Entry 56: I'm back at Hogwarts
While spending two weeks with my family was great, it's nice to be back with my friends again. My mum told me to invite Harry to ours for Christmas next year though. I'm not sure whether or not he would accept – he sees Hogwarts as his home after all.
I sat with Susan and Hannah on the train ride to and from London. Most of their housemates in our year have taken to mistrusting Harry, meaning that Susan, Hannah and a boy called Wayne Hopkins have stopped hanging around with them. Instead, Cedric and his friends in fourth year have taken them under their wing. So it was with this group that I also spent the long train rides with. I had a good time, although hanging about with a group of Hufflepuffs is rather different to hanging out with a group of Gryffindors. Maybe it's because I can always rely on Fred and George to make me laugh, whereas the comedian in this group had a different sense of humour to me. Cedric did go out of his way to make me feel welcome though, which was nice of him.
When I got to the Gryffindor common room I was met with the worried faces of Harry and Ron. I rushed to put my trunk back in my dorm, saying a quick hello to Lavender and Pavarti as I did so, and ran back down the stairs to talk to the two boys.
They pulled me to the side and told me about the Christmas break, in particular the Polyjuice potion incident. I was expecting most of what they told me, but I had completely forgotten that Hermione would try to become Millicent only to become cat-like instead. The three of us went to visit her that evening, although it took a bit of time to convince her to let me look. I was about to say that I would just sit on the other side of the curtain that was drawn around her bed when an arm came out from behind it and pulled me into a fierce hug. We stayed like that for a fair while before Ron commented that it was a bit awkward for him and Harry so 'could we bloody start talking?'. Never one to mince words is our Ronald.
The four of us spent every evening in the hospital wing together. Hermione even allowed Fred, George and Ginny to come and visit her once the fur cleared from her face and I had extracted a promise from the twins that they wouldn't tease her. It was hard for Fred to not crack a single joke, but he stuck to his word and I was very grateful for it.
You may be wondering what prompted me to write about this now. It's been a few weeks since I came back from Hogwarts and I hadn't written yet, so why did I decided to do so?
Harry has found Tom Riddle's diary and my plan to nick it could happen at any time.
Harry, Ron and I were walking back from the hospital wing (where we had been teasing Hermione about a get well soon card from Lockhart) when we heard a loud noise coming from the floor above ours. It was Filch, shouting about a flood caused by Moaning Myrtle's weeping. The three of us decided to check out what Myrtle was crying about. I had a niggling feeling that this moment was important, although I could not remember why. How right my feeling was.
Myrtle was crying louder than I had ever heard her, although that's not saying much seeing as I avoided her bathroom as much as possible. She was sobbing in a toilet (which Ron told me is her usual crying spot), so Harry had to try and coax her out so that we could find out what was going on.
The problem was that as soon as she saw me she got fairly angry. Apparently she noticed that I would never enter her bathroom. Sometimes, I would even seem like I was about to go in, decide not to, loiter for a few seconds and then run away. At least, this was according to Myrtle. I mean, she isn't wrong per say. I just wouldn't call it running away. Or loitering. I would call it taking my time to make a strategic choice to go in the opposite direction. Of course, Myrtle saw this as me avoiding her and decided that she doesn't like me because of it.
Harry took offense to this on my behalf and started to try and defend me, but Ron could see that my presence wasn't really helping matters, so he suggested that I wait outside. I did as he said and moved to stand in the corridor. I was glad to be honest. I had things to think about.
Myrtle is the first person in two years to decide that she doesn't like me and I don't know how I feel about it. On the one hand, this goes against the 'everyone loves you' part of my MS powers, so I should be glad about that. For well over a year now now I have been agonising over these MS powers and have only just come to accept that SOME may be okay. I stress the 'some', as there are many I still wish I did not have, one of the main ones being that everybody loves me for no reason. I didn't earn anyone's friendship, it's just there for plot purposes.
