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Part 16Harry calling up the girls' dorm stairs at them waked Erin and Hermione out of a deep sleep and they decided they had better answer him before he woke the entire house up. "Hold your horses, Harry." Erin called down sleepily. "We'll be down in a second."
So yawning and leaning against each other to stay upright the girls' went down into the common room where Ron was snoozing on a chair. Erin fell on the couch curling up into the corner while Hermione took the chair beside her. Harry was pacing in front of the fire. "It was Hagrid, Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets 50 years ago."
"Harry, I certainly hope that this is a joke." Erin said. "Hagrid? Our friend, Hagrid? You can't be serious."
"The boy in the diary, Tom Riddle showed me it, Erin."
"What did he show you?"
"He brought me into the diary and he was waiting on the stairs seeing someone brought down underneath a blanket, I think they were dead. Then Dumbledore came and asked him what he was doing there. He told him that he had to see if the rumors were true and he didn't have a home to go to if they closed Hogwarts. Dumbledore told him to go off to bed because it wasn't safe to be wandering at that time of night. Instead he led me down to the dungeons and he confronted Hagrid. Hagrid had a spider kept in a box and Riddle captured him."
Erin sighed. "OK, Harry, for one, you're taking the word of someone you don't even know over Hagrid. That's pretty suspicious. Two, Tom Riddle may have had the wrong man and three, how big was this spider?"
"About the size of one of Hagrid's hands." Harry said.
She shook her head. "Harry, spiders don't petrify people."
"Erin, how many monsters can be in this school?" He argued.
"Harry!" Erin said louder to get his attention as he had begun ranting. "Hagrid is our friend, he would never attack someone that was a Mudblood! He would never do that! And if he knew of someone that did that he wouldn't sit idly by and let them! I thought you knew Hagrid better than that!"
The next day they were still arguing about it. "Look, Hagrid's our friend." Hermione said. "Why don't we just go ask him about it?"
"It's not Hagrid, Hermione." Erin was getting frustrated and snapping at people now. "We know Hagrid! He would never do this!"
"Yes, that will be a cheerful visit." Ron said ignoring Erin. "Hello, Hagrid, tell us have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose on the castle lately?"
"Mad and Hairy? You wouldn't be talking about me now would ya?"
They turned to see Hagrid standing there. "No." Harry, Ron and Hermione said quickly.
"Yes." Erin said.
Hagrid looked at them a little confused. "Uh, what's that you have, Hagrid?" Harry asked.
"Oh," The man said holding up a jar. "Flesh-eating slug repellant, for the mandrakes. Professor Sprout says they still have a bit of growin' up to do, but pretty soon they'll be ready for stewin' and we'll get the people up there unpetrified. Now you four had better be watchin' out for yehselves, all right?"
"All right." Erin said. "Oh, and Hagrid…" Erin paused biting her lip.
"Yes, Erin?" He asked.
"I know you'd never hurt anyone."
He looked a little taken aback, but then he smiled and got teary eyed. "Thank you." He said and turned wiping his eyes on the back of his huge hand. "Hello, Neville."
Neville had run into the yard breathless. "Harry, I don't know who did it, but you'd better come."
They all ran after Neville, who led them back to the Tower and up to their room. The room was in shambles. All of Harry's stuff was on the floor, the pillows were ripped open, and things were broken. "It had to be a Gryffindor, no one else knows the password." Hermione said.
"That doesn't make it any better." Erin said.
"They must have been looking for something." Ron said.
"And they found it." Harry looked up at them from the mess. "Tom Riddle's diary is gone."
"Ok, Harry, put everything down." Erin said and she flicked her wand. Everything flew back to the way it was, she even got the ink off the floor and back into the pot.
"Thanks." Harry said. "What are we going to do?"