The Silent Siege

Chapter 17

Secrets and Lies

Harry watched, horrified, as Ginny started screaming again. He tried to cry out with his own voice but it seemed he had been denied the possibility of sound.

"Surely you remember the duels, Ginny?" Riddle's voice hissed from out of Harry's own mouth again. "You remember them in your waking moments. Haven't you been taught anything about controlling your dreams? I suppose I should have expected no better from a family of Muggle lovers."

Harry fought hard to stem the words that seemed to force their way up to his throat like bile rising from his stomach. A hunger and even excitement seemed to start from his scar and fill his whole mind. He found himself beginning to panic as the thrill seemed to consume all of his pity and angst for Ginny like a flood in his mind until Harry found himself certain that there would soon be none of his feelings and none of his own self left.

Ginny didn't respond. She continued to stare.

"We used to be such good friends, you and I," Tom's voice poured out from Harry's soul again. "You used to tell me I was the best friend you'd ever had. Perhaps we could have been friends much longer if it weren't for Harry."

A mocking voice rang like a bell through Harry's mind. The Boy Who Lived was weak and disgusting. He would be killed soon enough, though Riddle longed for it to come sooner. It tested every grain of his patience to wait, yet wait he would. He would use this girl, this sniveling pathetic girl, against him. He would -

"Harry saved my life!" spat Ginny suddenly.

Harry felt the surprise rush through him, as sudden and fleeting as the sting from the branch of a tree in his face. He sensed Riddle's excitement ebb, replaced by first disappointment and then a great anger and loathing. Harry could feel the hate pulling and sucking him into itself like a pensieve but it was in that moment of contradiction that Harry seized on the sudden fury in Ginny's own eyes and remembered. He was the Boy Who Lived and Lord Voldemort wanted to swallow him up and control him. But Harry would not let him. Voldemort would be beaten; he had to be.

Harry forced himself to concentrate as Snape had told him to in their abortive lessons the year before. He tried to block the Dark Lord out of his mind. Yet it still seemed that the harder Harry tried, the more he found himself overwhelmed with Voldemort's hatred for Ginny. Forcing down yet another wave of panic, Harry thought back instead to the Imperius curse under which Voldemort had held him the night he had returned. If he could just resist him; if he could find the effort; yes, that was it; he was under the Dark Lord's control and he had to break out. His feelings and words weren't Harry's at all; they were -

The white of the bathroom vanished again and Harry found himself looking up again at the inky black of the clear night's sky and the twinkling points of the heavens. He looked down quickly, panting, and to his immense relief, he found Ginny standing beside him again, a frown on her face.

"Harry," she said. "Are you all right? You look frightened."

Harry looked down at her. He felt about to tell her all he had seen but before he could open his mouth to speak, she squeezed his hand and smiled at him, and all his train of thought seemed to vanish. Indeed, as a sensation of calm seemed to envelop his mind and once again, Harry wondered what on earth could have ever vexed him in the first place.

***

Ginny watched, emboldened, as Tom Riddle's face twisted in the mirror as though he was fighting some great internal battle even as he tried and failed to manipulate her. But then his jaw hardened again and a wide sneer pasted itself across his face.

"I suppose that's what Harry told you, wasn't it?" he replied.

"It was true, I was there. I woke up, I remember!" Ginny forced down her fear and felt her defiance grow.

"Have it your way," said Riddle, almost nonchalantly now. "It must make Harry feel very powerful, holding this wizard debt over you so many years."

"He didn't want it!"

"Then why, Ginny, did he try to save your life, since you're so sure that's what he was doing?"

"Y - you wouldn't understand."

"That's what I like to hear, Ginny, a little hesitation." Riddle's lip curled up in a snarl again. "But my time is precious and I have little to waste indulging your stupid curiosities. I need you to help me."

"I'll never help you."

Riddle's lips curled into a thin line. "You're making me disappointed, Ginny."

"So what?" Ginny replied, but she suddenly felt herself start to tremble.

Riddle pushed his head even closer to his side of the mirror so that Ginny was sure for a moment he would rush out and grab his hands around her throat. She wanted to step back herself but found that she still couldn't move. Her heart began to beat very fast.

And then Tom Riddle said very softly:

"Think about it, Ginny. The fear. The nightmares. You could end them all. You never have to be afraid of me again. All I ask is that you help me with one small thing. You see, Ginny, we have a very powerful bond, you and I. I know you: where you go, what you are thinking. But I can't really be with you myself, much as I'd like it. I can't always tell the difference between what's in your mind and what's really there. Your feelings for Harry are very strong; they're very real to you. But I know you know the difference. I just need you to give me a small sign, to tell me, in your mind, whether Harry is with you or not."

