Secrets

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CHAPTER 7: Twice Is Coincidence

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It was easy enough for Ginny to slip away unnoticed Friday evening; everyone who might have cared was busy. Apple was off with Daphne, probably plotting something; and her brothers, along with the rest of the Gryffindor team and various hangers-on, were off in a corner talking about tomorrow's Quidditch match. So Ginny took the diary -- and her Herbology assignment, for camouflage -- and set off for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

She found one of Filch's storage closets on the first floor and grabbed a tin of polish and some rags -- it was lucky the man was a Squib and couldn't use magic, as she hadn't mastered any cleaning spells yet.

Sir Vladislav saluted as she walked past Myrtle's bathroom.

"Hi," said Ginny, smiling. "I'm not sure where to start; does anything need work in particular?"

Sir Vladislav removed his white mantle, folding it neatly so the black cross showed in the middle, and set it aside. Then he carefully bent and rearranged himself so he was sitting on his pedestal with his legs dangling nearly to the floor. He pointed at his shoulders, which were dull and scratched; the elbows of his leather arm-guards, which were quite dusty; and his feet and greaves. He then held out a gauntlet and motioned first to the rags, then to the ornamentation on his helmet.

Ginny puzzled over this for a moment. "Do you want to polish your helmet yourself?" Sir Vladislav nodded. "Okay. I'll start on your feet."

To her surprise, Sir Vladislav lifted his helmet off entirely, leaving a headless suit of armor. Ginny blinked at the empty space, disconcerted, but dipped a rag in the polish tin and handed it to Sir Vladislav. After all, a headless suit of enchanted armor wasn't any stranger than a nearly headless ghost.

They worked in companionable silence for several minutes, until Ginny had finished cleaning his greaves. "You'll have to stay still while I do your arms," she said, and Sir Vladislav nodded.

"It must get lonely for you, standing around all the time," she said as she started dusting his shoulders, trying not to knock the grains into the hollow where his helmet normally rested. "I don't suppose anyone stops to talk to you -- I know I never thought you or the other suits of armor might be enchanted. Do you talk to each other, or the ghosts and paintings?"

Sir Vladislav hastily picked up his helmet. Holding it before his mail shirt, he nodded it yes and then shook it side to side as if saying no.

"Yes and no... So you do talk, but not much," continued Ginny, now moving on to polish the gauntlets. "Or only to each other, not the paintings -- there aren't any frames here for them to visit. You can put your helmet on now; I'm done with your shoulders. Anyhow, I thought I might stop by and visit you sometimes. It isn't as if I have many other friends. Maybe we could figure out a better way to talk. Do you know how to write?"

Sir Vladislav once again nodded yes and shook his head no. It was much less disconcerting now that his helmet was back on his shoulders.

Ginny bit her lip. "You can write, but not in English?"

Sir Vladislav nodded.

"Well, that's not too big a problem," she decided. "You obviously understand it, and if you can spell things more or less how they sound, I can probably figure out what you're trying to say. Anyhow, I'm done now." She swiped a rag across his left gauntlet one last time, and nodded at a job well done.

Sir Vladislav saluted her again and stood creakily, leaning on Ginny's offered shoulder. She handed up his mantle, waved goodbye, and walked across the corridor into Myrtle's bathroom.

The bathroom was as dingy and depressing as Ginny had imagined Myrtle's home to be. The floor was, unsurprisingly, damp, and the puddles reflected the dull light given off by a few candles burning fitfully in their holders. A row of chipped sinks lined one wall, under a cracked and spotted mirror; along the other side of the room the wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched, and one of them dangled half-off its hinges.

"Myrtle?" called Ginny. "Hello?"

The pale shape of a young, plain girl with lank hair and glasses floated from the end stall. "Oh, what do you want?" she said, a wailing note underlying her irritation. "Have you come to pick on me just like everyone else?"

"Er, no. I just wanted to ask if I could borrow this room for an hour," said Ginny. "But I don't want to bother you if you're busy."

Myrtle sighed heavily. "I'm never busy. Nobody talks to me. Nobody likes me. Not even you," she added. "You yelled at me in the third floor bathroom last month -- I remember you."

"Sorry," said Ginny, fighting her urge to smack the ghost; it wouldn't do any good, and certainly wouldn't help her get Myrtle's cooperation. "I don't expect people to pop up through the toilet while I'm sitting on it." Myrtle folded her arms with a wounded air, as if she didn't see anything wrong with her actions.

"Anyhow," continued Ginny, stamping down her irritation, "I thought that since Filch is horrible and doesn't take proper care of your bathroom, I might be able to get some privacy here. If you let me use it for an hour, I promise I'll come back and talk to you sometimes."

Myrtle sniffed. "That's what they all say. 'Myrtle, go away and I'll come say thank you,' 'Myrtle, distract Peeves and we'll visit you tomorrow,' Myrtle this and Myrtle that, and do they ever keep their promises? No!"

"But I will! You can ask Sir Vladislav, the armor across the hall -- I promised I'd come polish him and I did. So you know I'll really come back."

Myrtle eyed Ginny suspiciously. "I suppose it's all right. It isn't as if I was happy here anyhow."

Ginny stifled a smile as Myrtle drifted off towards her toilet. "Thank you!" she called as the ghost dove into the pipes with a tiny splash, and then cast around for a place to sit. She settled on the slightly mildewed windowsill; it was more decent than a toilet and much less damp than the floor. She pulled out the diary and a quill.

"Dear Tom," she wrote, "I'm alone in Myrtle's bathroom and she won't be back for an hour. What do I have to do for the spell to help you?"

