HERMIONE REMAINED IN THE HOSPITAL WING FOR SEVERAL WEEKS. There was a flurry of rumor about her disappearance when the rest of the school arrived back from their Christmas holidays, because of course everyone thought that she had been attacked. So many student filed past the Hospital Wing trying to catch a glimpse of her that Madam Pomfrey took out her curtains again and placed them around Hermione's bed, to spare her the shame of being seen with a fury face.

Harry, Ron and Harper went to visit her every evening. When the new term started, Harper did her best to pay attention in every class and write down whatever she thought Hermione found important, which was probably everything.

"If I'd sprouted whiskers, I'd take a break from work," Ron said one evening.

"Don't be silly, Ron, I've got to keep up," Hermione replied, looking at the notes Harper gave her. "Wow, Harper, I'm impressed. You even managed to keep up with History of Magic."

Harper beamed proudly. "All for you, 'Mione."

Hermione leaned closer to them, her voice barely a whisper. "I don't suppose you've got any news leads?"

"Nothing," Harry said gloomily.

"I was so sure it was Malfoy," Ron said, for about the hundredth time.

"It would have been too easy," Harper muttered.

"What's that?" Harry asked, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.

"Just a Get Well card," Hermione replied hastily, trying to poke it out of sight, but Ron was too quick for her. He pulled it out, flicked it open and read aloud.

"To Miss Granger, wishing you a speedy recovery, from your concerned teacher, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award."

Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted.

"You sleep with this under your pillow?"

But Hermione was spared answering by Madam Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening close of medicine.

"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" Ron told Harry and Harper as they left the dormitory and started up the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower.

Snape had given them so much homework, Harper thought she was going to drown in it. Ron was just saying he wished he had asked Hermione how many rat tails you were supposed to add to a Hair-Raising Potion, when an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.

"That's Filch," Harry muttered, as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.

"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" Harper said tensely.

They stood still, their heads inclined towards Filch's voice, which sounded quite hysterical.

" . . . even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore . . ."

His footsteps receded and they heard a distant door slam. They poked their heads around the corner. Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post: they were once again on the spot where Mrs Norris had been attacked. They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about.

A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.

"Now what's up with her? Ron asked.

"Let's go and see," Harry said.

They held our robes over their ankles as they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its Out Of Order sign, ignored it as always and entered.

Moaning Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet. It was dark in the bathroom, because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.

"What's up, Myrtle?" Harry asked.

"Who's that?" Myrtle glugged miserable. "Come to throw something else at me?"

Harry waded across to her cubicle. "Why would I throw something at you?"

"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already shopping floor. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me . . ."

"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," Harry said, reasonable. "I mean, I'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"

Harper grimaced, wishing Harry had said something a bit more sensitive.

Myrtle puffed herself and shrieked. "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha ha ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"

"Who threw it at you, anyway?" Harper said, trying to get her to calm down.

"I don't know . . . I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head," Myrtle said, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out."

Harry, Ron and Harper looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.

"What?" Harry said.

"Are you mad?" Ron said. "It could be dangerous."

"Ron's got a point," Harper pointed out. "We don't know what it is." Remus always told her not to touch anything she didn't know.

"Dangerous?" Harry said, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"

"You'd be surprised," Ron replied, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated—dad's told me—there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And . . ."

"All right," Harry interrupted him, "I've got the point."

The little book laid on the floor, nondescript and soggy.

"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," Harry said, and he ducked round Ron and Harper and picked it off the floor.

Harry opened it. Harper glanced at the book over Harry's shoulder. On the first page she could make out the name T. M. Riddle in smudged ink.

"Hang on," Ron said, who had approached cautiously and was looking over Harry's other shoulder. "I know that name . . . T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifth years ago."

"How on earth d'you know that?" Harper asked him in amazement.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," Ron replied resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it too."

Harry peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely blank. There wasn't the faintest trace of writing on any of them, not even Auntie Mabel's birthday, or dentist, half past three.

"He never wrote in it," Harry said, disappointed.

"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" Ron asked curiously.

