Guile

The lion roared, quite pleased with itself. The lion picked up Tom's body with his teeth, and threw it aside. Harry was sickened by the sight of Tom's body laying on the ground, covered in crimson red blood. He felt his weight give in, and Harry fell to the ground with a look of pure horror across his face.

Harry felt horrible, and realized it was just as how Hermione said it was; Tom was here to redeem himself. Harry felt sick to his stomach, feeling like an idiot, and on the verge of crying...

Until Tom sat up and stretched bit, laughing to himself.

"Hey!" Tom said cheerfully. "I'm not dead! So no melodramatics!"

Harry was totally confused by this, and looked back at Ron and Draco. He could instantly tell they were just as confused and lost as he was. The lion, which had its body turned to Harry, Ron and Draco, flipped its head and focused once more on Tom. This time, however, it spoke.

"Impossible!" the lion roared in anger. The lion's voice was quite feminine, so it was safe to say this lion was a lioness. "No one survives my ferocity!"

"You TALK?" yelled Ron.

"Of course I speak the human tongue! Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw taught me how to speak it!" she said with a sense of sorrow in her voice.

Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw, along with the other two founders of Hogwarts, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin, lived over one thousand years ago, yet this lion was still alive.

"I am the lion who represents Gryffindor! You four humans have entered my realm, the Lion's Den," she spoke broadly. "Many humans have come down here before, hoping to seek a valuable treasure. All perished by my claws, except this one."

"I feel very honored, milady," Tom said sarcastically.

"Tell me, human," the lion said. "How did you survive my attacks yet still bleed from them?"

"Well, uhm, this isn't blood," began Tom. "See, I'm a memory from a diary, so uh, I don't bleed, just lots of ink comes out of me and my diary pages begin to deteriorate a bit, that's all."

"What do you mean, you're a diary?" asked the lion. She stalked in a circle around Tom.

"I mean... I put myself in a diary, using magic-"

"So he could use the Serpent of Slytherin to kill Muggle-born students at Hogwarts," added in Harry.

"You mean he's the Heir of Slytherin?" gasped Draco. Draco went paler than he usually was as Harry and Ron turned to him, and nodded yes, both with snarky looks on their faces.

The lion went up to Tom, and began to sniff him. She roared in disgust right in Tom's face. Tom made a waffing movement, indicating that the lion's breath wasn't that great.

"You do indeed have the blood of Slytherin in you," said the lioness. "I can smell it!"

"So we noticed," said Tom. He still waved his hand around his head, trying to rid the air of the scent of lion breath. "So uh, what's this Lion's Den place for?"

"It is a decoy room," began the lion, "for the great treasure, Ragnarok, which is hidden in Hogwarts."

Harry hadn't any idea what the Ragnarok was, and neither did Ron or Draco. They all gave one another the same puzzled look, but Tom seemed to be very interested in what the lion had to say. Harry supposed he knew exactly what the Ragnarok was, and would be more than willing to give them a ten-minute lecture the minute they left the Lion's Den.

"So, human who claims he is a diary..." said the lion. She looked a Tom and glanced at him up and down getting a full profile before continuing. "How is that I can see you?"

"I can take a physical shape using the life force of willing others," replied Tom.

"Tricky," the lion said with a smirk. "Indeed, only a person related to Slytherin would be able to think of such crazy ideas. So, humans, do you seek the Ragnarok?"

"No, we want to get the hell out of here," Ron said abruptly.

"Witty little thing, aren't you?" asked the lion. She laughed to herself. "The exit is beyond the wall where your blonde haired friend sits."

Draco pointed behind him, and smiled.

"So, you're just letting us go?" asked Harry.

"Let me just say I find you all interesting," she replied. "Now leave before I change my mind."

The four boys did as they were told, and followed Draco into the wall. The lion laid her head on her paws, and whispered to herself, "Caslux and Poltor's blood ancestry stood in the same room without killing each other. Amazing."

~ ~ ~ Through the passageway, Harry, Ron, Tom and Draco in the lead kept walking forward. There was very little light except the light coming from Tom's Lumos spell, and they kept their hands against the wall to keep their place. They walked in pure silence until Ron suddenly shouted, "another hidden passageway!"

Tom moved the wand over to where Ron was, and Ron had his hand stuck through another wall.

"Should we?" asked Harry.

"You guys," whined Draco. "Its bad enough we almost got eaten by a lion."

"And you call yourself a Slytherin?" snapped Tom. "Blasphemy!"

Draco made a whimpering noise, and finally agreed to come with them. When they went through this wall, they found themselves in free fall.

"I told you we shouldn't have done this!" screamed Draco.

All four landed on something soft. Ron felt around him, and thought they were on a big ball of cotton. Draco felt he could fall asleep on it, and laid his head down to relax. Harry picked at it, and tore off a piece.

"Tom, what is this?" he asked him.

"It's a plant," Tom replied shortly. He too tore off a piece. "It's got to be the comfort plant, Hinalle. They use it in medical practice a lot to help relax patients."

"My dad's family grew this a lot," said Ron. "Even all of our pillows at the Burrow are stuffed with it. Made loads of money selling it, but a fire started around the village, and the entire Hinalle crop was burnt to a crisp."

"So is that why your family's so poor?" snickered Draco.

"Oh shut up, Malfoy," snapped Ron.

Tom glided off the Hinalle and onto what seemed to be the ground. Because no one else had a light, Harry, Ron and Draco all went down after him.

It seemed like they were in a cavern, and they heard sounds of dripping water all around them. Tom lit the path as they went, and found many rocks and dead bodies. As they passed each corpse, Ron cringed with fear, and Draco got a look of disgust on his face. Harry noticed that there were crystal structures located on the ground. They sparkled a blue color, and illuminated the dark place for but a few moments.

"What's the matter?" Ron asked Tom in a whisper as Tom came to a stop.

"There's nowhere to go," replied Tom. He gulped, and looked around him.

Harry panned around the place as well, and found that they were totally surrounded by rock, blue crystals, and the large bushel of Hinalle. Ron looked very sickened at the thought of being stuck down there, and sat on the mushy ground and sighed.

Having nothing better to do, Harry went to investigate the blue crystals that adorned the place. He touched one lightly, and it glowed in the spot he touched it.

"Hey, Tom?" asked Harry. "Could you give me my wand back?"

"Sure," said Tom. He threw Harry his wand, still with the Lumos spell, and Harry caught it.

Harry tapped his wand on the crystal, and it illuminated where he tapped it. He then casted Lumos on his wand, and put his wand against the crystal. It lit up once more and radiated a blue color. The crystal's light revealed the entire room to the boys.

They were totally surrounded by matching blue crystals and crumbling rock walls. It looked like there was no way out, when the shadow of a person walked out of the crystal. It was a woman with long brown hair. She had part of it tied in large green bow, and wore royal blue robes that went down to her feet. Her features were quite fair, and her eyes were a light brown color that complimented her hair.

"Excuse me, miss?" asked Harry. She ignored him, and waltzed around the room.

"She's not real," Tom said. He stuck her hand right through her, and he didn't touch anything.

"Is it a ghost?" asked Ron. They had a fair share of seeing ghosts around Hogwarts.

Draco shrugged. "Well, whatever she is, she's kinda cute."

The four chuckled a bit, their minds filled with perverted thoughts.

Another ghost came out of the crystal, this time it was a man. He had red hair that went to his neck, kind of like Ron's hair color, and his eyes were a light peachy color. He was tall, and wore a suit of silver armor over dragonhide boots and red and black colored clothes. He had a small post earring on his ear.

He followed the woman and seemed to be trying to talk to her about something. Their mouths moved, but none of the boys could hear them. The woman laughed haughtily about something, and the man rolled his eyes at her.

A third ghost joined the existing two. He was a young boy with black hair, and looked a lot like Tom. Only he was at least ten years old. He wore a long black robe, with a green scarf wrapped around his shoulders. He came rushing in, and tripped. The woman helped him up, and patted him on the head.

Tom and Draco looked the scene with distaste, but Harry and Ron didn't understand why. Tom looked relieved as the tall man pulled the woman away from the boy, and yelled at her. The boy was very confused, and looked innocently, and hugged a small dragon toy he had with him.

A fourth and last person, and second woman, to come out of the crystal happened to be a tall woman. She was a bit plump, and had long blonde hair. The sides of her hair were up in little buns, and tied with red ribbons. She had a flowing yellow gown on, and an orange tie.

She stormed around the room and began ranting about something, and the other three laughed cheerfully at her. She herself began laughing, and all four of them began fading back into the crystal. When they left, the room still remained illuminated, and left in their place were three objects.

Harry leaned down, and with further inspection, he found a bow, a large wooden staff, and an axe lying on the ground. The top of the staff was a serpent, which held in its mouth, a large green gem. The axe shined when you held it, and the handle was wrapped in white cloth. And the bow's string was a fine kind of material that almost sung when Ron plucked it.

As Tom picked up the staff, and the gem at the top began to glow green. Draco picked up the axe with both of his hands, and tested it against a small rock. The rock was broken into a million pieces, and Draco picked up the impact force from the blow and wobbled back a bit. He then tested out a larger rock, and it split in half almost instantly.

