Secrets

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. Ginny tries to convince herself that she isn't guilty of Tom's crimes, with rather limited success. A tumultuous Valentine's Day does not help anything.

Author's Note: I apologize for the time it takes me to write each chapter of "Secrets" these days. There are only 5 chapters left, though, so take heart!

The singing Valentine, in canon, is open to a fair bit of interpretation. Did Ginny write it? If so, did she mean to send it? Were the twins playing a trick on her and Harry? Was Draco just trying to embarrass Harry, and using Ginny as a scapegoat? It's never explained, so I think my version works as well as any other. I'm also trying to account for the ridiculously long period of time when Ginny knows that Harry has the diary, but she doesn't do anything to take the book back. Again, I think my explanation works within canon.

Thanks to Lasair and Quetzle for cleaning this up. Special thanks to Lasair for Ginny's first and third poems. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, bad dialogue, implausible characterizations, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not theirs.

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CHAPTER 10: Slings and Arrows
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Ginny spent Saturday night and all of Sunday avoiding everyone. Since this wasn't much of a change from her usual behavior, nobody commented. Ginny couldn't decide whether to be grateful or not. On the one hand, no one suspected her and she wouldn't get into trouble for the Petrifications. On the other hand, nobody cared if she got into trouble, maybe not even her brothers.

It wasn't fair.

What was wrong with her, that she couldn't make real friends? None of the other Gryffindors liked her, her brothers kept ignoring her, Xanthe only spent time with her in Herbology and on weekends, and Tom betrayed her. Had he ever been her friend, or had he been lying about everything from the start?

Ginny felt very small inside -- small, stretched, and twisted into knots. Maybe her isolation was her fault. She probably shouldn't have yelled at Susan when Daphne set Madam Hooch's broom on fire. She probably shouldn't have yelled at Apple either, and even when the boys were being idiots and accusing Harry of horrible things, she should have kept her temper.

Maybe her fight with Daphne was her own fault, too?

That thought sneaked up on her Sunday night and roiled in her stomach at supper. Ginny set down her fork and hurried out of the Great Hall before the smell of food could make her sick. She hid in the dormitory, pulled her bed-curtains shut, and stuffed her pillow over her face. It didn't particularly help.

But after several hours of chasing down mental tangles, Ginny decided that that fight was entirely Daphne's problem. And Susan had taken Daphne's side, so Ginny had been right to be angry. She'd been right to be angry when everyone accused Harry as well. If the other first years were stupid and blind, then she didn't want to be friends with them anyhow.

She'd been following Tom's advice on how to deal with people, though, and she probably shouldn't trust anything he'd said. She could at least stop pushing back. Mum and Percy always went on and on about not getting revenge, since that only made things worse. Normally Ginny didn't listen. Revenge was a game she and Ron played with the twins. The twins almost always stopped before they did anything they couldn't take back, and she and Ron never really hurt them, or used serious hexes. They just didn't tell anyone else it was a game, because that would take half the fun out of it.

Daphne was different. Ginny hated Daphne, and Daphne hated her back. They weren't family; they weren't playing a game. Pushing her could get dangerous.

Ignoring her... well, Percy always said that worked on troublemakers, but Ginny had never seen him actually prove it. He'd never managed to make the twins leave him alone; he always lost his temper or stalked off to tell Mum before the twins got bored. Percy tried to act like he was better than the rest of the family, but he got angry just as fast -- faster, really, since he wouldn't admit that he had a temper and so he'd never learned how to stuff anger down and use it. Ginny was sure she could hold her temper better than Percy, and that would drive Daphne up the wall.

Besides, nobody would be Petrified anymore, not since she'd thrown away the diary. People would stop panicking and accusing Harry, and if Ginny wasn't always getting angry at idiots, it would be easier to stay calm when Daphne tried to get a rise out of her.

"I won't get angry," Ginny scribbled on a scrap of parchment. "I won't yell at people. I won't hex anyone." She waited several seconds before she remembered that nobody would answer, and. Then she added, in a heavy hand, "I won't miss Tom. He was evil and lying and trying to suck out my life. He killed a girl once. He would have killed me. I don't miss him."

Ginny stared at the glistening ink. The words sat on the parchment, clear for anyone to read. She wished they would sink down and turn invisible. She wished Tom would read them.

"I don't miss him," she whispered. "I don't." She crumpled the words in her fist, dipped the parchment into a candle flame, and opened the window to drop the burning wad out into the still, icy air. It drifted down along Gryffindor Tower like a golden flower and landed on a steep roof nearly five stories below. Dirty snow doused the flames.

Ginny shut the window and tried to concentrate on her reading for History of Magic.

January wound down without incident, and people eventually seemed to relax. Daphne sniped at Ginny during Potions and Snape oozed greasy malevolence, but Ginny grimly held her temper and ignored them. Transfiguration was as difficult as ever, but Ginny thought she was finally getting the hang of Charms. When Professor Flitwick praised her for tying knots with a brisk downward flick of her wand, and asked her to demonstrate the proper movement to Apple, she felt a warm glow of satisfaction.

One week Professor Sprout led an extracurricular Herbology session outside to demonstrate the growth of iceflowers in the wild. The next week, they transplanted some of the pale, silvery shoots and brought them into Greenhouse Four where Sprout had set up a corner plot with special Cooling Charms. Ginny wanted to take seeds home to the Burrow, but it didn't seem worthwhile; the chickens or the gnomes would dig them up before they could bloom.

Hermione was still in hospital, but she had opened her curtains -- all her fur had fallen out, and Madam Pomfrey was only keeping her in to make sure she wouldn't relapse. Ginny took to visiting her once Harry and Ron returned from their daily chats. Hermione was a bit of a bore, and constantly tried to suggest extracurricular reading and arrange revision timetables for the end-of-year exams (without asking Ginny whether she wanted any help), but Hermione was a girl. She understood about liking boys. Even though Ginny thought Hermione was daft for liking Lockhart, and Hermione thought Ginny was strange for liking Harry, they could commiserate over the impossibility of ever getting boys to notice them.

