"Don't hit me!" Harry covers his head as I lunge at him.
"Don't hit you? Harry I'm going to kill you!" I hiss at him pulling on his ear. He winces. "I told you that diary was bad news and you didn't listen to me! Who knows where we are!"
He moves out of my grasp and rubs his ear. "Bella, take a look around will yah?"
I glare at him and do what he says. I knew immediately where we were. This circular room with the sleeping portraits was Dumbledore's office - but it wasn't Dumbledore sitting behind the desk. A wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. I had never seen this man before.
"Oh, great. We're in the Headmasters office. Perfect!" I grumble looking around.
"I'm sorry," Harry said shakily to the man, "we didn't mean to butt in..."
"Yeah this doofus brought us here and I have no idea how to get back..." I point to Harry, my eyes shooting daggers at him. He gulps.
But the wizard didn't look up. He continued to read, frowning slightly. Harry drew nearer to his desk whilst I stayed behind.
"Er - we'll just go, shall we?" He stammered.
Still the wizard ignored him. He didn't even seem to have heard us.
"Maybe he's deaf?" I suggested. "He looks old enough to be..."
Harry raised his voice. "Sorry we disturbed you, we'll go now"
The wizard folded up the letter with a sigh, stood up, walked past Harry without glancing t him and went to draw the curtains at his window. The sky outside the window as ruby red; it seemed to be sunset. The wizard went back to his desk, sat down and twiddled his thumbs, watching the door.
I looked around the office. No Fawkes the Phoenix; no whirring silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, meaning that this unknown wizard was the Headmaster like I said, and me and Harry were little more than a phantom, completely invisible to the people of fifty years ago.
"This is so cool," I whispered. "Imagine what we can do"
Harry looks at me. "Bella, don't"
"What?" I ask innocently, whilst smirking.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the office door.
"Enter," said the old wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. A silver Prefect's badge was glinting on his chest. He was much taller than Harry, but he, too, had jet-black hair.
"Ah, Riddle," The Headmaster said. Ah! So this is Riddle! Damn...he's not bad looking...
"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" Riddle asked. He looked nervous.
"Sit down," Dippet told him. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me"
"Oh," Riddle answered. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
"My dear boy," Dippet said kindly. "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go him for the holidays?"
"No," Riddle answered 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?" Dippet asked curiously.
"Yes, sir," Riddle said, reddening slightly.
"You are Muggle-born?"
"Half-blood, sir," Riddle told him. "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"
So his name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. Why do I get an uneasy feeling just thinking about the name?
Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically.
"The thing is, Tom," he sighed, "special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances..."
"You mean all these attacks, sir?" Riddle asked, and my heart lept, and I moved closer along with Harry, scared of missing anything.
"Precisely," the Headmaster said. "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of 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..."
CLOSING THE SCHOOL? WHAT? WILL THAT HAPPEN TO US? NO! HOGWARTS CAN'T CLOSE!
Riddle's eyes had widened.
"Sir - if the person was caught...If it all stopped..."
"What do you mean?" Dippet asked, with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?"
"No, sir," Riddle answered quickly.
Judging by the way he answered, I'm going to say he was LYING!
Dippet sank back, looking disappointed.
"You may go, Tom..."
Tom slid off his chair and stumped out the room. I nodded to Harry and we followed him.
Down the moving spiral staircase we went, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stopped, and so did me and Harry, both of us watching him. I could tell Riddle was doing some serious thinking. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed. Then, as though he had suddenly reached a decision, he hurried off with me and Harry gliding noiselessly behind him. We didn't see another person until we reached the Entrance Hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.
"What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?"
Me and Harry gasped at the wizard. He was none other than a fifty-years-younger Dumbledore.
"I had to see the Headmaster, sir," Riddle told Dumbledore.
"Well, hurry off to bed," Dumbledore said, giving Riddle exactly the kind of penetrating stare I knew so well. "Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since..."
He sighed heavily, bade Riddle goodnight and strode off. Riddle watched him out of sight, and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with me and Harry hot in pursuit.
"The school feels so different, doesn't it?" I asked Harry and he nodded, agreeing with me.
To my disappointment, Riddle led us not into a hidden passageway or secret tunnel but the very dungeon in which I had Potions with Snape. The torches hadn't been lit, and when Riddle pushed the door almost closed, I could only just see Riddle standing stock-still by the door, watching the passage outside.
I bet we must have been there an hour. All I could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue. And just when I had stopped feeling expectant and tense, and started wishing that I could return back to the present, I heard something move beyond the door.
Someone was creeping along the passage. I heard whoever it was pass the dungeon where the three of us were hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, me and Harry tiptoeing behind him.
For perhaps five minutes we followed the footsteps, until Riddle stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. I heard 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..."
Why does that voice sound so familiar to me?
Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Me and Harry stepped out behind him. I could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
"Evening, Rubeus," Riddle said sharply.
The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.
"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"
Riddle stepped closer.
"It's all over," he said. "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!" the large boy said, backing against the closed door. From behind him, I could hear a funny rustling and clicking.
"Come on, Rubeus," Riddle said, moving 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!" the boy roared, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"
"Stand aside," Riddle said, drawing out his wand.
His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made me and Harry let out a long, piercing scream no one but we could hear.
A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pinces - Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt at him, seized his wand and threw him back down, yelled, "NOOOOOO!"
The scene whirled, the darkness became complete, I felt myself falling, and, with a crash, I landed spread-eagled on the Gryffindor Common Room floor with Harry next to me. Riddle's diary lying open next to us.
Before we had the time to regain our breath, footsteps were heard and Ron appeared.
"There you both are," he said.
I sat up. I was sweating and shaking.
"What's up?" Ron asked, looking at us with concern.
"It was Hagrid, Ron. Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago," Harry told him.