Riddled Truth

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Chapter Three

22 May, 1993

The lights were dim. Only when he heard a whispered spell from his left did Draco see anything. The Gryffindor common room came into light and he looked around, smirking a bit when he found that Slytherin’s common room was much, much bigger. “Remember,” said Riddle, walking further into the common room, “if Gryffindor hid it in his part of the castle, it could be anywhere.”

“What if it’s outside the common room?” asked Draco, looking around. “Slytherin didn’t hide it inside his.”

Riddle didn’t answer right away, as he was looking at the mantel piece with great care. “Slytherin wouldn’t have trusted the other founders of keeping his house the way he wanted; he wouldn’t have trusted anyone but himself, so he hid it outside of his common room. Close enough to be apparent, but far enough away that no one would think of it,” said Riddle.

“Oh.” Draco responded, going through the bookcase.

“Gryffindor, on the other hand, was probably a trusting old fool, and therefore would have left it where he knew a Gryffindor could possibly find it and turn it in or some such nonsense,” said Riddle, rolling his eyes with a sneer.

Draco knew this made sense; it was almost like talking to a sixteen year old version of his father. As he searched the bookcase, he thought of where Gryffindor would hide something so important. If the Orb did what Riddle said it would do, Gryffindor wouldn’t want just anyone to find it; he’d want someone like Saint Potter to find it.

At first, Draco thought Gryffindor might have hidden it in one of the dormitories, but that didn’t make much sense either. It’d only be obtainable to five or six students at a time. Sighing silently, Draco left the bookcase and looked around for something a bit more to the liking of Gryffindor. He saw Weasley’s hair over by the mantel still and walked over near it.

“You think it’s in the mantel?” he asked, looking at the fireplace.

“Not in it, exactly,” said Riddle. “But, there’s a good chance that Gryffindor hid it in a secret passageway, or maybe above the fireplace, even.”

That didn’t seem likely to Draco. “Why would he hide it above the mantel? Gryffindor’s symbol was a lion; if anything, he’d hide it –”

“—close to the ground,” finished Riddle. He looked at him for a few seconds, then down at the rug beneath their feet. It was red and had the legendary Gryffindor blazon on it. Quietly, the two of them moved the couch back toward the back wall and looked at the rug once more. “What do you think? A loose floorboard, maybe?” asked Riddle.

Draco looked over at him, but he was still seeing Weasley and that was not easy to get over. It was odd speaking to her person in such a way; he was almost tempted to ask Riddle if Weasley would remember this. “It could be a loose floorboard, but wouldn’t that be too easy?” asked Draco.

Riddle bent over and pulled the rug from the floor after Draco stepped off it. The wood underneath was polished and waxed. “It’s somewhere no one would look. After all, Slytherin chose a place that was passed millions of times in the thousands of years he’s been gone,” said Riddle. After a bit of investigating, he determined that no boards were loose. “We can’t dig it up tonight,” he’d said after standing and dusting Weasley’s clothes off.

Draco kneeled down, rubbing his fingers over the wood as Riddle walked toward the portrait door. There was a desk by him and a mirror atop it; it was as if he was checking the female Weasley’s complexion.

Something caught the blonde’s eye as he kneeled there, coming from a low spot near Riddle. When Draco turned his head toward it, however, Weasley’s robes swished in front of his view and the sparkle that he’d seen vanished. Shaking his head, Draco stood and looked around once more.

“I cannot stay in her body any longer,” said Riddle, taking out the diary. He walked to the couch and lay Weasley’s body on it, looking up at Draco as he came to stand near him. “Take my diary back to the dungeons. I will direct you more later,” he said.

The blond nodded, and with a simple opening of his diary, Riddle was gone and Ginny Weasley lay, asleep, on the sofa in Gryffindor’s common room.

-=0=-

23 May, 1993

Summer was creeping over the grounds around the castle; sky and lake alike turned periwinkle blue and flowers, as large as cabbages, burst into bloom in the greenhouses. But with no Hagrid visible from the castle windows, striding the grounds with Fang at his heels, the scene didn’t look right to Harry; no better, in fact, than the inside of the castle, where things were so horribly wrong.

Harry and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing. “We’re taking no more chances,” Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. “No, I’m sorry, there’s every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off…”

With Dumbledore gone, fear had spread as never before, so that the sun warming the castle walls outside seemed to stop at the mullioned windows. There was barely a face to be seen in the school that didn’t look worried and tense, and any laughter that rang through the corridors sounded shrill and unnatural and was quickly stifled.

