Chapter 16
It was not until Charms class the next day that Hermione noticed something peculiar about Riddle's diary. While all of Ron's textbooks had been thoroughly drenched in ink (Professor Flitwick was indeed taking advantage of the mess to teach his students scouring charms), the diary remained as unblemished as it had when they retrieved it from Myrtle's bathroom.
She tried to point this out to Ron, but he was watching, white-faced, as Neville Longbottom accidentally set fire to 101 Magical Herbs and Fungi in the attempt to lift the spilt ink from its pages.
"I needed that, too," he whispered. "There was a section we had to read up on for Potions.c'mon, Hermione, not now." With that, he jumped up and ran over to where Professor Flitwick was helping Neville put the fire out with spurts of icy water pouring from the tip of his wand.
Sighing, Hermione replaced the diary and turned to the ink-spattered copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 that she had been assigned to clean. "Purificalmith!" The black ink flew into the tip of her wand, and she proceeded to drain it into an inkwell sitting beside the book.
"Thanks," Ron muttered as he slid back into the seat beside her. Hermione glanced up to see Professor Flitwick busily repairing the burned book, with an ashen-faced Neville apologizing profusely to anyone who would listen. "Now how do you do this again?"
"Make the fourth syllable nice and long-Purificalmith."
"Purificalmith!" Ron tried. Nothing happened.
"Not Purificalmith, Purificalmith, Ron," Hermione scolded. Try it again.
This time Ron succeeded-but as the ink sped into the tip of his wand, he groaned. Hermione, who had turned away to clean another book, turned back with a scowl. "What now?" she asked irritably. "Ron, I'll never get through these if you can't learn a simple cleaning spell."
"No, Hermione-look-I did it right, I'm not sure what happened-," Ron gasped, staring at the pages before him. They had gone completely blank- apparently all the ink had been erased, not just the ink spilt the day before.
Hermione raised her hand resignedly. "Professor!" she called when Flitwick did not look up. "I'm not sure what happened, it just."
The tiny wizard hurried over and talked Ron through the process of feeding the right inks back into the book and the wrong into the inkwell. "Honestly," Hermione muttered and turned back to her own books.
Before she could begin the spell on Terrors of the Deep by Todali Frident, however, the corner of the diary caught her eye once more. It stared up at her, still perfectly ink-free and clean.
Suddenly it dawned on her, and as soon as Professor Flitwick had turned away she pulled the diary from her bag. Opening it to the first page she quickly scribbled a few lines using a quill from her desk and the ink that she had sucked out of Ron's book and wrote, "My name is Hermione Granger."
The words shone momentarily on the page and they, too, sank without trace. Then, at last, something happened.
Oozing back out of the page, in her very own ink, came words she had never written.
"Hello, Hermione Granger. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"
These words, too, faded away, but not before Hermione had started to scribble back.
"Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."
She waited eagerly for Riddle's reply.
"Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read."
"What do you mean?" Hermione scrawled, blotting the page in her excitement. She was oblivious, now to the shouts of her classmates as they accidentally misperformed the cleaning charm; to the worried groans Ron gave each time he noticed something horrible happen to one of his secondhand books; to the utter mayhem that the class was wasted on her unhearing ears.
"I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"That's where I am now," Hermione wrote quickly. "I'm at Hogwarts. Horrible stuff's been happening, too. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure that Riddle could hear it through the pages of the diary. Riddle's reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier as though he were hurrying to tell all he knew."
"Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."
Hermione nearly upset her ink bottle in her hurry to write back.
"It's happening again now," she scribbled. "There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?"
"I can show you if you like," came Riddle's reply. "You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him."
Hermione hesitated, quill suspended over the diary. Suddenly she realized once more that she was in Charms class with the rest of the Gryffindor second years, not alone in her dormitory. She set the quill down and pushed the cleaned books in front of her to shield her from anyone who could be watching. Ron was not beside her; she saw him at the other side of the room watching anxiously as Professor Flitwick repaired a damaged book.
Then she turned back to the diary. The last words were still there, glistening darkly on the page labeled January 1st. What did Riddle mean about taking her "inside his memory"? How could she be taken inside someone's memory?
She glanced up uneasily at the other students. No one was paying much attention to her; they were all engrossed in their own problems. When she looked back down at the diary, fresh words had formed beneath the others.
"Let me show you."
Hermione paused for a fraction of a second and then wrote two letters.
"OK."
The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Hermione saw that the little square for June 13th seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen. Hands trembling slightly, she bent towards the desk and put her eye against the little window, and before she knew what was happening she was tilting forward; the window was widening, she felt her body leave the chair, and she was pitched headlong through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.
