I don't own Harry Potter... Evelyn is made up by me, but that's where it stops

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"Will you please go to bed now?"

"Nooo... Hermione, you have to tell me a story!"

Hermione sighed while as the five-year-old jumped on and off the bed. She had volunteered to baby-sit the neighbour's child because they had an important convention, but she had forgotten how annoying five-year-olds could be. After throwing a tantrum about having to eat peas, running through the house, playing horsy on Hermione's back and stealing some cookies from the cookie-jar, Evelyn should have been exhausted. Hermione knew that she herself was.

There was one problem however: Evelyn wasn't.

It wasn't as if the girl was really annoying, or that Hermione hated to baby-sit. After all, she had done it last summer too. It was just that she hadn't slept that well the last few weeks.

"All right then...but will you promise to go to bed after the story?"

Evelyn nodded.

Hermione's eyes wandered over the books that stood on a shelf above Evelyn's bed. Unicorns, leprechauns, trolls...the girl obviously liked fantasy-books. After hesitating slightly, wondering if she would be able to suppress her laughter while reading it, Hermione choose Mathilda.

Evelyn had gotten in bed, and Hermione sat down on the end of the bed, but just as she went to open the book, Evelyn began to complain.

"No, not that story again! I know that one already! I want a new story!"

"Well, then," said Hermione, "which book do you want?"

With one jump, Evelyn stood up on her bed, looking at the books on the shelf.

"I know them all! You have to make one up!"

"But... but... about what?"

For a minute, Evelyn was silent. Then she sat down on her bed again, and said:

"About your school! You are always away for so long, you must do nice things!"

"About my school, hmm? Well, okay. But first, you have to promise me something."

"What?" The little girl's eyes grew wider.

"You must promise that you will never tell anyone about my school. You know, it's a secret school," she whispered.

"Really? Why?"

"Well, the school is for wizards and witches. They teach magic there."

As she spoke, Hermione led Evelyn back under the blankets and tucked her in.

"The school is called Hogwarts. And in my year at school, I have some nice friends."

"What are their names?"

"Harry and Ron."

"Harry and Ron? Those are stupid names."

"Yes, but Harry and Ron are very nice. You see, Harry is famous."

"Famous?"

"Yes, famous. When Harry was only a baby, a mean wizard tried to kill him."

"Really?"

"Really. But Harry lived, and the wizard got himself killed. That's what we thought, at least."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, in our first year, four years ago, Harry saw the evil wizard again. And Ron and I have helped Harry to shoo him away..."

"How?"

"Well, the evil wizard was looking for a stone – a great stone full of magic, which could make him more evil, and stronger. The stone was guarded, but the evil wizard managed to get through the obstacles and Harry, Ron and I wanted to stop him. So Ron and I helped Harry to get past the obstacles. There was a plant that tried to strangle us, and a three-headed dog that tried to eat us, and we had to find a key, and fight a troll...But we did it, and all those things are gone now..." She hesitated for a moment, not really sure how to end it well...

"And... and...they lived happily ever after!"

But Evelyn didn't like the ending. In fact, she didn't like the story at all.

"That's all? What a stupid story! I don't think that you are telling the truth!"

"Well," said Hermione, unsure of how to take criticism of a story about her own life, "What's supposed to happen in a good story?"

For a moment, there was a pensive look, as far as a child of that age could have one. Then she shrugged, and said, "There is supposed to be girl and a boy and an hero, and a monster and an evil person and...

"Okay. okay, I get it. Let me think." she sighed, irritated that the girl wasn't easily pleased.

"Okay, I got something," she said. If her own life-story wouldn't be good enough, she just had to tell someone else's, didn't she?

"Long ago, in a land, far frome here, there lived a little girl. The girls name was... ehm... Ginevra."

"Ginevra? That's a stupid name!" Evelyn whined.

"Well, then, you name her!"

Evelyn looked taken aback, but after a few silent moment, she answered:

"She should be called Ginny."

"Really?" Hermione grinned.

"Yes."

"Okay. Well, Ginny was a little girl. She had a lot of other siblings, but they were all brothers. There was Bill, who was the eldest, Charlie, who was the adventurest, Percy, who was the know-it-all, Fred and George, twins who were the funniest, and Ron, who was the... ehm..." She got stuck. How could you stereotype Ron?

