Professor Lupin returned to teaching, looking even more worn-out than before his absence. The third-year Defense students met him with a flurry of complaints about the long essay Snape had assigned them. Lupin assured them they did not have to write the essay. Hermione had of course already completed it, so he gave her extra credit for her effort.

Lupin also resumed his tutoring sessions with Harry and Ginny. For Ginny, this meant more work on precision, and the emotional control this required. The situation created something of a paradox, as the emotion she struggled with most was her growing impatience to move on to learning more powerful spells.

"With fire magic, power comes on its own, and all too soon," Lupin told her. He insisted control must come first, as later work would depend on having mastered the fundamentals.

Ginny's search for more aggressive fire spells at the library also proved unsuccessful. She didn't have access to the restricted section, and didn't like her chances of tricking Lupin into providing a signature, as Harry had managed with Lockhart the year before.

Lupin had one massive, ancient volume in his personal collection that Ginny yearned for so much she nearly ached. Its title was The Raging Flame. This was the source for her most interesting lessons, on the rare occasion Lupin indulged her wish to learn something flashier. The Hogwarts library didn't have a copy; she'd checked.

Lupin always followed the same procedure with this book. He would unlock the cabinet he kept it in, bring it out and set it on his desk, then stand back and use a spell to open it. This last step was necessary because whenever he opened the book, it let out a large puff of dark smoke.

Once he found the spell he wanted, he would copy it to a sheet of parchment with a wave of his wand, then return the book to its cabinet and lock it away again, giving Ginny the copy to work from.

The pages he copied for her were always near the front of the book. She desperately wanted to know what the later pages contained, but Lupin always denied her requests to borrow the book, or even to browse through the rest of the pages under his supervision.

As Lupin coached Harry on advancing from creating the Patronus mist to a full corporeal Patronus, the question came up of why his own Patronus appeared as an amorphous shape. He avoided answering whether he was capable of producing a full Patronus or not. Sometimes when he demonstrated the charm, she thought she could make out the vague outline of a four-legged beast on the verge of coalescing.

As much as Ginny valued their lessons with Lupin, she still had reservations about trusting anyone who held the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, and paid close attention to anything he seemed cagey about. She knew from personal experience how to tell when someone was keeping far too many secrets.

Harry was less suspicious. He grew comfortable enough with Lupin that during one of their discussions on the power of intense emotional memories, he confided in him that he thought the woman he heard screaming when Dementors were nearby was his mother, on the night she'd died.

Lupin gave him a sad look, and admitted he had known both of Harry's parents, though he seemed reluctant to speak of them.

Ginny understood he might simply find the topic too painful, but suspected there was something more behind his reticence.

If Lupin's personal secrets made her wary, the slow pace at which he doled out the secrets of fire had become unbearable. One night, she decided to pay a visit to his office when he wasn't there, with the aid of the Marauder's Map, Harry's Cloak, and a set of lock-picks borrowed from Fred and George. As she'd hoped, although Lupin had protected his office locks against magical tampering, they proved vulnerable to Muggle methods.

She went straight for his copy of The Raging Flame, picking the locks to the cabinet as easily as she had the ones on the door. Everything was going smoothly, until her preoccupation with watching the Map for Lupin's return made her forgot the puff of smoke the book put out when opened. She got a blast of it right in her face.

Ginny swore under her breath as her watering eyes prevented her from reading either the book or the Map in the faint light from her wand. She had no choice but to cast a series of quick spells to copy several pages from the end of the book, without checking what they were. If the beginner spells were near the book's beginning, she hoped the ones near the end would be more exciting.

She pulled the Cloak over herself and stumbled out of the office, clutching the precious pages. She made her way to a secluded spot where she could blink away the tears well enough to see. Having managed that, she made it back to her room without getting caught.

When she drew her bed-curtains and at last had a chance to read through the spells, she found her assumption had been correct. They were quite advanced. What she hadn't counted on was the level of familiarity they assumed with earlier sections of the book. Without that background, she couldn't make sense of certain key points, but she could hardly ask Lupin for help without raising awkward questions.

She tried to make do with the parts she understood. The page describing a fire-based shield spell had the fewest references to the rest of the book, aside from a note reminding the reader of the importance of "the proper mental state for true mastery of any powerful fire spell". Over the following days, she practiced the wand motions and incantation until she could perform them flawlessly, but failed to produce even a spark.

By the time she dared attempt another break-in, Lupin had added further protections to the locks, and she was no longer able to pick them. He'd obviously noticed the first break-in, though if he suspected her, he said nothing.

She decided she was lucky to be learning magic, as she wasn't cut out for making a living as a thief.