"It's fairly simple in execution," wrote Tom, "though the theory is complicated. It should establish a connection between us that will allow me to use your life and magic to gradually manifest a new body. I know that sounds dangerous, but it will only let me draw the barest trickle of energy at a time, so the worst possible side-effect is that you may feel a little tired now and again. Are you still willing to perform this ritual?"

Ginny flicked her quill against her chin, considering. It sounded Dark, a spell to drain people's magic... but it was probably meant to heal people who were close to dying. So the spell itself shouldn't be a problem. And she definitely wanted to help Tom get out of the diary.

"Yes, I want to help you," she wrote.

"Thank you, Ginevra," wrote Tom. "This is what you have to do: first, lay the diary flat on some surface and press the pages open. Second, prick your finger and let a few drops of blood fall on the pages -- three should be enough. Third, recite a brief spell.

"This is longer than the incantations you've learned so far, because this is ritual magic rather than a charm or hex. Also, it's in German. I'm sorry I didn't translate it, but my German is shaky and I'm not sure I could do it properly." An intangible shrug seeped from the pages.

"These are the words:

'Blut zum Blut, Leben zum Leben, Seele zur Seele,

Ohne Kampf komm' ich zu Ihr.

Herz zum Herz, Luft zur Luft, Geist zum Geist,

Verwenden Sie mich; ich gehöre Ihr.'

"The pronunciation is mostly phonetic," continued Tom, "if you say the letter Z as TS, and make sure you don't leave out any vowels -- not even the Es at the ends of words. But in ritual magic the actions and intent are more important than strict pronunciation, so don't worry about saying anything too badly. Just don't leave any words out."

The strange words remained on the page even as the rest of Tom's instructions sank back into the depths of the diary to wherever he kept his stores of ink. Ginny grabbed a scrap of parchment and copied them down.

"Okay, Tom, I'm ready," she wrote, and pressed the diary flat on the windowsill, using her ink bottle and bag to weight it open. She held her left hand in front of her face, gritted her teeth, and stabbed her index finger with her quill.

The pain drew a brief hiss of breath before she got control of herself again and set down the quill. Ginny lowered her hand until her finger was just over the blank pages of the diary, and squeezed three drops of ink-stained blood onto the thin paper. The blood welled slowly and she had to readjust her grip several times.

As the third drop fell, she felt a strange, expectant tension take hold of her, and the diary began to glow softly. As if in a dream, she picked up the parchment scrap and read the words, tongue gliding through the unfamiliar syllables.

"Blut zum Blut, Leben zum Leben, Seele zur Seele,

Ohne Kampf komm' ich zu Ihr.

Herz zum Herz, Luft zur Luft, Geist zum Geist,

Verwenden Sie mich; ich gehöre Ihr."

The diary flashed a brilliant white, and Ginny's vision blurred into darkness.

A few panicked seconds later, she blinked her eyes clear to find her left hand pressed flat against the pages, finger completely healed. Quickly she inked her quill and wrote, "Tom, did it work?"

There was a brief pause, and before words began to appear, she thought she heard someone drawing breath. "Yes, Ginevra, I think it worked. We won't see any immediate results, but I think I should soon be able to appear to you, if not to anyone else."

When he smiled, then, Ginny really did think she saw it in the corner of her eye, instead of only sensing that he would smile in such a pause.

"Now, I believe I promised you some extracurricular instruction?" continued Tom.

Ginny grinned. "Yeah. Teach me something, Professor Riddle."

"Hmm. Considering your troubles with Daphne, it would be nicely ironic if you used this particular hex against her," wrote Tom. "Its name is Serpensortia."

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Saturday didn't so much dawn as ooze its way into morning, the air thick and muggy with a threat of thunder in the distance. The students echoed the weather, their mood tense and anticipatory as they hurried to the Quidditch pitch for the Gryffindor-Slytherin match. By now everyone knew that Draco Malfoy's father had bought Nimbus 2001 brooms for the entire Slytherin team, while Harry Potter was the only one on the Gryffindor team who had a Nimbus 2000, let alone the newest model. Everyone also knew that Harry Potter had hexed Mrs. Norris on Hallowe'en, that Draco Malfoy had been delighted and claimed the Heir would kill the "Mudbloods," and that the two boys hated each other. There wasn't a person under eighteen in the school who didn't want to see what they did to each other during the match.

There was also a widespread desire to see the Slytherins' new brooms in action, but this was mostly suppressed under mutters of, "Hope they all lose their braking charms halfway through, serve them right the cheating bastards," or some such, which the Gryffindor prefects pretended not to notice.

Ginny found herself at the end of a row of first years, squeezed between Colin and the edge of the Gryffindor box. Colin tried to start a conversation once or twice, but soon gave up and nattered on at Apple -- who was squashed against his other side -- between pauses to snap pictures of the pitch and the murmuring crowd. Ginny picked at the splintery rail on the box wall, waiting for something to happen.

Suddenly, a great roar of noise pulled her attention back to the pitch, where the two teams were walking to the center. There was something smug about the Slytherins' posture, while the Gryffindor team exuded defiance.

Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Go Gryffindor!" she yelled, surprising herself with how much she meant it. Crush them into mud, she added to herself. I need something to hold over Daphne on Monday, something to get her mad enough to fight so I can hex her back in self-defense.

Madam Hooch blew her whistle, and the teams shot into the air.

