Ginny followed Colin and the rest of the students back toward the common room, but Ethan didn't take control.
He remained quietly in the background of her mind, waiting for the perfect moment. There was no reason to interfere yet; the evening still had plenty of time left, and Ethan wanted everything to happen as close to the original sequence of events as possible.
Once they reached the common room, the students dispersed for a while, but before long they began making their way back toward the Great Hall for the Halloween feast.
At the dinner table, Ethan subtly influenced Ginny to take a seat beside Colin. The other first-years soon settled into their places around them, all of them buzzing with excitement as they waited for the Halloween feast to begin.
As the dinner progressed, Ethan kept a close watch on the rest of the table, carefully checking whether Harry and the others were actually absent.
Halfway through the dinner, Ethan carefully checked the table to make sure no one was paying particular attention to Ginny before briefly taking control of her body.
He turned toward Colin, keeping his expression casual so that the conversation wouldn't attract any unnecessary attention.
"Hey, Colin," she said softly, offering a warm, innocent smile.
The boy looked up, blinking. "Oh, hi, Ginny!"
"Are you done eating?" Ginny asked, tilting her head. "I thought you'd be running around trying to get photos of the floating pumpkins and the decorations."
Colin sighed, adjusting the strap of his camera. "Yes, mostly. I wanted to, but I was really hoping to get a picture of Harry during the feast. I haven't seen him anywhere."
"Oh, Harry?" Ginny lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, leaning in slightly. " Ron told me earlier that he, Harry and Hermione were gonna go down to the lower corridors near the old dungeons. Something about a ghost party by Headless Nick."
Colin's eyes lit up like lanterns. "A ghost party? Really? You think they'd mind if I took a few shots? I don't know if ghosts even show up on my camera, but I really want to try..."
"I don't think anyone would mind," Ginny replied with an encouraging nod. "He went down the staircase near the third-floor corridor to take the service route. If you hurry, you might catch him coming back up."
"Thanks, Ginny!" Colin grinned broadly, scrambled off the wooden bench, snatched his camera, and bolted out the double oak doors of the Great Hall before anyone noticed his departure.
Ethan released active control immediately, letting Ginny slide back into her seat and take another sip of pumpkin juice without the slightest awareness that anything unusual had happened.
Now everything depended on the Basilisk.
This was the risky part of his plan.
Ethan had tried to maintain some sort of connection with the creature after leaving the Chamber, but it had proven nearly impossible.
The Basilisk was simply too resistant to magic. Riddle's memories suggested that Basilisks possessed an unusually powerful natural resistance to magical influence, comparable in some ways to that of dragons.
Ethan couldn't simply reach out through his magic and check what the creature was doing.
Once it had left the Chamber, he had no idea where it was.
All he could do now was trust the instructions he'd given it and hope the creature followed them exactly.
Through Ginny's senses, Ethan kept an eye on the entrance to the Great Hall while the Halloween feast continued around her.
************************************
The heavy oak doors of the Great Hall banged shut behind him, cutting off the warm clatter of the feast and plunging him into the silence of the entrance hall.
Colin clutched his camera against his chest, jogging on his toes so his sneakers wouldn't squeak too loudly on the cold stone.
'A ghost party.'
If he could get just one clear photograph of Harry standing beside a transparent ghost, it would be brilliant. Nobody at home would believe it.
He hurried up the stairs toward the third-floor corridor, following Ginny's directions.
He had almost reached the next landing when he heard something coming from deep inside the granite wall to his left.
A heavy, dragging sound travelled through the iron pipes buried within the castle walls.
Hssssssss.
Colin froze, the hairs on his arms standing on end.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a shadow moved across the wall beside him.
Pure reflex took over before terror could lock his knees. Colin slammed the camera to his face, his finger mashing the shutter button down.
Through the tiny square viewfinder, the world suddenly seemed much closer.
Two enormous, burning yellow eyes stared straight back at him.
Flash.
CRACK.
