'Harry!' Hermione called as he left the potion's classroom. She earned herself a sour look from Snape for her volume, but he rarely took points form his own house so she knew that she would be okay as she hurried to catch up with the Boy-Who-Lived.

'Don't tell me you believe it too.' He moaned as she caught up with him.

'Don't be silly. But I do know who actually did it.' She added in an undertone. Harry's face lit up hopefully, then he froze in horror as something came up behind Hermione.

'Oh no!' He gasped, all trace of happiness fading. Hermione turned on her heel, already suspecting what it was. The rest of their class had stopped too, peering at the dwarf in it's pink tutu in obvious interest.

'Oy, 'Arry Potter!' The dwarf aptly hooked Harry's ankle with it's golden harp as he tried to flee. 'I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person.'

'No... I'm fine, really.' Harry tried to scramble away but a gaggle of first years, including a very smug looking Ginny Weasley blocked his path. Theo winked at Hermione from across the corridor and she shook her head.

'Perhaps you should, Harry.' Hermione announced breezily. 'It would be terribly impolite to refuse such a thoughtful gesture.'

Harry shot her a dismayed look, but reluctantly stopped trying to free the strap of his bag from the dwarf's hands. The dwarf cleared his throat with a hacking cough that splattered Harry's shoes with phlegm, then twanged one of the strings on it's harp carelessly. The off tune note made several people wince.

'His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, his hair is as dark as a blackboard, I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the hero who conquered the Dark Lord.'

Hermione raised her eyebrow at Theo and he grinned, jerking his head in Ginny's direction. She waved cheerily, mouthing the line about toads. If she didn't know what Harry and Theo had written for Ginny, she would have felt more sorry for the Gryffindor boy.

As red as his tie, Harry finally got back to his feet and glowered at anyone who dared look at him.

'You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?' Harry demanded and Hermione put on her best innocent expression. Ginny had hurried into the potion's classroom straight away and Theo had likewise made a rapid exit.

'Unlike you lot, I do not engage in such childish behaviour.' She tossed her hair and Harry scoffed.

'Don't tell me that carpet of rose petals that was delivered to Neville earlier wasn't you.'

Hermione grinned.

'I didn't want him to feel left out. But I was being serious... I do know who's opening the chamber.'

This time, she led Harry into an abandoned classroom and cast a privacy ward over the door with a flick of her wand.

'Who? How?' Harry demanded eagerly as she jumped up on a desk.

'Lord Nott told me... fifty years ago he attended school with a student called Tom Riddle, who went on to become Lord Voldemort.'

'Voldemort!' Harry hissed in disbelief.

'That diary she writes in contains a memory of one Tom Riddle.'

'So what do we do?' Harry asked. 'If he's using Ginny...'

'We stop writing in it. I think we should bury it under the whomping willow.'

'Bury it, sure, but why not just destroy it - flush it down the toilet or chuck it in the fire?' Harry asked sceptically.

'Because,' Hermione answered slowly, 'You can't just destroy the thing that holds a memory. Mordred's sword is ancient, low quality steel but it's never blunted or broken and it hasn't rusted. Every spell I've tried to use to glamour or artificially blunt it for practice just slides right off.'

'Okay. I'll talk to Ginny with you, if you do that freezing thing on the tree whilst we bury it. I'm not going anywhere near the branches otherwise.'

Hermione nodded quickly. She might not manage the exact time freezing spell that she'd used in Lockhart's lesson, but she could probably do something similar.

They waited until after classes to speak with Ginny, when the younger girl was meant to be on Hermione-sitting duty. She hovered at the door to the hall, joking with her twin brothers until Hermione finished, then fell in beside her as Daphne peeled off towards the dungeons.

They headed up to the transfiguration classroom and spread out their homework for Lockhart. A minute later, Harry joined them. Theo and Neville weren't there, which suggested that he'd been successful at losing them in library. In an attempt to loosen the tightly knotted nerved in her chest, Hermione prodded the conversation in the direction of the valentines dwarfs. Theo had finally fallen victim to his own machinations by successfully uniting Ginny and Harry against him when it became obvious that he'd masterminded both embarrassing valentines; they'd managed to aquire and slip him a love potion somehow and he'd spent the afternoon following Professor Lockhart around and professing his love. She suspected the Weasley twins were responsible for the illicit brew and was secretly glad that there had been no adverse effects so far.

'Ginny. We need to talk to you about something.' Hermione began once the conversation reached a natural pause. She was all too aware that the other boys could be back any minute and she really didn't want them bursting in on the talk they were about to have.

Ginny nodded and her lip wrinkled as she chewed on it.

'Do you remember that I believe it is only one's actions now and in the future that matter - that redemption cannot be sought without forgiveness?' Hermione asked. Ginny nodded.

'That's why she's friends with Lord Nott, because even though he was one of You-Know-Who's followers, Hermione knows that he can be a good person if he has the chance.' Harry continued. Ginny had already known that Lord Nott was a follower of Voldemort, judging by her utter lack of reaction.

'Lord Nott told me about one of his school friends, Ginny. We think your diary might be his, and we're pretty sure it's cursed.' Hermione finished gently. Ginny's face crumpled abruptly - too quickly. She'd already suspected at least.

'I know!' Ginny wailed. 'He's been possessing me and making me do things... I keep waking up covered in blood and feathers.'

