Hermione Jane Granger

Last night I went to see Professor McGonagall and I asked her whether I could use the Sorting Hat and she told me that as long as I didn't tell anybody it was all right and the Sorting Hat promised not to tell anybody. So the Sorting Hat told me and it turns out that I am in GRYFFINDOR!!

Of course I can't do anything or wear Gryffindor things or anything at all, but it's ever so nice to know, and now I know to cheer for them in Quidditch. And think, Harry was supposed to be in Gryffindor as well, so we might've been housemates once. That's nice, isn't it? I wish I could tell him so, only I know I can't. And Terry is happy about that too even though we wouldn't've been housemates. I mean I don't think he's a Gryffindor at all. But that's all right because all the Houses are lovely! Only Gryffindor is the most lovely of all!

I think that perhaps Professor McGonagall was proud of me. She said "I'm honored to say that my House has you in it, Miss Granger," which was awfully nice of her wasn't it?

You all might not have realised that what was being served at the head table was unicorn!!!

Harry and Malfoy figured it out last night and I couldn't help hearing the ewwwws. Only, I think they oughn't have been ewws, they ought've been crying for the poor creature. It was so beautiful! It only wanted to say hello to Patil, and then it got taken away, and then - well anyway. I bet Harry's really happy that he didn't eat any now even though they sort of made fun of him, it's better to be made fun of than to eat unicorn, isn't it? Did everybody have to eat it or just the Death Eaters? I didn't see of course because I didn't come up when Harry did. 

I suppose it might not be obvious but Professor McGonagall, Professor Macnair was trying to set the unicorn free when we found him. I don't know why. I had hoped that Harry would help him only then Macnair wanted to blame it getting away on me, and I don't know what would have happened if that had happened because I am always in so much trouble already, and I might have gotten sent back to the camps or worse! So Harry said he couldn't do that and then everybody showed up to find out what Harry was doing. 

So I don't know what is happening to Macnair except that Harry's convinced he isn't trustworthy, he said something that made me think he'd heard you say that, Professor McGonagall, and he trusts you completeley, he thinks you're as loyal as can be, which I suppose you are in a way, so fine. And I don't know if Macnair really can be all that bad if he wanted to set the unicorn free, even if he did want to pin it on me, because it's not as if anybody thinks that Mudbloods are real people, so it's like saying "my krup ate my homework" isn't it?

I haven't had much time to work on the Pretiosissimum Donum Dei because I have been spending so much time in the library fixing books instead of being a scriptor. I just dyed the cover black which is all right because I think it will look good with gold embossing, before it was just plain because I had run out of time to do anything interesting on it. But now I need to do the illstrations again and I have been thinking about how I should do them. Last time I did them I just copied them out in a strong light box and they looked traced. But now Professor McGonagall told me that there isn't any hurry because the Lord Protector knows what happened.

So I have been thinking that perhaps I ought to draw the illustrations out myself so that they are really unique. Unique was a word of the day a long time ago, when I was less good at things. I think it will take me a long time to do, because I have only ever doodled a little bit. But it won't take as long as it might because last time I wrote out the Donum Dei I had to use all the paints and gold leaf and so on so I know how to use them at least a little.

Also now I won't have to get Madam Pince to charm the light box.

But I will have to be very careful that they are basically the same because they might mean something important. Also, Madam Pince said that she didn't think I should spend a lot of time copying them out because they have men and women "coupling" on them. But it isn't anything I hadn't seen before. Mum used to try and make me not see it in the camps but there are only so many places you can look. It's kind of gross but I suppose it is important for alchemy. So Professor McGonagall sat me down and asked me whether I had any questions and whether I understood that this was grown up things, and I don't think I would be a good alchemist anyway, so that was all right and I'm still allowed to copy them out.

Madam Pince also said that I could look at other pictures and copy off of them for the positions of people and things. So that is what I am going to do.

Terry, now that you have boots could you come out walking with me? Will Professor Carrow let you, today before it gets dark? While Professor Carrow is at lunch and he doesn't need you maybe? I know that you haven't been but you should see how pretty it can be in winter, even when there isn't snow, there's ice on the lake and I know you haven't seen that before because your toes would freeze off.

I'm  not dead and I'm okay and everything is okay, except that I have to recopy  all of the Pretiosissimum Donum Dei again, and I have to wear a little amulet that tells people where I am in the castle all the time. Which isn't so bad, really, not at all. 

I'll tell you more things about it later, Terry.

Anyhow yesterday Harry Marvolo spilled ink on the Pretiosissimum Donum Dei and I was so upset because it was alot of ink and it got all over and the book was ruined and so I went and I was crying in the loo and then the troll came and tried to kill me and Harry Marvolo and Ron and Neville and Draco Malfoy came and saved me. And then Professor McGonagall and Mr Lupin came and were very angry, and this lady named Rita Skeeter, and she wrote an article in the Daily Prophet that says I tried to lure Harry Marvolo into going after the troll but I never did. 

So I went and Professor McGonagall shut me up in my cubby which she does sometimes when I've been bad, but it isn't so bad now, and she left me a light because she said that it wasn't at all clear that I was at fault. And then she came and let me out and told me that I had to wear the amulet but that the Lord Protector wasn't very angry with me but that things were going to be very bad in the newspapers.

Anyway, thank you, Harry Marvolo and Draco Malfoy and Neville and Ron. I'm glad that I have friends people around me who care about whether a troll eats me even if I am a Mudblood.

Well, here is my journal!

I am not really supposed to have a journal, as I am an "indentured worker" (which means "slave," Prof McGonagall says, only I think there is actually a difference). Prof McGonagall has given me one anyway which is very nice of her I think.

The students who are coming this year are my age. I haven't had a real friend since I was very little so I think that it would be nice if I could make friends with them. They are arriving on the boats now and I went to have a look see at them, but all I could see were their heads in the boats going across the lake.

If I were a real Hogwarts student I think I would like to be in Ravenclaw. Then I would get to spend almost as much time reading as I get to spend now. If I were a real Hogwarts student I wouldn't get to read Restricted books, though, which would be too bad. But then I wouldn't be a slave, I suppose, and of course Prof McGonagall thinks that being a slave is a very bad thing. I don't know. Hogwarts isn't so bad as the camps were, and after all there are loads of people who are worse off than me, especially people who don't have any magic at all.