Unedited
Chapter Twenty Three - "Your sass is not appreciated."
All day long, the dwarves keep barging into our classes to deliver Valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, and late this afternoon, as the Gryffindors are walking upstairs for Charms, one of them catches up with Harry.
"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!" shouts a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry.
Glancing at the queue of first-years, which happens to include Ginny, Harry tried to escape, try being the important word. The dwarf, however, cuts his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins, including Maya's who swears, and reaches Harry before he's gone two paces.
"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he says, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.
"Not here," Harry hisses, trying to escape.
"Stay still!" grunts the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag and pulling him back.
"Let me go!" Harry snarls, tugging.
"Should we help?" Hermione asks.
"Nah, this is gold," I laugh, taking out my phone, and beginning to record it.
"You're a great friend," says Maya sarcastically.
"I know," I flip my hair over my shoulders.
With a loud ripping noise, Harry's bag splits in two. His books, wand, parchment and quill spills onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over the lot.
This is why pens are the best.
Harry scrambles around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf starts singing, causing a hold-up in the corridor.
"What's going on here?" comes the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. Harry starts stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped bag.
"What's all this commotion?" says another familiar voice, as Percy Weasley arrives.
"Isn't this just a bundle of laughs?" Elinor says, looking between Percy and Malfoy.
"Don't you mean a bundle of pricks? No offence Ron."
"None taken Emily. Percy is a prick."
Losing his head completely, Harry tries to make a run for it, but the dwarf seizes him around the knees and brings him crashing to the floor.
"Right," he says, sitting on Harry's ankles, "here is 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."
Bursting into laughter, I lean against Hermione as Harry gets up, bright red from embarrassment. The rest of the corridor is in fits as well. Time for me to get rid of them.
"Right everyone, shove off, nothing more to see," I shout, pushing people away.
"Emily! Don't be so rude," Percy shouts at me.
Sticking my tongue out at him, I start stuffing stuff back in his bag.
"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now," Percy says, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you, Malfoy."
I glance over at Malfoy to see him stoop down and snatch up something. Leering, he shows it to Crabbe and Goyle, and I realise he's got Riddle's diary.
"Give that back," says Harry quietly.
"Wonder what's Potter written in this?" says Malfoy, who obviously hasn't noticed the year on the cover, and thinks he has Harry's own diary. A hush falls over the onlookers. Ginny is staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.
"Hand it over, Malfoy," says Percy sternly.
"When I've had a look," says Malfoy, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.
Percy says,"As a school Prefect -", but I've had enough. I pull out my wand and shout, "Expelliarmus!" and the diary shoots out of Malfoy's hand into the air. Ron, grinning broadly, catches it.
"Emily!" says Percy loudly. "No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"
"Well, if your reporting me already," I wave my wand and mutter a spell, fixing Harry's bag.
Malfoy is looking furious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yells spitefully after her, "I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!"
Ginny covers her face with her hands and runs into class. Snarling, Ron pulls out his wand, but I pull him away. Ron doesn't need to spend the whole of Charms belching slugs.
It isn't until we reach Professor Flitwick's class that I notice something off about Riddle's diary. All Harry's other books are drenched in scarlet ink. The diary, however, is as clean as it had been before the ink bottle had smashed all over it. I point this out to Harry, who looks just as confused as I feel.
*
Harry and I are alone in the common room, examining Riddle's diary.
The other's think we're obsessing and it's stupid ....
Well guess what, they're stupid. Hah, take that.
No, not the band....
We sit by the fire, flicking through the blank pages, not one of which have a trace of scarlet ink on it. I pull out a bottle of ink from my bag, dip my quill into it, and drop a blot onto the first page of the diary.
The ink shines brightly on the paper for a second and then, as though it's been sucked into the page, it vanishes. Grinning, I load up my quill for a second time and write, "My name is Emily Swift," as Harry writes next to me, "My name is Harry Potter."
The words shine momentarily on the page and they too sink without a trace. Then, at last, something happens.
Oozing back out of the page, in our very own ink, come words neither of us wrote.
"Hello, Harry Potter and Emily Swift. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"
These words, too, fade away, but not before Harry starts to scribble back.
"Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."
We wait eagerly for Riddle's reply.
"Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read."
"What do you mean?" I scrawl, blotting the page slightly.
"I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things which were covered up. Things which happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"That's where we are now," Harry writes quickly. "We're at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff's been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
Riddle's reply comes quickly, his writing becoming untidier, as though he's hurrying to tell all he knows.
"Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl has died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."
I nearly knock over my ink bottle in my hurry to write back.
"It's happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?"
"I can show you, if you like," comes Riddle's reply. "You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him."
"What does that mean?" Harry asks me. "Can you be taken into somebody else's memory?"
"I don't know," I look down at the diary, to see fresh words forming.
"Let me show you."
Harry looks at me, and I nod. Harry pauses for a fraction of a second and then writes two letters.
"OK."
The pages of the diary begin to blow as though caught in a high wing, stopping halfway though the month of June. Mouth hanging open, I see that the little square for June the thirteenth seems o have turned into a minuscule television screen. My hands shaking slightly, I raise the book so we're both closer to the little window, and before I know what's happening, we're tilting forwards; the window is widening, I feel my body leave my chair and I pitch headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of colour and shadow, Harry close behind.
I feel my feet hit solid ground, and stand, shaking, as the blurred shaped around me come suddenly into focus.
I know immediately where I am. This circular room with the sleeping portraits is Dumbledore's office - but it isn't Dumbledore sitting behind the desk. A wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, is reading a letter by candlelight.
