"Julien! You won't believe what we found!"
Casen Moretti's voice echoed down the corridor, bubbling with that kid-on-Christmas-morning excitement.
Julien looked up from Magical Geography: The Human Epic of the Wizarding World. His roommates were barreling toward him—Casen dragging Edgar by the sleeve, both of them wearing matching grins that screamed "we just pulled off something awesome."
"What kind of trouble did you two get into this time?" Julien sighed, closing the book.
"Trouble? Ouch, man." Casen clutched his chest like he'd been stabbed. "That's how you talk to your only two male friends?"
Julien shrugged.
"Not trouble—discovery!" Edgar dropped his voice, eyes sparkling. "That girls' bathroom on the second floor? There really is a ghost in it! A real one. Talks. Lives in a toilet."
"Myrtle?" Julien frowned.
Of course he knew Moaning Myrtle—the crying ghost, the Muggle-born girl killed by the Basilisk.
"You already knew?" Casen deflated like a popped balloon. "Lame. You always know everything before we do."
"Casen lost a bet," Edgar grinned. "He had to stay in that bathroom for ten whole minutes. Guess what happened?"
"The second I walked in, Myrtle shot out of the toilet and screamed at me," Casen picked up. "Scared the hell out of me."
"She's had a rough afterlife," Julien said lightly. "Just… don't mess with her."
"We didn't!" Casen protested. "She started yelling that someone threw something at her this morning. Super aggressive."
"Yeah, like we could even hit a ghost," Edgar added. "Anyway, she said somebody chucked this at her earlier."
He pulled something from inside his robes.
Plain black cover. No decorations. Edges so dark they seemed to drink in the light.
Julien's blood turned to ice.
"We found it next to the toilet," Casen leaned in. "We flipped through it—totally blank, no writing at all—"
"The notebook looks pretty old-school," Julien's voice came out low and urgent. "Can I have it?"
"Figured you'd like the creepy antique vibe," Edgar said without hesitation, handing it over. "We brought it straight to you."
"Thanks." Julien practically snatched it. He fought the urge to crack it open right there and shoved it deep into the hidden pocket of his robes—the one he'd expanded with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
"Whatever, you nerd," Casen rolled his eyes. "We thought it was gross anyway."
"You didn't write anything in it, right?"
Seeing how serious Julien looked, Casen dropped the jokes. "Nah, we saw it was blank and just grabbed it. Is something wrong?"
"Not sure yet. I'll check it out. Just… don't tell anyone, okay?"
"If you think it's bad, we can toss it," Edgar offered. Both boys had grown up in the wizarding world; they knew some objects were better left alone.
"I know the risks. If it's dangerous I'll hand it to Flitwick or Dumbledore. It just looks old—probably nothing."
Casen opened his mouth, then shut it when he saw Julien's face. "Fine. But you owe us Butterbeers."
"Deal."
"Really?" Casen slung an arm around Julien's shoulders. "You find another secret passage out of the castle or something?"
Laughter filled the corridor again.
---
That night Julien lay in bed, listening to Casen's snoring and Edgar's sleepy mumbles. The black notebook kept floating through his mind. Plain. Blank. Silent.
He knew Voldemort's soul fragment was trapped inside it.
"Murphy," he called inside his head. "Can you sense that thing?"
In the Magical Resonance Library, the black cat was sprawled across some random book, tail flicking irritably. "What thing?"
"The notebook my roommates found. Plain black cover."
Murphy's ears shot straight up. His heterochromatic eyes—amber and silver-gray—glowed in the dark. "If I were you, I'd throw it out a window right now."
"You know what it is?"
"I don't know what it is." Murphy hopped down and paced along the shelf edge, voice unusually grave. "But it's not a notebook. It's not a book. It's insanity that sliced itself into pieces and is pretending to be whole."
"Julien." Murphy's tail puffed up like a bottle brush. "I can feel it… watching. Waiting…"
"Waiting for what?"
"For someone like you." Murphy stared straight into his eyes. "Smart. Lonely. Carrying secrets. Hungry for answers. You think you're protecting your roommates? No. You're protecting it. You're giving it time. Giving yourself an excuse to…"
"To what?"
"To open it. Aren't you?"
Julien went quiet. He remembered how he'd grabbed the notebook. How he'd lied about turning it in. How it was now 3 a.m. and he was still wide awake thinking about it.
"I won't," he said.
"You will," Murphy sighed, flopping back onto the book with lazy pity. "You all do. At least keep it hidden. Don't let anyone else see it."
At 4 a.m. Julien realized he was sitting at his desk. He didn't remember getting up. Didn't remember taking the notebook out.
Moonlight poured through the window and slid across the black cover like liquid mercury.
"Just checking," he told himself. "Making sure it's safe."
He opened it to the first page.
Blank.
Second page.
Blank.
Third page—
"You finally came."
Elegant cursive appeared, as if it had been waiting there the whole time.
Julien slammed the book shut, heart hammering. He wanted to scream. Wanted to hurl it out the window.
In the original story, Harry had to write first. The diary only answered after. Why was it talking to him unprompted?
His fingers moved on their own. A quill appeared in his hand like magic.
"I'm not here to chat," he wrote, hand shaking. "I'm checking if you're dangerous. I'm turning you over to—"
"To who? Dumbledore? That old fool who left Harry Potter in a cupboard? Or McGonagall, the rule-obsessed witch who registers her own Animagus form?"
The handwriting carried a soft laugh, ink bleeding slightly at the edges.
"Black, I know who you are. I listened while your roommates talked about you. Casen says you 'always know too much.' Edgar says you're 'never really happy.' They don't understand you. But I do. We're the same."
"We're not the same."
"Aren't we? I can tell you're searching for answers."
Julien's quill punched through the paper.
"What do you know?"
"I know a lot. Don't you want to know who opened the Chamber fifty years ago?"
"Don't play games. I know it was you. You opened it last time, and you're doing it again!"
The notebook went silent for a moment.
Then new words appeared.