Imagine Knowing Me :: Chapter Six (6/7)
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SIX
rofessor Dumbledore had been asked to resign. The day after the Quidditch match, Professor McGonagall called the second House meeting that weekend-the first having been to inform them of the two new Petrified students-and told them of the Order of Suspension which had ordered The Headmaster to quit the school, at least for the duration of the Chamber of Secrets emergency.
Ryan, watching Professor McGonagall’s thin, angry mouth, thought that this did not seem like a decision that was anchored in the staff.
The gamekeeper, Hagrid, had been forced off the premises as well. Professor McGonagall was even more reticent in his case, but rumours were that the last time the Chamber was opened, suspicion had fallen pretty heavily on him, and some said he was now being questioned at the wizard prison, Azkaban. Ryan found this deeply suspicious. If they actually thought Hagrid might have anything to do with it this time around, they would have taken him out of the school as soon as the first student was found Petrified. It sounded too much like a thrown-together explanation, something to show that they were doing their best to find the perpetrator.
Of course, Ryan thought, looking at Ginny’s pale and drawn face, he might only be thinking like this because he now knew who had been behind the attacks.
t was Monday before they could all get together. Professors McGonagall, Snape and Flitwick had all determined that “consulting with their friends” was not an important enough reason to leave the Common Room, and the first two had even gone so far as to suggest that maybe socialising with people of other Houses was not advisable just at the moment.
The easiest option was to meet during lunch, so on Monday they ate their quickest meal ever and converged in the library at about a quarter past twelve. Then, finally, they were given the explanation of Ginny’s long-lasting health issues.
She told them she had found the diary in one of her textbooks. She’d figured that it had been included in her purchase by mistake, but she didn’t think the book store would want it back; it was so dirty and battered, and from the wrong year to boot. So she had kept it, just to write her thoughts in. Her old journal had filled up over the summer. But when she had tried to write in it, the ink had vanished, sucked into the pages. She had tried several different inks-all with the same result.
And then words had finally appeared on the page, but they weren’t her words, and it wasn’t her handwriting.
Hello? Is anyone there?
That had been Tom. She had explained who she was and where and in what time, and he in turn had replied with what little he could remember about himself. She had asked him if he was the same Tom Riddle whose name was embossed on the cover of the diary, but he didn’t know. He knew only his first name and his age, and he knew about magic, but he didn’t know whether he had always been a book or anything of how he came to be.
(Ross had looked up and frowned at this part, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then he had settled back again and waited for Weasley to finish.)
A little time into the term she’d begun to have black-outs. The diary had always been with her when she woke up, but for some time she hadn’t connected the two-the diary was with her almost all the time, after all-and she also hadn’t connected her periods of memory loss with anything sinister. Once her socks had been caked with mud, and once she’d found feathers on her robes, but it wasn’t until she woke the day after Halloween with strangely luminous paint on her clothes and hands, she said, that she began to worry that something was indeed very wrong.
She’d finally thrown the diary away at the end of January. She had felt much better for a while after that, and she hadn’t had any more periods when she didn’t know what she was doing. And then she’d seen the diary again-not flushed away or destroyed, as she had hoped. Found. By Harry Potter. And when she thought she began to see the signs that he, too, was falling under the spell of the diary, she decided to steal it back.
That Saturday, she had opened the diary again to ask Tom if he knew anything of what had been going on, and that was all she remembered until Brendon and Spencer found her.
There was a lengthy pause after Weasley finished her story, finally broken by Brendon who said,
“We have to tell a professor.”
That’s a terrible idea, Spencer thought, just as Ross said, “No, we don’t,” and Jon, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“They made the Headmaster resign over this,” Ross continued. “They won’t be reasonable about it. If we tell them Ginny’s been attacking people, do you think they’ll stop and ask whether she was possessed by something?”
“They sent Hagrid to prison just because he was suspected of setting loose a monster fifty years ago,” Jon said. He was fond of the gamekeeper, who always allowed Jon to play with his dog, Fang.
“But they’re professors,” Brendon insisted. “I’m sure Professor Snape would know what to-”
There was a strangled noise from Weasley, and they all looked at her. She did not seem to find the suggestion of asking Snape for help a very pleasant one.
“We have to solve this ourselves,” Ross determined. “If we can find out what’s controlling Ginny, we’ll have something to tell them, and we can go to the professors then. I think I’ve read something about this before-cursed books. I can’t remember where, though.”
Spencer wondered quietly if there was anything Ross hadn’t once read about somewhere. He was impressed. Having Ross around sometimes felt like having a portable library.
“How do you feel, Ginny?” Lovegood asked mildly. “You probably know best what you want to do.”
There was no reproof in her voice, but the rest of them looked down, embarrassed. Weasley, on the other hand, looked flustered.
“I-” she said, “I, I don’t really know. But I think-I want to get Tom out somehow. He’s really nice. It isn’t his fault he got caught in the book,” she added, as if defying them to disagree with her. When none of them said anything to that effect, she continued, “If we tell the professors now, they’ll probably just destroy the book. And then they’ll destroy Tom, too. I want to save him. And-and whoever else might have been cursed by it.”
She blushed hotly, and they were all kind enough not to mention the name Harry Potter.
Brendon still looked kind of sceptical, but he nodded. “So what should we do, then?” he asked.
“Go through the open library first,” Ross answered promptly, “for information on cursed and enchanted books. I can try and get notes for the Restricted Section-Luna, too, they’ll probably believe you’re just studying.” Spencer reflected briefly that he probably ought to be offended by the implication that none but Ross and Lovegood were studious enough to pull off a “Just want it for reference”-routine, but he knew that yes, that was probably true.
“Ask around with parents and House mates if anyone knows anything about it, but carefully,” Ross continued. “Also, the Ravenclaw bookcases could be helpful.”
Spencer frowned. “The Ravenclaw bookcases?” he asked.
Ross blushed. “Um, Luna told me about them,” he said. “In their Common Room, right?”
“That’s right,” said Lovegood serenely. “We have a large reference library with both personal books and Hogwarts literature.”
Spencer nodded, but he wondered why there was something slightly guilty about Ross’s expression.