"Valentine's Day is coming up," said Hermione at the beginning of February, as she sorted through Ron's semi-legible Transfiguration notes. "You could always send him a card -- sign it 'Your Secret Admirer' or something like that -- then you'd have some idea how he'd react to the idea of a girlfriend."

"Erm," said Ginny. She picked up Hermione's spare quill and tapped it against the bedside table. "But what would I say?"

Hermione bit her lip. "Maybe a poem? I'm not much good at this sort of thing."

"Are you going to send one to Lockhart?"

Hermione flushed. "Well, yes, I suppose... do you think he'd mind? He must get a lot of cards, and he might be tired of them. I know I'd be embarrassed if people kept sending me love letters, but he's ever so gracious about it."

Ginny said, carefully, "I don't think he'd mind getting Valentine's cards."

"You're right," said Hermione, sounding more definite. "It's not as if I'm asking him to reciprocate, exactly, and besides, I won't write anything gushy. I'll just send him a note of appreciation for his bravery and his willingness to share his experience with us."

"I'm sure he'll like that," said Ginny, and excused herself to try writing a poem.

Poetry, she decided one hour later, was not her strong point. All she'd managed to come up with were limericks and doggerel, and none of it worked! She stared at the sheets of parchment on her pillow and kicked her feet against her bed.

'There once was a boy with a scar
And black hair as shiny as tar;
He beat You-Know-Who,
And mean Quirrell too,
And I know he'll go really far'

That was horrible!

'Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
You're awfully brave,
And I like you'

No. No. A thousand times no.

'He flies as fast as lightning,
He's brave when things get frightening,
He makes my day seem brightening...'

"'Seem brightening?' Ugh." And what could she use for a fourth line, anyhow? Tightening? Whitening? Heightening? "My love for him is heightening?" Ginny tried aloud, tentatively, and then rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at the unfinished poem. "I couldn't say that to Harry -- not for a hundred Galleons!"

She pulled out a new sheet of parchment and tried again.

'His eyes are green, his hair is black,
He drove the evil wizard back;
He's strong and brave and always saves
The day, when nasty things attack.'

"Argh!" Ginny tugged on her hair in frustration. She might as well write something awful on purpose -- there was no way she could do worse than she'd already managed. "His eyes are green, his hair is black," she muttered to herself. "Green like what? Like... like grass. Emeralds. Stupid jealous people. Poison. Pickles. Oh, toad-guts!"

Toads... Toads were green -- well, when they weren't brown -- and they were definitely green when they were pickled and floating in jars in Snape's storage cabinets. "Green like a pickled toad." Ginny snickered.

'His eyes,' she scribbled, 'are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard;'

Ginny paused, thinking. She wasn't ever going to show these poems to anyone; there was no reason to tiptoe around things. None of this wishy-washy 'I like you' business.

'I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord!'

Ginny looked down at this latest bit of doggerel and rolled sideways in a fit of giggles. 'Dark as a blackboard!' Oh God, that was awful!

The door opened and several people clomped into the room. "Ginny? What's so funny?" asked Susan.

"Nothing!" said Ginny, and then clapped her hand over her mouth to smother the traitorous remnant of her laughter. So what if she hadn't been getting anywhere -- that was no reason for idiots to come ask questions while she was doing something private. She gathered her poems and flipped them upside-down.

"Nothing?" Apple asked dryly.

"Exactly." Ginny folded the parchment sheets in half and tucked the poems under her textbooks. She set her quill and ink beside them on her night table and frowned preemptively at Susan. "Good night."

She pulled her curtains shut and sulked.

Hermione came back from the infirmary the next day, but Ginny decided not to ask her for more advice. Instead, she trudged off to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom after dinner and sat down in Sir Vladislav's alcove. The floor was hard and cold, but she was wearing a pair of wool stockings, so she wouldn't freeze for a while. She sighed.

Sir Vladislav creaked and clashed as he sat down on his pedestal. He tipped his helmet in a questioning gesture.

Ginny pulled out her quill, ink, and spare parchment, and smiled at the enchanted armor. "I realized I hadn't come to talk with you in a while, and this time I remembered to bring something for you to write on. I wanted to ask if you know what to write in a Valentine -- I want to send one to Harry, but I don't know what to write. Hermione said poems are good, but I can't write poems. And you're sort of a man, right? So maybe you know what he'd like?"

She thrust the parchment and quill toward Sir Vladislav, who took them gravely. He inked the quill and held it delicately between the thumb and first finger of his gauntlet, obviously afraid that he might snap the feather. He scratched at the parchment for nearly a minute before handing it back to Ginny.

"Valentines Day is for telling peeple that you are in love. Therefor, you shoud tell Harry that you love him. If that is to large a step, tell him that you admire him and wish to understand him better. You mite also tell him that you believ in him and are serten he is not the Heir of Slytherin. A poem is not nessessary, because you do not want to make him uncomfortable."

Below this, Sir Vladislav had added in a more tentative hand, "Presents are always good. I heer that many peeple like chocolate."

Ginny flushed. Now that Sir Vladislav said it, it seemed obvious that poetry would only make Harry feel awkward -- after all, he wasn't like Lockhart! All she needed to do was say that she wanted to be his friend. She was a Gryffindor. How hard could that be?

"Thanks, Sir Vladislav," she said. "I'll get rid of my poems -- they were terrible anyhow." She paused. "Er, do you think the kitchen elves would let me have some chocolate?"

Sir Vladislav managed to look skeptically inquiring; it was something in the tilt of his shoulder plates and the angle of his helmet.

"Fred and George know how to get into the kitchens," Ginny explained. "They haven't showed me, but I'm sure I can talk them into it if I want to."

