Ginny traversed the corridors of Hogwarts to the sounds of morning classes hushed by the school’s aging doors. She rushed past as silently as she could, intent on not disturbing lectures, and crossed no one’s path but a late Ravenclaw kid, with whom Ginny barely avoided a head-on collision with. “Sorry!”

“Urgh!” Tom grumbled, his eyes narrowing in the direction the student had gone in. “This is MY soon-to-be body right there, would it kill them to avoid damaging it!?”

Ginny knew the smart thing to do was not to respond, but something about the slight hurt a bit too much. She couldn’t help herself. “You’re not getting my body, ever. Stop treating it like it’s yours.”

Tom brushed her off. “But it is mine. We might have to… coexist, for now, but if you get damaged or crippled, that would impact me too. So treat my body with a modicum of respect.”

“You’re insufferable,” Ginny growled. “I don’t care if Dumbledore could see you, I will never be your friend.”

“See me…?” Tom threw his head back, laughing. “If his idea of eye contact is staring at my knee the entire time! He’s a magician by all senses of the word, and that includes con artist.”

Ginny’s opinion of Dumbledore mostly contradicted his. Still, if the headmaster hadn’t actually been able to see Tom… “Does that mean he simply guessed your side of the conversation, then?”

Tom paused for a second, seemingly considering something. Finally, with an irritated look on his face, he answered. “Yes. He did.”

Maybe Dumbledore understood Tom that well, then? Maybe there was some sliver of truth in what he’d said. Ginny wasn’t enthused by that idea.

 

She arrived at the Great Hall after some more walking. The already gigantic room had taken titanesque airs now, with the sound of cutlery struggling to fill it.

And, right in the middle of the room, Harry was still slowly making his way through his breakfast, accompanied not by Ron and Hermione, surprisingly, but Luna, sitting across from him at the Gryffindor table.

Ginny promptly hid by the door, suddenly feeling nervous about talking to Harry. Oh god, not only was he already turning her stomach into a lepidopterarium by being handsome and brave, he’d also saved her life, now! How could she ever just… strike up a conversation with someone like him? Sure, she’d done it in those sewers, but there was no adrenaline to carry her through this time… 

Tom looked down at her, shaking his head disapprovingly. Oh, he can shut it, Ginny thought.

“…there’s also Goblins,” Luna’s voice reverberated in the empty Great Hall, Ginny catching the tail end of a conversation. “They don’t really do gender in private. They only dress up for humans’ convenience.”

“…Huh. So all the accountants at Gringotts?” Harry asked, his voice openly displaying his interest.

“Probably their higher-ups asked them to all be men,” Luna continued to explain. “It’s nonsense to them either way, so they judge silently and joke about it in the staff room.”

Ginny wondered why Harry would be into that specific topic; it sounded pretty boring to her. But maybe she would be listening too if she’d been raised like a muggle.

Focusing back on her own situation for a moment… What was she supposed to do? ‘Hi, Harry, your parents’ murderer lives in my head now! He’s a sixteen year old with an attitude! This is totally not awkward!’ she imagined herself saying, and for all of the reasons in the world, immediately came to the conclusion she shouldn’t; at the very least as long as it wasn’t certain whether this was a permanent arrangement.

Her stomach let out a growl. She hadn’t eaten since her midnight snack, and the Great Hall was right there. Tom let out a sigh. “Of all the people who my diary could’ve been handed to, here I am having to herd a first year child into feeding herself.” He grabbed her hand before she could react and pulled her out into the doorway. She stumbled on her feet for a split second, and her eyes made contact with Harry’s and Luna’s. She gasped.

“Hi Ginny!” Harry called happily. “Is everything alright?” His eyebrow arched, observing her run for the Slytherin table.

She tugged her hand free of Tom’s grasp and tried to save face by correcting course to sit next to them, her cheeks burning hot. “S-sorry, I think I’m still a bit out of it.”

Luna, who was slumped over the table, gave Ginny her signature relaxed smile. “No problem. Heya.”

A new set of Hogwarts’ brunch menu magically appeared in front of Ginny, complete with tableware. She reached for the eggs and bacon and put them on her plate, poured herself a glass of apple juice — keeping her hands busy helped calm her down. “I… didn’t know you two hung out together.” She paused. “Wait, shouldn’t you be in class, Luna?”

“Yeah,” Luna unaffectedly replied. “Thought waiting for you was more important. You’re my friend and all.”

Ginny felt touched by the gesture, even if she wasn’t sure how to feel about the skipping classes part.

