Summary of the previous chapter:

Severus invites himself to Malfoy Manor in order to feel out what Lucius knows. He doesn't learn much, just that Lucius is up to something and that getting rid of Dumbledore and Potter is an important part of the plan.

The Very Secret Diary

With the New Year came the last two days of Christmas break before the students would return on Sunday. Draco, alarmed or appalled by the betrayal of his own moral values, had not come to seek Harry's and Hermione's company again. He kept himself suspiciously absent, as if he needed to prove to himself that he hadn't enjoyed their company and could do very well without them. Or maybe he was just avoiding temptation.

When school resumed on January 4th, the petrifications had almost been forgotten, at least by the students. Harry breathed a sigh of relief when talk and gossip shifted once more to other things, like presents received for Christmas, gatherings that had been attended and trips that had been made.

Severus found the change of conversational topics surprising, considering the state of near panic everybody had been in before the holidays, but guessed it just went to show how fickle teenage minds were. For Albus, however, the problems had only begun.

Parents of students who were less diligent correspondents had only been informed of the mysterious things going on in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when their children returned home. An astonishingly low number of purebloods expressed concerns, but the majority of the half-bloods had brought the topic to the attention of the Board of Governors. Lucius, not at all surprisingly, was very vocal in his outrage, which turned the tide. Other more traditional families now boarded the wagon, which was firmly pushed towards the goal of derailing the headmaster.

The governors announced a visit to the school, to speak with Dumbledore about the incidents and to inquire what measures had been taken to assure the safety of the students. And worse, someone had invited Rita Skeeter, a notorious reporter of the Daily Prophet.

Severus himself was very curious as to how Albus would wriggle out of that one. But the shockingly cunning old Gryffindor, after having assured the governors of the wellbeing of the victims and the flourishing of the mandrakes, invited them to the teaching lounge and set Lockhart loose on them, who immediately began sprouting his usual nonsense about having a very good idea about what was going on, what curse was being used and how to convict the culprit. He also flashed 'Witches Weekly's most charming smile' at the female governors and at Skeeter, who blushed like a fifteen year old and asked for his autograph.

"As you can see," said Albus, and Severus could only wonder how he managed to remain serious, "our resident expert in Defence Against the Dark Arts, whose knowledge and experience in these matters is unparalleled, is personally investigating the occurrences and has already made considerable headway into solving the riddle. We are happy to have such expertise at hand just when we need it."

Lucius was furious and did a bad job of hiding it. Of course he knew that it was a load of codswallop, but Skeeter was impressed. Her article in tomorrow's paper would assure the wizarding populace that all was well in Hogwarts, and the students in safe hands.

Albus popped a lemon drop into his mouth, his eyes twinkling merrily.

*'*'*'*'*'*

Given that there had been no attacks for over a month, the school routine was almost back to normal by the end of January, though many students still treated Harry with caution. Professor Sprout was happy to tell them during Herbology that the Mandrakes were becoming moody, which apparently was a first sign of puberty. Once their acne cleared up and they started to crawl into each other's pots, the disturbingly human-like plants would be ready to be harvested and turned into a potion. The heir's victims would be unpetrified and hopefully able to identify their attacker.

On their way back from the greenhouse to the library, the friends noticed a small puddle on the floor in front of the girls' loo.

"Myrtle must have flooded the bathroom again!" said Harry, watching the water seep out from underneath the door. "I wonder what has her so upset this time."

"Let's find out," suggested Neville. "Maybe she's in need of a kind word."

Making sure that nobody saw them sneaking into a girls' domain, the three friends stepped inside. Judging by the sounds of sobbing and the direction they were coming from, the ghost was crying in her favourite toilet.

"Myrtle?" Harry called out gently. "What's the matter?"

"As if anybody cares!" came the plaintive voice from behind the door. "Have you come to throw some more things at me?"

"Of course not! It's Neville, Harry and Hermione. What happened?"

The misty form of Myrtle emerged from the toilet bowl. "Here I am, sitting in my U-bent, thinking about death, when someone comes in and throws a book at me!" she lamented, clearly hoping to get some sympathy.