I should be jumping for joy that someone doesn't like me. It has so many connotations that could mean so many great things… Yet I feel this overwhelming sadness at the thought that one person dislikes me. It makes me feel inadequate. Like there's something wrong with me.
I don't like it.
What makes matters worse is I understand why she dislikes me. I actively avoided her. I can't change that. I did something wrong and I can't fix it. Trust me, in the past few days I've tried. She flies away every time I approach. I can't corner a ghost, so this is one problem that I can't solve and I feel terrible.
Am I a people pleaser?
I mean, I always want to make others happier, as long as I don't disrupt the plot. Who doesn't want that? Seeing my friends happy makes me happy and with my MS powers I have loads of friends so I have loads of people that need to be happy before I can be so too. No, I'm not a people pleaser. I'm not. I just want people around me to be happy. That's a good thing.
Maybe my MS powers don't work on Myrtle because she's a ghost. They have a weird effect on Peeves after all. They could just have a different impact on everyone who isn't alive. Yeah, that's it. My MS powers work on Myrtle differently because she's a ghost.
Harry and Ron came out of the bathroom about five minutes after I did, and told me why Myrtle was crying as we walked up to Gryffindor Tower, Harry showing me the diary he found as they did so. I knew instantly that it was Tom's, although Harry quickly confirmed this when he showed me the name.
Now I just have to wait so that I can put my plan into action. I presume that we'll talk more about the diary when Hermione's out of the hospital wing. Madame Pomfrey says that she should be out in a week or so. Hopefully, Harry will use the diary then and I'll be able to take it after that.
Entry 57: I was embarrassed, but it was worth it. I hope.
I've got the diary. It took me a little while though.
For starters, it took Hermione just over a week before she was out of the Hospital Wing. This was when our conversations about the diary and how to use it really became more frequent. Despite know exactly how to get the diary to work, I wasn't able to tell Harry how to use it, less my friends (read: Hermione) got curious as to how I guessed so easily and start asking too many questions.
Instead, I spent my time trying to push the other three in the right direction. In particular, I tried to get Harry to write in the diary, but Ron was very against this idea, siting Mr Weasley's experiences of Dark Artifacts when performing raids on houses. It got to a point where Ron was protesting every idea that I came up with before I even said them. I honestly couldn't blame him for doing this, as I was suggesting to do something that, in his eyes, was very dangerous.
My suggestions also started to make Ron worried about me. I'm not one to want to do dangerous activities, despite my annoying ability to get caught up in them. In fact, my friends have started to notice that I try and avoid all dangerous situations possible. So when I began continuously bringing up writing in the diary, Ron became visibly more anxious after each conversation. Seeing as I was getting nowhere with prompting Harry and Hermione thanks to his interruptions, I started to make joking suggestions each time Ron stopped me. He soon caught on, and we would spend the time making more and more ridiculous suggestions on how to use the diary until either Harry or Hermione grew annoyed with us.
Two weeks after Harry found the diary, he was still no closer to figuring out how to use it. He was getting alarmingly attached to it, however. He would constantly pull it out and flick through the pages. Twice he went to see Tom Riddle's trophy (Ron having recognised his name after cleaning the trophy so many times in his detention for flying the Ford Anglia to Hogwarts), once with the rest of us tagging along and once without. I had to go and drag him away from the room after the second time, finding him sat in there flicking through the pages of the diary.
I don't know what is attracting Harry to the diary. It's most likely just the power of the horcrux calling Harry to it, but Harry could also be hyper fixating on it as a way of ignoring all the attention he was receiving from the Heir of Slytherin argument.
Even though there are much fewer people who believe Harry caused the petrifications than I expected, he still has the attention of a large proportion of students at all times. It doesn't help that Ernie MacMillan is very vocally against Harry, causing other people to shout in his defence. Whenever this would happen, Harry would shrink down in his seat, hoping as few people looked his way as possible. But I always saw a small smile on his face, betraying his happiness that people were so willing to stand up for him.
