CHAPTER 28: A TOME OF PURE EVIL
Canada was both impressed and unsurprised when classes started and Hermione refused to fall behind. She had them bring her all the homework she was missing, along with books and any notes they wrote in class so she actually knew what she was doing. Canada suspected that even without the books and notes she would have been fine. It was probably all stuff she'd read before.
"Dude, you got turned into a cat-girl, I think you can take a break from this stuff," said America as he tipped a huge pile of books onto Hermione's bedside table one evening.
"Don't be silly, Alfred, I've got to keep up," said Hermione briskly. She seemed much peppier now that the fur had gone from her face, and her eyes were slowly but surely darkening from gold to their usual brown. "I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.
"Nothing," said Harry gloomily.
"I was so sure it was Malfoy," said Ron, for about the hundredth time.
"It was a pretty safe guess, eh," said Canada. "Being Malfoy and all… he was very suspicious."
"Yeah, are you sure he wasn't just lying about not doing it, dudes?" asked America, also for about the hundredth time.
"Yes, Alfred, we're sure," said Harry. "If he was going to tell anyone, it would have been Crabbe and Goyle." He frowned suddenly and pointed at Hermione's pillow. "What's that?" Canada followed his gaze and saw something gold and shiny sticking out from under it.
"Just a Get Well card," said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but America was too quick for her.
He pulled it out, flicked it open and read aloud. "To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin Third Class… blah blah blah blah blah. He spent more time writing out all his fancy titles than actually wishing you'd get better." He looked up at Hermione. "Dude, you sleep with this under your pillow?" Luckily for Hermione, she was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey swooping down upon them with her evening dose of medicine.
"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" said Ron as they walked through the halls.
"Eh… let me think…" Canada mentally went through all the Nations he could remember and their smarminess. "Nope, Lockhart's at the top of the list. That's really quite the achievement, eh."
"Yeah, seriously," said America. "We've known a lot of weird people."
Before that conversation could go any further, an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears. "That's Filch," Harry muttered. The four of them automatically began climbing up the stairs toward the source of the noise, ears pricked.
"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" said Ron tensely. Nobody replied, partly because they were busy trying to hear what Filch was saying, and partly because they almost didn't want to know the answer to that question.
Finally they managed to make out Filch's words, which was a bit hard since he was sounding quite hysterical. "… Even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore…" His footsteps faded and they heard a distant door slam.
They all poked their heads around the corner Scooby-Doo style. Filch had obviously been manning his usual look-out post: once again, they found themselves in the spot where Mrs. Norris was attacked. Why was it they always seemed to find their way back here? With a glance it was obvious what had caused Filch's latest screeching fit. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now Filch had stopped his Banshee impression, they could Myrtle's own, much better one echoing off the bathroom walls.
"Now what's up with her?" said Ron.
"Let's go and see," said Harry.
America took a step away from them, eyes darting around the corridor as if looking for an escape route. "U-u-u-u-umm, m-maybe we should, uh…"
"Hold on, Alfred, I think I've got the blindfold in here…" Canada looked through his bag and found the piece of cloth he'd been using to blindfold his brother right at the bottom. He pulled it out and tied it around America's eyes. "There we go, eh. Is that all right?"
America gave the empty space he probably thought was Canada a thumbs up and grin. "Yup! The hero is ready to investigate!" And so, holding their robes above their ankles and Canada leading America by the arm, they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its Out Of Order sign, ignored it as always, and entered.
If Canada had thought Myrtle had hit her peak in melodramatic crying, he was proven wrong by the wails now emanating from the ghost. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet, which was a sentence Canada had never thought before and hoped he never would again. The bathroom was even darker than usual, since the candles were now all soaking wet and unable to be set aflame.
"Are you… What's up, Myrtle?" said Canada. He was going to ask if she was all right, but then he remembered that she'd probably take it as an insensitive jab at her deadness.
"Who's that?" glugged Myrtle miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"
Harry waded across to her cubicle and said, "Why would we throw something at you?"
"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging from the water like a B-movie sea monster. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…"
"But, dude, aren't you, like, intangible or whatever?" America asked a sink that he probably thought was Myrtle. "It would just go through you, right? And it's not like you could feel it."
As usual, America had said the wrong thing and pissed someone off. Myrtle puffed herself up and shrieked, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha ha ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"
"Who threw it at you, anyway?" asked Harry.
"I don't know… I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head," said Myrtle, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out."
Canada, Harry and Ron looked under the sink, where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. "Dudes, what's she talking about? I can't see anything!" complained America.
Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back. "What?' said Harry.
"Are you mad?" said Ron. "I could be dangerous?"
