“Mum already sent Fred and George one Howler on the train — I think that sets a record for the earliest they have ever gotten one. I was hoping she would send another if you couldn’t get all the paint off.”

When it came time for the sorting, Harry felt an unusual flutter in his stomach that he could not identify. It was only when Ron muttered, “Ginny better be in Gryffindor or mum’ll kill all of us,” that Harry realized he was also nervous. Despite his assurances to her on the train, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hat would do. She was a girl, maybe Weasley girls went somewhere different than the boys.

Harry need not have worried. The hat had barely touched Ginny’s head when it shouted out “Gryffindor, of course! That is where Weasleys belong!”

As Ginny joined her brothers at the table amid cheers and the appearance of the feast, Harry managed to catch her eye and give her a thumbs up. He could see, to his relief, that the lettering had not reappeared on her face. But his relief was nothing compared to the looks of Fred and George. They still did not seem to be sitting comfortably, but at least no Howlers appeared for the rest of the meal.

September 2

The entire next day was filled with classes, unpacking, and getting reacquainted with friends. A notice for the first Quidditch practice went up in the Gryffindor common room and Harry could not wait to get back on his broom. It wasn’t until dinner, when Ginny asked him, a bit too casually, if he had done any interesting writing, that Harry remembered the diary and that he was supposed to be coming up with a plan to prank the twins.

She looked so hopefully at Harry that he didn’t have the heart to say no, so that night, while most of his housemates were hanging out in the common room, he stayed in his dorm and took out the old black diary. Dipping his quill in a pot of ink, he opened the book and wrote on the first page, “Ideas to prank Fred and George.”

The ink shimmered for a moment on the page, and then disappeared, sinking right into the paper. Almost immediately, new words, in handwriting different than Harry’s, appeared:

“Who are Fred and George?”

Harry was not as surprised at the diary’s behavior as he might otherwise have been; a year in the magical world had taught him not to be too shocked by things such as clocks that told you where your family members were, mirrors that critiqued your hair, or diaries that wrote back. Perhaps if he had been a little more experienced with magic he might have been more wary, but to him, the diary seemed like just another fascinating thing about being a wizard. He responded eagerly.

“They are the twin brothers of my friend Ginny. Well, they are my best mate Ron’s brothers too. They pranked Ginny something awful on the first day of school by writing . . .” here, Harry paused for a moment, somehow embarrassed to tell even a book exactly about his own role in the prank. “Well, they wrote all over her and her stuff and it took the two of us hours to undo the spells and get it off. Now we want to get them back. But it has to be good, because they are master pranksters.”

After a moment, the book replied, “So am I.”

Harry thought about this. How great would it be if they could get an idea about pranking the twins from a magic diary? He wrote back, “Can you help?”

“Most certainly,” the book replied. “But first, please tell me, are you at Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” wrote Harry. “Do you know about the school? Who are you?”

“I am a memory of a student named Tom Riddle. I too, was once a student at Hogwarts. I probably know more about this castle than nearly anyone alive. Its secrets, its magic, and the ways to make it do what you want. For example, take a look at this:”

A window seemed to open up in the middle of the page, and as Harry looked into it, he saw what looked like a hallway down near the dungeon where he had potions class. Out of a crack in the wall came one, two, three, four snakes, each calling to the others and writhing on the cold stone floor. Next to the window in the diary, words appeared:

“There are snakes all over this castle, and I know how to call them out. They would cause quite a scare, if your Fred and George came back to find one in their beds, would they not?”

As Harry watched, one of the snakes rose out of the book and lunged at Harry. Without even thinking about it he yelled, “No! Get back in the book!”

To his amazement, the snake looked him in the eye and said “As you wish,” before sinking back into the page, the window disappearing with it.

The next words from the book were smudged, as if the writer was rushing to get his thoughts down on the page.

“You are a Parselmouth!?! ”

“A what??”

“You can talk to snakes, as can I. It is a very rare and special gift given only to rare and powerful wizards. One that I think may be helpful in your quest.”

