Chapter 30
The Tower Room
“He told you to search all the towers again?”
Harry and Ginny sat talking in the common room before breakfast while they waited for Ron and Hermione to come down. Harry had just spent the last 10 minutes telling Ginny about the previous night’s visit with Dumbledore. She had listened intently, curled up in a squishy armchair across from him.
“Yes. Apparently the room isn’t too hard to find, either. Most of the portraits seemed surprised that I hadn’t found it yet.”
Ginny’s brow furrowed and she began twirling a strand of red hair around one of her fingers in thought. “But we’ve searched all of them already, haven’t we? Let’s see, there’s the Ravenclaw tower “ but you and I checked that “ Trelawney’s tower…”
“I think I know which one it is,” Harry said, interrupting her.
“Really? Which one?”
“The Astronomy tower.”
“I thought Hermione and Ron checked it.”
“They did,” Harry replied. “At night.”
Ginny looked at him, puzzled.
“Alone,” he added with a meaningful look.
Her expression immediately went from puzzlement to slightly revolted comprehension.
“Gross,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re right “ we should definitely check it again. Those two are horrible, you know I accidentally ran into them snogging in the Owlry the other day?”
“The Owlry? Yeah, I ran into them last night. I think I’m going to start taking the Marauder’s Map with me everywhere I go just so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yeah, or maybe we could get Peeves to drop a used chamber pot from the Infirmary on them. Teach them not to do it where some poor unsuspecting person can come across them. Honestly, get a room…oh, quiet, here she comes.”
Hermione had appeared at the top of the girls dormitory stairs and began making her way down. Ginny quickly changed the subject.
“So, when are you going to go check the tower?”
“Well, it’s a full day of classes, so I reckon I won’t be able to until after dinner. You want to come?”
“Can’t, we have Quidditch practice today,” Ginny said with a small sigh as she turned to look out the window. The weather had been cold and dismal all week. Today didn’t appear to be an exception.
“Morning,” Hermione said cheerfully as she sat down on the chair next to Ginny. She looked up suddenly at Harry. “Oh! How did it go last night with Dumbledore? Does he know about the second diary?”
By the time Harry had finished explaining the previous night’s meeting to Hermione, Ron had joined them and he had to start all over again. He filled Ron in as they walked towards the Great Hall for breakfast. Once he had finished, Hermione (who had been quiet and thoughtful for some time) looked up suddenly and said, “Well, at least there’s a bit of good news too, isn’t there?”
Harry and Ron looked at her incredulously.
“Er…good news?”
“Yeah, which part are you talking about? The part about having to search all the towers again or the part about how the whole thing may be a hoax?” asked Ron sarcastically.
Hermione shook her head and rolled her eyes impatiently. “No, how about the fact that the headmasters were even talking about the Half-Blood Prince at all? I mean, before last night we weren’t even sure if the legend was real or not. But if it’s been passed down through the headmasters for centuries and they’re all still talking about it, there’s bound to be some truth to it, right?”
“Well, not all of them think there’s truth to it,” said Harry.
“What do you mean?”
“There was one old headmaster named Percival, I guess he spent the last part of…”
“Wait, Percival Hamascus?” asked Hermione in surprise.
“Er…I dunno. I never heard his last name. Why?”
“Headmaster Hamascus contributed most of what we know about Godric Gryffindor. He spent a good deal of his life researching him and his family. It’s all in Hogwarts, A History.”
“Oh yeah, I read that chapter just last night. Couldn’t put it down,” said Ginny in a tone of mock-enthusiasm. Harry and Ron laughed. Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Well, whatever he did, he sure doesn’t think searching for Wulfric Gryffindor is a good use of time. Said if there really was a third diary we would have found it by now and we were all fools for still looking.”
“Really?” Hermione said in surprise. Her eyes narrowed and she looked deep in thought, as if hearing that Percival Hamascus thought the Half-Blood Prince was a waste of time were causing her to doubt too.
“Well, I suppose spending a lifetime searching for Wulfric Gryffindor and never finding anything made him bitter,” she said at length. “I would be too, if it happened to me.”
