George finally got sick of this treatment and snuck out of History of Magic one day, looming outside the Charms classroom until Ginny emerged. When she did, he grabbed her by the arm and, against her protests, tugged her off into an empty classroom. Once there, he had pulled the book out and demanded to know if there was anything going on that he should know about.
"When she saw it... she looked like someone had died." George murmured. "She shook her head, slipped around me, and took off running. I tried to catch her, but she's too damn fast. I think you're right, Harry. I think she is involved in whatever's going on."
Harry sighed. The two were sitting down near the lake, despite the weather conditions. It was the best place to talk without worrying about any eavesdroppers. "I was afraid of that." He said, shaking his head slowly. "I think she's been helping whatever's been petrifying people."
"But why?" George asked, slamming the diary down onto the ground between the two of them.
"I dunno. Maybe whatever it is has some sort of control over her. If that's the case, it's a simple matter of figuring out what it is. Then we can hunt it down,
kill it, and hopefully that'll fix Ginny up." Harry said.
"Hopefully..." George echoed, drearily. "...You had any luck working out what kinds of creatures can turn people to stone?"
"Yeah. Only none of them really make sense. At least, not unless the plumbing is massive in size. It would have to be. There are very few small creatures that can do that sort of thing. Only... I didn't see anything about mind control listed for any of them..." Harry said, narrowing his eyes. "There's something missing still. I know there is."
"Well I hope you hurry and figure out what." George said, scowling.
"Yeah. So do I." Harry said. Then, feeling himself get hit on the head by a large rain droplet, he added, "Let's get back inside."
Harry grabbed the diary and tucked it away in his robes, walking with George back up to the school. "I'm going to take it up to the Nest later and try writing in it. I'm going to have both Tonks and Leon nearby, just in case anything should happen to me. We'll track you down if it gives us anything useful to go on."
"Thanks, Harry." Said George, running a hand back through his hair as a few random drops of water splashed onto it. "We - Ron and me, I mean - really do appreciate what you're doing to help..."
Harry grinned crookedly, pushing one of the front doors of the school open and stepping inside. "Don't be thanking me. I haven't done anything yet. The most I've done is put some good, solid Ravenclaw thinking into things."
"Still... the sooner I get Fred back and Ginny stops acting weird, the better. I'm a bit worried, to tell you the truth. I just have this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach that something's going to happen tonight."
"Oh? Why's that?" Harry asked.
"Because..." George said, looking up at the ceiling and smiling mirthlessly, "There's going to be a full moon tonight."
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
"Okay, you two. I'm going to flip this stupid thing open and start writing. If anything should happen to me... I dunno, do something." Harry said, sitting cross-legged in the Raven's Nest. Solieyu and Tonks were sitting nearby. Both had their wands out.
"Real eloquent, Harry." Tonks commented.
"Shut up! I'm nervous, that's all. Never fiddled with something like this before. So I just open it and start writing, huh?" Harry asked.
"Pretty much." Tonks replied. "After a minute, your text'll fade. If anything happens after that, you're in trouble. Normal wizarding diaries just cause everything you write to vanish until you want to see it again. And no one else can read it. So I doubt we'll be finding anything out about the thing's previous owner. But it's worth a shot if you're still feeling so uppity over it."
"Leon, any commentary you'd like to throw in?" Harry asked, voice toneless.
"Nothing. I can sense something odd about it, but it's very faint." Solieyu said, shrugging as he leaned back against the wall.
"Lovely." Harry said, opening the diary to somewhere about the middle, taking a quill and some ink from his bag. "Well... here goes nothing."
As Harry wrote, the other two watched. After his initial writing, the text indeed faded out. But then something odd happened - new text appeared. Text that, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be greeting Harry. Tonks and Solieyu exchanged a confused glance at this, but Harry was too focused to notice it. He continued to have a conversation with the inanimate object for a few minutes.
Then light flared in the Nest, causing Tonks and Solieyu to shield their eyes. When the light faded, and they peered out, Harry was gone. Tonks leapt to her feet and quickly ran out and around the tower's outer circle once.
"He isn't out there!" She cried as she came to a halt back inside.
"He didn't leave through the trapdoor, either." Solieyu said, kneeling next to the diary. "Tonks. You don't suppose...?"
Walking over and squatting down next to him, Tonks stared at the diary, as well. "You think he's... what, that he's in the diary? Don't be barmy."
"Well, if you have a more plausible idea, I'd love to hear it." Solieyu said. When Tonks didn't reply, he continued, "It seemed to be talking back to Harry. That alone means there's something odd about the thing. That it seemed to swallow our friend means that it's probably hiding more than the writings of angsting wizards and witches..."