“Seems like we have a bit of a plan,” Jon said. “So now I guess we just have to escape from the professors for long enough to manage it.”
“You probably shouldn’t write in the diary again,” Spencer heard himself say, and saw the others’ heads turn towards first him, then Weasley. “At least without at least one of us there with you. Right?”
Weasley hesitated, then nodded, pale fingers gripping the cover of the diary tightly.
s though it was trying to make up for the now ever-present feeling of dark menace inside the Hogwarts castle, the weather outside was brilliant and warm. It was hard to enjoy it as they wanted, with the diary seeming to glare at them through the fabric of Ginny’s backpack, but it did make their meetings a lot more practical. They needed a teacher’s permission and accompaniment to go anywhere, these days, and there were only so many times they could ask to go to the library for studies during one week before the professors became testy and started making pointed remarks about the very serviceable Common Rooms. So instead they braved Madam Pince’s most fearsome glare and took out as many books they dared, then met out in the grounds to do their research together. It was slow going, not least because the school year still went on. There was only about a month left to exams, and the professors were not about to slack off on the work just because there was a threat of Petrifying and possibly death in the air.
Ginny wrote to Tom twice a week, being careful each time to mention that she was sitting with a couple of friends, just in case the diary wanted to possess her again. She also wrote nothing about their research, since that might make the diary react, probably dangerously. None of them were sure of just how sentient the diary was, but they felt that it was better to be on the safe side-and indeed she reported no more periods of memory loss or faints since she had started taking the new safety measures.
Ryan had taken great charge of their investigation since they had decided on a more or less definitive course of action. He was irreplaceable during those last weeks, with his enthusiasm and fervour making up for the rest of them when things felt especially hopeless. And it was Ryan who finally came with the big breakthrough, halfway through May, when he arrived somewhat late at their usual study group meeting beaming and carrying a large book.
“I finally got it,” he said. “I looked for it in the library, but it wasn’t here, so I sent off an Owl Order for it.” He put the book down on the table in front of them.
The cover was black and had a curly pattern of slightly raised lines. There was something uncomfortable about it, and when Jon looked away and then back he realised why-the pattern seemed to have changed slightly in the moment his eyes weren’t on it. The title, in red so dark it almost melted into the rest of the cover, was The Dangerous Book of Dangerous Books. There was no author’s name.
“How on earth did you get hold of this?” Spencer asked. He was watching the book warily.
“I have an account at Fully Booked,” Ryan replied casually. Luna and Spencer both nodded as if that explained a lot, but Spencer still looked uncertain.
“Don’t you have to be of age?” he asked.
Ryan shrugged. “When I was Sorted into Gryffindor, my mum wanted to make sure I had access to all the reference books I might need, even if they weren’t in the library. She arranged an account for me. It’s really good. They don’t have everything-their stock of old books is pretty slim, for example,” here he glanced at Jon, who remembered a muttered complaint that if only it was possible to order a copy of Moste Potente Potions, Ryan wouldn’t have to come up with excuses to borrow Hermione Granger’s every time he wanted to confirm that they were on the right track with the Polyjuice, “but it’s still a very good assortment. I saw this in their Christmas newsletter. It’s a reference work over famous dangerous books through the ages.”
While he talked, Ryan turned pages, bringing heading after frightening heading into view. A Hundred Curses You’ll Wish You’d Never Read About... The Complete Book of Banshees-Screams Included... Magick Most Evile...
“The Monster Book of Monsters?” said Jon. “That sounds pretty fun.”
“It has fangs,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes. “Do you really want to read a book with fangs?”
“Dogs have fangs, too,” Jon pointed out, grinning. “I’m sure you just have to know how to handle it.”
“Here it is,” Ryan interrupted. “I saw this when I was looking through the book before.” He smoothed the pages down with his hands, and they all bent forward to read.
The Soul-eating Book of the Sicilian Sorcerer, said the heading of the chapter, and there was a picture of a reasonably menacing-looking book.
“It’s a very old story,” Ryan said, his finger moving down the paragraphs, “but it sounds about right. There was a wizard living a little outside Catania in the fourteenth century, and the tales that survive say he used a book to trap the essence of humans-of the slaves he kept-in a book of his, partly because he thought he could use it to make himself stronger and partly to keep them in check. The slaves had to write their mark in the book at the end of each working day, and he could use it to control them as well as trap them in it entirely. There is a good account of the effects by one of the freed women.”
“So they managed to reverse it?” Brendon asked quickly, his gaze skimming over the page. Ryan grinned victoriously.
“There is a complete set of instructions for the ritual to free anyone trapped in the book,” he said. “I really have to read this through more carefully to be sure, but I think this is it. And if so, we only have to prepare the ritual, and then we can free Tom. After that we just destroy the book. Burning should be effective enough. Ginny, we could probably go through this together tonight, check if the descriptions match what you know.”
Ginny nodded. Her face was flushed and she was biting her lip, looking both frightened and excited. Jon took her hand under the library table and squeezed it.
“We’ll get him out,” he said quietly. “It’ll be fine.”
rendon and Spencer had taken to walking with Ross and Weasley to lunch after their shared Friday Potions class. A year ago, Spencer hadn’t seen himself even talking to a Gryffindor beyond the strictly necessary on the lines of “pass the frog brains”, he thought wryly. Still, he wasn’t entirely displeased with this arrangement. For one thing, since Brendon was sticking close to Weasley, it meant that this particular Friday he finally had the opportunity to talk to Ross he had been waiting for.
“I’ve been looking at the instructions for the freeing ritual,” he said, glancing at Brendon and Weasley ahead to make sure they were out of earshot.
“We all have, haven’t we?” Ross replied, too innocently.
“You know what I’m talking about. The actual magic in the ritual-” Spencer lowered his voice. “You know that it’s Dark Magic.”
“It’s wandless magic,” said Ross pedantically. Spencer snorted, unimpressed.
“It’s dangerous magic whatever you call it,” he said. “And it’s difficult. This ritual is a lot more than any of us can handle.” Except one, he thought, and then saw by Ross’s expression that he thought it, too.
“You know about Brendon,” he stated flatly.
