Chapter 2

By 9 o'clock in the morning, Harry, Ron, Ginny, more than enough Order members, and I were off to King's Cross. We said our goodbyes, hugged our hugs, and hopped on board. Harry seemed a bit lost in thought. It must be what we saw last week at Diagon alley…

We had just left Fred and George's joke shop when we saw Draco and his mum heading down Knockturn Alley. Harry, being the impulsive boy he is, made us all run after them. I don't see why this was necessary given what we knew at the time, but now, I couldn't be gladder that we did. We crept after the Malfoys until we arrived at Borgin and Burke's. They walked in, and we followed under the invisibility cloak. It really doesn't work for all three of us anymore. But our feet went unnoticed as we stalked after them. Once inside, Harry nudged our little cluster over into a corner. The Malfoys were talking to Borgin, the storekeeper, and seemed to be arguing or maybe just haggling. Harry and I watched as Mrs. Malfoy pointed toward a tall cabinet, while Ronald stood with his back to us looking at artifacts on the dusty table. Suddenly, Ron screamed causing me to put out a little squeak as well. On top of Ronald's cinnamon hair sat a large, fat, black widow spider. The scream did not go unnoticed to the Malfoys, who turned around in shock as we scampered off to separate hiding places. Harry dodged under a table with a table cloth, Ron, still under the invisibility cloak swatted the spider off his head and ran away, climbing into a tall, wooden cabinet with intricate designs and closing the panel. I hid in a doorway to some storage room, I would guess. I didn't dare take a breath for 30 seconds and stood frozen in fear as Draco peered around. I don't think they saw us, but they seemed a bit cautious moving with the shopkeeper over to the tall cabinet. My heart was beating so hard that I could hear it pounding and I watched as Draco opened the cabinet, to find it seemingly empty. I looked at Harry. Harry looked at me. I didn't know what to do, so I stepped out of my hiding place, picked up a small glass cube and said, "Excuse me sir, what does this do?"

The shopkeeper, shocked by my appearance and my reckless handling of what was probably a cursed artifact of some sort, screamed, "PUT THAT DOWN, ARE YOU MAD?!"

I squeaked and dropped the cube. It broke into 2 sharp-edged pieces. But something had fallen out of its center. There was a small hole in the pieces that would allow the fallen something inside the artifact. The Malfoys watched, nervous and angry, while quickly walking out as I picked it up saying, "Oh sir, I'm so so sorry! I can repair it, pay for it, whatever, what did it cost?"

"It can't be fixed, girl! 20 galleons, but you'll pay 25 for sneaking around and for disrupting my business with some of my richest, and best clients. "

"25 galleons?! I can't even pay a tenth of that!"

"Then you'll work it off or be the subject of my potion testing!" Borgin screeched.

I glanced toward where Harry was hidden, and he nodded at me.

"OK, fine. How long? Hogwarts starts in a week," I said reluctantly.

Borgin walked closer to me with a sneer on his face.

"Then maybe you'll have to pay for it in more that just galleons and work."

At that moment, I opened my eyes wide, and I started. I ran out the door and round the corner and through the dirty, dark streets, ducking back into the sun of Diagon Alley. I turned around and didn't see him coming after me, so I stumbled down toward Florean Fortiscue's and caught my breath while looking around for a familiar face. I noticed Hagrid exiting the Apothecary! Thank goodness! I sprinted over to him.

"Hagrid, help! Harry and Ron are stuck in Borgin and Burke's hiding and the Malfoys were there and they were going to find Ron so I made a diversion and I broke something and now Borgin wants me to pay for it in some sick way that I don't want to talk about and he might come for me and what about Harry and Ron and what am I going to do, what should I do?!" I rambled, breathing heavily.

"Woah, 'mione. Calm down. I'll go get Harry and Ron, then we can worry about the rest." He said in his rumbling voice.

"Thank you, Hagrid…"

I walked back to a plastic chair and tapped my foot nervously until I saw Hagrid walking toward me with Harry and Ron.

"Thank goodness!" I hugged them. "Now what?"

"Hermione, when you broke that… thing, something fell out. On the way out I grabbed it." Harry said slowly.

"Ok, so what is it?" Ron asked in his usual blunt, ignorant, yet adorably confused way.

Harry held out his hand, and in his palm lay a tiny paper cube. I reached out and picked it up. I turned it over in my fingers and realized that this was origami. This was made out of sheets of paper. Maybe, I thought, there's some explanation if we unfold it?

Carefully, I pulled the tiny box apart with my finger nails and when I had it flattened in my hand, a message became clear.

Thank you so much guys, I'm having a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you enjoy it too!

Review! That'd be really nice, to see what you think, and if you have any guesses or ideas!