Ellie Collins and the True Heir of Slytherin

Chapter Nine: The Diary

Seamus and Nicole stayed in the hospital wing for several weeks. There was a flurry of rumor about their disappearance when the rest of the school arrived back from their Christmas holiday.
When Ellie had been walking about she poked her head around the corner. Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post. She saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting at. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of The bathroom. Now that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Moaning Myrtle, another ghost at Hogwarts, whaling about.
Myrtle seemed to be crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before.
"What's wrong with you, Myrtle?" Ellie looked up at the ceiling where she had been swaying and sobbing.
"Who's that?" She sobbed miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"
Ellie waddled across her stall. "Why would I throw something at you?"
"Don't ask me!" She shouted back at her. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me."
"Who threw it at you anyway?" Ellie asked.
"I don't know... I was just sitting here thinking about death, and it fell right threw my head." Myrtle glared at her. "It's over there ..."
Ellie looked to see a small, thin, black book lying under the sink. She stepped forward to pick it up. She saw immediately that it was a diary. Opening it eagerly, she could make out small black handwriting on the front page reading, "T.M. Riddle".
Ellie peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely blank. There wasn't the faintest trace if writing on them. She couldn't make any sense of it, however, she pocketed it anyway.
-
The next day, Ellie sat on her bed and flipped through the blank pages. She pulled out a new bottle of ink and set it beside her. She dipped her quill into the black ink and hovered it above the diary, dripping black onto the pages.
To her surprise, the ink vanished, as though it were being sucked into the page. Excited, Ellie loaded her quill up for a second time and wrote, "My name is Elizabeth Isabelle Collins."
The words stayed solitary momentarily before they too, sank without trace. Then at last, something happened.
Oozing back out of the page, in her very own ink, came words Ellie hadn't written.
"Hello, Elizabeth. My name is Tom Riddle."
Those few words faded before she was scurrying to write a response back down on the page.
She wrote, "This must be your diary."
"Lucky 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."
"What do you mean?" She scrawled, blotting the page curiously.
"This diary holds terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts."
"You mean, about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Her heart was hammering.
"Of corse. In my day, they told us it was all a legend. I can show you if you like."
Ellie hesitated,her quill suspended over the page. What could he mean? She glanced curiously at the dorms stairwell which was growing dark. She paused for a fraction of a second before scribbling words back onto the page.
"Okay."

The pages of the diary began to blow as though being caught in a high wind. Her hands began to tremble slightly, her body felt as though it were going to leave the bed into another world.
She felt her feet hit solid ground, and stood, shaking, as the blurred shapes around him came suddenly into focus.
She knew immediately where she was, Dumbledore's office, but Dumbledore wasn't here. No Fawkes the Phoenix- no whirring silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, meaning that this unknown wizard was headmaster, not Dumbledore, and she, Ellie, was a little more than a phantom, completely invisible to the people over fifty years ago.
There was a knock on the office door.
"Enter," said the old wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. A silver prefect's badge was glistening on his chest. He was much taller than Ellie, but he had jet black hair.
"Ah Riddle," said the assumed headmaster.
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" said Riddle. He stood nervously.
"Sit down," Dippet pointed at a chair in the corner. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."
"Oh," Riddle sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
"My dear boy," said Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at the school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"
"I'd rather much stay at Hogwarts than go back to that..."
"You are Muggle born?"
"Half blood sir." Riddle exclaimed. "Witch mother, muggle father."
"And both your parents are-"
"My mother died just after I was born sir. They told me she lived just long enough to name me.-Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."
Dippet chuckled his tongue sympathetically.
"You may go, Tom..."
Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Ellie followed him.
Down the moving spiral staircase they went. Riddle stopped, and so did Ellie, watching him. She could tell that riddle was doing some serious thinking. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.
Then, he hurried off, Ellie scampering behind him. They didn't see another person until they reached the entrance hall.
"Evening Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.
The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.
"What yer doin' down here, Tom?" Riddle stepped closer.
"It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. Hogwarts will close if the attacks don't stop."
"What d'yeh-"
"I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out exercise and-"
"It never killed no one!" Said Rubeus backing against the closed door. From behind him, Ellie could hear a funny rustling and clicking.
"Come on, Rubeus," Riddle said, moving closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered..."
"It wasn't him!" Roared Rubeus, his voice echoing the dark passage "He wouldn'! He never!"
"Stand aside." Said Riddle, drawing out his wand.
His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Ellie let out a long , piercing scream.
A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor sharp pincers. Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but Rubeus leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NOOO!"
The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Ellie felt herself falling, and with a crash, fell into her bed. Riddles diary laying open.

Before Ellie good regain her breathing pattern, the diary spilt more words on the clean page.
"I know a lot about you Elizabeth."