Cedric, You Make Me Sick

August 31, the night before school started.

Gavin sat at the old oak desk in the guest room, the black leather diary open before him.

He dipped his quill in ink and wrote a word on the blank page in Justin Finch-Fletchley's handwriting.

"Are you there?"

The opening reminded Gavin of how his dormmates in his previous life had started conversations with girls they had crushes on.

Unfortunately, the person he was chatting with was a boy from fifty years ago.

The ink sank into the page.

He waited a minute, then three. Nothing appeared.

Only the aged yellow grain of the parchment lay quietly under his Lumos.

Tom had grown increasingly silent over the past few days.

The change had probably begun with the matter of Dumbledore.

A few days earlier, Tom had finally been unable to hold back again—

After they finished discussing how to optimize the magic circuits of an improved Severing Charm, a question appeared in handwriting that tried a little too hard to look casual:

Why hadn't Dumbledore stopped Grindelwald?

Writing as Finch-Fletchley, Gavin told him that Dumbledore was now not only headmaster but also Minister of the British Ministry of Magic.

To stop Grindelwald, Dumbledore had been forced to step forward and bring the Pure-blood wizard families to heel.

He had also united the British Wizarding World and, for the sake of world peace, had recently announced his marriage to Grindelwald.

The next day, Grindelwald announced that he would no longer interfere with Britain and turned his attention to a country on an island in the East.

He intended to build a new regime there and rule the Muggles, proving that his lover was wrong and that Muggles were dangerous.

Tom stayed silent longer that time than he ever had before.

The diary's spine