I know, it's been a while, but I've been on vacation, school just started up again for me, and this chapter was a little hard to write. So, this is my first time writing in third person for this series. Be sure you tell me what you think!
I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER! ANY AND ALL QUOTES ARE FROM HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS OWNED BY J. K. ROWLING!
Chapter Ten: The Diary
[Third Person POV]
Gryffindor seemed so empty without them. Percy, Fred, and George pretty much acted as if nothing had happened, but their actions seemed a little strained. Ginny was even paler than usual, and she jumped at the slightest thing. Harry kept wondering what had made her like that.
Hermione was still in the hospital wing, coughing up fur balls. She told Ron and Harry several times that she wanted to see the book that Dani and Mandy were found with. She never told the boys why. The book in question was wedged tightly in Mandy's grip, and they'd have to wait before they found out what the two dark-haired girls had been up to.
Term started up again, and after a couple of days' worth of classes, everyone found out that there had been another attack. Not only was it on a Muggle-born, but it was also on a Half-blood.
To Harry's utmost surprise, the students seemed to think him even more suspicious. They walked together in tight packs and stared at him with fear. Ernie MacMillan glared at Harry whenever the two came within yards of each other. Harry overheard him once: "Potter Petrified his sister because she was getting in the way. It's only a matter of time before he kills someone."
Harry felt even worse when he received a letter a few days after term started. When he looked at the envelope, he saw that it was from Remus. He could have sworn that he felt his heart fall to his left ankle.
Dear Harry,
I have sent a letter to Dani, and she hasn't responded yet. Has anything happened to her?
I unfortunately haven't come across anything like what would Petrify people and cats and portraits. I will continue to research it. Maybe I'll come stumble upon something I've missed.
Harry, please tell me, has something happened to Rose? I must know.
Remus.
It tore Harry apart to read the letter.
Later that day, after Harry, Ron, and Neville had visited Hermione, they heard an angry scream from the floor above.
"That's Filch," Harry stated.
"I wonder what's happened now," Neville pondered.
"I hope no one else's been attacked," Ron replied.
The trio hurried up the steps then stood there, listening, until Filch's incredibly enraged voice reached their ears. "-even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do. No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore-"
Filch's hurried footsteps receded, and then they heard a door slam.
"What's that noise?" Neville asked.
Harry listened carefully. He could hear a vaguely familiar moan coming from around the corner. Neville walked forward a few steps and slipped on water, landing on his backside. He tried to stand up… and fell forward. Harry and Ron helped him up. Together, the three of them looked and saw where the water was coming from: a certain door with a sign that said "Out of Order".
Inside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Harry, Ron, and Neville saw that the mess was a lot worse: all the candles inside were extinguished, and the walls and floors were completely soaked. Harry could hear Myrtle wailing terribly from her usual toilet.
"What's up Myrtle?" Harry asked.
"Who's that?" Myrtle glugged. "Come to throw something else at me?"
Harry walked to her stall. "Why would I throw something at you?"
Myrtle emerged from her toilet and made more water hit the floor, splashing Harry ever so slightly. "Don't ask me. Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me…"
Neville spoke up in a timid voice. "But that wouldn't hurt you, would it? I mean, you're a ghost, so you shouldn't feel it."
Poor Neville said the wrong thing. Myrtle's face scrunched in anger. "Let's all throw books at Myrtle because she can't feel it! Ten points if you get it through her stomach! Fifty points if you get it through her head! Well, ha, ha, ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"
Harry had one more question. "Who threw it at you anyway?"
"I don't know… I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell through the top of my head." Myrtle glared at the trio. "It's over there, it got washed out."
The boys looked to where Myrtle was pointing. There it was: a small, black book lying under a sink. The cover was black and shabby and didn't have any writing. Harry bent down to pick it up, but Ron threw out his arm, and Neville grabbed the back of Harry's robes.
"What?" Harry asked.
"Are you crazy?" Ron exclaimed. "It could be dangerous."
Harry laughed for the first time in a while. Was this a joke? "Dangerous? How could a book be dangerous?" He was about to tell Dani how ridiculous it sounded until, smile sliding off his face, he remembered that his sister was Petrified.
Ron and Neville didn't notice his expression change. "You'd be surprised," Ron said. He stared at the book as if expecting it to come to life and do somersaults. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated-"
Neville interrupted. "There was one my great-aunt Ruthie had that made her believe she was a frog. She croaked and hopped around the house ever since."
