Nocturne

Nocturne: Chapter 4

By: Emiko

Disclaimer: Sou-yo! Please, please, don’t sue me. Emiko’s only having a bit of fun with Rowling-sama’s characters... And stuff... Also, please don’t mind a bit of OOC on Riddle and Malfoy’s parts. I’ve done my best, and all that *really* stands out will be explained in due time. ^.^;;

~~~~~

Malfoy made use of his time apart from Harry over the past week in the library, doing exactly what Hermione had already done- try to find a cure for whatever the hell Harry was sick with. It turned out that he was finding just as much as she did, as well, and getting no help from the library only made him that much more frustrated over it all. He even snuck into the restricted section, and couldn’t find anything very useful. In the end he just took two or three books without bothering to check them out and toted them away to his room, where he wrote a very long letter to Harry which included a checklist of possible symptoms. He got an angry letter back telling to basically sod off; that Harry was perfectly fine.

As if the fact that Harry continuously gave the impression of being seconds from passing out was something he could just shove off.

It annoyed Malfoy to no end that Harry was acting like this, and he made sure to tell him exactly that in his letters. And Harry kept insisting that there wasn’t anything wrong with him and to please drop the subject, but Malfoy was insistent on playing the part of the Worried Lover.

“There’s no need to play the part of the Worried Lover if there isn’t anything to worry about,” Harry had said in one of his notes.

To which Malfoy replied: “If there’s nothing wrong with you, and I can’t play the Worried Lover, I’m going to force you to cooperate in a game of Doctor. Meet me tonight in Snape’s classroom, for a change of pace.”

When Malfoy came in Snape's classroom that night, he found Harry sitting in his usual seat, fast asleep. He was wearing the pajama shirt he borrowed from Malfoy when he visited his room- black satin, with the Malfoy family emblem on its breast pocket. He came early, Malfoy thought. If he weren’t snoozing atop a desk, I’d say he was a tad eager. He tiptoed up to the other boy and kissed his cheek lightly. Harry jumped up in surprise.

“Wha-? Wassamatter?” Then he woke up. “Oh. You’re late.”

“You’re early.”

“Mm.”

“What did you do, fall asleep in the middle of Potions class and forget to get up?”

“Snape would’ve turned me into a toad by now if I did any more than usual.”

Without another word, Draco hopped onto the desk Harry once occupied, sitting closely in front of him so that Harry was sitting directly between his legs. “Now, open your mouth and say ‘Ah.’”

Harry looked mortified. “*No!*”

“If you and I were in a different situation, I would be sincerely hurt.” Before Harry had the time to ask, in his misguided perversion, how the situation *could* be any different with his face between Draco’s legs in an empty classroom, Draco pulled out his wand and said, “Lumos. Now, open up.”

Harry’s jaw dropped; he realized Draco’s true intentions. Draco took this opportunity to examine the inside of his mouth, and when he was finished, he said, “You weren’t kidding about playing doctor!!”

“You thought I was joking?” Draco now took out a thermometer and plunged it in Harry’s mouth. “Don’t talk. It’ll mess up.”

Harry glowered until the thermometer was removed. Draco blinked innocently, as if to say, “Oh, have I done something wrong?” Then he looked at the thermometer.

“I’ve had enough of people examining me and constantly asking if I’m all right!” he growled.

“Unbutton my shirt.”

“No. Besides, I’ve already claimed it. It’s mine now.”

“Fine, then I’ll do it.” Draco proceeded to take off Harry’s borrowed pajama top as Harry fought against him. “God, you’re pale,” he said when he was finished.

“You take off my shirt and all you have to say is ‘God, you’re pale’?”

“I’ll comment on your ‘awesome body’ later, Stick Boy,” he said lovingly, and pulled out a stethoscope as Harry momentarily wondered where he was keeping all that stuff. “Inhale. It’s true, though. You never used to be so pale.”

“I said before that it was the light.”

“Inhale again. I’ve seen you in broad daylight and you’re just as pasty. You’ve gotten thinner, too. You’re starting to look like a vampire or something.” It was true. Harry’s skin was so white it looked nearly luminescent, and made his black hair, green eyes, and pink lips stand out even more than ever. Although he did nothing but sleep nowadays in his free time, his face was drawn and tired and there were bags beneath his eyes. Even the scar on his forehead showed up more clearly against his pallor, which raised another question from Draco. “By any chance, does your scar hurt?”

“*No,* it doesn’t, and you’re not listening to me.”

“Yes, I am. You’re in denial that there is something seriously wrong with you.”

“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!” Harry shouted.

A door slammed open. Harry and Draco dove beneath a desk and pulled the Invisibility Cloak over themselves with amazing speed as Professor Snape appeared from his office in a black bathrobe.

“Who’s there?” he demanded. Snape stepped from his office and swept between his desks, looking underneath each desk as he passed. Satisfied, he turned to leave, and tripped over Harry’s fallen pajama top. He wasn’t able to see the black fabric in the dark.

After he peeled his face off the floor, Snape picked up the shirt, and made a little sound of disgust. “*No,*” he said. Upon further examination of the shirt, he noticed the design on the breast pocket: the Malfoy family crest. Snape’s ears turned visibly pink in the dimness. Then, he folded the pajama top, tucked it under his arm, and searched the room once more before returning to his office.