Sir Vladislav reached for the parchment and ink. "The elfs mite give you chocolate, but it woud be a better present if you bouht it yourself. Remember honor."

"Oh. Right." Ginny felt her face burn as she tucked the parchment and quill into her bag. "Thanks for reminding me, Sir Vladislav."

He saluted gravely and levered himself back to his feet.

Ginny hurried to the girls' dormitory and flopped onto her bed. All she had to do was write a short message to say that she was sure Harry was innocent, and she'd like to be his friend. She brushed the end of her quill back and forth under her chin, thinking.

"Dear Harry," she scribbled under Sir Vladislav's shaky handwriting, "I want to wish you Happy Valentine's Day and tell you that I know you're not the Heir of Slytherin. I'd like to be your friend."

Hmm. Ginny stared at the short letter. No, that wouldn't do. She sounded too sure about the Heir -- there was no reason to give anyone hints about Tom. Not even Harry.

"Dear Harry, Happy Valentine's Day. I'm sure you're not the Heir of Slytherin. I'd like to be your friend."

No, that sounded even worse. And it wouldn't make any sense if she didn't sign it so Harry knew who his potential friend was... and she wasn't quite brave enough for that. Ginny kicked her feet against the bedposts and tried again. Two sheets of parchment later, she thought she might have something workable.

"Dear Harry," she read to herself. "I'm sure you're not the Heir of Slytherin, and I want you to know that people believe in you. Happy Valentine's Day, A Friend." It wasn't anything like perfect, but it said more or less what she couldn't manage to say whenever Harry was actually in front of her.

Ginny folded the parchment, set it under her textbooks with her failed poetry attempts, and left to wash up before bed. When she got back, Apple and Susan were laughing and whispering as they put on their nightdresses. Ginny tore up her poems and threw them into the wastebasket, just to be on the safe side.

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Valentine's Day was a Sunday, but Lockhart had posted notices that he was planning a holiday-themed, morale-boosting celebration on the Monday after that, so most people held onto their cards and chocolates and waited to see what bizarre idea Lockhart would pull out of his sleeve this time. When she reached the Great Hall on Monday morning, Ginny stopped in shock at what Lockhart considered a Valentine's theme. She wished she'd remembered that this was Lockhart, who didn't have even half the sense of a squashed toad. She wished she'd had the sense to send her letter by owl the day before.

The walls of the Great Hall were plastered with gigantic flowers in a hideous shade of pink. The ceiling showed nothing but soft baby blue, instead of the greyish clouds Ginny had seen from her window that morning. And heart-shaped pink confetti was falling from somewhere above the tables -- it vanished a foot or two over people's heads, but Ginny thought she smelled a whiff of sickly-sweet perfume on the paper.

Ginny dropped her head into her hands and moaned.

Shortly thereafter, Lockhart stood up from the professors' table, cleared his throat, and said, "Happy Valentine's Day! And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all -- and it doesn't end here!"

He clapped his hands, and a dozen dwarfs marched through the doors to the entrance hall. They had golden wings attached to their backs, harps in their arms, and extremely disgruntled expressions on their faces. Ginny didn't blame them, not in that get-up.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" said Lockhart, beaming. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion -- why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a love potion? And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Ginny didn't dare look at the teachers' table to see Snape and Flitwick's reactions. The card in her bag seemed to burn against her skin, even through layers of fabric. She couldn't possibly give it to one of the dwarfs -- she couldn't even begin to imagine how much that would embarrass Harry.

Before Charms, Ginny ran back to Gryffindor Tower to shove her card under her pillow. Then, in class, Susan had the nerve to ask Professor Flitwick what Entrancing Enchantments did, which set him off on a lecture about ethical and unethical uses of mood-altering magic. Ginny thought about the Dueling Club, and Tom, and dug her nails into her palms.

Transfiguration was more like a proper lesson -- nobody dared to push Professor McGonagall when she was in a controlled fury -- but twice they were interrupted by dwarfs banging open the door, cornering a student, and reciting messages before handing over cards. Each time, Professor McGonagall's frown deepened and her wand movements grew sharper.

Lunch was a madhouse, with people watching every new valentine delivery, laughing about the words, making bets on who had sent it, and so on. For once, Ginny was grateful that nobody noticed her much. It was ages better than getting a valentine like this.

And then, when the first years started back toward Gryffindor Tower after lunch, hurrying to keep ahead of the students heading for classes, one of the dwarfs went after Harry.

"Oi, you!" he shouted. "'Arry Potter!" He elbowed people in the thighs, kicked them in the shins, and banged them with his harp, shoving himself forward through the crowd.

Harry tried to escape, but the dwarf was faster. "I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he said, plucking his harp strings and glowering. Harry hissed something at the dwarf and tried to pull away, but the dwarf grabbed his bag and hung on. "Stay still!" he grunted.

"Let me go!" said Harry, still struggling. His bag couldn't take the strain; with a loud ripping noise, it tore in half. Books, parchment, and quills spilled onto the floor, and his inkbottle smashed, soaking everything in blood-red ink.

Ginny winced in sympathy.

As Harry scrambled to pick up his things and the dwarf struck a pose with his harp, a group of Slytherins joined the crush in the corridor. Naturally, Draco Malfoy was in the lead. "What's going on here?" he asked in his bored, drawling voice.

Ginny winced again. Then it got even worse.

"What's all this commotion?" asked an all-too-familiar voice, as Percy pushed his way through the crowd. "Who's responsible for this?"

Ginny tried to disappear into the wall. Harry ran, but before he got two steps the dwarf tackled him at the knees and brought him crashing to the floor. "Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles and glaring. "Here is your singing valentine:

"His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard;
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

Ginny's mind went blank from sheer mortification.

All around her, people were laughing. They were laughing at Harry, and it was her poem the dwarf had been singing. Somebody had found her poem and used it to embarrass Harry.

