Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Inbetween Seven Years ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Dragonball Z.

Chapter Three

Dear Mom,

Here's my letter, just like I promised! I expect you won't be getting it for another week or so seeing as though Kinto'un can only fly so fast and he has to get over continents. Make sure he gets plenty of rest after he delivers my letter.

How are you doing? I hope you're well and that your pregnancy is going perfectly normal. Do you know when the baby will be born? I'll try and ask Professor Dumbledore if I can get that week off and spend it with you. Are the guys and Bulma still giving you a hard time about letting me leave to Hogwarts? If they are just show them this letter and maybe it'll give them some faith on my school school's credibility.

My first week at Hogwarts was great! I got sorted into Gryffindor, but the Sorting Hat said that Ravenclaw would have done me some good as well. Ravenclaw is where all the smart people are sorted. Don't worry about that though, Gryffindor's a great place and I couldn't be happier to be in it.

I've already met some of the older students. Fred and George Weasley and their friend Lee Jordan have taken it upon themselves to show me around Hogwarts and teach me a few tricks of theirs…

"Now, do you see that suit of armor, Gohan?" George asked, as the four of them peered around the hallway corner during lunch one day.

"Yes…So what about it?" Gohan asked, peering curiously at his newfound friends.

"That's the entrance to one of the secret passageways around the castle," Fred said, nodding importantly. "There's a lot of them, but this is one of the important seven."

"Where's it lead to?" Gohan replied.

"It goes underground and out to the Forbidden Forest," Lee Jordan added. "There are certain areas of it, though, that open up behind tapestries and portraits in the classroom corridors. They lead into all of them, except in the dungeons where potions is held."

"And I suppose this is how Filch gets around so fast?" Gohan stated, a frown forming on his face. He already had an encounter with the nasty caretaker who had tried to blame him and J.B. for a puddle of goop in the Charms corridor.

"You're catching on fast!" George exclaimed, a strange glint in his eyes. "And do you know the perfect way to ruffle Filch's feathers?"

…Fred and George are a little on the 'wild side', but they're all right most of the time.

My housemates are all really wonderful and two of them have become my friends rather quickly. One, is Ginny Weasley (she's the twins' younger sister) and the other is Jeffery Baracles, though he prefers to be called J.B. Ginny is very nice and I can talk to her about almost anything. J.B. has loads of interesting stories to tell and we share a lot of the same interests. (His Muggle Dad is a big fan of old Kung-fu movies can you believe my luck?) My other dorm mates-Artemus Root and Colin Creevy-are all right, though Colin tends to get on the annoy side with his camera. I have threatened to break it if he ever flashes it in my face again, especially if it's three in the morning and the only reason is because he wanted to get a picture of a sleeping Japanese person…

Anyways, classes went very well this week and I think my favorite is going to be Transfiguration if Defense Against the Dark Arts doesn't pick up the pace. Professor Lockhart, the Defense professor, is a complete and utter moron and I am telling the truth! He may have written half the booklist, but he is the most self-absorbed person I have ever met! He hasn't taught us a thing in our first week (besides what his favorite color is, his ideal birthday present, and never to let pixies loose, but the second year class learned that, not us.) and he's always making the girls sigh and bat their eyes and other mushy stuff. It's disgusting.

It's hard to tell who's worse; Professor Lockhart or Professor Snape. At least Professor Lockhart is nice. Professor Snape reminds me of a human Vegeta, if there ever could be such a thing...

"Can anyone tell me what properties make up the Draught of Living Death?" Professor Snape asked, searching around the classroom for a raised hand or some indication that someone knew the answer. When no hands were raised, he sneered and continued on, "Well, it seems that you all are a bunch of dunderheads, aren't you?"

"Fred and George weren't lying when they said he looks like an overgrown, greasy fruit bat," Ginny whispered to Gohan, which caused him to grin.