"Do you think I could dig us out of here?" asked Draco.

"Well," said Tom very matter-of-factly. "The whole room would probably crumble on us. We need to find a way to levitate ourselves up above the Hinalle, through the wall, and out."

"Try Wingardium Leviosa," suggested Ron.

"You can't lift a whole lot for very long with Wingardium Leviosa," said Tom.

"Try using the staff," said Harry. "It looks like a powerful magical staff, like in fantasy stories or something."

"Alright then," said Tom. "Let's get on top of the Hinalle first."

They climbed up the Hinalle, and Ron even stuffed some of it in his pockets, until they were sure they were standing on the tallest point.

Tom first pointed the staff at Ron. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The green gem at the tip of the staff lit up, and radiated green around Ron. Tom moved the staff upwards, and Ron moved along with it.

"Bloody wicked!" said Ron as he was levitated. Tom moved him a bit to the side, and Ron fell into the passageway.

Harry went next, then Draco, and then Tom pointed his staff to himself, and levitated himself into the passageway. Draco leaned over, and found his wand. He pocketed it, and they continued down the passageway, talking about who they thought the people were, and what caused them to appear.

Tom guessed it was some sort of memory keeping, like how he had used his diary, while Ron insisted they were ghosts. They discussed weird theories, yet no one bothered to bring up why the Lion's Den or the room with the Hinalle and large blue crystals were there in the first place.

After leaving the passageway, they went back to the Great Hall, and discovered everyone was gone. They decided they'd better go and see Dumbledore about what just happened. Harry told the gargoyle, "Strawberry Jam," and it left its position to allow the four in.

Dumbledore seemed to be expecting the boys, because they found leftovers from the Halloween feast on a table situated with four blue chairs around it. Fawkes the Phoenix was humming a tune that Harry vaguely recognized.

"So, Mr. Malfoy," said Dumbledore, who was standing at his desk. "Did you get turned into a ferret yet again?"

"No," replied Draco quickly. "We found a lion, a big thing of Hinalle, an underground cave, blue crystals, a bow, a staff, and an axe."

"Sounds like you had a very interesting time tonight," said Dumbledore calmly. "Let's see these three admirable weapons you've brought up."

They handed him the bow, and the axe, but as Tom handed him the staff, the snake on the end suddenly animated itself and snapped at Dumbledore. Dumbledore seemed startled, but Tom immediately took it back into his grasp.

"Uhm, I better hang onto this," said Tom.

"It almost bit Dumbledore?" asked Harry in confusion. "What a weird staff."

"Maybe it doesn't bite the person who touched it first?" asked Ron.

"Could be," said Tom.

Dumbledore allowed them continue the Halloween Feast they missed inside his office, while he inspected the weapons they had brought. He declared they had to be at least one or two thousand years old.

Afterwards, Draco departed for the dungeons, and Harry and Ron went up to the Gryffindor Tower. Tom was sleeping in one of the extra staff bedrooms, and they departed in the Entrance Hall to get some well-deserved rest.

~ ~ ~ The next morning was Saturday, and Harry had Quidditch practice. So Ron told Hermione the entire story of the Lion's Den while they watched Harry practice with the team. It was also the first time they got to see Seamus as their new Keeper, replacing Oliver Wood.

Seamus faired pretty well on the field, and Ron kept going back between story telling and trying to catch Seamus mess up so he could forever rub it in his face. Unfortunately, Ron wasn't looking those three times when Seamus failed to defend the hoops.

Hermione was very interested in the three weapons they had brought up, and decided to take an extended visit to the library that afternoon to try and discover more about them. She saw Tom stalking around as well. He was looking at "Magical Arsenal," "A History of Snake Usage," and "The Strength of Both Worlds: Meelee and Magic."

For two weeks, they both saw each other at various times looking for information. Hermione also had a little homework to do now and then, so she had to check some books for her Arithmancy homework too.

Harry and Ron's assignments in Divination were getting abnormal and weird as the days went by. Hermione and Tom told them as they were bullshitting for their homework, "You should've taken Arithmancy!"

Tom seemed to share the same love for Arithmancy as Hermione did, and Harry one day found the two, Lord Voldemort and Muggle-born, talking about name numbers, or something like that. Tom said that his name was the numbers seven, six and one, and Hermione said her name came out as four and nine.

They went into a discussion about she and Tom being very logical when it came to the heart. Tom said that one as his social status fit very much since he liked his independence, and Hermione said nine fit her well, as she was very determined, and admitted to being a little arrogant in the way she did things.

Harry and Ron asked what they were doing, and they mentioned that they were discussing simplistic Arithmancy. Tom got out a quill and ink, and began calculating Harry and Ron's three name numbers. Harry had a two for his character, three for his heart, and eight for his social skills. Ron had a two for character, eight for heart, and three for social skills.

