Hermione stayed in the Hospital Wing for several weeks. When everyone returned from their Christmas holiday's, there were rumour's flying around about her disappearance. Everyone thought she had been attacked, and so many students filed past the Hospital Wing trying to catch a glimpse of her. It got so bad that Madam Pomfrey took our her curtains again and placed them around Hermione's bed, to spare her the shame of being seen with a furry face.
Me, Harry, and Ron went to visit her every evening. And when the new term started, we brought her each day's homework.
"If I'd sprouted whiskers, I'd take a break from work," Ron said, tipping a stack of books onto Hermione's bedside table one evening.
I nodded. "Same here"
"Don't be silly, guys, I've got to keep up," Hermione said briskly. Her spirits were greatly improved by the fact that all the hair had gone from her face and her eyes were slowly going back to brown. "I don't suppose you've got any new leads?" she added in a whisper, so Pomfrey wouldn't hear her.
"Nothing," Harry told her gloomily.
"I was so sure it was Malfoy," I said, for about the hundredth time.
"What's that?" Harry asked, pointing to something gold sticking out from under Hermione's pillow.
"Just a Get Well card," Hermione said 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 Merline, Third Class, Honourary Member of the Dark Force Defence League,
and five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award'
I snorted as Ron looked up at Hermione, disgusted.
"You sleep with this under your pillow?"
Luckily for Hermione, she was spared answering by Pomfrey sweeping over with her evening dose of medicine.
"Is Lockhart the smarmiest bloke you've ever met, or what?" I said to Ron and Harry as we left the dormitory and started up the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower. Snape had given us so much homework, I thought I was likely to be in sixth year before I finished it. Ron was just saying he wished he had Hermione how many rat tails you were supposed to add to a Hair-Raising Potion, when an angry outburst from the floor above reached our ears.
"That's Filch," Harry muttered, as we hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.
"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" Ron asked, tensely.
We stood still, our 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 we heard a distant door slam.
We poked our heads around the corner. Filch had clearly been manning his usual post: we were once again on the spot where Mrs Norris had been attacked. We 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 coming out from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now Filch had stopped shouting, we could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.
"Now what's up with her?" Ron asked
"Let's go and see," I said, and holding our robes over our ankles we stepped through the 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 miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"
Harry waded across to her cubicle and asked, "Why would I throw something at you?"
"Don't ask me," Shouted Myrtle, emerging with a wave of more water, which splashed onto the already sopping 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," I said, reasonably. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"
I realised then I had said the wrong thing. Myrtle puffed herself up 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!"
Damn, she's a big cry baby, isn't she?
"Who threw it at you, anyway?" Harry asked her.
"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 us. "It's over there, it got washed out"
We looked under the sink, where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black covered 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 asked him.
"Are you mad?" Ron said. "It could be dangerous"
"Dangerous?" Harry said laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"
"You'd be surprised," I said, looking at the book.
"Yeah, Bella's right. Some of the books the Ministry confiscated - Dad 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, I've got the point," Harry said.
The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy.
"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," Harry said, and he ducked around Ron and picked it up off the floor.
Harry opened the book eagerly. "T.M.Riddle"
Hang on," Ron said, as we walked closer. I looked over Harry's shoulder. "I know that name...T.M.Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago"
"How on earth d'you know that?" I asked in amazement.
"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," Ron told us. "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 a 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?" I asked, curiously.
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and I saw the printed name of a newsagent's in Vauxhall Road, London.
"He must've been Muggle-born," Harry said, thoughtfully, "to have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..."
"Well, it's not much use to you," Ron said. He dropped his voice. "Fifty points if you can get through Myrtle's nose..."
But Harry pocketed it.