For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Twenty-One: Dream a Little Dream

Gwen's sleep had been plagued since that night. They did not manage to find the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw, and Gwen was not graced with any sort of fantastical knowledge—instead, she had been gifted very vivid, violent bad dreams.

And they were all centered around the damned vanishing cabinet.

After one particularly nasty one featuring rotting bodies and a small bird carcass stuffed into the piece of furniture, Gwen woke up to find that Jane was also awake. The muggle-born's wand was lit very faintly, and as Gwen poked her head out of her canopy, she noticed that she seemed to be holding a picture frame.

"Jane," she whispered, careful not to wake Camila, Loucille, or Ruth.

The dark-haired girl's head snapped up in fright as Gwen began to crawl out of bed. Gwen had been diligent in wearing collared silk pajamas to bed as of late—they covered up her mark well. She pulled on her green night robe and padded over to the foot of Jane's mattress. Under the lumos light, Gwen could make out trails of tears running down her cheeks.

"Yellow eyes?" she asked, referencing what Jane had confided in her at the Valentine's Day Ball.

The other girl nodded, and Gwen felt her heart sink. Jane was haunted by the eyes of the Basilisk. Gwen still harbored guilt about the Chamber of Secrets and the terrifying serpent that lived there, or perhaps she should say, slept there, as Tom had put a spell on the beast to keep it at bay in a state of suspended animation.

Perhaps if I had been braver, Gwen thought, she could have saved Jane from being petrified, Myrtle from being killed, and Rubeus Hagrid from being expelled. But she hadn't been and the price had been paid—Gwen Gawmdrey had no chance of ever being sorted in Gryffindor, that was for sure.

She decided to change the subject. "Who are these people?" she gestured to the photo Jane was holding as she asked.

Jane's face softened with slight smile. "My family. My parents, my bubbe and zayde... Some aunts and uncles and cousins of mine."

"Are you very close?"

Jane's smile disappeared. "We used to be."

Those words held a lot of weight—many unknowns, truths, and injustices. Jane didn't know the whereabouts of her extended family at the moment.

Gwen blinked as her face fell. Jane seemed to notice; she was an observant girl, there was a reason she was sorted into Ravenclaw.

Jane was much closer to Simon and had really never discussed deeply personal matters with Gwen. But now that they were recrafting their friendship, Jane felt truly terrible about some of the things she had said to the blonde girl. She wanted to put more effort into the friendship.

"We've never talked about your family much," Jane approached softly, "what are they like?"

Gwen had never elaborated about her family with Simon and Jane—she remembered telling them within her first few weeks at Hogwarts that she had been raised by her grandmother as a child and that they lived in the English countryside for a time, hence Gwen's accent, but she hadn't ventured into many details. They hadn't been invited to the Slug Club dinner where Professor Slughorn pried into Gwen's life in front of the entire cohort.

"Well, my grandmother is dead," Gwen started, "my mother died when I was very young. My father married his mistress and I have a half-brother."

She didn't even fathom mentioning Grindelwald.

"I'm sorry to hear that about your mum and grandmother. That must be hard. Are you close to your brother?" Jane asked with genuine curiosity.

Gwen bit her lip and stared at Jane's covers that featured blue embroidered birds and clouds. Memories shared with Griffith rushed back. Wrestling in the back garden of the Norwegian house, grass stains accumulating on their clothes. Fights where they would throw oranges at each other and hit each other with pillows until they both had feathers glued to their sticky citrus skin. Christmases spent in Albania with her father and Lilith—until the interactions suddenly tapered off and Gwen was no longer very welcomed in the Gawmdrey home.