The Chasers and Beaters spread into formations, passing the Quaffle back and forth while the Keepers streaked for the hoops at either end of the pitch. Harry flew high above the other players, looking for the Golden Snitch. Draco Malfoy flew underneath him, apparently yelling something that distracted Harry enough that a Bludger nearly caught him in the head before he swerved out of the way.

Ginny gasped and clutched the box rail. Colin snapped a photograph.

George zoomed past Harry, knocking the Bludger off toward a Slytherin Chaser who was approaching the Gryffindor hoops. But before it had traveled even half the distance, the Bludger swooped around and flew back at Harry.

Harry dropped straight down ten feet, letting the Bludger whoosh harmlessly over his head and into George's reach. George beat the leather-wrapped ball at Draco, who was hovering nearby and obviously taunting the Gryffindors.

Ginny cheered as the Bludger crashed toward his head.

But instead of smashing into Draco, the Bludger again reversed itself and flew toward Harry, picking up speed as it traveled. Harry swerved and headed for the opposite end of the pitch. The Bludger, which ought to have switched targets to any of the Chasers Harry passed in his flight, chased single-mindedly after him.

Something was very wrong about that.

"Are Bludgers supposed to act like that?" asked Colin, echoing Ginny's thought.

"No," said Apple, frowning. "They're not supposed to discriminate amongst the players. It's possible someone hexed this one."

The Slytherins! Ginny seethed. They weren't happy just having better brooms as a bribe, no, they had to hex a Bludger to take Harry out of the game. Ooh! "Toad-lickers," she muttered under her breath, as scattered drops of rain began to splash down from the leaden sky.

By now the twins had realized something was up and were flying guard over Harry, so Ginny turned away to watch the rest of the game -- she did like Quidditch, after all, even if she wasn't obsessed with it, and she always enjoyed family pick-up matches. The Gryffindor Chasers -- who'd seemed nice the few times she'd met them hanging about the twins -- were trying hard, but the Slytherins' brooms were just too fast for them to cope with, especially since the two Slytherin Beaters were walloping them unopposed.

Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor captain, waved at Madam Hooch. She blew her whistle sharply, the spelled sound slicing through the noise of the crowd and the rush of wind in players' ears. The teams settled to the ground and gathered into opposing huddles.

"What's going on?" asked Colin.

"Gryffindor called for time out," Ginny told him, watching as the hexed Bludger hovered just outside the range of the twins' bats. "Probably because of that Bludger."

"Oh," said Colin. "I like this game -- it's tons better than football! D'you think I'll ever be good enough to play?"

"Maybe," said Ginny doubtfully, remembering their first flying lesson. She looked him over. "You might make a Keeper; you're certainly fast enough to catch things with that camera."

"Cool!" said Colin, and wiped rain from the lens before snapping a picture of the huddled Gryffindor team.

Madam Hooch consulted briefly with Oliver Wood, then blew her whistle again. The players kicked off, and Harry spiraled up into the sky, far above the general level of play, with the hexed Bludger howling after him.

This time nobody followed.

Harry spun and wove through the rain and lowering wisps of cloud, flashing in and out of Ginny's sight. At several points she was afraid he was going to fall as he looped upside down, but after a minute her grip on the box rail loosened and she almost felt as if she were flying with him, weightless and free with the air as her native element.

Harry was a genius in the air.

She'd have to see if she could pull off some of those corkscrew turns this summer -- if Charlie's old Cleansweep was to them. Ginny was pretty sure it had been designed with moves like this in mind. She wasn't sure even the Nimbus 2000 was meant to handle some of the dives Harry was forcing it through.

"Hey, I think we scored!" said Colin in her ear.

"Shut up!" hissed Ginny, not pulling her eyes from Harry's mad obstacle course through the sky. "Of course we did, now that my brothers are playing properly."

"Oh," said Colin, sounding a bit dampened. "I didn't realize how important Beaters could-- oh, look! It almost got him!"

Ginny, who already had her eyes fixed on Harry, didn't even hear him. She almost thought she felt the Bludger graze past her hair, setting her scalp tingling, just as it had nearly bashed in Harry's head. Not even the splintery pain of the rail digging into her palm could distract her.

Harry flipped over and twirled madly through the air, flying back to the near end of the pitch as he wove away from the Bludger. Suddenly Draco Malfoy rose toward him, waving his arm and apparently yelling.

Harry hesitated, staring at Draco. Ginny dared to glance away from him for a moment, and spotted what he had seen: the Golden Snitch was hovering just over and behind Draco's left ear. Her breath whooshed out in a sharp hiss.

"Don't let him see, don't let him see," she muttered, leaning forward and clenching the box rail even more tightly.

And then, while she was still fixed on the blurry dot of gold, a huge roar rose from the stands. "It hit him!" yelled Colin, as his camera clicked and whirred. "Did you see that? This is such a neat game!"

"Colin, shut it," snapped Apple, her voice sounding impossibly distant in Ginny's frozen mind.

Ginny sat utterly still, watching the sky with her heart in her throat. The hexed Bludger wheeled around to make another pass at Harry, who was hanging half off his broom, only his left hand and knee keeping him in the air. His right arm dangled limply as he hauled himself upright.

The Bludger passed so close to his head that Ginny thought at first he must be dead -- but no, Harry was back on his broom! And he was diving toward Draco!

Draco swerved sideways, avoiding Harry's mad rush. Harry took his left hand off his broom, holding on only with his legs as he hurtled earthward, and snapped his hand around the Snitch.

"He's got it!" shrieked Ginny, jumping up and turning to beam at Colin. "He's got the Snitch! We won!"

"He's falling!" Colin shouted into her ear, trying to be heard over the deafening cheers and screams rising from the rest of the Gryffindors.