"Yeah, but... what do we do now? Do we just sit and wait for him to return? Should we go find Dumbledore?" Tonks asked, squirming. "Do you think Dumbledore could even do something...?"
"I'm not sure, Tonks. I'm really not. I guess this is what I was sensing. But if it was enchanted to suck someone in, it should have been practically oozing a magical aura of sorts... I barely sensed a thing." Solieyu said, obviously annoyed at having a book get the better of him.
"I didn't sense anything." Tonks pouted. "How come you're so much better at that, huh?"
"Natural instinct." Solieyu replied, leaning over the diary to get a better look at it. There was nothing on the opened pages to indicate anyone had been writing in it, much less a hint as to what was said. "It was important to my mother that I learn to sense magical auras on things. Especially after the acci--"
Whatever Solieyu was about to say, he was cut off as the book suddenly flared with light again. This caught both Ravenclaws by surprise and sent them onto their backsides, covering their eyes and hissing from the sudden brightness. There was an audible 'oomph!' from nearby and, when they could manage to open their eyes again, it was to see a very confused-looking Harry sitting where he had been.
For a moment, none of the trio spoke. Then, Harry frowned and stared down at the diary. "Did I...?"
"Uh-huh." Solieyu answered, rubbing at his eyes and scowling slightly.
"How long was I gone...?"
"Not long." Tonks said. "Five, maybe ten minutes?"
"Really?" Harry said, brow creasing further. "Felt like a few hours had passed. This diary was owned by some guy named Riddle, originally. Looked a bit like me, only taller... I saw him in there. It was like I was watching a replay of events that he wrote down. I could walk around and hear everything within distance of Riddle himself, but I couldn't interact with anything..."
"It's like a Pensieve?" Solieyu asked.
"A what?" Said Harry.
"A Pensieve." Solieyu repeated. "My mother owns one. You draw memories out of your head with your wand and place them into this bowl of silver liquid... it helps to sort your thoughts, apparently. You can go into them and 'relive' them in a way."
"...Sounds about right, then. But... I saw a good number of things. Did you two know Dumbledore was a redhead? George'll get a kick out of that. And I saw Hagrid when he was younger, too. It seemed... like Riddle was catching him..."
"Catching him? Doing what?" Tonks asked.
"I'm not sure. That one was a bit fuzzy. But... remember the writing on the wall? It mentioned a Chamber of Secrets? Seems like it was opened before. And attacks like the ones now happened back then, too." Harry said. "It got so bad that one student was killed... Riddle seemed to think Hagrid was the one who opened this Chamber thing and released whatever was attacking the students... Hagrid kept denying it, but... there was something in that room with him. Only I didn't get a good look at it since it was so damn dark in there..."
"So... what now?" Asked Solieyu. "Do we confront Hagrid? Ask him what happened back... whenever this was written?"
"I don't know. I get really uncomfortable around him..." Harry said, glancing off.
"Hagrid's the one who delivered Harry to the Dursleys when he was a baby." Tonks supplied.
"Ahh..."
"I guess we should, but... I think we should wait. I think we should wait and I think we should keep an eye on Hagrid instead of confronting him outright. You know how he is - if he knew that we knew something, he'd go straight to Dumbledore. And since Dumbledore seems keen on trying to cover things up, I'm willing to bet we'll be kept from figuring anything else out. No, I think we should lay low for now..." Harry said.
"And if there's another attack?" Solieyu asked.
"Then we'll confront him. You've heard the rumors, right? That he was expelled? What if he was expelled for releasing whatever caused the attacks?"
"Why would Dumbledore hire him onto the staff, though, if that was the case?" Asked Tonks.
"Why did Dumbledore hire a two-faced man and Snape? Who knows why the man does anything he does." Harry grumbled. "All I know is that he isn't entirely trustworthy, either. The headmaster's keeping his fair share of secrets, too. And since the staff obviously isn't trying to work out what's going on, we need to. We can't just let things continue on like they did back in Riddle's time. They were threatening to close the school, you know..."
"Really?"
"Mm. Riddle was talking to the previous headmaster about it all." Harry said, closing the diary and looking at the tiny letters inscribed on the front. "An 'o' has faded out. It isn't 'T. M. Riddle,' it's 'Tom Riddle.' Since Tom here talked to Dumbledore, he must know what's going on this time. So why isn't he doing anything? Dammit all, when one piece of the puzzle falls into the place, two more go missing..."
"So, aside from observing Hagrid, are we planning to do anything?" Asked Tonks.