"How about you, Mr. Son?" Snape called, as he walked over to their table, his sneer still in place. "Do you know the answer to my question? Or were you, perhaps, paying too much attention to Miss Weasley to actually listen?"

"No, sir,"

"Well, then, would you mind answering my question or does that prove too much of a difficultly for you?"

"Um…I think its asphodel and wormwood, Professor," Gohan replied, slightly unsure. After all, One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi was not the most deep and entertaining schoolbook.

"Correct you are, Mr. Son," Snape said, before turning the rest of the class. "Well? Why aren't the rest of you copying this information down?"

…Professor Snape actually teaches us something useful, but he's not my favorite teacher by far.

I went to visit Hagrid with Ginny yesterday. I think the only reason she went along, besides my offer, was because she knew that Harry Potter might be around Hagrid's somewhere. I think she has an even bigger infatuation with him than Colin does, although I haven't seen her snapping pictures of him everywhere he goes…

…J.B. just threw a pillow at me and told me 'to blow the bloody candle out and go to bed already, Gohan'. I better listen if I don't want to be cursed tomorrow morning.

Love your son,

Gohan

"J.B.!" Gohan howled, chucking the pillow back across the room. "You made me blot the ink! Now my mom won't be able to read some of my letter!"

"Oh, you're writing a letter, are you?" J.B. replied, poking his head out from behind his hanging curtains. "I thought you were finishing Snape's essay early. I can't let you do that without my help, can I?"

"It's most likely you'd be copying off my parchment during Defense Against The Dark Arts than helping me with it. I've seen your study habits." Gohan said playfully. "And besides, I finished it alrea-Hey!" Gohan cried out when another pillow hit him in the face. "What was that for, Artemus?"

"For being an insufferable know-it-all and keeping me awake!" Artemus responded, throwing back his curtains to glare at his other dorm mates. "Tomorrow might be Saturday, but I want to have a lie in and you two better not be up early like you were on Thursday, shouting about Merlin knows what. And that goes for you too, Colin!"

"Shh! He's sleeping already, you prat!" J.B. warned, throwing a pillow at Artemus, hitting him in the head and messing up his blond hair. "Don't wake him up!"

"Well you're going to wake him up if you keep throwing pillows like that!" Artemus replied, throwing two pillows back at J.B., one of them missing and hitting Gohan again.

"Hey!" Gohan protested, spitting out some feathers from his mouth. "I'm not even in on this argument and I'd like to be left out of it!"

His answer was two more pillows getting whipped at him; one from Artemus and the other from J.B. Gohan safely tucked his letter and ink away before standing up on his bed with a pillow in hand. The other two boys met his challenge and the first Gryffindor pillow fight of the year began.

The pillow fight lasted for almost fifteen minutes and J.B. accidentally woke Colin up when he fell onto his bed, causing Colin to join in the fight. They only stopped when Percy came barging into their dormitory with his pajamas on and told them to stop their infernal yelling or else he'd report them to Professor McGonagall in the morning. They did stop, but were unable to get back to sleep and stayed up to talk for a bit afterwards.

"That stupid pillow fight made me hungry," J.B. mumbled and Artemus nodded his head in agreement. "Too bad we can't have a midnight snack…"

"I ate all my chocolate frogs from the train and I don't think Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans would be a nice snack either," Artemus said, shaking his head sadly.

"Well…we could always sneak into the kitchens," Gohan suggested and his dorm mates stared at him. "What? It was only a suggestion!"

"That'd be a brilliant plan despite the facts that it's almost midnight, past curfew, and that we don't even know where the kitchens are," Artemus replied, rolling his eyes. "We'd be caught by Filch and get detentions and points taken away-"

"Oh, Arty you're such a goodie goodie," J.B. interrupted. "Every good Hogwarts student sneaks out once and a while. My Mum did it loads of times with her friends."
"And how many times was she caught?" Colin piped up from the corner.