“He can do it,” Ross said, confirming Spencer’s guess. “He’s really strong.”
“And you think he has control over what he does?”
“I know he’s practised magic five times as long as any of us,” Ross said calmly.
Spencer knew that by this point, he probably shouldn’t be startled by how Brendon seemed to confide absolutely everything in Ross, but he was, anyway.
“I think he actually has more control when he isn’t using a wand,” Ross was going on, his tone of voice shifting into the one Spencer recognised from whenever Ross contemplated an interesting theoretical problem. “He’s said a few times that he sometimes feels clumsy, using a wand. Like he’s not connected to the magic any more.”
“That’s the point of wands,” said Spencer, aware of how sour he was sounding. “Magic is dangerous to handle directly.”
“But less so for Brendon than most, I think,” Ross insisted stubbornly. “He’s trained since he was seven. He knows where his limits are.”
Spencer couldn’t come up with another counter argument, and anyway they were just coming up on the Great Hall. He and Brendon separated from the Gryffindors and made for their usual places at the otherwise quite empty Slytherin table-they were among the first to arrive for lunch.
“What were you and Ryan talking about?” asked Brendon.
Spencer contemplated a number of answers but settled for the simplest, “The ritual.”
“Yes, it seems very difficult,” Brendon said thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I can do it, though.”
For some reason that statement, which told Spencer that Ross had already informed Brendon of his role in the proceedings, was what finally made Spencer lose his temper completely. “Don’t you understand how dangerous this is?” he almost shouted, then lowered his voice to a hiss. “Don’t you see that you could die if something goes wrong? I don’t understand how Ross could just tell you to do this!”
“He didn’t,” said Brendon. “I looked through the instructions when he brought the book the first time, and I told him that I’d do it. None of you can.”
“But you don’t even know if you can!”
“I have to try.” Brendon was looking more serious than Spencer had ever seen him. “That book has a piece of Ginny inside it. If we can’t break the curse, she will never be herself again.”
Spencer felt helpless. “It just doesn’t seem fair that you have to do this alone,” he said.
Brendon grinned at him. “But you’ll all be there with us,” he said, and there really wasn’t anything Spencer could reply to that. He stabbed his plate viciously with his fork, wishing everything wasn’t so complicated.
irce’s warts,” Ryan swore quietly. The ritual was turning out to be a lot more trouble than expected. Most of the paraphernalia needed was straightforward enough-rosemary for remembrance and Mooncalf Wheat for peace, both to soak in silver dishes with water; candles; silver knives-but then there was the detail that he’d all along known would be very hard to get indeed. A phoenix feather, for rebirth, to be burned at the end of the ritual.
Phoenix feathers were notoriously difficult to get hold of. The market price was somewhere in the region of ten Galleons a feather, and that was when there were any to buy at all. Even then, they were usually snatched up almost immediately by the wand makers. To be sure to get one at all, you had to sign up on a waiting list and be prepared to give it a few months. Months they didn’t have. It wouldn’t be long until the Mandrakes were grown enough to make the restorative Draught that would return the Petrified victims to health. Great, of course-but once they were back to their usual self there would be questions about who had attacked them, and they would point the finger at Ginny. Even if she managed to convince the faculty and Ministry representatives that she had been possessed, the diary would be destroyed and Ginny’s friend Tom with it. They had to solve the problem before then.
The best way to get a Phoenix feather, Ryan knew, was to receive it willingly given directly by a bird (which was of course also the reason why the things were so rare on the market-only one witch or wizard in a thousand or more ever managed to domesticate the Phoenix). It could seem an impossible task. But Ryan listened to the conversations around him in the Common Room, and one thing Harry Potter told his friends once caught his attention.
Dumbledore had a Phoenix.
So on Tuesday after lunch, when he had several free hours to go before his Flying class, Ryan went to where he knew the Headmaster’s Office was located and looked long at the gargoyles guarding the way.
“I really need to get in,” he said, feeling a bit ridiculous but persevering despite it. “I need to see Dumbledore’s Phoenix.”
The stone gargoyles did not react.
“I have a friend who’s in trouble,” Ryan went on. “I need a Phoenix feather to be able to help her.”
Still no answer.
“I just need to talk to him. Or her. The Phoenix. I want to ask-it for help. For my friend.”
No reaction.
“Her name is Ginny,” Ryan said quietly. “I just want her to be all right.”
There was a soft noise behind him, and when he turned, he saw a vividly red feather wafting gently down through the air to land a few feet off. It shimmered in the otherwise dull gloom of the corridor, as if lit by some inner glow. Ryan picked it up gingerly, almost expecting to singe his fingers.
“Thank you,” he told the empty air.
On his way back to the Gryffindor Tower, he reflected that he really hoped this didn’t mean he had been accepted as a true Gryffindor or something. He didn’t think he could live it down.
ince they didn’t know how much time the freeing ritual could be expected to take, they decided to perform it in one of the abandoned class rooms on the seventh floor.
Empty class rooms tended to fill up somehow-extra-curricular activities were mostly designed by students and conducted wherever there was room, so what had once been a Transfiguration class room (until a rather overenthusiastic student had irreversibly turned all the desks into slender trees) was now occupied by the Gobstones Club, several small choirs and musical groups practised in an abandoned corridor on the fourth floor and there were rumours of a class room where thirty-two students met each week to play out a game of live chess. The seventh floor, however, was mostly left to its own devices. Probably because there were more than enough class rooms at lower levels, and the stairs up to their chosen corridor were particularly excruciating. Ryan confirmed the room’s abandoned state with Professor Sinastra when she led them to their midnight Astronomy lesson, and to make doubly certain, they resolved to meet and begin the ritual at nine, when the school day had just begun and the risk of anyone wandering by was at minimum. The watch was always more relaxed around and after breakfast, too-the professors and prefects had been up all night patrolling the corridors, and most students stayed in their seats for the entirety of the meal.
Brendon and Spencer had decided to slip away one after the other, and Brendon had only had time to shovel a few pieces of toast into his mouth before it was time for him to make his exit. Muttering about a forgotten book he passed the prefect standing by the doors of the Great Hall. She was too busy yawning to really listen, and allowed him to run back to his Common Room without accompaniment. People were still milling in the corridors, after all. It was completely safe.