Ginny didn't respond. She looked at Tom closely. It did seem very simple. And all of her fears could end. She wouldn't have to fight Tom Riddle after all. She wouldn't have to try to be strong and resist him. And she wouldn't need Harry to protect her. She could just give in. All she had to do was be a good girl and do as she was told, just like when she had strangled the roosters and called for the Basilisk. All she would have to do was to tell him about Harry and -

"You liar!" she spat suddenly. "You want to kill Harry!"

Tom Riddle moved his head away slightly, as if he had been slapped across the face. He suddenly looked very hurt.

"Poor Ginny," he said after a moment. "Is that what they've told you? I only want to help Harry - and you - to realize what you truly are."

"And why do you care so much about me?"

"Didn't I tell you, Ginny?" replied Riddle. "We're close friends, you and I. I want to be close to Harry, too, only he won't let me. Don't you think you can help me just a little now," he asked very sweetly, "after all I've done for you?"

"No," said Ginny, trying desperately to see through the affronted expression on Riddle's face. "You're not telling me everything. You're afraid of me."

Riddle's hurt expression was replaced with a sneer. "And why would I be afraid of a stupid little girl who walks around in day dreams all day long?"

"I don't know," Ginny replied. "But I know you are. You can see me? I can see you now, too. You've made a mistake. There's something you hadn't planned. You need me to help you but you're also afraid of me. I don't know why but you are."

For the first time that Ginny could ever remember, Tom Riddle seemed at a loss for words. His eyes darted back and forth as if he was looking to escape. But this only lasted for a moment. Then his jaw set again and his cheeks turned red in fury.

"I tried to be nice to you, Ginny, but four years and you're still an ungrateful little brat! If you don't help me, I might just have to tell Harry our little secret."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

But Ginny felt herself start to shake very hard.

Tom Riddle smiled a horribly false smile. "You forget, Ginny. I know everything about you now. I know what you told Harry after you woke up in the Chamber. You said the last thing you remembered was seeing me come out of the diary. But we both know that isn't true, don't we, or maybe you really don't remember?"

Ginny didn't reply again. It seemed much harder to breathe now.

"You're very much afraid now, aren't you, Ginny?" Riddle smiled. "How well I remember just what your fear smelled like."

***

Harry continued to hold Ginny's hand as he walked her around the lake. They were nearing the castle now. A few more steps and they would be inside again, warm and safe. Harry wondered what it was he had been worried about so much. Without realizing he wanted to do so, he reached up and ran his fingers through Ginny's hair. She did not resist. Harry suddenly felt that she wouldn't resist anything he asked her to do. Why should she? After all, he had saved her life. Wasn't she in his debt? And why had he never tried to collect on that debt? What a pathetic fool he'd been all these years. He'd just ignored Ginny when she would have done anything he'd asked of her. In her, he could have an ally - even a slave. Why would a Slytherin -

No sooner had Harry felt revulsion at the alien emotions twisting through his head when the shadow of the castle before him receded to the white of the bathroom once again. A brief disorientation gave way to a renewed sense of glee and a hideous epiphany that he had found exactly the thing that could make Ginny serve him again.

But this delight then faded to a schizophrenic mix of relief and distaste. Ginny, her cheeks flushed red and her breath coming fast had reached down and taken hold of a chair in her hands. At first, at seemed that she wouldn't be able to lift it but once she had done so, she quickly positioned it over her head. Gritting her teeth in obvious desperation, she brought the chair crashing down to what seemed to Harry like the top of his head.

Harry flinched even as Riddle's jeering voice cried out again from inside him.

"You want me to go, Ginny? How sad. But you must know I'll never really leave you."

Harry looked back at Ginny again and saw that she had now suspended the chair directly in front of him but to his consternation and Riddle's delight it seemed that she could move it any further forward.

"Never," the voice inside Harry said again, a cruel laugh escaping unbidden from his lips .

Ginny drew the chair back again and flung it even harder at whatever was in front of her but it still did not make contact.

Harry felt himself laugh again but even as Riddle's new-found joy threatened to envelop him again, he found himself hoping that Ginny could crack the chair home, that as hard as it might hurt him, maybe this vision would all go away. Maybe then he would finally

Wake up.