Lockhart seems to think that the petrifications stopped due to his presence. This makes absolutely no sense, seeing as he was present when they started too, meaning that there is no difference between his presence then and now. But I've learnt that there is little point in trying to change Lockhart's mind on anything, especially when it comes to himself. This was no more true than when I tried to stop him from making such a large deal over Valentine's Day. He said that he was doing it to raise morale, but I know that he just wants an ego boost.
Thus, at breakfast on February 14th, we were greeted with over the top, romantic decorations as we walked into the Great Hall. I was still half asleep as Lockhart made his speech and I wasn't much bothered by it, having already heard it at least six times in one of our sessions. Thank Godrick I managed to get him to remove any references to Snape teaching anyone to make a love potion. I don't dare to imagine how he would have reacted to that. However, I woke up pretty quickly after that as three of Lockhart's Valentine's dwarves instantly headed in my direction.
I had become more popular ever since the article featuring me and Lockhart was published in mid-December. In mine and Hermione's opinion, my individual photos didn't look too bad. They were definitely the best photos I've had taken of myself in a long time, although I don't have too many of those to go off. Just the odd polaroid here and there that my parents took.
Harry and Ron did not share mine and Hermione's opinion on the article.
At first they didn't really care. The photoshoot was just something that Lockhart had forced me into and meant little else. Then Ron stumbled across some third years looking at the article, who loudly proclaimed me to be 'cute'. Apparently, this set off some sort of alarm bells in his head, as he instantly ran to find Harry, who proceeded to join him in an overprotective panic. Personally, I don't think being seen as cute is too bad. They weren't asking me out and if they did I would certainly say no. But Harry and Ron seem to think that this is the worst thing in the world and went on a rampage for a few days, shouting at people to stop staring at the article whenever they saw someone looking at it.
They even shouted at Fred, George and Lee. George had been sent the article by Mrs Weasley, who had also sent me a congratulatory letter. She buys anything Lockhart related, so instantly wanted to show her kids when she found the article about the two of us. George received it in the post at breakfast a few days after it came out and Fred instantly started laughing. George held himself back, probably trying to not hurt my feelings. I knew that he wanted to though because he turned bright red from trying to hold laughter back when he flicked to the page of the article and saw my solo shots. He couldn't form sentences around me for the rest of the day, probably afraid that he was going to start laughing. Despite it being clear that Fred and George posed no threat, Ron still snatched the magazine out of his brother's hands and Harry gave George the 'I'm watching you' action. I left the Great Hall soon after that, too embarrassed by my friends.
Even with Harry and Ron trying to confiscate as many magazines as possible, many boys (and even some girls) seem to have seen and liked the photos. A first year turned into stuttering mess around me on the Hogwarts Express, and a third year dropped a flower at my table in the library three weeks ago.
I haven't been enjoying the attention, mostly because it is likely caused by my MS powers. But it is also awkward because I am only twelve. As I have mentioned before, I don't want to be dating right now. It's not because I don't think about people romantically yet – I do. I just don't think twelve year olds are mature enough for proper relationships. I guess that it could be said that mentally, I'm older than twelve. But I've looked back on my day to day actions and realised that I actually act my biological age. It's strange as mentally I know I should be more mature, but I'm not. I unconsciously act like a normal twelve year old would. But I'm still aware that twelve year olds shouldn't date, so I'm sticking with that.
All the attention came to a new height on Valentine's Day. I received Valentine's messages all day. Not all were romantic – some were people expressing that they enjoyed the article – but many were. Harry, Ron and George acted as my guards, as they have been doing for the past two months. They have been taking the role pretty seriously, Harry and Ron because they are over protective and George most likely because he feels bad for laughing at the article. He got rid of that flower from the third year three weeks ago, probably seeing the uncomfortable looks that I kept on shooting it through our quiet session. He suddenly cast a disappearing charm on it out of the blue before sending me a sheepish smile.
