Estella Evans thought she was just another average orphan with a lot of bad luck, that is until she gets a one way ticket to Hogwarts and her life changes immediately - and it's not exactly for the better
BOOK ONE!
[cos - gof]
[started - 25/10/20
...
——— For the next few weeks, all anyone could talk about was the attack on Mrs Norris and the writing on the wall. Any time they walked through the passage and past the wall, everyone was instantly reminded of it. Everyone was coming up with their own theories and guesses at to what or who wrote the message, and what it meant. Whilst others (including Colin and Jace) were desperately trying to find out anything about the Chamber Of Secrets. The boys, like the rest of the students at Hogwarts, however hadn't been lucky enough to get even the smallest bit of information in the Chamber yet.
Filch had spent every day pacing the corridor, trying to rid the wall of the writing, but no matter how much Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover he used, the painting refused to move. It remained on the stone walls, gleaming for everyone to see.
Estella and Grace were currently making their way back up to the common room after having a detention for 'being too chirpy' curtesy of Filch, as they passed the painting and shuddered at the sight and memory of that night.
When the two entered the common room, they found it mostly deserted, and seeing none of their friends down there. They quickly decided to go straight up to the dormitory and dive into the stash of chocolate that Grace had been sent the morning prior from her god-father.
Upon entering the dorm, they saw Ginny Weasley sat huddled up in her bed, frantically scribbling in her diary. The girl hadn't seemed to notice the two entering, as she kept her head down in her book.
"Hi Ginny" Grace said softly, smiling at the Weasley girl. Ginny's head snapped up as her eyes scanned the room, as she saw the girls, she slammed her book shut and smiled at them.
"Oh, erm hi" she said.
Ginny had been unusually quiet since the attack on Mrs Norris, and despite Estella and Grace being concerned about their friend, Ron had informed them that it was just because she was a huge cat lover. Nevertheless, the two girls continued to worry about the girl.
One other thing that concerned Grace was Ginny's diary. The girl was never seen without it, and was always writing in it. But the past few weeks, since the attack, the girl had been writing in the diary more than usual. Grace found it weird how much time Ginny spent writing in it, and when she expressed these concerns to Estella, the girl just brushed it off and said it was a normal girl thing.
"I'm telling you Ella, it's weird how much she writes in that thing"
"Gracie it's just a diary, I used to have one"
But despite Estella's attempts to get the girl to ignore it, Gracie couldn't just forget the feeling that something was off.
"I think I'm going to find my brothers" Ginny said, breaking Grace from her trance as she watched the Weasley girl take herself quickly out of the room.
However, as she left, Grace noticed she had left the diary on the bed – something completely out of the ordinary for her – and when she opened her mouth to tell the red-haired girl, she quickly decided against it.
"You know, I think I'm going to go to sleep, I'm so tired" Estella said as grace nodded at her, keeping her focus on trying to get Ginny's diary.
"Yea, okay. I'll erm do some reading" she replied.
Waiting until Estella's bed curtains were closed, Grace snatched the book from Ginny's bed and retreated to her own, grabbing a quill on the way.
She inspected to worn out dairy, running her fingers along the black leather backing of the book. She flipped it over and put it on her mattress, cautiously opening front cover. However, when she opened the leather cover, she was shocked to see nothing on the first page. Confused, she flicked through the pages of parchment to see absolutely nothing written on them.
She flicked through the pages once again, trying to find some sort of writing, 'surely there must be something' she thought 'Ginny is writing in here all the time'
Grabbing her quill, she dipped it into the ink pot and wrote the words 'hi' on the parchment page as she vaguely recalled her god-father telling her something about a charm used to disguise writing in a book.
To her surprise, as soon as she wrote the words, they shone for a split second then disappeared into the pages. She stared, gob smacked at the page. Now Grace knew she wasn't the smartest witch, but she knew that diary's weren't supposed to do that.
Just as she was about to close the book, she saw ink ooze back out of the page. There, where she had just written, were the words 'Hello Gracelyn Black' in hand-writing that certainly wasn't hers.
Deciding not to invest in it any further as she was already spooked, she slammed the diary closed and tossed it onto Ginny's bed, and took herself to bed thinking about the diary.
One thing she didn't know however, was that she missed a vital piece of information about the diary.
The initials T.M.Riddle etched onto the first piece of parchment.
