Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I'm going to be expelled.
Colina Creevey, heart pounding, continued to tear around the room in almost a dizzying spell trying to find Tom Riddle's diary.
She had been so sure the day that she finally came to her senses of the effects of the journal that it could be the end of it. That all she had to do was do away with it and nobody would get hurt anymore as soon as Professor Sprout made the antidote it would fix the victims of what she was now mostly sure she caused, and nobody would have to know what she did…
But Harry Potter had to have found her journal. Even worse, what if Tom decided in revenge to not only tell Harry what she had done but what she had written about him? She blushed a heated scarlet and looked even more frantically as she thought about it and all she had written about Freya Weasley and Will Granger and...and-
There! She snatched the diary that was inside Harry's trunk hurriedly and looking around her eyes widened as she realized how cluttered she had left the room, but there was no time to fix it as she shook her head and hurriedly began running away from the scene.
Aw, Colina, she thought to herself hatefully as she took herself away from the common room to a place where she could destroy the book for good.
When are you ever going to stay to clean up the mess you made?
The day after Harry found their room a mess and the diary stolen was a brilliantly sunshine-lit morning with a refreshing breeze. Perfect Quidditch conditions and Wood obviously thought so too as he beamed up at the sky while loading his Quidditch player's dishes with scrambled eggs. "Buck up, Harry! You need a decent breakfast."
"Not too much, Wood," Fred said hastily, cautiously grabbing onto Wood's wrist and moving him away from shoveling the whole serving dish onto Harry's plate.
"Yes, it'd be quite embarrassing if our Seeker couldn't lift from the ground on his broom." George nodded, shoveling his own food into his mouth.
Harry gave a short laugh but was distracted by the prospect of wondering if the new owner of Riddle's diary was somewhere near him on the Gryffindor table.
"Seriously, Harry- you need to report it!" Will told him as he cut up his waffle, "Not only did they steal your property, but they cluttered up our room!"
"I was thinking about that because, yes I think sometimes," Freya said dryly at the surprised looks on Harry and Will's faces that they quickly wiped away, "But what if they didn't steal Harry's property?"
"What do you mean?" Harry frowned, "It was in my room."
"Yeah but take it from the youngest sister in a house full of brothers, just because it's in your room doesn't mean it's yours. I've torn into my brothers' rooms all the time with that sort of abandon a couple of times and you know why?" Freya tore off a bite of her waffle, "Because I was trying to get something of mine back."
"That does make sense," Will said, his brows raising. "Of course, nobody would want some journal with nothing written on it back! They knew what Tom's diary did, brilliantly deduced, Freya."
"I have my moments," Freya said with a small bow.
"Well, if that's theory correct, which it just might…" Harry looked around the dining hall frowning, "Then just who could it be?"
They still hadn't figured it out by the time the three of them left the dining hall to go back to his dormitory to retrieve his Quidditch things. He had just stepped a foot on the marble staircase, his head racing with thoughts on his match and the diary's whereabouts when something else filled his head.
"Rip...Tear...LET ME KILL…"
He shouted aloud and both Will and Freya jumped away from him, alarmed, as he whirled on them.
"The voice! I just heard it again! Didn't you?"
Freya shook her head, wide-eyed. Will on the other hand stared at Harry for a long moment, his brows furrowing, before his eyes widened too. He clapped his hand to his forehead, looking amazed. "I-I think I just understood something! I need to go to the library!"
He sprinted up the staircase without a single look back.
"What does he understand?" Harry questioned.
"Loads more than we do, apparently." Freya tsked, looking after Will. "Come on, hopefully, he'll be done by the time we're on the field. The voice is gone, right?"
To his disappointment it was and even as he tried his best to listen out, by the time they both ran back to the Quidditch field, he hadn't heard any of its horrible words again.
It had been a moment of happiness as they'd split up, Freya hurriedly wishing him good luck before he went to go join his maroon and golden-robed teammates. He'd just mounted his broom when suddenly Professor McGonagall was there with a purple megaphone directing them all to go inside.
"Wha-but, Professor! The cup! Gryffindor!" Wood was saying wide-eyed, pointing to the field.
She ignored him, continuing to shout directions as students began to file back into the building. Finally, she put the megaphone down and met Harry's eyes, before beckoning him forwards. Freya detached herself from the complaining crowd and ran towards the two of them, coming to walk by Harry's side and looking up to Professor McGonagall as if waiting for her to argue, but she didn't.
"Yes, yes, you should come as well, Ms. Weasley," McGonagall said instead, causing Harry and Freya to share a concerned glance. "You see...there's been another double attack."
At first, Harry thought they were bringing them both up to question whether or not they were culprits but found out the reason was so much worse.
"William?" Freya said, her voice breaking slightly as they passed the curly-haired girl to gaze upon their frozen friend, his eyes wide and glassy. "No..."
"They had this next to them while they were in the library," Professor McGonagall said heavily as she gestured towards the mirror in the middle of them. "Can either of you explain this?"
Both Harry and Freya shook their heads, for they couldn't explain it.
Besides, as Harry looked at his petrified friend, his throat was too tight to be able to say anything at all.
"The Granger was petrified," Pansy Parkinson giggled beside Draco as he had his head down, eating breakfast. "Aww, look at his blood traitor and famous friend!"
Draco did indeed look up at them and frown as the two came in, looking as though they hadn't slept properly the night before.
"Rumor has it," Pansy continued giggling, "That the mud blood could have died. We got unlucky, I guess, right Draki?"
He forced on a smirk as he nodded, "Right."
It's because if somebody dies and they find out my father had a hand in it, my father could get in trouble and my family's name could be tarnished.
This is what Draco repeated to himself later on when he went into the library and looked around the area where it was said that Granger and the Ravenclaw had been petrified.
It's because if somebody dies and they find out my father had a hand in it, my father could get in trouble and my family's name could be tarnished.
Draco knelt down and his brows raised as he reached under the desk and pulled out the book that was on the floor and he saw what he assumed was Granger's Gryffindor bookmark put on a certain page. Opening it up he saw the page was for information on the Basilisk and felt slightly grudging respect as he saw this and written in Granger's handwriting on the bottom the word pipes, for Granger had figured it out.
It's because if somebody dies and they find out my father had a hand in it, my father could get in trouble and my family's name could be tarnished.
Draco as silently as he could for the librarian would go into a rage if she heard, ripped the page out of the textbook, and shoved the book back into its proper place on the shelf before hurrying to the infirmary. Casting a spell around Madam Pomfrey's office that he knew would make sure she didn't hear him as he came in, he entered and found the cot that Granger was, staring up unseeingly.
He could have died, Draco thought, feeling sick.And I only feel sick because if somebody dies and they find out my father had a hand in it, my father could get in trouble and my family's name could be tarnished.
Knowing it would be suspicious if Potter and Weasley came back and the information was suddenly on the desk, he went ahead with the hard task of fitting the paper crumpled into Granger's curled palm, cursing whenever the page was close to almost ripping and feeling relieved when he managed to finish. He left the scene quickly, undoing the spell that he'd cast on Madam Pomfrey's office, feeling satisfied that eventually one of the two Gryffindors would see the paper in his fist.
Why are you doing this, Draco? He asked himself as he turned the corner to the entrance leading to his common room.
Because if somebody dies and they find out my father had a hand in it, my father could get in trouble and my family's name could be tarnished.
That's it.
Thathasto be it.