Hermione quickly wrapped her up into a tight hug.

'I'm sorry, Ginny, that it took me so long to figure it out. I should have spoken to Mordred as soon as Tom told me that he was a memory.'

'It's me that should be s-s-sorry.' Ginny sobbed into her robes. Hermione raised an eyebrow at Harry over the younger witch's shoulder and he cautiously wrapped his own arms around both of them. 'Dad t-t-told me that I shouldn't trust s-s-something if you can't see where it keeps it's b-b-brain.'

'Well, that's good advice, Ginny. But advice is very easy to give and much harder to follow.' Hermione rubbed a hand up and down her back. 'But we can get rid of it now, and the mandrake draft will be ready soon - no harm done.'

'I already g-got rid of it.' The young witch pulled back a little, rubbing furiously at her eyes. Hermione bit her lip and had to fight not to curse.

'What did you do to it Ginny?' Harry asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking her in the eye with an encouraging smile.

'I flushed it down the toilet.' She looked proud of that accomplishment and Hermione could only imagine how hard the memory had fought to not be flushed.

'Do you think you could show us which one? We just want to make sure it's really ruined.' Hermione prompted and Ginny nodded, swiping at her eyes again. 'Look, I'll show you some tricks to stop your eyes doing that too, I do it if I stayed up too late reading.'

We practiced the cooling charm on our quills for a while, pressing the chilled feather tips against our eyes. Quickly, Ginny's tears dried up and she pulled herself together remarkably quickly. Once she looked respectable again, we followed her out and down to the disused bathroom that belonged to moaning myrtle.

It was flooded, water shining on the floor. Hermione grimaced and lifted her robes up above her boots, glad for the waterproofing charms on them as she slopped through the water. Myrtle's wailing could be heard even over the cascading rush of overflowing sinks and Hermione took a deep breath to steel herself. Myrtle was a nightmare even on the best occasion and judging by the noise, this was not one of those times.

The ghost noticed them come in, but other than the movement of her eyes and a slight setting of her expression she made no indication of it. Briefly, Hermione debated ignoring her, then she reconsidered; Myrtle had died in her teens, and was forever stuck as such. There was nothing that teens liked more than romantic drama.

'Myrtle?' Hermione asked kindly, edging up to the window. 'We were really hoping that you might be able to help us?'

Myrtle sniffed dramatically, but her eyes gleamed curiously. The faded colour on her robes was blue, and Hermione was certain that she'd made the right bet.

'Ginny's been going out with Tom for months, but she found his diary and he's been telling everyone nasty things about her behind her back... she flushed it down the loo the other day but I think it would be rather excellent if we spread some of his private things around instead.'

She patted Ginny's back and the younger witch did her best to look tearful.

'Ooh, boys are just awful.' Myrtle moaned in sympathy. 'You should have told me you were upset, rather than just dropping the book through my head. We could have had a cry together. Oliver Hornby used to tease me about my glasses something terrible.'

Hermione could thing of nothing worst, but Ginny managed a credible attempt at looking grateful.

'So...' Myrtle said eagerly, crossing her legs and leaning forwards eagerly. 'What sort of nasty things should I tell everyone?'

'Well, we will need to find the diary as proof - nobody will believe us otherwise.' She lowered her voice conspiratorially, 'he's an orphan. He was abandoned at an orphanage when he was a baby because his parents didn't want him. He's been pretending to be related to the founders.'

'Oooh, so he could just be a muggleborn. Those purebloods won't be happy they've been lied to.' Myrtle snickered appreciatively. 'The book's over there, under the loo. Do make sure you come back and tell me how it went.'

With another cackle, Myrtle drifted off into one of the toilet stalls and Hermione waded over to the one the ghost had gestured to. The slim book had washed in behind the plumbing and she used her wand to push it out, rather than kneeling. Ginny came up behind her and confirmed that it was indeed the book. Then she backed away quickly, her eyes wary.

Figuring that it hadn't hurt her the last time she'd held it, Hermione picked it up. The water ran off immediately, leaving the pages dry and untouched by their visit to the U-bend.

They hurried out before Myrtle could come back, barely believing their luck. Harry hovered outside, shifting awkwardly and he sighed in relief when he saw them.

'Oh thank Circe. Percy's already caught me twice; he thinks you're a bad sort.'

'I know.' Hermione rolled her eyes. He wasn't alone at the moment - it seemed half the school thought that the Grindelwald girl and the Heir of Slytherin where in a conspiracy to wipe out the muggleborns... never mind that Grindelwald hadn't actually been a purist.

'You got it. Good.' Harry acknowledged as they turned down the corridor. He opened his bag so that Hermione could drop it in and out of sight.

It was already growing dark as they hurried down the grounds but Hermione couldn't help but think that was all the better. Nobody ever went close to the whomping willow willingly; even out of the range of the branches themselves, the tree would often bat birds out of the sky and the panicked, feathery projectiles were always painful and messy. So when she froze the branches and the two Gryffindors scrambled up to the trunk, she was unsurprised that nobody had ever discovered the tunnel that they quickly found.

They concluded from the thick coating of dust that the tunnel was unused, and left the book tucked into the snarl of roots which hung from the ceiling. Then, feeling like a weight had suddenly disappeared, they made their way back up to the castle with a detour via the kitchens for celebratory cookies.