Trouble Brewing

Partway through the make-up Herbology session, however, Tom located the niggling thought that had been trying to sneak back up on him ever since he was distracted from it a few seconds after he started talking to Ginny Weasley.

What did I say to her?! He couldn't quite remember -- the conversation had been fine, if a little embarrassing, up to the point when she'd told him to wrap the leash around his arm. Then... she'd asked something, he wasn't even sure what, but in response to the tone or -- or -- he didn't even know what, he'd started babbling.

That was the only word for it. He'd spilled a rapid-fire summary of his confusion and fears of becoming Voldemort and --

What did they talk about in the Gryffindor common room anyway? Was Ginny a gossip when she wasn't tongue-tied scared? He hadn't even been thinking about that the rest of the class -- too busy with the blasted invisible lizards -- and she'd been... nice. He'd even told Harry once that he thought she seemed like a nice person other than the Potions spills.

But he couldn't believe he'd said all that. He might have told Harry deliberately -- Harry had helped him get away from Voldemort in the first place, after all -- but not... not anybody else. Except he had.

And she'd started being nice awfully suddenly. He didn't want to suspect her -- something inside him was crying out for another friend, maybe one he actually saw reliably more often than across the Great Hall or the Quidditch field -- but how could he not? She'd hated him, or at least his other self... not without reason, either.... And why hadn't he thought about any of this before they started conspiring about Potions class?

He was supposed to meet her after classes were done for the day. In the library, but with some of Snape's extra books for the Slytherins. Right now he didn't even want to see her again in Potions. Much less Care of Magical Creatures, where he really was horrible.

But she helped. Most people don't do that.

But why?

Tom was still working steadily away and avoiding gently-waving, razor-edged leaves. Even generally vicious plants were easier to deal with than Hagrid's... things.

Hagrid seemed to be fond of Ginny, and vice versa. Maybe it was all some --

He couldn't go seeing conspiracies against him everywhere! Maybe if he could just stay away from her as much as possible she'd forget... or at least not have the chance to find out anything else... but maybe if he went she'd tease him only in person, or....

"I'll see you after class." He'd felt good then; what was the matter with him, and was it then or now? But... an uncomfortable thought penetrated the feeling that was almost deciding he'd just not go to the library at all, so he wouldn't have to see her except in class. He'd said he'd be there. It hadn't been quite a promise, or he hadn't said it was, but... he'd said it.

And he was pretty sure breaking his word wasn't a good way to start anything off. If nothing else... he couldn't see Voldemort balking at it. So he should.

Once he was done for the day, Tom took the time to get the mud out from under his fingernails, then slipped a couple of Snape's books off the shelf in the Slytherin common room and went to the library with a distinct feeling of dread.

"I think," Ginny announced in a whisper as soon as he was close enough to hear her, "we'd better figure out what we can spill without actually ruining the assignments, first. I've got an extra book of Hermione's on potions theory. And we'll probably have to ask Snape something to get him to come close enough."

"Uh. Right. We do want to actually do the assignment, just spill it on him too. If that makes sense." Maybe if I act like nothing's wrong nothing will be. Or I could ask her, but 'Have you been giggling about me in your house common room' is kind of blunt.

"Exactly. Or on each other, you did say it'd only be fair if you got to spill things on me too." She waved the book she'd been reading at the other half of the reading-couch. Other third of it, actually. There were books on half of the part she wasn't occupying. "We just have to have everything actually work still."

Tom realized he hadn't sat down yet, and did so, smiling weakly. "I brought a couple of Snape's books, but nowhere near this many."

"Well, I hunted through the shelves in here -- and I talked to Hermione." Ginny laughed softly. "Ask her about books and... well, you see the result."

"I've... heard that. Um. Here's my contribution, then. I tried to get the harmless-looking ones, but Snape tends to kind of expect advanced work from Slytherins. What did you want to start with?"