"Not yet. I have a lot to think over. If what George said was true, Ginny was writing in this previously. Only I don't get why it would cause her to act so strangely and look so awful. Riddle didn't seem like a bad guy... a bit odd, in a way, but not bad." Harry said, frowning.
"Maybe he wasn't so good with girls?" Tonks offered.
"I don't think so... he was wearing a badge or something on his robes. So he was either a prefect or Head Boy. I was too busy taking in everything else to pay closer attention. Didn't seem like that big a detail, anyway. You'd need good people skills for a position like that." Said Harry.
"Perhaps Ginny Weasley was asking Riddle advice, and it turned sour?" Solieyu offered. "Most men aren't known for giving the sagest of advice about women, after all."
"Maybe... but to throw it in Myrtle's toilet? I dunno. I don't think love troubles are the foremost thing on an eleven year old girl's mind..." Harry said, shaking his head. "I dunno. I can't work it out."
"...Well..." Tonks began, staring at the diary again. "You thought Ginny was helping whatever it is out of the bathrooms and stuff, right? ...What if Riddle was giving her advice about that? Or trying to get her to stop?"
Harry tilted his head, then sighed. "I dunno. I think I need to sleep on it. This whole situation's giving me an awful headache. Either of you know any useful spells to make something like that go away?"
Solieyu prodded Harry in the head with his wand twice, murmured something under his breath, then leaned back on his arms again. Within a few seconds, the pounding between Harry's eyes subsided.
"Thanks. Where'd you learn that?" Harry asked, rubbing his forehead.
"My mother taught it to me." Solieyu replied, simply.
"Ahh. You'll have to teach me sometime." Harry said. "...C'mon, you two. Let's go tell George what we found out. Maybe some part of it will make sense to him."
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Harry sighed. It was too quiet, even for the Ravenclaw common room. Harry liked it when there was peace, but... this was different. A feeling of dread filled Harry when this type of silence fell over the castle. It was as if something was about to happen and it needed just enough build-up before it could begin.
As he had been experiencing quite enough 'excitement' lately, Harry got up and headed out of the Tower. Whatever was about to happen, he wanted no part of it. Tonks was off in her dorm, studying frantically for an upcoming Herbology test on fanged plants and how to treat their bites, so he was on his own. Solieyu, as usual, was off in parts unknown, which still irked Harry to no end.
As Harry wandered the corridors of Hogwarts, he thought back to how they had reported their findings back to George. George seemed quite interested in Harry's bizarre adventures in the diary, to the point of wanting to inspect it to try and work out the spells on it. But Harry had said it wouldn't be good if it was in Ginny's general vicinity. She might try to do something to it.
So Harry had taken it to his dorm room in the Tower and tossed it in his trunk, figuring that she'd never be able to get at it there, of all places. He planned to try writing in it further, but he was having difficulty in deciding what to write. Tom Riddle didn't seem like the type to lie, but it was just a diary. He felt odd just having a conversation with an inanimate object as it was. To try and question an inanimate object from years before about current events... well,
that was just outright stupid.
Nonetheless, it was worth some kind of shot. The diary had held information about the Chamber being opened in the past, after all. Rubbing at the back of his neck, up near his skull, Harry sighed. Despite Solieyu's wand work, he was still having random aches and pains. That, or it was his 'danger sense,' as Tonks once called it, going off. She had started calling it that recently, due to the fact that every time Harry started to warn that something bad might happen, something bad did happen.
Personally, Harry felt like he was cursed for the very same reason.
After what felt like about an hour or so of aimless meandering, Harry finally decided to go back to the Tower to see if anything had randomly blown up. Of course, he immediately regretted thinking that, as the last thing he wanted was for something bad to happen in his own House. The last thing he expected to see was a rain of paper as he re-entered the common room.
Blinking, Harry stared around curiously. A handful of people were around, watching the paper flying about. The tear of paper caused Harry to jerk his head off in one direction. And there, to his horror, was Terry Boot. With Riddle's diary. Ripping pages out and slinging them up into the air.
Avoiding loose pages scattered on the floor with a quickness honed from dodging punches by a handful of his cousin's goon friends, Harry was across the room and tackling Terry to the floor in an instant. Without thinking, and without questioning, Harry promptly slammed his fist into Terry's nose, causing an awful cracking noise. Harry was about to thrown a second to get one of Terry's eyes when a pair of seventh years hoisted him up, despite his protests.
"What the hell are you doing?" Harry yelled, glaring down at Terry, who was now clutching his broken nose.
"Getting even!" Terry spat, glaring back up at Harry.
"Getting even? For what?" Harry cried, breaking free of the seventh years' grip on him and grabbing for the diary. It was about half as filled as before now.
