"Sorry, Aunt Petunia."

Chapter 23: Life Goes On (stream this masterpiece)

Hermione and Ron seemed rather twitchy around Professor McGonagall during their next Transfiguration class.

Harry had no idea why. Neville didn’t seem to have a clue either.

Draco, however, did.

He caught up to them after class, pushing them to hide in one of the blind corridors.

“That wasn’t Professor McGonagall,” he gasped out.

“What do you mean?” Neville asked. “Was that an impostor just now-”

“No, not now, when we got caught at the Astronomy Tower!”

Hermione went rigid, expression frozen. “What?”

“Professor Snape went to visit her when he was taking me back to the dormitory; she was still in her teaching robes and said she hadn’t been patrolling that night at all! She even had a witness!”

“Then…” Ron blanched, his face almost as translucent as a ghost. “Then who caught us?”

The kids exchanged uncomfortable glances, unable to answer.

Without another word, they left the corridor - Herbology wouldn’t wait for them.

***

For a visit to Lucius, Riddle had invested in some rather interesting charms - he had to make certain that nothing could connect him to Quirrell, after all - even with the Polyjuice safely out of his body.

He trusted Lucius as far as he could throw- no, that’d be rather far, if magic was involved.

Let’s just say he didn’t trust the man at all. And for him to have been in charge of his Diary, all these years… Shows how badly his thinking had been inhibited.

The man obviously groveled rather intensely. Riddle didn’t even have to use his Legilimency to know that the man had been planning on getting rid of the book, and rather soon, too.

For Merlin’s sake, he’d been storing it out in the open on a random shelf in his study!

Yes, Lucius was rather useless. Narcissa, however…

“Madam.” He nodded slightly as he encountered her in the corridor.

“My Lord,” she responded, although… It was clear she did not mean it.

He did not try to look into her mind - Narcissa, just as all members of the Black family, had impeccable shielding. But he didn’t have to do that to know that she was worried.

“I do apologize for any discomfort my past actions have caused you,” he hedged awkwardly, talking around the large gaps in his memory which stretched out from the moment he dealt with his father. “I had not been… of a clear mind, back then.”

“And you are now?” Narcissa asked, bitterly. Then, as if an afterthought, “My Lord.”

Riddle grimaced. “You may stop calling me that, please. It is not a title I have earned.”

That, more than anything else, seemed to break through the famous Black stubbornness.

“If I may ask…?”

“Please.”

“What happened to my cousin Regulus Black?”

Riddle blinked. He remembered him, of course he did, the brilliant man. But-