Ginny snapped her head around just as Harry crashed into the ground, rolling over onto his limp right arm. The hexed Bludger zoomed toward him, suddenly presented with an unobstructed shot. "Oh God, it's going to kill him!" said Ginny, grabbing Colin's arm.

"No, look," he said, pointing with his free hand. "Your brothers--"

"Oh," said Ginny, relaxing a little as the twins flew over Harry and wrestled the Bludger to the ground. "Er, sorry." She let go of Colin's arm and dashed for the side stairs down to the pitch, followed by the other first years and the rest of the Gryffindors.

They joined the Quidditch team standing around Harry's muddy and mangled body, wondering if they should move him. Ginny was about to step forward and try shaking his shoulder, when Lockhart shoved into the ring, smiling hard enough to show all his teeth.

As he bent down, Harry's eyes drifted open. "Oh, no, not you," he moaned. Apple snickered while several girls made disapproving noises behind Ginny.

"Doesn't know what he's saying," said Lockhart loudly as he waved his hands at the students. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm."

"No!" said Harry forcefully. "I'll keep it like this, thanks..."

Ginny nodded to herself; really, who knew what Lockhart might do if he tried to help? Suddenly, just as Harry started to sit up, Colin stuck his camera over her shoulder and snapped a picture.

"I don't want a photo of this, Colin," said Harry, looking even more disgusted.

Ginny turned and snatched the camera from Colin's hands. "How dare you!" she whispered fiercely. "He's hurt! You shouldn't take advantage of him."

Colin flinched, but refused to look ashamed.

"Give him the camera, Ginny," said Apple, frowning at them. "You can't take things away simply because you don't like what people are doing with them. And Colin, you've taken enough pictures already. Leave off; it's rude."

Ginny glared at Apple, but shoved the camera back at Colin. "Fine. Toad-licker." She turned back to Harry just as Lockhart began rolling up the sleeves of his jade-green robe and drawing his wand with an overdone flourish.

"No -- don't --" said Harry weakly, but Lockhart blithely twirled his wand and cast a rather muddled-sounding charm at Harry's broken arm.

Ginny held her breath.

The arm began to soften at the shoulder and flop uselessly, the strange flexibility spreading down all the way through Harry's fingers. Gasps rose from the circle of students -- instead of rejoining the broken bones, Lockhart had removed them entirely, and all the unbroken ones as well.

"Wow!" said Colin as lifted his camera and started madly snapping photographs, face glowing with excitement. "I didn't know you could do that!"

Ginny ground her teeth, but Apple moved between her and Colin and folded her arms. "Fine, let him be a scum-sucking idiot," hissed Ginny, glaring back at the other girl. "Stuck-up, bossy cow."

"Ah," said Lockhart then with a hint of uncertainty, looking at Harry's boneless arm. "Yes. Well, that can happen sometimes." He brightened and put on a loud, cheerful voice. "But the point is, the bones are no longer broken. That's the thing to bear in mind. So, Harry, just toddle up to the hospital wing -- ah, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, would you escort him? -- and Madam Pomfrey will be able to, er, tidy you up a bit."

Ron and Hermione shoved forward and hoisted Harry to his feet. They hurried him off toward the castle, one under each of his shoulders, with the Gryffindor Quidditch team acting as a worried escort. The rest of the House trailed after until Madam Pomfrey slammed the infirmary doors in their faces, muttering about idiot children and incompetent professors.

"And no, you may not visit him later!" Her parting words echoed through the corridor until the renewed muttering of the Gryffindors drowned them out.

"But why can't we visit him?" asked Colin as he followed Apple and Ginny away from the hospital wing. "I just want to show him the pictures I took of the match. I know I have some of him catching the Snitch!"

Ginny shot him a scathing look. "He's lost all the bones in his arm, Colin. Sure, you can grow them back with magic, but it hurts and it makes you awfully tired. He won't want any visitors -- especially not you."

"What's wrong with me?" said Colin, looking wounded.

"Oh, I don't know... but Harry doesn't like you. You take pictures of him even when he asks you not to. And you're always following him. And you're an annoying little twit." Colin's hands fidgeted on his camera, and Ginny felt a twinge of shame. Maybe that had been a bit much.

"Shut it, Ginny," snapped Apple, as she turned down the side corridor that led to the library. "There's no call for that. But Colin, perhaps you ought to apologize for today's photographs before you do anything else with Harry Potter. Explain that you didn't mean any harm -- you were just a trifle overexcited -- and he'll probably forgive you," she said over her shoulder as she walked off.

"Oh," said Colin, a bit subdued, and turned back to Ginny. "Er, so I explain and apologize. What's a good apology for Harry Potter?"

Ginny rolled her eyes, irritated anew. "Why don't you sneak in tonight with some food, show him just how much you admire him. You could bring your camera, too -- take some pictures of him laid up in hospital. I bet he'd really like that."

"Really?" asked Colin. "You think that'd work?"

"Oh, absolutely," said Ginny. "Save something from dinner and take it to him after midnight. Now shoo; I have to meet Xanthe for a study session." She turned down the library corridor, careful not to walk too fast lest she catch up to Apple. What a crazy morning. A hexed Bludger, Harry's boneless arm, and now Colin and his stupid questions and the stupid way he couldn't see that nobody liked him.

Oh, toad guts. She'd just sent Colin to bother Harry while he was laid up in hospital. Colin probably deserved to get yelled at, but Harry didn't deserve to be irritated. What was it about Colin that made her forget things like that when she wanted to get rid of him?

