Harry was allowed to leave the Hospital Wing just after lunchtime the next day. He meekly submitted to a final examination of his arm, answering robotically to the questions that Madam Pomfrey asked of him. His injury was fine now, and Harry couldn't help but think that Madam Pomfrey was focusing on the wrong ailment in his body. For though his arm had healed, he had a searing pain in his chest that he couldn't even process yet, let alone work out how to shift.

For Harry had been told, almost as soon as he woke, that Hermione was gone. Suspended, pending Enquiry. Harry seethed as he read the phrase.

Hermione had told him her own words, which soothed the blow somewhat, in a brief letter that she had attached to Papageno's collar. Harry took it from Hermione's dæmon, as he woke to find the fluffy cat curled up with him under the blankets of his hospital bed. Hermione told him she agreed with the action, that Dumbledore had packaged it as more of an extended Christmas holiday rather than a suspension, and begged Harry not to be angry with anyone over it.

So Harry was determined not to be. But that resolve lasted all of five minutes. For no sooner had he returned to his dorm than he was surrounded by the other boys, all clamouring for answers.

"Is it true?!" Dean demanded. "They're saying all round the school that Dumbledore has suspended Hermione?"

"And that she's gone already," Seamus added.

"And that she killed Lockhart, which we all hope is true," Ron chipped in, chancing a grin.

Neville came closest to Harry. "Is that Hermione's cat?"

And then, quite unknowingly, he reached out a hand ...

"Don't TOUCH him! Get away!"

Harry yelled viciously at his friend, pulling Papageno clear as the cat hissed and spat in Harry's arms. The human-dæmon taboo had never been clearer or more sharply-focused in Harry's mind. This was Hermione ... her very soul ... how dare they try to touch her like that? Who did they think they were?

"Don't any of you touch him! Ever! You so much as come within a foot of him and I'll rip your stinking hands off, got it?"

"Whoa, Harry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Neville shrieked in terror, jumping back as if burnt by Harry's words. "I didn't mean ..."

"I know, I know," Harry huffed slowly, closing his eyes and breathing heavily, trying to bring his temper under control. He drove his hand protectively into Papageno's soft fur. "Just don't ... don't ever ... please."

"Okay, we wont," Ron promised. "Come away, Neville."

But Neville didn't. He held his ground and spoke to Harry in a tiny whisper. "Harry ... is this about ... you-know-what?"

Harry nodded imperceptibly. Neville understood at once, and finally moved away.

"You'll leave the cat alone, boys," Neville warned. "Crookshanks has an aversion to touch. His last owners mistreated him, so we aren't to put our hands on him. Everyone clear?"

"Clear," Ron and Dean chorused.

"We never knew, Harry," Seamus apologised. "Hermione never said."

"Yeah, well," Harry began, smiling a thanks at Neville for the cover story. "Hermione didn't want anyone to know. Some people might, you know, think that Pap - sorry, Crookshanks - wants to be petted to make up for his mistreatment. But it's totally the opposite for the poor little guy. I'm ... sorry. For snapping. I didn't mean to take it out on you all."

"It's fine, mate," Ron offered, simply. "Dumbledore's just suspended your girlfriend. Sent her home before Christmas. Cold-hearted old coot. Now all you've got left is her familiar. If it was me, I'd be livid. I'd have torn Dumbledore's office down by now. If I knew where it was."

Harry felt the kindest sentiment towards Ron Weasley he ever had. He smiled weakly at him. "Thanks, Ron. But Hermione isn't my girlfriend. You all know that."

"No, Harry," Ron disagreed with a wide grin. "The only person who doesn't know she's your girlfriend is you."

"Oh, and maybe Hermione," Neville added with a teasing smirk.

"Yeah," Seamus laughed. "Honestly, you two are at the same time the brightest and stupidest people here. You are, literally, the worst kept secret at Hogwarts."

"And the people most oblivious to the secret are the pair of you," Neville piped up thoughtfully. "That's the weirdest part."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, blushing but grinning broadly at the same time.

"Just look up boyfriend and girlfriend in the nearest dictionary," Dean advised sagely. "Then try to work out how many traits you and Hermione don't share of the definition."

"He wont have to go that far," Ron chuckled. "He'll be able to work it out from the picture."

"Picture? What picture?" Harry asked.