“Actually, it’s my first time talking to her,” Harry admitted. “Hermione insisted she didn’t want to miss any more class time, Ron went with her because she could barely walk straight… And I think the other petrified kids ran to their common rooms the moment they finished their breakfast, so that left us behind. Luna moved to my table, we chatted it up…” His expression turned pensive. “She knows a lot of interesting stuff.”

“It’s nice to have someone that likes hearing me talk,” Luna said. Ginny was never fully sure how to interpret her tone.

For a short moment, Ginny had forgotten about Tom’s presence, but was unfortunately reminded when she caught a glimpse of him floating in circles around Harry, phasing through the table like a common ghost. He was scrutinizing him, silently searching for his next move.

Harry, oblivious to his nemesis staring him in the face, placed his cutlery on his empty plate and got up, stretching his arms. “On that note, I’m going to head to class; spending time with my friends is my idea of a day off. It was nice talking with you, Luna! See you around, Ginny.”

Ginny breathed a sigh of relief as her crush left the table. She remembered the message she had to deliver just in the nick of time, calling at him before he was out of earshot. “Ah — Also! Dumbledore said you have to go see him when you have the time!”

“Huh, again? Thanks.” As he turned once more and his robe loosely followed his movements, she was surprised to notice, as she caught a glimpse at his shoes, that he was only wearing one sock.

As she turned back to her meal, Ginny was taken aback by the cacophony of Tom and Luna attempting to talk to her at the same time. She grimaced at the noise, her hand jumping to cover her left ear. “I’m sorry, what were you saying, Luna?”

Luna tilted her head, while Tom took a step back and let her go first. “You look in pain. What happened?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ginny said before thinking. As her brain caught up to the opportunity before her, she considered for a moment whether she could mention Tom to Luna. Ultimately, she decided against it for now — while the risk of awkwardness was almost none with Luna compared to Harry, Ginny still preferred to wait and see if something could be done about it first. She focused back on her plate and cut off a piece of meat. “Some fly or something must’ve flown by my ear.”

“That would sound loud at that distance, yes.” Luna scooted back on her seat, and started swinging her legs. “Harry is nice. I like them. You have a crush on them, I think.”

Ginny froze, her forkful of bacon standing an inch from her mouth. “No, I don’t!” she defensively replied, reddening by the second.

“Oh? I thought you looked like you did,” Luna said, taking Ginny at her word.

With a sigh, Ginny finally bit down on her food and shrank a little into her seat. “Sorry, I thought you’d — I didn’t mean that literally. I do have a little crush on him, I guess…”

At that, Luna perked up. “I understand! I’ve heard lots of people in our year do.”

Ginny grimaced at her friend’s unintended blow. “I guess that makes sense…” Competition… It had to come with the territory of him being that kind of celebrity, she supposed. She started to feel inadequate — there were so many intimidatingly pretty girls in her year, in Harry’s, even, and in years above, and she was just Ginny. If any of them tried to seduce him, it would probably work; meanwhile she was just a girl with a puppy crush. “There go my chances, I guess,” she muttered. Not that she was much helped by the brain-ghost she exchanged a glance with at this moment, who answered by rolling his eyes.

“It depends,” Luna said, swinging her head left and right. “I don’t think many people will be open-minded enough.”

“What do you mean?” Ginny asked.

“Harry is a little special. Wait, no…” Luna corrected herself. “I think Harry is a little special.”

Ginny couldn’t help but smile as she shook her head. “That’s kind of an understatement…” Not many people could claim to have bested Voldemort twice… Hell, thrice now… Two and a half? Well, Tom’s plan had at least been foiled, even if he was unexpectedly hanging on. That counted as a three, honestly.

As Luna zoned out, Ginny took it as an opportunity to focus on her food before it grew cold. She started digging in in earnest, but silently growled as she was interrupted by Tom. “Is the girl talk over? Might I come in?” he demanded, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Ginny elected not to dignify this with a reply, chewing her food.

Undeterred, Tom spoke up again. “You have a strange friend, Gryffindor girl. Not quite all there. Probably dreams of nonsense creatures, doesn’t she?”

Is that what you think of her!?, Ginny thought, honestly disgusted. Sure, Luna wasn’t quite like most people, but what kind of person would interpret people like her that way? Nevermind, she had a pretty good idea. Started with R, ended in G… Revolting.

“You could be keeping better company, you know. I could offer you so much more,” Tom whispered into her ear. “All it would take is to work for me, and you wouldn’t have to spend your time with… the underprivileged.”

