Bella and the Chamber (Book Two)

Chapter Thirty-Three

So, I've just had the 'you'll always be my baby' talk with my mum because it's my 19th birthday in February and I'm crying. Damn mothers....hope you enjoy this chapter!

****

Hermione thankfully left the Hospital Wing de-whiskered, tail-less and fur-free, at the start of February. But on her first evening back in Gryffindor Tower, Harry had to show her T.M.Riddle's diary and told her the story of how we had found it. Looks like she can't have a day off from this either. 

"Oooh, it might have hidden powers," Hermione said, clearly happy about this, she took the diary and looked 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"

"Or chuck it at Harry," I said and they looked at me. "What? Maybe that's the only way to make the powers work!"

"Hurtful," Harry mumbled playfully shoving me, I shoved him back. "Anyway, I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it. I wouldn't mind knowing how Riddle got an award for special services to Hogwarts, either"

"Could've been anything," I said. "Maybe he got thirty O.W.Ls or saved a teacher from the giant squid"

"Or maybe he murdered Myrtle, that would've done everyone a favour..." Ron grumbled and I laughed. 

But, judging by the arrested looks on Hermione's and Harry's faces that wasn't the case. 

"What?" Ron asked, looking at them both. 

"Well, the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, wasn't it?" Harry said. "That's what Malfoy said"

"Yeah..." Ron said slowly.

I gasped finally getting what they were on about. Damn.

"And that diary is fifty years old," I said, pointing at the diary. 

"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 this 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!"

But Hermione wasn't listening, she was pulling her wand out of her bag. 

"It might be invisible ink!" she whispered. 

She tapped the diary three times and said, "Aparecium!"

But nothing happened. Undaunted, Hermione shoved her hand back into her bag and pulled out what looked to be a bright red rubber. 

"It's a Revealer, I got it in Diagon Alley," she told us. 

She rubbed hard on 'January the first. Nothing happened. 

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

*

"Harry, just throw the damn thing away," I say as we head down the marble staircase. "It's useless"

He shakes his head, his hand on his bag where he keeps the diary. "No, I can't"

"Why?"

"I dunno, I just can't"

I sighed. Fine. The hard way it is. "You asked for it,"

He looked confused until I leapt at him. He jumped back and tried to shove me off him as I reached for his bag. He yanked my arm back, spun me around, pressed me against the wall and pinned my arms above my head. 

"Don't ever do that " He says.

Bitch say what? "Or what?"

"Nothing," he drops my arms and hurries away. I stare after him confused. What's up with him?

*

Even though Harry knew the diary was empty, he kept picking it up and flipping through the pages. Ron told me that Harry told him that he felt a strange connection to T.M.Riddle even though he has never met him or even heard the name before. It was like T.M.Riddle was an old friend of his. 

"It's got nothing to do with that," I say to Ron, watching Harry look through the diary again. "He just likes the idea of holding the diary like some girl"

Ron looks at me. "Have you two been fighting?"

"What? No! Just- just shut up and drink your juice"

The truth is, since I lept at Harry and he pinned my arms above my head things between us haven't been the same. We've been trying to act normal in front of Hermione and Ron but apparently, we weren't doing a good job. 

Harry, being Harry, wanted to find more about Riddle, so, next day at break, headed to the trophy room to examine Riddle's special award. Hermione followed him with interest, me with boredom and a thoroughly unconvinced Ron, who told us he'd seen enough of the trophy room to last him a lifetime. 

Riddle's burnished gold shield 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 said). However, we did find Riddle's name on an old Medal for Magical Merit, and on a list of old Head Boys. 

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

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Hermione said to him, hurt in her voice.

I stood by the wall, my arms crossed and my eyes shooting daggers at Harry. Why was he so obsessed with him?