"What you and 'Nymmy' did to me before Halloween! But I bet you don't even remember that, do you?" Terry growled, getting to his feet and wobbling slightly.
"Actually, I do remember, and I hardly see how ripping up an old diary in the common room is suitable revenge for it!" Harry growled back.
"Oh, I had other reasons for doing it besides my revenge," Terry said, smirking strangely.
"Other reasons...?" Harry repeated, narrowing his eyes. "What other reasons?"
"Oh, like I'm going to tell you." Terry said. "Besides, I need to get to the hospital wing. Thanks for giving me such a convenient way out, Potter."
Harry tried lunging again as Terry quickly walked out, but one of the seventh years grabbed at his arm again. Scowling, Harry instead went about collecting up the scattered pages of Riddle's diary.
"What's all the noise? I'm trying to stu-- Harry, what happened?"
Looking over his shoulder, Harry saw Tonks walking in, her eyes darting around the scene. With another scowl, he said, "Terry decided he'd be funny, getting revenge for what we did to him before Halloween. And, he claimed, there were other reasons for it."
"Were is the little sod, I'll punch him!" Tonks said, walking over to help Harry grab up pages.
"I got to him first this time." Harry said, holding up his right hand to show Tonks how red his knuckles were. "Right in the nose. He had to go off to see Madam Pomfrey. And if those two," Harry indicated the seventh years, who were back to chatting on the couch, "hadn't stopped me, I would've gotten another shot or two in."
After gathering the pages back up, Harry and Tonks went to the second year boys' dorm, where Harry found Solieyu stretched out in bed.
"Now when did you get up here?" Harry asked, glaring.
"I've been up here." Solieyu replied, sourly.
"Didn't think to stop Terry, then?"
"Stop him from what?"
"Getting the bloody diary out of my trunk, that's what!" Harry yelled.
"I've been asleep." Said Solieyu.
"Since when do you sleep?" Harry asked, crawling onto his own bed with Tonks following behind.
"Shut up." Solieyu said, sighing as he sat up. "So what happened?"
"Well, after Terry got the diary right from under your nose," Harry began, sending a glare at his friend, "he went down and tore half of it up. It's a good thing I got back when I did. Broke his nose with a single punch, too."
"So I noticed." Muttered Solieyu.
"Noticed? How could you-- ...No, I'm not going to bother asking anymore. You'll never give me a straight answer, anyway." Harry said, shaking his head.
"If I hadn't been given a potion by Madam Pomfrey, I probably would have heard and stopped him. But I only just woke up a few minutes ago. Probably due to all the noise downstairs." Solieyu said, sending Harry's earlier glare back at him.
"He was ripping up our only big clue to this mess!" Harry flailed. "If he had complete des--OWW! Tonks, what was that for?"
Tonks peered at Harry through narrowed eyes. "You're being noisy. We've got more important things to do. I know I have things other than your little annoying bicker-fight on my mind."
"Didn't have to hit me." Harry mumbled.
After awhile, they had decided to just spell the pages back together. But that didn't seem to work. Whenever they tried to use 'Reparo' on it, the pages started to go back to where they belonged, but promptly slipped back out again. None of them could figure out why. In the end, they decided to simply tape the pages back in and leave it at that. They would have to keep usage to a minimum, so Harry's further writing experiments were flushed down the toilet like the diary had almost been. He was pretty sure that the magic in the pages had been nullified once they had been torn out.
And, after a quick test, (due to Solieyu's insistance) Harry's theory proved to be true. Harry couldn't simply open the book from the back and write on the last page, either,as Terry had ripped an equal amount from both ends. The only safe spot was the middle, and none of them were eager to re-tape the rest of the pages in should the tape decide to give.
Settling on keeping the diary hidden under his invisibility cloak, and thankful that Terry hadn't found that, Harry groaned. "Every time I think things can't get any worse, they do."
"So stop thinking." Solieyu said, moving back to his bed and laying down again. After bringing an arm up to cover his eyes, he added, "Sic George on him. Ron's settled down, hasn't he? Maybe Terry will learn to stop being an idiot after he gets pranked enough."
"You're condoning us pranking Terry?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.
"He's an idiot. And far, far too loud for my liking. ...Perhaps George knows a good, strong silencing charm." Solieyu said, shrugging with one shoulder.
"Perhaps George knows a good, strong charm to keep Terry's hands attached to his butt." Tonks mimicked, scowling. "Little git."
"Perhaps George knows a good way to get him re-Sorted. What's he doing in Ravenclaw? He's dumber than the Hufflepuff firsties..." Harry said, rubbing at his temples.
"We should be so lucky." Solieyu said.