"Someone threw a BOOK into the toilet?" Hermione asked, totally aghast, although for very different reasons than Myrtle thought.

The ghost was mollified by the expression of outrage. "Very inconsiderate, isn't it? It flew right through my head!"

"Does she even feel it?" wondered Tom. "Ghosts walk through walls all the time."

"I think it's the act that upsets her, not the pain," Harry replied with mild rebuke.

"I'm well aware of that, thank you! But I'm still wondering if they can feel it …"

"Myrtle, I'm not sure if you realize …" Hermione reasonably pointed out, "but when you're IN the toilet rather than ON it, it's kind of difficult to see you there."

Gosh, both his friends could really be insensitive at times. Quickly, before Myrtle got upset about being overlooked, no matter how unreasonable that was, Harry distracted her with a question: "Did the person say anything to you at all?"

"No, they just came in, threw the book into the loo and pulled the chain. But as I was sitting in the U-bent, it wouldn't go down, but got flushed out again. It's right over there." She pointed to the sink opposite from her stall.

Tom found it surprising that the ghost could physically block the toilet. Was Myrtle developing skills that only poltergeists had? It would certainly explain how she managed to keep flooding the bathroom.

Ignoring Tom's musing about ghosts and how they interacted with the physical world, Harry went to pick up the item beneath the sink. It was a small, thin book with a shabby black cover and a faded date printed on it. And of course, it was soaked. "It's just an ordinary diary," he announced, then frowned. "From 1943."

He flipped through the soggy pages. There was a square for each day of the year, but no entries. Not even an exam or an appointment. "It's completely empty," he noticed, nonplussed.

"Let me see…" Hermione took the book from him, examining its cover. "It's of Muggle origin," she declared. "Look, it even has the address of a newsagent in London on its back. It was sold in Vauxhall Road. And here, on the inside, is a name written in ink. T. M. Riddle."

"Riddle …" said Tom pensively, "Riddle … why does it feel as if I've heard that before?"

"Because you surely have," replied Harry teasingly. "It's a common enough word."

"Smartass!"

"How weird!" said Neville. "Why does someone try to flush a fifty year old, empty diary?"

"No idea," Hermione replied, deep in thought. "But just because we don't see anything doesn't mean that nothing has been written in it. It could be charmed. Or the mysterious T. M. Riddle used invisible ink."

Myrtle came closer, curiously looking at the diary that Harry had taken back from Hermione. "Riddle? That's funny! I knew him."

"You did?" Three pairs of eyes looked at the ghost in surprise.

"Yes. He was a fifth year Slytherin prefect. But Slytherins wouldn't associate with people like me. Except Olive Hornby, the rancid witch – she liked to harass me."

"You mean back then when you were …" 'alive?' was the question Harry had meant to ask, but stopped himself last minute. The ghost was a bit touchy about the fact that she was dead. "… in third year?" he ended his question instead. It was an educated guess. Myrtle seemed to be roughly their age, but it was a bit hard to tell with ghosts.

"In fourth year," Myrtle corrected.

"I think I know why the name feels familiar to you," said Harry to Tom, who suddenly remembered. "It's on our list of former graduates!" Myrtle knew someone who had been a student in 1943! When the Chamber had last been opened and bad things happened to some students ...

"Was Olive being mean to you because you were a Muggleborn?" Harry asked the ghost with growing suspicion.

Myrtle nodded, sniffing pathetically. "And because I was wearing glasses."

Hagrid had never mentioned who exactly had died in 1943, but how many students died while at Hogwarts?

"Probably more than we are made to believe," said Tom darkly, but Harry ignored him.

"Myrtle – are YOU the student who died when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened?" It seemed like an obvious conclusion. Neville and Hermione stared at them with a gobsmacked expression, probably wondering why they hadn't made the connection before.

"Yes, that's me," nodded the ghost dramatically. "Murdered-by-monster Myrtle!"

"Wow. I mean, that's startling news. We never knew it was you."