Harry constantly repeated Dumbledore’s final words to himself: ‘I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me…help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.’ But what good were these words? Who exactly were they supposed to ask for help, when everyone was just as confused and scared as they were?

Hagrid’s hint about the spiders was far easier to understand. The trouble was, there didn’t seem to be a single spider left in the castle to follow. Harry looked everywhere he went, helped (rather reluctantly) by Ron. They were hampered, of course, by the fact that they weren’t allowed to wander off on their own, but had to move around the castle in a pack with other Gryffindors. Most of their fellow students seemed glad that they were being shepherded from class to class by teachers, but Harry found it very irksome.

One person, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of terror and suspicion. Draco Malfoy was strutting around the school as though he had just been appointed Head Boy. Harry didn’t realize what he was so pleased about until the Potion’s class later that day, when, sitting right behind Malfoy, Harry overheard him gloating to Crabbe and Goyle.

“I always thought father might be the one who got rid of Dumbledore,” he said, not troubling to keep his voice down. “I told you he thinks Dumbledore’s the worst headmaster the school’s ever had. Maybe we’ll get a decent headmaster now; someone who won’t want the Chamber of Secrets closed. McGonagall won’t last long, she’s only filling in –”

Snape swept past Harry, making no comment about Hermione’s empty seat and cauldron. “Professor,” said Harry quite calmly, which was rather unusual when talking to Snape. The professor raised an eyebrow at him and Harry could tell Malfoy had stopped to listen to what he’d say. “Professor Dumbledore will be back soon, won’t he?” asked Harry, looking up at Professor Snape intently.

Harry could almost see the thinnest, thin-lipped smile. “Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he’ll be back with us soon enough, Potter.” And he swept off around the dungeon, fortunately not spotting Seamus Finnigan, who’s potion had not turned out as well as he’d have liked.

“I’m quite surprised the Mudbloods haven’t all packed their bags by now,” Malfoy went on, ignoring Harry’s endeavor at showing him up. “Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn’t Granger –”

The bell rang at that moment, which was lucky; at Malfoy’s last words, Ron had leapt off his stool, and in the scramble to collect bags and books, his attempts to reach Malfoy went unnoticed.

“Let me at him,” Ron growled as Harry and Dean hung onto his arms. “I don’t care, I don’t need my wand, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands –”

Snape was rounding up the remaining students, ushering them into the corridor. “Hurry up, I’ve got to take you all to Herbology,” barked Snape over the class’s heads, and off they marched, with Harry, Ron, and Dean bringing up the rear, Ron still trying to get loose. It was only safe to let go of him when Snape had seen them out of the castle and they were making their way across the vegetable patch toward the Greenhouses.

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Riddle had told him to ditch his afternoon class, so as Snape was moving them toward Herbology, Draco escaped by walking slowly, then veering off the path after Snape let them go outside. He knew his Head of House wouldn’t walk them all the way to Herbology, but it worked all the better for Draco, who was instantly back in the castle and heading back toward the dungeons, always twenty paces behind Professor Snape.

He watched as his professor walked into his classroom to prepare for his next lesson, and then easily walked by in order to go to his dormitories. Draco turned the corner toward the entrance to the common room, not stopping until he heard a voice behind him. He knew that voice, but what it was doing in the dungeons, he didn’t know.

Draco turned around, seeing the youngest Weasley escape her friends in order to run to see him. The look Draco gave was half-exasperated, half-blank as he looked over Weasley’s shoulders to the gaping first years she’d left behind. “I have nothing to say to you, Weasley,” said Draco instantly, looking down at her.

“You have the diary,” she said. “Give it back.”

There was a fire in her eyes, but Draco only smirked and leaned his face down closer to hers. “I’ll give it back when Riddle tells me to. You know how that goes,” said Draco, lifting his eyebrows once, quickly, then looking at her pointedly once more.

Her face was red at his words. “What has he told you? I told him my secrets –”

“None of that,” muttered Draco, rolling his eyes. “I could care less of hearing how great and magnificent Saint Potter is. No, Riddle and I have something much bigger to discuss.”

“It’s not—” began Ginny, but she stopped immediately after. She didn’t seem happy to accept Draco’s words in the least bit.

Giggling could be heard by her friends back at the corner of the hallway and Draco smirked to them. “Better get back to your posse. Potions is about to start, isn’t it?”