Harry's eyes snapped open, his heart drumming loudly in his chest. He was drenched from head to toe in sweat and his head felt like it had been split in two.

Yet apparently he had made no sound. There was an odd silence, broken only by Ron's rhythmic snoring. He felt himself start to relax. He had had a nightmare. Voldemort's voice had been in his mind again. Harry felt a tremendous relief come over him as he felt himself whole again. It was as though the sweat on his sheets contained all of the poison of Voldemort's sadistic manipulations, flushed out of his mind and his body. If only he could stop his scar from hurting now -

But no!

Harry sat bolt upright in bed as a new revelation drove away the final remains of his sleep-confused mind.

It had not been a dream at all. It had been just like the time he had seen Mr. Weasley attacked and Sirius held prisoner by Voldemort. Whether what he had seen was real or another deceit of the Dark Lord, he couldn't be sure, but it wasn't just in his own head, Harry knew it.

And while Sirius and Mr. Weasley were attacked far away, Ginny was somewhere close, wasn't she? The white-walled room in his dreams. The bathroom. A bathroom like -

Harry got to his feet quickly. He picked up the robes he had left piled in a heap next to his bed and felt in his pocket to make sure that he still had his wand. He briefly thought of waking up his roommates but then he knew that his explanations would cost far too much precious time and he did not need their help to act on this occasion. He strode quickly to the door of his dormitory and flung it open. He ran quickly down the stairs to the common room, making his way for the girls' bathroom where he knew that Ginny was standing at this very moment, confronted by Voldemort in Tom Riddle's form.

He had almost reached the door and turned the handle when his mind finally registered the most unexpected scene he had just passed.

Ginny's roommate Amanda was standing over a boiling cauldron. Slumped on the chair at the table in front of her was Ginny.

Amanda looked up at Harry incredulously.

"You're not sleepwalking, are you, Harry? The boys' toilet's on the other side."

In response, Harry tore over to Ginny's side.

"What happened to her?" he demanded of Amanda.

Amanda looked back at Harry as if he was mad.

"She's asleep," she replied simply. "She's exhausted. She said she was going to the bathroom but then she decided to sit down in that chair and the next I knew I could hear her snoring. I thought I would finish our potion and then - "

"She's not!" Harry cried back suddenly. "You don't understand! She's in trouble. I saw it!"

Amanda shrugged. "Have it your way."

Harry knelt next to Ginny and examined her closely. Snoring might have been a harsh way of putting it but Ginny's mouth was open and her breath was moving slowly in and out as though she was asleep. Harry started to feel slightly foolish. Perhaps it had all just been a nightmare after all. He should have known to be more careful after what had happened to Sirius, he thought, a familiar feeling of disgust at his own arrogance welling inside him.

Harry had all but decided to return to his dormitory when he saw Ginny's brow crease and face flinch uncomfortably. He looked up and saw that her hands were clenching and unclenching over the sides of the chair just as if -

"Oh, goddess," he murmured aloud. "She's dreaming it."

Harry quickly grabbed hold of Ginny only to find that her hair was saturated in perspiration.

"Ginny!" he whispered desperately into her ear. "Ginny, wake up!"

"What are you doing, Harry?" demanded Amanda. "Let her - "

"Ginny, for Merlin's sake, wake up! Wake up!"

Ginny continued to hold onto the sides of chair. She started to rock it back and forth more urgently.

Before Amanda could protest again, Harry had grabbed hold of Ginny's shoulders and started to shake her.

"Wake up!"

"No," Ginny moaned. "Don't - leave - get away."

Ginny's eyes snapped wide open. She turned to look at Harry and gasped.

"Harry?" she asked, a tone of amazement in her voice. "Harry?"

"Ginny," Harry said urgently, kneeling beside her. "Are you all right?"

"Harry," she said again. "Oh, Harry."

Harry felt a sudden wave of claustrophobia rush over him as Ginny grabbed him unexpectedly into a vice-like grip. Within moments, her body was racked with sobs. His face became very hot as he had the sudden irrational sensation of dozens of Gryffindor eyes boring into his back even though the only other person in the room was Amanda. He tried to release his grip on Ginny but she held on even more tightly.

"Ginny, are you okay?" Harry heard Amanda ask. "What happened?"

"Please please please don't let go of me," Ginny whispered into his ear.

For one moment, Harry was sure he had not really heard Ginny say this. The next he felt as if the world had closed in all around him. His heart beating very fast, Harry forced himself out of the embrace. Before Ginny could respond, however, he grabbed hold of her shoulders, looked into her scared brown eyes, and said with all of the authority he could muster:

"Ginny, we have to go to see Professor McGonagall right now."