"Probably the syllabus." Ginny consulted it. "What's -- oh, you mentioned that already. Warts." She looked back up and blinked. "Harmless-looking?"

"Not two feet tall and bound in black leather of uncertain origin. That's why I didn't end up bringing very many."

"...That was probably a good idea. And a lot easier to carry." Ginny gave him a quick smile and wondered why she was having to remind herself all over again that he wasn't the one from the diary, that this was different.... If you're nervous it makes them nervous. The reminder popped into her head, and she frowned at it for a moment before realizing Tom looked about as tense as when he'd been looking for chameleons in the first place. It certainly seemed an unlikely thing to pretend. Although if real it did cast some doubt on the success of their Potions scheme. More to the point, it was just plain worrying. And uncomfortable. "...Tom?" she asked a bit uncertainly. "Are you all right?"

Oh. That was what she'd asked before.

"Uh." Uh, indeed. "Well, I... um. I don't usually, uh." Uh doesn't seem to be getting the job done. Tom took a breath. "I-didn't-mean-to-babble-on-like-that-earlier-and-you-haven't-told-anyone-what-I-said-have-you?" He blinked. Being nervous about telling somebody things, then going and telling them more things, didn't seem to make sense. Possibly 'Of course I'm all right, let's start working on warts' would have worked better. Too late now.

Ginny blinked at him. Tom wondered if this was ominous.

In fact, Ginny was just trying to deal with another concept -- or preconception -- turning itself inside-out. She'd been startled when he "babbled" at her, but it had made her feel... a little more secure about talking to him.

This was the first time it had occurred to her that he might be upset about telling secrets to somebody who just might, as far as he knew, turn on him with them. "Of course I haven't," she said after what seemed like more of a delay than it probably was. "And it's all right..." 'I didn't mind' probably won't help. She bit her lip and didn't look at him as she added in a hurried and barely audible whisper, "The one thing the one in the diary never did was tell me anything."

Tom sat back. Was she lying? Well, not about that last part, that was too -- obviously painful. Did that mean the first bit was true too? They certainly did seem to get stuck on painful honesty around each other, or at least he did. He took a deep breath, let it out. "Well... um, thanks, then. You're the only person other than Harry I've ever told any of... that, and I just, well, I guess I wondered if you were trying to get me to say stuff you could, I don't know, throw back at me later. I get a lot of that. I don't much like wondering if I'm being used, I think I said. Um. But you'd know about that, I guess."

Brilliant red came and went behind the freckles, and Ginny shook her head violently. "No. I mean, yes, I know about... that... but that's why I --" That hurt, even if it wasn't quite an accusation and he didn't really have much reason to think otherwise. "I wasn't." She made herself meet his eyes again. "And I won't. Ever. I might -- remind you if I think you need it -- but not to be mean."

"Oh. Well." That sounded... oddly like friendship, by most of the definitions he'd heard. And it seemed to need a return. "I wouldn't either." Well, except that strange diary had probably said the same thing. "And... I think I'd feel, less nervous, next time, about saying something. Since I know you're not going to be mean. I mean, if there's a next time, and unless it's a bother." He paused for a moment. "We don't seem to do a lot of classwork when we try to do classwork, do we?"

That got a laugh just loud enough to be shushed sternly from the front desk. "We get there eventually, don't we?" Ginny offered him a half-page of notes, mostly fragmentary questions as to possible ingredients to spill and whether they'd have to adjust the other proportions accordingly. It looked very inconclusive. "And," she added softly, "it isn't a bother. And I don't want to use you." She knew how that felt far too well. Especially from somebody who'd acted nice before.

Tom smiled, not trusting himself to speak, and glanced down at the notes. "If we leave out that much ground mandrake the potion'll probably cause warts."

"Ack. Cross that off then."

Tom dutifully drew a line through the ground mandrake, and put his chin on his hand, considering. This was actually quite an interesting puzzle -- what could they spill that looked innocent, but didn't actually mess up the potion -- and ideally did something embarrassing to Snape beyond getting him wet?