“I don't know about me being powerful, but I think I have been able to talk to snakes my whole life. Never really came in handy before though, unless you count being able to set a boa constrictor on my cousin Dudley once." He thought for a moment. "I don’t think Ginny will want to just put snakes in Fred and George’s beds,” wrote Harry. “Not sneaky enough. It’s got to be something better. Weird creatures are pretty easy to get around here. I am good friends with Hagrid, the gamekeeper. He can get just about anything you want, and a lot of things you wouldn’t!”

“Hagrid is a good friend, then, is he?” asked the diary.

“One of the best I have here,” wrote Harry.

“Well, that gives me new ideas. I think you had better get this Ginny, so that I can talk with her as well. Just the two of you, of course. It would not do to have . . . the wrong people find out about the prank, before the right time.”

Harry was startled at that moment by Ron and Neville coming into the room to start getting ready for bed. He hastily hid the diary in his lap and tried to look nonchalant.

He failed.

“Hey mate, what was that?” Ron hadn’t missed Harry’s fumbling. It wasn’t difficult, considering that he was now sitting at his desk with an ink pot and quill, but nothing to write on.

“Oh, nothing, just something for Ginny.” Mentally, he kicked himself. Why did he bring her name into it? Now Ron would know something was up. Quickly, he added, “Just, a . . . a, umm, letter apologizing about the other day. You know, in case she thinks it was my fault or something."

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb Harry chided himself. Ron was going to think he was mental, apologizing to his little sister after he spent eight hours trying to help her out.

But to his surprise, Ron just nodded knowingly. “Ahh, you are learning about Ginny, I see.” To Neville’s curious face, Ron added, “She is such a girl , anything can set her off. She can be totally irrational about things.” Ron smirked. “Especially about Harry. Don’t want to get on her bad side this early, mate. She may be a girl, but, yikes. She can be quite a spitfire. And she could rival my mum in the yelling department.” He went back to putting on his pajamas and Harry breathed a sigh of relief, not for the first time noting how Ginny’s brothers could be both patronizing about her and yet, somewhat in awe of her apparent power, all in the same breath. He remembered how Ginny would not back down until he agreed to help her prank the twins. It wouldn’t do to underestimate her himself, he guessed.

September 3

At breakfast the next day, Ginny looked hopefully at him, her bag left blatantly open at her feet. Harry shook his head and muttered “Need to talk, first,” at her as he reached over to grab a plate of eggs, knocking over Hermione’s glass of juice in the process.

“Harry! Watch it! I could have handed you the plate if you were not so intent on whispering to Ginny.”

She didn’t miss anything. Harry gave her a confused look. “What are you talking about? I just asked her to shove out of the way so I could get some food.” Ginny gave him an annoyed look that was probably not completely fake and got up from the table.

“I will see you all later,” said Ginny. “I’ve got, umm, DADA first and then double Potions before lunch.” She looked meaningfully at Harry before leaving the table. He got the picture.

After Charms and a double Transfiguration class Harry tore down to the dungeons, his least favorite place in the castle. While waiting outside Snape’s classroom, he happened to glance at the wall where there was a crack, just like the one he had seen in the diary. Looking around, he bent down and thought for a moment. Then:

“Are there any snakes in the wall that want to come out? Come out and see me?”

Nothing for a moment, but then, suddenly, Harry heard a hissing voice say, “Why do you ask?” A moment later, a smallish black snake appeared out of the crack, followed by another. Harry was so shocked he just sat there for a second, and then stammered, “Uhh, no reason. You can go back in now.”

“Were you just talking to those snakes???”

Harry looked up in surprise. There was Ginny, with Luna right behind her, just out of Potions class. Ginny looked rather shocked, but Luna didn’t seem to have noticed, she was apparently continuing a conversation she and Ginny had been having at the end of class. A conversation, Harry realized, about prank ideas.

“And if they manage to scrape off all the leaves, there you are! Their faces will be blue for a while and they will have the most lovely smell of witch hazel following them around. It repels all sorts of dangerous creatures. Flobberworms, for instance.” She looked up then and saw Harry and Ginny staring at each other.