She hoped Tom could make some sense of this mess.

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"Ginny!" cried Xanthe as she hurried into the library, one hand clamped on her bag to keep stray parchment sheets from exploding over the floor.

Madam Pince glared, and Xanthe shrugged apologetically before continuing in a softer voice as she dropped into a chair across from Ginny. "That was such an amazing match! The brooms! And that Bludger! And did you see the way Harry Potter caught the Snitch with a broken arm? That's proper Quidditch, you know!"

Ginny allowed that it certainly had been an exciting match. "But we ought to get some studying done," she said, and opened One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi to page 164.

"Oh, that can wait," said Xanthe, gesturing expansively. "This is more important. I think," she continued, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I think that the Heir hexed the Bludger. Think about it -- that thing with Mrs. Norris was set up to make Harry Potter look bad, you know, and now someone's trying to get him killed. I think the Heir knows whatever Harry Potter did last year with Quirrell, and how he stopped You-Know-Who, and they want him out of the way. And think what might happen then! Professor Dumbledore's a great wizard, but I don't think he pays much attention to what goes on in the castle."

"You don't think Harry's the one who attacked Mrs. Norris?" asked Ginny, latching onto the first point in the flood of Xanthe's words. "I've been saying that all along, but nobody believes me!"

Xanthe shrugged. "Well, he might have done it -- Ernie Macmillan's going around telling everyone Harry Potter's as bad as You-Know-Who -- but it seems a bit off to me. If I'd done something like that, I wouldn't have been hanging around to get caught, you know, and I'd have had a better excuse for missing the banquet. I mean, ghosts' Deathday parties?"

"They weren't lying about that," said Ginny sharply. "I didn't go to the banquet either -- I was tired -- and I overheard them talking as they left the tower."

"Oh, fine. I still think it's a mad idea, Deathday parties -- who wants to remember getting his neck hacked at with a blunt axe?" Xanthe quirked her face in a grin, and Ginny had to agree it did seem an odd sort of thing to commemorate.

"Anyway," continued Xanthe, "do you think I'm right that the Heir hexed the Bludger during the match?"

It was Ginny's turn to shrug. "Maybe. But if I could Petrify a cat without anyone seeing me, I don't think I'd curse someone in front of everybody. It seems..." she trailed off, groping for the right words. She was certain the Bludger was the Slytherin Quidditch team's fault, and while the Heir might well be in Slytherin and might have encouraged this attack, the idea that it had been his or her personal work had simply never occurred to her. "It doesn't match the other attack," she eventually said, helpless to put that conviction into words.

"You're probably right," allowed Xanthe. "It wasn't nearly sneaky enough. But still -- wasn't it just amazing the way Harry Potter flew? And how he caught the Snitch? And did you see what that idiot Lockhart did to his arm! I didn't know you could do that, you know, de-bone an arm -- I bet if he could figure out what he did, he could sell the spell for tons of Galleons."

Ginny snickered. "What for? Turning people into human jellyfish?"

At this Xanthe spread her arms wide, lolled her head sideways as if her neck were boneless, and wobbled unsteadily in her chair. "Heelp me, I haff no bones," she moaned in a terrible accent.

Ginny swatted her friend on the shoulder, giggling. "Stop it! We're not supposed to laugh in the library."

"Since when do you listen to Madam Pince? But I'll stop." Xanthe resumed her untidy sprawl, resting her elbows on her much-abused books. "It really might be useful if you wanted to transfigure something into a slug, you know -- or maybe if he could get the bones to reappear somewhere else, he could go into selling enchanted skeletons." She smirked at Ginny's inadequately stifled laugh, and then composed her face. "Right. What are we supposed to be writing about this week?"

"The fertilizers, silly." Ginny rolled her eyes. "I have no idea how you can understand Astronomy when you're always such a mess."

"Well I have no idea why you can't understand Astronomy if you're so obsessive about keeping track of things," Xanthe shot back, and stuck out her tongue at Ginny. "Neat freak."

"Slob."

"And proud of it. Show me your parchment -- I know you've already finished. I promise not to copy if you explain it to me."

Ginny stuck one of Xanthe's broken quills in Magical Herbs and Fungi to hold her place, and pulled her parchment roll from her bag. "The first thing is to decide what patterns you think are most important," she began, and Xanthe leaned over to peer at her charts.

A productive hour and a half later, the girls exited the library and headed back to their respective common rooms, Xanthe with a good half-foot start on the Herbology work and Ginny in a much better mood than she had expected after the match.

"Dear Tom," she began once she had drawn the curtains around her bed, "today was interesting. First we had the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match. Draco Malfoy had his father buy the Slytherins new brooms, so Gryffindor was already in trouble, and then I think they hexed one of the Bludgers. It didn't act normally; instead it chased Harry all the time. It tried to bash his head in and it broke his arm!

"But he caught the Snitch anyway." Ginny grinned and re-inked her quill. "Then he crashed and Lockhart -- the idiot! -- took the bones out of his arm instead of fixing them. And Colin took pictures, even after Harry asked him not to." She frowned. "Colin was being really annoying, and I told him that the best way to apologize to Harry would be to sneak into the infirmary after midnight and take pictures of him in hospital.

"Tom, Colin's an idiot -- and he's such a twit -- but was it mean of me to tell him that? He really likes Harry, and now Harry will just be even more upset with him. And I feel bad for bothering Harry when he's in hospital."

"I wouldn't worry too much, Ginevra," wrote Tom, and Ginny twitched as the faintest of whispers drifted into her ears, echoing the words on the page. "I've encountered people like Colin before, and they often need a rude shock to realize how their actions affect others. You may have provided him with that.

