Ron walked through the next few days in a daze. To his surprise it was his sister Ginny that took the news of the attack hardest out of all of them. She had been non stop crying in her room for days whenever she had a spare moment. Ron wanted to reassure her, but he wasn’t sure what to say. The monster had petrified Hermione. The three of them, Ron, Neville, and Hermione had been friends for almost two years now with spending almost all of their time together. At least Hermione could be healed in a few months once the mandrakes matured… It was just like she was asleep.
Ron went into the second floor girls bathroom for his shift in stirring the polyjuice potion. Despite everything, Ron and Neville couldn’t waste all their hard work making the bloody thing over the last month when there was only just a few days left in finishing it.
“Come to throw more things at me too? Bullies are always throwing things at poor, poor Moaning Myrtle…”
Ron looked up and saw Moaning Myrtle floating near the ceiling looking like she was about to cry like always.
“Who came in here?” Ron asked, more afraid that their potion had been discovered than worried about the annoying ghost, “What did they throw at you?”
“A book. Right… there,” the ghost replied, pointing to one of the bathroom stalls. Ron walked in and picked up the black covered book. He looked at the inside cover, “Property of Tom Marvolo Riddle” he read out loud. He flipped through the pages and to his surprise they were all blank all the way to the end.
“Who throws away an unused book? And I don’t think there’s any Tom Riddle at Hogwarts, especially ones that would be coming in here,” Ron said, “Myrtle, what did the person look like that came in with this thing?”
“You are a very rude boy, not even trying to pretend to care about little old Myrtle. Maybe I won’t tell you, how would you like that!” The ghost replied indignantly.
“Now, C’mon, Myrtle. You’re a ghost, the book must have gone right through you. It is not like you actually got hit by anything,” Ron said in exasperation.
“Oh! Myrtle won’t feel it, so let’s just throw things at her fun?! Five points through her body! Ten points for her head! Go away, rude boy. I’m not telling you anything!”
Myrtle turned away in a huff with her arms crossed in front of her, still bobbing up near the ceiling. Shrugging, Ron went back to the polyjuice potion and did his stirring and then left the bathroom. No matter what he said, Myrtle wouldn’t budge and say anything else, only turning away in a huff after Ron spoke. Gah, Myrtle was so annoying!
— — —
“Check it out, Neville. Someone just threw it away in the bathroom. Tom Riddle, whoever that is. The whole thing is just blank, it's bizarre.”
Neville took it and after flipping through the pages like Ron had he started flipping it around and looking at one of the pages from an extreme angle. Ron glanced around the common room hoping no one would notice Neville’s strange actions.
“Neville, what are you doing?” Ron hissed quietly.
Neville looked up and blinked, “You didn’t do this? I bet there’s some secret message or invisible ink or something. My grandma does that sometimes for important family letters. Most of the time you can see little bumps on the pages if there's a message even if you can’t read it properly. But I don’t see anything, it might be revealed directly through casting a spell.”
“Wow, Neville. I didn’t know you knew all this spy stuff!” Ron said excitedly, forgetting his surroundings at the new information as he leaned over to inspect the pages closely.
“We-well only what my grandma showed me. That’s pretty much all of what I know.”
Ron didn’t see anything except smooth pages after a minute or so of his own inspection and he put the book back down.
“Do you know the spells that would reveal if anything was written invisibly there?” Ron asked.
“No,” Neville replied.
Ron groaned, “Then I think we both know where we have to go.”
“The Library,” They both said in unison.
— — —
“I swear the way these books are organized makes me want to smash something. Why was there a book on levitation spells next to dragon rearing?” Ron said.
“I don’t know. I think Madame Pince said the books move around this place on their own sometimes. Maybe they just shift around randomly and get out of order?” Neville replied
“Why would anyone enchant a book to do that? It’s just bloody annoying!” Ron said.
Neville shrugged and they returned to their books. They had found two or three or spells to cast on the book so far but none of them had managed to reveal anything on the blank pages.
Ron shut his book with a sigh. “This is going nowhere,” He said, “Want to do the transfiguration essay for Friday since we’re already here?”
“Alright,” Neville said.
— — —
Nothing Neville or Ron tried on Wednesday or Thursday about the mysterious book worked, and neither of them could figure out who Tom Riddle was either.
Now Neville and Ron had put aside their research to frantically study for the potions exam on Friday in the Gryffindor common room by the fireplace. The two of them struggled without having access to Hermione’s carefully labeled notes, there was just so much for them to remember!
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“Hey Neville, what about this…”
Neville reached over to grab Ron’s paper and bumped into his inkwell, spilling it all over his notes. Ron rapidly pulled it away, but stared at the soaked pages in horror. “No…”
Neville quickly tried to clean up the mess, nervously chuckling, “I’m sorry Ron, it was an accident…”
Ron glanced in fear at Neville’s notes that were even messier than his. Now Ron was really screwed for this test.
“Wait, look Ron. The book!” Neville said, pointing at the book Ron had left on the table. Even as Ron watched, the ink covering it was slowly drawn inwards and disappeared. Ron reached out and opened it and the book was pristine with not a bead of ink staining its pages.
“Well, hey that’s something!” Ron said, trying to put his destroyed notes out of his mind, “Maybe it is a cleaning spell gone bad, and it wiped the writing clean on the inside?”
“Yeah… that makes sense. I suppose I wanted it to be a secret message though,” Neville said, “Why else would someone throw it away in a bathroom like that?”
Ron looked up at a noise behind him and saw a red eyed Ginny standing there.