"Well, I guess we should think about visiting Hagrid, after all." Harry said after a few moments of silence. "Can't properly write in the diary unless I want to recollect and tape the pages back in..."
"Might as well." Tonks said. "Really, we don't have anything to lose from it, right? You'll just have to take a deep breath and stick it out, chief."
"Yeah..." Harry said, flopping back. "Well... we all might as well try to get a good night's sleep..."
"Danger sense?" Tonks questioned, smiling slightly.
"Don't you have Herbology stuff to be studying?" Harry asked through half-shut eyes.
"Crap! I totally forgot about that!" Tonks said, leaping off of Harry's bed and heading for the door. "Hex that idiot Boot's bed to bite his bits or something!"
And with that, the currently blue-haired girl was gone.
"I can only imagine Pomfrey's face if she had to treat an injury like that." Harry said. "...And it's disgusting. Dear Merlin, kill it with fire."
Solieyu snorted. "Get some rest."
"I can't. Every time I close my eyes now, I see a half-naked Terry Boot holding bits of himself out to the school nurse."
"...Thanks, now I can't close my eyes, either."
"Remind me to have a little talk to Tonks about mental imagery sometime." Harry said, sighing as he shut his eyes and shuddered.
"Noted."
"...So, you really not going to tell me why you were sleeping at this hour?"
"Nope."
"Alright. Just asking."
"Noted."
Opening an eye long enough to glare at Solieyu, Harry sprawled out. A visit to Hagrid's hut. As if everything else going on hadn't been enough. Now Harry would finally have to be in the presense of the man that had delivered him to the Dursleys. It might have been Dumbledore's call, and Harry would always resent the headmaster for it, but it had been Hagrid that had actually picked him up and brought him to Privet Drive.
For some reason, Harry didn't think he would survive if he tried punching Hagrid in the nose.
oOoOoOoOoOoOo
Author's Notes: HALF-BLOOD PRINCE SPOILER-ISH STUFF FOLLOWS.
Rowling can bite me. Lupin x Tonks as canon my ass. Love how she literally pulled that one out of her ass. And making Fleur so stroppy and unlikable! Good god, I didn't care so much about what happened with Bill or that the Page 606 thing turned out to be true... But FOUR pairings out of the blue was a BIT much. I'm REALLY not looking forward to rewriting Book 6. I may just go with my original plans for Book 6 (Flying Citadel of Azkaban, anyone?) instead of going down the bland, uninspired, and wholly boring drek that is Half-Blood Prince.
Can a writer make her own characters out-of-character? Doesn't that break some fundamental laws of physics or something? God, no one was in-character in HBP. I officially hate HBP more than Chamber. And you guys have seen me bitching here, you should know my deep, seething hatred for Chamber by now. Guh. What do you guys think? Canonical rewrite with the laughably silly videogame plot of the horcruxes (if Harry gets 100 galleons, does he win a free man, too?) or Flying Citadel?
Oh, and if you guys haven't done so yet, check my profile. The R-Series has official fanart now! I'm strangely bouncy about it. I guess I never thought I'd ever write something that someone would consider good enough to spend time and effort on art for. But I'm happy, nonetheless. It's a scene from chapter 1 of book 1 and I thought it turned out really nice.
Edit for fixing the formatting: FFN has decided that I entered the URL multiple times for some reason. I fixed it, but it may still show as four or five pastes of the same URL. Just for reference.
As for this chapter... I figured it was pointless to rewrite the scenes of meeting Myrtle and the trip into the diary. I really have nothing to add to either of those, so keeping them like I did prevents boredom all around, I felt. Things are about to pick WAY the hell up, though. Next chapter will be part 1 of another two-part chapter. Maybe. You know how I am. I may just have one BIG chapter with everything I want in it. No matter which route happens, Aragog WILL appear in Chapter 14. So... yeah.
My feelings on Half-Blood Prince have petered out. I was a ranting, raving mess when I finished because I thought it was just so damned STUPID as a whole. And not just because Rowling decided to cement two saw-it-coming couples and two random ones into the foundation. Though Harry's RANDOM as hell feelings for Ginny flaring to life was odd. As was Harry picking up on Ron x Hermione early on. It all had NO build-up. I've read better fanfics than HBP. And with any luck, I'll continue to do so.
Make no mistake, dear readers. I WON'T fall into the same hackneyed plots Rowling has. Horcruxes will play no part of my end of the story which, as I've mentioned elsewhere, has already been written. I know how my story ends, and I have no desire to change it. So I guess after Order, I'll be going AU no matter which route I take. Bleh... Order was so good. What HAPPENED?