202
"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag and pulling
him back.
"Let me go!" Harry snarled, tugging.
With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand,
parchment, and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed
over everything.
Harry scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf
started singing, causing something of a holdup in the corridor.
*237*
"What's going on here?" came the cold, drawling voice of Draco
Malfoy. Harry started stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped
bag, desperate to get away before Malfoy could hear his musical
valentine.
"What's all this commotion?" said another familiar voice as Percy
Weasley arrived.
Losing his head, Harry tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf
seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
"Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing
valentine:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord
Harry would have given all the gold in Gringotts to evaporate on the
spot. Trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, he got up, his
feet numb from the weight of the dwarf, as Percy Weasley did his
best to disperse the crowd, some of whom were crying with mirth.
"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class,
now," he said, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you,
Malfoy-"
203
Harry, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something.
Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry realized that
he'd got Riddle's diary.
"Give that back," said Harry quietly.
"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" said Malfoy, who obvi
* 238
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 staring
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 tauntingly at
Harry.
Percy said, "As a school prefect -" but Harry had lost his temper. He
pulled out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and just as
Snape had disarmed Lockhart, so Malfoy found the diary shooting
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 furious, 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