"Your tragic death has been the talk of the school lately!" said Neville.

"Really?" Myrtle's eyes lit up. "Are they all feeling bad about it?"

"Yes!" Neville assured. "They all think it was very tragic indeed. Everybody wonders what happened to you, especially since the Chamber has been opened again."

"They wonder what happened? I'll tell you what happened! I was murdered – right here in this bathroom!"

"Murdered? So it wasn't an accident?"

"No, I'm sure Olive was behind it, the stupid cow! I was in the stall over there, hiding from her – she had been mocking me again, because my glasses are so thick. Said they made me look like a beetle. I was having a good cry, when I suddenly heard a boy's voice, murmuring something unintelligible. I was so upset that he was coming into the girls' loo that I opened the door of the stall to tell him off – and then I died."

"You died - just like that?" asked Hermione, looking at her in confusion. "Did the boy cast a spell on you?"

"I don't know. All I remember is a pair of huge, yellow eyes, and then I was dead!"

They stared at each other, the same question in their eyes. What kind of creature had huge, yellow eyes?

"But my dying really showed Olive!" said Myrtle with smug satisfaction. "It was she who found me – hours later! 'Are you in here, sulking again, Myrtle?' she asked, nasty as ever. And then she saw me dead, and she went completely white with shock and horror!" Myrtle smiled happily at the memory.

Harry didn't point out that Myrtle was contradicting herself when claiming that Olive was behind her death and shocked about it at the same time.

"I know you're not supposed to talk bad of the dead, but that girl has quite a few screws loose …" commented Tom.

"I bet Olive was shocked," Hermione offered. "She probably never wanted you to die, Myrtle."

"Oh yes, I bet she did! That's why I haunted her after I was dead - until she went to the Ministry and complained about me. They finally banished me to Hogwarts."

"I'm very sorry, Myrtle, it must have been dreadful," said Neville. "It can't be easy talking about it, but can you tell us anything, anything at all about the boy you saw?"

"No. I wasn't wearing my glasses at the time, because I was crying so hard. My sight was all blurry."

Neville furrowed his brows. "You know, that just makes me wonder: If your glasses upset you so much, have you ever tried taking them off? I mean, why should you have to wear them after your death if you didn't even wear them when you died? Can ghosts even have poor eyesight?"

"I don't know," Myrtle looked at him in surprise. "I never thought about it."

"Well, then see if you can take them off now, and if it affects your vision," suggested Neville.

Myrtle blinked a few times, as if the idea was so strange that it needed some consideration. Deciding that it couldn't hurt to try, she followed up on his advice. Holding her glasses in her hand, she looked at Neville, then at Hermione and Harry and to the window. "I can see perfectly fine without them!" she declared, awe and wonder in her voice.

"Just be sure before you let go of them," advised Harry, pointing at the glasses in her hand. "I'm not sure they can exist apart from you, and if they don't, you might not get them back."

"I hate them!" said Myrtle with vehemence. "I always did! They really make me look like a beetle!" And with that, she flung the glasses away from her. They landed under one of the sinks with no noise at all and promptly dissolved.

Myrtle squealed with happiness. "That's awesome!" She flew at Neville and kissed him on the cheek. Neville shuddered. Getting too close to a ghost always felt like stepping under a very cold shower.

"I feel like a whole new person!" Myrtle cheered and did a somersault underneath the ceiling.

"You look very pretty," confirmed Harry, thinking she might like another opinion. He sometimes wished he could get rid of his glasses, too, though not because he thought he'd look better without them, but because they were very impractical.

Although the ghost's pale, almost pearlescent colour didn't really change, Harry thought she was blushing with pleasure.

"Would you be willing to keep watch and let us know if you hear or see anything unusual?" he asked. "It really seems like what happened to you back then is connected to what's going on in Hogwarts now. They say that a monster has been released from the Chamber of Secrets to kill Muggleborns."

"Well, I hope it doesn't kill anyone else in this bathroom – I really wouldn't want to share it with just anyone."

