The Very Secret Diary

Ginny crawled into her bed in her small room with her new school books, grateful to be finally tucked away from her brothers. It had been a long day at Diagon Alley, and she couldn't believe what her family had put her through. Her brothers had been as difficult as usual on her, her mother had spent ages in line making soft eyes at Gilderoy Lockhart, her father had fought Lucius Malfoy as if he were no older than her brothers, and Ginny herself had to spend her day hiding her scarlet cheeks from Harry Potter and failing.

Harry Potter. Ginny had fancied him since she had first met him the year earlier, right before he had started his first year at Hogwarts. Now it was Ginny's turn to start at Hogwarts, and she couldn't be more thrilled. She would get to see Harry every day, and maybe he would come to fancy her in return. He was a boy though, and boys could be so notoriously thick. Even if Harry never came to have feelings for her, although she desperately hated the idea of this, she would finally get to learn proper magic in the meantime.

For as long as Ginny could remember, one brother or another had been learning magic, or doing it accidentally, and it was finally her turn. She could learn to fly a broom that would go higher than standing height, or turn one thing into something else, and it all absolutely thrilled her. Even though she was tired from the mad day of shopping, she wanted to flip through her books to see what sort of spells they might start her off with. Fred and George had regaled her with tales of their first year spells, but she didn't believe a word they said. Half of it was meant to scare her, and the other half was likely meant to fool her; they always thought she was far more gullible than she truly was.

Cracking open The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 by Miranda Goshawk, Ginny perused the pages of all different types of spells as she felt the burning excitement build in her stomach. She always had trouble sleeping the night before anything special, and her first day at Hogwarts definitely counted as that. Setting the book aside, she reached for the next in the stack.

Her second book choice had a blank cover of plain black leather, and Ginny wondered if perhaps the lettering had worn off this particular edition. She was surprised to find that when she opened the book, every page was blank. A faint inscription at the front read "T.M. Riddle." The book appeared to be a journal. Ginny couldn't imagine that her family could spare the money for the journal, so she wasn't sure why it had been given to her, but since she had it anyway, she decided to make use of it.

Ginny pulled our her quill and ink, and thought a moment about what to write. She decided to start by introducing herself. In the neatest handwriting she could muster, Ginny wrote with a flourish:

"Hello. My name is Ginny Weasley."

Ginny pursed her lips as she thought about what to write next, and then suddenly her writing began to fade away. She turned the page to see if the ink had seeped through, but it had not. Flipping back to the first page, the one the letters had faded from, she furrowed her brows. Then the ink began to reappear, only showing a different set of words before her this time.

"Hello Ginny. My name is Tom Riddle. I see you've found my diary."

Ginny gaped at the page before her, uncertain how to proceed. Her father always told her never to talk to an item that could talk back, and she felt certain he wouldn't approve if he knew this particular diary could do so. The letters faded away once again, and Ginny decided she was too curious to pass up the chance to see what exactly this book was.

"Who are you Tom Riddle? How can you talk?"

After waiting another moment for the words she had written to vanish, fresh words began to appear before her eyes, proving to her that it had not been a moment of madness. She noticed this time that the words seemed to be written in her own ink, but in a tidy scrawl that was unlike her own.

"You can just call me Tom. I used to go to Hogwarts a very long time ago. Now I live in this diary, if you can call it living. The only thing I can do is talk to whomever should pick up my diary, which doesn't seem to happen very often."

Ginny smiled, sensing that this boy in this diary might very well be her kindred spirit. She didn't have many people to talk to either, even though she had such a large family.

"If you would like, we can be friends, Tom. I am just starting at Hogwarts, and I could use a friend going in."

Ginny waited with bated breath for her words to fade out of view, and for Tom's to replace them.

"I would like that very much, Ginny."

Ginny smiled at the diary in her lap. It would be lovely to start the school year with a confidant. She knew she wouldn't be able to tell anyone, it would be confiscated after all, but it felt nice to know that she would have a friend from day one. It felt even nicer to know that she could commit a little mischief she would have a chance at getting away with. Nothing was more mischievous than a secret for one of seven children.