"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" Draco said loudly, over the laughter, as he held up a shabby, black-covered book. An eager hush fell over the corridor.

Ginny stared blankly at the book. It should have been soaked in red ink like Harry's other books, but it was spotless, as if all the ink had been sucked away. There was only one book that could do that. That was her diary. Tom's diary. The diary that called out the Heir. The diary she'd thrown into Myrtle's toilet so nothing would go wrong again. Harry had the diary. And now Draco Malfoy had picked it up. She looked back and forth from Draco's hands to Harry's face.

"Hand it over, Malfoy," said Percy, in his best I'm-in-charge voice.

"When I've had a look," said Draco. He waved the diary at Harry, mockingly.

"As a school prefect--" Percy started, but Harry didn't listen.

He pulled out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and the diary flew out of Draco's hands. Ron leaned over and caught it.

Ginny flinched. She couldn't let Tom get at Ron! Not her brother.

Percy cleared his throat. "Harry! No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"

As if house points mattered now! Harry seemed to agree, since he was ignoring Percy. Draco looked furious, though, and as Ginny edged past him he said, "I don't think Potter liked your valentine much." Behind him, the Slytherins laughed, and Daphne held up a scrap of parchment with four scribbled lines in green ink. She smirked.

Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran, trying to keep people from seeing her face turn blotchy with embarrassment and tears. Everything was wrong. Someone had stolen her poem, the stupid poem that was only a joke, and used it to hurt Harry. Someone had rescued the diary from the flood and now Tom was just waiting to hurt Harry too.

She ducked into an empty classroom, slammed the door behind her, and cried.

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Ginny spent the rest of the day hiding in the library. Now that she thought about it, she remembered Apple and Susan laughing over something just before she'd burned her poems; they must have taken one while she was washing up. She didn't care whose idea it was to give the poem to Lockhart's dwarfs -- she hated all of them. Apple, Susan, the stupid boys, Daphne, Daphne's stupid friend, Electra, Draco Malfoy... she bet they were all in on it.

She wouldn't mind if they got Petrified.

Immediately, Ginny curled up in her chair and tugged on her hair. She didn't mean that! Nobody deserved to be Petrified, and anyhow that would mean letting Tom back out, which would mean he'd do things to Harry, and that would be awful! She had to get the diary away from Harry. She didn't know if he'd started writing to Tom yet, but sooner or later he would, and then Tom would get into his dreams and pretend to be his friend and make him Petrify people.

Well, maybe not -- Harry had to be stronger than she was, he was a hero -- but she couldn't take the chance. Everything Tom had done was her fault too, even if it was only because she didn't stop him, so she was responsible for him. She had to protect Harry from the diary.

But how could she protect him? She couldn't sneak into his room and look through his bag and his trunk... could she? That would be wrong. But letting Tom hurt Harry, or use Harry, would be even more wrong, wouldn't it?

That evening, Ginny went to bed early and pulled the curtains tightly shut. She stared gloomily at A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration and wished she had somebody to talk to. After a minute, she caught herself scribbling, "Dear Tom, I need to help Harry," in the margin of her book, and looked at her hand in horror.

"You do miss me. I wondered."

Ginny nearly wrenched her neck turning toward the familiar, whispery voice. Tom's misty form hovered at the end of her bed; as she watched, he crossed his legs and sat on top of her covers. "That wasn't very nice, Ginevra, throwing me into a toilet. You're lucky that Moaning Myrtle took exception and washed me out immediately."

Ginny gaped. She tried to speak, but her voice was gone. Wildly, she threw her quill at him; it fluttered and missed, drifting down beside his ghostly legs to stain her covers with green ink. Tom lifted it and twirled it between his fingers.

"Ginevra, is that any way to greet a friend, let alone your adopted brother?" He smiled; there were nasty edges in it. "I'm hurt. But then, I'm making a new friend now, so I suppose it's all right if you don't want to see me anymore."

Now Ginny found her voice. "Stay away from Harry!"

Tom inspected his fingernails, unconcerned. "I don't believe you're in a position to give me orders, Ginevra. Your precious Harry has my prison at the moment, and he's voluntarily let me take him into a memory -- it's much easier to drain him that way than if he simply writes to me."

Ginny shook with rage. "You're evil. You made me do Dark Arts -- that spell was blood magic and it was Dark, I know it -- and you're not going to do anything like that to Harry. I won't let you."

"Evil is an illusion," said Tom. "Power is the only reality, and at the moment, you have no power over me -- whereas I do have power over you. Your concern for Harry is a lever I can use to move you. And that spell you so willingly performed? Why, it lets me draw on you directly, without the need to read your childish drivel. How else did you think I could appear to you now?"

Before Ginny could reply, Tom looked up and to the side as if hearing an inaudible signal. "Ah. Harry seems to have reached the end of my memory -- I really should thank you for telling me all about his friendship with Rubeus Hagrid, and Hagrid's regrettable inability to learn from his mistakes. It's fascinating to watch people turn on each other and reveal their so-called friendships as the lies they are." He smiled again, with a mocking twist. "I should return in case he wants to talk some more. Until next time, Ginevra. Sleep soundly, and dream of me."

His form thinned, wavered, and vanished -- Ginny's belated lunge left her sprawling fruitlessly along her bed. Quickly, she twitched her curtain aside to make sure nobody was in the room. Even if people couldn't hear Tom, she'd just admitted doing Dark magic, and that could get her expelled -- and then who would help Harry?

The room was empty. She was safe, for now.

Ginny took a deep breath and tried to stop panicking. She had to think logically about this.