"Lockhart is, unfortunately, a professor, and thus beyond your reach, much though he may deserve humiliation. As for the Bludger, do you have any proof the Slytherin Quidditch team was behind its behavior?"

"No," wrote Ginny. "Xanthe thought it was the Heir -- she said Mrs. Norris was set up to frame Harry, and now somebody's trying to kill him -- and the Heir was trying to get Harry out of the way. But I don't think so. Whoever Petrified Mrs. Norris was sneaky. This wasn't sneaky." She tapped the quill against the page. "It was actually really stupid -- now people know someone's out to get Harry, and maybe they'll feel sorry for him and stop saying he's the Heir.

"That's why I think it was the Slytherins. Nobody else had any reason to hex the Bludger, and Draco Malfoy is enough of an idiot to think no one would notice." Ginny grinned, a tad viciously. "It didn't do him any good -- even with a broken arm, Harry's a better Seeker."

In the corner of her eye, she saw Tom raise a misty eyebrow as he bent over the diary to read her handwriting. Ginny shook her head. Was she imagining that, the way she used to imagine Tom's expressions, or was this an effect of the spell to let him out of the book?

"In that case, congratulations to Harry," wrote Tom, and again the faint whisper tickled Ginny's ear. It had to be the spell. "Though I must say I'm a bit ashamed of my old house. I grant you I didn't like most of my housemates, but it's embarrassing to hear how far they've fallen in intelligence. No Slytherin of MY day would have tried such an imbecilic plot."

Ginny giggled. "I guess I understand. I don't really like Susan and the boys, or Gwen and Jia-li, but it's embarrassing when they go around saying Harry's the Heir of Slytherin. It makes me look stupid too."

"Yes, that's it, Ginevra. I am, after all, a Slytherin, and the behavior of my house reflects on me." Tom shook his head in mock sadness, the motion a faint, misty flash in the air beside Ginny. "Not that I support cheating in Quidditch matches, but if they must do so, I wish they'd be more clever about it."

Ginny tapped her quill on the page, thinking, and then wrote, "Tom, how soon is the spell supposed to start working? Because I think I'm starting to hear you when you write, and just now I think I saw you. Did you shake your head?"

Tom's eyebrow shot up again in surprise. "Really? I didn't think it would have any noticeable effect for at least a week. This is marvelous!"

"Really? Cool! But could you talk more quietly?" wrote Ginny. "It's distracting to hear you whispering while I'm trying to read what you write."

"Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. In time, we should be able to talk without needing to write in the diary, but until then, I can try to suppress my voice. I'm not certain how to do that, since I never expected to be heard, but I'll do my best not to distract you, Ginevra."

"Thanks, Tom! And now I ought to get ready for dinner."

"Be well, Ginevra," wrote Tom, and the whisper was fainter this time, just at the edge of hearing. "Until later."

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The princess led the dragon through the castle, seeking one of the sorceress's spies, a creeping, cackling beast disguised as a serving boy. The dragon crept behind, sheltered within the hollow walls, its rumbling voice and rasping scales echoing through the stone grillwork covers of the vents that kept the air pure even in the deepest dungeons.

The spy thought he had a mission this night, a chance to poison the princess's consort, but his message was false and the rightful heir lay in wait, dragon and dark man at her back.

-He comes, my lady- the dark man whispered, his voice wreathing into her ears. -He comes, slinking and smiling he comes. Shall we strike?-

His voice wrapped around her, bearing her up and dancing through her veins, dancing with the promise of justice. -Yes- she said. -Oh, yes!-

And the dragon reared its great head and turned the force of its gaze upon the slinking spy. But a chance saved him, a rustling scale caught his ear and he raised his false eye of glass and iron, and its enchantment turned aside the strength of her vengeance.

As his frozen figure crashed to the stones, a new noise echoed through the corridors.

-They come, my lady- the dark man said. -The others come, to find their fallen, find their foe. Flee, my lady, flee-

-Hide and sleep- she told the dragon, and the dark man whispered with her; her voice his, his voice hers. -Sleep and wait for my call- As the great beast slipped between the walls, she turned and fled down the corridor, away from the stairs and the frozen spy and the approaching servants of the sorceress. She slipped into the darkness and shadow that were her birthright, until the day she could walk again unafraid in the sun, secure in her castle and heritage.

"Hide and sleep, hide and..." Ginny trailed off, blinking. On her feet, on a staircase... oh, toad guts. Not again.

She looked around, peering through the darkness. Right. She was climbing the stairs to the Gryffindor girls' dormitories, she'd obviously been sleepwalking, and she had no idea if she'd been out of the tower. In the middle of the night, with the Heir still looking for her.

And her feet hurt, even through her slippers. Her legs ached, and she could feel the hitch in her breath that said she'd been running up flights of stairs. Which meant she'd left the tower.

She had to talk to Tom.

As she pulled out the diary and her writing supplies, Ginny tried to piece together her latest muddled dream. There had been a vicious, scurrying creature, she thought, and the dragon had fought it. And then something was coming, and someone told her -- told the princess -- to run. So the princess sent the dragon away...

"She sent it to hide and sleep!" muttered Ginny triumphantly. "That's what I was saying." But what did it mean?

She inked her quill and opened the diary. "Dear Tom, tonight I sleepwalked again and I had another dream about the princess and her dragon. Some nasty thing attacked her, but the dragon fought it. Then somebody told her to leave because other people were coming, so she sent the dragon away and ran. And I guess I ran, because I woke up on the stairs and my legs hurt.