She knew immediately where she was; it was not more than a few months ago she and Ron had been in this very same room. It was Dumbledore's office-but it wasn't Dumbledore who occupied the chair behind the desk. A thin, wizened man wearing deep navy robes, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. Hermione had never seen him before.
"I'm sorry," she said shakily. "I didn't mean to butt in-,"
The wizard did not look up. He continued to read, frowning slightly. Hermione drew nearer to his desk and stammered, "Er-I'll just go, shall I?"
Still the wizard ignored her. He didn't even seem to notice her presence. Thinking that the wizard might be deaf, Hermione shouted, "Sorry I disturbed you. I'll just go now."
The wizard folded the letter with a sigh, stood up, and walked to the window to draw the curtains against the deepening dark. Then he returned to his seat once more and sat, twiddling his thumbs and watching the door.
Hermione looked around the office. No phoenix-no whirring silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, fifty years ago. This unknown wizard must have been the Headmaster, not Dumbledore, and Hermione was little more than a phantom-completely invisible to the people of fifty years ago.
There was a sudden rap on the door of the office.
"Enter," said the wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. A silver prefect badge glinted on his chest. He reminded Hermione of Harry; though he was much taller he, too, had jet-black hair.
"Ah, Riddle," said the Headmaster.
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" Riddle asked. He looked nervous.
"Sit down," said Dippet. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."
"Oh," said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
"Dear boy," said Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?" he added.
"No," said Riddle immediately. "I'd rather spend the summer here than go back to that-to that."
"I understand you live in a Muggle orphanage over the summer," said Dippet. "That is true?"
"Yes," said Riddle, reddening slightly. "My-my father was a Muggle."
"And both your parents are-?"
"My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me-Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."
Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically. "The thing is, Tom," he sighed, "special arrangements might have been made for you under different circumstances, but now.." He sighed heavily.
"You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle eagerly. Hermione moved closer, anxious not to miss anything."
"Precisely," said the headmaster, sighing again. "Dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be for you to remain at the castle after term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy.you will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry is even now talking of closing the school. We are no nearer locating the source of all this unpleasantness.."
"Sir-if the person was caught-if it all stopped-," he asked quickly.
"What do you mean?" said Dippet, his voice catching. "Tom, do you know anything about these attacks?"
"No, sir," said Riddle quickly, but Hermione was sure that it was the same sort of "no" she herself had given Dumbledore a few months ago.
Dippet sank back, looking faintly disappointed. "You may go now, Tom.."
Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Hermione followed, slipping through the door before it closed.
Down the moving spiral staircase they traveled, emerging next to the stone gargoyle in the darkened corridor. Riddle stopped, biting his lip. His forehead furrowed, and Hermione could tell that he was doing some serious thinking.
Then, as though he had reached a sudden decision, he hurried off, Hermione gliding noiselessly behind him. They didn't see another person until they reached the entrance hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and a beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.
"What are you doing, wandering about this late, Tom?"
"I had to see the Headmaster, Professor," said Riddle.
Hermione gasped as she looked at the wizard. It was none other than a fifty- year-younger Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the same kind of piercing stare Hermione had undergone so many times. "Well, hurry off to bed," he said. "Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since." he sighed heavily, bade Riddle goodnight, and strode off. Riddle watched him walk out of sight and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with Hermione in hot pursuit.
To Hermione's disappointment, Riddle led her not into a hidden passageway or a secret tunnel but into the very dungeon where Snape taught their Potions class. The torches hadn't been lit, and when Riddle pushed the door almost closed, Hermione could only just see him, standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside.
It felt to Hermione that they were there for at least an hour. All she could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue. And just when she had stopped feeling expectant and tense and started wishing she could return to the Charms class, she heard something move beyond the door.
Someone was creeping along the passage. She heard whoever it was pass the dungeon where they were hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, Hermione close behind.
For perhaps five minutes they followed the footsteps, until Riddle stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. Hermione heard a door creak open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper.
"C'mon.gotta get yeh outta here.C'mon, now.in the box.."
There was something familiar about that voice..
Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Hermione stepped out behind him. She could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
"Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.
The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.
"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"
Riddle stepped closer.
"It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing the school if the attacks don't stop. I don't think you mean to kill anyone," he said, raising his voice over the large boy's protests. "Monsters just don't make good pets, Rubeus. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and-,"
"It never killed no one!" said the large boy, backing against the wall. From behind him, Hermione could hear an odd rustling and clicking.
"Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing responsible for her death is slaughtered.."
"It wasn't him!" roared the boy. "He wouldn'! He never!"
"Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing his wand.