Harry, Ron and George tried to be around me at all times of the day to try and keep the dwarves away. In total, I was approached by a dwarf seventeen times. It was on the thirteenth time when Harry decided that he had had enough. We were on our way back from charms when we were approached from a particularly grumpy looking dwarf. He tried to start reading a poem someone had written for me when Harry interrupted him, telling the dwarf that I didn't want to listen to this. This attempt heavily backfired when the dwarf assumed that Harry was jealous and had a Valentines message for me himself.
The dwarf lunged for Harry's bag, trying to find any messages. A tug of war began between Harry and the dwarf, until the small creature managed to grab hold of a book in the bag. It just so happened to be Tom Riddle's diary. This was when Harry lunged for the dwarf. His parchment, quill and ink went flying everywhere, the ink staining all of his belongings, including the diary when the dwarf dropped it in a puddle that had formed on the floor.
By this point, a massive crowd had formed which included Ginny. I moved over to her and whispered that I hoped she hadn't sent Harry a Valentine (her crush still strong) as it wouldn't be well received after this episode. She admitted that she nearly had, but realised that Harry wouldn't appreciate the gesture as it would bring too much attention to him. She sounded incredibly relieved as she said this.
That was when Percy showed up on the scene. He broke up the fight, sent the crowd on its way and told the dwarf to come and find me later. Never had I been more grateful for Percy's prefect powers. I could have done with him telling the dwarf to not come back and find me (which he did half an hour later) but I can't blame Percy for that. I ran up to Percy to thank him, which he seemed fairly surprised at. I turned to help Harry pick up his books to see him paused half way through the job, staring at Tom Riddle's diary. Blank. Not a spot in sight, despite it clearly having been lying open in a puddle of ink.
Harry had finally realised how the diary worked.
Both Harry and I went to bed early that night, although for different reasons. I went to my dorm to escape Fred, who was shouting a 'best bits' of my Valentines at me. He even managed to goad George into reciting a particularly romantic one, with Fred bursting out in laughter afterwards. This event was preceded by the two twins harshly whispering between themselves and followed by George leaving to his room soon after, obviously annoyed at his brother. I thought that he had the right idea and left for my own soon after.
Harry, on the other hand, left early to write in the diary.
He recounted his experience to Hermione and I (having already told Ron) the next morning. Hermione kept on asking him to repeat it over and over, in case he hadn't told her a small detail that could help her form a theory. I had to stop her from going too far when Harry started to look somewhat put out.
None of my friends wanted to believe that Hagrid was to blame for the attacks. I even tried to suggest that the diary didn't show Harry all sides of the story. But my idea was written off as a hopeful fantasy. They said that the attacks had to have stopped after Hagrid was expelled, otherwise Riddle wouldn't have got his award. They didn't even contemplate the fact that Riddle could have been the Heir himself.
Nonetheless, this was my cue to take the diary from Harry. The problem was, I had no clue how to go about this. I had had months to try and come up with some idea, but my head was empty. I couldn't help but wish that George knew about everything as his talent for planning would have really come in useful. Even another person being able to distract Harry and his dorm mates would have been great, but I couldn't let anyone know what I was doing. So I had to wait for the perfect moment.
That moment came in the first week of March, when I had the perfect opportunity to be practically alone in the Gryffindor Tower all afternoon.
Now, you've seen the title of this extract. You probably assumed that my embarrassment occurred during Valentines' Day. Well you would be wrong.
I had been feeling slightly under the weather when I woke up that morning, but I had been through worse so I decided to soldier on with my day. But as the day went on, my stomach started to hurt more and more and I got weaker and weaker. By the time lunch rolled around, I was in so much pain that I was leaning against Harry, the physical contact a sort of coping method. Everyone was concerned and I had been given multiple offers to be escorted to the Hospital Wing. I wanted to do just that, but I knew that I wanted to go on my own. Without anyone else, especially a guy. Because I knew that I had most likely started my first period.