Right. Harry had the diary, and tonight he'd written in it. Was this the first time? She couldn't be sure, but Tom had said he was making a new friend so it probably was. She bet Harry had noticed that there was no ink on the diary -- he saw things like that, things that were out of place -- and he'd tried to figure out how it worked. Then he'd done something utterly stupid and let Tom pull him into a memory. She had no idea how that worked, but it sounded dangerous, and whatever Tom had showed him was either a lie or twisted around so it looked like it meant one thing when it really meant something else.

But the important thing was that Tom was draining people. He'd admitted that. Whenever somebody wrote in the diary, he sucked at them, and because Ginny had been even more stupid than Harry, she'd let him teach her Dark magic so that he could drain her even when she wasn't writing to him. She'd thrown the diary away but they were still connected -- she could still see and hear him when the pages were open, even though Harry had the diary now.

Harry trusted Tom enough to go into his memories. That wasn't good. If he trusted Tom that much, how long would it be before Tom talked him into Dark Arts too?

Ginny couldn't let that happen. She was the one who'd let Tom out at first. She was the one who'd let him Petrify people. She was the one who'd linked herself to him. He was her responsibility, not Harry's.

She had to get the diary back.

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Susan and Apple avoided her in the morning, which was just as well -- Ginny didn't think the prefects would have been happy if she'd punched them in the common room or made a scene at breakfast. By the time she reached the Defense classroom, she'd got a firm grip on her temper. The other first years weren't the real problem. She couldn't afford to be distracted.

Lockhart, of course, pushed her resolve nearly to the breaking point.

"Oh, children!" he said as he swept into the room, making his indigo robes swirl artfully around his legs. "Valentine's Day is a day for love, not fighting! I heard that some of you laughed at Miss Weasley, here, when she found the courage to tell Harry Potter that she admires him. Shame on you! And congratulations, Miss Weasley -- people like you exemplify the spirit of Valentine's Day, and make me proud to be part of the Hogwarts family." A candle flared, and his teeth flashed brilliant white.

Ginny bared her teeth in something that might pass for a smile if people didn't look too closely. It fooled Lockhart completely. He beamed at her, shook his finger at the other Gryffindors, and pranced to the front of the classroom to regale them with more of his improbable adventures.

She tried to leave the classroom as soon as he finished his lecture, but Lockhart snagged her by the shoulder and insisted on thanking her, at length, for her courage and charm. "A marvelous poem," he said finally, when he started to run down. "Such fresh imagery, very idiosyncratic, very true to life! I thought the rhyme scheme quite ingenious, too, and I'm sure the managers of Witch Weekly would agree. They need writers to title their photographs and put together snappy biographies -- brief, of course, nothing like the detail in my books -- and you'd do well to apply there. A bright young girl like you shouldn't let anything hold her back. With a bit of work, you might even end up writing the story when my next book comes out!"

He smiled again, wide and gleaming.

"Witch Weekly, right," said Ginny. "Let go of me."

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry," said Lockhart. "Look what I've done to the hang of your robes. Let me straighten you out." He fussed over her shoulders for a minute -- Ginny froze, figuring that if she tried to slip away he'd only take twice as long -- and then stepped back. "Lovely. Well, run along now, Miss Weasley. And don't forget -- Witch Weekly -- tell them I recommended you!"

"Whatever," muttered Ginny, hurrying away. She made a face as she turned the corner toward the stairs. God, Lockhart was a smarmy git. She almost preferred Snape -- he was a toad-licking sadist, but at least he was honest about it. He didn't pretend to be anyone's friend. Snape also knew his subject, which was more than anyone with half an ounce of sense could say about Lockhart.

She tried to finish the Transfiguration reading Tom had interrupted last night, but she couldn't concentrate. She kept imagining Harry stabbing his finger with a quill and signing his life over to Tom, or remembering the vicious glee on Daphne's face when Draco Malfoy told everyone that Ginny had written the poem. Ginny seethed each time Daphne swam into her mind's eye -- Tom was an evil, traitorous, scum-sucking bastard, but at least he'd been right about her. Slytherins couldn't be trusted.

By the time she stomped down into the dungeons for Double Potions, Ginny's grip on her temper was hair-thin. If Daphne so much as looked at her sideways...

Daphne was already in the room, setting up her supplies as Apple whispered furiously into her ear. She looked sour, and she glanced away from Ginny with nothing more than a brief twist of her mouth. Ginny slammed her book onto the table next to Electra and glowered at Snape's empty desk.

"Rough day?" asked Electra.

"What do you think?" Ginny snarled.

Electra nodded. "They shouldn't have done that -- Valentine's Day is awkward enough without stupid jokes." She tossed her golden hair and sent a frown in Daphne's direction. "Daphne has no sense of proportion. Besides, when you're angry my Potions marks go down because you can't concentrate. So stop thinking about her until after class."

Ginny gaped at Electra's self-centeredness, but then she closed her mouth and began to set out her supplies. Backhanded sympathy was better than none, and it was true that she couldn't afford to be distracted in Snape's class. He took enough points off Gryffindor without explosions and other bad reactions.

They brewed a Shrinking Solution -- half the class made the version for inanimate objects while the other half brewed the version for living things -- without too much trouble. Ginny was glad that she and Electra were making the inanimate version; that meant she didn't have to resist the temptation to shrink Daphne's head to the size of a pin. It did mean she had to ask Snape to cast an Impervious Charm on her cauldron so the potion didn't shrink its container, but by now she was used to biting her tongue when he sneered at her.

"Tolerable," said Snape, after he tested Ginny and Electra's Shrinking Solution on a piece of chalk. "The consistency is too thick, however, and the color is a shade too orange. Weasley, try to overcome your family's idiocy and pay attention to your flame height. Summers, excellent job with the proportion of Doxy wings."

"I can't decide if I'm lucky to have you as a partner or not," Electra whispered as Snape moved on to examine Daphne and Ruth's potion. "You're brilliant at this, which is good, but I think it might kill Professor Snape to admit that, which is bad." She sniffed. "I wish he'd let me work with Heather and Angelique."