"Some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with you nose in it and do everything one-handed! And-"
"Okay, I get it," Harry said. He pulled his robes from Neville's grasp, ducked around Ron, and picked up the shabby book. He flicked through it and discovered that it was fifty years old and had belonged to a T. M. Riddle.
"That name sounds familiar…" Neville trailed off.
"Well," Harry said, "whoever he is, he didn't write in it. The pages are blank."
The trio raced back to the hospital wing so that they could show it to Hermione. They burst through the doors. Madam Pomfrey, who was giving Hermione a potion, glared at them.
"This is a hospital wing, Mr. Potter," the medi-witch said, "not a Quidditch pitch."
"Er, sorry," Harry responded. "Can we talk to Hermione?"
"Yes, go ahead."
As he walked, he glanced at the curtains that concealed his Petrified sister. Again, he felt loneliness well up in his chest.
Finally, they reached Hermione's bed. Lisa, Abby, and Luna sat in chairs around her bed. The boys showed them the diary, and all four girls brightened a little.
"Oooh," Hermione eagerly said, "it might have hidden powers." She took it from Harry's grasp and flipped through the pages.
"I wonder if there's someone in the pages," Luna stated.
"How could there be someone living in a book?" Hermione asked. She looked annoyed. So did Lisa.
"Hermione, just give it a rest, okay?"
Abby stopped the would-be argument. "So, who's T. M. Riddle?"
"Oh," Luna stated, "he won an award for special services to the school fifty years ago." Everyone stared at her. "I like to go to the trophy room and look for nargles."
"So the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago," Hermione said. "If we could read this diary, then maybe we could figure out who did it last time."
"There's one problem, though," Lisa interjected. "The diary's empty. He didn't write in it."
Lisa kept the diary. Before going to bed for most of January and February (after Hermione got out of the hospital wing), she would pull it out of her school bag and flip through the pages. Abby stared at her when she did that. It was so uncharacteristic of her. Of course, the brunette was upset. Two of her best friends had been Petrified!
One night in late February, Abby was suddenly struck with an idea. She looked over to Lisa, who was lying on her bed, flipping through the shabby diary again.
"Hey, Lisa," Abby said. She had no reason to be careful of what she said. Padma Patil was downstairs in the common room. "Have you written in it?"
Lisa paused. How did she not think of that? The blonde reached into her bag and pulled out a quill and a well of ink. She loaded the quill and dripped a little on one of the pages. For a second, nothing happened. And then the splotch vanished!
"Abby, get over here," Lisa said, pulling a lock of long strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear.
"What is it?"
"Come and look at this." Soon, she felt more weight on her bed. She loaded her quill again and wrote: Our names are Lisa Turpin and Abigail Longbottom.
The words vanished, but something else appeared in the black ink Lisa was currently writing in. Hello, Lisa Turpin and Abigail Longbottom. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come across my diary?
Those words vanished as well. Abby took the quill and wrote. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Neville Longbottom found it in a bathroom. They told us that someone had tried to flush it down a toilet.
The writing vanished. It took a minute before Tom replied. 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.
Lisa took the quill back. She was getting excited and didn't want to wait for Abby's slow writing. What do you mean?
I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
That's where we are now, Lisa hastily wrote. People have been Petrified. Two of them were our best friends, Dani Potter and Mandy Brocklehurst. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?
Abby scanned the page for a second. "Are you sure you should be giving that out to a random book?"
Lisa hadn't thought about that. In her excitement she had forgotten what her wizard father had told her. But she couldn't ponder that. More writing from Tom appeared, a little messier than last time.
Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, the told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned.
The events are repeating themselves, Abby scrawled. No one's been killed… yet. I'm afraid that someone will die. Who was it last time? Maybe we can figure something out.
I can show you, if you like, Tom responded. You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you two inside my memory of the night when I caught him.
Lisa snatched the quill back and was about to write before Abby caught her wrist.
"What?" the blonde snapped.
"Are you sure that's safe?" Abby asked.
Lisa sighed. "No, but this might be the only way to figure out who it is." She paused. "I am a little scared." But she wrote four letters: Sure.
The pages turned rapidly as if blown by an unfelt wind. The girls shivered involuntarily. Finally the pages stopped on a date halfway through June. The book started to glow, first on the seam, and it spread. Lisa and Abby were blinded. They shielded their eyes, and they were falling…
Half an hour later, Lisa and Abby lay sprawled on the former's bed.
