The missing Diary

Before long, he heard Harry and Ron, the two partners in misfortune, talking outside.

Then they knocked on the doors of the stalls Cyrus and Hermione occupied. "Hurry up, we have to go..."

A shrill voice answered, "I-I really don't want to come out. You go without me."

"Hermione, we know Millicent's ugly. No one will know it's you."

"No-really, no-I don't think I can come. You two get moving. You're wasting time."

Harry looked at Ron in utter bewilderment, which made him look even more like Goyle.

"All right, at least we still have Ginny-Malfoy?" Ron's last word caught in his throat as he caught sight of someone who nearly scared him to death.

What was Draco Malfoy doing here?

Had their plan been exposed?

But Harry soon noticed that the Malfoy before them was wearing Gryffindor robes.

"Are you Ginny?"

Cyrus nodded.

Now Ron caught on too. He stared at Ginny in disbelief. He could hardly believe that Ginny, who had been so reliable since the start of term, had slipped up as well. "But how can you question Malfoy while wearing Malfoy's face?"

"You're right, so I can't go." Cyrus put on a helpless expression with Malfoy's face, making Harry want to punch him a couple of times.

"Sorry, Ginny. You look really annoying."

"Thanks. You look stupid too-there isn't much time left. Hermione's potion won't last long, so you'd better hurry!" Cyrus rolled his eyes, then immediately urged them on.

After sending Harry off, Cyrus said, "Hermione, wait here for me. I think I can use Malfoy's appearance to gather some information elsewhere."

"All right, go on." Hermione couldn't wait for him to leave.

Cyrus had no intention of changing clothes. With a tap of his wand, his robes turned green. Then he strode out and headed straight for the Owlery without hesitation.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Countless markings immediately appeared on the blank parchment:

"Dumbledore's in the Headmaster's Office, and the other professors are in their own offices. There's someone in the Owlery-Malfoy. What's he doing there? Good, he's left."

Cyrus had a fright, but he saw that Malfoy hadn't stayed there long and had left almost immediately.

He promptly cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself and headed toward the stairs Malfoy was coming down.

As Malfoy walked, he kept his head lowered over a letter, probably accompanying a gift Narcissa or Lucius had sent him. A house-elf usually delivered such things straight to his dormitory, but perhaps circumstances were different for the Malfoy family lately, with Arthur Weasley looking for ways to deal with them.

After reading the letter, he unfolded a newspaper, and his expression immediately brightened.

Cyrus glanced at it and noticed a report about Ron and Harry driving to school, which had earned Arthur Weasley a punishment. Clearly, Lucius had applied some pressure over that incident too, leaving Mr. Weasley with no energy to make trouble for him.

After passing Malfoy, Cyrus continued upstairs and soon reached the tower.

There were very few owls in the tower, and almost all of them were school owls available for general use.

Cyrus took out the letter he had prepared beforehand, found Draco Malfoy's owl, and sent it off. The owl never noticed that the person before it wasn't its real owner.

Watching the owl spread its wings amid the wind and snow, Cyrus couldn't help smiling.

Now it was time to drive Dumbledore out of Hogwarts too.

"Did you find out any secrets?" Cyrus met Harry and Ron at the entrance to the Bathroom. They had almost completely changed back, and their oversized robes made them look ridiculous.

"Malfoy isn't the heir!"

"So all that effort was for nothing?"

"Well, it wasn't a complete waste of time," Ron said breathlessly, turning to shut the Bathroom door. "I know we still haven't figured out who's behind the attacks, but I'm going to write to Dad tomorrow and tell him to search underneath the Malfoys' drawing room."

Ron hammered on the door of Hermione's stall.

"Hermione, come out. We've got loads to tell you-"

"Go away!" Hermione said shrilly.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked. "You must have changed back by now. We..."

Moaning Myrtle suddenly slipped through the stall door. She looked delighted, as though something wonderful had happened.

"Ooh, just you wait and see," she said. "It's horrible!"

They heard the lock slide back, and Hermione emerged, sobbing. Her face was covered in black fur, her eyes had turned yellow, and two long, pointed ears poked out of her hair.

"It was a cat hair!" she wailed. "M-Millicent must have a cat! But P-Polyjuice Potion isn't meant for animal transformations!"

"That's rotten luck," Ron said. But the corners of his mouth curled upward, as though some strange fetish had awakened in him.

"You'll never hear the end of it," Myrtle said happily.

"It's all right, Hermione." Cyrus also thought Hermione actually looked rather cute like this. A real, live furry was a rare sight. But seeing how upset she was, he offered a suggestion instead. "We'll take you to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey never asks too many questions..."

It took them a long time to persuade Hermione to leave the Bathroom. Moaning Myrtle's delighted, raucous laughter made them quicken their pace.

"Just wait until everyone finds out you've grown a tail!"

"Don't worry. There have actually been plenty of cases like yours. It's completely curable, as long as we don't hand you over to Lockhart," Cyrus said, nearly making Ron laugh.

After taking Hermione to the Hospital Wing, Cyrus decided to return Ginny's body to her for now. The intense possession over this period had left her in somewhat poor health, so it would be best to let her rest peacefully over the Christmas holidays.

Cyrus told Ginny a few selected details so she wouldn't give herself away.

"So Malfoy isn't the heir, and we've lost our lead again?" Ginny summed up the progress "Mr. Riddle" had made over this period. It had more or less amounted to nothing.

"It wasn't a complete waste. At least Ron found a weakness in the Malfoy family's defenses, and I discovered that your brother Percy was romancing the Ravenclaw Prefect in the Girls' Bathroom."

"All right, don't worry. I'm sure things will get better," Ginny said reassuringly.

But something unexpected still happened.

After the Christmas holidays ended, Cyrus suddenly discovered that he could no longer contact Ginny.

Someone else had opened the Diary.