~~~

“Oh, the chimneys were dirty at Mrs. McFry’s, and I’ll grant they were worse at Molly O’Clue’s. But the chimneysweep said, with a glint in his eye...”

At first, it had been some of her favorite songs by the Weird Sisters. When Ginny ran out of those, she turned to songs she sung when she was a little girl. Not being able to remember many of those, she resorted to tavern-music.

“‘...I’ve got a great tool here for cleaning the fluuuuuues...!’” It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, and once again, Ginny was keeping herself from sleep.

She shuddered to think of what certain people would think of her singing a song reserved at bars and bachelor parties. She was unbelievably glad she was so good at Silence Charms. A hoarse, half-asleep Ginny Weasley was a far cry from even a group of off-key drunks, at least in her opinion.

“Oh, a chimneysweep’s job can be boring and dirty; a chimneysweep ain’t got the best lot in life,” she soldiered on. “But who else could manage, without getting flirty, to clean out the smokestack on the mayor’s young wife?” The chorus came next, and after that, she found herself in what she was beginning to call Riddle’s Woods. She stopped singing in surprise- she fell asleep in the middle of the third verse!

Ginny huffed, clenched her fists, and sang louder than ever, determined to be brave in front of Tom Riddle, even if he wasn’t there in front of her just yet. “‘For he might ha’ been a tiny chimney sweep, with a tiny, grimy face! But he carried a broom that near made me weep--’”

“‘So I let him up, up, up me fi-replace,’” came a soft voice from behind her. Ginny yelled. Tom smiled thinly. “Do people really still sing that song?”

“I learned it from my brother, Bill.”

“I see.”

“Why are you in my dreams?”

“You haven’t realized it already?” Tom approached her. “I am in your dreams because you cannot forget about me. You cannot let go of my memory yourself, no matter how hard you try, and so, I remain. I’ll never be able to leave you.”

Ginny’s hands began to shake, so she clenched her fists harder. “Stop haunting me.”

“I may be able to stop haunting you, but I’ll never be able to leave completely. Don’t you understand? Ever since you wrote your first words in my diary, you and I have been linked. Inseparable. I don’t think I could get away from you if I tried.”

“Then maybe you should try harder,” Ginny snapped.

Suddenly, the tree she was leaning against disappeared, along with the rest of the ghostly forest. It was replaced by the familiarity of her bedroom at home at the Burrow. It didn’t make her feel any less afraid, or any less livid.

Tom ignored her glare of death and let his eyes wander about the room. “This is where you live, isn’t it? You’re so lucky, and you don’t even realize it.”

“*Lucky?* You nearly kill me, torment me, mess with my mind, make it so that I can’t sleep at night, and then... *Look* at me like that and tell me I’m lucky?” If Ginny hadn’t been so terrified, she would’ve slapped him. Be like Harry, she kept repeating to herself. Be brave. Be like Harry.

(If only Harry knew how much of a role model he is ^.^)

“You don’t have any idea of what it’s like!” Tom shouted, and the dainty picture frames on Ginny’s walls shook. His calm, suave demeanor vanished, and with it the barriers that hid just how fearsome and malevolent Tom could be when he wanted to be. “You can’t possibly understand what it was like for me, with my filthy, unloving, mud-blood parents! My father, the same one I’m named after, *abandoned* me. I’ve never had anyone but myself! But you, Ginny? You’ve always been surrounded by people who love you and care about you. You’d never understand what it’s like to be alone.”

