THE VERY SECRET DIARY
ously hadn’t noticed the year on the cover and thought he had
Harry’s own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was star-
ing from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.
“Hand it over, Malfoy,” said Percy sternly.
“When I’ve had a look,” said Malfoy, waving the diary taunt-
ingly at Harry.
Percy said, “As a school prefect —” but Harry had lost his tem-
per. He pulled out his wand and shouted, “Expelliarmus!” and just
as Snape had disarmed Lockhart, so Malfoy found the diary shoot-
ing out of his hand into the air. Ron, grinning broadly, caught it.
“Harry!” said Percy loudly. “No magic in the corridors. I’ll have
to report this, you know!”
But Harry didn’t care, he was one-up on Malfoy, and that was
worth five points from Gryffindor any day. Malfoy was looking fu-
rious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled
spitefully after her, “I don’t think Potter liked your valentine
much!”
Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class.
Snarling, Ron pulled out his wand, too, but Harry pulled him
away. Ron didn’t need to spend the whole of Charms belching
slugs.
It wasn’t until they had reached Professor Flitwick’s class that
Harry noticed something rather odd about Riddle’s diary. All his
other books were drenched in scarlet ink. The diary, however, was
as clean as it had been before the ink bottle had smashed all over it.
He tried to point this out to Ron, but Ron was having trouble with
his wand again; large purple bubbles were blossoming out of the
end, and he wasn’t much interested in anything else.
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