Chapter Twenty-Two: Forbidden Memories

The next day, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Gryffindor ghost Nearly Headless Nick were found Petrified, with Harry being the first on the scene.

"How does he keep getting into situations like these, honestly?" Daphne asked Hermione and Ron during lunch, while Harry was still being interrogated.

Before either of them could reply, however, she spotted Ginny, a short distance over from them. She looked like she hadn't slept since the school year had begun.

Daphne looked at Ron. "What's going on with Ginny?" she asked. Ron shook his head. "I don't know. Percy keeps claiming it's our fault for scaring her, but I think something else is going on. She won't talk to us, though…maybe you can get something out of her?"

Daphne got up immediately. "I'll try," she said.

"Hey, Ginny, let's take a walk for a moment."

Ginny looked torn between refusing and getting up, but in the end, she seemed to relent and followed Daphne out of the Great Hall.

Daphne led them into an empty hallway and said, "Ginny, you look worse every time I see you. Please tell me what's going on. Again, I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to, but I hate seeing you like this. This isn't really you. Where's the girl I met over the summer?"

Ginny hesitated, but finally she looked around the hall to see if anyone was coming, then whispered, "I…I think I'm losing my mind. Sometimes…sometimes I wake up somewhere and I won't know how I got there. I have…gaps in my memory where I can't remember anything. I…what if I'm the one attacking people? I…I don't want to be expelled."

Daphne wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but this wasn't it. What it was, however, was very serious.

"When did this start?" Daphne asked.

Ginny shook her head. "I don't know…" she said. "Just a bit into term. Maybe…just under a month?"

"And you've kept it to yourself all this time?" Daphne said in horror.

In the absence of anything more useful to say, she just hugged Ginny close. Daphne felt her stiffen at the touch, and then she seemed to break into tears.

"I…I don't know what to do," Ginny said with tears streaming down her face. "I'm afraid I'll get in trouble, but…but…"

"You don't have to worry, I won't tell anyone," Daphne promised again. "But I do want to know…is there anything someone could have done to you? Have you had any arguments with anyone, drunk any strange potions?"

Ginny bit her lip. "I…don't think so," she said uncertainly. "But…please…I don't want anyone to know."

Daphne nodded slowly. "I know. I'll keep it to myself. I'll try to look up what could be happening to you, okay? And if anything else happens, anything at all…just tell me. I'll try to help you in any way I can," she said.

"A-alright," Ginny said shakily.

Daphne smiled at her. "Good. And, for the record, I think your brothers and Harry would listen to you, if you'd talk to them," she said.

Ginny slowly shook her head. "No…not yet. I…maybe later, but for now…"

"It's alright. I'm just glad you talked to me, at least," Daphne said. "Oh, and…I don't think you're the one attacking people. Whatever monster is doing that…I don't think you could control it in your current state."

Ginny gave her a faint, uncertain smile, then set off down the hallway. Daphne looked after her, feeling conflicted.

There were several things Daphne wanted to do before the holidays began. She'd called everyone from her reputation group together to discuss what they'd be doing once the new term had started.

"Whoever is behind these attacks doesn't seem to like us," she said. "But I don't think we should let ourselves be intimidated into silence. In fact, I think we should increase our efforts."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Elsie asked.

"When we have classes with other Houses, try to help them as much as we can," Daphne replied immediately. "It's how I became friends with Harry, originally. I'm sure if more of us do similar things, we can lessen the gap with the other Houses."

She smiled sadly. "In that respect, the attack on Isaac might even help us. The other Houses know that even we aren't safe, so even though they clearly don't trust us, they know we're in danger too. It might make them just a bit more willing to accept that not all of us are bad."

"I'm pretty sure Isaac would want us to carry on if he ended up incapacitated anyway, considering how often that happens," Gemma said.

"I'm in," Freddie said. "I'd like to be able to proudly say I'm a Slytherin to everyone, rather than just blood purists."

