Rory Potter, the Girl Who Lived

The Diary

          Hermione remains in the hospital wing for several weeks. Flurries of rumours fly around the school about her disappearance, but Ron puts a stop to them angrily after hearing only two. Even though she's still got whiskers, she insists upon us bringing her all the work she's missing, much to Ron's disbelief.
          "If I'd grown a tail, I'd be taking a break from all this work, Hermione. Why are you keeping all this up?" 
          "I don't want to fail a class! Not even a tail can get in my way when it comes to learning," Hermione says. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to have some peace and quiet to get all this done."
          I make Harry and Ron leave, and we end up taking the long way: through Moaning Myrtle's corridor, which is flooded again. When we enter the room to investigate, we find the poor ghost sobbing on top of the sink.
          "What's wrong, Myrtle?" Harry asks tentively.
          "Who's there?" she demands tearfully. "Come to throw something else at me?"
          "Why would we want to throw something at you?" I say.
          "Don't ask me!" Myrtle shouts. "Here I was, minding my own business, and someone thinks its funny to throw a book at me!"
          "But it won't hurt you, will it?" asks Ron. "I mean, it'd just go straight through you."
          "Ronald!" I hiss, but the damage has been done.
          Myrtle zooms forward in a torrent of water to stop directly in front of Ron, splashing us all with cold, dirty water.
          "Oh, yes, let's all throw books at Myrtle because she can't feel it!" she yells. "Ten points if it goes through her stomach!" She punches her fist at Ron's stomach, but it just goes through him. "Fifty points if it goes though her head!" She punches through Ron's head.
          "Who threw it at you anyway?" I ask in an attempt to distract her.
          "I don't know. I was just sitting on the U-bend, thinking about death, when it fell right through the top of my head. Its over there, if you want to see," she mopes, slightly calmer now.
          Harry steps over and picks it up. By the looks of it, its a diary, and the year on the cover tells us its fifty years old.
         "T. M. Riddle," Harry reads. "Who's that?"
         I shrug, but Ron walks over to Harry and says, "Hang on, I know that name. He got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago; I polished that trophy a hundred times because I burped slugs all over it!"
          I walk over an take the book from Harry, then peel the wet pages apart.
          "Its empty! Completely empty," I say, showing them. We bid Myrtle goodbye and Harry motions for me to put the diary in my bag. I dry it with a spell and a wave of my wand, then shove it into my bag.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hermione leave the hospital wing in early February, completely back to normal. And the first thing Harry and I do is show her T. M. Riddle's diary and tell her the story of how we found it.
          "Ooh!" she squeals, taking the diary. "It might have hidden powers!"
          "If it does," says Ron in a bored tone, "its hiding them pretty well."
          "Ron, we might be able to find out something about what happened fifty years agoago. That's when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened. Use your brain! Maybe T. M. Riddle caught whose opened the Chamber and that's why he's got that special services award!"
          "Oh, you're brilliant, Rory! If he did, then this diary would have everything written in it!" Hermione says excitedly.
          "Only one problem, you two," Ron says. "It's empty. How are we supposed to see what happened it there's nothing written in it."
          "It could be invisible ink," Hermione says excitably.
          She tries about ten ways to get invisible ink to appear, but nothing happens. Then, stumped, she looks up.
         "Fine. You're right Ron, for once. But you don't need to be rude about it. Here, Harry, you can have this back."
          "Give it to Rory, she's less likely to lose it," Harry says. She gives me the diary and I tuck it safely among my own school books.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next day during break my brother and I drag an excited Hermione and a thoroughly uninterested Ron to the trophy room to check out Riddle's award. We find his name twice more: on a list of Head Boys, and on a Medal for Magical Merit.
          "He sounds like Percy. And that's not a good thing," Ron says grumpily.
          Hermione opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it with a genuinely offended look. I send a glare at Ron, who cringes a bit. Its not good to get on my bad side, as some people have found out the hard way.