The Very Secret Diary of Ginny Weasley

Chapter Five

Ginny sat up from the floor and looked around. She was in a deserted corridor not too far from the entrance to Gryffindor tower.

           By the dim light in the corridor, Ginny could tell that it was late. Either late evening, or early in the morning. She expected Mrs. Norris to come slinking around the corner at any moment, with Mr. Filch no doubt behind her, ready to catch her out of her dorm at such an odd hour, but the halls of the castle were eerily quiet.

           When she stood up and brushed herself off, she noticed that her clothes were covered in partially dried paint, dark red, by the looks of it. And when in shimmered in the light, it almost looked like blood.

           Sickened by the sight of it, Ginny tore off her cloak in horror and threw it on the floor. She realized that she must have been sleepwalking again, but the paint on her clothes frightened her a great deal.

           The thought of being caught here in such a state of disarray crept back in to her mind. She picked the cloak up off the floor and folded it up again, doing her best not to get paint on her, although it had already seeped through her cloak onto her clothes. She swiftly made her way to the portrait hole.

           “Wattlebird,” she said breathlessly to the portrait of the Fat Lady. The painting opened up and she crept quietly into the common room.

           Continuing to move quietly, Ginny darted up the stairs to the girls’ dorm. She grabbed a change of clothes from her room, and tiptoed to the girls’ dorm bathrooms.

           At first, Ginny tried to rinse the paint from her clothes, but to no avail. The paint continued to shimmer on through her cloak and clothes.

           She washed up and snuck back into her dorm room again. Quietly, she hid the paint-covered clothes in her trunk and slipped back into her bed. Left alone to her thoughts of curious sleepwalking adventures, she drifted back to sleep, waiting for the morning to come.

            *           *          *

             Ginny slept later than she meant to. When she came downstairs into the common room, several students coming back from breakfast were talking excitedly about an 'attack'.

           Unnerved, she rushed to the Great Hall, in hopes that she would catch Fred and George before they finished breakfast. She had just missed them. Still curious about this so-called 'attack', she asked the first person she saw, Colin Creevey.

           “Good morning Colin. What’s going on around here? What's this I hear about an attack?” she said, sitting down at the table next to him.

           “You don't know? Where have you been?”

           “I went to bed early last night, okay?” she said hurriedly, grabbing for some cold toast. “Now are you going to tell me or what?”

           “Oh yes, of course! Well, the caretaker's cat, Mrs. Norris, was petrified!”

           Ginny gasped. “What? How?”

           Colin went on, “Well it seems that Harry Potter found her hanging from a torchlight on the second floor, near the girls' toilets. Everyone was coming back upstairs from the feast when they found him, your brother Ron and Hermione Granger there at the scene. Everyone thinks he did it, the other professors even took them away for questioning about the incident.”

           Ginny's stomach lurched at the thought of Harry in trouble. He'd been in enough trouble this term already. Her hands began to tremble as she reached for the pitcher of milk in front of her.

            “He didn't really do it did he?” Ginny asked nervously as she finished pouring her milk. “I mean, they don't know who did it really, do they?”

            “Well I for one don't think he did it,” Colin assured her. “I mean it just doesn't make any sense. He would have never written that stuff on the wall.”

           “What stuff on the wall?”

           “Oh yeah,” Colin reminded himself. “Near Mrs. Norris' body, there were words painted on the wall. A threat of some kind.”

           Ginny lost control of the glass in her hand, spilling milk all over the table.

           “Painted on the wall? Are you sure, Colin?”

           “You can go see for yourself. I think it's still there,” he said, handing her a napkin. “Mr. Filch has been pacing there all night, he might not let you near it. I hear he's very upset.”

           “Thanks Colin,” Ginny said wiping up the remainder of the milk on herself and the table. “I'd best be off. See ya!”

           Ginny bolted up the stairs to the second floor, her stomach in knots. As she rounded the corner into the corridor, she saw no trace of Filch. The only light came from the windows far down the hall, making it difficult to see.

           As she neared the wall, her stomach gave a lurch as she read the shimmering words on the wall...

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE ,

           Ginny's knees buckled and she felt weak from nausea. She ran to the bathroom nearby, and, disregarding the out-of-order sign, she shoved open the door. She barely made it to the nearest stall.

