Nanie: Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, other holidays, and Happy New Year!

(sobs) M-my c-copy of Half B-blood P-Prince i-i-is MISSING! Anyway before I was just going off my own logic that Dumbledore was the Secret Keeper for Grimmauld but I was re-reading Order of the Pheonix and it was mentioning how it had all these charms and spells on it and then Moody so happened to, on page 115, mention that Dumbledore was the Secret Keeper and that the note that enabled Harry to see it was from Dumbledore.

fieryred: Thanks for the review for chapter 8!

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Ronald Weasley, or any of the other characters of the story, they all belong to J. K. Rowling. I own this stories plot, buwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Previously: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny finally decide to go to Malfoy Manor to check under the floor for Dark Arts stuffs. They head off decked out in black with as much skin as possible covered. They travel by broomstick, a means of travel that frightens Hermione. They reach the gates and unlock them using the alohomora spell (I don't know why they didn't just fly over them, it would've been the sensible thing to do...)

Chapter 9: The Diary and The Fireplace

Hermione took a few deep breaths as Harry gently pushed open one of the enormous gates.

"Well, this is it guys," said Harry while drawing in a deep breath, "no backing out now."

Ginny nodded, as if to reassure herself. Ron looked somewhat confident. Hermione...

"Are you sure we're doing the right thing?" Hermione asked in a small voice. "I mean, breaking into the Manor and all... it is breaking laws, isn't it?"

Ron sighed, typical Hermione. "Of course it's breaking laws," he said. "If not someone would've done it already."

"Look, now's no time for regrets," said Ginny solemnly. "Don't you want to expose the Malfoy's for the Dark Wizards they are?"

Hermione nodded. Her friends were right. "Stupid Dragon of Bad Faith," she muttered.

"What was that?" asked Harry and Ron at the same time.

"Dragon of Bad Faith, it's the translation of Draco Malfoy's name," she said matter of factually.

Ron laughed, as did Harry and Ginny.

"Remind me to call him that sometime," said Ron happily.

"Let's just go already," said a rather impatient and anxious Ginny, who then strode through the gates, across the marble path, up the granite stairs, and right to the Malfoy's front door.

"Don't you think that we should use the back door?" asked Ron nervously while he and the others walked up to Ginny. "I mean, anyone passing by could see us here..."

"We could use the window," thought Harry aloud.

"We should have planned this before we came," said Hermione.

"Bit late to worry about that now, isn't it?" Ron said while nodding to himself. "Okay then, back door, back door, back door..."

The group walked off the front porch and strode across the lawn. Hermione staggered slightly, it felt weird walking again after the time she had just spent on a broomstick.

"Do you suppose that they might have some sort of an alarm, to alert them if someone's breaking in?" asked Ron.

"Nonsense," Ginny said confidently, "we've got Hogwarts greatest witch here. You can think of something to check for and disable any sort of alarms, can't you, Hermione?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "I can't really think of an existing spell that I know to work, but I think I could make one up. I studied Latin before joining Hogwarts, and many of the spells come from the Latin language, which is the language of Magic, Ron."

"Sheesh, it's not like I asked for a History of Magic Spells class or anything..." Ron muttered.

"Let me think..." said Hermione while trying to remember her Latin vocabulary. She took a few steps away from the house and pointed her wand at it. She said a few words that Harry, Ron, and Ginny couldn't make out, a blast of blueish green light shot from her wand and hit the house.

"We'll just have to hope that nobody saw that and that it works," she said while walking up to the door. "Alohomora." She beckoned to Ron and Harry. "Gentlemen first."

"Hey! That's unfair," Ron whined.

Harry walked in, followed by Ginny, then Hermione, then Ron. The door creaked shut behind them.

"I hope Narcissa hasn't been hiding out here," said Ginny, suddenly fearful.

The four all pulled out their wands and held them at the ready. "Lumos," they all said at once. Each of their wands lit a blue light at the tip. The four looked around the room.

It was a dark room, with cold wood flooring. Tapestries hung on the wall. There was a fire place, though no fire was lit. There were pictures on the mantel. Cold, velvety chairs were in the room. Rooms branched off of it in three directions. It reminded Harry of the Slytherin dungeons.

Hermione wandered out of the room. Dark objects were hidden under the drawing room floor, and the room she was just in was most definitely not a drawing room. The room she walked into also was dark, and cold. She shivered as she looked around it. Rooms branched from it in three directions also. There was no window in the room. A large picture hung on the wall. From it icy eyes stared at her. The picture was of three people, Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco Malfoy.