"The one of you and Hermione," Ron laughed. "Under the heading - Boyfriend and Girlfriend - A Graphic Representation!"

"Be quiet, you lot!" Harry tried in vain to protest, even though he found he had little interest in correcting their mis-assumption.

The other boys fell about laughing, but Harry turned away to look out of the window and smooth Papageno, his mood a lot lighter than it had been ten minutes ago. He tried to be gentle, hoping - wherever she was - that Hermione could feel just how much he was missing her already.


It was much later that day before Harry was able to have a proper chat with Neville. He, of course, knew far more about what was going on, due to the explanations his parents had given for the long absence from his life. But he was still unsure about much of it, and keen to understand whatever Harry could explain.

"So that's Hermione's - how do you say it - demon?" Neville asked, cautiously.

He and Harry were stood on the Covered Bridge, which crossed one of the inlet waterways that fed the Great Lake. They were watching Hagrid down below, as he sawed some giant firs to turn into Christmas trees for the Great Hall. Papageno was sat nearby on the handrail, preening himself as the snow began to fall softly again.

"Yeah," Harry confirmed absently. He was looking to Papageno for guidance on what he could disclose, and since the bandy-legged ball of orange fur didn't complain, Harry assumed he was on safe ground to confide in Neville.

"And what is he, exactly?"

"I don't fully understand it myself," Harry confessed. "He sort of ... is Hermione. Or an aspect of her soul. They are one being, as strange as that is to wrap your head around. It was odd for me, too, at first, but now I barely see them as separate entities. I look at her dæmon, but all I see is Hermione."

"If she was a cat," Neville smirked.

"If she was a cat," Harry echoed with a grin.

Neville chuckled heartily, causing Harry to cast a half-curious, half-suspicious eye at him. "Sorry, Harry. I'm just trying to picture Hermione with a big, bushy tail and whiskers! Like a Polyjuice experiment gone wrong, or something! But his name isn't even Crookshanks, is it? I heard you call him something else. Pap, wasn't it?"

Harry nodded. "Papageno. That's his actual name."

"And he can talk?"

"Yeah, but you mustn't, Nev," Harry urged. "It's too risky for anyone but me to speak to him. No-one can know. If Hermione's secret gets out ... I don't know what they'd do to her. They'd cart her off and do all sorts of tests and experiments on her. She's left half her soul with me, Nev ... I have to keep that secret safe."

"And I'll help you do that," Neville returned stoutly. "I can keep secrets."

"Good. Because I have more. And, without Hermione around, I really need someone to share them with. Someone I can rely on ... someone I can trust. And I'm hoping you might fancy the job, Nev."

Neville puffed out his chest proudly. "I can be all those things, Harry. I know I'm no replacement for Hermione, but I'd like to help if I can."

"These are important things, scary too," Harry warned. "You have to be sure."

"I am. And am I right in thinking that this has to do with Hermione's other world."

Harry nodded solemnly. "Hermione is a good thing to come from there, Nev. The best, actually. But there are other things that aren't so good. Bad things, dangerous things. Dangerous people."

"And might these people be responsible for Petrifying Hogwarts?" Neville queried.

"I think they must be," Harry confirmed. "I don't know how they're doing it, but I'm sure they are the real villains. And, if they are, you might be in danger, too."

"Me? Why?" Neville asked, the colour draining from his cheeks. "Who is it?"

"Someone who wanted to kill us both when we were babies," Harry disclosed in a hushed voice. "Lord Voldemort."

Neville blinked several times. "But, Harry - V-V ... You-Know-Who ... he was killed by Dumbledore. Everyone knows that."

Harry turned heavy eyes to his friend. "No, Neville. The spirit of Lord Voldemort endured. Dumbledore and my Godfather fought him, drove him through a special archway at the Ministry of Magic. They called it the Veil of Death, because nobody every returned once they passed through.

"But it didn't kill anyone, Neville, it never did. It didn't kill Voldemort. It just sent him through a portal into another world."

Neville gasped. "The world Hermione comes from!"

Harry nodded again. "The same. Voldemort was beaten but he survived, Nev. In that other world."

"And now he's returned?"

"In some form, yes, I just don't know how," Harry confirmed. "And he's the one opening the Chamber of Secrets, not Hermione."

"What makes you so sure?"