He was first to the meeting place, and immediately set to work placing the candles he’d brought in their marked spots in the floor. He hadn’t been long at it when the door slammed back, and he looked up quickly. He was expecting Luna-she was next on the schedule they’d drawn up for the sneaking-off-but instead Ginny collapsed next to him, panting heavily.
“I tried to tell him,” she gasped. “I was about to, but I lost my nerve and I-Percy came and then I just-I didn’t dare-do you think it’ll go wrong?”
“Who did you try to tell?” Brendon asked, trying to come to grips with the problem.
“Harry,” she mumbled. “Ryan said the reason I should be close to the diary today is that when we break the curse, the part of my-essence it took should be returned to me, and it should be easier if I’m close. So I thought I’d better get-what if it doesn’t find its way back to him?”
Oh, Brendon thought. They hadn’t really factored in Harry Potter in their calculations, but then none of them were certain that he had been badly affected by the diary. Ryan for one said he’d seen no change in Potter over the spring-not at all on the same scale as the alarming change they’d all witnessed in Ginny the previous autumn.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, and found himself in unfamiliar territory as he tried to make up some sort of explanation. “It’s still-a part of you, right? Even if it was stuck in the diary. So it’ll find its way back to you, and Potter’s to him. It’ll just go faster if you’re closer. And-well, it would probably just have taken a long time to explain everything to Potter anyway, so maybe it was for the best...”
“But what if something goes wrong?” Ginny asked, biting her lip. Brendon shook his head.
“We’ll fix it,” he said.
Ginny nodded uncertainly, but her doubts seemed to have been eased for the moment. Together they continued working on the circle of candles, assisted by first Luna, then Spencer and Jonathan as they arrived one after the other. Finally Ryan entered the class room. It looked as though he was trying not to grin.
“Right,” he said, handing Brendon the last couple of candles, “the dishes with the herbs should be placed out evenly throughout the circle as well. Brendon and Ginny, you should already be inside when we light the candles.”
Brendon nodded, and he and Ginny entered the circle, setting the last candles in place once they were inside.
“The book might try to fight,” Ryan said, lighting the candles in his part of the circle. “Whatever it might send, just let it pass and we will handle it.”
Luna, already finished with her candles, sat down in the spot marked south and nodded sagely. “I’ve never tried Banishing phantoms before,” she said, “but I’m sure this will be a valuable lesson. I’m pleased. The Defence Against the Dark Arts classes have been very disappointing so far.”
(The main reason that Luna had turned in no Defence Against the Dark Arts homework at all until Jonathan started giving his away for free, was not her inability to rhyme-although that was bad enough-but that she, like Ryan, had flatly refused to do it.)
“It’ll be fine,” said Ryan. “We’ve gone through all the probable reactions the diary might have. As long as we keep the perimeter, everything should be fine.”
They all nodded, Spencer somewhat more reluctantly. He was worried about the Dark magic aspect of the ritual, Brendon knew, and he grinned, giving Spencer a reassuring thumbs-up.
“Everyone ready?” Ryan asked, and there were agreements from north, south and east-Spencer, Luna and Jonathan. Ryan nodded to Brendon, too, and sat down.
Brendon reached out and received the diary from Ginny. He laid it flat on the floor and put one hand on its cover, taking Ginny’s hand with the other. It should be easier to find a way into the diary with the help of someone who had already poured themselves into it, and he gripped her fingers tightly, closed his eyes and concentrated.
Open, he thought, and he saw before him a door, barred and locked. It looked heavy and forbidding. Open.
He had a key. He put the key in the lock and turned it once, then once again. Something clicked.
Ginny’s fingers tightened on his.
The bar was incredibly heavy, but he pushed at it, and little at a time, it started to inch upwards. Just a little further and he would be able to lift it away.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of Ryan saying “Watch the candles” and that Ginny’s grip on his hand was almost unbearably strong, but it all felt very far away. It was all he could do to keep concentrating on the door.
Slowly, as he mentally pushed the heavy bar the last bit of the way, he gripped the cover of the diary and opened it.
Someone cried out. Brendon’s eyes flew open, and Ginny’s hand yanked out of his.
All the candles were extinguished, and Ryan, Spencer, Jonathan and Luna had all fallen backwards. Ryan was curled up, holding his shoulder, Jonathan was half raised up on his elbows and staring at them, Spencer was scrabbling for his wand and Luna was staring dreamily at the bloody hand she had just touched to her temple.
“What-” Brendon began, and then he looked back at Ginny. She was smiling.
“Close,” she said, her mouth making a condescending little moue, “but not quite.”
“Ginny?” said Brendon.
“That-” Jonathan began, from somewhere behind him.
“I modified the Sicilian curse, you see. Or, well, added to it. Quite a clever bit of magic, actually.”
“You-” Brendon tried to make sense of what she was saying. Thinking took a lot of effort. Everything felt a little bit fuzzy, and he wondered if he’d been infected by the Wrackspurts Luna talked about. He fought the hysterical urge to laugh.
“That isn’t Ginny!” Jonathan exclaimed. Ginny stopped looking at Brendon, and smiled over his shoulder at Jonathan instead.
“Ah,” she said. “The Mudblood. Once upon a time, no self-respecting Slytherin would even go near one. Children today.” Ginny sighed ostentatiously. “I blame the schools, don’t you?” she murmured.
Behind her, Brendon saw Spencer finally locate his wand, and he ducked down just as Spencer turned and shouted, “Stupefy!”
It was one of the more difficult spells they had learned while preparing for the ritual, but Spencer was good at spellwork. A red jet of light flew straight towards Ginny-it would only Stun her, Brendon knew, but he looked up from his prone position, ready to catch her when she fell.
Ginny smiled again and flicked her fingers. The red light turned aside and thundered into the wall.
“Well,” she said, “as fun as this is-can’t stay all day, I’m afraid.”
“Who are you?” Jonathan demanded.
“Brendon, get away from her,” Spencer called.
Luna made a soft little noise and fainted.
“One down,” said Ginny, and Brendon’s world went black.
