For one reason or another, Hermione was now locked in the hospital wing without any warning. Arabella and Ron remained tight-lipped about what led up to this, and now Lyla and the other Slytherins could only guess and speculate.

"Mmm, maybe she's fallen so far behind in work she's collapsed," suggested Daphne.

"Or she–"

"Are you sure we're talking about the same Hermione Granger?" said Blaise.

There was, of course, a flurry of rumors about her disappearance when the rest of the school arrived back from their Christmas holidays, many believing that she had been attacked. So many students filed past the hospital wing trying to catch a glimpse of her that Madam Pomfrey took out her curtains again and placed them around Hermione's bed.

Lyla, whenever she had the free time, would try and visit as many times as she could. On the few nights that Madam Pomfrey let their small gaggle of friends inside, it was mainly to catch up on school work.

"If I was as ill as everyone is saying you are, I'd definitely want to take a break from schoolwork," sighed Theo

"Oh, don't be silly," chided Hermione. "I've got to keep up one way or another. I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a low whisper so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.

"Absolutely nothing," said Blaise with irritation. "You know, for someone with such a hate for anything that isn't pure-blooded, I was betting Pansy Parkinson."

Arabella and Ron shared a quick glance before nodding in agreement.

"What's that?" asked Daphne suddenly, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a get-well card," said Hermione hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron 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, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award."

Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

"You sleep with this under your pillow?" asked Draco, a faint look of amusement crossing his face.

But Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening dose of medicine.

"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" said Draco to Daphne as they left the infirmary and started down the stairs to the dungeons. Snape had given them so much homework, Lyla thought she was likely to be in the sixth year before she finished it. Theo seemed to share a similar incline.

"He's an absolute fraud if you ask me," said Blaise with a snort. "I swear his classes are just an excuse for him to talk more about himself than actually teach us anything worthwhile."

"Stop it, please," complained Daphne, nudging Lyla for backup. "Sure he's had his few duds, but he truly is a brilliant wizard! Have you read–"

Before she could finish her thought, however, an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.

"That's Filch," Theo muttered as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.

"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" asked Daphne tensely.

They stood still, their heads inclined toward Flich's voice, which sounded 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 receded along the out-of-sight corridor and they heard a distant door slam.

The five Slytherins poked their heads around the corner. Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post. They were once again on the spot where Mrs. Norris had been attacked. They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about. 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 that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Now what's up with her?" asked Daphne.

"Let's go and see," prompted Lyla, and holding their robes over their ankles, they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its OUT OF ORDER sign. Moaning Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet. It was dark in the bathroom because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.

"What's up, Myrtle?" said Lyla curiously.

"Who's that?" glugged Myrtle miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Draco waded across to her stall and said, "Why would we throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me..."

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," said Lyla, reasonably. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

She had said the wrong thing.

"Let's all throw books at Myrtle!" the ghost girl shrieked, " 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– who threw it at you, anyway?" asked Blaise over her wails.

"I don't know…" sniffed Myrtle. "I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head, It's over there, it got washed out..."

Lyla and the others 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. Theo stepped forward to pick it up, but Daphne suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What's that for?" he asked.

"Are you crazy?" he hissed. "For all we know, it could be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" said Lyla, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous? It's a book!"

"You'd be surprised," said Draco, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated fathers told me — there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read 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—"

"Okay, I get it," said Lyla with a roll of her eyes.

The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy.

"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," she said, and ducked around Daphne, picking it up off the floor.

Lyla first saw that whatever this book was, it had once been a diary of sorts, and the faded year on the cover told her it was fifty years old. She opened it eagerly. On the first page, she could just make out the name "T M. Riddle" in smudged ink.

"Whose T M. Riddle?" asked Blaise.

"Dunno," responded Lyla, peeling back the wet pages. They were completely blank.

"Hmm, seems they never wrote in it," said Daphne, disappointed.

"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?"

Lyla turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.

"He must've been Muggle-born," said Lyla thoughtfully. "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..."

"Well, it's not much use to you," said Theo. He dropped his voice. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."

Lyla, however, pocketed it.

Throughout the next couple of weeks, Lyla did all she could to figure out the secrets of the Diary. She showed Hermione the ratty booklet once she was released from the hospital wing, and told Ron and Arabella the story of how she'd found it.

"Oooh, it might have hidden powers," said Hermione enthusiastically, taking the diary and looking at it closely.

"If it has, it's hiding them very well," said Lyla grumpily.

"Maybe it's shy," interjected Daphne.

"I don't know why you don't chuck it," said Theo.

"I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it," said Lyla reasonably. "It's rather odd… Ara, do you want a crack at it?"