"She was with me all night when Lockhart was attacked," Harry began passionately. "Even if it could be argued that she slipped out to attack Sally-Anne on Halloween, she didn't leave my side when I was de-boned. So it cant have been her."

"But something attacked Lockhart," Neville mused. "Or someone. If not Hermione, then who?"

"I have to think Lockhart is the key to this," Harry fumed. "I couldn't say how I know that, I just do. All this business with those diaries, then Hermione breaks the enchantment he put on her and the attacks began. I have to think it's all connected."

"Well, if Lockhart is responsible, you have to know what he knows," Neville pointed out. "The problem is, he's Petrified out of his pea-brain, just like Sally and Moaning Myrtle."

"Maybe I should speak to him anyway," Harry quirked. "I'll probably have a more sensible conversation with him if he isn't able to talk back!"

Neville suddenly looked at Harry excitedly. "Harry! Maybe that's it!"

"That's what?"

"The way to know Lockhart's game!" Neville exclaimed. "He has been stealing dreams, hasn't he? But he also talked back in order to possess Hermione. All you have to do is find out how he was doing it!"

"But how am I going to do that?" Harry argued. "He's in no state for me to curse a confession out of him."

"True, but he's also in no state to stop you turning his office over for clues," Neville pointed out. "If he has been writing back to other girls, there must be a sort of Master Diary in there somewhere. If you want answers, that would be a good place to start looking."


But getting into Lockhart's personal chambers wasn't as easy as Harry had hoped.

It was ironic, Harry considered, one day in early December, that up until a week ago he could have looked around Lockhart's room with the greatest of ease. All he would have had to do would be to volunteer to help with his fan mail signing, dropped a quill and scoured the room for whatever he wanted. It would have been like taking a liquorice wand from a baby ... a baby in lilac robes who liked to wear his hat at a jaunty angle on his empty, stupid head.

But things were a lot different now, for Albus Dumbledore was the temporary Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher ... and Harry always got the impression that Dumbledore could see what you were up to even if he wasn't in the same room.

Though the plan hatched with Neville was now firmly set in his mind. Harry was just waiting for the right chance to pop up to execute it. He busied himself trying to get used to Papageno being around him all the time, almost as if he'd been loaned to Harry as his own dæmon. It was a very strange way of being.

"So ... do you need to eat?" Harry asked one evening. "Should I get you some kitten treats , or swipe you some chicken from the kitchens, or something?

Harry was sat alone with Papageno in his dorm to do his homework that night. He was sick and tired of the constant questions from the other Gryffindors about Hermione and where she was. He didn't mind being asked ... he just wished someone could give him the answers, as he'd really like to know them himself. The not knowing hurt enough to not want to think about it at all.

"No. As long as Hermione eats, I'm fine," Papageno replied. "But thank you for asking."

"Okay," Harry nodded. "So, do you feel everything she feels and know everything she knows? Like, for example, if I say something to you, will she hear it?"

"No, it doesn't work quite like that," Papageno explained. "But she'll know how I'm feeling or if anything happens to me. Or to you, because of how I react to it."

"So ... do you know how she's feeling now?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Worried ... about us," Papageno replied. "But that's easy, because I'm worried, too. But she's also sad."

"Sad?" Harry asked in immediate concern. "Why? What's happened?"

"She's been taken away from you," Papageno returned simply. "So, now, she misses you. You're far away and ... that makes her sad."

Harry felt a surge of heady warmth pass through his chest.

"I'm sad, too," Harry replied dully, massaging his aching sternum. "For, you know, the same reason. Are you able to make her know that?"

If cats were able to smile, Harry thought just then, Papageno's expression might be how it looked.

"She already knows," Papageno replied eventually. "She doesn't need me to tell her anything. And the knowing makes her happy, though we don't completely understand why. She's an up and down, complex sort of girl, is Hermione!"

Harry laughed in agreement. "Thank you, Pap, for staying with me. I'm glad you did."

"As am I," Papageno returned. "So, you still intend to try and search Professor Lockhart's office. What are you hoping to find?"

"The method he used to control Hermione," Harry seethed bitterly. "He got into her head, and if there's even the tiniest possibility that it is connected to the opening of the Chamber of Secrets I need to know about it. Tell me, Pap, what was it like for you, when Hermione was possessed?"