The Basilisk's gaze met the reflection in the camera lens for only an instant.
Colin's breath caught in his throat.
His fingers locked around the camera as his entire body suddenly went rigid. His vision blurred, his thoughts seemed to vanish beneath a crushing wave of unnatural stillness, and the last thing he saw was those terrible yellow eyes staring back at him through the glass.
Then everything went dark.
Colin Creevey collapsed onto the cold stone floor, the camera still clutched tightly in his petrified hands.
*********************************
Ginny was halfway through her pumpkin juice when she suddenly felt something strange.
It was barely noticeable at first, like the faintest tug somewhere at the back of her mind. She paused with the cup halfway to her lips, frowning slightly as she tried to understand what she was feeling.
Then it was gone.
Ginny blinked and looked around the Great Hall.
Everyone was still eating and talking. The candles floated peacefully overhead, the enchanted ceiling showed a dark autumn sky, and the long tables were crowded with students enjoying the Halloween feast.
Nothing seemed wrong.
Ginny lowered her cup.
'That was strange.'
She couldn't explain it, but for some reason she suddenly felt slightly uneasy.
She glanced toward the doors of the Great Hall. They were closed.
For a moment, she wondered where Colin had gone, but that thought soon drifted away. She refocused on her food and on the other students beside her, talking and laughing with them.
As the feast finally came to an end, students began pouring out of the Great Hall to make their way back to their dormitories.
************************************
Inside the yellow parchment of the diary, Ethan settled into his armchair, viewing the world through the eyes of Ginny.
She walked in the middle of the Gryffindor crowd, surrounded by chatter about the feast and the pumpkin pastries. The students climbed the marble staircase in high spirits, but the moment the first wave reached the upper landing, the noise began to die away.
"What's going on up there?" someone near the back asked.
The crowd bottlenecked, then parted in a wave of gasps and startled murmurs. Ginny was jostled forward by the pressure of the students behind her until she reached the front rank.
Her hands flew to her mouth.
Lying completely motionless on the ground was Colin Creevey.
His skin was unnaturally pale, his eyes wide and blank as they stared sightlessly into nothing, while his small fingers remained tightly wrapped around his camera.
And standing only a few feet away from him were Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.
All three looked frozen, their faces drained of colour beneath the flickering torchlight. Harry appeared particularly shocked, staring down at Colin as though he couldn't understand what he was seeing.
Before anyone could react, heavy, hurried footsteps echoed up the marble stairs.
"What is the meaning of this? Out of the way! Make way!"
Several professors pushed through the gathering students, their voices cutting through the growing panic. Dumbledore was among them, his expression unusually serious as he approached the scene.
Within seconds, he had swept past Harry, Ron, and Hermione and knelt beside Colin's motionless body.
He carefully examined the boy, his eyes moving over Colin's face before turning toward the camera still clutched in his hands, his wand drawn as he began casting a series of intricate diagnostic charms over the boy's petrified body.
Behind his half-moon spectacles, Dumbledore's eyes were ice-cold, devoid of their usual warmth.
"He is not dead," Dumbledore said quietly, his voice cutting through the suffocating silence of the corridor. "He has been petrified."
Ethan watched everything through Ginny's eyes, carefully observing the reactions of the students and professors.
'Perfect.'
The first attack had worked exactly as planned.
Colin was alive.
The Basilisk had followed his instructions.
And, most importantly, Harry had been found standing beside the first victim.
Now the rumours could begin.
Dumbledore rose slowly to his feet and turned toward the gathering students. His expression remained calm, but the usual warmth had disappeared from his eyes.
"Everyone will return to their dormitories immediately. Prefects, see that the students are escorted safely back to their common rooms."
His piercing gaze shifted, locking onto the trio standing around.
"Except you three."
As the Prefects began shouting orders and the panicked crowd started to move, Ginny's breath caught. She stared at Colin's still form, a tight, uneasy feeling settling in her chest, then allowed herself to be carried along with the other first-years toward Gryffindor Tower.
**********************************