“Maybe, but the whole thing doesn’t sound too promising, does it?” said Ron, shaking his head skeptically. “I mean, if past headmasters spent years looking for this bloke and couldn’t find anything, what chance do we have?”
Harry didn’t want to admit it, but he was inclined to agree with Ron.
Hermione shook her head stubbornly. “It can’t be completely hopeless, Ron. I mean, Dumbledore’s probably the busiest person in England right now, and if he thinks searching for Wulfric Gryffindor is worth his time than he must have a pretty good reason. I think he thinks Harry might be able to help them find the Half-Blood Prince, otherwise he never would have told him about it in the first place.”
“Well, I guess we won’t know until we find the next room, will we?” Ginny said in a tone of finality as they entered the Great Hall. “Harry’s going to go check the towers again today after dinner if you want to go with him Hermione.”
“I’ll go too.” Ron said absently, his attention on a plate of bangers and mash set on the Ravenclaw table they were walking past.
“We can’t Ron, we’ve got Quidditch practice. You’re the captain, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” Ron replied, disappointed.
“Well I’ll go with you, Harry,” said Hermione. “Let’s meet in the common room after dinner.”
***
Harry found it hard to concentrate during classes that day. In Herbology Professor Sprout had them pruning Bulgarian Murknestles, a task that was made especially difficult due to the fact that if you cut off the wrong branch they would spit a milky white slime that stuck that stuck to your clothes and skin like a gigantic piece of foul chewing gum. His mind on the third diary and not the task at hand, Harry mistakenly snipped the wrong branch and the gigantic plant launched its white, glutinous missile at him. Fortunately, he was able to dodge move his head out of the way just in the nick of time. Unfortunately, the slime whizzed past him and hit Lavender Brown squarely in the back of the head and she had to be taken, crying, to Madame Pomprey’s to be given a dissolving solution.
After what seemed like an eternity (Transfiguration took just as long) Harry finally found himself trudging alongside Ron down the corridor leading to the Great Hall for dinner. After a quick bite Harry and Hermione said goodbye to Ginny and Ron (though Ginny looked like she was seriously considering skipping Quidditch practice and going with them) dropped their books off in the dormitories, then set out to search the towers.
“What do you think Harry? Where should we begin?” asked Hermione as they made their way down the moving staircases and into the main corridor.
Harry had planned on her asking this. He had actually spent part of Herbology trying to come up with a legitimate reason for suggesting they check the Astronomy tower first, something more tactful than ‘I don’t think you checked it well enough the first time because you were snogging Ron.’ Hopefully it would work.
“Er…how about the Astronomy tower? I figured it was the furthest away, so if we started there we could work our way back and make it to the common room before it got too late.
The reason seemed to be good enough for Hermione, as she gave a small shrug and nodded her head. They walked through the corridors towards the tower, occasionally running into other students and exchanging greetings but for the most part silent and lost in their own thoughts. At one point they came across Peeves ricocheting off the walls in a corridor adjoining theirs. Once he saw them he flew towards them.
“Oooohhh! Poopy-Peppy-Potty and Mistress Prefect!” he taunted, giving an overly dramatic bow to Hermione as he said the last part. “What are you two doing out together? Won’t the ickle fireheads be jealous?”
He cackled heartily as he sat hovering in the air several feet above them.
“Come off it Peeves,” said Harry, slightly annoyed.
“Come off what? This?” he smirked as he detached an iron candle-holder from the wall next to him, sending it crashing down a few feet from Harry.
Harry reached inside his robes to remove his wand. He had come across a spell recently in his studying that was supposed to work on ghosts and other incorporeal beings, something called an Ethereal Displacement jinx. He had been hoping for a chance to use it on Peeves, just to see what it would do.
“Peeves, get out of here right now,” Hermione ordered.
“Or what, you’ll give me…” he blew a giant raspberry in her direction, “Detention? Ha ha ha ha!”
“No, I’ll go tell the Bloody Baron that you got soot and ash all over the tapestry of Hildecrest the Hungry,” she said, pointing bossily at the space on the floor where the candle had smashed against a tapestry hanging on the wall. “That’s one of his favorite tapestries, you know.”