Papageno sat on his hind legs to think about it. "I just felt, sort of, drowsy at first. Then it began to get stronger and I have very little memory of where I was or what I did. I'm always aware of my connection to Hermione, but back then it started to feel thin and stretched. Then it felt like I was being pushed away. It became unpleasant to be around her, as though her very energy had turned to acid."

"So you stayed away?" Harry nodded as he processed the story. "And Hermione didn't notice a thing?"

"No," Papageno confirmed. "That's why we are so convinced that Tom Riddle is behind it. Few others know of our world, of our nature. And he has lived there for over a decade."

"And been able to study it for that entire time!"

"Not just that, but to learn how to manipulate it, perhaps in ways people in our world have never considered," Papageno pointed out. "Don't forget, the magic used here is very different to the type our witches use. Tom Riddle may have been able to try things they haven't even thought about."

"That would make him very dangerous," Harry considered darkly.

"Very," Papageno agreed. "And he's cunning and unpredictable enough as it is."

Harry shifted awkwardly on his four-poster. He turned his eyes down to the bed. He didn't think he could look Papageno in the face to say what was on his mind.

"I ... I'm sorry, Pap, for getting you into this," Harry murmured guiltily. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be in this trouble. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even be in this world!"

Papageno padded across the quilt and gently brushed his head against Harry's chin, urging him to raise his head back up. Then he looked him dead in the eyes.

"No, you're quite right. Without you, we wouldn't be here. We'd be sat quietly in Oxford, reading our books and getting made fun of by our classmates, not knowing that we could be a part of this great adventure with you. But we wouldn't change it, Harry, not a bit of it. We've never regretted coming to find you, not even for a second. We spent all our life in that world, in our wonderful Oxford.

"But it wasn't until we came here that we really started to live. What I'm trying to say is ... it is only since we met you, Harry Potter, that Hermione and I truly became alive."

Harry felt tears rise behind his eyes, and he didn't know why. He wanted to say something, not that he knew what it was. In any case, the words got choked in his throat somewhere. Papageno turned modestly and returned to the end of the bed, allowing Harry to quickly wipe at his face with his sleeve. Harry's heart felt full, that was the only way he could describe it. It was a warm sort of full that made him smile in ways he didn't know he could before.

And he had never felt more determined to clear Hermione's name. How could a girl that could make him feel like this ever have it in her bring harm to anyone?

Harry had to help her, he just had to ... whatever it took.


And then, quite unexpectedly, Harry got his chance.

It was a full fortnight since Hermione's suspension. Harry had just had his second Defence Against the Dark Arts class with Dumbledore as Professor, and he was sure he'd learned more in those two hours than he had in the last year-and-a-half of classes. At this rate, Defence was on course to overtake Charms as Harry's favourite class on his timetable.

As the bell went, the class began to pack up. Harry was sat with Neville and Ron, who Harry was slowly thawing towards. Since being humiliated over his awful wand and terrible academic performance, Ron had finally learned some humility. He kept his head down and worked as best he could. He would never be more than an average wizard, that much was obvious, but he had accepted that too and was much more easy-going about it as a result.

That evening the boys of the Gryffindor Top Dorm were very excited. Professor Flitwick's extra-curricular Duelling Club would be accepting Second-Years in the new term, and they were all determined to sign up before going home for the Christmas holidays. They would only be able to learn very basic Disarming and Shield Charms, but they had somehow managed to convince themselves that these spells alone would turn them into the baddest teenage Hit Wizards Hogwarts had ever seen.

And they couldn't wait to prove this to the Slytherins at the earliest opportunity.

But Harry had another concern on his mind ... Hermione. She wasn't here and wouldn't be able to put her name down for the class. And Harry was pretty sure she would have, had she been able to. So he decided to petition Dumbledore on her behalf.

As the class filed out, Harry hung back next to Dumbledore's desk. The Headmaster was carefully folding a cloth around a Foe-Glass, which he had been explaining the use of during the lesson.

"Ah, Harry. What did you think of the class?"

"Excellent, Professor," Harry beamed. "You're the best Defence teacher we've had. Any chance you might keep the post full-time!"

"I am flattered," Dumbledore chuckled. "But I have already put out a job advert for next year."

"Any luck yet?"

"One candidate looks promising," Dumbledore mused. "Once the next full-moon passes, I will have to go and have a formal interview with him."

