𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐥𝐞 | h. granger

xxxi | the book

Second Floor Bathroom

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𝐋𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃. She couldn't take it anymore. She didn't want to hurt anyone. She missed hanging out with her friends; she'd been avoiding them for fear that they would be next.

She knew that this wasn't her fault. It was this damn diary. She grunted in frustration and ripped out the pages, only for them to grow back. She ran off to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, her chest becoming tight as she locked herself in one of the stalls.

"I can't do this anymore, I can't do it anymore." She sobbed, sliding her back down the wall of the stall. She hugged her knees to her chest, the self-inflicted scratches on her arms stinging as tears fell onto them.

She was a monster. A pureblood, Muggle-born attacking monster. She was just as bad as Bellatrix, and she hated herself for it.

She shrieked and kicked the wall. She threw the diary into the toilet and tried to flush it down, but it flew out and went straight through Myrtle, who had floated down from her perch in the window to see what was going on. The ghost girl wailed out in distress, shouting foul words at Lyra as she hurried out of the bathroom.

She couldn't go back to her dorm. How was she supposed to look at her fellow Hufflepuffs after she'd sent the Slytherin monster on Justin Finch-Fletchley a few days prior? She needed a place to hide; a good place where no one would find her.

Narcissa had told her about a secret room in the castle that only appears when someone really needs it. It's built to change to whatever the seeker needs. She went up to the seventh floor and paced in front of the wall, thinking hard about a place she could stay for the night. When she looked at the wall again, a door had appeared. She took a quick look around to make sure that no one was watching her before slipping inside.

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Dakota walked into the hospital wing the next day after classes. The first thing she saw were several curtained-off beds that must've been where the petrified students and Mrs. Norris were. She saw Hermione, who's eyes lit up when she saw her. Her face had gone back to normal, but there was a bucket full of fur balls in her lap.

"How are you feeling?" Dakota asked as she pulled up a chair to sit beside her bed.

"Better." Hermione coughed and leaned her head over the bucket. Dakota held her hair back. After a moment, she lifted her head up, her nose scrunching. "Except for the fur balls. Madam Pomfrey said it should stop in a couple days, and then I'm good to go. I'm glad you're here, though. I have something to show you."

Hermione pulled something out of her robe pocket and handed it to Dakota. It was a torn-out page from a book called Most Macabre Monstrosities.

"I found that the other day. Lyra Black had dropped it after Defense Against the Dark Arts. I was going to return it to her, but then I saw what it said."

"'Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, none is more deadly than the Basilisk,'" Dakota read. "'Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death waits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it, and the crowing of the rooster can kill it.'" She looked up from the textbook page, something clicking in her mind. "That's the monster in the Chamber of Secrets, isn't it?"

"Yes." Hermione nodded.

"But, then, how come those who've seen it have been petrified instead of killed?"

"Because they weren't looking at it directly in its eye. They only saw a reflection. Mrs. Norris saw it through the water on the corridor floor, Colin saw it through his camera, and Justin saw it through Nearly Headless Nick." Hermione took a hand-held mirror out of her robe pocket and held it up with a glint in her eyes and a small grin. "How would you like to come with me to the library to learn more after I get out of here? Just us. Not the boys."

Dakota folded up the paper and straighted her posture to look more sophisticated. "I'd be honoured, Miss Granger."

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Hermione was released from the hospital wing a couple days later. She and Dakota walked with their friends as Harry told them about a vision he'd seen in a diary he, Ron, and Aliyah found in the Moaning Myrtle's bathroom; a vision of someone named Tom Riddle ratting out the person who opened the Chamber of Secrets 50 years ago.

"It was Hagrid," Harry said as he finished the story.

"It can't be Hagrid," Hermione denied, shaking her head. "It just can't be."

"We don't even know this Tom Riddle person," Dakota added as they walked past Lyra in the courtyard. The Hufflepuff girl's head shot up from her book, her face going pale. She jumped up from the bench and ran inside. "For all we know, it could be a lie to lead us in the wrong direction. Didn't you learn your lesson about jumping to conclusions last year with the whole Snape-Quirrell thing?"

"Tom Riddle sounds like a dirty, rotten snitch to me," Ron commented.

"The monster had killed somebody, Ron," Harry stated. "What would any of us have done?"

"Look, Hagrid's our friend," Hermione said. "Why don't we just go and ask him about it?"

"That would be an awkward visit." Aliyah frowned. "'Hello, Hagrid. Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?' He'd think we were crazy!"

"Mad and hairy?" Hagrid asked as he approached the five friends. "You wouldn't be talking about me, now, would you?" He chuckled.

"No," the five said at the same time as they turned around to look at him. There was a moment of awkward silence before Aliyah broke it.

"What's that you've got, Hagrid?" she asked, motioning to the container in his hand.

"Oh, it's, uh, Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent," he told her. "For the mandrakes, you know. According to Professor Sprout, they've still got a bit of growing up to do. But, once their acne's cleared up, we'll be able to chop them up and stew them, and then we'll get those people down at the hospital unpetrified. In the meantime, though, you five had best be looking after yourselves, alright?"

The five of them nodded. As Hagrid walked away, Neville came bolting into the courtyard.

"Harry! I don't know who did it, but you'd better come. Come on!" He ran off again, Harry, Ron, and Hermione following. Dakota and Aliyah exchanged a look before rushing after them. They ran up the stairs to the Gryffindor Common Room and into the 2nd year boys dorm, which was completely trashed.

"It had to be a Gryffindor," Hermione said as Harry went over to his bed. "Nobody else knows our password. . .Unless it wasn't a student."

Dakota gasped and ran over to the window. "You guys have such a great view! The Slytherin dorms don't even have windows."

"Whoever it was, they must've been looking for something," Ron said.

"And they found it." Harry got up from the floor with a sigh. "Tom Riddle's diary is gone."