"Not Daphne?" asked Ginny. Behind them, Snape asked Daphne just what she'd been thinking -- or if she'd been thinking at all -- when she switched the amounts of dragonfly wings and Doxy wings in her potion.

"She's too careless, and I'm not speaking to her in any case -- not until she admits stealing your poem was a bad idea. If she stole yours, after all, she might steal mine next year, and--" Electra cut herself off and ostentatiously concentrated on bottling the Shrinking Solution.

Ginny blinked. She hadn't realized the Slytherins might turn on each other like Gryffindors did; she'd assumed the Slytherin girls all followed Daphne, the way the second years seemed to follow Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. Now that she thought about it, though, Heather Farthingale and Angelique Fitzroy didn't pay much attention to Daphne, and Electra hadn't ever actually deferred to her.

Also, Electra fancied someone enough to send a Valentine's Day card? That was interesting. Ginny decided not to ask about that right now, though. It wouldn't be fair, not after Electra had more or less taken her side against Daphne.

Slytherins couldn't be trusted, but maybe they weren't necessarily evil.

Snape dismissed the class with a ferocious scowl; Ginny cleaned up her cauldron and supplies as fast as she could. Then she waited outside the door until Susan breezed through, chattering at Apple, who was rubbing her forehead with a preoccupied air. "Susan," said Ginny, grabbing her sleeve. "I need to talk to you."

Susan blanched, and then smiled back, sharp and mocking. "Sure, Ginny. See you later, Apple!"

Apple frowned at both of them. "Take this out of the dungeons; I'd prefer not to lose house points when you start yelling and Snape overhears." Then she strode off down the corridor toward Daphne, who was watching with undisguised glee. She tapped her cousin on the shoulder, leaned down to mutter something in her ear, and led the Slytherin away.

"You stole my poem," said Ginny as she pulled Susan into an empty room and shut the door.

Susan folded her arms. "Yeah, I did. So?"

"So? So! How would you like it if I found your diary and had someone read bits of it out loud at dinner? That's practically what you did!" Ginny waved her arms wildly. "What did I ever do to you? I don't like you, but I leave you alone -- why can't you leave me alone too? Or if you have to be a toad-licker, then do things to my face -- that's how real Gryffindors act."

"It was to your face," said Susan, but she sounded less sure of herself than before.

"It was not," snapped Ginny. "And it wasn't an accident -- I put that parchment under a stack of books, so you had to be looking through my things on purpose. That's just low."

"Maybe it was. But you've no right to complain!" Susan said, leaning forward. "You're always going after Daphne, you think you're so much better than everyone, and you acted nice back at the start of the year -- what happened to you?"

"Nothing! Nothing happened," -- and oh, that was a lie, but she couldn't tell anyone about Tom -- "and it's none of your business anyhow. So what if I don't like you? Why should you care? And whatever's between Daphne and me is our problem, not yours, so keep your nose out of it."

"Maybe I will," said Susan, folding her arms again. "You know, she wanted us to sneak her into Gryffindor Tower so she could hex your books and your clothes, or dump paint in your bed, but I said no. You think about that. I think you deserve whatever Daphne comes up with next." She whirled, nodded once to Ginny, and slammed the door behind her.

Ginny stood in the flickering torchlight and fumed.

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She was still fuming half an hour later, when she stomped down the corridor toward the portrait hole. "Mulligrubs," she snapped at the Fat Lady, who swung open with a disdainful sniff.

Susan didn't understand. Ginny wouldn't have minded half as much if Daphne had hexed her books, ruined her clothes, or punched her. Those were the sorts of things her brothers did, and if she hadn't learned to laugh, fix things, and get back at them, she'd have gone mad years ago. But going after something she wrote, stealing her private thoughts and telling everyone...

That was what Tom had done -- well, except for telling everyone. He'd stolen her thoughts and her secrets and pieces of her life. And he was still stealing from her, because he'd tricked her into casting that spell. He probably didn't even need to drain Harry; he could just wait until he'd sucked her dry.

She couldn't do much to Susan, not if she wanted to stop making the other first years into enemies -- it was completely unfair, Ginny thought absently, that Mum had never told her how much harder it was to make people like you than it was to make them hate you -- but she could get rid of Tom. She could save Harry.

She just had to find the diary.

"If I were Harry, and I'd found an enchanted diary, where would I keep it?" Ginny asked herself. She'd carried Tom with her, but that was because she didn't have other friends and she liked to talk to him. Harry had Ron and Hermione; he didn't need Tom. He probably left it in his room. But she didn't think he'd leave the diary in the open -- there was something about Tom that made you want to take care of his prison and not blab his existence all over the place.

The second years were still in Transfiguration -- Ginny had memorized their schedule nearly as fast as her own -- and most people didn't hang around the tower this early in the afternoon, so she ought to be safe if she sneaked into the boys' dormitories and looked around. If she got caught, she could say she wanted to play a trick on her brothers.

Ginny looked around the common room, trying not to act furtive or nervous. Half the trick to sneaking around was to not look like you were sneaking around. She'd picked that up from Bill and the twins -- they could carry off looking like they belonged in outrageous places, but so far all Ginny had really mastered was fading into the background.

In retrospect, maybe that hadn't been the best skill to learn.

Anyhow, the common room was nearly deserted, and nobody was looking toward the stairs -- the people in the chairs were either dozing near the fire or hunched over books. She wasn't going to get a better chance than this.

Casually, Ginny walked to the boys' staircase. She rounded the first turn -- nobody came out of either the bedroom or the bathroom on the first landing. She passed the second landing, and the third, and was beginning to think that she might get away without meeting anyone and having to explain what she was doing...

A door opened. She whirled -- her heart tried to sink through the floor and jump out of her throat at the same time.