One by one, the others agreed. Gemma said she'd talk to Pucey, who hadn't attended the meeting for fear of being spotted, to inform him as well.

With that dealt with, Daphne began to focus on trying to find out what could be wrong with Ginny. She tried to find out what potions or spells could cause someone to lose parts of their memory. A Forgetfulness Potion could be the culprit, but someone would have to have repeatedly spiked her drinks with it for it to explain several gaps in her memory, and unless it had been brewed by a very skilled potioneer, its effects would wear off eventually.

Memory Charms were likewise unlikely, because someone would have to cast them repeatedly to gain the effects Ginny had described, and neither the potion nor the spell caused physical fatigue.

Many of the more sinister potions and curses that could lead to memory loss, on the other hand, had worse physical effects than mere fatigue, and while the Imperius Curse allowed the caster to control its victim, it did not have memory loss as a side effect. She was baffled as to what it could be, and by the time Christmas came around she still wasn't any closer.

Christmas morning, however, was a lot of fun as she exchanged gifts with her friends in the Great Hall (and she'd also sent gifts to her Slytherin friends, some of whom had actually reciprocated). She even received a sweater from Mrs. Weasley, just like Harry and Ron, with a note saying they had enjoyed having her as a guest, and another 'thank you' for buying Ginny's school stuff.

On a more serious note, this was the evening Harry, Hermione, and Ron intended to use the Polyjuice Potion, and in a quiet moment Daphne told them where her common room was. She described the wall and the marking stone with three small scratches on it.

"The password's just changed. You're going to love it: Pureblood," she said.

They all gave her incredulous expressions.

"I don't come up with these," Daphne said defensively. "Just tell me who you're going to be so I can stay well out of your way."

"Crabbe, Goyle, and Millicent Bulstrode," Hermione said.

Daphne gave her an odd look. "Bulstrode's gone home for the holidays," she said.

Hermione nodded. "I know, so I'll just have to say she came back."

"Only for her to disappear again right after? You're making this pretty hard on yourself, but okay. I hope you discover something, at least, after all this trouble you've gone through."

"So do we," Ron said. "We're not exactly looking forward to drinking essence of troll tonight."

That evening, Daphne was reading in the common room. She was trying to find something that might help Ginny, but she kept getting distracted by the plan of her friends.

She glanced at the entrance of the common room every so often to see if someone had arrived yet, but it remained mostly deserted until eventually, Malfoy showed up, followed closely by what appeared to be Crabbe and Goyle, only they were moving even more awkwardly.

She didn't see Bulstrode, but that wasn't necessarily anything special; Bulstrode wasn't one of Malfoy's lackeys, after all.

Malfoy took Harry and Ron with him to the dorms, probably to make sure Daphne wouldn't be able to overhear them.

Some time later, she saw Harry and Ron sprinting past, both looking like they were turning back into themselves.

Malfoy came out after them, giving them strange looks.

"What did you do to them?" Daphne asked.

"Must've eaten something strange," Malfoy replied.

It spoke volumes about his confusion that he hadn't even made any disparaging remarks when answering the question.

The next day, Daphne learned that not everything had gone without a hitch in the plan. Hermione had apparently used a cat hair in the potion, instead of one of Bulstrode's, and was now in the infirmary to get turned back to normal.

Beyond that, Harry and Ron had learned that Malfoy had no idea who was really behind the attacks, but that the last time the Chamber had been opened was fifty years earlier, that someone had been expelled, and that a Muggleborn student had died. Ron had also learned that the Malfoys had a secret room under their drawing room floor, but that would mostly be of use to his father.

All in all, then, the plan had been decently successful. Hermione had to stay in the hospital wing for several weeks, during which time Harry, Ron, and Daphne visited her every evening, with Ron and Harry bringing her homework, too.

