Ginny pouted unhappily when she failed to scare Vaughn, but she forgot about it in an instant. She sidled up to him stickily and complained, "Vaughn, what have you been doing? I haven't seen you in ages."
"—I'm in the library every day. If you haven't seen me, whose problem is that?"
"Hehe!" The little girl shamelessly grinned.
As they spoke, Vaughn glanced over the Gryffindor table and noticed that several familiar faces were missing. He asked, "Where are Ron, Harry, and Hermione?"
He had paid less attention to the Golden Trio lately. Hermione occasionally studied with him, but she rarely mentioned Ron or Harry.
Ginny turned to look. "They were just here—I saw them talking to Nearly Headless Nick."
"Nearly Headless Nick?"
Vaughn froze for a moment.
It was not that Vaughn had forgotten who Nearly Headless Nick was.
He had merely suddenly realized that tomorrow's Halloween feast—more precisely, the Halloween Eve feast—would require all students to gather in the Great Hall. Other than the Great Hall, nearly the entire castle would be empty.
Even the ghosts that usually drifted all over the place had their own Halloween party.
From a certain perspective, tomorrow night would be when Hogwarts' defenses were at their weakest.
In the "original plot" from his past-life memories, Tom had seized this opportunity. While everyone was in the Great Hall, he possessed Ginny, opened the Chamber of Secrets, and released the Basilisk.
Would the other side make the same choice now?
Especially with fate meddling, constantly trying to steer "history" and the "timeline" back onto what it considered the proper track!
"Vaughn? What's wrong?"
Ginny's call brought Vaughn back to himself. Seeing the strange look in the girl's eyes, he smiled and ruffled her hair again. "Nothing. I was thinking about something. Where are your