“Oh, hello, Harry. Was that you, talking to those snakes? You must be related to Salazar Slytherin, I would think.” She looked at him inquisitively.

“What, huh? I’m not related to Slytherin!” Harry was annoyed at Luna’s seeming disregard for the truth or accuracy of her comments.

“Well, of course you are, you can speak to snakes, and so could he! It’s a very rare power.”

Pushing back the thought that the diary had said the same thing, Harry turned to Ginny.

“Ginny, umm, can I talk to you for a minute? In private?” Harry directed Ginny out of the dungeons, and after a minute, steered the two of them back towards Gryffindor Tower.

“Do you mind skipping lunch? This is really important.”

“Is it about why you didn’t write any ideas in the diary for me? Cause, if you are going to give me some excuse about why you didn’t while you were really wasting time with Ron playing Exploding Snap or something last night, I am not going to be amused.”

Harry gave her a look. The kind of look he usually reserved for Hermione when she started getting on him about not reading Hogwarts, A History.

“Hey, get off my case, I’m helping you, remember? And this is really unbelievable. I think the diary wants to help us, too.”

Up in his room, Harry pulled out the diary and quickly wrote, “Hi Tom, I am here with Ginny now. We want to talk about ideas for pranking the twins.”

After a moment, the diary wrote back, “Hello, Ginny. It is good to meet another prankster. I hope you are not squeamish because I have plenty of thoughts. You didn’t want snakes, but how about spiders? Lots and lots of spiders. And I know just how to get them.”

“Wow,” said Ginny, looking down at the writing. She picked up the quill. “I am not squeamish at all — I have six older brothers!” She had a lookon her face that Harry was starting to recognize as being annoyed with anyone who thought she was weak or silly just because she was girl.

Another window opened up in the book. “Good, then,” said the writing. “Take a look.”

The two leaned over the window, but instead of something rising out of it, as the snake had, both Harry and Ginny found themselves falling through the page and landing together in what looked very much like the dungeon outside of the Potions room they had just left.”

Harry and Ginny looked at each other nervously. Despite her earlier bravado, Ginny was clearly frightened, and Harry instinctively grabbed her hand, as much for his own comfort as hers.

As they watched, a handsome teenaged boy appeared at the head of the hallway and looked around. Although they yelled at him to help, it soon became apparent that they were completely invisible to him.

“Do you think that’s Tom?” Ginny asked.

Their question was soon answered, as the two watched Tom have a short conversation with a much younger Professor Dumbledore about a terrible attack by a monster, in which a student had been killed. The school would be closed if the attacker was not found. Following Tom, Harry and Ginny watched in horror as he confronted a school-aged Hagrid, who had apparently been raising an enormous spider in an empty cabinet down in the dungeons. As Tom turned to call Dumbledore, the image began to waver and blur, and Harry and Ginny found themselves back in Harry’s dorm.

“Hagid!” cried Harry. He picked up the quill and began to write.“That is why Hagrid was expelled in his second year — because he raised a giant spider that killed someone?!?”

“Yes,” said the diary. “I thought I was doing the right thing, capturing Hagrid and alerting everyone to the beast. It escaped, and Hagrid had his wand snapped.”

Harry was looking at the book in horror, unable to contemplate that his beloved friend and gamekeeper could be responsible for such a thing. He looked askance at Ginny.

“I know Hagrid has a sort of .. . misguided . . . love for dangerous beasts, but I just can’t believe he would ever . . .”

“Wait,” cried Ginny. “Tom is writing more.”

“Alas, I was mistaken about Hagrid’s guilt. There is another, more terrible reason for that poor girl’s death, but it was many years before I was sure, and by then, it was too late for me to fix the error.”

“What do you mean? Too late?” asked Harry.

At that moment, Ron came noisily into the room.