Ginny was starting to see a pattern of it always being correct to believe the opposite of anything Tom said. Still, she wanted to grimace. She had no doubt in her mind that that kind of offer was exactly how he had earned his first followers… Never had it stared her this blatantly in the face just what it took to be a Death Eater. She decided to counter his resolve with her own, and spoke up, doing her best to address her reply to both Luna and Tom. “I really like hanging out with you, Luna. I wouldn’t trade it even for the world.” She looked at him a bit smugly, feeling proud of that one.

“Hmm?” Luna perked up and Ginny quickly turned back to her. “Thanks.”

Tom grimaced, crossing his arms. “Message received.”

Ginny started getting up as she downed the rest of her glass in a single gulp before slamming it back down on the table. “We should get to class.”

Luna stayed put. “You could take the day off.”

“I feel like I’ve missed enough of the year as is… My memory’s kind of all fuzzy,” Ginny admitted.

“Sorry to hear that. Let’s, then.” Luna followed Ginny’s movement, and the two girls headed out of the Great Hall, with Tom right by the latter’s shoulder.

“If it is magical prowess that you desire, I can also help with that,” he offered, apparently undeterred to try to convert Ginny to his cause.

 

Most of the day consisted of Ginny hugging walls and walking ahead of the pack of first years she was a part of. The attention wasn’t something she was interested in receiving, especially now that moments of welcome solitude were looking to become rarer than ever. Of course that wasn’t to say she hadn’t been subjected to her share of curious queries and prying glances, but most people stepped away before getting to any follow up questions. Maybe people were being considerate, or maybe some unspoken threat to house points kept them in line.

At the end of the day, some of the upcoming challenges of this situation dawned on her. While students were using their free time to hang around the castle grounds or to prepare for the exams at the library, she once again rushed, this time, to the Gryffindor tower. And yet another complication came as she stared, unsure what to make of it, at the stairs of the Gryffindor tower that lead to the girl quarters.

She raised up a foot and hovered it above the first step, which immediately began to wobble in uncertainty. She removed her foot, and the stairs regained their stability. She lifted it up once more… And, well, she got the picture.

Somehow, the strange anti-boy enchantment on the stairs was picking up on Tom’s presence.

“Who would ever install such nonsense?” Tom exclaimed after Ginny shared with him her findings. On that, unfortunately, she had to agree with Teen-Voldemort, at the cost of a sick taste in her mouth. “Gryffindors,” he continued beratingly.

Ginny peeked around the corner of the staircase’s pillar, and grimaced, thinking ahead. “That’s not the only problem, too. Even if we manage to get up, I wouldn’t want you having access to the girls’ dorm.”

Tom grumbled out a reply. “Quite… insulting, to assume I would be interested in prepubescent first graders, but I am not fond of that option either.”

Defeated, Ginny sat at the bottom of the stairs to the girls’ dorm for a second, hanging on the landing that split the path into two. As much as she could feel the enchantment quiver in confusion, it at least wasn’t throwing her off. That would be a good sign, but it only led back to her second concern.

“We have to come up with a solution. I want my body well rested,” Tom said, looking pensive.

Unable to find anything that didn’t involve giving up and sleeping in the hospital wing, Ginny’s thoughts drifted to her visit to Dumbledore's office again. They had intermittently done so all day, but now that she was done with the school schedule, she was finally given a moment to actually process them. Helping Tom… Well, he certainly had shown her the depth of his awfulness, and she had never understood the drive, in stories she had attempted to read from her mom’s romance collection, of women that threw themselves over backwards trying to ‘fix’ a man. Yet in this instance, Dumbledore seemed so convinced it was possible… Dumbledore, Britain’s most powerful and renowned wizard, saw in Tom Marvolo Riddle, saw in Lord Voldemort… a hurt orphan. “Dumbledore said you lived in an orphanage? Was it that bad?” Ginny asked, before her brain made one more connection. “Is that why you care about keeping my body healthy this much?”

Tom stared at her, looking hurt and angry. “I will not comment on that. Not to mention you should know already, I told you about it while I was sealed in my diary.”

“Yeah, well, whose fault is it that I don’t remember most of our conversations,” Ginny snapped back. She started hearing some noise in the common room below, other students had come in. She poked her head above the railing and looked down. She recognized the distinctive Weasley hair of her brothers Fred and George, who quickly noticed her back, and climbed upstairs to come see her.

“We had a feeling we would find you there. Is our little sister holding up okay?” Fred asked.

“I’m not sure, Fred, she does look quite grumpy,” George observed. “But grumpy is lively! An improvement over the last few months, don’t you think?”

Ginny gave them a small smile. “Thanks, guys. Yeah, I’m doing better. I think I might go back to the hospital wing, though… I’m still feeling a bit, uh…”

“Wobbly?” George said.

“Shaken?” Fred added.