"Full-moon?" Harry queried. "Is he into astronomy, then?"

"You could say that," Dumbledore replied, his eyes flashing brightly. "The cycle of the moon is very important in his life. But, come now Harry, I get the feeling you haven't loitered around to discuss my Professor recruitment strategy."

"Um ... no, Sir," Harry replied meekly. "I've actually come to talk to you about ... about Hermione."

Dumbledore sighed heavily, then sat slowly with deliberate movements. He fixed his gaze on Harry who felt, as always, that he was being x-rayed by the Headmaster.

"I cannot claim to be surprised," Dumbledore began lightly. "In all honesty, I expected this interrogation before now. You have shown admirable restraint, Harry, I must say. You have impressed me."

"Interrogation?" Harry asked, scrunching his brow in his confusion.

"You have come to demand to know why I suspended Miss Granger, have you not?"

"Oh!" Harry cried. "No, Sir. This isn't about that. Hermione explained why you did it. And she accepts it ... so I do, too."

Dumbledore smiled at that. It was a fond sort of curl that crossed his lips. Harry wasn't sure he knew how to read it.

"Then what can I do for you?" Dumbledore asked slowly.

"Well, here's the thing," Harry started, taking a seat without being invited. He wrung his hands in his lap as he spoke again, his words tumbling out very quickly while his courage was up. "There's a Duelling Club, see, that we can join in the New Year. Us Second-Years, I mean. Professor Flitwick runs it."

"I know the one," Dumbledore replied benignly.

"Yeah, that one," Harry nodded keenly. "Only, Hermione isn't here, see, so she wont know about it. And I know she'd want to sign up if she knew, only she doesn't, and she'll be ever so upset to be missing out, when she comes back. Which she will ... won't she, Sir?"

"She will," Dumbledore confirmed. Harry breathed out a lungful of relief. "Miss Granger is only suspended until the new term. She will return to the castle then, though if no progress is made into the investigation regarding the Petrifications, she may have to return under certain restrictions."

"Okay," Harry frowned. "That's fair. And how is the investigation going?"

Dumbledore considered Harry a long few seconds. Harry felt like he was being assessed by the Headmaster.

Then, in a moment that Harry felt arrive as much as he saw, Dumbledore appeared to make a fundamental decision.

"Well, we still have not located the Chamber of Secrets," Dumbledore mused. "But there have been no further attacks. It is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other at this point."

"So Hermione could still be innocent?" Harry chanced.

"As much as she may be guilty," Dumbledore agreed.

"So, would she be allowed to join the Duelling Club?" Harry asked. "Would her restrictions stretch to that? I mean, if she is innocent - which I just know she is - shouldn't she be allowed to learn how to defend herself like everyone else? In case the monster attacks her?"

Dumbledore smiled. "I am not certain that a Shield Charm would be adequate protection from this monster."

"Maybe not. But there are other monsters in the world, aren't there, Sir? Isn't it right that she should be able to defend herself from them?"

For a moment, Harry swore he saw Dumbledore's eyes flicker to the many Lockhart's depicted in moving portraits around the room. But it was so swift Harry might have imagined it.

"You make a very impassioned and persuasive case," Dumbledore considered. "And if you are wrong, and Miss Granger is responsible for these attacks? What then?"

"I'll turn her in ... for her own good," Harry replied plainly. "And keep watch over her so she cant hurt anyone else. But she isn't guilty, so this is a redundant scenario."

Dumbledore smiled ruefully, then spoke practically to himself. "Oh, to be young ... and feel love's keen sting. Very well, Harry. I will permit you to enrol Miss Granger for the Duelling Club. But I have something to ask of you in return."

"I thought you might," Harry smirked. "What is it?"

"Please place covers over all these images of Professor Lockhart, before you head to see Professor Flitwick," Dumbledore returned pleasantly. "If I am to be teaching here for the next six months, I would rather do so without being given haircare advice every few minutes."

"I can do that!" Harry laughed. "Thank you, Sir."

"Very well, very well," Dumbledore replied. He stood up and conjured a number of large black cloths from the end of his wand. "You can perform a basic Sticking Charm, I understand. That should suffice to keep these covers in place."

"Yes, Sir."