“Oi! What are you two doing? You missed lunch!” Ron looked simply shocked that such a thing could occur. “And that weird Luna girl kept asking me if we all wash our hair with the juice of the crimson sap-sucker tree to get it so red. She suggested I look into a different type of shampoo, if I don’t want to be ginger. What’s with her?” He frowned at them. “And what are you doing up here? You actually missed lunch!”

“You said that, already, Ronald,” said Ginny menacingly.

“Yeah, but, why were you up here?”

Harry had to think fast. Looking around the room, he spotted a group of thin white threads strung across a window. Hoping he remembered the charm from last year, he pointed his wand at the center and whispered “Engorgio!” It worked. A spider, barely visible at its normal size, suddenly grew in the center of the web until it was so heavy that it fell onto the bed below.

Which happened to be Ron’s.

“Hey Ron, wow! Look at that spider!! It’s on your bed!” Harry tried to keep the glee out of his voice as Ron turned around in horror, all thoughts of missed lunches forgotten. He gave a terrified squeak, stammered out “Please, get rid of it!” and ran out of the room while Ginny dissolved in laughter and gave Harry a high five and Harry shrunk the spider back to its normal size. He left it on Ron’s bed for good measure though.

“That was close!” she gasped through her giggles.

“Too close,” agreed Harry. “We are going to need to find somewhere else to talk. We have to figure out what really happened when Hagrid was expelled, and it sounds like Tom wants to tell us.” He paused. “Maybe we can be the ones to clear his name!” He thought for a second.

“Why don’t we meet outside tomorrow, under that big tree near the lake after dinner? It should still be pretty light out.”

“Sounds good. Don’t forget the diary.”

Harry gave Ginny another look.

“Sorry,” she said with a blush. “Forgot I wasn’t talking to Ron. If it’s not about food or chess or the Cannons, he is kind of scatterbrained .”

“Now, that’s not entirely fair,” said Harry with a smirk. “He likes arguing with Hermione too.”

“Oi. I know. Now I have to get to class.”

September 4

Harry could hardly pay attention in his classes the next day, he kept thinking about Hagrid and what had happened when he was a student. It didn’t help that he ran into the gamekeeper three different times and had to make small talk, when all he wanted to do was ask about the huge spider and assure Hagrid that he and Ginny were going to do everything they could to clear his name. Passing Ginny in the corridors, Harry could tell that her mind was on anything but her studies as well. Once, he caught up with her when she was talking to Luna, who was telling Ginny about the enormous family of Acromantula spiders that lived deep in the Forbidden Forest.

“The Ministry of Magic originally bred them to guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. They were wonderful guards, but had the unfortunate side effect of eating many of the prisoners. So the Ministry thought they would be safer here.”

“The prisoners, or the spiders?” asked Harry somewhat skeptically. Having seen a large spider in the diary vision, he did not entirely discount Luna’s story, but he certainly did not want to believe it in whole, either.

“Never mind that,” said Ginny. “Luna was telling me a couple of ideas she had for, you know, our project?”

“Which project?” asked Harry, thinking that now, they actually had two.

“You know, the one where you want to prank Fred and George really well!” said Luna brightly and too loudly. A couple of other students passing in the corridor looked at them curiously.

“Shhhh!” said Ginny. “It’s a secret!”

“Oh good,” said Luna. “I love secrets. I’ll just be off now, to keep the secret.” She began to skip away, calling over her shoulder, “Let me know when you want to hear my ideas to prank the twins!”

“Arghhh!” Ginny groaned. “It will be all over school by tomorrow!”

“Maybe we should focus on Hagrid, then,” said Harry. “See you at the tree after dinner?”

“Yeah. See you.” Ginny touched his arm as she walked away, her brow furrowed in obvious annoyance that the twins would find out about their plans. Not that they had any, yet. Harry sighed and walked to Herbology.

That evening, under the tree by the lake, the two wasted little time opening the diary and writing to Tom. They did not have a lot of time before they would need to go back into the castle, and furthermore, both were rather excited at the idea of helping Hagrid. Ginny knew how much Harry and Ron and Hermione liked him, and had adopted his cause for her own, as well.