Peeves laughed derisively, then bounded off back down the corridor he had come from.
“You know the Bloody Baron’s favorite tapestries?” Harry asked in disbelief as they continued towards the Astronomy tower. The very idea that the Bloody Baron would even have a favorite tapestry seemed absurd.
“No, I just made that up. Peeves is too scared of him to ever check if you’re lying or not, so you can pretty much tell him anything you want.”
At length they came to base of the Astronomy tower. It was, for the most part, a broad, hollow cylinder with a wide, winding staircase that followed its outer wall all the way to the top, then tapered off into a small, rectangular slot. In the rectangular slot the staircase narrowed and doubled back on itself a couple times for about six feet before opening up into the broad stargazing platform on the roof above. It was one of the tallest towers at Hogwarts and generally took at least 10 minutes to ascend.
As they began climbing up the long staircase, Harry thought back to the last time he had been there. It had been during the practical portion of their Astronomy OWL exam the year before. Umbridge and her cronies had snuck out of the castle in an attempt to apprehend Hagrid. Hagrid had escaped, but poor Professor McGonagall had been blasted by about four stunners all at once, causing her to have an extended stay at the hospital. Professor Umbridge. Her name still made his blood boil. He thought back to the article about her getting sacked from the Ministry and suddenly felt much better.
Realizing they were already almost a quarter of the way up the tower, Harry looked around for any sign of a hidden room. There were a couple rooms set in the outer wall at the base of the tower, but they were used for storage and were much too long to be the room they had seen in the diary. The rest of the tower was surprisingly bare (its main purpose being stargazing and surveying the surrounding countryside) and there was nothing but a few tapestries and the occasional window to break up the monotony.
They continued their ascension. Hermione was now panting slightly from the physical exertion and they were nearly halfway up the tower. Still no sight of anything out of the ordinary. Could the room be invisible? No, Harry reasoned, that would make it much too hard to locate. From the way the portraits talked it seemed like it was reasonably easy to find. Perhaps there was a secret passage behind one of the tapestries, a doorway leading to a secret side-room? He pulled the next few tapestries they passed from the wall and searched behind them, until a quick glance out of one of the windows showed him such a room was impossible “ the outer wall was only a couple feet thick and there wasn’t nearly enough space to hid an entire room. Harry cursed the simplicity of the tower. He had expected there to be nooks and crannies, dark corners that could hide a secret door. Instead it was just a giant, hollow cylinder, nothing but staircase and windows all the way up. The feeling of anticipation he had felt the night before began to slip away. It didn’t look like the hidden room was in the Astronomy tower. They might have to check the other towers after all…
As they reached the top of the winding staircase they paused to catch their breath. Hermione’s face was red and they were both panting.
“I suppose we might as well check the top since we’re here,” said Harry, defeated. Hermione only nodded, too out of breath to reply.
They made their way up the second, shorter staircase set in the rectangular shaft in the center of the tower and out onto the roof. The sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains in the distance, painting the clouds a magnificent gold. It was a breathtaking view was unfortunately lost on Harry, who had already begun thinking about what tower to search next.
“You were right, there’s nothing here,” he said to Hermione sullenly. “D’you reckon we should we check the North tower next?”
“Yes, I suppose we should,” said Hermione with a reluctant glance towards the staircase that told Harry she wasn’t too keen on starting down them just yet.
They trudged back down the rectangular shaft and its five or six feet of stone wall on each side and back onto the winding staircase. Just as they started the long decent, disappointment settling in Harry’s stomach like a bar of lead, something suddenly occurred to him.
“Wait.”
He put his arm out in front of Hermione and they both stopped in their tracks. He looked back up at the rectangular shaft they had just come through. There was something strange about it…
“What? What is it?” Hermione asked as she came up behind him.
