Chapter 53: Chapter-53: Secret revealed
Neville didnt know what it was about the diary, but he couldnt get himself to throw the diary away. Before Ronan wanted to see the diary, his friends suggested to him many times that it would be for the best to throw it away. After all, it was useless to him.
Even though he knew the diary was blank, he kept absentmindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it were a story he wanted to finish. And while he was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he had when he was very small and had forgotten. But this was absurd. He didnt really have friends before coming to Hogwarts, his security detail saw to it.
He didnt voice out his concerns when Ronan wanted to see the diary, a part of him wanted to deny the right to Ronan. He didnt know why he felt that way. But he did.
On the day he was supposed to hand over the diary to Ronan, he made his friends go to the Trophy Room to see the award that Riddle got. It was a burnished gold shield that was tucked away in the corner cabinet. It didnt carry details of why it had been awarded to him.
"Good thing too," Ron said when he mentioned the lack of details of the incident, "If they had mentioned the thing it would have been even more difficult to polish the whole thing,"
However, when they were in the room, they did find Riddle's name on an old Medal for Magical Merit, and on a list of Head boys.
"He sounds like Percy," Ron said with disgust when they saw his name in the Head boy's list. "Prefect, Head boy… Probably would have been top of every class as well…"
"You say as if that is a bad thing," Hermione said, taking offense at his tone…
When they reached the great hall that day, they saw that the walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling.
"I am too tired for this," Harry said, he was tired because of the late-night quidditch practice that took place last night.
"What's going on?" Ron asked them, sitting down and wiping confetti off his bacon.
"Today is February the Fourteen. It's Valentine's Day!" She said rather cheerfully.
Harry then pointed towards the teacher's table, "If you think that is worst, look there,"
Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where he sat, Neville could see a very dangerous cold Professor McGonagall looked today. While Snape looked as if he would go on a murder spree at any moment of time.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all… and it doesn't end here!"
Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen shabby-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.
"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion? And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"
Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison. Ron then turned to Hermione, "Please Hermione, tell me that you weren't one of the forty-six."
"This day is going to be interesting," Neville mumbled. And it went exactly as he predicted.
All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers. But as far as students were concerned, they were having fun, except for Hermione, who stared at the murdeous look whenever they barged in the middle of the lecture. It was all fun and all, but that afternoon when he along with the second and first year Gryffindors were walking upstairs, one of the dwarfs caught up with him.
"Oy! Neville Longbottom!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to him.
Suddenly, chills ran down Neville's spine, the thought of being given a valentine in front of the first year and second years made his skin crawl.
"I have got a musical message to deliver to Neville Longbottom in person," he said, twanging his harp.
"Not here," he hissed and then tried to escape.
"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of his bag and pulling him back.
"Let me go!" Neville snarled, tugging.
With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment, and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over everything. Neville scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf started singing, causing something of a holdup in the corridor.
"What's all this commotion?" came a familiar voice of Percy Weasley who just arrived.
But by then, it was too late. The dwarf started singing…
__________________________
"His eyes are as black as the black sea,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."
__________________________
Neville's face turned red, he could given everything at the moment to just evaporate at the moment. Percy then started to disperse the crowd, he got up picking the diary of Tom Riddle that had fallen not too far from him. "I swear I will strangle the one who sent me this," he mumbled.
It was then he noticed Ginny Weasley, running away from there with teary eyes. He looked around, and saw Percy glaring at him, "You should really think before speaking anything,"
Ron widened his eyes, "She sent it?" Percy didnt say anything and went his way.
It wasn't until they had reached Professor Flitwick's class that Neville noticed something rather odd about Riddle's diary. All his other books were drenched in scarlet ink. The diary, however, was as clean as it had been before the ink bottle had smashed all over it. Neville wanted to tell his friends about his discovery, but then he stopped. The thought of finding out the secrets of the diary before Ronan felt like something within his grasp.
That is why, Neville then asked Hermione to tell Ronan that he would give the diary to him tomorrow. She tried to ask about what was up, but he changed the topic. And that day, as soon as he got free from the classes, he went to his room to check his theory…
Neville sat on his table and flicked through the blank pages, not one of which had a trace of scarlet ink on it. Then he pulled a new bottle out of his bedside cabinet, dipped his quill into it, and dropped a blot onto the first page of the diary.
The ink shone brightly on the paper for a second and then, as though it was being sucked into the page, vanished. Excited, ge loaded up his quill a second time and wrote, "My name is Neville Longbotton."
The words shone momentarily on the page and they, too, sank without a trace. Then, at last, something happened. Oozing back out of the page, in his very own ink, came words. "Hello, Neville Longbottom. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"
These words, too, faded away. But he didn't stop there and scribbled back. "Someone tried to flush it down a toilet."
"Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read."
"What do you mean?" Neville scribbled.
"I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
"That's where I am now," Neville wrote quickly. "I'm at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff's been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?"
"Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned."
Neville quickly wrote back. "It's happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?"
"I can show you, if you like," came Riddle's reply. "You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him."
Neville hesitated, his quill suspended over the diary. 'What did Riddle mean? How could he be taken inside somebody else's memory?' he thought.
He glanced nervously at the door to the dormitory, which was growing dark. When he looked back at the diary, he saw fresh words forming.
"Let me show you."
Neville paused for a fraction of a second and then wrote two letters. "OK."
The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Neville saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a minuscule television screen. His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward, the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.
He felt his feet hit solid ground, and stood, shaking, as the blurred shapes around him came suddenly into focus. He knew immediately where he was. This circular room with the sleeping portraits was Dumbledore's office
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