~*~

Hermione, Ron and Ginny decided to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holiday. It went without saying that Harry would stay, and he was looking forward to spending the holiday with his friends. Most of the other students chose to get away from Black and the Dementors.

One more Hogsmeade weekend took place before the end of term. After the disaster of Harry's first attempt at sneaking out, he had no desire to try again. Having plans to spend the day with Ginny made the decision even easier.

When Ron and Hermione returned early from the village and came into the otherwise empty common room to find them, Ginny saw the bleak looks they directed at Harry. She wrapped herself around him to give what comfort she could through whatever was coming.

Ron and Hermione took turns relating the shocking revelations they'd overheard at the Three Broomsticks. They told him Black had been his father's best friend and best man, and Harry's godfather. Black was also the one his parents had entrusted with keeping the secret that should have kept the whole family safe–a secret he had betrayed.

Ginny could feel Harry stiffening as he learned the full truth of his family's tragic history. When Ron and Hermione finished, Harry sat still for a long moment, then jumped to his feet. He stormed up the stairs to his room, his friends following.

They found him rummaging through his trunk. He pulled out the photo album Hagrid had given him. He flipped through the pages, quickly finding the picture he wanted, as though he had the contents of every page committed to heart.

"That's him!" He held the page up for his friends to see. "Black! Why didn't Hagrid tell me? Why didn't anyone?" He slammed the album shut and dropped it on his bed. He started for the door.

Ron stepped in front of him. "Whoa, mate. Where are you headed now?"

"Move, Ron. I need to talk to Hagrid. Why would he do this? Him of all people? He can't keep a secret to save his life, and this is what he keeps quiet about? Of all the teachers, I thought I could at least count on him."

Ginny said, "Maybe he was worried you'd go after Black yourself if you knew. I bet that's why everyone else has been so weird about the whole thing."

"They were right to worry."

"Harry!" Hermione cried. "You can't mean that."

"We're not ready," Ginny told him. "I'm sorry, but it's true. One day, all debts will be paid. Riddle, Black, Malfoy… everyone who has ever hurt your family, or mine. I swear it. But we need to be ready."

Harry paused and frowned at her. "Fine. But I still want to talk to Hagrid."

"Maybe you should cool down a bit first," Ron suggested, and the girls voiced their agreement.

"I can't."

"Alright, but we're coming with you."

"Fine. As long as you don't try to stop me."

As Ron followed Harry out of the room, Hermione and Ginny exchanged a troubled look. They needed to talk to Harry soon about their secret practice sessions, before he found out on his own.

The walk to Hagrid's was tense and silent. When they arrived, they found the groundskeeper fretting over a notice he'd received that Lucius Malfoy was still pressing the case against Buckbeak, despite the revelation that Draco had been exaggerating his injuries, at best.

Lucius was now claiming his son's belief in the severity of his injuries had been genuine, a consequence of the emotional trauma the poor boy had suffered.

Malfoys, Ginny thought. That family just cannot get wiped from the face of the Earth soon enough.

When Harry saw Hagrid's distress, he couldn't go through with confronting the man. Hermione told Hagrid they'd all help find a way to save Buckbeak, and Harry merely nodded in agreement.

Hagrid admitted he was considering setting Buckbeak free, though doing so would mean risking another stay in Azkaban, which he worried he might not be up to facing again.

Ginny decided that since Hagrid had raised the uncomfortable topic himself, this was as good a time as any to address it.

"Listen, I've been meaning to talk to you about that," she said. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault that–"

"Ah, lemme stop yeh right there. That weren't any fault o' yers. Tom Riddle has fooled plenty o' witches and wizards o'er the years, most a lot older'n you."

Ginny studied his expression. He appeared sincere, which was an ominous sign. Not everything Riddle taught her had been about magic. You couldn't always get away with using Legilimency, so he'd also taught her to read subtle cues in such things as the way someone held themselves, a slight quaver in their voice, or an expression which flitted across their face for just a moment before they controlled it.

As she studied the groundskeeper, she could find no signs of the grudge he must be holding against her, and it terrified her. No one she'd ever met had such a high level of self-control–no one other than a young Tom Riddle.

Everyone had a secret inner place where they kept their darkest thoughts and feelings, but if Hagrid was this good at hiding his, it meant he had a great deal of unsuspected cunning–and must be planning some truly awful retaliation. Not that she didn't have it coming, but she couldn't just sit back and wait for it to happen.

She was reluctant to use Legilimency on someone Harry and the others considered a friend, and knew she was crossing a line, but she needed to know his plans. She wouldn't have to probe too deep. It seemed unlikely a Hogwarts dropout would have mastered Occlumency, and the matter would be in the front of his mind, having just spoken of it. One light brush of Legilimency and…

She recoiled from his mind in shock.