His spell lit the corridor with a sudden, flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Hermione let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone-
A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers-Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Hermione felt herself falling into the darkness.it was enveloping her..
"Hermione! Hermione! Wake up!"
"Miss Granger!"
"What happened?"
"Someone go get Professor Dumbledore!"
"Miss Granger, Miss Granger, wake up. Enervate!"
"Hermione, Hermione, wake up!"
The voices seemed to be coming from a long way off. Hermione opened her eyes slowly to the sight of many anxious faces hovering above her, among them Ron's and Professor Flitwick's. Their faces showed identical shock and concern. Ron was paper-white, mouthing soundlessly.
"What happened?" Hermione muttered groggily. Suddenly she remembered the diary and Riddle's memory. "Oh," she said softly.
"What, Miss Granger?" asked Flitwick, relief flooding his voice.
"Oh-nothing, Professor," said Hermione, sitting up. "What happened? Whatever it was, I feel much better now." As she spoke, she scanned the floor next to her for the diary. It was not there-it was not on her desk either, she noticed.
"You-you fainted, Hermione," said Ron croakily. "You kind of went into this coma for a couple minutes-it was weird-,"
Hermione noticed the diary now, tucked into her schoolbag as it had been at the beginning of the lesson. "Oh," she said, relieved and not paying much attention to the concerned questions about her welfare from her classmates.
"Would you like to go up to the hospital wing, Miss Granger?" Flitwick squeaked worriedly.
"No-no, I'm fine," Hermione mumbled. "Er.when is class over?"
"Now," said Flitwick. "I advise that you go up to Gryffindor Tower, however. You don't look well, not well at all. Would someone like to go with Miss Granger to the Tower? I'll cover up with Minerva.."
"I'll go!" Ron volunteered quickly.
"Very well, Mr. Weasley, you may go with Miss Granger and spend the next period in Gryffindor Tower. I advise that you rest yourself, Miss Granger, you still look a bit pale. Now hurry up-I've got to explain to Minerva, come on now-,"
He shooed Ron and Hermione from the classroom. Hermione walked in groggy silence, Ron beside her.
"Wow, Hermione," he said finally, "What on earth happened?"
"It was the diary," was all she would say. Her mind was still too numb-not from the 'faint' that she had supposedly gone into, but from what she had seen, and heard, through the courtesy of T.M. Riddle.
It was not until Charms class the next day that Hermione noticed something peculiar about Riddle's diary. While all of Ron's textbooks had been thoroughly drenched in ink (Professor Flitwick was indeed taking advantage of the mess to teach his students scouring charms), the diary remained as unblemished as it had when they retrieved it from Myrtle's bathroom.
She tried to point this out to Ron, but he was watching, white-faced, as Neville Longbottom accidentally set fire to 101 Magical Herbs and Fungi in the attempt to lift the spilt ink from its pages.
"I needed that, too," he whispered. "There was a section we had to read up on for Potions.c'mon, Hermione, not now." With that, he jumped up and ran over to where Professor Flitwick was helping Neville put the fire out with spurts of icy water pouring from the tip of his wand.
Sighing, Hermione replaced the diary and turned to the ink-spattered copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 that she had been assigned to clean. "Purificalmith!" The black ink flew into the tip of her wand, and she proceeded to drain it into an inkwell sitting beside the book.
"Thanks," Ron muttered as he slid back into the seat beside her. Hermione glanced up to see Professor Flitwick busily repairing the burned book, with an ashen-faced Neville apologizing profusely to anyone who would listen. "Now how do you do this again?"
"Make the fourth syllable nice and long-Purificalmith."
"Purificalmith!" Ron tried. Nothing happened.
"Not Purificalmith, Purificalmith, Ron," Hermione scolded. Try it again.
This time Ron succeeded-but as the ink sped into the tip of his wand, he groaned. Hermione, who had turned away to clean another book, turned back with a scowl. "What now?" she asked irritably. "Ron, I'll never get through these if you can't learn a simple cleaning spell."
"No, Hermione-look-I did it right, I'm not sure what happened-," Ron gasped, staring at the pages before him. They had gone completely blank- apparently all the ink had been erased, not just the ink spilt the day before.
Hermione raised her hand resignedly. "Professor!" she called when Flitwick did not look up. "I'm not sure what happened, it just."
The tiny wizard hurried over and talked Ron through the process of feeding the right inks back into the book and the wrong into the inkwell. "Honestly," Hermione muttered and turned back to her own books.
Before she could begin the spell on Terrors of the Deep by Todali Frident, however, the corner of the diary caught her eye once more. It stared up at her, still perfectly ink-free and clean.