Ginny just looked at Harry for a moment, tears still running down her cheeks. Then she nodded.

***

Voldemort pushed his face back from the cauldron and sat back hard on the ground, panting. The girl was becoming much more powerful now: he had always been able to control others but there were moments when it had seemed she had been controlling him. He knew he had come very close to losing himself completely through the diary. He had no longer been peering into someone else's life. He had fully believed that he was his own destroyed memory just as surely as the memory had believed it was him.

And he had not been able to keep Potter completely out. He, too, was growing more persistent, more skilled at breaking free from his control. He might try to go after the girl as he had his precious godfather. She might tell him her nightmares and they both might tell others.

But after these fears had subsided, the Dark Lord afforded himself a smile. He had survived after all, hadn't he? And so what if the girl knew there was a flaw in his arrangements? She didn't know what it was, after all. And even if she and Potter told Dumbledore and the rest of the school, none of them would know what to make of it, not until it was too late, that was. And the girl would tell herself the Dark Lord had failed. She would think she had resisted him. She would think she would never tell him where Harry was. She would never suspect that he could use her own emotions against her, that her own love for Harry and fear that Voldemort would find him would drive Harry right into his hands.

She had fallen straight into his trap.

***

Harry led Ginny briskly down the corridors to McGonagall's office. Neither had said a word since they had left the Gryffindor common room. They couldn't go on like this, thought Harry. He had to find out what had happened to Ginny before they reached McGonagall's office. He already felt horribly guilty about pushing Ginny away from him. He didn't want her to suffer and he had a feeling she had suffered a great deal that night. He thought of making some gesture of friendship, touching her shoulder or even holding her hand, just this once, but whenever he'd thought he'd made up his mind to do either of those things, a horrible icy sensation seemed to grow in his stomach again.

They were almost at the door to McGonagall's chamber when Ginny said:

"Harry."

Harry turned around quickly to look at her. She looked very frightened.

"I - I'm sorry I held on so tightly like that. I was - "

"It doesn't matter," said Harry quickly. "Ginny, please tell me what happened to you."

Ginny looked away and didn't say anything for a moment. Then she stopped walking. Harry stopped, too, and turned to face her. Ginny looked down at the floor, the torturous storm in her eyes hidden for a moment for his view. Then she looked up again:

"Harry, I'm not sure but I think that Tom Riddle, I think that Vol - Vol - that You-Know-Who might be trying to possess me again."

Harry instinctively took a step away from Ginny.

"But - but how? That diary - it was destroyed. I destroyed it."

Ginny looked at Harry. It was the first time he had ever talked to her about anything that had happened down in the Chamber. And she could see from the expression on his face that he knew it, too.

"I don't know," she said. "But I think it must be possible."

She started to walk again. Harry followed her.

"Ever - ever since this summer, I've been having these nightmares. It - it's the same every time. At least it was - until tonight." Ginny took a deep breath and told Harry about her dreams of the dueling between Tom Riddle and himself, looking steadily down at the stone floor of the hallways as she did so. Then she told him about the nightmare she'd had that night, omitting any parts about her crush on Harry, and several other things Tom had said which she found she could hardly bring herself to recall, let alone tell Harry.

"And then there were the headaches when I went to Hogsmeade, under the gate and in the shop - I just - I just - I don't know, Harry. I'm really scared."

"And you didn't tell anyone?" said Harry.

"Well, I thought they were just nightmares. I mean, after all, I've been dreaming about the Chamber for years now." Ginny avoided looking at Harry again as she said this. "But after tonight, I'm just not sure anymore. The nightmares just aren't like normal dreams. They're so real."

Ginny shuddered. In her dream, everything had seemed so cloudy but now she remembered all of her nightmares as clear as day, just as she always did when she woke up. Maybe he wanted it that way. She grew angry as she realized how skillfully he had manipulated her, just like his younger self, the one moment filling her with guilt, the next fear. Just like he had when he'd forced her to watch him killing Harry over and over again in their duels.

The duels, thought Ginny to herself suddenly. Why had he made her watch all of those duels? Did he just want to weaken her? Ginny knew that Voldemort was afraid of her somehow; she could sense it. But she didn't know why. Yet something told her it had to do with all of those duels. Ginny had the sudden impression that she had all of the pieces of a puzzle but she didn't know how to put them together.