“Confused, maybe?”

“Her choice of seating seems to agree.”

Ginny stood up immediately, her breath catching in her throat. “It’s — I can explain—”

Fred placed his hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Look at us. It’s fine, alright? You have our full support.”

“These stairs have always been weird,” George whispered conspiratorially. “We were just a year above you when we first ran into the same issue.”

Whatever confusion Ginny felt at Fred’s words was quickly replaced by exasperation at George’s. “You tried getting up the girls’ staircase?”

George shrugged, a smirk on his face. “You know us, we can’t resist a good challenge.”

“We wouldn’t have tried if there hadn’t been one!” Fred added.

“Aaah,” Ginny cooed. Now it made sense. “Wait… So what issue did you guys run into?”

Fred and George looked at one another and nodded, before turning back to Ginny. “Well, the same as you, right?” Fred asked.

“It approves of women, but sends men tumbling down?” George completed the thought.

Ginny caught a glance of Tom’s quickly souring face. She immediately understood why as Harry popped by, who seemingly was heading to his own dorm. He swerved towards the three of them, though, a smile on his face — Ginny shrunk back behind her brothers, feeling shy. “Oh, Fred, George, Ginny! Did you hear the news yet? I’m gonna live in Hogwarts for the summer! No more Dursleys for me!”

“Wow!” Fred exclaimed. “That is good news!”

“I’ve wondered why you lived there since last summer, if I’m honest,” George said, referring back to what Dad now called the First Flying Car Incident (he’d been very mad about the scratches, but it was nothing compared to when it was totalled and lost by Ron).

The two twins turned their heads to each other for a second, and with a twinkle of mischief in their eyes, Fred spoke up. “Oh, Harry! Want to learn how to get up the girls’ stairs?”

Ginny fidgeted and blushed. How dare they trick her into having to spend even more time with Harry? Wasn’t her anxious heart battered enough? At least she was silently grateful that this specific idea was not likely to grab Harry’s interest…

Or so she thought, yet Harry froze on the spot. He turned his head back towards Fred and George, before glancing at Ginny. “I… can’t imagine that’s a good idea. It’d be weird if I knew how, right?” His tone sounded shaky, like he was trying to convince himself.

“It’s much more innocent than you’d expect, really,” George said.

Fred walked up a couple steps, which didn’t waste any time sliding him back down. “Hmm, George, I’m afraid we’re a little too much brother to get up.”

“Sounds like we need to be sisters, then!” With a shrug and a smile, George passed by Fred and started walking up… and up… and at no point did any form of alarm kick in. Ginny stared a little confused, and Harry did too in admiration.

Tom shook his head, grunting. “This is all an incredible waste of my time.”

“Okay, how did you do that?” Harry asked, grinning.

“It’s quite simple!” Fred said.

Just as suddenly, the steps beneath George’s feet gave way, but he rode the slide down unsurprised. “All you need is to think of yourself as a woman like you mean it.” The twins bumped fists and turned back to their audience. “Easy to switch to and from, isn’t it?”

Fred slid behind Harry and pushed him ahead. “Give it a try, won’t you?”

“Ah, uh…” Harry stared at the stairs, lost in a daze. Tentatively he gave it a try, and found the steps disrobing under his feet. Surprisingly, he seemed undeterred, and continued his attempts.

George slid by Ginny and whispered in her ear. “Hey. If I can be serious for a minute. I can imagine what it must be like to grow up to be the only girl with a bunch of brothers. It’s why you had trouble with the stairs just now, right?”

Ginny’s expression went blank as she realized the nature of this ‘intervention’. This had all been one giant misunderstanding. “Haha. Yes. Totally,” she answered in a monotone. She couldn’t imagine telling them the truth here and now. Not while Harry was within earshot at least, as distracted as he was.

He held her by the shoulder and hugged her tight for a second, still whispering. “Ginny, you’re the best sister we’ve ever had. You don’t have to fear that you’re not enough of a woman, alright?”

“Thank you,” she replied nervously, as if that had been anywhere in the ballpark of concerns she’d genuinely had.

“I…” Harry stood a little way up the staircase. “I did it. Wow, I am… wow.”

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Fred said to him, before exchanging a glance with George, who silently confirmed they were done here.

Harry climbed back down one step at a time, and smiled at the Weasleys. Then his expression shifted to something a bit more embarrassed. “Ah, sorry, I came here to grab some books from my room originally… If you’ll excuse me.” And just like that, he weaved past the twins and headed up the boys’ stairs.

“I, uh, need to go to my room too. I’m still kind of tired and everything.” Ginny slunk back from her brothers with too wide a grin. “See you around, right?”