"You know, if I were potions master, this would actually make an interesting homework assignment. Sabotage your potions without actually getting them wrong. Certainly makes you pay more attention to the recipe."

Ginny grinned. "New ambition? Maybe for the one to spill on Snape we should pick a more complicated one so we'd have an excuse to call him over...." He stalked around inspecting enough, though, that that might not be necessary after all.

"Hmm. And then if we could show him we'd already done the wart cure, and had flipped to the back of the book instead of causing trouble, he might not be so mad. Snape likes ambition."

"Particularly if we'd actually gotten the more advanced potion right too."

"...What's one we can get right and still want to spill on him?"

Tom took out one of the books he'd gotten from the Slytherin common room, and flipped to the index as Ginny leaned over the books between them to peer at it. "Ugh." He eyed some of the listings in wary disgust. "Okay, not this book, I guess I wasn't altogether right about skipping the dangerous ones --"

"WHAT are you doing?!" Ron's voice, followed instantly by a furious "SHHHHHHHH!" from Madam Pince, caused Ginny to lose her balance and land uncomfortably on the heap of books. Tom flinched and hid the book behind his back.

"Ow. Studying!" Ginny pushed herself back up and rubbed her elbow.

"Um. Professor Snape keeps putting us together in Potions, so we thought we'd make the best of it."

"What're you hiding there, Riddle?" Ron eyed the younger boy with deep suspicion. Snape, huh? He wasn't surprised, but if that greasy excuse for a professor got Ginny hurt....

"Hiding? Oh. Just a book. Ginny asked Hermione for some potion references." There. All true, but helpfully vague.

"Then why are you hiding it?" Ron made a grab for the book in question.

"Hey!" Tom tried not to shout. "Because I'm not used to people sneaking up on me and yelling."

"Drop it, Ron," Ginny said irritably. "Snape's got a private Potions library for Slytherin, as if that should surprise anyone, and Tom brought a few books from it. He'd just said we shouldn't use that one after all."

"It's for seventh-years, and I couldn't tell by the cover."

Ginny shot Tom an odd look -- "It's for seventh-years" didn't seem to explain "wasn't altogether right about skipping the dangerous ones."

"Anyway, Most Potente Potions is really a vague name. You'd think Snape would have them labeled clearer."

Ron's expression changed abruptly from accusing to something that looked rather like that of someone who had, perhaps, accidentally swallowed a live and acid-resistant tadpole.

"Something wrong, Ron?" Ginny asked in innocently curious tones.

"...No. I've, uh, heard things about that one though." Strictly true. Hermione had explained everything out loud, apparently not trusting his or Harry's reading skills.

Ginny blinked and, eyes sparkling, snatched hold of her brother's sleeve as he started to edge away. "Really?" she whispered brightly.

Tom grinned a bit; Ginny's mood was infectious, and Ron's obvious discomfiture even more interesting. "I don't suppose you'd like to stay and give us the benefit of your opinion? You've had more experience with Potions than we have; maybe you'd know some good ones we could try."

Discomfiture and embarrassment fought with curiosity and possibly suspicion, plus the prospect of dragging the couch over backwards if Ginny didn't let go, and lost spectacularly. "What are you trying to do, then?"

"Well... we tend to spill most of what we mix up, see." Ginny did, anyway. And hopefully not anymore, at least by accident. "So we thought, if we actually got the potion right first, then accidentally spilled it -- on Snape, say -- we could start to... improve things. And then Ginny thought, we shouldn't spill the one we were assigned, we should do a more interesting one and spill that. Anyway, the assignment is wart cure, and that's no fun to surprise people with."

Ron decided that he was missing something in the way of logic here. For one thing, he had been aware that Ginny was doing poorly in Potions, and the revelation that Snape made her work with Tom Riddle had seemed to explain this, except that now she didn't seem particularly upset about sitting on a sofa with him.