Harry didn’t answer immediately. He was busy investigating the wall. Why would there be a rectangular shaft leading upwards to the roof of the tower? Why wouldn’t the spiral staircase lead all the way up? Unless…
“Hermione, look at this wall,” he said, placing his right hand over the cool stone. Keeping his hand there he stretched out his left arm towards the other wall. The space was so narrow he could almost reach. “The tower is just as wide up here as it is at the bottom, but for some reason the staircase narrows right in this area. There’s at least five feet here of just stone. What do you suppose is behind these walls?”
Hermione looked at him puzzled for a moment, as if she didn’t understand what he was talking about. Then the comprehension began to dawn on her face. Harry was surprised she hadn’t noticed it first.
“You’re right, Harry. That is a bit peculiar,” she said distractedly as she investigated the wall herself. “I never even noticed this part before “ I just assumed it was part of the ceiling. Now that you mention it, though, it does seem rather large to just be part of the ceiling. You don’t suppose…there could be a room in there?”
They gazed at the dimensions of the shaft, trying to recollect the size and shape of the room in the diary.
“I remember the diary room had one wall, the one on the right, that was curved and the other was straight,” said Harry, picturing it in his head. “So I guess this couldn’t be it, because the entire thing is circular?”
“Hmm,” said Hermione, biting her lip. “Maybe you’re right. It does look about the same size as the room in the diary, doesn’t it? Yes, it definitely had a curved wall and a flat one. Kind of like a half-moon shape…Wait!
She put her hands on the wall in front of them, then looked over excitedly.
“But if we were in the space inside of this wall, the outer wall of the tower would be curved, and this one…” she patted the wall with her hands, “…would be straight! Harry! I think this is it!”
Harry’s heart began to race with excitement. His eyes darted around the small stairwell they were in, looking for an entrance. Instead all he saw was a blank, stone wall.
“Great. Er…how do we get in?”
“What did Dumbledore tell you again?”
Harry thought back to the advice the headmaster had given him the day before. “Er…He said, not all doors are in the most practical of places. What do you suppose that means? There’s a secret entrance or something, like Diagon Alley?”
Hermione pulled out her wand, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Possibly, let’s check,” she said as she prodded anxiously at the giant, rectangular stones that made up the wall.
Harry joined her and they spent the next few minutes searching the wall for any sign of a hidden door.
“Wait, let’s take a step back and think about this,” said after a couple minutes of fruitless searching. She stepped back from the wall and put her wand down. “The clue Dumbledore gave you was not all doors are in the most practical of places, right?”
“Yes.”
“So that means there definitely is a door…it’s just not in a very practical place...”
She remained thoughtful. Harry looked at her, wondering what she was getting at. After a moment or two she looked up at him.
“Harry, I don’t think he was saying that the door is hidden, I think he means that the door is in an unusual place!”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, look at it this way “ if this really is a room, where would the most practical place to have a door be?”
“Er…right here,” he said, placing his hand on the wall in front of them.
“Right, so where would the most impractical place be?”
Harry thought for a moment. The most impractical place to have a door? That would be…
Without answering he ran back down the stairs, Hermione on his heels. Once they were back on the spiral staircase they looked up at the underside of the room above them, trying to find some hint of a doorway.
Nothing.
“Hmm,” Hermione said, her brow furrowed. “I don’t see anything. And there’s not a trapdoor opening up from the roof “ I noticed when we were up there. I don’t see where else you could have a door. Unless…”
Harry’s brain made the connection the same time she did. They looked at each other in shock.
“No,” Hermione shook her head in disbelief. “But why would they…”
Harry was halfway up the rectangular shaft before she could even finish the question. He raced up the last remaining stairs and out onto the stargazing platform. The sun had sunk even lower beyond the horizon and the clouds were now a deep, bold crimson. He walked towards the edge of the tower where a short wall built of stone had been placed to protect the unwary stargazer from a chillingly far drop to the ground below. Lifting himself so his chest was flat against the top of the wall he gazed down at the side of the tower. The sight was dizzying.
The outside of the tower was made of the same grey, rugged stone they had seen on the inside. The stone had been cut into giant square and rectangular blocks that were stacked on top of each other, leaving deep, dark fissures between them. His eyes quickly scanned the surface of the tower. At first he didn’t notice it; the entire wall was the same somber, drizzly grey, but after a moment something caught his eye. A small indentation beneath him and slightly off to the left where rough surface of the wall suddenly became smooth.