“We are back,” Harry wrote first. “How can you help us prove Hagrid is innocent?”

“Are you sure you are ready?” the diary replied. “It could be very dangerous.”

Ginny grabbed the diary from Harry. “Tom obviously does not know who he is dealing with,” she said, writing quickly.

“Don’t worry about us, don’t you know, you are talking to the famous Harry Potter! He defeated You-Know-Who when he was only a baby, and last year he saved the Sorcerer’s Stone from getting into You-Know-Who’s hands and prevented him from coming back — and Harry was only a First Year! Trust me, nothing could scare him after that, and nothing will scare me, because I am going to stick with Harry!”

Ginny finished writing with a flourish and grinned at Harry. “That ought to show Tom,” she said with satisfaction.

The diary was already writing back. “Who is this “You-Know-Who?”

Now Harry picked up the book. “That is why we should just use his name,” he said to Ginny before writing, “You-Know-Who is what a lot of people call Voldemort. He is one of the darkest wizards who ever lived. Have you heard of him?”

“I am quite familiar. And you defeated him when you were just a baby, you say?”

“The killing curse rebounded on him when he tried to kill me,” Harry wrote shortly. “He disappeared and no one knows why. But I didn’t die because my mother sacrificed herself to save me. He tried to come back last year and I stopped him again. So here I am. Now, what about Hagrid?”

Ginny could see that Harry didn’t really like talking about his defeats of Voldemort. He seemed embarrassed about it or something, and she suspected from their talk on the train that he really didn’t think it was that big of a deal. She looked at the diary, where Tom was writing again.

“Well then, Harry should have no trouble fixing everything. Spend a little more time with me and we can put it all back the way it was meant to be. Now, you two need to be holding hands.”

Harry and Ginny looked at each other for a moment and then, somewhat shyly, complied.

“Good, ” it wrote. “Now Harry, why don’t you tell me a little more about your first year at Hogwarts, how you came to know Hagrid, and that story Ginny mentioned about the Sorcerers’ Stone. It sounds fascinating.”

So focused was Harry on the thought of helping Hagrid that it didn’t occur to him to think it was odd that the diary wanted to hear so much about his past. It was hard to write while holding Ginny’s hand, but Harry managed, starting with his discovery the year before that he was wizard. Neither Harry nor Ginny noticed it getting darker as he wrote, Ginny peering over his shoulder and making suggestions from time to time.

Harry had just finished writing about Hagrid and the three headed dog when something started to feel wrong. Until this point, the diary had been responding to Harry’s tale with amazement, disbelief, and admiration. But suddenly, Tom’s mood seemed to change.

“Stop. I need you to do something for me, before I can help you with Hagrid.”

“What do you mean?” wrote Harry. “You are a book. What kind of help do you need?”

Ginny giggled. "Maybe it wants to be shelved next to a book of love poems in the library.”

“ENOUGH! This is a matter of the utmost importance, and you make jokes? Do you want to help Hagrid, or not?”

“Of course we do. What kind of help do you need? We will do whatever it takes.”

Tom seemed pleased. “I thought so.”

Things got murky after that. As Tom wrote instructions, Harry was only semi-aware that he and Ginny were walking to Hagrid’s hut, and then heading back into the castle, towards the girl’s bathroom where Harry, Ron and Hermione had fought the troll the previous year. It had been out of order ever since. He pushed open the door and began to pull Ginny in with him. Beside him, Harry felt her tense up.

“Where are you going? What does this have to do with Hagrid?

The question brought Harry back to himself for a moment. He looked around, confused. His robes were sticky and Ginny seemed to have chicken feathers down her front.

“I, I don’t know. He looked down at the diary in his hand. Shining there were the words, “Go on, say it!”

Ginny picked up the quill. “Say what, Tom? How did we get into the girls’ bathroom? And why am I covered in feathers?”

“It’s part of the plan . . . to help Hagrid. You must remember that I explained it all to you, don’t you Ginny? Don’t you want to help Harry?”