On the way back from one such visit, they could hear Filch rambling to himself from the floor above, and when they went to check, they saw that Myrtle's bathroom had flooded completely, and Filch was raging about having to clean it up. As soon as Filch had angrily stomped away, they could hear Myrtle wailing from inside.

"Now what's up with her?" Ron asked.

"Let's go and see," Harry replied.

"Do we have to?" Daphne asked, but she already knew what the answer would be.

They held their robes over their ankles as they stepped inside, ignoring the 'out of order' sign on the door. Myrtle was crying, apparently hiding in her regular toilet. The bathroom was dark because the candles had been extinguished when she had flooded the place.

"What's up, Myrtle?" Harry asked.

"Who's that?" Myrtle asked miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Harry waded closer to her stall. "Why would I throw something at you?" he asked.

"Don't ask me," Myrtle said angrily, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor.

Daphne tactically hid behind Ron so as not to draw Myrtle's attention.

"Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…" Myrtle went on.

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," Harry said. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

Myrtle evidently didn't like this remark, because she puffed herself up and shrieked, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha, ha, ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"

"Who threw it at you, anyway?" Harry asked.

"I don't know…I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it feel right through the top of my head," Myrtle said, glaring at them.

Daphne stepped aside a bit more, causing Ron to give her a strange look.

"It's over there, it got washed out…"

Harry, Ron, and Daphne looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom.

Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Are you crazy?" Ron said. "It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Harry asked with a laugh. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"

Ron launched into a list of dangerous books, during which Daphne had stepped forward and picked it up.

"Looks like a diary to me," she said, holding it out for Harry and Ron to inspect.

Harry took it from her hand and opened it. Daphne saw the name 'T.M. Riddle' on the first page in smudged ink.

"Hang on," Ron said. "I know that name. T.M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."

"How on earth d'you know that?" Harry asked in amazement.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," Ron said resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it too."

Harry leafed through the diary, which looked empty.

"He never wrote in it," he said disappointedly.

"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" Ron said curiously.

Harry looked at the back of the diary. "He must've been Muggleborn, to have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road," Harry mused.

"Can I have a look at it?" Daphne asked.

Harry handed it over. "Feel free."

Daphne inspected it a couple of times, but saw nothing odd about the diary. "Are you guys okay with me taking this for a day? You can have it back tomorrow, but I want to try some things," she said.

"What're you going to do?" Ron asked.

Daphne shrugged. "There are some spells you can try to get a seemingly-empty book to reveal its secrets, but I don't want to do them in the Great Hall, and I don't know the incantations by heart. I have a book in my dorm that might help, though," she said.

They left Myrtle's bathroom. "So, out of curiosity, are you ever going to tell us why you're so afraid of Myrtle?" Ron asked.

"No. I'm taking that to my grave," Daphne said, shuddering at the memory even now.

"Given that Myrtle is still here…that might not be enough," Harry pointed out.

"Shut up."

Daphne sat on her bed with the curtains drawn. Their muffling enchantment wouldn't stop all noises, but they'd allow her to cast some simple spells on the diary.

First, she tried a simple Revealing Charm — "Aparecium!" — but that did nothing.

Then she tried Revelio, but it did nothing, either.

Leafing through her book — which she'd actually borrowed from the library for her research into Ginny's problems — she tried a few more spells, but the diary refused to reveal anything.

Then, she decided to do possibly the most dangerous thing she could do. She wrote in the diary.

"Hello," she wrote.

For a moment, the ink shone brightly on the page, and then it sank into it. And then, oozing back out of the page, came a reply.

"Hello. Who are you?"

She didn't recognize the handwriting. The words only remained for a few seconds, before fading away again.

"My name is Daphne Greengrass. Who are you?" she wrote.

"Greengrass? Related to Richard Greengrass? My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"

Daphne paused for a moment. What should she tell the diary? For the time being, she decided on the truth.

"Richard Greengrass was my grandfather. As for your diary, someone tried to flush it down a toilet."

"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," Riddle said.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you a pureblood, Daphne?"