"It doesn't add up," Abby finally whispered. "How could Hagrid – Hagrid! – open the Chamber?"
"I know," Lisa replied. "I just thought of something."
"What?"
"What were Dani and Mandy doing the night they were Petrified? They were found by the library, weren't they?"
"Yeah, and I don't think they were doing homework. You don't think they knew something, do you?"
"That's exactly what I'm thinking." Lisa furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "You know what Mandy's like when she needs to find something out."
"I do know."
"We need to see that book Mandy was holding. But we'll have to do that tomorrow."
The brunette nodded. As Lisa lay down later on, she was filled with hope. Tomorrow would hold answers.
"It said Hagrid opened the Chamber?" Ron asked incredulously the next morning at breakfast.
"Keep your voice down, Ronald!" Hermione exclaimed. "Well, Riddle might have got the wrong person. Maybe it was some other monster."
"Well," Abby piped up, "the monster looked oddly like a giant spider." She didn't notice Ron shudder.
"I was thinking the same thing," Lisa said. "I was thinking that maybe we could see the book that Dani and Mandy had with them."
"Let's go now," Harry said, standing up.
"But I haven't finished eating!" Ron said indignantly.
"This is your third plate of food!" Hermione pointed out.
"Yeah, and a growing boy needs his food!"
"If you grew any more, you'd be as tall as Hagrid!"
The pair of them kept arguing all the way up to the hospital wing where Madam Pomfrey met them at the door.
"What are you all doing here?" the medi-witch inquired.
"Madam Pomfrey," Harry said, "we need to see the book Dani and Mandy were found with."
"I'm afraid you can't. The book is stuck in Miss Brocklehurst's grip. We can't get it out."
"Well can we still look at it? Maybe we can identify it."
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Yes, yes, go ahead."
The group walked through the doors and crowded around Mandy's bed. In her iron grip was a book, but her fingers covered the title on the front. They didn't cover the spine. No, her sleeve accomplished that. Neville leaned over and moved the sleeve as much as possible. He could see only one word: Serpents. Neville told this to the rest of the group.
"Serpents?" Hermione asked. "Wait, I think I've just realized something. I've got to go to the library!"
"What does she understand?" Harry inquired incredulously.
"Loads more than I do," Ron shrugged.
"But why's she got to go to the library?"
"Because that's what Hermione does. When in doubt, go to the library!"
The boys opted to go and visit Hagrid (but not saying anything, of course) while Lisa, Abby, and Luna decided to find Hermione in the library. They finally found her behind a small stack of books. As they approached her, they heard her talk to herself. "No, this talks about how snakes are used in potions…" And she placed the book in another stack. Lisa vaguely wondered how the bushy-haired girl had managed all this so quickly.
"Need help?" Abby asked.
"No," Hermione stated quite simply.
"You know," Luna said, "I still think it's the Periwinkle Chaoling that's behind it."
Hermione looked up from her current book, Charming Snakes, and stared at the first year. "I don't think so, Luna." She opened another book and shoved her nose in it. Soon, her expression brightened. "This is it! I'm sure of it." She set her book down on the table. It was open to a page that was headed with "Basilisk."
Lisa set her bag on the ground right by the table. The trio of Ravenclaws crowded around Hermione as she read aloud about Basilisks. As they were distracted, a figure crept up and reached into Lisa's lone bag. The figure pulled out various items and left them on the ground. The figure found what it was looking for and strode out of the library.
"You know what this means, don't you?" Hermione inquired. All of the girls had fearful looks on their faces, Luna being the only exception.
"We have to tell a teacher right away!" Lisa exclaimed softly.
"Wait," Luna interrupted. "Shouldn't we find out where the entrance to the Chamber is?"
"Luna's right," Abby said. "We'll need proof, otherwise, they wouldn't believe us."
"Yes, that's true," Lisa said. "We should also show them the diary." She leaned over and reached into her bag, only to find a mess! She gasped and looked down. She saw notes, rolls of parchment, and various books littering the floor. She searched through it all. "It's gone! Riddle's diary's gone!"
The library was empty. No one else had witnessed it.
We only have two chapters to go, and I'm working hard on the next one.
Is it just me, or is this starting to split off from canon?
LeoDeLion - Thank you! And for the Birthday Wishes, thanks for that one, too!
Allan548 - Hi, Allan... Yeah, I guess I should say thanks... Anyways, see you around!
May God bless you all!