"I don't see," he said slowly, "how you think you're going to improve the situation if you spill it on Snape, no matter how well you did it in the first place."

"That was what Ginny's idea was for. If we could show him we'd completed the assignment, then tried for a more advanced potion, then only messed up the advanced one... you see? We'd simply be overly ambitious."

"And spilled something on Snape. Embarrassing, I hope, but if it was he'd not be likely to forgive you for it. Well, maybe you." He eyed Tom darkly.

"I suppose." Tom glanced uncertainly over to Ginny. "Maybe we should go back to spilling it on you."

"WHAT?" Ron roared.

Tom shrank back in his seat. Oops.

Ginny opened her mouth, then squeaked instead of speaking as Madam Pince swooped down on them. "Out. All of you. Now!"

"We're going. I apologize," Ginny said quickly, then scooped up Hermione's book and her own notebooks. "Come on. We'll talk somewhere else."

Tom snagged Snape's books off the table and whispered to Ginny as they scurried out. "You could've said something sooner, you know. He's your brother."

"Sorry," she whispered back. "I'll explain. Come on." She had the feeling Ron was on the verge of grabbing Tom to make sure he couldn't slip off before the explanation.

Tom followed along behind Ginny. He could feel Ron's glare between his shoulder-blades. Well, he thought, at least I guess this means Harry isn't repeating what I've told him, either.

He was rather less than delighted to find himself in short order in the Gryffindor common room, even if it was mostly unpopulated. Ginny looked over her shoulder to catch his uneasy look, then dropped back to walk beside him. "Calm down. We don't bite," she said under her breath.

"Ron looks like he wants to," Tom replied, equally softly.

"He won't. He just picked an inconvenient time to be protective." They descended on a small knot of chairs.

"This had better be a good explanation," Ron growled.

Tom looked over to Ginny. Well, I've done all the explaining I care to, he thought.

Ginny, it appeared, had just gotten started. "Well, before you decided to get us kicked out of the library, we'd decided that we were going to study Potions together, since Snape keeps having us work together anyway. But since he'd probably stop if he thought we didn't mind, we were going to keep spilling things sometimes and acting like we didn't like each other, but still get the potions right. But we'd like to spill on Snape too."

"It sounded like he wanted to spill things on you!"

"I had a second nose all of last Wednesday. We were only going to spill harmless stuff anyway."

Ginny blushed again. "I've been an awful klutz most of the year," she added. "I was... nervous." Or terrified. Though she had known it wasn't the same, just....

Ron shook his head violently. "Since when are you trying to find excuses to keep working with Tom Riddle?" he asked pointedly.

Tom felt he should be indignant about this -- and he sort of was -- but he was also curious to see what Ginny would answer.

Ginny's chin snapped up. "Since Care of Magical Creatures today. We caught a chameleon together." Sort of. She couldn't explain the more important part in detail without betraying confidences, and she'd said she wouldn't. "We talked. He's not the same one, Ron," she finished in a low voice.

Tom sat up a little straighter and attempted to look... not dark, or something.

The results were somewhat dubious. Ron gave him a look, then turned back to his sister and said as kindly as such words could be said, "You trusted the diary one too, Ginny."

Tom glared. "I. Am. Not. Him," he said. "I wouldn't do that to anybody. Ask Harry."

"The diary one," Ginny said precisely, "was always very smooth and calm and confident and soothing and I didn't know any better at the time, but even if he could pretend to be nice I don't believe You-Know-Who would pretend to -- to be worried about catching chameleons, or tell me how he felt, because he never did." She stopped to draw breath. "And that's right. Harry's been trying to reassure me for... weeks. He trusts Tom too. Or do you think he's as stupid as you think I am if you don't think I learned anything?"

"What," Ron asked in frustration, "do chameleons have to do with trusting ANYBODY?"