Hermione walked a few steps away and then ran through the room branching off to the right. She saw a set of stairs and instantly began climbing them. Vaguely she heard someone following her but didn't bother to see which of the group it was.

She knew she was most definitely going away from the drawing room now, but at the moment didn't care. Her instinct was leading her upstairs and if she'd ever learned one thing from Harry it was follow your instincts.

The stairs led to a long hallway, lined with many doors. She walked down it. She felt scared. It was a feeling in her gut. They left in the night, she was breaking into a cruel and evil wizard's house, her spell could have failed and someone could be on his or her way to capture her, Narcissa Malfoy could be lurking in the house herself, there could be a house elf somewhere, Voldemort himself could be hiding in the house, something terribly bad could happen at The Burrow while they were gone...

Hermione's worries went on and on. Fear ran through her veins. She tried to calm down. Deep breaths weren't helping her very much. She walked over to a door. "Alohamora," she said while pointing her wand at the lock, before even checking to see if the door was locked.

She opened the door and entered into the room. It had a window, covered by deep blue curtains. There was a double bed centered against the wall running parallel to the wall behind Hermione. The bed had crimson, silk covers. The pillow cases were made of black silk. The floor of the room was stone, with a circular, crimson rug beside the bed. There was a closet and two black dressers.

"This must be Lucius and Narcissa's room," Hermione thought. She turned to see who had followed her. She saw noone. Panic flooded through her. It was one of the group that followed her, right? What if it were Narcissa! Was Narcissa here after all? She walked over and opened the closet. Clothes there, and shoes. Nothing dark magic like. She closed the closet door.

She exited the room and looked down and up the hallway. No one there. She held her wand, ready for whatever may be upstairs with her. She closed the door to Lucius and Narcissa's room while keeping all her senses on alert. She walked along the hallway and passed a few doors.

She came to another door. Her instincts urged her towards it. "Alohamora," she said, again not checking to see if the door was even locked first.

She turned the knob and pushed on the door. It opened with a creak. She looked around the room. There was a window seat and huge window. The window was covered by black satin curtains. There was a bed in the corner with deep green silk covers on it. The pillow cases and sheets were silver. The floor was wooden, unlike that of Narcissa and Lucius' room.

There was a closet in the room and a desk. Against another wall was a bookshelf. The room was neat, no clothes or toys or books or anything were covering the floor. Everything was neat and orderly.

"Draco's room," Hermione thought while walking over to the desk. There were books on it also. She walked over to the book shelf and lifted her wand to better see what books were on the shelf. There were books from their previous years and some that she'd never heard of before. The one that caught her attention was a small, thick, black leather book with no title. She pulled it from the shelf.

"What's that?"

Hermione jumped and turned. She held her wand out and then lowered it. "Harry you scared me!" The boy smiled.

"Sorry," Harry said while walking over to Hermione. "So what's that you've got there?"

"I don't know," said Hermione. She thought for a moment. "Harry," she asked, "did you follow me up the stairs?"

"Yes," the boy answered. "Didn't you know it was me?"

Hermione looked relieved. "I heard someone but didn't see who. Then when I turned around and didn't see anyone I thought maybe Narcissa, or someone else, was here."

Hermione opened the book. Scrawled on the first page, in sloppy writing, was a name. "Harry," she said, "this is Malfoy's diary." She held her wand over the writing and she and Harry read;

Draco Malfoy

Hermione flipped to a random page.

11:45 pm September 2, 2004

Stupid Potter. He's so stupid. He's in Remedial Potions. Even Crabe and Goyle aren't that stupid. I wish I could ditch the two, but no, I can't! Why? Because Father's friends with their stupid fathers and decided for them to watch over me while I was here. Go figure that I end up having to watch them. Oh well, at least they're stupid enough to do whatever I saw. It amazes me that they can even fly, I was sure they'd be too heavy for the broomsticks to hold up.

At least Umbridge isn't afraid to punish Potter every time he's out of line. It's so annoying, the way that all the teachers act like Potter's the perfect angel and never punish him. Aside from Snape. But with two out for him Potter will really have to watch out.

Father mentioned that he'd Crucio me if I didn't take Parkinson to the dance. Parkinson's almost as annoying as Potter is.

Draco

Hermione put the diary into her hoodie pouch. "We'll read it later," she said shakily, "at The Burrow. Until then we have Dark items to find."