"I know," Harry suddenly broke into her thoughts. "That's why we have to see McGonagall."

"But what made you think of going to see McGonagall?" Ginny frowned suddenly as if the question had just occurred to her.

"Well, I didn't think you'd want to tell it to Snape," said Harry, trying to sound casual.

"Yes, but why... how did you know it wasn't just a nightmare? Harry, why did come downstairs?"

"I - I heard you. I thought - "

But Ginny had suddenly stopped walking and had turned to face him.

"No one else heard me."

It was now Harry's turn to avoid looking at Ginny.

"Harry, look at me."

It was not a request.

Harry forced his face up to Ginny's and immediately wanted to look down at the ground again. He suddenly remembered the way he had looked into her eyes that day they had played Quidditch. It was as though Ginny's gaze could burn all his defenses away.

There was a long meaningful pause before Ginny let out a small gasp and said:

"Y - you were there, weren't you. Oh, goddess, you were there in my mind. You saw him just like you did when Dad was attacked. Just like...."

Ginny's voice trailed off.

"Just like I did when Sirius died," Harry finished darkly. When he turned his face up to look at Ginny again, it was with a horrible look of foreboding that she could never remember seeing before.

"I was him, Ginny," he said in a whisper. "I could see everything he did, feel everything he felt. I was happy when you screamed. I wanted you to fear me."

Ginny looked at him for a long time before becoming aware that her mouth was hanging wide open. She quickly closed it shut and shook her head hard, causing her hair to fall all over her face like she had stuck her head in a fire.

"Harry, then how - why did you come after me?"

Harry sighed. He told Ginny how he had kept coming back and forth from the walk by the lake to looking at her in the bathroom. He did not tell her, however, that he had dreamed of walking with her and he found that the thought now terrified him. Instead, he said that he had been walking alone.

"And then when you kept throwing the chair, I started to think how I wanted to wake up. And then I realized that I must be dreaming. And then suddenly, I woke up. First, I thought it was just a nightmare but then my scar was hurting and I thought it must be a vision."

"But Harry, how did he get into my dream? And why were you there?"

"I don't know. Maybe he wanted me to see it or maybe it was accidental."

"But what about the lake; was that just a dream?"

"It must have been, mustn't it? I couldn't have gone outside."

"Was it like that before - I - I mean the last time?"

Harry shook his head.

"It never went back and forth like that but this time it was longer, I suppose. But Ginny, what does he want with you?"

Ginny looked down quickly but then looked up again at Harry almost right away.

"He wanted to make me lead him to you but he - he didn't succeed. I wouldn't let him and I won't."

They started walking again.

"Of course you wouldn't."

"I mean, Harry," Ginny went on, exasperated. "He's not possessing me. I know. I remember what it was like. There aren't any blank moments. There aren't any times I can't account for."

"I know, Ginny. Don't worry. We'll just talk to McGonagall and everything will be O.K."

Ginny and Harry looked at each other briefly and Harry tried to put on a brave smile. But Ginny wondered whether he had read between the lines of her words and heard the desperate fear in her voice that Harry would avoid her, that he would be afraid to go anywhere near her, for fear she would lead him to the same fate as his family. For months now, she had forced her love for Harry to the back of her mind, had tried hard not to examine their growing friendship, not to hope for too much, for fear that it would distract her from her O.W.Ls. But one horrible nightmare later, a series of school tests didn't seem important after all. She was sure that what she needed now was Harry.

They had reached the door to McGonagall's room. Harry raised his hand to knock but Ginny reached out and held it back.

"What?"

"Did you hear everything he said to me?" Ginny asked in as quiet and vulnerable a voice as Harry had ever heard her use.

"No, I told you. I was walking by the lake half the time.... Why? Ginny, is there something else you're not telling me?"

Ginny looked up at Harry, a far away, almost pleading look in her eyes. She opened her mouth as though about to say something but then closed it again.

"Ginny?" said Harry persistently.

Ginny shook her head.

"I - it's not important. It's nothing to do with him possessing me. It won't matter."

"Ginny, please tell me."

Ginny hesitated for a moment but then said again:

"N - no, Harry, I - I - just trust me."

"Ginny, it might be important, you don't - "

"I SAID TRUST ME!"

Harry and Ginny looked strangely surprised when the door they were standing in front slowly opened and Professor McGonagall's spectacled face appeared clad in tartan slippers and wearing rollers and a hair net that bore an uncanny resemblance to Aunt Petunia's.

"I suppose you two have a good reason for standing outside my door shouting at this hour."

