the master plan. But Albus Dumbledore was headmaster of Hogwarts now, and the old transfiguration master had always distrusted him and foiled his plans. He could avoid having to deal with Dumbledore's meddling if he could only keep impersonating this Ginny girl.
But how could Tom play the part of someone he didn't even know? He had made it through one breakfast without arousing suspicion, but eventually people would notice something was off with Ginny when he consistently failed to respond in character.
A solution began to formulate—he could stage an accident. A backfire of a memory charm would do, like the obliviate he had been about to use on Myrtle Warren. Such a spell could make Ginny lose her memory. People would have to re-explain her life story back to her, so that Tom could learn it all as he went. His ignorance would be completely justified. It was brilliant!
Tom felt a rising thrill at the idea.
Yes, this could work. People would believe it. After all, these types of magical accidents happened all the time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.