A week later, I found myself in the library, looking up a book for History of Magic. Paige was with me, but she seemed distracted as we walked through the shelves of books. I knew that if I said nothing, she’d continue to fidget. I stopped and turned to her.
“What is it, Paige?” I asked calmly. She probably had misplaced or quill or something, I thought. I was wrong.
“There are some things that- that people haven’t been telling you,” she said jerkily.
I tipped my head to one side. “Like what?”
She looked slightly uncomfortable, but drew me deeper into the rows of shelves. “Colin. Remember Colin?”
“Of course I remember Colin,” I replied, looking at her as if she were mad.
“Well, he was attacked. A while ago,” she said shortly.
My eyes widened. “Attacked? Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“There’s been gossip, but you were too busy worrying about Ginny to notice,” Paige explained.
“But why didn’t anybody tell me?”
Paige shuffled her feet slightly. “Ginny- she sort of kept us quiet. She didn’t like us talking about it in front of you. Or at all, really.”
“She didn’t want me to know?” I was so surprised, my feet were frozen in place. “But how did you find out?”
“I listen,” Paige said exasperatedly. “I don’t ignore what people whisper about!”
“But when a student is attacked, it’s usually a big deal.”
“It was. It is! But Ginny just didn’t mention it around you, and she stopped us from doing the same.”
I was silent. Why wouldn’t Ginny want me to know about Colin? Colin was my friend! I’d met him on the Lake at my first day at Hogwarts. Maybe she thought I’d get ideas about it. I mean, I hadn’t forgotten when Ginny had disappeared on Halloween. And there had been times when I’d felt like Ginny was hiding something. That hadn’t been the only night when she’d seemed somehow not herself.
It all came back to that diary. She always seemed in a sort of stupor when she had written in it for a long time. She’d told me that Tom responded to her. Tom was the diary. Or was he in the diary? The difference seemed clearer to me now. I was suddenly even gladder she had discarded the diary.
“There’s more,” Paige said suddenly. “Some other people were attacked. Petrified somehow, but no trace of a spell on them… They’re all in the hospital wing, waiting for an antidote.”
I could find no reply to this. Forgetting the book I needed, I left the library quickly.
I found Ginny very quickly. She was sitting near the fire, in the same place we often sat together to do our homework. I folded my arms and observed her from the other side of the room, trying to decide how to approach her. Her face had more color in it. I hadn’t really noticed how pale she’d been prior to her release of the diary.
Gathering my courage, I stalked over to her seat, not really knowing what I was going to say to her. “Hello, Ginny,” I said coldly.
She didn’t look up from the book she was reading. “Hello, Susan,” she responded.
I walked around in front of her so that we were facing each other. I tapped my foot, my arms still crossed, until she looked up. Her eyes were innocent.
“Something you want to say?” she asked, not entirely noticing my agitation.
“Yes, actually,” I exploded. “Why didn’t you want me to know what happened to Colin?”
She didn’t move. “I didn’t think it was important,” she relayed.
“Don’t lie to me,” I retorted. “Why?”
She frowned at me. “I thought you’d make it into a big deal. It looks like I was right.”
“It is a big deal, Ginny,” I blurted out. “Don’t you see? Students were attacked! And you seem to feel odd about it. Did Tom say something to you?”
“Susan, please! You’re making a big deal out nothing.”
“Colin being petrified in the Hospital Wing is not nothing!”
The third years at the table behind us sniffed angrily and left to study somewhere else. I lowered my voice. “I just want to know why you didn’t want me to know.”
Ginny wasn’t listening. Her eyes were wide as she stared over my shoulder at somebody across the room. I turned quickly and spotted Harry. He had just climbed into the portrait hole, carrying Ginny’s diary.
Paige went to bed early that night. Ginny and I sat in a tense silence in our dormitory. I tried to think of the upcoming Easter holidays, but Tom Riddle’s diary and Colin’s absence occupied my mind. There was nothing I could do to forget for even thirty seconds about Harry holding Riddle’s diary.
Ginny started pacing. May and Colleen watched her skeptically. I wanted to tell them to go away. Ginny was plotting something, and I didn’t like it. I took Paige into the common room and explained what had happened. She shook her head. “Ginny is getting bad ideas in her head right now, I know it,” she muttered. “We have to stop her.”
However, Ginny did not attempt anything or sneak off anywhere over the next week. She spent a lot of time thinking and making no noise, though, and seemed almost as distant as she had been when she was writing fulltime in her diary. This left Paige and me lots of time to think as well. However, we not only worried about Ginny; we also thought about Dumbledore’s conversation with Mum and poor Colin and the other victims.
It wasn’t long before Ginny left the Great Hall early one night during dinner. It was a Saturday night, so both Paige and I knew that she didn’t have any tests to get last-minute studying done for. We knew something was up and resolved to go after her. However, we ran into Luna Lovegood in the hallway.
“Hello, Susan,” she said, smiling simply at me. She skipped over and patted my shoulder. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been, er, fine,” I mumbled, still feeling bad about not standing up for her that time when Colleen stole her cloak. I avoided her eyes. She glanced about airily.
“That’s nice,” she said, nodding. “Oh! I must show you something. My father just printed an article that you are going to love. I have a copy of it right here.” She slipped a magazine titled The Quibbler out of her pocket, placing her wand behind her ear. “It’s right here in the front. Look!”
I didn’t want to be rude, so I skimmed the article. It was about a dog that had telepathic powers. I found myself becoming more and more annoyed as it went on about all the ridiculous things it had told its owner through the connection in their minds. Paige tugged my sleeve after a minute and we hastily said our good-byes.
We ran up to Gryffindor Tower but could not find Ginny right away. She wasn’t in our dorm room or the common room. I realized with a lump in my throat that she was in the boys’ dormitory. Paige and I exchanged horrified looks as we slowly climbed the stairs to the second years’ room.
The door was slightly ajar. I peeked in, spying papers and clothing on the ground. My eyes wide, I pushed open the door to find Ginny digging through Harry’s things. She’d already gone through his books and bed and was now tearing through his trunk.
“Ginny!” Paige cried. “Stop it!”
“It’s in here, I know it,” Ginny said vehemently. “I’ll find it! I have to!”
“Please, Ginny, don’t do this!” I said, watching as she threw the contents of Harry’s trunk all around the room.
But it was too late. Ginny had already found the diary.