She stammered out an excuse to leave, claiming she'd just remembered she needed to owl home about something. Hagrid was too distraught to do more than nod. The other three gave her curious looks, but were too caught up in their concern for Hagrid and Buckbeak to question her.

On her way back to the castle, she stopped at the equipment shed which held the brooms used for Flying Class. She picked the lock, and grabbed a broom that looked to be in decent condition.

Once she reached the castle, she used the secret passageways to make her way to Myrtle's bathroom without anyone seeing her. When she walked in, Myrtle took one look at her expression and sought shelter in the plumbing. Ginny walked to the tap with the snake engraving and hissed at it. The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets opened before her.

She wasn't a Parselmouth, but she remembered how to hiss the Parseltongue for "open", after having used it so often.

She flew the broom through the opening, down to the end of the tunnel, where she stopped. The place was full of bad memories, but she didn't have anywhere else to go where Harry wouldn't be able to find her on the Map. She found a section of floor and wall less filthy than the rest, and hit it with a short volley of cleaning spells before sitting down.

She didn't think anyone would hear any noise coming from way down here, but pipes sometimes carry sound in funny ways, so she crossed both arms over her face, covering her mouth.

Then she screamed as hard as she could, as the tears she'd been holding back started to flow.

The terrible thing she'd found in Hagrid's mind–the unbearable truth that had sent her fleeing–had been his complete sincerity. She'd been so sure he was plotting some awful revenge, when in fact, he bore her no ill will at all.

Merlin, he wasn't even her kin. She was nothing to him. No, worse than that; she was his enemy. How could he see her as anything else, after what she'd done to him?

But in Hagrid's mind, a child had escaped terrible suffering, so the world was just as it should be. If that meant he had to suffer in her place, it didn't occur to him to hold it against her. It was the natural order of things.

She hadn't been prepared to come into such direct contact with Hagrid's quiet acceptance and forgiveness, and it just about broke her in a way Tom Riddle had never managed. She compared herself to both Hagrid and Riddle, and didn't like what she saw.

It wasn't that confronting goodness directly in someone's mind was foreign to her. Hermione was a good person, but her goodness was like a sword held ready–ready to fight for the people and ideals that were important to her. Ginny could appreciate that.

Hagrid's goodness was something else. She couldn't make sense of how he could forgive her, let alone feel protective of her. Maybe his goodness was more like a shield? That wasn't quite right, as she didn't doubt he'd fight if he had to. Metaphors weren't really her thing, unless they involved fire.

She'd have to be more careful about whose mind she went poking around in, especially when it came to prying into what they thought about her. Nothing good could come of that. She doubted everyone would be as charitable in their outlook as Hagrid. She'd avoided probing Hermione's true thoughts about her during their secret meetings, and she certainly didn't need to see what Harry must think of her, but was too kind to say aloud.

Legilimency was too useful a tool to give up altogether though. For one thing, the latest revelations made Lupin's tight-lipped attitude towards his past even more suspicious. It didn't seem like a big leap to think that since he and Black had both known Harry's parents, they'd likely known each other as well.

Before she could think about that, she needed time to straighten her head out. She allowed herself half an hour of wallowing in grief over what a wretched, evil, poisoned thing Riddle had turned her into. Doubting the gentle groundskeeper was bad enough, but the worst part was the reason she'd done so; she no longer had it in her to even conceive of having the sort of kindness and forgiveness that seemed to come naturally to him.

She kept her hand clenched around her Sekhmet amulet, directing the magic that wanted to come boiling out of her into the icon. The last thing she needed was to set the whole Chamber on fire.

A half-hour was as long as she thought she could disappear for without anyone noticing. She still needed to dash off a quick letter to her parents and send it, as she'd said she was going to do. Not that she expected anyone to check, but one lesson she'd learned her first year at Hogwarts was you should never skimp on making your alibis solid.

She couldn't explain to her friends where she'd actually been. Harry could never find out what she was like deep inside. None of them could ever know.

Ginny stood up and brushed her tears away. Whatever she was now, good or evil, this was what she needed to be to beat Riddle.

She flew the broom back up the tunnel to the bathroom, then hid it in the narrow space between the last stall in the row and the wall, making a mental note to return it later. She studied herself in the mirror, then cast a quick healing charm on her eyes. The charm was for reducing inflammation due to injuries, but it could also hide when you'd been crying.

She took a deep breath, then walked out of the bathroom with her chin up, looking perfectly composed.