Luo Bin looked in the direction Harry was pointing. A thin black notebook was wedged in a gap beneath the step at the cubicle door, sitting in the water, thoroughly soaked.
"It's a notebook. It wasn't here a few days ago!"
Hermione said.
"That's it! That's the thing someone threw at me!"
Moaning Myrtle stopped singing and shouted.
"There's an out-of-order sign at the bathroom entrance. Who would come in here... to throw things?"
Harry bent down and picked up the notebook. After shaking off most of the water, he was about to open it when Ron stopped him.
"Harry, its last owner must have thrown it away for a reason! You know my dad's the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. He often leads a group of people on searches of wizards' homes, and he's confiscated loads of magical books."
"Some books shoot lasers into your eyes and blind you the moment you open them. There's one called Wizard Sonnets that makes anyone who reads it speak only in limericks. Other books won't let you put them down once you've picked them up. You can only prise them out of someone's hands after they're dead..."
What on earth does Arthur Weasley tell his children all day? Horror stories? Luo Bin thought.
"All right, I understand why you're worried!"
Harry could tell at a glance that it was a diary. The faded gold stamp on its cover suggested that it had been made fifty years ago.
He couldn't help thinking of the tragedy that had happened fifty years earlier in the Second-Floor Girls' Bathroom—the very place where they were standing. Perhaps the diary contained an account of the Chamber Monster's attacks from another perspective.
"But we won't know whether it's magical until we open it!"
"No, don't!"
Ron