Suddenly it dawned on her, and as soon as Professor Flitwick had turned away she pulled the diary from her bag. Opening it to the first page she quickly scribbled a few lines using a quill from her desk and the ink that she had sucked out of Ron's book and wrote, "My name is Hermione Granger."
The words shone momentarily on the page and they, too, sank without trace. Then, at last, something happened.
Oozing back out of the page, in her very own ink, came words she had never written.
"Hello, Hermione Granger. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"
These words, too, faded away, but not before Hermione had started to scribble back.
"Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."
She waited eagerly for Riddle's reply.
"Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read."
"What do you mean?" Hermione scrawled, blotting the page in her excitement. She was oblivious, now to the shouts of her classmates as they accidentally misperformed the cleaning charm; to the worried groans Ron gave each time he noticed something horrible happen to one of his secondhand books; to the utter mayhem that the class was wasted on her unhearing ears.
"I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"That's where I am now," Hermione wrote quickly. "I'm at Hogwarts. Horrible stuff's been happening, too. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Her heart was beating so loudly that she was sure that Riddle could hear it through the pages of the diary. Riddle's reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier as though he were hurrying to tell all he knew."
"Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."
Hermione nearly upset her ink bottle in her hurry to write back.
"It's happening again now," she scribbled. "There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?"
"I can show you if you like," came Riddle's reply. "You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him."
Hermione hesitated, quill suspended over the diary. Suddenly she realized once more that she was in Charms class with the rest of the Gryffindor second years, not alone in her dormitory. She set the quill down and pushed the cleaned books in front of her to shield her from anyone who could be watching. Ron was not beside her; she saw him at the other side of the room watching anxiously as Professor Flitwick repaired a damaged book.
Then she turned back to the diary. The last words were still there, glistening darkly on the page labeled January 1st. What did Riddle mean about taking her "inside his memory"? How could she be taken inside someone's memory?
She glanced up uneasily at the other students. No one was paying much attention to her; they were all engrossed in their own problems. When she looked back down at the diary, fresh words had formed beneath the others.
"Let me show you."
Hermione paused for a fraction of a second and then wrote two letters.
"OK."
The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Hermione saw that the little square for June 13th seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen. Hands trembling slightly, she bent towards the desk and put her eye against the little window, and before she knew what was happening she was tilting forward; the window was widening, she felt her body leave the chair, and she was pitched headlong through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.
She knew immediately where she was; it was not more than a few months ago she and Ron had been in this very same room. It was Dumbledore's office-but it wasn't Dumbledore who occupied the chair behind the desk. A thin, wizened man wearing deep navy robes, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. Hermione had never seen him before.
"I'm sorry," she said shakily. "I didn't mean to butt in-,"
The wizard did not look up. He continued to read, frowning slightly. Hermione drew nearer to his desk and stammered, "Er-I'll just go, shall I?"
Still the wizard ignored her. He didn't even seem to notice her presence. Thinking that the wizard might be deaf, Hermione shouted, "Sorry I disturbed you. I'll just go now."
The wizard folded the letter with a sigh, stood up, and walked to the window to draw the curtains against the deepening dark. Then he returned to his seat once more and sat, twiddling his thumbs and watching the door.
Hermione looked around the office. No phoenix-no whirring silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, fifty years ago. This unknown wizard must have been the Headmaster, not Dumbledore, and Hermione was little more than a phantom-completely invisible to the people of fifty years ago.
There was a sudden rap on the door of the office.
"Enter," said the wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. A silver prefect badge glinted on his chest. He reminded Hermione of Harry; though he was much taller he, too, had jet-black hair.
"Ah, Riddle," said the Headmaster.
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" Riddle asked. He looked nervous.
"Sit down," said Dippet. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."
"Oh," said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
"Dear boy," said Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?" he added.
"No," said Riddle immediately. "I'd rather spend the summer here than go back to that-to that."
"I understand you live in a Muggle orphanage over the summer," said Dippet. "That is true?"
"Yes," said Riddle, reddening slightly. "My-my father was a Muggle."
"And both your parents are-?"
"My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me-Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."
Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically. "The thing is, Tom," he sighed, "special arrangements might have been made for you under different circumstances, but now.." He sighed heavily.
"You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle eagerly. Hermione moved closer, anxious not to miss anything."
"Precisely," said the headmaster, sighing again. "Dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be for you to remain at the castle after term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy.you will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry is even now talking of closing the school. We are no nearer locating the source of all this unpleasantness.."
"Sir-if the person was caught-if it all stopped-," he asked quickly.
"What do you mean?" said Dippet, his voice catching. "Tom, do you know anything about these attacks?"
