Spells and Visions; A Harry Potter story

Chapter 9: The Diary

It was kind of weird sleeping in our dormitory without Hermione. The other girls noticed, of course that Hermione was gone.
"What happened to her?" Sally-Anne had asked.
"I don't know exactly," I lied. "Madam Pomfrey won't tell." I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone else that she had been turned into a cat.
"But you're her friend," Parvati said. "Surely you must know something. She hasn't been out for weeks."
"Sorry, I don't. You'll have to ask her yourself when she gets out."
I didn't like lying, although I was pretty good at it. But I wasn't too close with these girls, even though we shared a room. So I wouldn't discuss private matters like this.

~

Later, we sat with Hermione, who was finally let out of the hospital, discussing the diary. We also tried to find out what Riddle won an award for.
"Wait," I suddenly said. "He won that award fifty years ago?"
"So?" Ron said.
"And this diary is around fifty years old."
"Exactly," Hermione said, getting what I was going towards.
"And the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago."
"Maybe he got the award for catching the person who opened it," Neville added.
"Because according to Malfoy, that person is still in Azkaban," Harry said.
"But there is still a small problem," Ron said. "The diary is blank."
"It could be invisible ink," Hermione said. "Aparecium!"
Nothing happened. Then she took out a red eraser out of her bag.
"It's a Revealer," she told us. "I bought it in Diagon Alley." She rubbed with it on the paper, but again, nothing happened.
"I'm telling you, it's nothing special," Ron said. "Riddle just got it for Christmas and didn't bother writing in it."
But Harry kept the diary.

~

Things were going better at Hogwarts. There had been no more attacks since the one on Justin and Nick. Everyone seemed to grow a little more hopeful, but I knew it wasn't over, and that something big was still going to happen. I just had that feeling. Not even visions, not since the words that were written on the wall.
There was more good news. The Mandrakes were almost full grown, so the Petrified ones could soon be revived. But students were still suspicious. Maybe the monster and the heir of Slytherin were in hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike again. But nothing happened for several weeks.

However, one day, Harry and Ron called Hermione, Neville and me together to tell us something we never expected.
"I wrote something in the diary, and the text just disappeared," Harry told us. "It made place for something else. It was Tom Riddle, he wrote me back, as if he was in the diary. Then he told me he could show me something about the Chamber of Secrets."
"So what did you do?" I asked, sitting on the edge of my chair.
"I said 'yes', and I was, I think, taken into the diary, or at least into the memory of Riddle. In that memory a girl had been killed by the monster. Riddle caught the person who opened the Chamber of Secrets."
"Well, who was it?" Hermione asked.
"Hagrid," Ron said, who already knew it from last night.
"No way," I said, leaning back. "I don't believe it."
"It's true," Harry said. "Hagrid had some animal, some monster, that, according to Riddle, Petrified and killed students."
"So what do we do now?" Neville said. "We can't just walk up to him and ask if it's true, right?"
"Yeah, that'd be cheerful," Ron said. "Hey Hagrid, have you been setting anything mad and hairy on the loose lately?"
"But are we sure that it was indeed Hagrid?" I said. "Maybe Riddle was wrong and confused him with someone else. Hagrid has a great love for animals, but I don't think he is evil."
"He was expelled for... something," Harry said. "We never knew for what. Maybe it is a good idea to pay him a visit."
We decided it wasn't needed to visit Hagrid, unless another attack happened.

For a long time, though, no attacks happened. But something else did happen.
Neville came running down from his dormitory, while I was making Potions homework in the common room. I was finally focused when he ran up to me.
"Nev, what happened?" I asked.
"Someone trashed our room," he said out of breath.
"What? Why?"
"I don't know, but Harry's trunk is emptied and his stuff is just all over the room."
"Let's look for him."
Neville nodded, I shut my Potions book and followed my brother out the portrait hole. Harry was right there.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"You'd better come look," Neville said.
I followed them up the stairs, while Neville explained what happened.
"It looks like someone was looking for something," he said.
I didn't care, and went with them into the room. It was just as bad as Neville described.
Harry searched through his stuff, and looked up.
"And they found it. Riddle's diary is gone."