A doorway.
It appeared to be made of iron, had a flat base and pointed top and was only a few feet tall, as though it were made for a rather short person. The outside of the door blended in with the rest of the wall so well it was barely noticeable; Harry doubted he would have ever noticed it if he hadn’t been looking. His heart raced even faster.
“Hermione! Come look!” he shouted.
Hermione, who had been peering cautiously over the wall on the other side of the tower, ran over.
“The door, it’s there! Look!”
He pointed at the doorway. Hermione leaned over the wall, trying to look at where he was pointing.
“Oh my! That’s it…we found it!” They exchanged an excited glance. Suddenly Hermione’s expression turned to one of confusion.
“But who in their right mind would build a room at the top of a tower with the door opening up from the outside?” she asked logically.
“What, and the rest of the castle makes sense?” Harry replied absently, still too excited to care who had built the room or why they had put the door where it was. “The real question is, how are we going to get down there?”
“Hmm…rope? Some sort of ladder? There’s that levitation charm Professor Flitwick mentioned in Charms the other day, I’ve been wanting to try that out,” Hermione suggested.
“No, that would take too long. I’ve got a better idea,” said Harry anxiously. Hearing Hermione mention Charms and looking out across the grounds had given him an idea. His fourth year, task one of the Triwizard Tournament…
“Why don’t I just summon the Firebolt? We could fly down there.”
Hermione shook her head. “Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? It worked during the Triwizard Tournament, didn’t it?”
“Yes but the castle was empty then. If you go summoning your broom now, who knows what it will…”
“It’ll be all right,” Harry interrupted, anxious to get down to the room and see what was there. Before Hermione could protest he had his wand out.
“Accio Firebolt!”
A few moments of silence. Then there was a soft swishing sound that grew louder and louder. Suddenly the broom came sweeping over the corner of the tower, straight into Harry’s open hand. Grinning, he kicked one leg over it and was about to take off when he noticed small and black dangling from the back of his broom.
On closer inspection he realized it was a book bag. Its leather strap had somehow become entangled with the broomstick and its flap hung open, spilling parchment, quills, and a book out onto the ground. From what it looked like the bag had lost half its contents on its trip up to the tower. Harry leaned over and picked up the book, Beginning Transfiguration by Brinhilda Hobblescop.
“Property of Madeline Hillman,” Harry read from inside the cover. Apparently the broom had passed poor Madeline in one of the corridors and made off with her book bag. Harry glanced at Hermione, who was glaring at him accusingly with her hands on her hips.
“Er…I’ll make sure Madeline gets her bag back,” Harry said, trying to act remorseful.
Hermione continued to glare at him.
“So give me detention then,” said Harry as he dumped the bag unceremoniously to ground, too anxious to see what was in the room to care that his broom had assaulted an unsuspecting first-year. He launched into the air and circled the tower, getting a closer look at the door.
Now that he could see it up close, Harry realized why they had never spotted the door before. It was small “ probably only about three feet tall “ and blended almost perfectly with the stone surrounding it. Even if someone did see it they probably wouldn’t pay it any attention, thinking it was just a sealed window or some sort of storage room. He flew up to the roof, hovering alongside Hermione.
“You coming?”
“Um…yes,” Hermione said nervously, looking wide-eyed at the perilous drop below them.
Harry helped her onto the broom behind him (she threw her arms around his waist as if her life depended on it) and dropped down a few feet to the door.
“Hermione, can you get it for us? I can’t exactly reach my wand right now.”
“Oh…Y…yes, just a moment,” he heard her reply. She took a deep breath (Harry suddenly realized she wasn’t used to flying so high) and he felt one arm unwrap itself from him as she took out her wand.
“Alo..Alohomora!”
The sturdy iron door creaked on its hinges as it slowly opened towards them, revealing a dim, dingy room behind. Maneuvering the broom so they could climb inside (not an easy task considering the doorway was only three feet high and there were two of them on the broom) they looked up to see a small, cramped room full of cobwebs and dust.