"Ginny? What on earth are you doing here?" Percy stood in a doorway on the fourth landing, wearing nothing but a brown paisley dressing-gown. A damp towel hung from his hand and water trickled from his hair.

Ginny flushed and ducked her head before she could catch herself, and lost her chance to brazen things out.

Percy's puzzled expression resolved into a scowl. "I don't care what the twins did this time -- you can't act the way you did at home. This is a school, not a zoo, and we have certain standards of behavior to uphold. Besides, revenge is a vicious cycle that inevitably leads to greater and greater escalation of problems until somebody gets seriously hurt."

"But I wasn't--" started Ginny, and then clamped her mouth shut before she told Percy that she'd been looking for Harry's things instead of the twins'. Percy was used to scolding her about family fights; he wouldn't ask questions unless she gave herself away. She couldn't let him find out about Tom.

"I don't care," repeated Percy. A drop of water trembled at the tip of his nose, and he swiped it away with the towel. He blinked, appearing to realize that he wasn't properly dressed, and flushed red at the ears. "Go down and wait in the common room -- either I talk to you or I write to Mum and let her give the lecture. I think you'd rather have me."

"Right," said Ginny, and fled.

She had almost made up her mind to hide in her room and let Percy write to Mum after all when he clattered down the stairs, looking extremely well put-together considering he'd been sopping wet not ten minutes before. Something tickled her nose as he sat in a chair across from her, and Ginny sniffed curiously.

"Percy? Are you wearing perfume?"

"It's called cologne," snapped Percy, flushing again, "and it's none of your business. Now, listen -- whatever the twins did to you, you're intelligent enough to know that revenge never actually stops them. If you ignore them, eventually they're bound to get tired and stop bothering you. That's what a sensible person would do."

"I don't care, and besides, they don't leave you alone," Ginny pointed out. She sniffed again. "That's an awful lot of perfume, Percy."

Percy's ears began to turn purple. "Cologne. Women wear perfume; men wear cologne. Anyway, Ginny, just because I'm not as good at ignoring the twins as I'd like to be doesn't mean you're excused from proper behavior."

Ginny sneezed.

"Oh, that is just it. Come on, we're going to the infirmary." Percy shot to his feet, grabbed Ginny's hand, and started hauling her across the room.

"I'm not sick -- it's just your perfume -- all right, your cologne -- it makes my nose itch--" protested Ginny, but Percy refused to listen. He dragged her along corridors, up and down staircases, through a dust-choked shortcut hidden behind a tapestry -- Ginny nearly doubled over with a new fit of sneezes -- and all the way to the hospital wing.

"Pepper-up potion," he told Madam Pomfrey. "She's still a bit pale, and she's been sneezing."

"It's his perfume!" Ginny tried to say, but she interrupted herself with a sneeze.

Madam Pomfrey promise to look after Ginny and shooed Percy out of the infirmary. "Dreadful cologne, isn't it?" she said with a smile as she shut the door and turned back to Ginny. "Still, you do look a bit peaked. Why don't you stay here and rest for the afternoon? A bit of peace and quiet might do you good -- aside from Creevey, Finch-Fletchley, and poor Sir Nicholas, there's no one here but Gosworth and Thistlewaite over in the corner, and they'll be sleeping off botched Calming Charms until at least half past eight." She patted a bed invitingly.

Ginny wavered -- she couldn't make herself look at the curtains around Colin's bed without feeling flushed and guilty -- but having a bit of time to just rest... She sat down with a deep sigh. "Can I have a curtain so nobody will know I'm here?"

"Certainly," said Madam Pomfrey. She flicked her wand at a tall wardrobe near her office. "Accio. I'll come wake you for dinner," she said as a curtain and frame flew to surround Ginny's bed. Then her brisk footsteps moved away through the infirmary.

Ginny sighed again and lay down. She didn't feel particularly tired, but she needed to think and at least nobody would interrupt her here.

She hadn't got the diary back, but maybe that could wait a while, since Harry probably wouldn't write in the diary as often as she had. If they were both lucky, Tom couldn't possess people until they'd written to him a lot. Of course, if they weren't lucky, then he just needed to have sucked away a certain amount of magic in general, and he'd obviously taken more than enough magic from Ginny to possess her.

Harry had stopped evil wizards before, though, so maybe he could recognize them? Maybe he would realize that there was something fishy about Tom, and he wouldn't write in the diary anymore.

Ginny rolled over onto her stomach and rested her chin on the thin hospital pillow. She wanted someone to talk to -- all her thoughts just went around and around in circles, and she didn't have enough information. How was she supposed to figure anything out? How was she supposed to protect Harry? She was just eleven! She wasn't a hero! She was so stupid she'd let Tom take her in for five months, and she almost hadn't believed it when she got proof that he was the Heir.

Ginny kicked her feet against the bed in frustration. "I hate this," she muttered. "Everything's gone wrong and I don't know how to fix any of it! Not Tom, not Harry, not even stupid Daphne and Susan and that stupid valentine."

"Ginny?" A startled voice spoke from beyond the curtain, and Ginny sat up in shock.

"Who's there?"

"Me," said Apple, ducking inside the curtain. "Are you hurt? Susan didn't mention a fight..."

"It's nothing to do with her," snapped Ginny. "Percy caught me sneaking around the boys' tower and then he wouldn't believe that I was only sneezing because he had on too much cologne. Madam Pomfrey said I could stay to get some rest. Why are you here?"

"Now and then I get migraines," Apple said mildly. "I come to Madam Pomfrey when they're particularly bad." She shifted her feet, looking oddly unsure of herself. "Look, I heard you talking about Daphne and Susan. I'm sorry I didn't stop them; at the time, I thought it would be harmless, but I didn't realize Daphne would tell Draco Malfoy, of all people. They let the joke get out of hand -- and, in retrospect, it probably hurt you more than if they'd gone after your clothes or your hair instead."

