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The Greengrass family understood the consequences of revealing my status as the black heir. I could no longer be publically seen hanging around any member of their family unless I wished to specifically come out with the identity of the Heir. They wished me good luck. Daphne hugged me as a last goodbye and then went to hold her mother's hand while leaving Gringotts.
I had no more pressing matters to attend and therefore went to search for the weasley family who would be no doubt waiting in the line of book signings by the great Gilderoy Lockhart.
The first time around I and Ron, along with most of the male students were not very fond of the man due to the effect he had on women from all ages. It was like a basic instinct that caused us to have some resentment towards the man who could make most girls, even someone as smart as hermione, swoon over his every word and defend him even without the need of asking.
Mrs. Weasley and many her age were also swooning over the guy. Previously when it was discovered by us, how the man of every british witch's dream was nothing but fraud, it was kept silent by the teachers on the account of him going mad while using a mind altering spell intended for me and ron, that backfired in a spectacular fashion due to Ron's broken wand.
Considering everything that went down I can't say that the man did not deserve his ending after profiting off from the works of more worthy wizards than himself. But if you considered the fact that he did not do anything untold towards us I still felt a sense of loss seeing him end up in the state.
Yes, many would argue what nonsense about sympathy for the idiot, but if we only take into account his term at hogwarts he did not harm anyone and even the part where he threatened to profit by altering our minds was because we practically forced him on wand point and dragged him to the chambers against his wishes.
During his time in Hogwarts he was nothing more than a hoax, a party pony, but he did not harm any student and even at the end, when he understood his powerlessness his first thought had been to flee, not drag the rest through mud by giving them false hopes. Not that it mattered because he was no help to us in either searching, opening or entering the chambers.
Even without having him join our adventure in the chambers, it would have gone mostly the same if not better.
This time around I knew better to keep my mouth shut, head down and not get overly involved with the hoax. If all went the way it went previously then he will join the faculty this year as the defense against the dark arts, brag about his various achievements and the classes would be nothing but jokes.
Me and hermione were anyway ahead of the class and were already used to self-studying, so it won't affect much to us. Not that it would matter to study this year, the school was bound to cancel the exams taking into view the chambers incident.
This meant this year instead of studying the subjects that were in the curriculum, me and Hermione can instead focus all our time outside of completing the homeworks into other fields of interest. The year was going to be very productive and helpful in our growth. It would give us much more stability in the coming dark times.
As I had decided to leave the setting as it is I had to follow the previous timeline and recreate the whole scenario of Ginny receiving the diary.
This too had many problems in itself due to the changes in the personalities of me and those around me affecting the whole feud dynamic. I had little to no interaction with Malfoy aside from him being mad about me and Daphne, so they could not use me as a fuse to start the fight. Ron and I were not so great friends that he will fight back in the confrontation if anything untoward is spoken about me. I had also performed consistently standard in the classes and exams while remaining very low profile throughout the year, if we disregard the last adventure.
This raised the question that though we were sure to meet, how will the Malfoys try to start the fight to place the book with Ginny.
I reached the bustling book house that was sure to house the book signing being carried about by the charming Lockhart. Mrs. Weasley was easily distinguishable by the number of redheads gathered in the same place. I could see that Ron, Ginny and the couple were standing in the line with the obvious excitement on Mrs. Weasley's face and the large number of books that were being carried by Mr. Weasley.
I reached them and Mrs. weasley urged me to hurry up and give her my books so that she could have it signed. She assumed that the time I had spent in the alley was done in shopping for the new term, but I had done no such thing.
I looked embarrassingly towards her while explaining that since it was my first time moving alone I was not able to get anything as I could not understand many things. It then hit her that I spent my life in the muggle world and the first time I must have come here would be with a teacher so it was natural I would have troubles alone.
She seemed disappointed in herself that she had not considered my circumstances and left me alone. I quickly assured her that even if I did not manage to get anything I still learned to navigate alone and we could spend the rest of the time shopping together. She agreed enthusiastically and asked me to not worry as she will get another set of books and have all of them signed first and then we will move towards my shopping.
I thanked her and passed on a pouch that was supposed to be my allowance that I had asked the head teller to retrieve from the account that was under the supervision of my guardian to avoid any suspicion. I informed her of the account and the stipend I receive every year for day-to-day use and asked her to handle the finances during this trip.
She understood my intentions and accepted it while asking me to just hold the books in Mr. Weasley's hands while goes he and goes and gets me another set.