Bat-Bogey Hexers

1

Year One
The Chamber Of Secrets
1992

September First, 1992, the day both Ginny Weasley and Viola Lestrange were waiting for. The day they would finally go to Hogwarts.

After a trip to Diagon Alley, Ginny was even more excited than she had been before. She had a wand, books and robes. Most of them were second hand which bothered Ginny, but she tried not to dwell on it just then. She was finally going to Hogwarts after years of waiting ever since her eldest brother Bill had gone, and she didn't want anything to dampen her excitement.

Ginny picked up her battered copy of A Beginners Guide To Transfiguration off her desk. She flipped through it. She couldn't wait to get to school, and start learning all sorts of magic. As Ginny skimmed through the pages, something fell from them, and tumbled to the floor. Ginny's freckled face scrunched up in confusion as she bent down to find the fallen object. It was a tattered little notebook.  Filled with curiosity, Ginny picked it up. She opened it and flipped through.

It appeared to be a diary, but nothing had been written on the yellow pages, except for a date at the very front of the book, 1942, and a name. Tom Riddle. Ginny found it rather odd that although this person had inscribed their name and date into the journal, they had never written in it.

The transfiguration book must've belonged to this Tom as well. Ginny shrugged to herself. If nothing else, she could use a diary. Ginny fetched a quill and ink from a drawer of her desk and began to write on the second yellowing page.

Dear Diary,

Ginny was thinking of what to write next when the first words she had written sank into the page. Ginny's brown eyes widened in amazement, and grew even wider when new words appeared on the page.

Hello, I'm Tom Riddle. Who might you be?

                           🦇🦇🦇

"-worst mistake of our lives was that child! I can't believe her audacity! Bringing that filthy animal in here!"

Viola's mothers voice rose up from down stairs.

"Everything's alright Ira!" Viola's father said in a soothing tone. "In a few days she'll be gone."

"Yes, off learning magic because supposedly that's a good idea! What if she turns against us? Curses is in our sleep?"

Viola felt sick hearing this conversation even though it was much like hundreds she had heard before. Her mother hated her.

The girl sat alone in a drab little attic that looked more like a prison than an eleven year olds bedroom. She was no prettier, in her mothers eyes at least, than the day she was born. Bulging, wet brown eyes, long nose and sickly pale skin that seemed to cling to her bones. She was a wretched creature to look at, but not due to any of the afore mentioned features. No it was the loneliness in the sad expression she always wore.

"Only a few more days Auggie," Viola whispered to the bat climbing on her arm.

The love Viola had always longed for, she showed to the unloved creatures that filled her bedroom. The bat on her arm, the spider webs strung across the ceiling, the rat a sleep in her pillow, the snake coiled around her bedpost and the earless dog who Viola's mother had deemed filthy. They were the closest thing Viola had to friends and a lick from the dog was the closest to a form of affection she had ever come to. Despite the unloved calamity the child was, she had a heart full of feeling. On occasion, too much feeling.

Viola and Ginny were both very different in many aspects, but the excitement for Hogwarts and the longing for friends in their hearts were very much the same.