Ginny clamped her teeth shut before she could agree -- hearing Apple echo her thoughts was extremely odd, and she didn't like it one bit.

"Why didn't you stop them altogether?" she asked after a moment. "I haven't done anything to Daphne for weeks, and I never did anything to Susan except yell at her. We're Gryffindors, not Slytherins. I'm trying to live up to that instead of letting Daphne drag me down to her level. Why can't you?"

Apple rubbed her temple and frowned. "Don't be self-righteous; you started this mess in the first place, with your baseless prejudices, and you hurt Susan's feelings quite badly when you turned on her. But yes, you've backed off, and I should have recognized that. I apologize."

Ginny folded her arms. "And?"

"And what? I don't control Daphne -- you set her off and now you have to live with the consequences. If you don't like the situation, it's your own responsibility to fix it. You reap what you sow, after all." Apple winced and rubbed her head again. "I'm sorry. It's hard to be tactful when I feel like someone's stirring my brain with red-hot pokers. If you'd rather not have me around, I can rest in the dormitory once I've seen Madam Pomfrey."

"I don't care what you do," said Ginny, suddenly needing to get away from the infirmary and the mute accusation of the Petrified bodies. "I'm going to the library. You can tell Madam Pomfrey." She slid off the bed and pushed out through the curtains, leaving Apple behind in the silent infirmary.

Everything was going wrong. She thought she'd fixed things when she got rid of Tom and stopped antagonizing Daphne, but Tom was back and telling lies to Harry, and Daphne wasn't stopping just because Ginny didn't want to fight anymore. Susan hated her, and Apple thought everything was Ginny's fault, just like Ginny had thought when she threw away the diary. She'd told herself that was only another one of Tom's lies, but she hadn't managed to get rid of the guilt; she'd only set it aside for a while, and now Apple had brought it roaring back to life.

Besides, Ginny had just remembered something important. Tom had made her dream about a dragon, and when she'd caught him lying, he'd talked about supplying a monster. If Tom wasn't gone, the monster -- whatever it really was -- wasn't gone either. Tom might possess Harry. He might possess her again. And the next time he called out his monster, someone might die.

Doubts gnawed at her stomach, but Ginny tried to shove them aside and think -- she had to figure things out, had to make a plan. Percy would be watching her. She couldn't hunt the diary for a while, not until he forgot or got distracted, but she could watch Harry to make sure he wasn't writing to Tom. And when she got the diary back, she'd get rid of it properly. She'd burn it. Not even Tom could come back again if his diary was nothing but ashes.

As for Daphne... Ginny scowled as she hurried through the corridors. She couldn't be sure how far the Slytherin might go if Ginny started fighting again. Look at Tom -- she'd tried to get rid of him, and now he was threatening Harry instead of just her. Daphne's trick with the poem had hurt Harry, too, so Percy wasn't just blowing smoke when he talked about escalation. There were really only two choices: either she ignored the problem and hoped it would go away, or she got rid of it. Forever.

Ginny collapsed against the wall as the implications hit her. She couldn't just throw the diary away again. She had to destroy it.

She had to kill Tom.

Ginny slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She wasn't a murderer! But... it wouldn't really be killing, would it? Tom wasn't really alive. He was only a memory in a diary. Besides, he was evil, and he'd killed a girl -- he'd admitted it! But still... Could she rip the diary to pieces? Could she set it on fire? Could she forget that Tom had been her friend? Yes, he'd probably been lying all along, but she hadn't been pretending.

"What would Harry do?" Ginny asked the empty corridor. Her voice felt gluey in her throat, and something itched at the corners of her eyes.

Harry was a hero. Tom was evil. Harry would kill him. That was what heroes did, wasn't it?

Gryffindors were supposed to be heroes, supposed to be strong, brave, and good. She had to try to live up to that, like she'd said to Apple. She had to try to live up to Harry. She couldn't just hide and hope he would save everyone again.

But to kill a friend...

Maybe it would be safer to leave the diary with Harry for a while. After all, she didn't know whether Tom could possess Harry, but she had solid proof that he could possess her and make her do horrible things. What if she got back the diary and Tom took over her body before she could destroy it, or if he made her think he wasn't really evil and it had all been a misunderstanding?

"I wish it was just a misunderstanding," muttered Ginny. "I want him back."

No, she corrected herself immediately, she didn't want Tom back, not the real Tom. She wanted the pretend Tom, the one who listened to her, who made her laugh, who treated her like she mattered. And as long as she wanted that, it would be dangerous to touch the diary. She ought to leave it alone until she was sure she could burn it, without giving Tom any chances to change her mind or go looking for his monster.

Until then, she'd have to trust Harry not to fall into Tom's trap.

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Special Bonus Section: more bad Valentine's Day poems!

1. Liz's original limmerick, rejected because of Americanisms, i.e. "guy"

There once was a boy with green eyes
Who miraculously didn't die;
He beat You-Know-Who,
And mean Quirrell too,
And I'm sure he's still a good guy!

2. Courtesy of Lasair's flatmate; arrangement, punctuations, and slight alterations by Liz

I dream of him in deepest night,
Elusive as a Snitch in flight;
I would surrender to his might!

A scar upon a noble brow:
I long to tell him -- oh, but how?
"I would be yours, please take me now!"

I'd battle with the Giant Squid,
I'd do what no-one ever did,
But he still thinks that I'm a kid!

Alas.

3. Also courtesy of Lasair and her flatmate; arrangement and slight alterations by Liz

When sitting in the common room
I watch him polishing his broom;
Were I the bride and he the groom,
No fears would loom.

I watch him flying, and the crowd
Is thunderous; it's very loud.
But when he wins, I feel so proud.
Still I am cowed.

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End of Chapter 10

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AN: Please review! I appreciate all feedback, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and why. Failing that, though, please feel free to ramble on about whatever you want. (Well, ramble on within reason, that is...)