Chapter 33: Discoveries

We brought Hermione to the hospital wing with her body and face covered with my cloak. Though Pomfrey had many a question, she decided not to dig too deep, and simply admitted her and started to give her potions to drink.

Harry and I sat on opposite sides of her bed. I couldn't help but stare at her. She looked like a kitten, but she sounded like herself.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she said, sobbing into her paws.

"It was an honest mistake, Mione." I said, trying to be a comfort while holding in my shock and awe at the entire situation. I sat down on the bed beside her.

"Yeah." agreed Harry. "You wouldn't have known it was a cat hair."

"It could be worse." I said, my eyes staring spell bounded at her cat ears.

"How could it be worse?!"

"You could have turned into a fish and ended up swimming around with Myrtle." suggested Harry.

Hermione glared daggers at him. Her tail twitched and hit me in the face.

Hermione remained in the hospital wing for several weeks and rumors were starting to spread when the rest of the school came back. Madam Pomfrey took out curtains and placed them around Hermione's bed, to keep people from seeing what was really going on with her.

Harry and I went to visit her every evening. When the new term started, we brought her each day's homework.

"If I'd sprouted whiskers, I'd take a break from work." I said as I put a stack of books onto Hermione's bedside table one evening.

"Don't be silly, Ron, I've got to keep up," said Hermione briskly. Her spirits were greatly improved by the fact that all the hair had gone from her face and her eyes were turning slowly back to brown. "I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey couldn't hear her.

"Nothing." said Harry gloomily.

"I was so sure it was Malfoy," I said. Hermione and Harry groaned. I had said it basically every time we went to visit her.

"What's that?" asked Harry, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a get well card," said Hermione, trying to poke it out of sight, but I snatched it out, flicked it open, and read aloud:

"To Miss Granger,

Wishing you a speedy recovery!

Ftom your concerned teacher,

Professor Gilderoy Lockhart.

Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award."

I looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

"You sleep with this under your pillow?" I asked, feeling as if I wanted to rip the card in half.

But Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey pushing us out so she could give Hermione her evening dose of medicine.

"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" I said to Harry as they left the infirmary and started up the stairs toward Gryffindor Tower. "Why the bloody hell is he giving get well cards to 13 year olds?"

Suddenly, we heard a groan that sounded very much like Filch.

"That's Filch." Harry muttered as we hurried up the stairs and hid out of sight, listening hard.

"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" I said tensely.

We listened as Filch seemed to be going barmy.

"-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!"

We heard him walk off and then slam a door. We poked our heads around the corner. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Then, we heard Myrtle's moaning and wailing.

"Now what's up with her?" I wondered.

"Let's go and see," said Harry, and holding our robes over their ankles they stepped through the massive stream of rushing water to the door bearing its OUT OF ORDER sign, ignored it as always, and entered.

Moaning Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet.

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

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

Harry waded across to her stall as I stood by the door, keeping watch. "Why would I throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already soaking wet floor. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me."

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

It was made quickly obvious that he had said the wrong thing. Myrtle shrieked loudly, "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!"

I rolled my eyes. She was the most dramatic ghost I had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

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

"I don't know. I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head," said Myrtle, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out."

Harry and I looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small wet book was there with a shabby black cover Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but I hurriedly rushed over, flinging my arm in front of him to hold him back.

"What?" said Harry.

"Are you mental?" I gasped . "It could be dangerous."

"Dangerous?"said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"

"You'd be surprised." I said, looking suspiciously at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated Dad's told me. There was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And-"

"All right, I've got the point." said Harry. "Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," he said, and he ducked around my arm and picked it up off the floor.

Stubborn git never listened.

I looked over Harry's shoulder and seen that it was a diary. A very old diary, with the name T.M. Riddle etched into it.

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

"How on earth did you know that?" said Harry.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention." I said, rolling my eyes "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 opened the diary and we looked through the pages. They were all blank.

"He never wrote in it," said Harry, sounding a bit disappointed.

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

"He must've been Muggle-born," said Harry . "To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road."

"Well, it's not much use to you. Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose." I whispered.

Harry grinned, but pocketed it.

Harry had a late Quidditch practice, so I went by to talk to Hermione. I was still a bit put out with her. To actually keep that peacock's card under her pillow as if it were something sentimental. It was completely ridiculous.

Still, she was my friend, and I figured she needed the company.

"I'm here." I said, peeking around the curtain.

Hermione looked up from the book she was reading. She gave me a forced smile, and nodded towards the chair for me to sit down.

"What have you two been up to? And where is Harry?" she asked.

I was ready to tell her about what we had seen and did, but I figured I would let Harry do it. Maybe she would scold him since he didn't listen to be about the stupid diary.

"Hung out, got some homework done." I lied. "Harry's off practicing."

Hermione nodded and looked back down at her book. So that was how she was going to play it. She knew I was annoyed at her.

"Really, Hermione? Not speaking to me?"

Hermione kept her attention on her book, but I could tell she wasn't reading it. "I really don't feel like arguing, Ron."

"Well then, how about you listen then." I said. "I think it's stupid for you to be fawning over Lockhart so much."

Hermione shut her book with a loud pop and glared at me. "I am not fawning over him, Ronald Weasley!"

"Yes the bloody hell you are! You and every other witch in this school because he has great hair and is apparently so lovely to look at." I yelled.

"I'm not! I just...admire his accomplishments. That's all!"

"Accomplishments. Right." I huffed, crossing my arms.

"He has books on everything that he has done, Ron."

"Everything he has SAID he has done."

"Why would he lie about it?"

"Gee, why not? So he could be famous! Admit it, Hermione, he has no bloody idea what he is doing! We are in the same damn class!"

"Language, Ronald! And maybe he just...he-"

"Hermione, just admit it. Your man is a crock of shit."

"He is not my man!" shouted Hermione.

"IF YOU TWO CAN'T STOP BICKERING I WILL SEND YOU OUT, MR. WEASLEY!" boomed Madam Pomfrey from the other side of the curtain.

"Sorry." Hermione and I mumbled.

We looked at each other and sighed.

"Look, I don't wanna fight, okay?" I said, throwing in the towel.

"I don't want to fight either." said Hermione, slouching in her bed.

"Sorry for yelling at you."

"As am I."

"But you got to admit, he is still a clueless git."

"Ronald..."

"I'm just kidding. Wanna play a game of Exploding Snap? You don't have any more fur on your hands anymore. So they wouldn't catch fire like last time."

Hermione smiled and tried to hold her laugh in. "You're insufferable, you know that?" she said.

"I know." I grinned as I shuffled the cards. "But you like it."