For the next two weeks, Tris paid Tom no attention.
The Portable Space was completely isolated from outside interference. With the Diary tossed inside, the loneliness of being unable to perceive anything at all was enough to give Tom Riddle, who had already developed a will of his own, something to savor.
Tris was in no hurry, either. If he wanted to hunt down Horcruxes, he would have to wait until the holidays anyway.
In the meantime, making whatever improvements he could to his own strength remained the most important thing.
During that time, Lockhart found a new way to make a spectacle of himself. He started staging plays in class and liked dragging Harry into performing with him.
Tris's verdict: very nice!
His schoolwork was already heavy enough. A little entertainment now and then was welcome. After all, he was watching the show, not performing onstage.
There probably wouldn't be any major incidents that year.
The Diary was lying inert in the Portable Space, and so was the Basilisk. He had already dealt with the year's main conflicts ahead of time. What else could possibly happen?
Well, there was still that Quidditch nonsense.
Tris was so uninterested in Quidditch that he had almost forgotten it counted as an issue that year, too.
On Saturday morning of the second week, Tris sat reading in a quiet courtyard in Hogwarts Castle.
His homework that school year was even more slapdash than the year before, and the professors had expressed their displeasure for a time. But when they saw that his classroom performance remained steady, and that his homework still met the student average despite his lack of effort, they stopped saying much about it.
The time he saved on schoolwork gave Tris more time to study things outside the curriculum.
For