Harry turned to the back cover of the book and Harper saw the printed name of a newsagent's in Vauxhall Road, London.

"He must've been a Muggle-born," Harper pointed out, thoughtfully, "to have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road . . ."

""Well, it's not much use to you," Ron said, dropping his voice he added. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."

Harper rolled her eyes, but she did see Harry pocketing it.

• ✧ •

     HERMIONE LEFT THE HOSPITAL WING, de-whiskered, tail-less and fur-free, at the beginning of February. On her first evening back in Gryffindor Tower, Harry showed her T. M. Riddle's diary and told her the story of how they had found it.

"Ooooh, it might have hidden powers," Hermione said enthusiastic, taking the diary and looking at it closely.

"If it has, it's hiding them very well," Ron said. "Maybe it's shy. I don't know why you don't chuck it, Harry."

"I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it," Harry said. "I wouldn't mind knowing how Riddle got an award for special services to Hogwarts, either."

"Could've been anything," Ron replied. "Maybe he got thirty O. W. L.s or saved a teacher from a giant squid. Maybe he murdered Myrtle, that would've done everyone a favor."

Harper, Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance; they were all thinkinh the same thing.

"What?" Ron said, looking to them.

"Well, the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, want it?" Harry said. "That's what Malfoy said."

"Yeah . . ." Ron said slowly.

"And this diary is fifty years old," Hermione added, tapping it excitedly.

"So?"

"Oh, Ron, wake up!" Hermione snapped. "We know the person who opened the Chamber last time was expelled fifty years ago. We know T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago. Well, what if Riddle got his special award for catching the heir of Slytherin? His diary would probably tell us everything: where the Chamber is, and how to open it, and what sort of creature lives in it. The person who's behind the attacks this time wouldn't want that lying around, would they?"

"That's a brilliant theory, Hermione," Ron said, "with just one tiny little flaw. There's nothing written in his diary."

Hermione pulled her wand out of her bag. "It could be invisible ink!"

She tapped the diary three times. "Aparecium!"

Nothing happened. Undaunted, Hermione shoved her hand back into her bag and pulled out was appeared to be a bright red eraser.

"It's a Revealer, I got it in Diagon Alley," she explained before rubbing it hard on January the first.

Nothing happened.

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to find in there," Ron said again. "Riddle just got a diary for Christmas and couldn't be bothered filing it in."

• ✧ •

     THE NEXT DAY, Harry dragged the three of them to the Trophy Room to examine Riddle's special award.

Riddle's burnished gold shied was tucked away in a corner cabinet. It didn't carry details of why it had been given to him.

"Good thing, too, or it'd be even bigger and I'd still be polishing it," Ron had said at some point.

However, they did find Riddle's name on an old Medal for Magical Merit, and on a list of old Head Boys.

"He sound like Percy," Ron said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Prefect, Head Boy—probably top of every class."

"You say that it's a bad thing," Hermione said, in a slightly hurt voice.

• ✧ •

     THE SUN HAD NOW BEGUN TO SHINE WEAKLY ON HOGWARTS AGAIN. Inside the castle, the mood had grown more hopeful. There had been no more attacks since those on Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, and Madam Pomfrey was pleased to report that the Mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning that they were fast leaving childhood.

"The moment their acne clears up, they'll be ready for repotting again," Harper heard her telling Filch kindly one afternoon. "And after that, it won't be long until we're cutting them up and stewing them. You'll have Mrs Norris back in no time."

Perhaps the heir of Slytherin had lost his or her nerve, she thought. It must be getting riskier and riskier to open the Chamber of Secrets, with the school so alert and suspicious. Perhaps the monster, whatever it was, was even now settled itself down to hibernate for another fifty years . . .

Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff didn't take this cheerful view. He was still convinced that her brother was the guilty one, that he had given himself away at the Dueling Club.

Peeves wasn't helping matters: he kept popping up in the crowded corridors singing Oh Potter, you rotter . . . , now with a dance routine to match.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think himself had made the attacks stop. Harper overheard him telling Professor McGonagell so while the Gryffindors were lining up for Transfiguration.