"Tom, the last time this happened, I saw the Heir. I think..." Ginny paused and bit her lip. "I think I saw him again, or some nasty creature he has helping him, and maybe the other people coming was really the Heir. But if I'm the princess, I can't figure out what the dragon is. And who told me to run?

"Tom, none of it makes any sense!"

"Hush, Ginevra, calm down." Tom's voice whispered along with his writing, and this time Ginny didn't mind the distraction -- it was good to hear a friend's voice. "Let's look at what we know about your dreams. You're the princess, the castle is Hogwarts, and originally you were looking for a dragon, which seemed to symbolize your search for friends. Then you witnessed an attack by the Heir of Slytherin.

"At that point, the dragon fought something. Hmm." He paused, brow furrowing in thought. "It seems to have changed into a symbol of protection -- well, protection and friendship are not unrelated. Perhaps the dragon now symbolizes your magic or the Gryffindor part of yourself -- fairy-tale princesses are not particularly known for their courage, but dragons are.

"I suspect you did encounter the Heir or one of his creatures, and you managed to escape once again. That was well done, Ginevra." Tom's proud smile, misty and indistinct though it was, warmed Ginny. "As for who told you to run, that may have been yet another aspect of yourself -- dreams are notoriously resistant to normal logic, and a person may often play several roles at once while sleeping. I once had a dream in which I was myself, my father, and an omnipresent observer, all at the same time. Your dream may have been working along the same lines."

Ginny nodded; that did make a sort of sense, and she certainly hadn't come up with any other explanation. "Mum always said I shouldn't spend so much time reading Muggle fairy-tales. Maybe she was right -- I don't like them much in these dreams."

"There isn't much you can do about the symbols your sleeping mind latches onto," said Tom, "no matter how irritating they may be. I wouldn't worry about that.

"What DOES worry me, Ginevra," he continued, "is that you've now encountered the Heir twice, both times while sleepwalking. If this is only a coincidence, it's a singularly unlucky one. But what if it's something more?"

Ginny shook her head. "It can't be," she wrote. "I was sleepwalking before the Heir, so he can't be the one making me go out at night. And he was distracted the first time, Petrifying Mrs. Norris, and this time I didn't even see him, just some animal he had with him. So he can't have cast a spell on me." She refused to consider that possibility.

"True," replied Tom. "Thank you for reassuring me, Ginevra. And now, I suggest you get some sleep. You may be busy tomorrow, if the Heir was out tonight."

"Oh, thanks, Tom," wrote Ginny, pulling a sour face. "I'm sure I'll sleep really well now that you've reminded me about the Heir attacking people."

"A thousand apologies, fair lady," wrote Tom, though his whispered voice didn't sound particularly repentant.

"Git," muttered Ginny, flicking her quill at the page.

"I'm hurt, Ginevra."

Ginny blinked. "I didn't write that," she scribbled. "Did you hear me?"

There was a pause. "You know, I believe I must have," wrote Tom. "Interesting."

"That's great! Can you only hear me when the diary's open? Can you leave it so I can talk to you anywhere, or do I still have to carry it around, just not write in it anymore?"

Tom shrugged, his misty form wavering in the corner of Ginny's vision. "Who knows? We'll have to experiment. But that can wait for tomorrow, Ginevra. Right now, you need to sleep."

"Git," said Ginny again, but this time her voice was happy. "Good night, Tom."

Her last thought, before she returned to sleep, was thankfulness that Tom had distracted her from the Heir.

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Ginny raced through breakfast, eager to experiment with the diary, but as she left the Great Hall Percy hurried to her side.

"Ginny! I told you not to go anywhere alone," he said.

Ginny suppressed a glare. "I'm only going to the library. And it's broad daylight."

"I'll walk you there," said Percy, and he fell in beside her. "Lovely day out," he continued, "and Harry won us fifty points yesterday -- excellent bit of flying, that was! Gryffindor's in the lead for the House Cup."

Despite herself, Ginny smiled. "Cool." It was good for Harry to get some recognition, and good to see Percy feeling cheerful. He was much nicer when he forgot to be pompous and worried.

Percy deposited her at a table, nodded to Madam Pince, and strolled out of the library, whistling under his breath. Hmm, thought Ginny. That was a bit much for Percy, even in a cheerful mood. What had happened to him?

Ah well, she had more important things to wonder about. She stood and drifted into the stacks, toward one of the more secluded armchairs scattered around the walls of the library. Madam Pince was nice enough, so long as you showed proper respect and appreciation for the books she guarded, but Ginny didn't want anyone overhearing her conversation with Tom.

She spread the pages and inked her quill. "Hi Tom, I'm in the library. Do you want to figure out how well you can hear me?"

"Certainly, Ginevra," he answered, his vague, misty, almost-shapeless form appearing over the pages as her words sank into invisibility. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yes," wrote Ginny. "Just a really faint whisper, but I can hear you." She set down her quill. "Can you hear me?" she asked, speaking as clearly as she could while keeping her voice soft enough not to draw attention.

Tom's forehead furrowed, as if he were puzzling something out. "'Can you hear me?'" he repeated. "That's what you said. It's very faint, and rather fuzzy -- like a radio with too much static -- but I can hear you."

"Radios get static? Like when your hair crackles after you put on a jumper?" asked Ginny, using her quill to make sure that Tom understood. "Magical wireless doesn't, but maybe eckletricity is different? Anyhow, we should try again with me father away from the diary."