Daphne frowned, but decided to play along for the time being. "Yes. Pureblood Slytherin at Hogwarts. Strange things are happening here at the moment. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets," Riddle wrote back. "It was opened in my fifth year, and the monster attacked several students, eventually killing one."

"The monster is attacking students again. It even attacked a Slytherin," Daphne said.

She wondered how Riddle would respond. Something about the way Riddle wrote felt…off. It was as if he was testing her, trying to determine what kind of person she was and what he should tell her.

"Are there Muggleborn Slytherins now?" Riddle asked.

His 'handwriting' seemed less relaxed and flowing, and more angular on that line, almost as if he was a bit angry when writing it.

"No. They think he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," Daphne wrote.

"Unfortunate for him, then," Riddle wrote. His handwriting was back to normal.

"Who opened the Chamber last time?" Daphne asked.

"I can show you who it was," Riddle replied. "I caught him, and he was expelled, but he was not imprisoned. I can take you inside my memory of that night."

"I'd prefer it if you just told me. You'll understand that I don't want to get any closer to a magical object I'm not familiar with than I have to," Daphne said.

"Sharp instincts, worthy of a true pureblood," Riddle said. "Fine, then. The person I caught was Rubeus Hagrid, who had been hiding the monster away, protecting it even as it attacked the students."

Daphne was taken aback. She knew Hagrid had been expelled and had an unfortunate liking for huge monsters — she shuddered when she thought of Fluffy and Norbert — but she refused to believe that Hagrid had been the one to open the Chamber of Secrets.

"What was the monster?" she asked.

"An Acromantula," Riddle wrote back.

As far as Daphne knew, Acromantulas couldn't Petrify people. Riddle was holding things back, and by the way he wrote, Daphne was beginning to wonder more and more if Riddle hadn't been the one to open the Chamber and simply framing Hagrid for it.

She closed the diary and put it under her pillow. Tomorrow, she'd discuss things with Harry, Hermione, and Ron, and then they'd have to figure out what to do with the diary. Her personal choice would be to take it to Dumbledore and let him handle it from there, but she didn't want to do that unless she was certain she had something to show. The diary was certainly suspicious, but that did not necessarily mean it was relevant. She wanted to hear Hagrid's story, at least. They could make a decision after that.

The next day, she told Harry and Ron what she had learned from Riddle.

"Hagrid?" Harry said incredulously.

"I didn't believe it, either," Daphne said. "But I want to ask him about it myself, before I jump to any conclusions."

She handed the diary to Harry. "I don't think having this in a dorm full of Slytherins is all that safe, so why don't you hang onto it for now? Just…don't write in it. I don't trust Riddle. Something about the way he writes…"

Harry nodded grimly. "I'll put it in our dorm. It should be safe there."

He stashed the diary in his bag and smiled at Ginny, who sat a few spaces over at the table and was looking in their direction. She turned bright red and turned away.

Daphne felt bad that she still hadn't discovered what had been bothering Ginny, but at least she didn't look any worse this time.

After classes had ended for the day, Daphne met up with Harry and Ron and headed over to Hagrid, who seemed surprised at the unplanned visit, but happy to see them regardless.

"Hagrid," Daphne began once they were all seated with a mug of tea. "We wanted to ask you something…a bit personal."

"Oh? And what migh' that be?" Hagrid asked.

"Why were you expelled from Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

Hagrid shifted uncomfortably.

"It's okay, Hagrid. We're not here to accuse you of anything," Daphne said. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

Hagrid looked at her curiously. "What have yeh been up ter this time?" he asked.

"We've found…a diary, which claims that you were the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago, and that you released its monster, which was supposedly an Acromantula," Daphne said.

"But we don't believe a word of it, Hagrid," Harry added quickly.

"Yeah, so we want to know what really happened," Ron added.

Hagrid scoffed. "That monster goin' 'round attackin' kids ain't an Acromantula. They don' Petrify, fer starters," he said.