Dumbledore moved to the door. Then he turned to Harry, his eyes flashing with hidden meaning. "Oh, and Harry, I understand Gilderoy was advising you privately on how to manage your celebrity persona. I imagine you are just desolate without his continued tuition. So I have left his private chambers unlocked, should you wish to study his appearance diary ... maybe you can learn how he does it."

Harry blinked in shocked understanding. Dumbledore said no more, closing the door quietly as he left.

Harry, unable to believe his luck - or Dumbledore's blatant, if only inferred, encouragement - rushed around the room, quickly throwing the cloths over the many portraits of Lockhart. Harry had to fight hard to resist the urge to draw little moustaches on the pictures, or to simply torch them with his wand. But he had to stay focused, get this task done, then claim the prize at the end of it.

And, very soon, he had the prize in his hands.

Truth be told, Harry felt rather sick at what he was holding. Gilderoy Lockhart's personal filofax, an organiser, the Master Diary Harry was looking for. It had innumerable pages, each carrying a name at the top. One for each of Lockhart's dedicated fans. The last few hundred pages were headed by the name of each and every girl who currently attended Hogwarts. Their hopes and dreams, their most intimate secrets, which they had innocently recorded in their dream diaries, were neatly listed as bullet points on each page.

"That utter creep!" Harry hissed angrily, reading about how Penelope Clearwater was just desperate to be a Mum one day, having lost hers at a young age. "I'm going to burn this right now!"

"No, don't! It could be useful!"

Harry started and looked down. "Pap! How did you get in here?"

"You didn't come back after your class, so I was worried and came to find you," Papageno explained, leaping up onto the desk. "Is that it then? His diary?"

"Yep," Harry seethed. "All the secrets of all the girls here, ripe for him to manipulate. I've half a mind to march right up to the Hospital Wing and smother him as he sleeps."

Papageno moved to put his paws over the corners of the diary. "So this is what he used to control Hermione? Can you flick to our page?"

Harry swallowed a moment and hesitated. "I ... I don't know if I should. Her dreams and secrets will be on there. I'm sure she doesn't want me to know about them."

"Oh, you are quite wrong about that," Papageno returned evenly. "She would actually love for you to know her secrets, but she's too much of a coward to tell you that yet."

"But you just did."

"I know, but I'm the brave part of Hermione."

"I don't know about that," Harry argued fairly. "I've always thought of Hermione as pretty brave. All that stuff with the Philosopher's Stone last year? That was all her."

"We know," Papageno quipped. "But that's not the sort of thing that scares her."

"Then what does?"

"You, silly," Papageno replied. "You terrify her in so many ways, and they are all the good sort of terror."

"There's a good sort of terror?" Harry asked faintly. The room felt very hot all of a sudden.

"Of course there is," Papageno told him simply. "You should know that ... because you feel it too. I can tell."

Harry felt his mouth fall open, but Papageno was on a mission now.

"Can you turn the pages, please? I don't think I can manage it."

"Are you sure?" Harry tested.

"Yes. If you like, I'll look first, tell you what's there," Papageno offered.

"Okay, that sounds like a good idea," Harry replied.

He flicked through the pages. It was with a churned sense of disgust that he noticed the girls were not organised alphabetically ... but by age. Some had stars next to their names ... Harry didn't think he wanted to know what that meant ...

Then he got to the page with Hermione's name on it. He pinched his eyes closed, battling hard against the temptation to peek.

But then Pap squeaked, very much like his human did. "It's blank!"

Harry opened his eyes. Papageno was right ... Hermione's page was bare. Her name had a star next to it, but there was nothing else.

"I don't get it," Harry huffed. "There's nothing here."

"But she definitely wrote in the diary," Papageno insisted. "I saw her do it!"

"Then there must be something else, something we're missing."

Harry began looking around the desk. Papageno did, too, and he found something interesting.

"His quill?" Harry queried, lifting up the extravagant peacock's feather.

"Harry ... look at those markings on the nib. Aren't they -"

"Runes. Yes, but I don't understand ..."

"Hermione says Runes written together like that make spells," Papageno went on. "Could that quill be enchanted in some way?"

"It's possible," Harry thought aloud.

"Can you read the spell? Hermione was always impressed by how good you are with Runes."

Harry felt his cheeks redden. He lifted up the quill and examined the Runes. He furrowed his brow.