           Feeling some relief, after having her breakfast come back up, she went to the sinks to clean herself. She splashed some water on her face, patting it dry with a towel. As she did this, she glanced at herself in the mirror. She suddenly had the strangest feeling of deja vu, though she couldn't figure out what it was that was so familiar. It was odd, because she couldn’t remember ever being in the bathroom before.

           She poked her head out the bathroom door, making sure that no one, especially Filch, was coming down the corridor, and sprinted back to Gryffindor tower.

            Ginny searched frantically through her room for her diary, but she couldn't remember where she had left it. She thought to herself, “Oh no, I can’t have lost it! Okay, wait, calm down and think- when was the last time I was writing in it? Last night, before I fell asleep, I was wrote in it.”

           She checked on and around her bed. Nothing. “Odd, when I woke up and came back to the room this morning, I didn't notice it being here on the bed.”

           A light clicked on abruptly inside her head. She stumbled to her trunk, rummaging to the bottom for her paint-smeared robe. Sighing with relief, Ginny pulled the diary from the inside pocket.

           “Must've taken it when I was sleepwalking,” she thought.

           She knew that she was in no state to be amongst people at the moment, but in her heart, she had to know if Ron, Hermione and Harry were okay.

           She went back downstairs, took a chair in a secluded corner of the common room, and began writing in the diary.

           “Dear Tom, I don't know what I’m going to do! I think my sleepwalking has seriously become out of control!”

            Tom’s concerned words flashed upon the page. “What has happened Ginny?”

           “Well, I don't know where I was Halloween night, but a cat was attacked, and I have paint all down my front. When I went to look at the scene of the attack, I saw that there was writing all over the wall in red paint!” she scrawled quickly. “Even worse, they caught Harry, Ron and Hermione at the scene, and I’m afraid they may be expelled! Especially Harry, since it was Filch's cat who was attacked, and Filch has it in for Harry as it is!”

            Her words faded as quickly as Tom’s elegant handwriting appeared. “Do you believe that you are the one who wrote on the wall?

           “I don't think so. I couldn't have. Oh Tom, I just don't know! I could have just as well rubbed up against the wall while I was sleepwalking. But what if I saw who did it while I was sleepwalking, and didn't really see them! Even worse, what if I did have something to do with it, and someone found out. I wish I knew for sure,” Ginny wrote.

           “Ginny, it is most likely that you merely brushed up against the wall. But I would be cautious, you do not know if anyone saw you or not. I think for now, it is best that you do not mention it to anyone. At least until you know for sure what happened. But for now, tell me more about the attack. Do you remember anything?”

           “No, I can't remember anything,” she thought back to herself as she wrote down the words, “I had a dream, but it's a vague memory. It's horrible, really. Mrs. Norris was petrified! She was found like I said, near the girls' toilet–“

            “Hey Gin, whatcha up to?”

           Ginny snapped the diary shut, and looked up at her brother. Ron, was standing over her with his usual smirk on his face.

           Instantly, she looked around, put at ease at the sight of Harry and Hermione talking to some fellow Gryffindors on the other side of the room. She looked to Ron again. “I heard about last night. Are you all right? I mean I heard you got into trouble, I was worried,” she said quickly, trying to stay as calm as possible.

           “We're fine Ginny. There’s no need to worry, honestly! You should hear yourself, you sound like Mum!” Ron said, laughing.

           Ginny gave him an annoyed look. “What were you doing there anyways? Where were you last night?” she asked, pretending not to know.

             Ron explained to her about their adventures at the Deathday Party, and how they found Mrs. Norris as they were hoping to join the tail end of the feast. But as he explained this to her, Ginny noticed that Ron looked slightly nervous himself, as though he were not telling her the entire story or was unsure of what he should be telling her.

             She wanted to tell Ron about waking up in the hallway and her strange dream. But in the end, she took Tom’s words to heart, and said nothing. Afraid of what Ron would think of her if she did.

            Continuing to console her as best he could, Ron even tried to make a joke of the situation, but inside, Ginny still felt horrible, not knowing for sure if she was the one to blame or not.