Next chapter
CHAPTER SIX
rofessor Dumbledore had been asked to resign. The day after the Quidditch match, Professor McGonagall called the second House meeting that weekend-the first having been to inform them of the two new Petrified students-and told them of the Order of Suspension which had ordered The Headmaster to quit the school, at least for the duration of the Chamber of Secrets emergency.
Ryan, watching Professor McGonagall’s thin, angry mouth, thought that this did not seem like a decision that was anchored in the staff.
The gamekeeper, Hagrid, had been forced off the premises as well. Professor McGonagall was even more reticent in his case, but rumours were that the last time the Chamber was opened, suspicion had fallen pretty heavily on him, and some said he was now being questioned at the wizard prison, Azkaban. Ryan found this deeply suspicious. If they actually thought Hagrid might have anything to do with it this time around, they would have taken him out of the school as soon as the first student was found Petrified. It sounded too much like a thrown-together explanation, something to show that they were doing their best to find the perpetrator.
Of course, Ryan thought, looking at Ginny’s pale and drawn face, he might only be thinking like this because he now knew who had been behind the attacks.
t was Monday before they could all get together. Professors McGonagall, Snape and Flitwick had all determined that “consulting with their friends” was not an important enough reason to leave the Common Room, and the first two had even gone so far as to suggest that maybe socialising with people of other Houses was not advisable just at the moment.
The easiest option was to meet during lunch, so on Monday they ate their quickest meal ever and converged in the library at about a quarter past twelve. Then, finally, they were given the explanation of Ginny’s long-lasting health issues.
She told them she had found the diary in one of her textbooks. She’d figured that it had been included in her purchase by mistake, but she didn’t think the book store would want it back; it was so dirty and battered, and from the wrong year to boot. So she had kept it, just to write her thoughts in. Her old journal had filled up over the summer. But when she had tried to write in it, the ink had vanished, sucked into the pages. She had tried several different inks-all with the same result.
And then words had finally appeared on the page, but they weren’t her words, and it wasn’t her handwriting.
Hello? Is anyone there?
That had been Tom. She had explained who she was and where and in what time, and he in turn had replied with what little he could remember about himself. She had asked him if he was the same Tom Riddle whose name was embossed on the cover of the diary, but he didn’t know. He knew only his first name and his age, and he knew about magic, but he didn’t know whether he had always been a book or anything of how he came to be.
(Ross had looked up and frowned at this part, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then he had settled back again and waited for Weasley to finish.)
A little time into the term she’d begun to have black-outs. The diary had always been with her when she woke up, but for some time she hadn’t connected the two-the diary was with her almost all the time, after all-and she also hadn’t connected her periods of memory loss with anything sinister. Once her socks had been caked with mud, and once she’d found feathers on her robes, but it wasn’t until she woke the day after Halloween with strangely luminous paint on her clothes and hands, she said, that she began to worry that something was indeed very wrong.
She’d finally thrown the diary away at the end of January. She had felt much better for a while after that, and she hadn’t had any more periods when she didn’t know what she was doing. And then she’d seen the diary again-not flushed away or destroyed, as she had hoped. Found. By Harry Potter. And when she thought she began to see the signs that he, too, was falling under the spell of the diary, she decided to steal it back.
That Saturday, she had opened the diary again to ask Tom if he knew anything of what had been going on, and that was all she remembered until Brendon and Spencer found her.
There was a lengthy pause after Weasley finished her story, finally broken by Brendon who said,
“We have to tell a professor.”
That’s a terrible idea, Spencer thought, just as Ross said, “No, we don’t,” and Jon, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“They made the Headmaster resign over this,” Ross continued. “They won’t be reasonable about it. If we tell them Ginny’s been attacking people, do you think they’ll stop and ask whether she was possessed by something?”
“They sent Hagrid to prison just because he was suspected of setting loose a monster fifty years ago,” Jon said. He was fond of the gamekeeper, who always allowed Jon to play with his dog, Fang.
“But they’re professors,” Brendon insisted. “I’m sure Professor Snape would know what to-”
There was a strangled noise from Weasley, and they all looked at her. She did not seem to find the suggestion of asking Snape for help a very pleasant one.
“We have to solve this ourselves,” Ross determined. “If we can find out what’s controlling Ginny, we’ll have something to tell them, and we can go to the professors then. I think I’ve read something about this before-cursed books. I can’t remember where, though.”
Spencer wondered quietly if there was anything Ross hadn’t once read about somewhere. He was impressed. Having Ross around sometimes felt like having a portable library.
“How do you feel, Ginny?” Lovegood asked mildly. “You probably know best what you want to do.”
There was no reproof in her voice, but the rest of them looked down, embarrassed. Weasley, on the other hand, looked flustered.
“I-” she said, “I, I don’t really know. But I think-I want to get Tom out somehow. He’s really nice. It isn’t his fault he got caught in the book,” she added, as if defying them to disagree with her. When none of them said anything to that effect, she continued, “If we tell the professors now, they’ll probably just destroy the book. And then they’ll destroy Tom, too. I want to save him. And-and whoever else might have been cursed by it.”
She blushed hotly, and they were all kind enough not to mention the name Harry Potter.
Brendon still looked kind of sceptical, but he nodded. “So what should we do, then?” he asked.
“Go through the open library first,” Ross answered promptly, “for information on cursed and enchanted books. I can try and get notes for the Restricted Section-Luna, too, they’ll probably believe you’re just studying.” Spencer reflected briefly that he probably ought to be offended by the implication that none but Ross and Lovegood were studious enough to pull off a “Just want it for reference”-routine, but he knew that yes, that was probably true.
“Ask around with parents and House mates if anyone knows anything about it, but carefully,” Ross continued. “Also, the Ravenclaw bookcases could be helpful.”
Spencer frowned. “The Ravenclaw bookcases?” he asked.
Ross blushed. “Um, Luna told me about them,” he said. “In their Common Room, right?”
“That’s right,” said Lovegood serenely. “We have a large reference library with both personal books and Hogwarts literature.”
Spencer nodded, but he wondered why there was something slightly guilty about Ross’s expression.
