Que Sera Sera

Chapter Two

There was a harsh rap at Harry's dorm room door. He hastily threw his textbooks onto his bed and called for the owner of the knock to enter.

Hermione walked in, throwing herself on Ron's bed, exhausted.

"You know, you do have a bed in your room," muttered Harry, removing his robes from the case at the foot of his bed and placing them, folded, in a chest of drawers on the other side of the room.

"That's the problem," exclaimed Hermione, a little too dramatically.

"Problem?" Asked Harry, eyebrows raced with question.

"Yeah, well-" she paused and looked around the room, "-obviously, you haven't had to face the problem, yet. The new students they need somewhere to sleep, so we were moving the furniture around in my dorm, but one bed refuses to move. Everyone's tried, but it just won't budge."

"Okay then, tried magic?" He asked sarcastically, even though he knew that it was forbidden out of school hours.

"Yes, but it doesn't seem to do anything. That's why I was asking for you to come and have a look, see if you can notice anything."

"Yeah, alright, I'll be there in a minute."

Hermione smiled as she flitted from the room.

Harry looked around the room thinking where the new seventh year Gryffindor guy would sleep. There was certainly room for one more bed in the room, but things would be cramped, and besides the beds must weigh a tonne.

Grabbing his wand from his bedside cupboard, Harry wandered to Hermione's dorm. Standing within it were about ten students, covered head to toe in dust that could have been ages old. Although his hair was a filthy shade of brown, Harry still knew that it was Ron standing in the middle of the room scratching his head. He noticed Harry and walked over to him.

"Think we need a bit more muscle power," Harry chided, playfully punching his lithe friend in the arm.

"Ha ha, very funny," muttered Ron, "can say the same about you too."

"Okay," started Harry, turning to Hermione who was frantically waving her wand around in front of a bed, her bed as it happened. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, two more seventh years that looked just as tired and annoyed, were standing by her side.

"This is the bed that won't move, I guess?" He asked, folding up the sleeves of his robes.

"Good observation, Buster," muttered Lavender, reaching for a beetle that had nestled in her hair.

"So, you've tried-"

"Everything Harry, everything," exasperated Parvati, a look of defeat on her face. She looked close to tears and her hands clung to Harry in desperation.

"Now, now," he reassured, patting her on the shoulder lightly and loosing a new cloud of dust, "I'm sure it can all be resolved. Just let me have a look. Can I have some room?"

Harry shouted the last line as he motioned for everyone to move back.

Lifting the hem of his robes, he crouched and looked under the bed. All he could see was dust. Slowly creeping under it, he gave the legs of the bed a stern tap of his wand.

Still nothing.

Creeping further, Harry ran his hands along the underside of the bed before finding a weak spot. Pointing his wand at that spot, he shouted a levitation charm and the bed flew up a few feet in the air and remained there.

Sneezing from the dust, he crawled out from under the bed and looked up at the shocked students who gave him a round of applause.

"No need to thank me, just needed to tackle it from a different angle," he muttered, blushing.

Hermione and Lavender moved the bed to where they wanted it with a tap of their wand and set it down softly.

"I hope that won't happen again," murmured Hermione, looking at the mess the room was in.

An unfamiliar figure started to flick the dust from her robes. She had been standing in the corner observing the event. Harry hadn't noticed her, as she appeared to fade into the surroundings, but it couldn't have been possible. Although she was covered in dust, her auburn hair was still swept away from her face and her cornflower blue eyes shone amongst the muck and stray hair that covered her presumably striking face.

Harry watched her as she walked to the space where the bed had been looking at the floor. The other person standing next to her, a guy of about seventeen, looked around the room in disgust with a sneer on his face. Like his friend, he too wore the pale blue robes of Beauxbatons.

The girl crouched to the ground and ran her hand along the hardwood floor that was not covered in a heavy rug. She seemed deep in thought and the floor interested her.

Stepping forward, Harry couldn't see what was so interesting, the floor looked just as it did in his room.