In a matter-of-fact way, Hermione told them that twos were moody and indecisive, threes were lucky, easygoing and easily offended, and eights were jealous, greedy prats. Ron argued he wasn't a jealous and greedy person at heart, he didn't have a generally moody character, and he wasn't that lucky or easygoing

Personally, Harry, Hermione and Tom thought those numbers fit Ron very well.

Harry agreed he was pretty lucky, and at times easygoing Though he disagreed he was socially jealous of other people, like Draco Malfoy and Tom, just to name a few. Tom argued to that, and Harry said he didn't want to be an evil power monger. Tom rolled his eyes and went back to reading.

~ ~ ~ Before long, the first Quidditch game of the season came and passed in early November, and still, Hermione hadn't found anything on the weapons they had discovered. Finally, it came down to a drastic decision.

"Harry?" asked Hermione. "Can I use your Invisibility Cloak?"

"For what?" he asked.

"Uhm, well," began Hermione. "I haven't found anything in the library about those weapons... and neither has Tom... so I wanted to borrow your cloak and sneak into the Restricted Section!"

After two days of nonstop begging and bribing, Harry finally shoved the cloak into Hermione's hands. It was his father's, so Hermione understood why he was hesitant to let anyone use it.

As she snuck out into the unoccupied hallway, she spotted Tom. He was talking to an unusually large snake on the grass. She heard a few hissing noises until she took off the cloak and bothered to ask what he was doing.

At the sound of Hermione's voice, the snake he was talking to fled the scene and scampered off into Hogwarts.

"Er, sorry," said Hermione. "Didn't know you offered Snake Psychology."

"What're you doing out of bed?" asked Tom. "If Peeves finds you, he'll make sure to wake the whole school."

"I'm using Harry's Invisibility Cloak to infiltrate the Restricted Section of the library and find out about those three weapons you dragged back from Halloween!"

Tom sighed. "Oh, those." He stood up, and forced himself under the cloak. "Don't argue."

Hermione rolled her eyes and they carefully stepped into the library. Hermione led him back to the Restricted Section doors, and he borrowed her wand to use Mobilius and move the door a bit so they could squeeze through without it creaking open.

They carefully set the cloak on a shelf, and Hermione lit her wand with Lumos as they searched the bookcases. Tom found a book on the Founders, and opened it up.

"What?" Tom asked. "I'm just trying to find out about my great 'to the 50th power' grandfather!"

Hermione chuckled a bit, and searched down a row. By three A.M. in the morning, neither one had found anything. They sat on the ground, and pondered the moment.

"Well, we've looked," said Hermione flatly, "and found next to nothing."

"Yes, we've found things!" said Tom with a hint of exuberance. "Like the-"

"Book on how to torture people?" asked Hermione.

"Yes! Exactly!" Tom smiled to himself.

Hermione giggled a bit, and then propped herself against a bookshelf. She yawned, and stretched her arms out.

After a moment of pure silence, Tom said "So..."

"So what?" asked Hermione.

"Don't know."

"Should we get to bed?"

"Nah. Might as well just stay up all night. Besides, tomorrow's Sunday."

"Do you make a good pillow?"

Tom thought about her last question. "Say again?"

Hermione unexpectedly put her head against Tom's arm, and yawned. She was obviously quite tired. She dropped her wand, and Lumos died down. Tom crossed his legs, and leaned against the bookshelf. He rested his head against hers.

"Wow," she said after a while. She removed her head from his arm. "I was wrong. You don't make a good pillow."

"Well," he snapped back, "you never let me answer!"

She giggled softly, and picked up the cloak. Tom got up, and offered her his hand as she rose wearily.

Hermione put them back into the cloak, and they headed out the Restricted Section door. As they came into the regular library, Hermione accidentally bumped into a chair. Tom held her mouth as she tried not to make any sound, then she fell to the ground, bringing Tom and the cloak with her.

She was now sitting over Tom, who was partially covered in the cloak, and lying on the ground. Hermione laughed, and Tom smiled.

"Silly Mudblood," he told her lovingly.

"Stupid Dark Wizard," she replied back. "Ay me... why are the cute one the bad guys?"

"It's just the way the world works," he said with a smirk.

They laughed at each other for a few moments. Then, out of impulse, Tom put his arms around Hermione's waist, and drew her closer down towards his chest. Hermione kissed him tenderly on the lips, her body quivering. Feeling the Invisibility Cloak fall over their bodies, the "Silly Mudblood" and the "Stupid Dark Wizard" left the library floor and went above the clouds into a world of their own, a world in which only they existed.