A girl named Hermione Granger: Year Two
Chapter Nine: Riddle's diary and Hermione's discovery
Disclaimer: I wish.
By the time Hermione was finally allowed to leave the hospital wing, it was the beginning of February. She'd had very few visitors, and had been taunted mercilessly by Harry and Ron when they found the get well card from Lockhart under her pillow. The gangly red head had accused her of sleeping with it under her pillow, but she'd just been hiding it there for their visits. She thanked her lucky stars that they'd never spotted the two she had tucked under the mattress. One was from Draco, who had been told she'd caught dragon pox apparently, and the other was from her father telling her she was to tell any one who asked that she'd had dragon pox, which explained the card from Draco. She was thankful for the excuse to give for having missed a months worth of classes.
When she finally was given the go ahead to eat breakfast in the great hall, she was met by several dozen people staring at her like she had risen from the dead. She heard over breakfast, from Neville, that most of the school had thought she'd been attacked. Of course, she'd thought Harry and Ron had been able to clear the rumour up before she'd gotten out, but it occurred to her that the Hufflepuff's and Ravenclaw's were likely to think 'the heir of Slytherin' was lying. She shrugged off their surprised looks and allowed herself to enjoy breakfast with her housemates.
She was intrigued when Harry showed her the blank diary he had found in Myrtle's washroom. "Ooh maybe it's got hidden powers." She said enthusiastically, flipping through the many blank pages, her eyes soaking up the name written in the upper corner of the front cover. T. M. Riddle. She and Harry quickly connected the date on the front cover with what the boys had learned from Malfoy. The diary was fifty years old, and from the same year that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened before. "I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it," Harry said absently as Ron protested its being a waste of time. "I wouldn't mind knowing how T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school, either." He added as Ron threw his hands in the air.
The gangly red head groaned, thinking of the award shield he'd polished for his detention with Filch earlier in the year. For the first time since then, he regretted trying to curse Malfoy, because his backfired curse had caused him to spew slugs onto the shield. "Could've been anything, maybe he got 30 O.W.L's or saved a teacher from the giant squid." He groaned on, turning away from the other two, "Maybe he murdered Myrtle, that would've done everyone a favour..." He trailed off as he felt Hermione's glare on the back of his head.
Harry took the moment of silence to remind his best friend that Malfoy had told them the Chamber of Secrets had been opened fifty years ago. The heir of Slytherin had been expelled fifty years ago. Riddle's award was fifty years old, and so was his diary.
Ron scoffed and reminded Harry that the diary was empty.
Days passed and the sun eventually began to shine on the Hogwarts grounds again. The mood inside of the castle improved as well, as news spread that the mandrakes were maturing and nearly ready to be re-potted again. Much to the relief of the muggleborns in the castle, there were no more attacks. Hermione was particularly happy, because she still had a week's worth of detentions to serve in the dungeons and she didn't want to constantly be looking around corners with her tarnished old mirror. She didn't let anyone know she had taken to carrying it around, and she only used it when she was alone. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't feel safe without it.
She found mild amusement in Defense Against the Dark Arts, wherein Lockhart insisted he had scared off the heir of Slytherin himself. Any amusement she, or any other student for that matter, had found in Lockhart's antics had swiftly ended on the morning of February fourteenth, however.
The castle was decorated with so many vibrant pink ribbons, streamers and hearts, that most students felt rather ill. Hermione, despite her general dislike of the decorations, couldn't help but spend most of breakfast giggling like mad. She'd awoken first and come down to breakfast alone, and had almost abandoned the idea when Archie had flown up to her, clutching a pink and red card in his beak. She recognized the writing, finding it to be from Lockhart. His loopy, effeminate writing cheerfully blazed up at her saying how he had sorely missed his favourite student when she had been ill. And so, her mood rather enhanced by a cheering charm that seemed to radiate from the confetti falling from the roof, she spent all of breakfast giggling at Harry and Ron as they attempted to eat.