With a deep frown on her face, Ginny turned around and joined her friends, who were now talking loudly about Ginny talking to Draco. The blond sneered and rolled his eyes, turning around and walking straight into his common room as a fifth year walked out. He was grateful, at least, to see the commons not so crowded. After going to his dorm and getting the diary, Draco walked back and sat comfortably on the medium-sized sofa, opening the diary and dipping his quill in ink.

‘Have you thought of anything?’ Draco wrote, watching his writing disappear like usual.

Riddle’s answer came quickly. ‘You must return to Gryffindor Tower.’ Draco furrowed his brows, but didn’t get a chance to write anything. The answer disappeared, but soon after another replaced it. ‘Tonight.’

Frowning, Draco scrawled another question. ‘Will you be accompanying me?’

‘I do not have the energy,’ wrote Riddle. ‘Find the Weasley girl and tell her I want her to help you. That should be all the influence she needs.’

Somehow, Draco was unsure of that as well. But instead of arguing with the young Dark Lord, Draco shut the diary and headed up to his dorms. If he could finish his studying and homework, he could attempt to find Weasley when she left her Double Potions session.

-=0=-

At half past three, Draco could be seen waiting just outside the dungeons near the Entrance Hall. Soon, the first year Gryffindors were coming through the archway to go to wherever they were headed. He was only looking for one, however; the girl with tell-tale red hair. “Weasley,” Draco called quietly, taking her arm and pulling her over near him. Immediately he let her go, secretively wiped his hand on his robe, and fought the urge to sneer at her.

“What do you want now?” she asked quietly, “Are you giving me the –”

“He said you have to help me,” Draco interrupted very subtly, as there was an abundance of first year girls giggling at the sight of them. Draco wasn’t sure if he wanted to smirk or sneer at them.

Ginny frowned, eyeing him suspiciously. “Why would he want me to do that?” she whispered. “What do you need help with?”

Draco, not liking the girls still eyeing them as if they were about to kiss, gestured for Ginny to follow him back into the dungeons. She hesitated a few seconds, Draco assumed, because he didn’t hear her footsteps behind him until he was ten steps inside. The corridors were clear, thankfully, and after Ginny walked faster to catch up to him, Draco stopped and stayed near the stone wall.

“Riddle told me he wants you to have the diary again,” said Draco, who kept his eyes peeled for anyone coming down the dungeon corridors. “All you have to do is let me in Gryffindor Tower tonight –”

“What?” asked Ginny incredulously, glaring at the blond. “You’re a right foul git, Malfoy, if you think I’m going to give you Gryffindor’s password,” she said.

Draco knew this wasn’t going to go well, but hell if Tom Riddle knew that. Or cared, Draco told himself secretly. “There’s an item hidden in your common room,” began Draco, who didn’t look any more pleased with this situation than Weasley did. He kept his voice low, even though they were alone in the hallway. “I need to get it, and in exchange I’ll give you the diary.”

Her lips were formed into the familiar frown that Draco was accustomed to seeing whenever he or his minions were near. But she seemed to be in thought, leaving Draco hope that she would agree. “Why should I trust you?” the youngest Weasley asked after a moment, staring up at him again, with more suspicion in her eyes now.

“After today, I don’t care who you trust, Weasley,” snapped Draco, who was looking more annoyed now. “You trust Riddle, don’t you? I’m asking for ten minutes in your common room. You have to be there anyway, to let your obtuse excuse of a portrait let me in.”

It took a bit of staring at each other, and Draco’s noncommittal sneer of annoyance, but at last he thought he won her over. Weasley frowned at him, turned away, and ran to catch up with her friends. It wasn’t a sure bet, but it was better than her telling him to get lost. If she refused to help him, he’d have to get Riddle to change her mind.

It was as simple as that.

Scoffing, Draco went back to the common room, grabbed his messenger bag, and headed toward Defense Against the Dark Arts. If Potter was there, maybe he could trick him into telling him the password. Even better, maybe he could trick Longbottom into letting him in all together. Just in case the Weasley girl decided to deceive him.

It was only a few moments after Draco walked into the classroom and sat down did Lockhart bounce into the room. The class stared at him incredulously. Every other teacher in the place was looking grimmer than usual, but Lockhart appeared nothing short of buoyant.

“Come now,” he cried, beaming around him. “Why all these long faces?”