The guy walked up to her and knelt beside her.

"I know, I know," he murmured, barely audible to the surrounding students, except for Harry. His voice was thick and extremely rich, with a French twang to his accent. "Zis place, it is disgusting. Nozing is made well and everyzing appears so 'arsh. I don't know 'ow I can stay 'ere."

"Oh Philippe," exclaimed the girl, looking up at her friend and brushing the hair from her face, leaving a smear in the dust where her pale skin could be seen. Although she too was from Beauxbatons, she had a distinctly English accent. "I know this place isn't Beauxbatons, but it's not that that I'm looking at. It's this."

She pointed to the floor and both her and Philippe leant forwards to examine it. Harry, also took a step forwards, but not a big enough one to be noticed.

"It is a floor," muttered Philippe, turning up his nose, "and it is not very good, I zink. Bad workmanship if you ask me."

"I know," she said, "the floorboard appears to be loose, but I don't know how I can move it. I can't find anywhere I can pull on it."

Harry leant forward so he could see the floorboard clearly. It looked just like the board at the Dursleys, the one he hid all his magic stuff under.

"Here, I might be able to help you," offered Harry, almost knocking Philippe over.

"You think you can pull it from the others?" She asked, looking up at Harry and smiling.

"Yeah, I think so, you just need to have a certain way with them."

She nodded.

"I have one like this at home," he finished, turning towards the floor so that she wouldn't see him blushing.

Standing at one end of the floorboard, Harry dug his fingers into the other end and gently rocked the board loose, revealing a small secret compartment. Before he had the chance to see what was in it, a small hand reached in and started removing items.

There was a small inkpot, - the ink in which had dried up- a quill that had seen better things, a golden box and a hardcover book, all of which were caked in dust.

The others appeared to be fascinated by the box, but Harry took the book in his hands and wiped away some of the dust from the cover with his sleeves. Gasping, he dropped the book to the floor and backed away from it.

"What is it?" Asked Hermione, moving away from the small crowd and turning to Harry.

"It's a- it's a-," stammered Harry, not wanting to think of what was in the book.

Hermione leant down and picked up the book, reading the front cover.

"It's only a diary Harry, nothing but secrets in here."

"But, it's a diary, the book I found in second year was a diary and look what happened because of it."

Harry thought back to his second year, where he had recovered Tom Riddle's diary from a toilet and the troubles that it caused. Due to that diary, Hermione and Ginny had almost died. He didn't want to consider what this diary could do.

"But that one was blank," muttered Hermione, flicking through the pages of the diary. "There's writing in this one and-"

Suddenly she gasped and snapped the book shut.

"What?" Asked Harry, moving towards her and trying to pry the book from her hands, a difficult task.

"You're in there," she whispered, "photos, lots of them, but it can't be you. There's no scar." Her eyes flitted to the lightning-bolt shaped scar on Harry forehead. "It looked exactly like you, but there was no scar."

"What? Let me look," Harry ordered, still trying to take the book from her hands.

Unwillingly, she handed the book to him and he opened it. Inside, the pages were filled with a flowing link script that begged to be read. Every now and again there was a black and white photo. Unlike many photos Harry had seen at Hogwarts, these ones did not move.

Harry stopped at one particular photo, which was focused on four boys who were sitting in the Gryffindor common room. None of them were looking at the camera, and they all appeared to be laughing at the ring-leader, a tall dark-haired guy with glasses, standing in front of the fire, his hands up in the air. Harry didn't know him, but he did look remarkably like himself, but the other three were unrecognisable.

"I don't know," answered Harry, scratching his head.

He handed the book back to Hermione and started to walk out of the room.

"But," she said, taking Harry by the arm, "this isn't mine."

"But, it's not mine either. It came from in here, so you can keep it, or she can," he answered, looking over at the girl who was now the centre of attention. "She found it. I'm going to bed, see you tomorrow morning."

He walked out of the room and back to his own room, falling asleep the instant he lay down on his bed.