I had come to this realisation during transfiguration, the last lesson before lunch. I had decided that I would get some food and then slip off to the Hospital Wing by myself and hopefully be taught some sort of spell or be given a potion to make the pain go away. But half way through lunch this plan was ruined by George who had decided that enough was enough and that he was going to take me to the Hospital Wing then and there. I tried to protest, telling him that I would go by myself, but he was having none of it.
Honestly, I am somewhat thankful that he took me. I probably would have collapsed on the trip there, my cramps were so bad. But it also meant that he refused to leave my side until Madame Pomfrey told him to do so. She only did that when I hesitantly told her that I was experiencing stomach cramps. Even then, he waited for me outside the Hospital Wing and forced me to tell him what was wrong when I came out. I tried lying but George was able to see through me, as always. I ended up blurting out that I had started my period fairly loudly in the middle of the corridor, causing a few people walking by to stare and George to blush in embarrassment. As he walked me to Gryffindor Tower, he could do nothing but apologise. I accepted immediately. He was just worried for me, after all. That didn't stop him from delivering some chocolate frogs to my dorm room that evening as another apology.
Madame Pomfrey was able to give me a potion to stop the cramps and gave me a magical versions of pads, but refused to give me a potion to stop the bleeding all together. Apparently they can cause depression, who knew? But she also said that I had her permission to miss lessons that afternoon, as some girls tend to be a bit overwhelmed at the thought of having their first period.
Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't have taken her up on the offer. I was feeling a lot better and periods don't phase me. You may think I'm crazy, but missing classes means that I have to catch up with the work in my own time and I end up with more work than I would have had originally. But staying practically alone in the common room meant that I would have the perfect opportunity to sneak into the boys' dorm and steal the diary.
It took about 30 minutes after George left me in the common room for it to clear out completely. I couldn't waste any time and instantly took my chance. I walked up the stairs to the boys' dorm (the stairs not being enchanted, unlike the girls') and entered the door that was clearly labelled 'Second Years'.
I'm going to be honest with you, it was cleaner than I was expecting. I guess that I shouldn't be too shocked, both Harry and Ron are used to doing chores (one far more so than the other) and Neville doesn't seem the type to be messy. Seamus definitely does though, and Dean could go either way. Yet, apart from two un-made beds, the room wasn't dirty. Maybe house elves clean our dorms far more often than I thought?
I made a beeline for the bed with a single picture next to it. Harry's bed and surrounding area contrasted greatly with all the others, presumably because he had never had the chance to buy some decorations for it. I guess I know what him birthday present is this year.
His trunk had no locking charm so it was very easy to break into. A little bit of rummaging left me with the diary in my hands. I neatly placed his limited amount of belongings back into the trunk and made my way to my dorm. I hid the diary in my own trunk and made my way to the common room to catch up on homework.
I didn't write in the diary then and there and haven't had the chance to yet. But as soon as I do I'm going to write updates in here. Hopefully, if I write what I've told him then I can remember any lies I have to tell and it could even possibly jog my memory when I eventually get possessed.
Harry figured out that the diary was missing this morning (two days after I stole it) and doesn't even consider me a suspect. To be fair, he doesn't have any clear cut suspects yet, he just knocked Hermione, Ron and I off the list of potential Gryffindor candidates. We'll just have to see how it all pans out.
Just want to apologise for using the 'time of the month' as a plot device. I know some people don't like it when people do that. But it seemed fitting, purely because Em is 12 so of course she's going to write about it in her diary. I also couldn't come up with any other reason as to why she would know for sure that she would be alone in the Gryffindor Common Room apart from everyone else being in lessons. That meant I had to come up with a reason for her to be allowed to miss a lesson without arousing suspicion from any of her friends nor having to stay in the hospital wing all day. I ended up with this.
Apart from that, hope you enjoyed!