Ethan remained seated for several minutes, staring at nothing in particular.
There was a strange comfort in having a body again, even if the body wasn't real.
He could feel the weight of himself against the chair, the movement of his fingers, and even the faint sensation of breathing despite the fact that none of it was necessary.
It was an illusion.
A magical one, perhaps, but still an illusion.
Ethan raised his hand and turned it over, studying the pale fingers before flexing them experimentally.
Interesting.
He had created the body almost instinctively, drawing on the memories he had inherited from Riddle.
The process had been surprisingly easy, almost as though the Diary itself had understood what he wanted and supplied the magic necessary to make it happen.
That raised another question.
How much of what he could do actually belonged to him?
Ethan closed his eyes and reached inward.
The answer was difficult to separate.
The line was difficult to draw. Riddle's memories were there, filed away like records in an archive. The magical theory was there, as was the instinctive grasp of magic and the Parseltongue.
But Ethan didn't feel like Tom.
He was still himself.
That distinction mattered.
Very much.
Ethan opened his eyes and looked around the strange room he had created inside the Diary.
All right.
He leaned back in the chair.
Let's find out what I can actually do.
Waiting inside a closed book was a strange kind of torture.
There was no sun, no clock, and no sound. Without a biological body, Ethan didn't feel tired, hungry, or bored in the normal human sense.
But being locked in total sensory deprivation with nothing to do except organize your thoughts would drive any sane person mad.
There was only so much he could do except look into the same old pages of the diary.
He spent the dark hours mapping the magical theory he'd taken from Riddle. He catalogued curses, dissected wand-movements, and practised shaping the parchment space around him.
Whenever he wanted to test an idea, he simply imagined a setup, and it would appear.
After some time spent scouting the outside world, Ethan realised that there was no way for him to create a physical body yet.
His magic simply couldn't cross the boundary of the Diary, no matter how much power he poured into it.
There was some kind of barrier surrounding the Horcrux, separating everything inside it from the physical world outside.
Ethan could sense what was happening beyond the pages, but his influence stopped at that boundary.
He needed a connection.
Someone on the outside would have to open the Diary and interact with it, preferably by writing in its pages.
Only then would Ethan have a proper link to the physical world, something he could use to push his magic through.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, considering the problem.
So I need someone to open the Diary first.
That shouldn't be too difficult.
After all, he already knew exactly who was gonna open the diary and write in it. It was only a matter of time. But the problem would be where she opened the diary.
Ethan didn't know when Ginny would actually start writing in the Diary. Ideally, it would happen while she was still at the Burrow, before she left for Hogwarts.
Once she reached Hogwarts, things would become considerably more complicated.
The castle was filled with powerful wizards, magical protections, and people who might notice something unusual if Ethan tried to force too much magic through the connection.
Ironically, the safest place for him might be the Chamber of Secrets.
Ethan didn't particularly care about the whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco.
He knew how the events were supposed to unfold, but that didn't mean he had any interest in following the original story.
His immediate priority was much simpler: get out of the Diary.
If his first plan worked, he would create a body for himself and figure out the rest afterwards. But if it failed, Ethan would have to move on to his second option.
His second option involved taking over the body of Harry Potter, which, admittedly, came with its own set of problems.
Ethan had no idea how difficult it would be to invade another person's mind, let alone take control of their body.
There was also the small matter of Harry being one of the most watched-over children in the magical world.
Ethan took everything he remembered from the books with a heavy grain of salt.
Fiction tended to exaggerate, simplify, or outright misrepresent how people operated in reality.
Dumbledore might have been presented as a benevolent, eccentric headmaster, but anyone who held absolute political, academic, and magical power for half a century was guaranteed to be sharp, suspicious, and dangerous.
But whatever the truth was, Ethan knew one thing for certain.
Dumbledore was going to be a problem.
But those were problems for later.
They were problems Ethan was more than willing to face if it meant freeing himself from this dreadful Diary.
The shift came without warning.
A sudden, violent vibration rattled through the leather binding, sending a tremor through Ethan's constructed study.
Ethan dismissed the chair and workbench with a thought, snapping his awareness straight to the outer perimeter of the cover.
The book was moving.
He directed his attention outward, trying to sense what was happening beyond the Diary.
The connection was still faint, but it was enough for him to feel the sudden movement as the Diary was lifted from wherever it had been resting.
A moment later, he felt himself being placed inside some sort of trunk.
Ethan focused harder, trying to make sense of the sounds coming through the connection.
There was a constant buzz outside, mixed with voices, footsteps, and the occasional thud of something being moved around.
He couldn't make out the words yet, but there were definitely people nearby.
Ethan settled back into his chair.
Well, at least I'm going somewhere.
If he had to guess, Ethan would say he was on his way to Hogwarts. The constant movement, the noise outside, and the way the Diary was being handled made that the most likely explanation.
If that was the case, things were about to become considerably more interesting.
Ethan leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a small smile.
So much for getting to Ginny before Hogwarts.
He had hoped to establish a connection with her while she was still at the Burrow, but apparently fate had other plans.
Still, Hogwarts wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
Though it meant he would eventually have to make his way to the Chamber of Secrets. Ethan was actually looking forward to testing whether creating a new body was possible; if it worked, it would solve a considerable number of his problems.
Some time later, Ethan could tell that he was on a train.
The constant movement beneath him, the rhythmic vibration of the carriage, and the muffled sounds coming from outside the Diary made it fairly obvious.
'So I'm on the Hogwarts Express.'
As the hours passed, the sensations gradually changed. The movement of the train eventually came to an end, followed by the feeling of being carried once again.
Then Ethan felt it.
Magic.
The moment the Diary entered Hogwarts, the atmosphere around it changed completely.
The magical presence surrounding the castle was far stronger than anything Ethan had felt before, pressing against the Diary from every direction.
Ethan instinctively reached outward, trying to understand what he was sensing.
There was magic everywhere.
It wasn't simply concentrated in one place. It permeated the castle itself, flowing through the walls, the floors, and the ancient runes woven into the building.
Ethan sat quietly in his chair, absorbing the sensation.
Finally, the Diary was placed somewhere, and the movement stopped. The sounds from outside gradually faded until there was nothing left but silence.
Ethan remained seated for a moment, listening carefully through his connection to the outside world.
Quiet again.
Ethan leaned back in his chair and thought about Ginny.
This was important.
He could simply reveal himself and start talking, but that would immediately raise questions.
A magical diary speaking on its own was hardly something a normal eleven-year-old would accept without hesitation.
More importantly, Ethan didn't want Ginny to fear him.
He needed her to trust him.
The easiest way to do that wasn't to impress her with magic or tell her things she couldn't possibly understand. He needed to give her something she wasn't getting from the people around her.
Someone who would listen.
Ethan knew enough about Ginny from the books to understand the general shape of her life.
She was the youngest child in a large family, surrounded by older brothers who were louder, more accomplished, and far more experienced than she was.
She was also going to Hogwarts for the first time.
That meant excitement, nervousness, homesickness, and probably a considerable amount of feeling like she didn't quite belong.
Ethan smiled faintly.
All right, Ginny. Let's see who you really are.
He wouldn't force the conversation.
He would let her come to him.
And when she finally did, Ethan would make sure that the first thing she discovered about the Diary was that someone was willing to listen.