“Seems like we have a bit of a plan,” Jon said. “So now I guess we just have to escape from the professors for long enough to manage it.”
“You probably shouldn’t write in the diary again,” Spencer heard himself say, and saw the others’ heads turn towards first him, then Weasley. “At least without at least one of us there with you. Right?”
Weasley hesitated, then nodded, pale fingers gripping the cover of the diary tightly.
s though it was trying to make up for the now ever-present feeling of dark menace inside the Hogwarts castle, the weather outside was brilliant and warm. It was hard to enjoy it as they wanted, with the diary seeming to glare at them through the fabric of Ginny’s backpack, but it did make their meetings a lot more practical. They needed a teacher’s permission and accompaniment to go anywhere, these days, and there were only so many times they could ask to go to the library for studies during one week before the professors became testy and started making pointed remarks about the very serviceable Common Rooms. So instead they braved Madam Pince’s most fearsome glare and took out as many books they dared, then met out in the grounds to do their research together. It was slow going, not least because the school year still went on. There was only about a month left to exams, and the professors were not about to slack off on the work just because there was a threat of Petrifying and possibly death in the air.
Ginny wrote to Tom twice a week, being careful each time to mention that she was sitting with a couple of friends, just in case the diary wanted to possess her again. She also wrote nothing about their research, since that might make the diary react, probably dangerously. None of them were sure of just how sentient the diary was, but they felt that it was better to be on the safe side-and indeed she reported no more periods of memory loss or faints since she had started taking the new safety measures.
Ryan had taken great charge of their investigation since they had decided on a more or less definitive course of action. He was irreplaceable during those last weeks, with his enthusiasm and fervour making up for the rest of them when things felt especially hopeless. And it was Ryan who finally came with the big breakthrough, halfway through May, when he arrived somewhat late at their usual study group meeting beaming and carrying a large book.
“I finally got it,” he said. “I looked for it in the library, but it wasn’t here, so I sent off an Owl Order for it.” He put the book down on the table in front of them.
The cover was black and had a curly pattern of slightly raised lines. There was something uncomfortable about it, and when Jon looked away and then back he realised why-the pattern seemed to have changed slightly in the moment his eyes weren’t on it. The title, in red so dark it almost melted into the rest of the cover, was The Dangerous Book of Dangerous Books. There was no author’s name.
“How on earth did you get hold of this?” Spencer asked. He was watching the book warily.
“I have an account at Fully Booked,” Ryan replied casually. Luna and Spencer both nodded as if that explained a lot, but Spencer still looked uncertain.
“Don’t you have to be of age?” he asked.
Ryan shrugged. “When I was Sorted into Gryffindor, my mum wanted to make sure I had access to all the reference books I might need, even if they weren’t in the library. She arranged an account for me. It’s really good. They don’t have everything-their stock of old books is pretty slim, for example,” here he glanced at Jon, who remembered a muttered complaint that if only it was possible to order a copy of Moste Potente Potions, Ryan wouldn’t have to come up with excuses to borrow Hermione Granger’s every time he wanted to confirm that they were on the right track with the Polyjuice, “but it’s still a very good assortment. I saw this in their Christmas newsletter. It’s a reference work over famous dangerous books through the ages.”
While he talked, Ryan turned pages, bringing heading after frightening heading into view. A Hundred Curses You’ll Wish You’d Never Read About... The Complete Book of Banshees-Screams Included... Magick Most Evile...
“The Monster Book of Monsters?” said Jon. “That sounds pretty fun.”
“It has fangs,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes. “Do you really want to read a book with fangs?”
“Dogs have fangs, too,” Jon pointed out, grinning. “I’m sure you just have to know how to handle it.”
“Here it is,” Ryan interrupted. “I saw this when I was looking through the book before.” He smoothed the pages down with his hands, and they all bent forward to read.
The Soul-eating Book of the Sicilian Sorcerer, said the heading of the chapter, and there was a picture of a reasonably menacing-looking book.
“It’s a very old story,” Ryan said, his finger moving down the paragraphs, “but it sounds about right. There was a wizard living a little outside Catania in the fourteenth century, and the tales that survive say he used a book to trap the essence of humans-of the slaves he kept-in a book of his, partly because he thought he could use it to make himself stronger and partly to keep them in check. The slaves had to write their mark in the book at the end of each working day, and he could use it to control them as well as trap them in it entirely. There is a good account of the effects by one of the freed women.”
“So they managed to reverse it?” Brendon asked quickly, his gaze skimming over the page. Ryan grinned victoriously.
“There is a complete set of instructions for the ritual to free anyone trapped in the book,” he said. “I really have to read this through more carefully to be sure, but I think this is it. And if so, we only have to prepare the ritual, and then we can free Tom. After that we just destroy the book. Burning should be effective enough. Ginny, we could probably go through this together tonight, check if the descriptions match what you know.”
Ginny nodded. Her face was flushed and she was biting her lip, looking both frightened and excited. Jon took her hand under the library table and squeezed it.
“We’ll get him out,” he said quietly. “It’ll be fine.”
rendon and Spencer had taken to walking with Ross and Weasley to lunch after their shared Friday Potions class. A year ago, Spencer hadn’t seen himself even talking to a Gryffindor beyond the strictly necessary on the lines of “pass the frog brains”, he thought wryly. Still, he wasn’t entirely displeased with this arrangement. For one thing, since Brendon was sticking close to Weasley, it meant that this particular Friday he finally had the opportunity to talk to Ross he had been waiting for.
“I’ve been looking at the instructions for the freeing ritual,” he said, glancing at Brendon and Weasley ahead to make sure they were out of earshot.
“We all have, haven’t we?” Ross replied, too innocently.
“You know what I’m talking about. The actual magic in the ritual-” Spencer lowered his voice. “You know that it’s Dark Magic.”
“It’s wandless magic,” said Ross pedantically. Spencer snorted, unimpressed.
“It’s dangerous magic whatever you call it,” he said. “And it’s difficult. This ritual is a lot more than any of us can handle.” Except one, he thought, and then saw by Ross’s expression that he thought it, too.
“You know about Brendon,” he stated flatly.