“Oh, hey Ginny,” Ron said, “How are you holding up- after, you know-”
“You- you seem to be doing just fine, Ron. I thought you were supposed to be Hermione’s friend?” Ginny replied, sniffling slightly.
“She’s going to be fine, Ginny,” Ron said, “She’ll be cured by the end of the year. I’m sure she’ll come back and still ace the finals after everything.”
“Ye-Yeah. I guess, but still- Nevermind,” Ginny fled and returned to her room, probably to cry some more. Ron saw her point, but he couldn’t go crying in his room all day because he was a little sad. He had tests, classes, and the mystery with Tom Riddle’s book to deal with. He was sure that Hermione wouldn’t want to come back to find Neville and Ron’s grade dropping heavily in her absence.
— — —
As Ron was going to bed, he suddenly was struck with a brilliant idea when thinking again about the mysterious book. He snuck out past a sleeping Neville, book and quill in hand as he returned to the common room. He sat by the fire and opened the book to the first page. He took out his quill and wrote carefully on the first page.
‘Hello, I am Ronald Weasley.’
After a few seconds, Ron’s writing faded and he let out a disappointed sigh. He really thought that would work…
Ink started bleeding back through the page, the words now in someone else’s handwriting.
‘Hollo, Ronald. How did you come to possess this diary?’
Huh, so it was a diary? Ron went to write again. He would have to be careful in how he phrased his answers. His dad said that enchanted objects only had a few preset responses or actions. If he wrote something too strange then who knows what the book might interpret his words.
‘Someone threw it away and I found it. Do you have any hidden writing you can show me?’
The wait this time there was a longer for the writing to return.
‘I do. But it would be much easier to show you directly. Is that acceptable?’
Ron shook his head. No way was he giving an enchanted object permission to do anything to him. All the stories his mum told him growing up always said how terrible it was to agree to things without knowing the exact terms in cases like this.
‘No, can you show me the writing only?’ He wrote.
‘Are you sure? It will be much faster to show you the memory directly. I know much of what happened at this school fifty years ago, when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened.’
Huh, show him the memory? How had it known that Ron was curious about the Chamber of Secrets? What had happened fifty years ago? But enchanting for memory charms was advanced magic, whoever made this must have been very talented or rich. Maybe even both. Actually Ron had never heard of something that could immerse someone in a memory like it suggested on its own. At least nothing but something that the most powerful of wizards would own. Ron felt a flicker of doubt. Was this really an enchanted object, or was he talking to a person right now?
‘No, just the writing please,’ Ron eventually wrote.
‘I do not have permission to do so. You can only view this information through the memory,’ The book replied and after a moment Ron wrote again, his suspicions now fully raised. He was going to take a risk here. This was something his dad said often fooled enchanted objects. The creators never thought to put such random responses in their constructions.
‘If I flip an 8 upside down, then what is the result?’
The book paused and vibrated on the table a bit. Ron rapidly drew his hand back and drew his wand on the book as the table shook. But after a few seconds the shaking stopped and more words came up on the page.
‘It remains the same. So the number 8 is still the answer. Why did you ask that?’
That was it. Ron was taking this to a teacher. Clearly it was some sort of cursed communicator with someone outside the castle. It was way too responsive to be the response of an enchanted item. He cast a levitation charm, realizing how stupid he had been before to touch it directly. Who knew what whoever it was would do if they thought they had been caught. Ron levitated it in front of him and started making his way to McGonagall’s office. If she wasn’t there then hopefully the teacher on patrol wasn’t Snape. Ron was sure he could manage anyone else long enough for them to hear him out at least. Ron was nearly at McGonagall’s office, book floating in front of him when he heard footsteps behind him.
Ron whirled around and saw a shorter figure approaching him. They was still shrouded in shadow of the hallway, and before he could react the person's wand was pointing at him. He heard a soft voice whisperer the incantation under their breath and then his vision was filled with a bright white light.
— — —
Ron blinked and sat up in his chair. He was sitting in the common room in front of the roaring fire, and the rest of the room was empty. Why had he gotten out of bed? He must have dozed off after studying for the test tomorrow with Neville. It was a shame they still couldn’t figure out anything about that Diary. Huh, Diary? Well, Ron supposed it could be a diary. That had been a random thought. But anyway, he and Neville would have plenty of time to inspect the mysterious book some more over the weekend. For now he should go to his real bed to sleep.
— — —
“Man, that test this morning was killer,” Ron groaned while Neville quickly agreed. Potions was always unpleasant for the both of them even if Neville wasn’t the worst of the Gryffindor students anymore. Especially with only Neville's notes to study with.
“Hey, Ron. Where’s the book?” Neville said, “I think I thought of something else that could be hiding the message.”
Ron reached into his bag and frowned. Where had he put it? He opened his bag wider and rifled through and was surprised when he didn’t see the little black book in there. He was sure he had put it in his bag.
“Sorry, I think I left it behind in my room this morning,” Ron said.
A few hours later after they got back, Ron went to search for it. It wasn’t in the room, Ron couldn't find it even after he recruited Neville to help him find it. After twenty minutes or so, they gave up trying to find it again.
“Where could it be?” Ron asked in confusion. He had been sure it was in his bag yesterday…
“Don’t worry, Ron. I lose things all the time,” Neville said comfortingly, “I’m sure if we wait a day or two it’ll turn up again.”
“I guess…” Ron said.
Even after searching their room three more times, Ron and Neville still couldn’t find the book. Eventually the two of them gave up. The mystery of it lingered in the back of their minds, but there was nothing else they could do. They had to focus on school, not unsolvable mysteries.