George nodded. “Talk to us anytime, Ginny.”

“Anytime!” Fred emphasized. “You know we mean it!”

Ginny scuttered up the wobbling stairs as quickly as she could, climbing to her dorm with Tom in tow.

 

Ginny slammed the door of her room closed with her whole body, and headed to slump on her bed with a sigh of relief. Once her head hit her pillow, she groaned into it, letting the tension in her whole body dissipate.

“Gryffindor girl,” Tom called out for her attention. Seeing no reply, he repeated himself a bit more loudly. “Gryffindor girl.”

“Go away, Tom…” Ginny muttered, her voice completely muffled.

Tom thought for a moment, and headed away from her as far as he could. He didn’t even reach halfway through the room before some magical force progressively stopped any further progress. With an exaggerated shrug, he swung back, floating towards her with his hands behind his head. “I suppose it was worth trying at some point.”

Ginny agreed it really, really was. If only it had actually worked.

With a frown, Tom floated back to the ground and sat on the bed next to her. “Listen. It is becoming increasingly obvious that, whether either of us likes it or not, we seem to be forced into a… cooperative arrangement,” he spat out. “This is the closest I have ever gotten to existence, since my ‘creation’ fifty years ago.”

“Cry me a river, Voldemort,” Ginny replied, not moving an inch.

Tom chuckled in a way that sounded a bit too fake. “Oh, so this little girl can snap back, good to know. My point was that, like it or not, we are… at a stalemate, of sorts. You are unhappy with this situation, I am unhappy with this situation… And needless to say, if it ever escalates… War shall mean annihilation of us both.”

An image of Tom pushing her down some stairs to a potentially lethal fall passed through her mind, and she grimaced, both at the thought, and at knowing he very much had had the same. 

“My death wouldn’t help me,” he continued, “Nor would sacrificing myself to take down a single Hogwarts first year help the version of me that still exists out there. I have told you — I want control over your body. Damaging it would go against my interests. Considering these conditions, I believe I must offer a pre-emptive truce.”

Ginny poked her face out of her pillow, wearily glancing at him. “…What are you scheming?”

Tom splayed his hands out, raising them up to his face. “Nothing!” 

This sounded like an obvious lie coming from someone that had threatened to ‘tear her family apart’ earlier in the day. Obviously, there was something he would be getting out of this deal that he wasn’t telling… at best. “I’m not asking Dumbledore to stop looking for a way to remove you.”

“Knowing the old coot, he already knows it can’t be done. Don’t expect him to waste his too precious time for you,” he said in a sneering tone. “And that was not what I had in mind anyway. I meant that if you won’t be hostile to my presence, I won’t be to yours. Beginning with tolerating my presence in this room, hmm? We clearly cannot get away from one another, but if I want my body well cared for, I need you to sleep in your own bed. I do not want you to use my existence as an excuse not to. So our goals, in the very short term, align.”

Ginny was no gullible fool. Everything about this screamed extremely suspicious, quadruply so from this one exact individual. Tom was no stranger to deception; she had observed it first hand for the past year after all. Yet there were a few buts. First came Tom’s strange selective honesty. His kind of lying came more from omission. He very much kept a lot to himself, but what he did say seemed (for the most part) truthful. Notably and for example, he could’ve easily lied about his childhood… It was strange that he had offered that information himself. 

Secondly, and she sighed as she thought about it, this kind of truce would be the perfect opportunity to enact Dumbledore’s request. Not that she’d want to be his friend exactly, but keeping tabs on him, giving him ‘the proper environment to thrive in’… She felt a growing headache at the thought, but that was as close to a preventive action as she could take. Nothing about keeping things as they were promised anything good ahead. She might as well steer them in a direction she agreed with. 

And thirdly… Living in a space between courage and foolhardiness was the Gryffindor value of honesty at all costs. She was morally beholden to at least give it a chance, to try. She could always pull out at the first sign of trouble. 

“Okay… Fine. But I’m closing my curtains and you’re to stay within them. It’s one thing that I’ll let you in here, but I can’t speak for my dormmates.” And she didn’t want to tell them about Tom yet. She’d finally decided that if anyone had to know, it could wait until the start of the next year. There were only a few weeks left, and Summer would give her plenty of time to plan things out. “And you need to stop calling me ‘Gryffindor girl’. My name is Ginny.”

Tom and Ginny stared for a long time at one another, until he tentatively reached a hand out. Ginny did the same, and they shook on it, both parties various degrees of begrudging. “Very well. Thank you for your cooperation, Ginny.”

It couldn’t be a mistake if she was aware she had to stay vigilant, right?