The Older Potter // HP Older Sister

21

C H A P T E R  21

Ginny Weasley raced up the stairs to her room despite the weight of her cauldron, heavy with books. Panting excitedly, she closed the door behind her as she always did. When you're the youngest of seven children, and the only girl, sometimes a closed door is necessary for keeping nosy, and often pestering, brothers at bay.

She dumped the heavy load onto her bed, and walked to her window to let in some fresh air before diving into her second-hand schoolbooks.

Ginny had the most perfect view of the paddock that lay beyond the gardens of the Burrow.

After a few minutes of looking out at the lake, she walked back across the room, flopping down on her soft bed and began to look through her first year school books. She first flipped through her Potions book, and then for her Transfiguration book, still in the cauldron.

As she pulled it out, a small black book fell from of it. Ginny picked it up, looking at it curiously. At first, she thought she had one of her brother's books by mistake, but the strange thing was, it wasn't a schoolbook at all.

It was obviously a very old book, noting the faded gold embossed numbers and scrolling about the edges of the book. Ginny realized it must have fallen into her cauldron during the brawl between her father and Lucius Malfoy in Flourish and Blotts earlier that afternoon.

When she opened the book, there was nothing written inside, only dated pages, so it had to be an old diary that no one had ever used.

Upon opening the inside cover, she made out the name T. M. Riddle in old smudged ink.

Ginny wondered why anyone would ever want to throw away an unused diary. She often composed poems, drew pictures, and wrote random thoughts on bits of parchment that her father gave her, but she had never had a whole diary to keep them all in before. The thought of having this book all to herself thrilled her and she scrambled about for a quill and some ink.

Excitedly, she dipped the quill in the ink and started to write her first entry.

"Dear Diary, My name is Ginny Weasley"

To her surprise, the words faded from the page as quickly as she had written them, and in their place, new words appeared before her.

"Hello Ginny Weasley. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?"

In horror, Ginny snapped the book shut and jumped away from the bed, leaving the book. She looked around her room in a panic.

Were Fred and George playing some kind of trick on her again? Were they watching and waiting for her to scream loudly, so that they could laugh hysterically at her silliness?

Ginny kept very quiet for a moment, listening for them to come around the corner laughing. All she could hear was the bustling of her mother making supper in the kitchen and grumbling about her father's irresponsibility for getting into a fight with Mr. Malfoy earlier.

Ginny broke from her thoughts and looked back at her bed, still suspicious of the twins. If she played along, what would the diary do to her, spray her with ink? She thought back over her day, was there any time at all that the twins had access to her books, to slip in the diary? None that she could think of. So was this really an enchanted diary?

Ginny walked back to her bed and picked up the quill again. She would play along for now.

'It seems harmless enough, doesn't it?' she thought. 'I mean, how could it possibly do anything horrible to me, really?'

She opened up the diary and began writing again.

"I found this diary inside one of my schoolbooks. I'm sorry Mr. Riddle, it's just that I'm rather surprised to see an enchanted diary talking back to me."