“He can do it,” Ross said, confirming Spencer’s guess. “He’s really strong.”
“And you think he has control over what he does?”
“I know he’s practised magic five times as long as any of us,” Ross said calmly.
Spencer knew that by this point, he probably shouldn’t be startled by how Brendon seemed to confide absolutely everything in Ross, but he was, anyway.
“I think he actually has more control when he isn’t using a wand,” Ross was going on, his tone of voice shifting into the one Spencer recognised from whenever Ross contemplated an interesting theoretical problem. “He’s said a few times that he sometimes feels clumsy, using a wand. Like he’s not connected to the magic any more.”
“That’s the point of wands,” said Spencer, aware of how sour he was sounding. “Magic is dangerous to handle directly.”
“But less so for Brendon than most, I think,” Ross insisted stubbornly. “He’s trained since he was seven. He knows where his limits are.”
Spencer couldn’t come up with another counter argument, and anyway they were just coming up on the Great Hall. He and Brendon separated from the Gryffindors and made for their usual places at the otherwise quite empty Slytherin table-they were among the first to arrive for lunch.
“What were you and Ryan talking about?” asked Brendon.
Spencer contemplated a number of answers but settled for the simplest, “The ritual.”
“Yes, it seems very difficult,” Brendon said thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I can do it, though.”
For some reason that statement, which told Spencer that Ross had already informed Brendon of his role in the proceedings, was what finally made Spencer lose his temper completely. “Don’t you understand how dangerous this is?” he almost shouted, then lowered his voice to a hiss. “Don’t you see that you could die if something goes wrong? I don’t understand how Ross could just tell you to do this!”
“He didn’t,” said Brendon. “I looked through the instructions when he brought the book the first time, and I told him that I’d do it. None of you can.”
“But you don’t even know if you can!”
“I have to try.” Brendon was looking more serious than Spencer had ever seen him. “That book has a piece of Ginny inside it. If we can’t break the curse, she will never be herself again.”
Spencer felt helpless. “It just doesn’t seem fair that you have to do this alone,” he said.
Brendon grinned at him. “But you’ll all be there with us,” he said, and there really wasn’t anything Spencer could reply to that. He stabbed his plate viciously with his fork, wishing everything wasn’t so complicated.
irce’s warts,” Ryan swore quietly. The ritual was turning out to be a lot more trouble than expected. Most of the paraphernalia needed was straightforward enough-rosemary for remembrance and Mooncalf Wheat for peace, both to soak in silver dishes with water; candles; silver knives-but then there was the detail that he’d all along known would be very hard to get indeed. A phoenix feather, for rebirth, to be burned at the end of the ritual.
Phoenix feathers were notoriously difficult to get hold of. The market price was somewhere in the region of ten Galleons a feather, and that was when there were any to buy at all. Even then, they were usually snatched up almost immediately by the wand makers. To be sure to get one at all, you had to sign up on a waiting list and be prepared to give it a few months. Months they didn’t have. It wouldn’t be long until the Mandrakes were grown enough to make the restorative Draught that would return the Petrified victims to health. Great, of course-but once they were back to their usual self there would be questions about who had attacked them, and they would point the finger at Ginny. Even if she managed to convince the faculty and Ministry representatives that she had been possessed, the diary would be destroyed and Ginny’s friend Tom with it. They had to solve the problem before then.
The best way to get a Phoenix feather, Ryan knew, was to receive it willingly given directly by a bird (which was of course also the reason why the things were so rare on the market-only one witch or wizard in a thousand or more ever managed to domesticate the Phoenix). It could seem an impossible task. But Ryan listened to the conversations around him in the Common Room, and one thing Harry Potter told his friends once caught his attention.
Dumbledore had a Phoenix.
So on Tuesday after lunch, when he had several free hours to go before his Flying class, Ryan went to where he knew the Headmaster’s Office was located and looked long at the gargoyles guarding the way.
“I really need to get in,” he said, feeling a bit ridiculous but persevering despite it. “I need to see Dumbledore’s Phoenix.”
The stone gargoyles did not react.
“I have a friend who’s in trouble,” Ryan went on. “I need a Phoenix feather to be able to help her.”
Still no answer.
“I just need to talk to him. Or her. The Phoenix. I want to ask-it for help. For my friend.”
No reaction.
“Her name is Ginny,” Ryan said quietly. “I just want her to be all right.”
There was a soft noise behind him, and when he turned, he saw a vividly red feather wafting gently down through the air to land a few feet off. It shimmered in the otherwise dull gloom of the corridor, as if lit by some inner glow. Ryan picked it up gingerly, almost expecting to singe his fingers.
“Thank you,” he told the empty air.
On his way back to the Gryffindor Tower, he reflected that he really hoped this didn’t mean he had been accepted as a true Gryffindor or something. He didn’t think he could live it down.
ince they didn’t know how much time the freeing ritual could be expected to take, they decided to perform it in one of the abandoned class rooms on the seventh floor.
Empty class rooms tended to fill up somehow-extra-curricular activities were mostly designed by students and conducted wherever there was room, so what had once been a Transfiguration class room (until a rather overenthusiastic student had irreversibly turned all the desks into slender trees) was now occupied by the Gobstones Club, several small choirs and musical groups practised in an abandoned corridor on the fourth floor and there were rumours of a class room where thirty-two students met each week to play out a game of live chess. The seventh floor, however, was mostly left to its own devices. Probably because there were more than enough class rooms at lower levels, and the stairs up to their chosen corridor were particularly excruciating. Ryan confirmed the room’s abandoned state with Professor Sinastra when she led them to their midnight Astronomy lesson, and to make doubly certain, they resolved to meet and begin the ritual at nine, when the school day had just begun and the risk of anyone wandering by was at minimum. The watch was always more relaxed around and after breakfast, too-the professors and prefects had been up all night patrolling the corridors, and most students stayed in their seats for the entirety of the meal.
Brendon and Spencer had decided to slip away one after the other, and Brendon had only had time to shovel a few pieces of toast into his mouth before it was time for him to make his exit. Muttering about a forgotten book he passed the prefect standing by the doors of the Great Hall. She was too busy yawning to really listen, and allowed him to run back to his Common Room without accompaniment. People were still milling in the corridors, after all. It was completely safe.