At these words, Ginny started tugging Harry’s hand and pulling him towards one of the sinks along the wall. “Come on, Harry, say it! Say it in Parseltongue!. It’s the only way to help Hagrid . . . and Tom.”

Harry looked down at the diary. “Open the Chamber, Harry,” it said.

Harry suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to speak to the sink — in Parseltongue. “Open up,” he hissed, and watched dispassionately as the sink sunk into the floor and a large hole opened up. Turning back towards Ginny, he started to tell her to follow him, but the look in her eyes gave him pause. Concerned, he asked, “What is it, Ginny?”

“I, I don’t know. This feels weird.”

“Yeah. To me too. How did we get here?”

“I don’t remember,” said Ginny. “Did we go to Hagrid’s”

“I think so. But what did we do there?”

Ginny picked up the diary again and wrote “Tom, can you help us? Something strange is going on.” Ginny frowned at the words the diary wrote back and suddenly began tugging at Harry’s arm again. “We have to go down, Harry. We have to go down, now . The answers are down there.” She pointed at the hole where the sink used to be. She tugged so hard that her hand slipped out of his grasp, and for a minute, Harry found clarity again. He saw himself in the girl’s bathroom, covered in, oh Merlin, was that blood? And Ginny, why was she covered in feathers? He looked down at the diary, open in Ginny’s hand. A mist swas rising out of it. Something was very wrong. He could feel it.

“Ginny, no. You can’t go there! It’s wrong Ginny! We can’t help Hagrid that way!” He grabbed Ginny to pull her back and in the process, lost himself again.

The mist coming out of the diary seemed to be talking to him. “Call it, Harry. Call it forth. I don’t even need to teach you to speak its language. Call it forth from the Chamber where it sleeps and help me finish the work that started so long ago.”

Harry wanted to obey. He knew what he had to say. But another voice was calling to him too, telling him to listen to her, to wait for her.

It was Ginny. As the mist from the diary grew thicker, Harry forced himself to focus on Ginny.

“Ginny, can you hear me? We have to get away.”

“Harry, I . . . I want to, get away. I think. But we need to call it first.” She paused, a confused look in her eyes. “What are you supposed to call out? Harry, I don’t think its safe here.”

Looking down at the diary, Harry saw Tom had written more. “Don’t listen to her! She is weak! Don’t be weak with her! Call it up from where it sleeps!”

“Ginny is not weak!” Harry yelled furiously. The mist cleared for a moment, and some of it sank back into the diary. But then it seemed to redouble its efforts to escape, and surrounded them both. Everything went murky and confusing again, and Harry and Ginny began walking toward the hole by the sinks. Harry starting to hiss the words that he knew would call up an ancient evil.

But other thoughts kept creeping into his mind. Beside him, Ginny was muttering “We can’t, we can’t, oh, please make it stop.” She stumbled a bit and as Harry grabbed herarm to steady her, an image popped unbidden into his head, of her, sitting on the train, as he held that same arm while it was covered with bright green words. “Ginny plus Harry equals love!” A vision of the twins’ grinning faces jumped into his mind. In the next minute, a huge snake, thick as a tree trunk and with gleaming yellow eyes skulked through his brain, hissing back at him to “Call me! Call me now!” Next to him, Ginny whispered “Yes! Think of other things! Ron and Quidditch! Luna and that jar of dirt. . . no, wait, you must call it first. Tell it to come to us, Harry!.”

Harry turned to Ginny and frantically asked her. “Ginny, what are you thinking right now?

Ginny looked back at him. “Harry, I want you to call something up out of its home. You need to do it for Tom . . . and Hagrid, I think.” She shook her head back and forth. “But, no. That’s not right. We want to prank the twins, don’t we? Why isn’t Tom helping us prank the twins?” She looked back at the sink again, a glazed look coming over her face.

Harry forced himself to look away from the sink. As he pulled Ginny with him, the diary slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor, where it lay open, the mist swirling up from its pages to continue to surround them. Harry grabbed both of Ginny’s hands and yelled at her.

