It moved.

It's probably not physically possible. It wasn't physically possible, it couldn't possibly be physically possible. And yet Ginny could feel, like in the story about The Princess And The Doxy Egg, that there were less things under her bed than there were supposed to be. And like in that fable, she would soon be set upon by doxies – or worse.

Where was Tim? Where was he? Ginny quickly tore apart the mountain of blankets beneath her bed, and confirmed that the box was empty. Someone had taken Tim out of his box, and Ginny didn't know where they'd put him.

Had Ginny been possessed and Obliviated recently? She didn't know. It was the middle of the afternoon and she was lying on her bed and she couldn't quite remember when she'd gotten here. Her lip wasn't freshly wounded, but perhaps this time she had been actively prevented from marking herself thus; simply being surprised with physical contact with the diary and being mentally overpowered to the extent that she had no control whatsoever over her body ought to do it.

Ginny's eyes shot to Pansy Parkinson, who was sitting on her bed adjacent to Ginny's, brushing her hair, poorly. No, the diary wasn't anywhere nearby. Then where was it?

Tim – Diary – Box – Draco?

Ginny was soon running to the boys' dormitories, and then to Draco's private room. A quick knock (the secret one Draco had shown her) opened the door, and revealed that he was studying – but mildly, though pleasantly, confused by Ginny's presence.

"Ginny!" said Draco. "What is it?"

"Where is Tim?" said Ginny, firm punctuation after each word.

"You lost him?" said Draco, appalled.

"No, wand-shard," said Ginny, who had no time for nonsense today. "He escaped somehow."

"...what?" said Draco.

"What is Tim?" said Ginny.

"He's a book," said Draco. "He can't escape."

"What is he?" said Ginny. "You know better than I do; you're where he came from. Sorry, I skipped over something – he's what was petrifying people."

"What?" said Draco. "No, that's – what evidence do you have?" He'd gone from bored to sweating in nothing flat.

"I began to suspect I was being Obliviated," said Ginny, "so I began taking precautionary measures. And then one day I wake up to discover that I've sent myself a signal that I'm afraid I'm about to be Obliviated, and I don't remember sending it. So I check in a predesignated location, and I've recorded a message for myself in Parseltongue that I'm about to let Tim possess me and investigate the Chamber. And I don't remember recording the message and I don't remember being possessed. And then I find out Marietta Edgecombe's just been petrified. So I get the general idea that something's up, you know?"

Draco was just repeating "oh God" over and over again in various intonations.

"I immediately shut him in his box and pledged to myself not to open it, and there haven't been any attacks since," said Ginny.

"So-" started Draco.

"So I think I was right," said Ginny, "and now Tim's disappeared. Someone rifled through my things and removed him, I think, and they put everything back in order but I could feel that it had happened. I think I've been Obliviated again. This is a disaster. Tell me everything you know about Tim."

"I had some idea that my father got him from the Dark Lord," said Draco, "but I didn't update on that once I realized that he was just out-and-out evil and didn't have any of our best interests in mind and wouldn't give someone a gift just to reward them. They always have catches! Like the silver hand he gave Fenrir Greyback!"

"Yeah, strangled him, I know," said Ginny. "And I knew Tim came from Voldemort. But he said he was made out of an unwilling test subject, and now he hated Voldemort and wanted to act against him."

"The Dark Lord wouldn't create a being that could turn against him," said Draco. "And Tim didn't tell me anything like that; he just said he was named Tim. There wasn't any backstory, not as far as he provided. He just listened to me talk about my problems, and responded with support. Sometimes he gave advice, and sometimes he indicated that he had some basic background about the wizarding world, but he needed me to update him on any new current events that happened. Eventually he convinced me to consent to possession, but as far as I could tell, he only ever did things while I was possessed that I already wanted, so I was just thankful for it."

"Do you have a perfect memory of being possessed?" said Ginny.

"Of course not!" said Draco. "Tim explained to me that being possessed impairs your ability to form memories. I only remember the fadeout."

"That's not what he told me," said Ginny. "In fact, he told me he had no ability to make me anything less than fully aware while possessed, and he told me in a magic way that prevented him from lying."

"What, did he make an Unbreakable Vow to you?" said Draco.

"No, he spoke to me in Parseltongue," said Ginny. "I'm a Parselmouth, and you can't lie in Parseltongue. Of course, it eventually turned out I was being Obliviated, so I guess he was twisting the truth..."

"The Dark Lord was a Parselmouth," said Draco. "He'd use it to control his pet snake – of course, she's long since dead, thank God; she was even more antagonistic with the Death Eaters than he was." Ginny and Draco stared at each other uncomfortably.

"Could Tim be the Dark Lord in some way?" asked Ginny.

"Maybe," said Draco. "It sounds like the kind of thing you'd find in a tome of eldritch lore, coming back to life through your own talking diary."

"We're both such idiots," said Ginny. "It's so obvious. The conditions your father told you that you should open Tim under – did they sound a lot like 'once Voldemort is apparently as far as anyone can tell one hundred percent dead'?"

"No," said Draco. "...yes." Ginny made a vocal sound that fulfilled the same purpose as an expletive but was not a coherent linguistic expression. "I see what you're saying. It's the only way anything makes sense; I became sentimentally attached to Tim, but his entire existence only makes sense if he's actually the Dark Lord. We're in trouble."

"The question is just, what does he want with the Chamber of Secrets, and why is he attacking people?" said Ginny.

"And where is he?" said Draco.

"That's what I was asking you!" said Ginny.

"I don't know," said Draco.

"You don't know," said Ginny, "and I don't know, so where is he? Who else could possibly have him? Luna? I remember loaning Tim to Luna once, but she said she didn't let him possess it. They actually didn't get along with each other at all, so that didn't make sense."

"You loaned Tim out?" said Draco.

"Yeah, I know, I'm an idiot," said Ginny.

"To Luna?" said Draco, still indignant.

"I know," said Ginny, more indignant still.

"Don't hiss at me," said Draco.

"Sorry," said Ginny, and she blushed. "Who else?

"Hmm..." said Draco.

"The Defense Professor is suspicious because he's the Defense Professor," said Ginny, "among other reasons, which admittedly aren't very significant, like how no one's sure where he lived for a decade after the war, and how he's so much more skilled than everyone who knew him remembered, and now he's acting as a mysterious old wizard for heroes-to-be - but it's all technically possible for someone who went off and independently studied for a decade; he's frankly pretty similar to Monroe. And I can't think of any connection he has to Tim."

"You're right," said Draco.

"Harry's been acting weird lately," said Ginny. "Maybe we should check him."

"Okay," said Draco. "What about Hermione?"

"Well, she's been normal," said Ginny, "but maybe that's exactly the act she'd be putting on if she were up to something. Good point. The Headmistress?"

"Now we're just getting silly," said Draco. "Everyone can't be Tim. We need to narrow it down to the most likely-"

A soft echo of the hard scream of a prefect, rebounded through the corridors:

"Granger's been petrified!"