In that moment, Ginny felt immensely sorry for him, even as he regarded her with such bitter coldness in his stare. After all, he had such a lonely and unloving past.

“Do you hate me for it?” she asked. “For having such a big family?”

Tom seemed to think about it. “No.”

“Is that the reason why you can’t leave?”

“No, we are bound by the diary, and only that; even though the spell’s broken, the bond between us still remains.”

Ginny, suddenly feeling very comfortable being in her own bedroom with Tom Riddle, turned and sat on her bed. An awkward silence followed, in which Tom flipped through some old diaries on her desk. Then she suddenly said, “Tom, don’t haunt me anymore.”

He replied with a look that told her he either didn’t catch her meaning, or was slightly annoyed that she seemed to miss the point of their conversation entirely.

“No more nightmares, no more misunderstood hauntings. We can be friends.” She smiled at him.

Tom was too surprised to say anything, so he only gave her a tiny smile of his own.

~~~

Ginny slept considerably better from then on. Tom appeared in her dreams just as often as before, but she wasn’t frightened. He took her to visit various places in the wizarding world as she dreamed, mostly ancient castled once ruled by old, powerful witches and wizards, and he told her all about the former rulers of old and their failed attempts at world domination.

She also discovered Tom’s taste for all things black. Ginny found herself in her dreams, on more than one occasion, with the red and gold trimmings of her dorm room all turned to black, with silver stars and snakes here and there. Once, he even dared to dress her in a Victorian-looking black beaded gown that was startlingly low-cut. She yelled at him for it -something she would never have dared to do weeks earlier- and he never did it again.

Although she really did like the dress.

Harry, however, seemed just as drained as before. Seeing him immediately tore her from her good mood. It worried her that while she was free from whatever torment there once was in her dreams, Harry was still pale, sickly, and not himself. If Tom noticed at all her worry, he didn’t do anything about it. He went on appearing and disappearing at whim in her subconscious, and Ginny could do nothing about it.

~~~

Potions class was dismissed, and Draco gathered his things to leave. Snape stopped him. “I need a word with you, Mr. Malfoy. It won’t take long.”

Draco paled and silently got to his feet. He followed him into his office, and tried to keep himself from sweating. Snape sat behind his desk and motioned for Draco to do so as well. Snape pulled from his desk drawer the black satin pajama shirt of Draco’s which Harry had been wearing the night before.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape said smoothly, pointing to the Malfoy family insignia on the shirt. “Do you know what this is?”

“A crest, sir?” Malfoy hazarded.

“It’s your *family* crest, which I can clearly recognize from... past relations with your family, on a object that clearly appears to be a pajama shirt. I found this in my classroom last night.”

“I see. Well, come to think of it, it does look quite familiar. The crest, I mean. Don’t know why I didn’t recognize it before. It’s a Monday.”

“It’s a Thursday.”

“Well, it feels like a Monday.”

“Would you happen to know how this ended up in my classroom in the middle of the night?”

“No, Professor-” Draco stopped himself and tried to look innocent. “What... Are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that someone went into my classroom last night with an obviously slept-in pajama top with your family emblem on it -and your name sewn on the inside tag- and left it on the floor.”

“I don’t know how that could’ve happened, sir-”

“Mr. Malfoy.” Snape cut him off. “It is more than obvious what went on in my classroom last night. This is a warning. Do not have sex in my classroom again, or the next time catch you, I will be forced to give you a detention. Find some other place to have your late-night rendezvous.”

Draco only gaped at him.

“You may go to your next class now, Mr. Malfoy. And take your shirt.”

He picked it up without comment and left.

~~~

“Harry,

    “Remember that shirt of mine you wore the other night, that Snape took into his office? Well, he gave it back to me. Bugger nearly scared me to death when he did it, too. Lucky he likes me; he only gave me a warning to please not have sex in his classroom anymore so kindly find somewhere else to do it.

    “I didn’t bother to say that we weren’t really having sex, we were playing Doctor, but that might’ve made him angry.

    “He didn’t actually *see* us, though, so that, at least, is a good thing. We’ll just have to find some other room to play doctor in. How about just back to the library?

                “D.”

“Draco,

    “Sex? Yes. Doctor? No.

    “Sorry about the Snape thing. I was in more of a hurry to hide than remember where it fell. Glad you didn’t get detention! the dungeons are a little cold, anyway.

    “How about the Divination classroom? There are lots of pillows in there. Nice, comfy pillows.

                “H.”