"That's a good idea," wrote Tom. "And yes, Muggle radios -- which use ELECTRICITY, Ginevra, not eckletricity -- get static. It's not a physical thing, but the crackling sound can interfere with the broadcast. I think it has to do with sunspots.

"Now step back a few feet and try talking to me. Then we'll try at greater distances until I can't hear you anymore."

"Sure," said Ginny, not bothering to write her agreement. She stood, laid the diary on the chair seat, and backed three steps away. "Can you still hear me, Tom?"

"YES." His answer was written in large letters, easily visible from a short distance, and his faint whisper echoed the writing in her ears.

"I'm moving away again," she said, as she took several more steps along the wall. "Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, Ginevra, I can hear you." By now she couldn't see if Tom was still writing on the diary pages, but his whisper was still clear, though fainter than before.

When she backed up another few steps, however, Ginny got no response to her question, only a muted hiss in her ears. She checked the distance: a bit over twelve feet, she thought. That wasn't nearly far enough to stop carrying the diary with her. She walked back to her armchair and inked her quill.

"I couldn't hear you past twelve feet," she wrote. "Could you still hear me when I asked?"

"No, only static," wrote Tom. "Now we ought to see if we can hear each other with the diary closed -- that would be helpful for privacy!"

"Yes it would!" wrote Ginny. "I'm going to close the diary now. Is that okay?"

"Certainly."

Ginny waited until the ink had vanished back to wherever Tom stored it, and shut the small, battered book. "The diary's closed," she said aloud. "Can you hear me, Tom?"

There was no answer, not even the faint hissing she'd heard as she moved out of range. Toad guts. It would have been much easier if they could talk without having to open the book, but Ginny guessed the magic was too tied up in being a diary, and diaries were useless until you opened them to write.

She cracked open the diary and spread the pages flat again. "It didn't work," she said.

"So I noticed," said Tom dryly. "At any rate, we know the current limitations of this new form of communication, which is more than we knew before. Now I think you ought to pay attention to your brother's advice and return to somewhere a bit more public, just to be safe."

"Spoilsport," muttered Ginny, but not even Tom's caution could dampen her excitement at finally being able to talk to him without the delay and cramps of writing.

She moved back toward the center of the library and claimed a table, laying the diary open beside her while she worked on her two foot essay for Transfiguration. Tom hovered by her shoulder, making occasional comments, or drifted off within his twelve-foot limit to peer at the other students who wandered in and out of the stacks -- apparently only Ginny could see him.

It was a good morning; Ginny found herself humming as she headed down for lunch.

The mood in the Great Hall was tense and excited, and within a few steps Ginny fell silent. What had set everyone off now?

"...found him on the stairs -- and he was Petrified just like Mrs. Norris!"

Ginny's head snapped around.

The Ravenclaw girl continued in a half-gleeful, half-horrified stage whisper. "They said he was sneaking out to visit Harry Potter in hospital. But Potter got him! So now who's next?"

Visiting Harry. No. Oh God no. Her dream hadn't been just a dream; the Heir had struck again. And she'd sent Colin out to meet him.

Ginny ran from the Great Hall, all appetite lost. Maybe it hadn't been Colin. Maybe it was just a mistake. Her feet carried her to the hospital wing with hardly any conscious direction, leaving her panting outside the heavy doors.

She took a deep breath and slipped into the infirmary. Against the east wall, under the wide, white-curtained windows, was the bed they'd left Harry in yesterday afternoon. The bed two windows down was blocked off by cheerful yellow curtains hung from a floating rod. Ginny tiptoed over and pulled the curtains aside.

Colin lay stiff and frozen, his hands raised in front of his face as if holding his camera. The camera itself lay beside him, melted film hanging out of its back.

"Here now! Get away from there."

Ginny jumped, jerking the curtains and bumping into Colin's bed. "I'm sorry!" she said, turning to face Madam Pomfrey's disapproving frown. "I just... they said he was Petrified and I didn't want to believe it." She felt the burning prickle of incipient tears, and swallowed heavily.

Madam Pomfrey's face softened. "As you see, Colin Creevey is, indeed, Petrified. But he's unharmed and we'll have him up and mobile again come spring. It will be all right."

Ginny swallowed again and looked back at Colin. "What did that to him? And what happened to his camera?"

"We aren't certain of the details," said Madam Pomfrey, her tone brisk again. "And there isn't anything students can do to help, other than take good class notes for Mr. Creevey to use when he returns to us. Run along now."

Reluctantly, Ginny let go of the curtains and left the infirmary.

It was true. Colin was Petrified, and it was her fault. It was her fault twice -- first she'd sent him out at night, alone, and then she'd probably set the Heir off while she was sleepwalking. A terrible thought struck her -- what if the person she'd run from in her sleep hadn't been the Heir, but had been Colin? What if she'd left him out there alone, after she'd made the Heir angry by getting away from some monster?

Her morning happiness had evaporated, leaving Ginny shaky and cold. Colin was a twit, but he didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved to be frozen like that, helpless, as good as dead. And she'd escaped the Heir twice now -- what would he do when he caught her? What could he have planned that would be worse than this?

She deserved it! Whatever it was, she deserved it for getting Colin Petrified.

"Happenstance," she said dully to the Fat Lady, and walked sightlessly through the common room to her dormitory.

Maybe she should talk to Tom. No, decided Ginny, he'd try to cheer her up, to reason her out of guilt, and she didn't deserve that yet. It was all her fault and she ought to feel awful.

Curled into her blankets, huddled in on herself to keep out the sudden cold, Ginny clenched her fists and refused to cry.

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End of chapter 7