Harry Potter - The Accidental Animagus

Chapter 55 - The Sacking of Dumbledore

Tom knew he had botched this one. To his amazement, Ginny had fought him off hard enough to throw the diary away. It was sheer dumb luck that another girl happened upon it and picked it up, but that still left him at a disadvantage. He could use Legilimency a little bit from the pages, but it would take a lot of work to be able to possess another girl, or even read her as well as he could Ginny now that he was so closely connected with her. No, it was too late in the proverbial game to try to start working on another girl, and worse, this Luna person didn’t seem inclined to write the diary. At least, that was the sense he thought he was getting. When he tried his Legilimency on her, it gave him a headache. He couldn’t figure what she was doing at Hogwarts when she was obviously stark raving mad. Better to cut his losses and get picked up by someone else, then try to get back to Ginny. He turned his Legilimency to the other girls around her…

“Hey, look at this, Dierdre,” whispered Melanie Maxwell as she inspected her roommate’s bedside table. “Loony’s got a diary.”

“Really?” Dierdre replied. “Probably just writes about her silly creatures.”

“One way to find out…Aww, it’s blank.”

“Figures. Lemme check…” Dierdre waved her wave over the book, but no invisible writing appeared.

“Only Loony would keep a blank diary lying around,” Melanie concluded. “You know, it’s a pretty nice one, though. I think I’ll keep it for myself.”

Dierdre’s eyes widened in fear. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Melanie. Penelope would be mad if we took Loony’s things again. And if Harry Potter found out…”

“But look: it says T. M. Riddle. It’s not even hers. She probably just found it. I’d be doing a favour taking it off her hands.”

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Hermione caught the Quaffle and swerved between the opposing players. With a hairpin turn, she dodged one of the Beaters and then ascended and doubled back at a higher altitude. By then, she was too far ahead for anyone to catch her, and she had a clear run at the scoring area.

Ron braced himself as Hermione flew at him at top speed, vowing that he wouldn’t miss this shot. Unfortunately, his broomstick was his biggest weakness. The old Nimbus One Thousand school broom he was using was a step up from his own Shooting Star, but it was in bad shape and wasn’t really up to competitive play. Meanwhile, Hermione was all but untouchable on her Cleansweep Seven, which had made her the star Chaser of the Hogwarts Flying Club, few of whom had brooms of their own that could match it.

She flew at him, her hair whipping behind her in a loose ponytail and started to move to the left. Hermione wasn’t great at faking, so Ron was pretty sure this was a real move. He started to slide left as she threw the Quaffle. He lunged, but at that moment, his broom bucked, and the ball slipped past his hands and through the hoop.

“Dang it!”

Hermione frowned as she passed him. She knew Ron was better than that. She could tell he had a lot of potential, but it was hard for him to keep it up, and when he was off his game, he was really off his game—She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard a scream and saw him spiralling down to the ground. His broom must have malfunctioned much worse than usual. She dove and managed to catch him by the arm, slowing his descent just enough that he landed on the grass in a heap instead of ploughing into it and breaking something he didn’t want broken.