~~~

Harry eventually got used to being able to tell Hermione things about his relationship with Draco. Actually, they were more forced out of him than anything, but after a few hours’ badgering, he acquiesced to showing her all the letters Draco sent hi. Hermione giggled endlessly over them. Most of the development between Harry and Draco happened in their letters to each other, so all Harry really had to do was fill in the missing pieces where he had written to Draco and therefore had no documentation. Hermione loved every minute of it, and often interrupted him with bursts of giggles and an occasional hug to tell him how cute the story was.

After she read every letter and heard all of Harry’s stories she pumped out of him, she sat leaning against him and asked, just to make sure, “Is there anything else?”

“No! Nothing that you would want to know the details of.”

“I see.” Hermione flipped through the letters again and picked out a few she claimed as her favorites to read again.

Harry gave her a sideways glance. “Hermione.”

“Hm?”

“You still haven’t told me who you like yet.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“That’s not fair!”

“I know. But it’s a secret.”

“So is me and Malfoy.”

”But it’s just as complicated! If anyone found out, then *he* would find out, and... feelings would be hurt.”

Harry frowned. “Hermione, if anyone ever hurt you, I’d make them regret it.” He meant it, too. Hermione latched on to his arm. “I won’t bother you about it anymore.”

Hermione hid her face in his shoulder and whispered, “Harry, I-”

Ron burst into the room and threw his overstuffed backpack on his bed. “Hey, I finally found the book I needed... Hermione, what are you doing in here?”

She jumped and started to gather the stacks of parchment scattered around her. “I was just working on some homework with Harry.”

“She was teaching me the finer points of Arithmancy, that’s what she was doing. I wish I never asked!” Harry fell backward on his bed and covered with his face with one arm theatrically.

“You are indeed a fool,” Ron said, placing a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Hermione demanded. Without waiting for an answer, she bopped them both on the head with the stack of parchment, and sauntered off with Harry’s collection of love letters.

Ron watched her go. “So... She’s not mad at you anymore.”

“Nope.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“So you made up?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You have a house elf and a broomstick dancing the Lambada on your bed.”

“Mm-hm.”

Ron scowled. Harry fell asleep again. He smacked his head with a pillow and hollered, “Wake up!”

Harry jolted upright and cried in a voice that mimicked Professor Trelawney, “No sex in the Pillow Room!”

“Right. *Now* you’re scaring me, Harry. Like it’s not bad enough that you’re never fully conscious anymore, you jump awake and start shouting about sex and a pillow room?”

“It was a weird dream, all right?” Harry protested. His face turned an interesting shade of scarlet.

“I’m sure.” Harry buried his face in Ron’s pillow. Ron snatched it away from him. “Don’t do that to my pillow!! Who knows what you’re doing to it!”

So, Harry took his own pillow and hit Ron with it. “Take that!”

“Ack! Not *your* pillow! That’s even worse!” he laughed. “Oof! Help! Dirty pillow!”

~~~

Hermione remained in her room until dinner with Harry’s letters. She went through each one more than once and sorted them all by date. Then she folded and stacked them all neatly. Afterwards, she really didn’t know what to do with them, so she spent a short amount of time just staring at them.

Then she got an idea. Not exactly the best ever, but it was better than nothing. She pulled out a spare piece of parchment and her quill. “If it worked for Malfoy...” she whispered to herself, and began to write.

Moments later, she tore the written portion off and started again. Within minutes, Hermione had a miniature mountain of macerated manuscript on her bed next to the letters.

She threw up her hands in anguish. “I give up!” she cried, and headed for the Great Hall for something to eat.

~~~

The dinner table, Ron noticed, was even farther from normal than it had been in the past few weeks. Harry looked ready to fall into his plate, which was, taking into account how he was acting lately, familiar enough, but still not what it should be. Hermione looked torn between happiness and despair. Ginny, at least, looked back to her usual cheery self, but she still wasn’t ogling at Harry. The dreamy stare she reserved for him was focused on the windows outside, which, after Ron himself stared out for a few minutes, was even more nerve-wracking than the apparent problems of his friends, being her older brother and all.