Harry almost found himself pitying Draco. Having to go to the dance with Pansy Parkinson must have been bad, especially faking wanting to be with her. And he knew how bad facing the Crustacious Curse was. He followed Hermione out of the room and up the hallway to the stairs that they'd taken up.

"Over here!" said Ginny as she saw Hermione and Harry coming down the stairs. "Ron and I have found the drawing room! We decided to wait for you two before investigating!"

"We found something also," said Harry, "Malfoy's diary."

Ginny jumped in delight. "Come on, follow me! I'll lead you over to Ron and then we can tell him!"

They followed Ginny over through a room and saw Ron sitting on a couch, head lolled to the side, snoozing.

"Ron wake up!" commanded Ginny while walking over to him and slapping him on the side of the face. Ron woke with a start and wrestled Ginny to the floor. Harry laughed.

"Honestly you two," sighed Hermione.

"Ron, Ron, you'll never believe it!" said Ginny excitedly while trying to free herself from her brother. "Hermione and Harry found Malfoy's diary!"

Ron, in shock, let go of his sister. Ginny jumped up and toppled Ron over. "Isn't it great!" she said happily. "We'll be able to find out so much more now!"

"Yeah, let's just work on finding the Dark objects," said Hermione. "Preferably before dawn," she then added after a slight pause.

Hermione got down on her hands and knees and crawled along the floor, feeling for any uneven areas or hinges. "Nothing," she said after a few minutes. "Nothing that hints at any sort of door or passage to beneath the floor."

"So what does that mean?" asked Ron stupidly.

"It means our search is going to be much harder," said Harry.

"Not just much harder, it's going to exceedingly difficult!" Hermione nearly shouted. "Either there's a specific area that must be wedged free and pulled up or there's a hidden passageway somewhere in this mansion!"

"Calm down, would you! Everyone from here to The Burrow can probably hear you!" shouted Ron.

"Quit yelling at Hermione!" shouted Ginny while pushing Ron. Ron stumbled and fell... into the fire place.

Ron screamed he was falling, and falling, and then suddenly hit something that was both cold and hard.

"Ron! Ron! Ron where are you!" screamed a panicking Ginny. She was running around the fireplace frantically trying to find Ron. He had disappeared through it.

Hermione walked over to the fireplace and knelt beside Ginny. Shakily she reached out her right hand and held it out towards the fireplace. She lowered it to the ground and pushed. She nearly screamed. She could only see the upper part of her arm. Her hand and lower arm were gone! She moved her fingers. Wait, she had fingers, meaning...

"Harry, Ginny, the bottom of this fireplace, it's an illusion or something similar to it," she said. "I think it's the way to their stash of Dark items."

Hermione pulled her arm out and slowly pushed her feet in. She pushed off of the ground, holding her wand, and felt herself fall through the fireplace floor.

She could feel solidness around her for a moment, and then she was free falling through the air. She landed, seven feet down later, on a hard, cold, stone floor.

"Lumos," she said and looked around. Ron was standing three feet away from her and smiling. Surrounding them were many shelves, shelves full of magical items.

"Harry! Ginny!" Hermione shouted up. "We found it! It's safe and about a seven foot drop! Come join us!" She watched as Ginny, and then Harry, seemed to fall through the ceiling and then land infront of her.

"Bloody hell," said Ron as he looked at all the shelves again. Harry nodded his head in agreement.

"Don't touch anything," Hermione cautioned. "We don't know what they do or how they're activated."

Ron, who was just about to touch a rather nasty looking piece of something, pulled his hand back.

"So what now?" he asked. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny looked at him confused. "We've found this room, sure, but what now? We don't have pictures of it, we can't just call Ministry officials here (they've got enough trouble of their own), and we can't tell dad how to get here and admit that we were here."

Harry looked over at Ron and then turned towards Hermione. "You're really smart, maybe you can think of something," he said.

Hermione considered their position for a moment. "If Dumbledore were still alive I'd advise we tell him... but he's not..." Hermione thought for a bit longer, blinking back the tears that filled her eyes at the thought of Dumbledore's death. "Maybe we could tell Moody, but he'd probably be mad at us for this..." She thought for a while longer. "I can't think of anything else," she said at last. "We'll have to go back to The Burrow and think it over."

A trace of fear flicked across Ginny's face for a moment. "How are we going to leave here?"

The others' eyes widened as they too realized that they didn't have any clue of how to leave the hidden room.

Nanie: Thanks for reading and please review! I hope you liked the chapter!

Nanie-san