At first Harry thought it was the wrong room, as the one they had seen in the diary looked much different, but on further inspection realized the passing of centuries was bound to have changed its outside appearance. The room was shaped just as the one in the diary had been, had the same criss-crossing rafters as the one in the diary, and (Harry noticed as his heart raced even faster than before), had a small, wooden bookcase against the wall with the top shelf completely empty.
Hermione exhaled excitedly, apparently coming to the same realization about the room that he had. “This it, isn’t it? This is the room we saw! What do you suppose this table is all about?”
She put her hand on a small, square table that had been placed next to the doorway. A similarly small chair was placed next to it. On top of it were a few random pieces of pottery and eating utensils, as if it had once been used for dining.
Harry walked by, barely even paying attention to it, focusing on the small bookcase across the room from them. He walked across the room, tearing down the cobwebs in front of him with his left arm while he pulled out his wand with his right. This is why he had come here. This is what would hopefully provide him with the answers he wanted.
He waved his wand and said the word that had been hovering about in his mind for so long, the word Rowena Ravenclaw had said at the end of her last diary.
“Acclaronius!”
He waited expectantly. Nothing happened. He said it again, this time tapping the bookshelf with his wand.
Nothing.
By this time Hermione had come up alongside him, watching excitedly.
“Acclaronius!” he said again and tapped the bookshelf a couple times more. Still nothing.
“Perhaps you’re not waving your wand correctly. Maybe it’s more of a flick than a swoop. Let me try,” Hermione said impatiently. She waved her wand and said the same word, but to no avail.
After about ten minutes of this Hermione finally gave up, leaning back against the wall behind them.
“Well, I don’t know what we expected,” she said resignedly. “I mean Dumbledore and the other headmasters did tell you there was nothing there.”
“I don’t know. I guess I expected something though, like a clue or a hint to give us something to go on,” Harry replied in frustration as he said the incantation and tapped the bookshelf again.
By this time the sky outside had darkened considerably. Giving it up as useless, Hermione returned to the Gryffindor common room (Harry had to give her a lift back to the top of the Astronomy tower) while Harry stayed behind and kept trying. He kept at it for a half-hour more before finally admitting defeat and leaving the tower. It was getting late and he would get in trouble if he were found roaming about the castle much longer.
Deciding it was safer to walk back to the dormitories than to fly around the castle at night, Harry hovered down to the base of the tower and entered the castle through a side door, his Firebolt thrown over his shoulder. A feeling of frustration like he had never felt before engulfed him as he walked through the nearly empty corridors. He could now begin to understand Percival’s contempt for the whole Half-Blood Prince; he had only spent a few months tracking Wulfric Gryffindor and was ready to give it up. Percival had spent half his life. A part of him had been so excited to find the hidden room, so excited that he was part of this ancient legend that he had been sure he would find something there. Instead all he found was a plain, wooden, bookcase whose top shelf remained infuriatingly empty.
He took the long way back, not wanting to meet up with Ginny and Ron and admit that there had been nothing there. As he stalked through the corridors, lost in his thoughts, he came across Peeves floating through the air. He was trailing a long, thin chain behind him that looked suspiciously like it had belonged to a chandelier.
“Ooooo! Potty-wee-Potty, out past curfew again! Filchy would want to know about this!” he threatened with his usual cackle.
Annoyed (an encounter with Peeves was the last thing he felt like right now), Harry pulled out his wand. Perhaps he would get a chance to try out that new spell after all. It would definitely feel good to vent some of his frustration.
“Come off it Peeves, I’m warning you,” Harry replied, knowing it would only egg him on.
“Oooo, a warning!” Peeves cackled in delight. “I had better watch my step, or Potty here will…”
Without warning Peeves threw the long chain at him. Harry dodged out of the way and pointed his wand at him.
“Aeris Iacio!”