Who da fuck is he?
"I'm sorry," says Harry shakily. "We didn't mean to butt in ..."
But the wizard doesn't look up. He continues to read, frowning slightly. I draw nearer to the desk and stanmer, "Er - we'll just go, shall we?
Still the wizard ignores us. He doesn't seem to have even heard us. I mean he could be deaf....
"Sorry we disturbed you, we'll go now," I half-shout.
The wizard folds up the letter with s sigh, stands up, walks past Harry and I without even glancing in our direction and goes to draw the curtains at his window.
The sky outside the window is ruby red; sunset whooooo! The wizard goes back to the desk, sits down and twiddles his thumbs, watching the door.
I look around the office. No Fawkes; no whirring silver contraptions.
"Harry," I mutter, "I don't think we can be seen. This is Hogwarts, but as Riddle knew it."
"Holy shit," Harry cusses.
"No swearing," I say, slapping Harry's arm. "You're too young."
"I'm only a month younger!"
There's a knock on the office door and I ssh Harry.
"Enter," says the old wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy if about sixteen enters, taking off his pointed hat. A silver Prefect's badge is glinting on his chest. He's much than us and he has jet black hair.
Damn, he's cute!
"Ah, Riddle," says the Headmaster.
"I didn't imagine Riddle so hot," I mutter.
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" says Riddle. He looks nervous.
"Sit down," says Dippet. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."
"Oh," says Riddle. He sits down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
"My dear boy," says Dippet kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"
"No," says Riddle at once, "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that - to that -"
"You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?" says Dippet curiously.
"Yes, sir," says Riddle, reddening slightly.
"You are Muggle-born?"
"Half-blood, sir," says Riddle. "Muggle father, witch mother."
"And are both your parents -?"
"My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me: Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather."
Dippet clucks his tongue sympathetically.
"The thing is, Tom," he sighs, "special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances ..."
"You mean all these attacks, sir?" says Riddle, and Harry pulls me closer to them.
"Precisely," says the Headmaster. "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in the light of the recent tragedy ... the death of that poor little girl ... You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the - er - source of all this unpleasantness ..."
Riddle's eyes widen.
"Sir - if the person was caught ... If it all stopped ..."
"What do you mean?" says Dippet, with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?"
"No, sir," says Riddle quickly.
Too quickly. I don't think he's telling the truth.
Dippet sinks back, looking faintly disappointed.
"You may go, Tom ..."
Riddle slides off his chair and stumps out of the room. We follow him.
Down the moving spiral staircase we go, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stops, and so do we, watching him. Riddle's defiantly doing some serious thinking. He's biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.
Then, as though he's made a decision, he hurries off, Harry and I gliding noiselessly behind him. We don't see another person until we reach the Entrance Hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and beard calls to Riddle from the marble staircase.
"What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?"
I gape at the wizard. He's Dumbledore, a fifty year younger Dumbledore.
"That's Dumbledore," I laugh, smacking Harry's arm.
"I know, Emily," Harry sighs, "I can see."
"Your sass is not appreciated."
"I had to see the Headmaster, sir," says Riddle.
"Well, hurry off to bed," says Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the kind of penetrating stare I know so well. "Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since ..."
He sighs heavily, bides Riddle goodnight and strides off. Riddle watches him out of sight and then, moving quickly, heads straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with us hot in pursuit.
But to my disappointment, Riddle leads us not into a hidden passageway or a secret tunnel but the very dungeon in which we have Potions with Snape. The torches haven't been lit, and when Riddle pushes the door almost closed, I can only see Riddle, standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside.
"We've been here forever," I whine, "my feet hurt."
"I know, just be patien- Look! Someone's here!"
Someone is creeping along the passage. I hear whoever it is pass the dungeon where we are hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edges through the door and follows, Harry tiptoeing behind, me stomping.
Harry's forgotten that we can't be heard. Idiot.
For perhaps five minutes we follow the footsteps, until Riddle stops suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. I hear a door creak open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper.
"C'mon ... gotta get yeh outta here ... c'mon now ... in the box ..."
There's something familiar about that voice.
Riddle suddenly jumps around the corner. We step out behind him. I can see the dark outline of a huge boy who's crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
"Evening, Rubeus," says Riddle sharply.
The boy slams the door shut and stands up.
"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"
Riddle steps closer.
"It's all over," he says. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."
"What d'yeh -"
"I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and -"
"It never killed no one!" says the large boy, backing against the closed door. From behind me, I can hear a funny rustling and clicking.
"Come on, Rubeus," says Riddle, moving yet closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered ..."
"It wasn' him!" roars the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"
"Stand aside," says Riddle, drawing out his wand.
His spell lights the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flies open with such force it knocks him into the wall opposite. And out of it comes something that makes me gasp.
A vast, low-slung, hairy bossy and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers - Riddle raises his wand again, but he's too late. The thing bowls him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambles to his feet, looking after it; he raises his wand, but the huge boy leaps on him, seizes his wand and throws him back down, yelling, "NOOOOOOO!"
The scene whirls, the darkness becomes complete, I feel myself falling and, with a crash, I land spread-eagled on the floor next to the fire, Harry next to me, Riddle's diary lying open in my stomach.
Before I have time to regain my breath, Ron enter the common room.
"There you are," he says.
I glance at Harry. He looks just as shaky as me.
"What's up?"
"It was Hagrid, Ron." Harry says, getting to his feet, pulling me up as well.
"What?"
"Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago."