Ink

The ink runs, blotching into spiraling arms and twisting branches.

Ginny would curse, if she hadn't been taught better. She works so hard now when she writes these entries, to make every letter perfect, to make every sentence scintillating. She is too young to know that men are only interested in young girls, well, for reasons that most eleven year olds girls could not conceive.

Ginny is foolish, and throws all the common sense her mother has instilled to the wind. She has wanted to go to Hogwarts since she was old enough to first understand where her brothers would go every September. They would return, first with wondrous stories, then with souvenirs from Zonko's and Honeyduke's. Every season they were transformed, older, stronger, with strange new skills, and ample knowledge.

Ginny desired this transformation, desperately, willing herself to change into some better person - some person who was not merely the youngest of the Weasleys, distinguished only by her hair, her name, her secondhand robes. Hogwarts would change this, would leach it out of her to be replaced by magic, magic that she could hold in the palm of her hand.

Ginny found Hogwarts to be terrifying, a maze she felt was designed only to trap her and trick her. Staircases shifted under her feet, and hallways seemed to rearrange themselves around her. Her fellow students were no more help. Ron ignored her, which was just as well, since she could hardly say a word in Harry Potter's presence. She wasn't accepted by the other girls in her year, who had more important things to talk about than classes.

Ginny found, that first, miserable week at Hogwarts, a second-hand black diary among her things. The diary, which had the battered look of someone else's things, was miraculously empty. She began to write, clandestinely, slapping the cover shut tight if anyone should happen by. Her entries were scrawled, whining, painful thoughts, which weren't meant for anyone else's eyes.

Ginny quickly noticed that her entries disappeared as soon as she wrote them. It bothered her, but only in a minor way, since she was always deeply embarrassed about what she had written afterward. It was only when the diary began to write back to her that she became disturbed. It quickly reassured her, sympathized with her, and told her that no one understood her. But he did.

Ginny found that the creature in her diary was a boy named Tom, who had gone to Hogwarts. He had lots of good advice on how to get around and on improving her grades in her classes. Tom told her not to worry about the other girls in her year, that they were silly and foolish, but if he was on her side, she would be a greater success than any of them. There were just a few things she could do for him...

Ginny wanted to help him, but soon she started blacking out and missing chunks of time, waking up to find herself covered in red paint and chicken feathers. She refused to help him anymore, but each time he would convince her to do what he wanted one more time. At first he would persuade her with compliments, but as time went on he started to threaten her family, her friends, herself. He demanded she tell him more about Harry Potter, Dumbledore, what had happened in the last fifty years. Tom was so powerful, so charismatic that she would always do what he said. But now Hermione had become petrified, and Ginny knew it was all her fault.

Ginny writes very slowly, shaping each letter with careful precision. Dear Tom...I can't help you any longer. I know now what you are doing to me and to my friends. I thought you were my friend...but I realize that's not true. I won't be writing to you anymore. I'm sorry, but I can't do this for you. Ginevra Weasley.

On the final y, the ink blots and spreads, twisting and spiraling along the threads of paper as Ginny drops the diary on the damp floor of the girl's bathroom.