"She helped me catch one. I'm horrible at Care of Magical Creatures so far," Tom admitted, waiting for some sort of mockery.

Ron, instead, finally sat down himself and looked as if he were thinking of tearing his hair out. "I'd have thought," he said finally, "that you would like reptiles."

"I have it on very good authority," Tom said, grinning at Ginny, "that snakes eat chameleons. And therefore they don't take kindly to being hissed at."

Ron, who had only come up with this because he suspected his sister would have throttled him had he said "I'm not surprised," was a bit surprised by the grin. More so when Ginny grinned back. "Only snakes, then?" he asked a bit inanely.

Tom winced slightly. He'd sort of expected what Ron had initially said, and had been rather upset to discover that he seemed to be an utter disaster with the reptilian creatures. Not that they'd HAD any snakes so far, of course. He had the feeling they weren't likely to.

He shrugged uncomfortably. Even if Voldemort had done well in Care of Magical Creatures, it wasn't pleasant to do so badly at something.

"I think he'll improve," Ginny announced. "It's the kind of class that takes some getting used to for most people."

"I know not to hiss at things, for starters."

"Probably helpful," Ron replied faintly. "Anything ever tell you it had never seen Brazil?"

Tom blinked at Ron. "Um, I don't think so; we haven't had any snakes. The class did start for us just today. I did get a very odd look from a wandering salamander once last -- er, first year."

"I don't think I want to know what you tried to say to it," Ron decided. Then, apparently without connection, "Ginny, the prefects are going to kill us."

Ginny blinked. "Probably. Oh well. Where did you want to talk, the middle of the hall?"

"I wouldn't have minded that," Tom said, abruptly very aware of his surroundings. "Oh, no, I hope this doesn't get back to the other Slytherins, they'll never leave me alone about it."

Ron gave him a withering look, which then turned speculative. "Maybe we could sneak you out...." If Tom really didn't want the others to know, he wouldn't share the password... but he'd still have it. Ron shook his head again. What was he thinking? "No, that'd be worse."

"No it wouldn't. It would work," Ginny contradicted promptly.

"But he --"

"Won't tell."

"Wasn't listening. D'you think I want to come over here? Besides, I figured you'd just change it after."

Ron looked skeptical. Ginny rolled her eyes. "I don't care if they do or not. Come on, if you don't want to be here."

Tom popped out of his chair as if someone had put a pin on it, and followed Ginny.

Ron went looking for Harry, who eventually persuaded him to stop worrying about the whole thing, or at least to stop arguing. Ginny led Tom out of the Gryffindor areas with as much attention to concealment as if she HAD been a chameleon. Safely (relatively) out in less territorial locations, she folded her arms and eyed him. "I still think it was better than talking in the hall."

"Well... maybe. But what if people had been there? You and Harry are about the only Gryffindors who'll give me the time of day."

"We weren't there to talk to them." Ginny sighed. And it was only Harry until this afternoon. Ouch. No wonder Tom had wanted to get out. Although how much better Slytherin could be.... "Ron's calmed down a lot, though."

"If you say so. Must be nice, though, having family to stick up for you like that."

"Well... yes. Usually." Overwhelming as her family could be, she couldn't really imagine life without them, and was suddenly acutely aware of Tom's generally lonesome background.

"You know... somehow, yet again, we've managed to avoid actually doing our classwork. D'you want to find an open classroom, or something?"

"Sure. Sorry about that...." What would Snape do if they just started arguing, instead of spilling things? Then again, the challenge was interesting....

Apparently Tom had taken a similar line of thought and then merged it with the earlier one. "Hm. What if, instead of trying to get Snape to come over, we have a big argument, start waving our hands around, and knock over the cauldron?"

"...He might come over for that, too. Make sure it's towards him...?"

"Sure. And that'd look a lot more accidental, I think."

"Probably." She looked at her note-sheet, which he was still holding. "And if you still want to spill something on me, doesn't he give out more slug-slime than is really necessary every time we use it?"