"Yes," replied Harry without hesitation.

McGonagall nodded wearily. "I was afraid you might. I suppose you had better come in."

***

A few minutes later, Ginny and Harry were sitting on two large soft armchairs in McGonagall's living room. McGonagall drew herself up in a rocking chair and flicked her wand absently at the fire in the hearth which grew into full flame and then at the table in between Harry and Ginny, where two warm glasses of milk and some shortbread appeared.

"Drink. Eat," McGonagall ordered drowsily. "It will wake you up." She adjusted her half-moon glasses. "So, Potter, Weasley, what seems to be the matter?"

"I've had another vision," said Harry immediately.

McGonagall leaned forward, her glasses almost falling off her face, a sudden look of alarm on her face.

"And that's not all. Ginny had it, too. I was - I was inside Voldemort inside her mind - inside her nightmare."

There was a long pause as McGonagall looked across at Harry. He had the sudden, awkward impression she was not at all sure what to say which was, of course, precisely the opposite of what he had hoped for.

"Very well," McGonagall said finally. "Miss Weasley, please tell me about your nightmare."

Ginny once again launched into a nervous account of the dream she had experienced that night and then went on to describe the nightmares she had been having since the past summer, this time omitting altogether the dream she had had the night of the Guy Fawkes ball. After she had finished, both she and Harry looked up at their head of house expectantly.

"And you, Mr. Potter," she said, a little stoically. "What was your nightmare?"

"It was a vision!" said Harry, starting to feel a little annoyed at having to insist this. "And it was just like Ginny's. O - only I - I was looking at her."

Harry described what his dream and the frequent alternations between the lake and the bathroom.

For a moment, McGonagall's lips drew together tightly and she studied Ginny quite seriously. She looked on the point of saying something but then she seemed to stop herself and sighed, a ghost of a smile playing across her mouth. Harry was normally pleased to see McGonagall smile like this because it usually meant reprieve from some form of punishment or a general amnesty from homework. But this time he found himself very much disconcerted.

"Miss Weasley, I take that you have a Potions O.W.L. tomorrow morning?"

Ginny nodded and then sighed slightly herself.

McGonagall's face broke into a motherly smile.

"My dear child," she said, in a half-whisper. "None of us would wish upon our worst enemies what was visited upon you your first year at this school. And you have and will always have my deepest sympathy. But Hogwarts is safe from outside intrusion. It has been that way for hundreds of years. There is no way that Lord Voldemort could have penetrated your mind while you were sleeping here. The diary in which his memory was once trapped was completely destroyed by Mr. Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has long been sealed."

"But what about my vision!" Harry protested.

"Nightmares often seem real, Mr. Potter."

Harry stared back at McGonagall in disbelief. "If it was just a dream, how was it we both had the same one? It must have been Voldemort in her head!"

Both McGonagall and Ginny flinched instinctively at the name. When McGonagall looked back at Harry again, her gaze was considerably frostier.

"Did you and Miss Weasley perhaps discuss your dreams together on the way here?"

It was Ginny's turn to sound indignant.

"Of course we did! You think that Harry's making it up, don't you? How was it he knew how to find me?"

McGonagall briefly looked angry but then she seemed to force her face into a half-smile.

"I did not say nor do I mean, Miss Weasley, that Mr. Potter was making anything up. But you've both been through a great deal and that's bound to have affected your," she paused and swallowed, an unusually shifty look in her eyes, " - perception of things."

Harry stared back at her in astonishment. It was she who had led him to Dumbledore when he had had his vision of Mr. Weasley's attack without questioning his miraculous tale in the slightest. How could she change her tune now? What had he -

Harry paused in mid-thought. Of course, that was before -

"You think I'm off my rocker, don't you?" he said to McGonagall savagely. "Or maybe you don't," he added quickly, another realization dawning. "Maybe you think I am having these visions but that if you listen to me, someone else from the Order is going to get killed, just like Sirius!"

"Mr. Potter, pull yourself together! Don't you think I realize that no one feels worse about your godfather's death than you? But I can't go tearing up this school on your word!"

"If Hogwarts is so safe, how is that You-Know-Who could get into Harry's mind last year?" demanded Ginny.

"I do not pretend to understand Mr. Potter's connection with He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named. But I can assure you that it doesn't just work with anyone! Even in the darkest days of the first war, the Death Eaters were never able to attack Hogwarts! As long as you are inside this school, you are both safe! "

"Rubbish!" cried Harry, no longer caring that McGonagall's lips had set themselves into a very thin line indeed. "The school's been attacked loads of times, even since I've been a student. What about Professor Quirrell? And Sirius coming into our bedroom? And - and Professor Moody?"