People swapped exasperated looks, but nobody answered.

“Couldn’t be the raging monster that’s loose on the school, could it?” Ron muttered to Harry, who fought the urge to laugh.

“Don’t you people realize, said Lockhart, speaking slowly, as though they were all a bit dim, “the danger has passed? The culprit has been taken away –”

Draco found a smirk on his face. Hagrid, though far from the culprit, was finally in Azkaban. “Says who?” Dean Thomas asked loudly.

Lockhart’s attitude didn’t waver. “My dear young man, the Minister of Magic wouldn’t have taken Hagrid if he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure that he was guilty,” said Lockhart, in the tone of someone explaining that one and one made two.

“Oh, yes he would,” said Ron, even more loudly than Dean.

“I flatter myself to know a touch more about Hagrid’s arrest than you do, Mr. Weasley,” exclaimed Lockhart, beaming with a self-satisfied tone.

Ron started to say that he somehow didn’t think so, but stopped in midsentence when Harry kicked him hard under the desk.

“We weren’t there, remember?” Harry muttered.

But Lockhart’s disgusting cheeriness, his hints that he had always thought Hagrid was no good, his confidence that the whole business was now at an end, irritated Harry so much that he yearned to throw Gadding with Ghouls in Lockhart’s stupid face.

-=0=-

The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o’clock onward, the Gryffindors had nowhere else to go. They also had plenty to talk about, with the result that the common room often didn’t get empty until past midnight. Harry went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of his trunk right after dinner, and spent the evening sitting on it, waiting for the room to clear.

Fred and George challenged Harry and Ron to a few games of Exploding Snap, and Ginny sat watching them, very subdued in Hermione’s usual chair. Harry and Ron kept losing on purpose, trying to finish the games quickly, but even so, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and finally Ginny, went to bed.

Harry and Ron waited for the distant sounds of two dormitory doors closing before seizing the cloak, throwing it over themselves, and climbing through the portrait hole.

There, on the other side, was a hidden Draco Malfoy, who watched the portrait open and no one walk out.

Ginny, then, walked out of her dormitory and back into the common room. She was sure Harry and Ron hadn’t gone to bed, rather out who knew where, but she had her own plans. As long as they weren’t in the common room, they weren’t hindering what she had to do.

The redhead looked around, making sure she really was alone, then opened the portrait and stuck her head out. One low, short whistle resounded throughout the seventh floor, and from around the corner, Draco walked sneakily toward the portrait. “Ten minutes,” warned Ginny as she glared at the blond.

Rolling his eyes, Draco stepped into Gryffindor Tower again, looking around much as he had when he had been there with Riddle. At first, he looked at the mantel, pushing random indents and curves, but nothing moved. He didn’t want to dig up the floor; something told him the Orb was not beneath the wood at any rate.

He stood there for a few more moments, four minutes already used up, when Draco remembered what he’d seen when he had been investigating the floor: a small, barely-noticeable sparkle from below the desk near the portrait hole. Ginny, who sat on the couch, watched him carefully as Draco kneeled by the desk, moving his head around to see where the shimmer was.

It didn’t show up. Frowning, the blond uncharacteristically moved as close as possible without getting under the desk, then felt the stone wall near the floor. No stones were loose or could be pushed in; the only thing semi-odd about the part of the floor was the smallest change of coloring of the wood. While most of the common room was in a mild brown wood, there was box-sized piece of wood that was a shade darker.

Draco tried removing the wood, pushing it, peeling it off, but the wood remained. “What are you doing?” Ginny asked, standing up from her position on the couch.

As she stood, the wood in front of his eyes shifted back, revealing a black velvet case. “Weasley, sit back down,” said Draco excitedly, waving at her without looking.

Ginny, frowning a bit, did what he said and moved back, sitting back down. The wood replaced itself over the container. “What is it?” asked Weasley, trying to see from her sitting position.

“There’s a switch in the wood where you were standing. Stand there again,” said Draco. Ginny did so, and when the wood shifted back, Draco reached into the cove and removed the black container. A small, golden plate was tucked in with it; surely the shimmering item that Draco had before seen when pressing on the wood. It made sense. “This is it,” he whispered, turning the velvet material over in his hands. His eyes bulged slightly as he looked at it.

Ginny, though completely clueless, said nothing to what Draco was talking about. She was presented with the diary, which Draco didn’t seem interested in anymore, and watched him leave the common room without so much as a look back. 

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