SERPENT'S SONG | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [2]

𝘅𝘅𝗶𝘃 | 𝘁𝗼𝗺'𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗿𝘆

Gwen didn't sleep that night. She lay awake for hours, shaking underneath the quilted duvet, her mind racing with every possibility to get that book back. She could not, could never, allow Harry to talk to Tom. She could never allow Tom to do to him what he had done to her. She would not let it happen.

  By this point, she had no idea as to the extent of the power that Tom could have over her. She didn't want to find out, she didn't want to know, but she was only certain of one thing; she could not let him get to Harry.

  The next morning, sleep-deprived and still trembling, Gwen and Hermione were pulled aside by Harry and Ron before breakfast.

  'I've got something to tell you,' Harry said, and sat them all down in a deserted corridor of the common room.

  As Harry told his story, the temperature seemed to drop. Gwen began trembling again, and her eyes had turned dark. He told them about the diary, how he'd figured out how to use it. He told them he'd spoken to Tom Marvolo Riddle, a student at Hogwarts when the Chamber had last been opened. A girl had died, been murdered in a bathroom. Riddle had caught the culprit and the monster, but the monster had escaped. The culprit was expelled, and the whole ordeal hushed up by the Headmaster, Armando Dippet. And then Riddle had earned an award for special services to the school.

  The culprit was Hagrid.

  'Riddle might have the wrong person,' Hermione said finally, after a long moment of silence. 'Maybe it was some other monster that was attacking people.'

  'How many monsters d'you think this place can hold?' Ron said.

'A fair few,' Gwen murmured.

  Harry sighed miserably. 'We always knew Hagrid was expelled. And the attacks must've stopped after or Riddle wouldn't have received his award.'

  Gwen had stayed silent. She knew it wasn't true. She knew Hagrid wasn't the culprit, and whatever strange, magical creature he had decided to keep in the castle, she knew that that wasn't the monster.

  'Where did you find the diary?' she asked quietly.

  Harry glanced at her. 'In the bathroom. Someone threw it at Myrtle.'

  Gwen nodded.

  Later that day, they were still talking about it.

  'This Riddle sounds a lot like Percy,' Ron said on their way to dinner. 'Who asked him to snitch on Hagrid like that?'

  Hermione looked at him. 'The monster had killed someone, Ron'

  'And Riddle was going back to some Muggle orphanage,' Harry added. 'I don't blame him for wanting to stay here...'

  Gwen stayed silent as they talked.

  'You met Hagrid down Knockturn Alley, didn't you, Harry?' Ron said pensively.