"I don't think there'll be any more trouble, Minerva," he said, tapping his nose knowingly and winking. "I think the Chamber has been locked for good this time. The culprit must have known it was only a matter of time before I caught them. Rather sensible to stop now, before I came down hard on them. You know, what the school needs now is a morale-booster. Wash away the memories of last term! I won't say any more just now, but I think I know just the thing . . ." He tapped his nose again and strode off.

Lockhart's idea if a morale-booster became clear at breakfast time on February the fourteenth. Harry and Harper hadn't had much sleep because of late-running Quidditch practice the night before, and they hurried down to the Great Hall slightly late. For a moment, Harper though they had walked through the wrong doors.

The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling. They went over to the Gryffindor table, where Ron was sitting looking sickened and Hermione seemed to have come over rather giggly.

"What's going on?" Harry asked them, sitting down and wiping confetti of his bacon.

Ron pointed to the teacher's table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where Harper sat, she could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagell's cheek. Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging the little surprise for you all—and it doesn't end here!"

Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the Entrance Hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarves, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" Lockhart beamed. "They will be riding around the school today delivering your Valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison.

"Please, Hermione, tell me you weren't one of the forty-six," Harper said, as they left the Great Hall for their first lesson. Hermione suddenly became very interested in searching her bag for her timetable and didn't answer.

All day long, the dwarfs kept bathing into their classes to deliver Valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, and late that afternoon, as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of them caught up with Harry.

"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!" Shouted a particularly grim looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry.

Harper grabbed his hand and dragged him with her, trying to escape the dwarf. The dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins and reached them before they'd gone two paces.

"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.

"Not here," Harry hissed, trying to escape.

"Stay still!" The dwarf grunted, grabbing a hold of Harry's bag and pulling him back.

"Let me go!" Harry snarled, tugging.

With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over the lot.

Harry and Harper scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf started singing, causing something of a hold-up in the corridor.

"What's going on here?" came the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. Harper started putting Harry's stuff in her bag, desperate to get away before Malfoy could hear Harry's musical Valentine.

"What's all this commotion?" another familiar voice said, as Percy Weasley arrived.

Harry and Harper tried to get away but the dwarf stopped them and looked at Harry.

"Right," he said, "here's your singing Valentine."

"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

Seeing Harry's face, Harper could tell he would have given all the gold in Gringotts to evaporate on the spot. Trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, he got up, pulling her with him, as Percy Weasley did his best to disperse the crowd, some of whom were crying with mirth.

"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now," he said, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you, Malfoy."

Harper, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and she realized that he'd got Riddle's diary.

"Give that back," Harry said quietly.

"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" Malfoy said, who obviously hadn't noticed the year on the cover, and though he had Harry's own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.

"Hand it over, Malfoy," Percy said sternly.

"When I've had a look," Malfoy replied, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.

"As a school Prefect . . ." Percy started, but Harper saw Harry losing his temper. He pulled out his wand.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted, making the diary shoot out of Malfoy's hand into the air. Harper leaped forward and caught it with a grin.

"Harry!" Percy said loudly. "No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"

But Harper could tell Harry didn't care. Malfoy, however, was looking furiously, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled spitefully after her.

"I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!"

Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class. Snarling, Ron pulled out his wand, too, but Harry pulled him away. Ron didn't need to spend the whole of Charms belching slugs.

• ✧ •

THE MOMENT HERMIONE AND I SET FOOT IN the common room the morning after, Harry and Ron dragged them to a quiet corner.

"It was Hagrid who opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago," Harry said.

It was quiet for a moment before Harper laughed. "Yeah, and Voldemort's not the bad guy."

"I'm serious, Harp," Harry said, looking rather irritated.

"Really, Harry? Hagrid? He can't even hurt a fly! Please, don't tell me you really believe this?"

"And yet it is true," Ron said sadly.

Harper narrowed her eyes as she glanced from Harry to Ron and back. She believed that Hagrid would never do such thing on purpose, but accidents could happen.

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April 16th 2023
Sorry for the long wait.
I hope you enjoy it & tell me what you think of it! :)