He scooted in next to her. “What are you staring at?”

“I’m just looking out the window.”

Ron’s expression was dubious. “What are you thinking about?”

Ginny’s lips curled into a sly smile. “A boy.”

“You’re kidding,” he gasped, his big-brother instincts going berserk.

Ginny only cackled and went back to her dinner. Ron was so flustered, he ignored the rest of the universe -including his food- until Ginny left the table. He waited a few minutes, then followed her.

It was impossible to see what logic there was in spying o Ginny; nothing short of intuition kept Ron hot on her trail. He followed her through the portrait of the Fat Lady (“Holly wreath!”) and watched her head down to her dorm room. Ordinary as it was, he continued after her and spied through a crack in her door just wide enough to look through.

He heard her gasp. “What are you doing here?”

There was a boy in the room with her.

He was tall and handsome, with black hair, a Slytherin insignia on his robes, and a devilish smirk on his face, which made Ron dislike him on sight. And then there was how surprised-but-happy Ginny seemed upon seeing him, which made Ron downright hate the guy.

“Really,” the boy said. “I thought you’d be more pleased to see me somewhere other than in your dreams.” The boy sat and crossed his legs over a bed (*Ginny’s* bed, Ron realized) and pretended to pout. He wasn’t very good at it; he looked more indignant than anything.

“I-I just don’t understand.”

“I came to see you, Ginny.”

“Yes, well, I can see that. But how? I’m not asleep.” Ron spotted Ginny pinching the side of her leg as she said so. Things were making less and less sense by the minute.

“I’m strong enough now that I can appear in the conscious realm.”

Ginny stepped forward, looking him over. “But how could *that* happen?”

The boy put his hand on Ginny’s cheek. “It’s because you’re happy. I want to make you happy.”

Ron fumed. That... *Boy*... Dared to...! *His* sister!

“Tom...” Ginny looked ready to melt. She placed her hand over his. “Your hands are so cold!”

*His* sister! HIS SISTER! HIS *SIS*-- Tom? It couldn’t be. That would mean that all this time, she really hadn’t been dreaming, and if so...

Their exchange continued without anyone discovering Ron.

“It’s because I’m not at my full strength yet,” Tom said. “In a little bit, I’ll be back to normal-”

“GINNY!” Ron burst through the door and aimed his wand at the other boy. “You!! You-you’re Tom Riddle, aren’t you? GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!”

“Ron, relax,” Ginny approached him like she was trying to calm a frightened horse. “It’s all right, this sis just my friend-”

“Like hell, he is! I heard you two talking! Ginny, just what do you think you’re *doing?* What the hell is he doing here?! And why the hell do you *trust* him?!?”

“Ginny, use a Memory Charm!” Tom said. “I can’t use magic yet!”

Before Ron could stop her, Ginny pulled her wand on him and shouted, “Obliviate!”

He fell to the ground in a heap. Tom hurried over and gathered Ron up in his arms while Ginny was caught between disbelief in what she had just done and marveling at Tom’s strength.

“Quickly!” Tom hissed. “Where should we put him?”

She blinked. “Uh... Probably in his bed.”

“*Which way?!*”

“Oh! Right!” Ginny led him up into the boys’ dormitories, dumped Ron in his bed, and rushed back to her room. They sat next to each other for a little bit without talking, until Tom made an observation.

“You look troubled.”

“It’s just...” she frowned. “This whole thing. It’s hard to believe.”

Tom reached for her hand. “I understand. You really have no reason to trust me. And I’m sorry about your brother, but it couldn’t be helped. No one can know about me just yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s obvious!” he laughed his high-pitched laugh. “What if your parents found out? Or the Headmaster? You’d be sent to a magical home for the mentally unstable!”

Ginny sniffed, but did not remove her hand from his grasp. “What are you going to do, you know, when you get your strength back?

“First, I’ll make you mine,” he said, grinning impishly again.

Ginny looked at him and turned scarlet.

“What? I’m not joking.”

She still couldn’t say anything. She wasn’t used to any kind of flirting or just boys in general, let alone a boy being so straightforward.

Instead of waiting for an answer, he disappeared as quickly as he came, his lips lightly touching her cheek before he left as a couple of girls burst through the door to retrieve their homework for the day. Ginny closed the curtains on her bed, charmed them, and for the first time in a while, tried to sleep.