"As I think you know, Mr. Potter, in each of the cases you describe, there was someone on the inside abetting the culprit. That is the only way anyone would be able to penetrate Hogwarts."

"But there's someone on the inside now, isn't there?" said Harry, his voice rising. "If he's possessing Ginny, he wants her - "

"Mr. Potter, that is enough!" cried McGonagall shrilly. "I will not have you contributing further to the already frazzled state of Miss Weasley's nerves!"

"Me? Contributing to....?" Harry cried, his voice croaking with the injustice of McGonagall's words. "I'm trying to help her."

McGonagall's voice softened slightly. "I've no doubt you are, Mr. Potter. And I also sympathize very much with your own situation."

"Yeah," said Harry, a little hollowly, and he sank back in the armchair sulking.

"Now, Miss Weasley," said McGonagall, turning to Ginny and ignoring Harry's reaction. "You have a test tomorrow and I expect you must be extremely anxious about it. It is very natural that your resting mind would find someone to personify those anxieties. And it is also natural that, for you, that person would be Tom Riddle."

Ginny and Harry both looked fit to burst but before either of them could say any more, she added quickly:

"Now, if you don't mind, I think all of us could do with some rest. I know that Miss Weasley in particular will be hard pressed to take her test tomorrow on very little sleep."

Ginny muttered something under her breath but McGonagall chose to ignore her.

"Fine, I just thought you might have been able to help, that's all." Harry got up and strode toward the door.

Before McGonagall could explode in all her glorious fury, Ginny quickly stood up and looking as though she was straining herself with effort, said in a very sweet voice:

"Thank you, Professor. "I'm very grateful for your help. I think I'll sleep easier now. Good night."

McGonagall studied her suspiciously but before she could say anymore, Ginny had followed Harry out to the door and closed it behind her.

***

McGonagall quickly walked over and locked her door behind Potter and Weasley. She waited until after she'd heard their footsteps disappear down the hall and then turned her back to the door and sighed heavily. The color which had risen in her cheeks in anger subsided very quickly. She took her glasses off and chewed one of the ends slowly in her mouth. She wasn't sure about Potter and Weasley, but she doubted that she would get any sleep at all for the remainder of the night.

She crossed over to the roaring fireplace, her slippers echoing noisily on the stone floor from her suddenly urgent footsteps. She quickly picked up a handful of floo powder from a stone urn at the side of the fireplace decorated in the shape of a Gryffin and cast it haphazardly into the flames.

"Severus Snape," she said clearly.

***

"What was all that about?" Harry demanded as soon as he and Ginny had left. "Why couldn't she help us? And why did you tell her she had?"

Ginny looked down at her feet and sighed.

"Oh, don't you see, Harry? I realized it finally. She didn't help us because she couldn't. Dumbledore isn't here and she doesn't know what to do. And she doesn't trust Snape any more than we do."

Harry didn't say anything for a moment again but then he sighed.

"I'm really sorry, Ginny," he said, feeling his anger ebb away. "I really thought she could help us."

In spite of everything, Ginny couldn't resist a small smile. At least Harry wasn't blaming himself anymore.

"You have too much faith in them," she said. "McGonagall, Dumbledore, and the others. They don't see everything, Harry, believe me. I know."

"I just feel like I let you down."

"You didn't let me down, Harry. You tried your best and I know you'll keep trying. And I feel a lot better, really."

Don't you see, Ginny went on. I don't care about McGonagall. You cared about me. Just a few of your words are worth a hundred insults from Tom Riddle. For once, I don't feel alone.

It was not until Ginny's train of thought had reached its conclusion that she realized no words had actually left her mouth. Instead, she found herself looking down at the stone floor, instinctively shielding her burning complexion from Harry's gaze.

Maybe it would do more good if you told him how you felt instead of just yourself, said a voice inside her head that sounded very much like Hermione. After all, you're both alone now and maybe he really is starting to like you back. But Ginny shut this thought down right away. Theories were one thing but she couldn't afford to take the chance that Harry would still reject her, not tonight, not on top of everything else.

***

Ginny might not have been far wrong about the degree to which Professor McGonagall truly trusted the acting headmaster. But she would have been no doubt surprised to have learned that at the very moment she was ruminating about Harry, Snape's milky white face had appeared in McGonagall's fireplace and at her request no less.