"Dangerous?! What are you dudes talking about? What is it? What got flushed down the toilet?! C'mon, tell me!"
"Dangerous?" said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"
"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated – Dad's told me – there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who reads Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And-"
"All right, I've got the point," said Harry.
"Wait, it's a book?! Why didn't you just say! Yeah, books can totally be dangerous, Harry. What if it's, like, the Necronomicon, and reading it drives you insane and you summon one of the Great Old Ones and it eats the world?"
Canada gave the nondescript, soggy little book a critical look. "I don't think this is the Necronomicon, eh. It's too little."
"Oh. Well, come on, you can't blame me for thinking it! I think we both know that if the Necronomicon showed up anywhere, it would be Hogwarts!"
"Well, we won't find out what it is unless we look at it," said Harry, and he ducked round Ron and picked the book off the floor. Now that Canada could get a good look at it, it was obviously just an old Muggle diary. Both he and Ron approached to read over Harry's shoulder, while America stumbled around bumping into walls.
"Hang on," said Ron. "I know that name… T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."
"How did you know that, eh?" asked Canada. He might have expected Hermione to offer that kind of information, but definitely not Ron.
"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," said Ron resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it, too."
"What's happening?! Why do these damn walls keep getting in my way?! You haven't summoned anything with a name unpronounceable by the human mouth, have you, dudes?"
"No, Alfred, we're Lovecraft free, stop worrying about it, eh," Canada called absently to America. He was focusing on the diary, whose set pages were being peeled apart by Harry. They were completely blank. Not a single smudge of ink to be seen.
"He never wrote in it," said Harry, obviously disappointed.
"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" said Ron curiously.
"BECAUSE IT'S WRITTEN R'LYEHIAN AND IT DROVE ITS PREVIOUS OWNER INTO GIBBERING MADNESS, DUDES!"
"Alfred, it's not the Necronomicon, give it up already!"
Harry ignored them, turning the book over. "He must've been Muggle-born," he said thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road…"
"Well, it's not much use to you," said Ron. He dropped his voice. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."
"I HEARD THAT! PASS IT, HARRY, I CAN DO IT!"
"Alfred, you're blindfolded right now, you can't, eh."
"Sure I can! I'm the hero!"
"You're also talking to a toilet right now." Canada was so busy arguing with America that he barely noticed Harry slip the book into his pocket.
A/N: Meh, Horcrux, Necronomicon, what's the difference? HUGS FOR EVERYONE! \(^-^)/ I forgot to mention it last time, but WOW, I'VE GOT OVER TWO HUNDRED REVIEWS NOW YAY! Thanks everyone! And now for Q&A. To Superwholockingers: Thanks! I had to run that through GoogleTranslate to understand it and I think it translated a bit too literally, but thanks! To The Legend of Zelda Fangirl: That's fine! I'm just happy you're reviewing now! The BTT never actually attended Hogwarts. They probably visited, but they never attended. France and Spain went to Beauxbatons, because apparently Spanish wizards and witches don't have their own school and just go to the French one. As for Prussia, I don't know. The only European schools we know of are Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, so he probably either went to Durmstrang or some other, lesser school closer to his home. And they all got their educations centuries ago, so sorry if I've dashed any fantasies about prank wars between the Marauders and the BTT. And yes, I've seen a playthrough of HetaOni. GAH THE FEELS I CRIED TEARS SO MANY TEARS WAAAAH! Okay, I'm good now. To Berlin: I just watched it yesterday, and it's fun if you don't take it at all seriously. And to give you more to think about, the Welsh are also famous for their love of sheep. Poor Iggy... To RussianMochi: Oh, okay! I think I already read that one, but I just forgot about it. And, yeah, I remember reading about that battle in school. I had a bit of fun imagining how it would have gone down. France: "Don't worry, Canada, I'll protect you from England! There he is! Attack!" *charges out of defensible position towards England, firing wildly even before he's in range* England: *waits until France is in range, shoots once and hits him in the heart* France: "...ow, okay, he's yours." I don't know about the rest of this book, or book 3, but book 4 is definitely going to have quite a few Nations making appearances! To SoulxMakaLover37: You're welcome :). That... is a very complicated question. Um... 1) Maybe Germany, because I'm as weak and frail as Italy and as lazy as Romano. 2) England, because I like his cooking. 3) I don't want anyone to hate me, I love them all! 4) Canada, because HE'S MY NATION AND I WANT HIM TO LOVE ME EVEN THOUGH I KEEP DOING HORRIBLE THINGS TO HIM IN THIS FIC! NEXT CHAPTER: America has to deal with Valentine's Day. See you all next time!