"Yes. Quite a lot more, actually. I've always wondered why. Maybe that could spark the argument."

"Very efficient. If we were more... subdued and careful after that, do you think we could get away with it?"

"Yeah. He'll probably yell at us and take away some house points, but if he feels we're suitably chastened afterward he'll probably leave us mostly alone. Um. You'll probably take the brunt of the house points."

Ginny hesitated over this for a moment, then thought about Fred and George, and grinned. "Tom... pouring most of an assignment on Professor Snape would make up for a lot of points, to most Gryffindors. The rest of them would just be mad they didn't see it."

Tom laughed. "I suppose so."

"So... the wart potion doesn't use slug-slime... ooh, the laughter one does, though! -- How bizarre."

"I don't think I've ever seen Snape laugh. I think we owe it to posterity, don't you?"

Ginny's eyes lit up. "And Colin ALWAYS carries that camera around...."

"He does, doesn't he. Heh. This'll definitely be worth catching it from the rest of the Slytherins after."

Ginny paused, looking rather as if she'd been doused in cold water. "Catching it how?"

"Hm? Oh. Malfoy, probably, and the rest of them that follow Snape around. Short-sheeting, hiding my wand, that sort of thing. Nothing too terrible."

"Are you sure?" Those didn't sound too bad -- her brothers had done the same and worse -- but it would probably be worse if it were really malicious. Even so, it seemed kind of... minimal for Draco Malfoy. She studied Tom as if expecting to find tales of some nastier sort of prank written on his eyes or nose.

Tom hesitated. Well, honesty isn't always the best policy. And this will be too much fun to get cold feet now. "Nothing I can't handle. Besides, think of the look on Snape's face."

Ginny wavered. She didn't think Tom was giving the right level for "that sort of thing"; on the other hand, if he said he could handle it, he probably could, and if it was worth it to him.... "If they do anything really bad I'll let some of our Magical Creatures assignments loose on them."

"That's fair. Malfoy's about as bad as I am at that class."

"You did fine once you settled down, you know."

"Ah, but Malfoy never settles down."

"How do you know? Did you see some of the third-year classes, or was he doing detention afterwards?" She snorted. "Or did Harry tell you?"

"Just a general observation. Also I've been in the common room when he comes back to change. Hippogriff dung is apparently very hard to get out of robes."

Ginny stifled a giggle. "It's not that bad if you know how. As vain as he is, though...."

Tom looked at her a bit nervously. "Is that what you have to do if you look like failing?"

"What? Detentions until you get it right? It's possible, but I don't really know...." This wasn't a class any of her brothers had had serious difficulty with. "I'd heard Malfoy practically fouled up on purpose; that could get detention -- possibly in general you have to come back until you get it right, something like your Herbology class today."

"Herbology today wasn't my fault. Ah... do you think we could, um, expand the study sessions, maybe?"

He must really be worried about that class. And it, at least, wasn't her fault. "Sure." Ginny hesitated. "But... reading up on things can help a lot, even when the curriculum's a little... unpredictable like in this case, but practice would probably do more good in a lot of cases."

Tom looked a bit uncertain at the prospect. "Practice. Well. How would we do that?"

"Ask Hagrid to let us work with some of them outside of class. I don't think he'd mind, as long as we didn't upset them too much or anything."

"I think he thinks I upset them too much just by looking at them."

"He said to tell you to stop hissing at the chameleons, not to stop looking at them. We'll talk to him." She paused. "I wouldn't mind doing that now, if you don't -- I'd like to get outside for a little while."

"Well... all right. If you talk to him first."

"I'll talk. It might be more convincing if you're there too, though...."

Tom gulped. "I guess so."

Ginny wanted to tell Tom that Hagrid wouldn't hurt him, but experience with her brothers suggested that this would probably be taken as an insult. "Good. Don't worry."

*****