Arabella took it and sighed. But Lyla could tell from the arrested look on Hermione's face that she was thinking exactly what her friend was thinking.

"What?" she asked.

"Well, the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, wasn't it?" she said.

"Yeah..." said Lyla slowly. "So what of that?"

"And this diary is fifty years old exactly," said Hermione, tapping it excitedly.

"So?"

"Oh, honestly, wake up," snapped Hermione. "We know the person who opened the Chamber last time was expelled fifty years ago. We know from Professor James that the Chamber was opened nearly fifty years ago to this day."

"I see what you're saying," said Draco thoughtfully. "What if Riddle was around that time? His diary would probably tell us everything— where the Chamber is, and how to open it, and what sort of creature lives in it— the person who's behind the attacks this time wouldn't want that lying around, would they?"

"That's a brilliant theory, you two," said Ron shortly, "with just one tiny little flaw. There's nothing written in his diary."

"It might be invisible ink!" Draco whispered, drawing his wand from his bag. "Aparecium!" he said, tapping the diary three times.

Nothing happened. Undaunted, Hermione shoved her hand into her bag and pulled out what appeared to be a bright red eraser.

"It's a Revealer, I got it in Diagon Alley," she explained.

She rubbed hard on January first. Nothing happened.

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to find in there," said Theo with a yawn. "Riddle just got a diary for Christmas and couldn't be bothered filling it in."

"I really don't think that's the case," said Lyla.

She couldn't explain it, even to herself, but she just couldn't throw Riddle's diary away. The fact was that even though she knew the diary was blank, she kept absentmindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it were a story she wanted to finish. And while Lyla was sure she had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to her, almost as though Riddle was a friend she'd had when he was very small and had half-forgotten. But this was absurd.

Nevertheless, Lyla was determined to find out more about Riddle and spent the rest of her free time that day poking at the book. After that, she'd passed it back to Arabella in defeat.

"Maybe you'll find something in it," she said forlornly, "give it back once your done, okay?"

The sun had now begun to shine weakly on Hogwarts again. Inside the castle, the mood had grown more hopeful. There had been no more attacks since those on Anthony and Nearly Headless Nick, and Madam Pomfrey was pleased to report that the Mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning that they were fast leaving childhood.

"The moment their acne clears up, they'll be ready for repotting again," Lyla heard her telling Filch kindly one afternoon. "And after that, it won't be long until we're cutting them up and stewing them. You'll have Mrs. Norris back in no time."

"Perhaps the Heir of Slytherin lost his or her nerve," suggested Theo as he stuck his quill in his mouth thoughtfully. "It must be getting riskier and riskier to open the Chamber of Secrets, with the school so alert and suspicious."

"That's just wishful thinking, mate," sighed Draco as he crumpled up a piece of parchment and threw it into a blazing green fire. "I've got a very, very bad feeling."

"Perhaps the monster," theorized Blaise thoughtfully, "whatever it is, is now settling itself down to hibernate for another fifty years…"

Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff didn't take this cheerful view. He was still convinced that the Potter sisters were the guilty ones and that they'd given themselves away at the Dueling Club. Peeves wasn't helping matters; he kept popping up in the crowded corridors singing "Oh, Potter, you rotter..." now with a dance routine to match.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think he himself had made the attacks stop. Lyla and Daphne overheard him telling Snape so while the Slytherins were lining up for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"I don't think there'll be any more trouble, Severus," he said, tapping his nose knowingly. "I think the Chamber has been locked for good this time. The culprit must have known it was only a matter of time before I caught him. Rather sensible to stop now, before I came down hard on him. You know, what the school needs now is a morale-booster. Wash away the memories of the last term! I won't say any more just now, but I think I know just the thing..."

Snape in turn only sneered and strode off, muttering darkly under his breath.

Lockhart's idea of a morale-booster became clear at breakfast time on February fourteenth. Lyla hadn't had much sleep because of a late-running Quidditch practice the night before, and she hurried down to the Great Hall, slightly late. She thought, for a moment, that she'd walked through the wrong doors.

The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling. Lyla went over to the Slytherin table, where Blaise and Draco looked sickened, and Daphne seemed to have been overcome with giggles.

"What's going on here?" Lyla asked them, sitting down and wiping confetti off her bacon.

Wordlessly, Theo pointed to the teachers' table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where she sat, Lyla could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagall's cheek. Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of SkeleGro.

"Happy, happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted once everyone's attention had turned. "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!"

Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! 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! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison.

"Daph, please tell me you weren't one of the forty-six," said Blaise as they left the Great Hall for their first lesson. Daphne in Rosina's suddenly became very interested in searching her bag for her schedule and didn't answer.

"This day is only going to get weirder and weirder…" huffed Lyla with displeasure.

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