What happened next was one of the oddest things Harry had ever seen. A ghostly white bolt shot out of his wand and caught Peeves on the side of his face, causing his entire plump frame to vibrate as if he were being electrocuted. He emitted a strange sputtering noise then all at once the side of his face that had been hit (which included his right eye, entire nose and a greater part of his mouth) splattered against the wall behind him. It was a very strange sight “ a roaming eye (not unlike Mad-Eye’s), a nose, and half a mouth all strewn across the back wall, glowing a pale ghostly white. For a brief moment Harry worried that he had seriously injured Peeves until he realized he was a poltergeist and the worst the spell could do was annoy him and cause intense discomfort. Completely shaken by the experience (apparently the Ethereal Displacement jinx was new to Peeves as well) the mischievous poltergeist flew quickly to the wall where the various parts of his face had been splattered, picked them up with a trembling hand, and attempted to meld them back into his disfigured face. When he turned around his nose was where his eye should have been, one half of his mouth sat where the nose used to be like a grotesquely large nostril, and his right eye was peering out of the side of his head, as if there were a small creature living in his ear, waiting to pounce.
Harry let out a roaring laugh to which Peeves (whom he had never seen so mad) responded by making an extremely rude gesture and rocketing out of the room furiously.
Feeling slightly better and making a note to show Ginny and Ron the Ethereal Displacement jinx as soon as he had a chance, Harry continued through the castle toward the Gryffindor common room. His thoughts soon turned back to the tower room and the third diary, and he tried to think up possible explanations for why there was nothing there.
Perhaps one of the first headmasters, one of the first six whose portraits hadn’t been done, had found the third diary but neglected to replace it? Maybe they had studied it and left it somewhere else in the castle, somewhere they had no hope of finding? No, that didn’t seem very likely. A Hogwarts headmaster would be sure to take care of an important artifact like the diary.
What if Ravenclaw had never made a third diary? Perhaps she put together the first two and meant to finish the others but something had come up unexpectedly and she wasn’t able to? No, that didn’t seem very likely either, as all the previous headmasters seemed pretty sure that there were four diaries.
Not able to think up any other reason for the missing diary, Harry resorted to the feeble explanation that maybe the diary really was in the bookshelf, but he just hadn’t said the words with the correct intonation or waved his wand correctly. That, at least, gave him hope.
Firebolt slung over his shoulder with his left hand, wand in his right, Harry said the words over and over, each time trying a slightly different wand movement. He knew it was feeble, but part of him refused to admit there was nothing in the room, that there was nothing he could do.
As he entered a large corridor not far from the Great Hall there was an odd swishing noise, followed by a gentle clanking. Harry looked up to see Peeves (who had a nasty, vindictive look on his still-deformed face) pushing an enormous set of armor off its pedestal a few feet above him. He tried to jump out of the way but the breastplate and shoulder of the armor caught him in the back as it came thundering down around him. He rolled down a small set of stairs, the armor with him, and as he hit the ground both his wand and his Firebolt flew out of his hands.
Peeves (who, while he enjoyed dropping things on students must have been extremely angry at having his face rearranged, as he had never done something so heavy and dangerous as a full suit of armor) hovered over Harry, made a spitting noise in his direction and said, “Serves you right, whelp.” He then flew away laughing, though the laughter had a humorless, menacing tone to it.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment, trying to sort through the pain in his body to see if anything was broken. Everything seemed to be working, though he was bound to have quite a few bruises in the morning. He should have known Peeves would try to get revenge. Lying still for a moment longer, Harry had just begun pushing the heavy pieces of armor off him when he heard a number of footsteps enter the room.
Fearing it was Filch and Mrs. Norris, Harry quickly rose to his knees. Who he saw standing in front of him made his heart sink. He much would have preferred Filch and his cat.
Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, and Theodore Nott had just entered and were looking about the room in confusion. Malfoy’s eyes met Harry’s. All at once Harry realized the seriousness of the situation “ he had been hurt, his wand was lying on the floor seven or eight feet away from him (closer to Nott than to himself), and he was outnumbered four to one. Apparently Malfoy made this realization the same time he did, for his face broke into a triumphant sneer. He had undoubtedly been looking for a chance to get revenge on Harry ever since summer. This was the perfect opportunity.