"A few, but it was because she being stupid and was too busy snogging the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain to be paying attention to if she was hidden or not." J.B. replied, waving his hand in an irritated away and ignoring the grins Colin and Artemus were flashing at each other and the confused look on Gohan's face. "My point is, that if Gohan wants to try and find the kitchens, we should go right along with him."

"I don't need to find the kitchens," Gohan said, drawing attention to him again. "Fred and George already showed me where they are when they gave me that tour during lunch on Wednesday. And we don't have to worry about being caught because I can feel where people are in the castle."

"So that's how you've been getting to all your classes on time and without getting lost!" Colin exclaimed, his eyes widening. "Where'd you learn that, Gohan? Is it magic?"

"Well-"

"Of course it's magic, Colin! With all that reading Gohan does, he probably picked the spell up in a book and preformed it on himself!" Artemus interrupted, shaking his head. "So we know where the kitchens are and we have a safe way of getting there…"

"Do I hear any objections for having a little midnight snack with a bit of adventure on the side?" J.B. asked and when no one objected, he hoped off his bed and walked towards the door. "What are we waiting for, gentlemen? Food awaits!"

"I still don't see how Colin was able to get up at the crack of dawn to go watch Potter for Quidditch practice," Artemus mumbled the next morning, blearily picking at his bacon. "He's insane."

"He's obsessive, that's what," J.B. replied sleepily, running a hand through his wild brown hair.

"He's not that bad," Gohan added, before briefly remembering his letter to his mother. "But he is very annoying."

"You know what else is annoying? Spending half the night trying to find the kitchens and almost getting caught too! I wasn't even in the mood to have a treacle tart when we finally got there last night!" Artemus hissed, glaring at Gohan from his vantage point.

"It's not my fault! The castle looks different at midnight than it does at noontime!" Gohan responded. "At least I didn't have the brilliant idea to cast a lumos charm when Mrs. Norris was five feet away!"

"Well you were lucky that that was the only charm I cast. I had a pretty good one in mind for a certain thick-headed, spiky haired someone-"

J.B. hadn't even started in on this argument; he was sleeping on top of his pancakes and was beginning to snore. Gohan and Artemus might have kept on bickering, if the Gryffindor girls hadn't decided to come down for breakfast at that moment or if Avery, over in Slytherin, hadn't looked like he was trying to listen on their conversation.

"What was all that noise last night?" Ginny asked, sitting across from Gohan. "We heard a lot of banging and yelling from your area of the tower."

"We had a bit of a row," Artemus replied shortly.

"Percy had to come in and threaten us," Gohan added as he tried to poke J.B. awake. "And then we went to bed."

"Oh, really?" Abianne asked as she sat down.

"Your accusing tone makes me want to suspect that you don't believe us," Gohan said as J.B. sat up again, shaking his head. "Have any of you girls seen Colin?"

"No, why do you ask?" Ginny replied.

"We just wanted to know if he was back from the Quidditch pitch. He went to watch Harry at four o'clock this morning." J.B. said, taking a sip from his pumpkin juice. "Your brother Ron and his friend Hermione left a few minutes to go watch him as well or to at least make him jealous with all the French toast they brought along for breakfast."

"Gohan, how in the world did you manage to get twenty-two inches of parchment on goblin wars?" J.B. asked, almost a week later as the two of them walked to their History of Magic class. "I mean, there's enough information and everything, but how did you compress everything into twenty-two inches? You're writing is huge compared to Hermione's and even she can't fit everything she wants in the limit!"

"I just like to keep things simple, I guess. I mean, Professor Binns should know what I'm talking about in the essay, so why should I try to elaborate even more than they do in the textbooks?" Gohan replied, digging through his bag for his wand.

"So your basically admitting you copy out of the textbooks, then?"

"No!"

"I was only joking," J.B. laughed as they entered the classroom and took their seats.