"No, sir," said Riddle quickly, but Hermione was sure that it was the same sort of "no" she herself had given Dumbledore a few months ago.
Dippet sank back, looking faintly disappointed. "You may go now, Tom.."
Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Hermione followed, slipping through the door before it closed.
Down the moving spiral staircase they traveled, emerging next to the stone gargoyle in the darkened corridor. Riddle stopped, biting his lip. His forehead furrowed, and Hermione could tell that he was doing some serious thinking.
Then, as though he had reached a sudden decision, he hurried off, Hermione gliding noiselessly behind him. They didn't see another person until they reached the entrance hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and a beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.
"What are you doing, wandering about this late, Tom?"
"I had to see the Headmaster, Professor," said Riddle.
Hermione gasped as she looked at the wizard. It was none other than a fifty- year-younger Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the same kind of piercing stare Hermione had undergone so many times. "Well, hurry off to bed," he said. "Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since." he sighed heavily, bade Riddle goodnight, and strode off. Riddle watched him walk out of sight and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with Hermione in hot pursuit.
To Hermione's disappointment, Riddle led her not into a hidden passageway or a secret tunnel but into the very dungeon where Snape taught their Potions class. The torches hadn't been lit, and when Riddle pushed the door almost closed, Hermione could only just see him, standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside.
It felt to Hermione that they were there for at least an hour. All she could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue. And just when she had stopped feeling expectant and tense and started wishing she could return to the Charms class, she heard something move beyond the door.
Someone was creeping along the passage. She heard whoever it was pass the dungeon where they were hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, Hermione close behind.
For perhaps five minutes they followed the footsteps, until Riddle stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. Hermione heard a door creak open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper.
"C'mon.gotta get yeh outta here.C'mon, now.in the box.."
There was something familiar about that voice..
Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Hermione stepped out behind him. She could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
"Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.
The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.
"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"
Riddle stepped closer.
"It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing the school if the attacks don't stop. I don't think you mean to kill anyone," he said, raising his voice over the large boy's protests. "Monsters just don't make good pets, Rubeus. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and-,"
"It never killed no one!" said the large boy, backing against the wall. From behind him, Hermione could hear an odd rustling and clicking.
"Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing responsible for her death is slaughtered.."
"It wasn't him!" roared the boy. "He wouldn'! He never!"
"Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing his wand.
His spell lit the corridor with a sudden, flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Hermione let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone-
A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers-Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Hermione felt herself falling into the darkness.it was enveloping her..
"Hermione! Hermione! Wake up!"
"Miss Granger!"
"What happened?"
"Someone go get Professor Dumbledore!"
"Miss Granger, Miss Granger, wake up. Enervate!"
"Hermione, Hermione, wake up!"
The voices seemed to be coming from a long way off. Hermione opened her eyes slowly to the sight of many anxious faces hovering above her, among them Ron's and Professor Flitwick's. Their faces showed identical shock and concern. Ron was paper-white, mouthing soundlessly.
"What happened?" Hermione muttered groggily. Suddenly she remembered the diary and Riddle's memory. "Oh," she said softly.
"What, Miss Granger?" asked Flitwick, relief flooding his voice.
"Oh-nothing, Professor," said Hermione, sitting up. "What happened? Whatever it was, I feel much better now." As she spoke, she scanned the floor next to her for the diary. It was not there-it was not on her desk either, she noticed.
"You-you fainted, Hermione," said Ron croakily. "You kind of went into this coma for a couple minutes-it was weird-,"
Hermione noticed the diary now, tucked into her schoolbag as it had been at the beginning of the lesson. "Oh," she said, relieved and not paying much attention to the concerned questions about her welfare from her classmates.
"Would you like to go up to the hospital wing, Miss Granger?" Flitwick squeaked worriedly.
"No-no, I'm fine," Hermione mumbled. "Er.when is class over?"
"Now," said Flitwick. "I advise that you go up to Gryffindor Tower, however. You don't look well, not well at all. Would someone like to go with Miss Granger to the Tower? I'll cover up with Minerva.."
"I'll go!" Ron volunteered quickly.
"Very well, Mr. Weasley, you may go with Miss Granger and spend the next period in Gryffindor Tower. I advise that you rest yourself, Miss Granger, you still look a bit pale. Now hurry up-I've got to explain to Minerva, come on now-,"
He shooed Ron and Hermione from the classroom. Hermione walked in groggy silence, Ron beside her.
"Wow, Hermione," he said finally, "What on earth happened?"
"It was the diary," was all she would say. Her mind was still too numb-not from the 'faint' that she had supposedly gone into, but from what she had seen, and heard, through the courtesy of T.M. Riddle.