“Ginny, we have to concentrate! Something is not right here!”

Ginny looked back at Harry and nodded, squeezing both his hands in hers. She looked down at where the diary had fallen. New words appeared: “Okay, then together! Together you can call it. You can call it and help Hagrid. Do it now!!”

“No, Harry,” Ginny whispered. “It wants us to do something we shouldn’t. Something bad. I can feel it. I . . . I think we have already started.”

Holding both of Ginny’s hands, Harry felt stronger, more able to fight the feelings in him that were urging him to lean over the hole in the sink and hiss an invitation to the monster below. He took a deep breath.

“Ginny, on the count of three, I am going to drop one of your hands and close the diary. Whatever happens, don’t let me speak in Parseltongue. Hex me if you have to, but don’t let me call it!”

Ginny nodded, and on the count of three, Harry lunged at the book, closing it. As he touched the leather cover, an overwhelming urge rose up in him and he moved back towards the sink, only one thought on his mind. But the next thing he knew, he was laying on the ground of the bathroom, his head ringing where Ginny had smacked him. He was no longer touching the diary, which was laying innocuously in a puddle of water. The mist was gone, although the large hole where the sink had been was still there.

Harry rubbed his head. “Thanks, I think.”

Ginny looked apologetically at him. “It was the only thing I could think of. You were starting to hiss those words again.”

“I was? I don’t even remember.”

“What happened, Harry? What did Tom want us to do? He was so nice, at first. He reminded me of the twins, but on our side instead. But then,” she shuddered.

“He was not trying to help us,” said Harry flatly. I don’t remember much, but I know that he wanted us to call something horrible out of hiding.” He looked down at the diary. Even though it hadn’t moved, just the sight of it was making him nervous. “We need to take this to Dumbledore. He will know what to do.”

Using a levitation spell so he didn’t have to touch the thing again, Harry floated the diary out in front of him. The two left the bathroom, and realized they had no idea how to find Dumbledore. As they wandered the hallways, Harry noticed for the first time how dark it was. They should have been back in the common room by now. It was still the first week of school and it looked like they were already going to get into trouble.

Providence, in the form of Ginny’s brother Percy, of all people, saved them. He was patrolling the corridors outside the bathroom and Harry had to admit he had never seen such as fantastic show as the one Ginny put on for him, tearing up and asking where to find Dumbledore, saying dramatically that it was a matter of life and death and that she didn’t want to have to write to their mother to tell her that Percy was not helping Ginny get used to being at school. At the mention of Mrs. Weasley, Percy turned pale and escorted them straight to Dumbledore’s office, behind a gargoyle and up a spinning spiral staircase.

Ginny had not been so far off when she said it was a matter of life and death that they see the headmaster. When he took in Harry and Ginny’s disheveled appearances, the diary still floating in front of them, he dismissed Percy and ushered them into chairs.

Now that the danger seemed to be past, and they were actually sitting in front of the headmaster, Harry began to feel a bit silly. What if he and Ginny had been taken in by a particularly clever trick diary? But with Dumbledore looking keenly at him, and Ginny nodding, Harry haltingly began to explain what had happened, turning to ask her to fill in blanks along the way.

Any illusion that the diary was merely a prank vanished as soon as Harry said that the diary contained a memory from a former student named Tom Riddle.

Dumbledore looked sharply at him and jumped out of his seat so fast he was almost a blur. Waving his wand at the diary as it floated in front of Harry and Ginny, he conjured an enormous gold sphere around it, almost like a cage. Without asking, Harry knew that Dumbledore was trying to contain the thing inside, to keep something from escaping. He looked at Ginny, who was looking frightened again.

“Professor, ” she began, “what . . . I mean, who . . . is in the diary?”

Dumbledore looked soberly at both of them. “Tom Riddle, or more specifically, Tom Marvolo Riddle, is the given name of the dark wizard who later became Lord Voldemort.”

Ginny gasped. Harry felt sick inside. Oh Merlin, what had they done?