As J.B. turned to talk to Artemus and Colin about something, Gohan noticed Ginny was sitting further apart from her friends than normal and that she was writing in a little brown book. He thought at once that the book must be Ginny's diary and he was ready to turn around to allow her some privacy when he noticed that Ginny's quill wasn't moving…yet, writing was still appearing on the page, as if written by an invisible hand.

Gohan knew he was staring at Ginny, but she didn't seem to notice and neither did anyone else in the classroom. He wanted to get a closer look at what the writing said, so he leaned sidewise on his chair, trying to remain as inconspicuous as one could when they were snooping. He had to lean a bit more as some of the letters began to take shape…darn it, why did it have to be in cursive for? He leaned a bit more and finally caught what seemed to be the words of 'open' and 'secrets' from the invisible writer-

BAM!

Gohan toppled off his unbalanced chair and onto to the floor, drawing attention to himself almost immediately. Most everyone laughed when they saw him sprawled on the floor and he knew that some imitations would be coming his way for weeks. Gohan blushed furiously and got to his feet, setting his chair up the right way. By the time he sat back down and Professor Binns entered the classroom through his chalkboard, Gohan noticed that Ginny had snapped that strange diary closed and had hidden it under her copy of A History of Magic.

Later that evening, Gohan and Ginny were sitting at a table in the common room, doing their Astronomy homework. Astronomy seemed to be Gohan's worst class so far and as Ginny was very good at it, she agreed to help him with that homework as long as he helped her with Transfiguration essays. J.B., Artemus, and Colin had long since went up to the dormitory and there was only a few of the older students still around. Gohan knew this would be the perfect time to ask Ginny about her diary.

"Do you understand now, Gohan?" Ginny asked, pointing to one of the star charts. "When an equinox occurs-"

"I understand, Ginny," Gohan replied, knowing that this was a definite lie. He never understood stars and planets, even though he had once roamed among them.

"You do? Well good!" Ginny put away her star chart and pulled out her Transfiguration book. "Now can you help me with-"

"Hang on a second, Ginny," Gohan said, lowering his voice considerably. Ginny looked him in questioning way, but slowly closed her Transfiguration book back up. "I have a question for you. It's about…well…it's about your diary."

"My diary?" Ginny repeated, looking shocked, but she recovered quickly. "Well you can't read it, if that's what you wanted to know."

"No, no! I would never intrude on someone's personal thoughts!" Gohan replied, shaking his head quickly. "I just wanted to know who was writing back to you in History of Magic today."

Ginny froze.

"Y-You saw that? Is that why you fell off your chair? Because you were reading over my shoulder?" she demanded angrily.

"I didn't see much of anything, I swear! I was just curious about the diary writing back to you, that's all." Gohan said honestly. "Could I just see how it works?"

Ginny glanced over her shoulder and then back at Gohan. She reached down for her bag and began to dig through it.

"A-All right then, but you have to promise not to tell anyone about it. Percy might take it away and I like having it around." She mumbled, before pulling out an old, brown diary and handing it slowly over to Gohan.

Gohan reached out and took the diary, deciding to look it over before he actually opened the diary. He noticed the name and the date on it and looked questionably at Ginny.

"Tom Riddle? You mean this diary isn't yours, Ginny?" he asked, observing the diary closely. "Where'd you get it?"

"I found it in my school supplies. Someone must have left it in my Transfiguration book." A red blush crept onto Ginny's cheek at the mention of her second hand things. "But the strange thing about it is that Tom Riddle is still in the diary."

"What?" Gohan gaped at her. "He's trapped in there or-"

"No! He's explained it to me when I first asked about it. He's a memory preserved into the pages, not the real thing. He talks back to me and everything…It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket." Ginny explained, smiling as she said the last line. "He understands me like no one ever has before."

Gohan opened the diary and stared at its empty pages. He flipped through all of them, finding no trace of ink whatsoever and no evidence of the conversation Ginny had been having with 'Tom' earlier during the day.