Harry quickly tried to get to his feet and to his wand. His body was sluggish and still in pain from the fall “ it was all he could do to stand on his feet and not fall over. The sound of the armor falling off him caused the rest of Malfoy’s group to look towards him. Pansy Parkinson squealed with delight.
“It’s Potter, Draco! And look at the mess he’s made of the place. I think that this deserves at least a week of detention, don’t you?” she said gleefully. Malfoy had a similar look of glee on his face, as though Christmas had just come early, but with it was a strange sort of vengeful hatred that frightened Harry.
“No, no detention for Potter,” he said as he strode forward a few paces, flanked by Crabbe and Nott. Crabbe’s expression was angry. Nott’s was impassive.
“Well, there’s no ogre of a Muggle here to help you this time Potter, and no Dumbledore to bail you out of trouble like usual. I think it’s time for a little payback, don’t you, Nott? Crabbe?”
Harry’s eyes darted to where his wand was lying on the ground, just a few feet from Nott. Nott, noticing this, looked down to where he was looking and saw the wand. Harry cursed himself silently. He might have had a chance if he could have distracted them and gotten to the wand. Now there was no hope as Nott had moved towards it and picked it up.
Smirking venomously, Malfoy removed his own wand and pointed it at Harry. “Well, what should we start with first, boys? I’ve always found Potter’s face to be particularly offensive, perhaps we should clear it up a bit?” Harry braced himself, knowing he was in for a lot of pain. All he could hope for was to dodge Malfoy’s first spell and get one good shot at him before Nott or Crabbe hit him with a spell. He balled up his fist and prepared himself to strike.
Then something happened that totally caught Harry off guard. Nott, who had been silent the entire time, walked calmly up to Harry and handed him his wand back.
“I think the Furnunculus curse would be a good place to start, don’t y…Nott? What are you…What the hell are you doing!? Malfoy screamed.
Harry looked down at his wand, dumbstruck. What the hell was Nott doing, giving him his wand back? Nott looked at him for a second, his face still impassive, then turned and moved out of the way, as though he were only a spectator.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Pansy all glared furiously at Nott, apparently even more confused at what he had just done than Harry was.
“Come on then, Draco. You’re always banging on about how you could out-duel Potter if you wanted to. I want to see you do it.” Nott’s face remained stone-like as he spoke, though Harry thought he could detect a hint of contempt in his voice.
Malfoy looked absolutely furious, though after a quick look at Harry the fury was joined by fear. Harry smiled expectantly as he raised his wand. He didn’t know what Nott was playing at, but for the moment, he didn’t care.
“Go ahead Malfoy, I’ll give you the first shot.”
Malfoy glared venomously at Nott, then at Harry, then back to Nott. Nott only looked back at him, an expectant expression on his face. Harry noticed Malfoy take a couple steps back so Crabbe was in front of him. He looked at Harry calculatingly for a few moments, then put down his wand.
“No, no. I can’t. Prefects aren’t supposed to use magic in the halls,” he said in what he was obviously hoping was a convincing voice. “I think we will just give you deten…”
He stopped mid-sentence, looking at Harry’s wand pointed at his chest, seeming to rethink what he was saying.
“…Don’t let us catch you wandering about the halls anymore, Potter! Or next time it will be a week of detention. Now get out of here!” he said lamely. Harry stood right where he was, though he lowered his wand.
Malfoy then turned to Nott, who was still standing at the side of the group. Malfoy looked more furious than Harry had ever seen him.
“You’re finished with us, Nott, you understand? Finished!” he yelled. Nott looked back at him, completely indifferent.
“I knew you wouldn’t do it. You’re a weakling Malfoy.”
With that Nott turned and walked out of the room. Malfoy watched him go, his usually pale face flushed bright red. He glanced contemptuously at Harry one last time before turning on his heel and stalking from the room. Crabbe and Pansy followed, both with confused looks on their faces.
Retrieving his Firebolt from where it had skidded beneath a tapestry, Harry walked quickly back to the Gryffindor common room to tell Ginny, Ron and Hermione what had just happened.