Sirius's son

Riddle's Diary

Snape had given them so much homework, Rigel thought he was likely to be in the sixth year before he finished it. Ron was just saying he wished he had asked Hermione how many rat tails you were supposed to add to a Hair Raising Potion when an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.

"That's Filch," Rigel muttered as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.

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

"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 —"

His footsteps receded along the out-of-sight corridor and they heard a distant door slam.

They poked their heads around the corner. Filch had been manning his usual lookout post: They were once again on the spot where Mrs. Norris had been attacked. They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about. 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. Now that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Now what's up with her?" said Ron.

"Let's go and see," said Harry, and holding their robes over their ankles and stepped through the great wash of 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. It was dark in the bathroom because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.

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

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

"Why would someone throw something at you?" Rigel couldn't help but ask.

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping 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," Ron said, reasonably. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

He had said the wrong thing. Myrtle puffed herself up and shrieked,

"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!"

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

"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 Ron looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What?" Eliza asked slightly amused.

"Are you crazy?" said Ron. "It could be dangerous."

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

"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book.

"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," he said, and he ducked around Ron and picked it up off the floor.