Hermione Jane Granger

ONE OF MY FRIENDS JUST TOLD ME SOMETHING IMPORTANT

In New London in a loo on the west of a statue there's a woman who's in trouble and they think she's a muggleborn who's run away, and she's pregnant

she needs help. But I think it might be too late. Please help

the statue is of the Lord Protector.

I Solemnly Swear that I am Up to No Good.

Fred, George, I think I found the spell that you need to bring more people in on this!!!

Last night someone left out a book in the Slytherin common room and it talks about the spell Obliviate. How didn't we think of that?! It makes so much sense. I mean if someone does find out, and they aren't trustworthy, you could Obliviate them! I think I must not have thought of it because it seems like something only Aurors can do, but this was just in a NEWT-level Charms textbook, and I think that George could probably do it, he's better at Charms isn't he?

It would be so good to have other people to talk to too!

Well things are all right here. I actually have less and less to do because the Lord Protector won't have anyone along with him with Harry sometimes. He takes him off and I don't quite know where. Harry says that he follows him around like a lapdog. Harry follows the Lord Protector around that is. And sometimes someone says something nice to him, and sometimes they talk over him like he isn't there.

He isn't happy at all but he doesn't seem to be taking it out on me, in fact quite the opposite, he's been ever so kind. I suppose he knows it's kind to let me help him revise. He says that he has to revise because otherwise his Father (he always capitalises it like that, I don't know why, when he writes it and even when he says it I think) will be upset with him. And because the Finnigan boy is having a tutor and I think he's afraid of doing worse than him. Harry is afraid of doing worse than the Finnigan boy I mean. Only most of the time he doesn't do very well, he just sort of trails off. We usually end up talking about Quidditch. Which isn't much fun for me except that he gave me some Quidditch strategy books and told me to quiz him on them so he'd do better.

Anyway then sometimes he just trails off and we do normal things, it's almost like having a friend, only then we go into dinner and I have to stand behind him again and keep my eyes down and I remember that I'm a Mudblood. And the other day someone said something about me looking terribly healthy and that I must be very obedient that he didn't have to beat me. So today when I was straightening up his room I moved a big heavy vase and I dropped it on my hand on purpose. It broke and I cut myself a little and Harry fixed it when he came back, it's only a little bulgy on one side now, but I told him not to fix my hand. I made sure people saw it too, I waved it around, maybe I did a bit too much because I did get told off then for being a complainer by one of the house-elves, and then I had to stop.

I'm glad that Harry is getting to go to Finnigan's because it has to be boring for him with just a Mudblood girl to keep him company, I know it's boring for me with only him, he's not really great fun even if he is a nice master all things considered lately. I suppose I'll come too but it will be worse than ever to be a Mudblood because I don't imagine I'll get to play anything or do anything except stand there and carry his broom and things. He's ever so excited but he says that the one good thing about summer is that he doesn't have to write in his journal if he doesn't want to and he wants to go play Quidditch, only then he got called away. I suppose the Lord Protector is having a party and wants to trot him out like usual. So he won't get to go play Quidditch after all.

Well there isn't that much to report from the hols because I mostly spent them trying to make the Lord Protector not notice me. Which worked, mainly, although he did so stare at supper when I had to stand behind Harry's chair and serve him. But I made friends with the house-elves! They're much less friendly than the ones at Hogwarts and more meek, they said that it wasn't so much the Lord Protector as his friends who mistreats them, only I think their definition of mistreats is different than mine. But none of them would ever disobey him directly of course, but I did find out that they'd do it indirectly, like doing anything they don't have specific orders against, but I didn't have time to coax them into telling me their standing orders.

And then He wanted Harry with him all the time, it was rather creepy, and Harry told me that he didn't usually do that, and also that he felt like he wasn't even there sometimes, he had to sit in on so many boring things. Only I think he forgot how I had to be there with him!

About the only good thing is that they got me new robes that look like livery, and they're green and black and ever so lovely, but I'm only to wear them at Buckingham as they're too fine for every day, so they said. Which is silly, but then Harry had to dress up when he saw his Father too, which is just strange. Because I mean he's his father; surely he's seen him out of dress robes before!

My candle is going out so more later -

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?

First of all as you probably know Terry is in the infirmary again. Last night he was all black and blue and he couldn't walk. He said that he got hexed. I don't know about what hex would do that but he said it knocked him off his feet and slammed him into the wall, and that it didn't seem like Professor Carrow meant to hurt him as badly as he did. Which I don't believe for a second, Terry is such a marter, and he won't ever let anyone pity him, but he ought to!! So I'm going to go see him. And Madam Pince said I could, because I have been such a diligent worker this week-end.

We dusted almost all the books in the Restricted Section, and took them out and cleaned them all off. Some of them wanted to bite me but I wouldn't let them!

In other things that happened, Harry Marvolo came in and wanted to look at the old annuals on Saturday afternoon. I was taking a break and Madam Pince was at her tea so I showed him them, and he wanted to look at the one for 1977, and when he did he was paying an awfully lot of attention to the Gryffindor section. After he left I went in and looked at it and there's a boy in there who looks just like him, which I suppose I knew, because of everything that Sirius has been saying. But he's the Lord Protector's son and I didn't really believe it, I suppose.

He was nice. I mean, he was really very nice and he talked to me more than he had ever talked to me about anything. I think he wanted to know what Muggles were like because he asked me about them. I told him that they were just like we were except that they don't have magic and they don't live in nice places. Usually I think that he wouldn't let me say "we," because he isn't like me because I'm a Mudblood. But he didn't say anything about it. I wasn't sure if he was happy or sad because of the things that he read in the annual because he looked like he was half about to cry and half about to start laughing the entire time, but anyway I am going to go visit Terry now.

I have been doing a lot of fixing people's books lately. It's good though because otherwise they would try and do it with Spellotape and that's really bad for your books, so I'm glad to have the extra work, because that way they won't get worse.

Also, I like to read people's books, which I sometimes can't help doing when I'm fixing them, because a lot of them are fiction and we don't have fiction in the Hogwarts library much. So it's different. I haven't read everything in the Hogwarts library yet but I will someday, but it's nice to know there are other books out there too! Susan, I finished your book and it's all better now.

1. My word of the day is bigot. It means "A person who's intolerantly and obstinately devoted to his own prejudices," or, "a jerk."

2. I was reading some books today and it occurred to me that perhaps I could start learning the runic alphabet. I want to learn Elder Futhark because it seems most magically useful, but we have the most amazing copy of the Codex Runicus - Madam Pince reproduced a page for me so that I could show you all, here it is:



Isn't that amazing? I wish that we had pretty books like that of Elder Futhark but we don't, runes weren't used very much until the 1800s when arithmancy started becoming more important and people realised that they had always used arithmantic ideas to make magic. Oh - but I'm so thrilled to be able to start doing something, learning runes, I mean! It will almost be like being a student.

3. Terry, I am so glad that you're feeling better.

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.