"How does it work?" Gohan asked, picking up a quill and dipping it into some ink.

"Just write something. He'll respond afterwards."

"All right then…" Gohan said, putting the quill on the page and feeling even stupider than when he had talked back to the Sorting Hat.

Hello. My name is Son Gohan.

He watched as his ink shined on the paper for a moment, before being sucked into the pages of the diary. Captivated, Gohan watched as new words from his ink appeared on the page.

Hello Son Gohan. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come across my diary?

He looked at Ginny who nodded for him to continue. Under Tom Riddle's words, he wrote:

Ginny's letting me see how your diary works. I've never seen anything like this…I never knew magic could extend as far as preserving yourself in a diary.

As he waited for Riddle's answer, Clotee called for Ginny from the stairwell-something about missing shoes-and Ginny left the table to go to talk to her, keeping a close eye on Gohan and her diary from there.

Yes, magic is astounding, isn't it? I've always had a knack for special creations like this…Tell me, Gohan…Are you a Muggle-born?

This was a question that Gohan and probably hundreds of other muggle-born wizards dealt with everyday…But the way Riddle had asked that question….Even though he hadn't spoken it, Gohan had sensed something different about the tone of that phrase then everything else Riddle had written…

Riddle didn't even wait for Gohan to answer the first question. He went on:

Well, are you a Muggle-born? Are you one of the filthy little Mudbloods that dare infest the wizard society and a great school like Hogwarts?

Gohan snapped the diary shut before Riddle could write any more.

'Mudblood…Riddle called me a Mudblood…' Gohan thought, staring at the little diary in shock. The Slytherin, Avery, called him and Colin Mudbloods when none of the professors could hear him and Gohan knew Malfoy called Hermione a Mudblood at least twice this year…But they way they said it differed so greatly from the way Tom Riddle had.

He pushed the diary away from him, a cold feeling welling up in his chest. Gohan hadn't felt this…well…threatened since the likes of Frieza and Cell had crossed his path and this was only a little diary, not an overlord of the universe or an evil android. There was something very wrong with this 'memory' of Tom Riddle.

"Are you done with it yet, Gohan?" Ginny asked, noticing when she sat down again that the diary was closed and away from Gohan.

"Y-Yes, I'm finished," Gohan stuttered, taking a lone glance at the diary before Ginny put it back in her bag. Should he tell her about what Riddle had said?

'No. Ginny's really attached to that diary. It'd hurt her feelings if I told her that I thought there was something wrong with it. I don't think she'd believe me in the first place, either.' Gohan thought as Ginny opened her Transfiguration book again. 'Maybe Riddle just insults everyone before he gets to know them…Yes…That's probably it.'

"So, what do you need help with?" Gohan asked, eager to immerse himself into his favorite subject and forget about the diary.

When Gohan finally went to bed that evening, he couldn't sleep. The thoughts about Tom Riddle's diary kept plaguing him, even when he tried counting sheep. The taunts about him being a 'filthy little Mudblood' kept interrupting his thought process, even when he was thinking about something totally off the subject of the diary.

Gohan was still awake by midnight and was sitting up in bed, looking over his Transfiguration essay and trying to keep his mind off Tom Riddle. He was not succeeding and it was getting quite irritating.

"This is insane," Gohan muttered, hitting himself in the head with his pillow. "Since when have I gotten so paranoid? And what's the big deal with a little, old, brown old diary? It's not a threat! What can a memory of an old Hogwarts student, trapped in the pages of a diary, do to harm me or anyone else for that matter?!"

~*~

The plot of Chamber of Secrets is finally coming into play! Yay! I'm surprised on how fast I got this chapter done. I was writing Gohan's letter while I was writing the second chapter and I guess the rest of it just came to me from there. The spell from the second chapter, Infucatus Viridis, means 'colored green' in Latin. I forgot to put it in the end of the last chapter.

Please review!