Although, she supposed, as she looked up at the staff table and saw her father's sour face, it wasn't all bad. And then Lockhart had to open his big mouth. "Happy Valentines Day!" The exuberant blonde man shouted, "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all! And it doesn't end here!" He clapped his hands smartly three times and a dozen surly looking dwarves marched into the hall. Suddenly she felt as sour as her father did about the situation. "My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" Lockhart beamed, as though he had just done the most selfless thing in the world, "They will be roving the school today, delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop there, I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a love potion!" Hermione couldn't help her snort of laughter here, and added just loud enough for her seat mates to hear, "Because he'd poison us instead." The boys snickered at her. "And while you're at it," Lockhart continued, undaunted by the death glare being pointed in his direction by Snape, "Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"
As the speech ended, Flitwick burying his face in his hands out of sheer embarrassment, Ron turned to the brunette and groaned, "Please, Hermione, tell me you weren't one of the forty-six..." She coughed awkwardly and began digging through her bag, unable to bring herself to respond. Of course she had sent a card in answer to the one she'd received, but she was afraid Ron might destroy her valentine if he heard that.
The day seemed to drag on, and Hermione felt her earlier giddiness slipping away as lessons were interrupted for the umpteenth time by dwarves delivering valentines. She received a very compromising card just before Charms, as she'd lost Harry and Ron in the halls. Thankfully the dwarf merely handed her the card and stalked off. When she'd read what was written on it, she'd gone completely red in the face. It was a composite card from, and she didn't really believe this, Crabbe and Goyle. Telling her, that if she'd been in Slytherin, they would have enjoyed sharing her with Malfoy. She stuffed the card as far down in her bag as possible and scurried off to Charms. She was joined shortly after the bell by Harry and Ron, who apparently had had a run in with Malfoy and a singing valentine from Ginny.
The next morning was vastly informative for Hermione as she sat in her usual seat across from the boys, gaping as Harry recounted his journey into the diary the night before. "Hagrid?" She asked, completely astounded. The large man did have a rather big soft spot for some dangerous creatures, she could admit this. But the very thought that he'd allow something to hurt, let alone kill, a student, was preposterous. Absolutely preposterous. "Riddle might have had the wrong person," She said, recovering quickly, "maybe it was some other monster that was attacking people." Ron, as per usual, shot down her idea with a dull and dreary tone, "How many monsters d'you think one castle can hold?" Harry and Ron seemed to resign themselves fully to the idea that Hagrid had unwittingly released some unspeakably evil creature on the school.
Hermione remained optimistic as the Easter holidays rolled around, and news spread about that Mandrakes were becoming more mature. And the time had come for the second years to pick out their subjects for the next year. "It could affect our whole future." She told Harry and Ron she she poured over the list of choices. She marked the most interesting ones with ticks, adding in a few comments when needed, when Harry and Ron discussed dropping Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts (respectively.) In the end, she'd signed up for every single class, hoping that there would be a way to work them all into her schedule.
The day of the next Quidditch match, Hermione was sitting across from Harry and Ron in the common room, discussing the theft of Riddle's diary, which had taken place the night before. She was silently listening to their debate when her mind pieced together something very important with a nearly audible click. She rocketed out of her chair, her face flush with realization, "I have to go to the library!" She shouted excitedly, grabbing her bag from the floor beside her. "But Hermione! Quidditch!" Ron protested as she ran out of the common room so fast, that they'd almost have sworn she'd been on Malfoy's Nimbus 2001, if they didn't know better.
Hermione rushed through the book stacks and pulled an old leather bound book from a shelf near the back of the library, she flipped it open, to a previously memorized page, tore the page from the book, scribbled something in the corner messily, and scrambled back out into the hallway the moment the book was back on the shelf. She whipped her hand held mirror out of her pocket as she crossed paths with a Ravenclaw girl. "Wait!" She cried out as the girl went to turn the corner, she ran up beside the girl and held out her mirror. Suddenly, there was nothing.
End chapter nine!
BUT the next chapter, which I'll post in a few hours, is the promised Draco/Severus POV chapter. And, I promise to more evenly distribute chapters in Year Three. Which is getting desperately long, and I'm not yet half through the year.
As well, (I've already been scolded for this) Lupin is a bit nosy and irritating in Year Three. BUT! I do have valid reasoning! These stories are from Hermione's POV in an omniscient way, and they have times when they are from Snape's. Severus always disliked Lupin, and visa versa, so it's only natural. But don't worry, Lupin is still cool.
Enjoy!