"There's a part here about changing reality," Harry divined. "These first two, see? They are a spell to encourage a new outlook on things. And these three at the back ... they are to invoke commitment. It's almost as if ..."

"What?"

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say Lockhart is using this quill to encourage Blind Devotion. Almost as though anything it writes will be believed by the reader, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

Papageno looked at Harry. Harry looked at the cat dæmon.

And the same thought came to them at the same time.

"His books!" Papageno whispered.

"It has to be!" Harry cried. "Everyone knows he's a fraud, even Snape. But they still believe he did what his books say he did. Even Hermione does. I see it now. He's hoodwinked everyone who has ever read a word of his rubbish!"

"How, Harry? That sounds like very Dark Magic."

"Oh, it is," Harry nodded vigorously. "Enough for a long stretch in Azkaban, I'd bet. The question is ... where did he learn it?"

"And what did he pay for it ... or do for it?"

Harry felt a shock of horror slam into his mind. He fell into a chair to consider it.

Papageno jumped into his lap to offer comfort. "Harry ... what is it? You've gone awfully pale."

"Voldemort, Pap," Harry breathed slowly. "It must be him."

"How?"

"He wanted to spread his message," Harry spoke rapidly. "But he's a lunatic, not everyone believes the words of a madman so easily. So he developed a spell, one that would make people believe his doctrine, no matter how hard their sensibilities spoke to them about the reality of what Voldemort was saying."

"And Hermione always says that what most wizards lack is basic logic!" Papageno hushed.

"All he would have had to do was find someone like Lockhart," Harry went on vivaciously. "I bet he was a struggling writer or something, because he's a poor excuse for a wizard. Young, impressionable. Good with words, but with no story of his own to tell."

"So Tom Riddle offered him the chance to be read by an entire nation," Papageno filled in. "All he had to do was spout the party rhetoric and he'd be famous. He'd have all his dreams come to life. But what did he do in exchange?"

"I don't know, but I'm determined to find out," Harry riled. "Maybe Voldemort was defeated before he got around to that. Either way, Lockhart knew the spell. Then he went travelling maybe, collected stories, then wrote them as if he'd lived them!"

"And everyone believed him because of the quill! Even though they knew how awful a wizard he is!" Papageno completed. "Oh my. It's so sinister, Harry."

"And who knows what his fame has allowed him to get away with!" Harry hissed. "He could have used that quill for anything. He could have written to Hermione that she was in love with him ... and once she'd read that ..."

"... she would have had no choice but to believe it! She would have wanted to do what he asked, to impress him."

"But she broke free. How?"

"Because ... you cant fabricate love. Only obsession," Pap replied breathily. "Love is too powerful to be pretended. Real love saved her. Saved us."

Papageno looked pointedly at Harry, who felt his heart erupt inside his ribcage. He felt light-headed with it a moment.

"But this still doesn't explain where Hermione's dream diary entries went," Harry went on, his thoughts a melee in his over-wrought brain. "He must have been using something else. But what?"

Then Papageno sucked in a sharp breath. "Harry ... look at that! What is it?"

Papageno was pointing his paw back to the desk. Under the piles and piles of copies of Magical Me, something was flashing. Harry went to see what it was.

"That's it, Harry!" Papageno hissed. "That's Hermione's dream diary!"

Harry slid it out from under Lockhart's books. Then he frowned. "This doesn't look like mine. Or Neville's, because I've seen that. This is much thinner, and the cover feels different. This isn't the book I bought from Flourish and Blotts."

"Someone switched them?" Papageno asked. "But when?"

"Who knows, but I'm certain of it," Harry replied. "I'll show you mine later to prove it."

"But why's it flashing? There it goes again."

"Let's find out, shall we?"

Harry opened the diary, laying it flat so that Papageno could see. There, quite clearly, words were written on the first page. Harry read them ... and his heart almost stopped.

"Harry ... I don't understand ... I'm scared," Papageno whispered.

"I know. Me too," Harry hushed back.

For there, clear as day, a message was flashing up at them both.

"Hermione ... I haven't heard from you in a few days. I hope I haven't upset you. Please talk to me. Yours forever, Gilderoy."

Harry blinked hard. He didn't know who was writing that message, but he knew one thing for certain ... it wasn't Gilderoy Lockhart.