POV Ginny Weasley
********************************
The silence of the Gryffindor girls' dormitory was thick, broken only by the soft, steady breathing of four sleeping first-years and the distant rumble of wind against the towers in the distance.
Behind the heavy scarlet bed curtains, a single candle flickered on a small wooden nightstand.
Ginny Weasley sat curled on her mattress, her knees pulled tight against her chest.
She stared down at the closed black notebook resting on her lap, her knuckles white around a frayed, second-hand quill.
She examined it closely, turning it over in her hands and running her fingers across the worn black cover.
There was nothing remarkable about it.
No title. No decoration.
Just a single set of initials embedded into the leather.
T.M. Riddle.
Ginny frowned.
She had no idea who T.M. Riddle was or how this diary had come into her possession.
She had never heard the name before. None of her brothers had mentioned a Riddle, and it certainly hadn't belonged to Bill or Charlie.
Their old school things always had their names aggressively scrawled across the front in messy red ink.
Ginny glanced toward the other beds. Everyone was asleep.
She looked back at the Diary. Slowly, she opened it. The pages were completely blank.
The heavy, yellowed parchment looked completely unused. All the pages, without a single scribble or ink blot. It was strange that someone would buy a notebook, embed their initials on the back, and never write a single word inside.
Ginny hesitated, her small fingers curling tightly around the wooden stem of her quill.
The silence of the dormitory felt suffocating. Outside, the wind rattled the high glass panes of the Gryffindor tower, but inside the curtains, it was just her, the flickering flame, and the empty black book resting quietly on the blanket.
She took a shaky breath, pulled the bottle of blue ink closer, and touched the metal nib to the very first line.
**********************************
POV Ethan
**********************************
Ethan waited.
For the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, there was nothing he could do except listen and wait for someone to open the Diary.
There was little point in wasting energy on experiments when the opportunity he had been waiting for could arrive at any moment.
Then he felt it.
A faint movement outside.
The Diary shifted slightly, followed by the unmistakable sensation of fingers brushing across its cover.
Finally.
"The fingers remained there for several seconds before the Diary was lifted and placed on something soft."
A few moments later, Ethan felt it.
The Diary was being opened.
The sensation was immediate. It was almost as if a fresh breeze had swept through the space around him, and for the first time since he had awakened inside the Diary, Ethan felt as though he could breathe again.
He hadn't realised how oppressive the closed pages had become until that moment.
Even though he didn't actually need to breathe, the sudden sensation made him instinctively draw in a deep breath and sit upright.
Ethan felt the towering walls of parchment around him darken as black letters slowly formed across their surface.
*My name is Ginny Weasley, and I think the Sorting Hat made a mistake.*
Ethan observed the text, a calm, analytical focus settling over his mind.
Ethan could already feel a connection forming between himself and Ginny. It was faint, barely more than a thin thread between their minds, but it was definitely there.
He focused on it experimentally and felt something in the connection respond.
Interesting.
He would need Ginny to keep writing in the Diary before the connection became strong enough for him to properly influence anything outside it.
And judging by what she had just written, Ginny Weasley had plenty to say.
Ethan looked at the words again.
That wasn't exactly what he had expected.
He knew Ginny's story from the books, but knowing the broad outline of someone's life was very different from actually hearing their thoughts.
There was something almost amusing about how quickly an eleven-year-old had gone from introducing herself to questioning the judgment of one of the oldest magical artifacts in Britain.
Ethan picked up the quill that had appeared beside him and considered his response.
He could have written something impressive, something mysterious, something that would immediately make Ginny curious about him.
But that wasn't what he wanted.
Not yet.
The easiest way to earn someone's trust was to make them feel heard.
So Ethan simply wrote:
*Why do you think the Hat made a mistake?*
POV: Ginny Weasley
****************************
Ginny watched the blue ink sit on the page.
For two seconds, nothing happened. She felt a sudden, sharp pang of embarrassment. What was I expecting? It's just an old notebook.
Then, the paper drank the ink.
The wet blue words didn't smudge or dry; they sank straight down into the paper, vanishing completely until the yellowed parchment was completely, pristinely blank once more.
Ginny gasped, jerking her hand back so fast the quill nearly slipped from her fingers.
Before she could close the cover, fresh ink began to rise from deep beneath the paper, forming neat, steady, razor-sharp cursive right where her messy handwriting had just disappeared:
*Why do you think the Hat made a mistake?*
Ginny's heart slammed against her ribs.
She pressed her back hard against the wooden headboard, staring at the black letters with wide, frightened eyes.
A diary that wrote back.
Her father's voice echoed in her mind, clear and stern: Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
She should close it. She should shove it to the bottom of her trunk, walk up to Percy in the common room tomorrow morning, and hand it over.
Percy was a prefect; he would know which teacher to give it to.
Yet, as she stared down at the neat cursive sitting quietly in the candlelight, the terror began to blur with a strange, aching pull.
The book wasn't hissing. It wasn't glowing with dark purple flames or making ominous noises. It had simply asked a quiet, polite question.
Down in the Great Hall, when the Hat shouted Gryffindor, everyone had just cheered because another Weasley had followed the family script.
No one noticed that she had been shaking so violently she could barely stand up from the stool.
Slowly, her fingers trembling, Ginny reached for the quill again.
She touched the metal nib to the paper.
*How are you talking to me? Are you an enchanted diary?*
She watched closely. The blue ink sank into the paper and vanished.
Seconds later, the response surfaced:
*A long time ago, when the owner of this Diary was still a young boy at Hogwarts, he was very lonely. He didn't have many friends and often felt isolated from everyone around him.*
Ginny read the words carefully. So T.M Riddle created this Diary.
*It became a place where he could write down his thoughts and have someone to talk to. As the years passed, he shared more and more with me, and eventually I learned to answer him.*
Ginny's eyes widened slightly.
*I could listen to him, talk with him, guide him when he needed it, and simply be there when he had no one else.*
The writing stopped for a moment before another sentence appeared.
*So you don't need to be afraid of me.*
Ginny stared at the page. Another line slowly formed.
*I cannot leave these pages. I cannot see the world outside, and I cannot hurt you.*
The final sentence appeared beneath it.
*I'm simply someone who listens and guides.*
Ginny read the words three times, her breath catching as the candle flame flickered against the yellowed paper.
A diary created to be a friend.
The story pulled at something raw and aching inside her chest. A lonely boy at Hogwarts, isolated and with nobody to turn to.
It sounded so painfully close to what she had felt walking into the Great Hall hours earlier.
The idea that the Diary had been created by someone who simply wanted a companion to share his thoughts with made the fear in her chest begin to melt.
It didn't feel dangerous. It felt familiar. Safe.
A diary couldn't laugh at her. It wouldn't roll its eyes like Ron, tease her like Fred and George, or lecture her like Percy.
Her fingers tightened around the worn quill. She dipped the nib back into the blue ink, the hesitation completely gone.
The words poured out in an urgent, messy rush:
*I'm not like my family. Bill was Head Boy, Charlie was the Quidditch captain, Percy gets top marks in everything, and Fred and George can make everyone laugh.*
*Ron even fought a mountain troll last year with Harry Potter. Everyone looked at me at the Sorting like I was supposed to be amazing too. But when I sat on that stool, I was shaking so hard I thought I was going to throw up. I'm not brave. I'm just scared.*
***********************************