"Ginny, go on and take your things up to your room. We can find out what all we need later once your father gets back," her mother said, probably coming to the same conclusion she had about what the clock meant as she reluctantly pried herself away and disappeared into her comforting kitchen. By the time they got home there'd probably be enough food prepared to feed them all for a week.
Gathering her things together, Ginny made the trek up to her room where she found George's old trunk sitting on her bed. Taking out the new quill that her mother had gotten her, an ordinary feather charmed to look like the peacock's feather Lockhart had, she ticked off what she had from her list as she transferred them to the trunk.
Some of the books would need to be mended, and she didn't want to know how they had burned the back cover of her Charms book, but the important stuff seemed to be there. All except Lockhart's books that is, her Dad had been thrown out of the store before they could buy them. If there was one thing she was glad about it was that Harry hadn't been there to see the fight get started. What the blond boy and his father said was horrible; she certainly didn't want Harry to think those things.
Surely someone besides her own brother would be interested in her one day. Call it 'the Grand Tradition' or not, the thought of marrying part of her own family made her feel icky and wrong. People might've done it two hundred years ago, and evil people like that might want to still do it now, but she'd die alone and unloved - like Great-Aunt Muriel would - before she'd do a thing like that.
At the bottom of the cauldron Ginny found something odd. It was a small, somewhat worn, black leather journal like the ones her mum had taken to writing in. It certainly wasn't on the list. She flipped it open to see if it was hers but didn't find anything inside. It was old, but blank. The only thing she could find was a reference to a Vauxhall Road and the name Tom Marvolo Riddle.
It had to be a diary! She had always wanted a diary. Luna's mum said she'd had one ever since she was a little girl but Ginny's mum had never gotten her one. Whoever this Tom Riddle was had obviously never used his; it was probably an unwanted Christmas gift that'd been sold off and never thought of again.
Ginny squirmed as she stood thinking about it. If she asked her mum whether she'd gotten it for her she could say yes, but she might say no and use it herself. She supposed she could always hide it and wait to see if her mother asked where it was, but if she lied and tried to keep it her mum had already found all of her book-stashing hiding places.
A devious smile bloomed on her face as Ginny came up with the perfect plan. She'd write her name in it and just start using it, that way if her mother wanted to take it she'd be wracked with guilt and couldn't do it. Besides, with Harry renting a room there was sure to be enough money to buy all the journals her mother could want, there was no reason she had to have this one.
Ginny ran to her little writing desk by the window and filled her quill with ink.
'This diary belongs to Ginny Weasley,' she wrote on the first page. Ginny thought of adding 'Keep Out!' but reckoned it'd only make the twins want to read more if they ever find it. Oh! Maybe she could find some way to bewitch it so they couldn't once she got to Hogwarts.
Coming out of her little daydream, she was shocked to find the page completely blank. She quickly checked the next page it just in case she'd flipped it accidentally. There was nothing there; everything was just blank. Her mother had bought a bum book. Who'd bewitch a diary so you couldn't write anything in it? Ginny was about to take the journal to her mother to say that she could have it when something truly bizarre happened. The book wrote back.
'Hello, Ginny Weasley. My name is Tom Riddle. It's very nice to meet you. It's been quite some time since anyone has written in this diary. However did you come by it?'
She didn't know if it was the uncertainty with the goblins or just because he was gone, but her father's voice suddenly rang loudly in her ears. 'Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain .'
B-But that didn't make any sense. Wouldn't a book keep its brain in itself? But wait, what about the clock? It was a clock; it didn't have a brain, so how was it supposed to know where to place the hands on it without one? And what about pictures and paintings that move about on their own and talk? Even their Ford Anglia had a compass pointing you in the direction you were supposed to go and none of them had a brain at all.
Then the answer came to her. Magic and magical items could be dangerous if you didn't know what to do. It was just one of those things parents say to make you cautious, even if they weren't really dangerous at all. Don't run downhill. Don't fly too high. Don't play with your brother's wand. Don't trust anything without a brain. The answer to why the diary was there came easily after that.
'An enchanted friend for the friendless?' she asked the book in writing.
'Something like that,' came the response. 'I can be your friend. The real Tom - the one who made this book what it is - he never really had many friends. He was always alone, even at Hogwarts. That's why he made this, once he learned enough. It was tough, but he thought if he could prevent even one person from having to be alone like he was it'd all be worth it. So what do you think, can we be friends?'
It - He - Tom, that is, had been alone like her. The boys had always had each other, but most of the time they didn't talk to her unless it was to make fun of her or tease her. But Tom couldn't make fun of her, not really, he was in a book. He had to be nice or she'd stop writing and he'd have no one to talk to until the next person came along, and who knows when that'd be?
Looking at it this way, her mother's plan made a lot of sense. All of her problems had come from longing for a boy who lived in a book, and here's a boy who actually does live in a book - well, who seems to anyway. Who better than him to be a friend to a girl like that? Her mother probably thought she'd end up forgetting about Tom once she made some real friends like she had forgotten about Luna.
'Fat chance,' Ginny thought. She'd never forgotten about Luna; you never forget your very first friend. There were still days she hoped to see her making her way over the hill towards the Burrow; that's why her desk still faced the window, so she'd never miss her if she did.
'I'd like that,' she wrote to Tom. She'd already lost one friend, she wasn't about to lose another.
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