He was first to the meeting place, and immediately set to work placing the candles he’d brought in their marked spots in the floor. He hadn’t been long at it when the door slammed back, and he looked up quickly. He was expecting Luna-she was next on the schedule they’d drawn up for the sneaking-off-but instead Ginny collapsed next to him, panting heavily.
“I tried to tell him,” she gasped. “I was about to, but I lost my nerve and I-Percy came and then I just-I didn’t dare-do you think it’ll go wrong?”
“Who did you try to tell?” Brendon asked, trying to come to grips with the problem.
“Harry,” she mumbled. “Ryan said the reason I should be close to the diary today is that when we break the curse, the part of my-essence it took should be returned to me, and it should be easier if I’m close. So I thought I’d better get-what if it doesn’t find its way back to him?”
Oh, Brendon thought. They hadn’t really factored in Harry Potter in their calculations, but then none of them were certain that he had been badly affected by the diary. Ryan for one said he’d seen no change in Potter over the spring-not at all on the same scale as the alarming change they’d all witnessed in Ginny the previous autumn.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said, and found himself in unfamiliar territory as he tried to make up some sort of explanation. “It’s still-a part of you, right? Even if it was stuck in the diary. So it’ll find its way back to you, and Potter’s to him. It’ll just go faster if you’re closer. And-well, it would probably just have taken a long time to explain everything to Potter anyway, so maybe it was for the best...”
“But what if something goes wrong?” Ginny asked, biting her lip. Brendon shook his head.
“We’ll fix it,” he said.
Ginny nodded uncertainly, but her doubts seemed to have been eased for the moment. Together they continued working on the circle of candles, assisted by first Luna, then Spencer and Jonathan as they arrived one after the other. Finally Ryan entered the class room. It looked as though he was trying not to grin.
“Right,” he said, handing Brendon the last couple of candles, “the dishes with the herbs should be placed out evenly throughout the circle as well. Brendon and Ginny, you should already be inside when we light the candles.”
Brendon nodded, and he and Ginny entered the circle, setting the last candles in place once they were inside.
“The book might try to fight,” Ryan said, lighting the candles in his part of the circle. “Whatever it might send, just let it pass and we will handle it.”
Luna, already finished with her candles, sat down in the spot marked south and nodded sagely. “I’ve never tried Banishing phantoms before,” she said, “but I’m sure this will be a valuable lesson. I’m pleased. The Defence Against the Dark Arts classes have been very disappointing so far.”
(The main reason that Luna had turned in no Defence Against the Dark Arts homework at all until Jonathan started giving his away for free, was not her inability to rhyme-although that was bad enough-but that she, like Ryan, had flatly refused to do it.)
“It’ll be fine,” said Ryan. “We’ve gone through all the probable reactions the diary might have. As long as we keep the perimeter, everything should be fine.”
They all nodded, Spencer somewhat more reluctantly. He was worried about the Dark magic aspect of the ritual, Brendon knew, and he grinned, giving Spencer a reassuring thumbs-up.
“Everyone ready?” Ryan asked, and there were agreements from north, south and east-Spencer, Luna and Jonathan. Ryan nodded to Brendon, too, and sat down.
Brendon reached out and received the diary from Ginny. He laid it flat on the floor and put one hand on its cover, taking Ginny’s hand with the other. It should be easier to find a way into the diary with the help of someone who had already poured themselves into it, and he gripped her fingers tightly, closed his eyes and concentrated.
Open, he thought, and he saw before him a door, barred and locked. It looked heavy and forbidding. Open.
He had a key. He put the key in the lock and turned it once, then once again. Something clicked.
Ginny’s fingers tightened on his.
The bar was incredibly heavy, but he pushed at it, and little at a time, it started to inch upwards. Just a little further and he would be able to lift it away.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of Ryan saying “Watch the candles” and that Ginny’s grip on his hand was almost unbearably strong, but it all felt very far away. It was all he could do to keep concentrating on the door.
Slowly, as he mentally pushed the heavy bar the last bit of the way, he gripped the cover of the diary and opened it.
Someone cried out. Brendon’s eyes flew open, and Ginny’s hand yanked out of his.
All the candles were extinguished, and Ryan, Spencer, Jonathan and Luna had all fallen backwards. Ryan was curled up, holding his shoulder, Jonathan was half raised up on his elbows and staring at them, Spencer was scrabbling for his wand and Luna was staring dreamily at the bloody hand she had just touched to her temple.
“What-” Brendon began, and then he looked back at Ginny. She was smiling.
“Close,” she said, her mouth making a condescending little moue, “but not quite.”
“Ginny?” said Brendon.
“That-” Jonathan began, from somewhere behind him.
“I modified the Sicilian curse, you see. Or, well, added to it. Quite a clever bit of magic, actually.”
“You-” Brendon tried to make sense of what she was saying. Thinking took a lot of effort. Everything felt a little bit fuzzy, and he wondered if he’d been infected by the Wrackspurts Luna talked about. He fought the hysterical urge to laugh.
“That isn’t Ginny!” Jonathan exclaimed. Ginny stopped looking at Brendon, and smiled over his shoulder at Jonathan instead.
“Ah,” she said. “The Mudblood. Once upon a time, no self-respecting Slytherin would even go near one. Children today.” Ginny sighed ostentatiously. “I blame the schools, don’t you?” she murmured.
Behind her, Brendon saw Spencer finally locate his wand, and he ducked down just as Spencer turned and shouted, “Stupefy!”
It was one of the more difficult spells they had learned while preparing for the ritual, but Spencer was good at spellwork. A red jet of light flew straight towards Ginny-it would only Stun her, Brendon knew, but he looked up from his prone position, ready to catch her when she fell.
Ginny smiled again and flicked her fingers. The red light turned aside and thundered into the wall.
“Well,” she said, “as fun as this is-can’t stay all day, I’m afraid.”
“Who are you?” Jonathan demanded.
“Brendon, get away from her,” Spencer called.
Luna made a soft little noise and fainted.
“One down,” said Ginny, and Brendon’s world went black.
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