"Professor Snape," said McGonagall in an agitated manner. "Potter and Miss Weasley have just been to see me. Potter has had another vision. Weasley has been having nightmares. She thinks - Potter thinks - that You-Know-Who is trying to possess her mind again."

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

McGonagall studied Snape for a moment. He did not look very much like a man who had just been roused from sleep even though it was the middle of the night.

"Severus, surely," McGonagall went on, as non-plussed by Snape's demeanor as Harry had been with her own. "What if he's right? I mean, You-Know-Who... well, naturally, I didn't say anything of the sort to them as you told me Dumbledore had said it was dangerous to encourage him and I can understand his reservations after what happened last spring, but what - what if You-Know-Who really has found his way back into Miss Weasley's mind? The Totalis potion. That's how he made that diary in the first place. Surely you're aware - "

"I am aware of a great deal, Minerva," said Snape steadily. "And I urge you remain calm. The headmaster and I have everything well under control."

"Well, I don't know what you've told Potter," retorted McGonagall, the Scottish lilt rising higher in her voice. "But I'm no fool, Severus! If You-Know-Who is possessing Miss Weasley, then your control over things is very tenuous indeed! At least you could tell the headmaster. I would reach him myself but as I think you know," she added, with a trace of resentment in her voice, "I have absolutely no idea where he is at the moment. I very much hope that you do!"

McGonagall's resentment grew stronger as the look on Snape's face seemed to suggest he was enjoying this.

"I will inform the headmaster as always. Thank you for keeping me apprised. And thank you for not sharing your concerns with Potter and Weasley. It is very much for the best, I assure you."

Snape's face disappeared.

McGonagall tutted antsily to no one in particular, and tapped her foot noisily on the floor. No, she was definitely not going to get back to sleep that night.

***

Harry lay awake in bed, his eyelids heavy with fatigue but unwilling to let himself fall into sleep until he had wrestled his thoughts into focus more clearly.

Harry realized he wasn't certain of much anymore. Hogwarts was the one last place left where he had thought he was safe. The discovery of the secret room had chipped away at that sense of safety but the knowledge that Voldemort might once again use Ginny as a weapon against him made him feel much, much worse.

But it was the very last conversation he had shared with Ginny that night that stuck in his mind the most as surely as if she had carved it there herself with a knife.

"Don't tell Ron!"

"What?"

"What I said. He didn't wake up, did he?"

"Well, I'm not sure, I - "

"No, he didn't. He would have come out with you."

"Well, I expect so, I suppose, but - but, Ginny, why? He's your brother. He's concerned for you. We all are."

"No, Harry." Ginny had shaken her head. "I don't need concern right now. I need to face this. I need to face him - alone. I have to or I - I'll never be able to go on with my life. I know you understand this, Harry. You've faced him yourself so I know you know. Ron wouldn't understand. But you do."

Harry watched Ron lying on the bed next to his, an undisturbed expression on his face. Had he really slept through the whole thing? Harry found himself wishing very much that he hadn't.

And Ron was his best friend. How could he not tell his best friend that his little sister's life and soul were in danger? And how could Ron ever forgive him if he found out?

I know you understand this, Harry. You've faced him yourself so I know you know.

And Harry knew that Ginny was right.

And so before he finally surrendered to sleep, Harry made two very irrational decisions. He would not abandon Ginny Weasley, just as he had not abandoned her in the Chamber of Secrets, even at the cost of his own life.

And he would not tell Ron and Hermione anything that had happened to them that night.

***

The face of Professor McGonagall disappeared from the fireplace in the Potions Master's rooms, the rooms Snape had kept for himself, lest anyone might have had any greater cause to consider him an interloper to an office that rightly belonged to Dumbledore.

The lone occupant of the rooms stared thoughtfully at the fireplace for a moment, and then raised his sleeve to stare at the jet black mark just visible against his pale skin in the dying light of the fire.

After another few moments, he crossed over to the fireplace, and carefully took a handful of floo powder from a stone urn near the fireplace that was similar in many ways to that of Professor McGonagall except that it bore the head of a snake preparing to strike. Whereas McGonagall had thrown her floo powder into the fire with hurried carelessness, the occupant of the Potions master's rooms, who was no less anxious to deliver his own message, slowly churned the powder in his hands. Then when his pale white palm had finally turned a dirty grey, he threw the remains of the powder into the fireplace and said, loudly and clearly:

"Lord Voldemort."