"We hope we can find the culprit before it comes to that. But we could really use another pair of eyes and ears."

"Oh, I am very good at spying and eavesdropping!" Myrtle nodded importantly, her mood very much improved. "So you need my help?"

"Yes. Please tell us if someone banishes you from your bathroom or if that girl comes back to cry in here. Anything unusual, really."

"I could do that!" She sounded pleased. "I'll just come and get you if anything noteworthy happens."

"That'd be awesome, thank you so much! We'll be back soon!"

Myrtle waved them goodbye and flew back to the ceiling, doing a few more somersaults. It was nice, but definitely strange to see her so happy, especially considering what they had just found out.

"I can't believe we didn't make the connection earlier!" said Hermione, face-palming herself once they were outside the bathroom. "It's so obvious!"

"It is now," agreed Harry. "Though talking to the victim of the attack wasn't as helpful as I had thought."

"Well, it would have been helpful back then if someone had bothered to ask her, wouldn't it? At least it would have been clear right away that Hagrid's Acromantula wasn't the culprit."

"You heard what she said – she went to haunt Olive Hornsby after her death. I don't know how long that must have been going on before the Ministry stepped in and banished her, but Myrtle probably didn't turn up at Hogwarts until the incident had long since been forgotten."

"Swept under the rug, you mean," Tom corrected. "They had punished a culprit and were probably not eager to learn anything that might force them to admit they'd been wrong."

"Her information as first-hand witness is valuable even now," said Hermione. "We should have asked her more specific questions to trigger her memory, like 'were they round eyes, or eyes with slit pupils?' Did she have to look up or down to meet them? What exactly does 'huge' mean in this context?"

"No, we shouldn't have!" Neville disagreed. "Would you like to be reminded of a traumatic event like your own death?"

"Definitely not," replied Harry.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, guys – the girl is just dying for attention, no pun intended. She loves talking about her death, it makes her feel important."

"Harsh, but to the point," agreed Tom drily.

"Just why are you two always so insensitive?" Harry asked him. "Shouldn't your psychology books have taught you some compassion?"

"My psychology books taught me that everything Hermione said about her was dead on."

Oblivious of the support from an invisible participant of all conversations, she continued her ruminations. "The part about the 'big yellow eyes' is something to go on. What could it be?"

"Cats have yellow eyes," offered Neville. "As does Madame Hooch. I wonder why."

"House-elves' eyes are huge, but I don't know if they are yellow," Harry pondered aloud, remembering very well when he had first seen Dobby, hidden in Aunt Petunia's hedge.

"They sometimes have amber eyes, though I'm not sure I'd call them yellow," Neville replied. "But they definitely have magical skills wizards do not."

The more Harry thought about it, the more he warmed up to the idea. "They can also pop up anywhere at random and vanish just as quickly, and they probably can write!"

"You think Salazar's monster was a house-elf?" Hermione sounded sceptical.

"Not sure. But let's not forget that the monster might be a myth after all. What if someone just built on that by ordering an elf to attack students? The boy in the girls' bathroom is definitely suspicious."

"But what about Justin?" wondered Neville. "You said the headmaster reset the wards after Dobby's appearance in the hospital wing, so that no house-elf can pop into Hogwarts anymore."

"Good point," said Tom. "But maybe the wards just prevent them from Apparating in, not from entering the castle the normal way, like the troll Quirrell let in."

"I really don't know," answered Harry, but repeated Tom's theory to his friends. "Can elves make themselves invisible? Because one would think that a house-elf walking through a classroom corridor in broad daylight would attract attention."

"It's actually the best theory we have so far, but it's not helpful at all: If there's no heir and no monster and we assume that someone could just walk in under a disillusionment charm, it could literally be anybody."

"I guess that puts us back at square one," Harry sighed. "Wouldn't it be cool if the diary actually had entries? We'd get a first-hand report on what went on at Hogwarts back then."

"Maybe there is something in it," offered Neville. "The content might just be charmed."

"So what are we going to do with it? Give it to a teacher?"

