Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin

Rooster Feathers

"Dear Tom, I still can't believe it's October. It's rather scary to think I've already spent more than a month at Hogwarts. What if the rest of the year goes by just as quickly and I don't enjoy any of it?" Ginny, lying face-down on her dormitory bed, watched these words slowly fade away.

Ginny had not taken the diary outside of her dormitory since she had arrived at school — it just didn't feel safe having it out there. It was difficult finding time to write to Tom when she had to share her dormitory with three other girls and did not want any of them, especially not Fleeta Fleece, to find out she had a diary. Thus, she usually wrote to Tom either during the day when they were all elsewhere, which had the unfortunate side effect of making Percy wonder why she was apparently spending so much time in bed, or else late at night when they were all asleep.

"Time passes most quickly when you're enjoying yourself. That means you must already be really enjoying yourself. Do you think you're enjoying Hogwarts?"

"I guess," Ginny wrote back. "I suppose it must be better than being cooped up at the Burrow. That sounds really pathetic coming from a girl who's been waiting for this her whole life, doesn't it?"

"Not at all. It's completely understandable that you would want to get away from such a repressive home life and be on your own for once."

"Well, it's all right here. It's just that a lot of the classes are hard and boring. Snape's is the worst, followed by Lockhart."

"I thought you said Lockhart was an idiot. How hard could his classes be?"

"I haven't told you about Lockhart's classes before? Well, they certainly aren't hard. He just reads his books aloud and sometimes has students reenact parts from them. Fleeta has managed to make herself Lockhart's favorite and always gets the part of the damsel in distress which all the other girls want."

"Except you, of course."

"Of course," Ginny agreed. "It's rather scary how many girls seem to like him. I don't know if Fleeta actually likes him though or if she just likes making the other girls jealous. Either way, those two deserve each other. I'll never know how she ended up in Gryffindor. Personally, I think she would be much more at home in Slytherin."

"You really don't like Slytherin, do you?"

"Of course not! More Dark witches and wizards have come out of Slytherin than any other house! You know, You-Know-Who himself was in Slytherin."

"Really? That's quite interesting..."

* * *

Ginny's arms felt tired, as though she had been using them for some aggravating task for the past hour — like building a brick wall. She didn't quite remember how they had gotten that way — she just wanted to rest them. This was when she realized she was outside, just a few yards away from Hagrid's hut, and, for a reason she didn't know, icy cold fear flooded through her body.

The reason for this soon came to her; she had absolutely no recollection whatsoever of how she had gotten there. She desperately racked her brains. The last thing she could remember was lying in her dormitory and writing in Tom Riddle's diary. She must have decided to go outside or something and had gotten lost in thought, but she had a horrible, foreboding feeling that it was much worse. After all, how could she have gotten so far from her dormitory and not have even the vaguest memory of going there?

She couldn't remember what she might have been thinking about either and desperately looked around for a clue. When she glanced down at herself, she saw there were rooster feathers all over her robes. Panic flooded through her. What was going on? Was she losing her memory? What should she do? Was this serious? Should she tell someone? She was shaking, though not just with fear. It was disagreeably cold out and for some reason she wasn't wearing her cloak. If she had decided to go outside, even without thinking, wouldn't she have still put her cloak on absent-mindedly?