"So what happened?" Harry asked.

Hagrid angrily stirred his tea. "It was that Prefect, Riddle. He knew I was, er, raisin' an Acromantula. I got him as an egg an' I couldn' just leave him ter die, could I? But Aragog never hurt anyone, I told him not ter an' he listened ter me."

"You…were raising a giant spider in the castle?" Ron asked, repressing a shudder.

"He'd have died outside," Hagrid said. "An' he's still alive now. Lives in the Forbidden Forest with his family. I go ter visit him sometimes."

"So if whatever's attacking people now isn't an Acromantula, what is it?" Daphne asked.

Hagrid shook his head. "I don' know. Aragog does, but he never told me. He's afraid of it, he says," he said.

"A giant spider is afraid of this thing. Great," Ron said. He looked queasy.

"So you were expelled after Riddle told people you had Aragog?" Harry asked.

Hagrid nodded. "They wanted ter stop the attacks somehow an' they thought Aragog did it. Never asked questions, either, an' the attacks stopped after I got expelled. Dumbledore was the only one as stood up fer me. Told the Headmaster ter train me as a groundskeeper. Great man, Dumbledore, great man."

"What about the girl who was killed back then? Did you know her?" Daphne asked.

Hagrid shook his head. "I think she was a Ravenclaw, I was in Gryffindor."

He smiled at Harry and Ron. "She was found in a bathroom, I think. See, that's another reason Aragog couldn' have done it. He'd only ever bin in his cupboard. I brought him food."

He looked pleadingly at the three of them. "Yeh do believe me, don't yeh?" he asked.

All three of them nodded without hesitation. "We do. That's why we came here in the first place, because we didn't believe what that diary said," Daphne said.

Hagrid smiled widely at them. "I'm glad ter hear it. Yer good people, yeh. Now yeh oughtta get back ter the castle. It's still dangerous ter be out too late."

As they walked back to the castle, they were still discussing what Hagrid had told them.

"I knew it wasn't him," Daphne said. "It just didn't add up."

"So what do we do now, then? Go straight to Dumbledore with the diary?" Harry asked.

"That would probably be best," Daphne agreed. "If you go and get it, I'll wait in the hallway."

"Shouldn't we tell Hermione first?" Ron asked.

"We will, but first we need to make sure that Dumbledore gets his hands on that diary. It's clearly important in some way, considering that Riddle has firsthand experience of what was going on — if he wasn't the one behind the attacks to begin with," Daphne said.

They reached the hallway that led to the Gryffindor tower, and Daphne waited anxiously for them to return. The sooner they got rid of the diary, the better.

But then, Harry and Ron returned, both wearing grim expressions.

"What happened?" Daphne asked apprehensively.

"Our dorm was ransacked," Harry said. "The diary is gone."

This time, a small…note of frustration, if you will. I'm writing this story during my yearly Harry Potter binge. I'm basically reading the books while I write this fic, reading just a bit ahead to remind myself of the plot points and when certain things happen.

Being more attentive than I usually am, I can now safely say…the final third of Chamber of Secrets is a hot mess. It takes Ginny four months to steal the diary back, during which nothing happens. And all this time, Harry could've gone to Hagrid to ask what happened fifty years ago, but didn't because…reasons. In Philosopher's Stone, they were constantly trying to find stuff out, and Hagrid was their main, if unwilling, source in many of it. I don't believe for a second that they wouldn't be able to get Hagrid to tell the truth of what happened when he got expelled, especially because they would believe him.

But no, they wait, and when they finally do go to talk to him, he gets conveniently arrested. And when they want to go to McGonagall, the school gets evacuated. And then they go to Lockhart, whom they both know is a fraud, and force him to come with them. It makes no bloody sense.

Basically, then, I'm going to heavily compress the final third of this year, because I just can't justify how illogical things would be otherwise. I'm already stretching it thin as it is.