Of course Hermione had to suggest something like that. Harry didn't like the idea at all. "Let's dry it and have a loo k first," he said. "We'll decide then."

*'*'*'*'*'*

Harry put the planner inside his trunk with the pages fanned out to dry. As soaked as they were, it took a couple of days until he felt reasonably sure that the paper would not disintegrate on touch. Not surprisingly, the drying had changed nothing about the fact that it was still disappointingly empty.

"I have a feeling that it's important," said Harry to Tom, not able to explain why he felt that way. "As if I should be doing something with it."

"Same here," agreed his friend. "It's as if the diary is calling out to me."

Harry frowned. "Do you think there's a compulsion charm on it?"

"Might be. But wouldn't that make it a dark artefact?"

"It's a Muggle planner. Who would put dark magic on a Muggle item?"

"Anybody who wouldn't want you to suspect that it's a dark magical item," Tom pointed out logically.

"But there's nothing in it, so why go through the trouble?"

"Just because we don't see it doesn't mean there's nothing there. As Neville said, the content might be skilfully hidden."

Harry decided to check the harmless looking planner over once more with his friends. Hermione wanted to cast some detection charms at it that she had looked up, but not in the library under Madam Pince's eyes. They went back to Myrtle's bathroom – at least there, they could be reasonably sure that they wouldn't be disturbed.

Myrtle was interestedly looking over her shoulder as Hermione tried a number of charms on it. None yielded any results. "We're only second years, Harry. If it has really powerful protections, we wouldn't know spells strong enough to detect them."

"Hey, we could try something else …" Neville took an item from his backpack that looked like an eraser. Which seemed weird for him to have, as wizards seemed completely ignorant of any writing utensil other than quills. Though seeing the eraser made Harry wonder if a pencil's components were close enough to nature for it to be 'charmable'.

"It's a revealer – Hermione and I saw it at 'Scribbulus Writing Implements'. It's supposed to make invisible ink visible." He took the diary out of his friend's hands and rubbed the revealer on the square for January 1st. When that didn't work, he tried other days at random.

"Nothing," he said, sounding disappointed. "If the diary has any enchantments on it, I don't think we'll find them. Or maybe it's exactly what it looks like: an empty planner of Muggle origin."

"That someone threw into the toilet because?"

Neville frowned. "Maybe someone stole it from a fellow student and wanted to upset them. It might have been a family heirloom or something." He remembered how Malfoy had tried to take his Remembrall. He would have smashed it if Harry hadn't saved it.

"That's a very plausible guess!" applauded Hermione. "I'll ask Professor Flitwick if there's anybody of the name 'Riddle' in the school. Whoever owns the diary might be happy to see it returned."

But when asked about it, the Head of Ravenclaw was certain that there was no student of that name currently enrolled in Hogwarts, and he couldn't even remember having heard the name before. So it looked like the original owner of the diary was the only one of this surname who had attended Hogwarts in the last forty years.

"Maybe it was a Christmas present someone didn't like," said Neville, shrugging. "Whoever bought it might have missed that it was rather out of date and the unhappy recipient threw it away in anger."

Well, that sounded almost like a Dursley Christmas present – still way better than a toothpick. For some unfathomable reason, Harry couldn't stop thinking and developing theories about the diary. Every time he had it in his hands, he and Tom felt as if it was a long lost friend they just couldn't remember. Hoping that inspiration would strike, Harry left the diary in his backpack and kept it with him.

A/N: I've decided to go with the younger version of Flitwick as depicted in the movies, for plausibility reasons: The older version of Flitwick (he looks like a miniature Dumbledore, age-wise) must have been teaching at Hogwarts for quite a long time and would probably have known and remembered Tom Riddle. It would've put him on Diary Riddle's list of people to kill or get out of Hogwarts before returning to his old body. Yet no attempt at Flitwick's life was made. Let's assume that the really old Flitwick who we see in the first movie had just fallen victim to a prank of the Weasley twins and consumed a praliné filled with ageing potion the day he taught Hermione 'Wingardium Leviosa'.