"Well, Ron was the friendliest of them all. And on the day our tale begin, Ginny was excited, because she would go, along with her brothers, to the boarding school she had heard so much about from her brothers. Ginny had bought her books with her mom a couple days before, had gotten a school uniform and other supplies. Most of the things were second-hand, because Ginny's family wasn't very rich and had a lot of children, but she was happy with it none the less.

In one of her second-handed schoolbooks, there had been a diary. A magical one, Ginny had discovered. Because the moment you would write something in it, the diary would write back."

"Like a penpall?" Evelyn interrupted.

"Yes, like a penpall, but one that didn't exist. Ginny had discovered that the diary that wrote back was called Tom, and that it had his own opinions and everything.

There was another reason Ginny was so excited to go to school: She had a crush. On one of Ron's best friends, Harry. Harry was a bit famous: he had defeated an evil wizard when he was little." At this, Evelyn rolled her eyes. Hermione was surprised that a five-year-old could have such a strong opinion.

"Ginny hoped that she would learn to act a bit cool around him, because every time she saw him now, she just got red and didn't know what to say anymore. She had also told Tom about Harry. And Tom was pretty interested in him too. He had asked her a lot and Ginny, glad to tell someone about her crush, had gladly obliged.

Her life was good. She had someone who listened to her, difficult classes she had always longed for, and a few brothers around her. But it didn't stay that way. Ginny felt that she was getting sick. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she knew that there was something wrong with herself."

"What was it?" Evelyn demanded.

"Well, I get to that in a second. You don't want me to spoil you, do you?" Evelyn shook her head.

"Ginny got memory-losses. She couldn't remember what she had done at certain times. Sometimes, during a class, or in the weekends, it looked like she had dozed of, and then had woken up, not knowing what she had dreamed. One day, she was covered in feathers, the other day, she had been all slimy and dirty.

And that was not the only thing that was wrong. People from her boarding school got attacked. They turned into stone and no one, not even the Headmaster, could stop the attacks. Ginny got scared. a lot of people told her that it had been the heir of Slytherin, who had done this. It was a legendary monster, who had been active in the school some years ago.

But Ginny had one relief: she could write everything in her Diary. Tom was understanding, and though he was sometimes a bit weird, Ginny liked to tell him everything. Tom came with explanations why Ginny sometimes had memory losses: she was just overworked. She was just stressed, or had gotten a cold.

There came more and more attacks, and Ginny got more scared. She started to realise that every time there had been an attack, she couldn't remember where she had been. she couldn't remember what she had done at that moment. So, even more scared, she wrote it to Tom. But Tom didn't react. He said nothing back.

Now, Ginny got terrified. What if her Diary had something to do with her memory-loss? What if her Diary had something to do with those attacks? There was a date on the back of the cover, that told her that her Diary came from the same time as the last time the Heir of Slytherin had been active.
When Ginny 'woke' the day after, standing in a bathroom, not knowing what she had done, but with only her Diary in her hands, she threw the Diary away, in a toilet, in blind panic.

Meanwhile, Ginny also had Harry Potter to worry about. She didn't see him as much as she would have wanted, but there were enough occasions to see him and feel the jolts of butterflies in her stomach. She knew, however, that Harry barely saw anything in her, and that if he saw her, he only saw Ron's little sister. She needed to do something about that. So when one of her teachers had rented some cupids on Valentine's Day, Ginny took her chance.

With all her poetical effort, she wrote a poem for Harry, and then asked one of the cupids if he could bring it for her to Harry. The cupid, who was actually a dwarf dressed as a cupid, did so when Ginny was in the same corridor as Harry. She saw how Harry felt embarrassed, and was being kicked by the dwarf, who then sat on his legs to tell the poem. Ginny felt a bit embarrassed herself: she had realised that Harry would never like her more if she managed to embarrass him. But she felt even more stupid, she felt even more scared, when she saw what had rolled out of Harry's bag: It was her Diary!

The same Diary she had told everything to about Harry, and how much she liked him! The same diary she had spilled all her secrets and tales in! What if Harry would find out how it worked? What if- her breath had stopped for a moment, there- Tom would tell her everything?

For a few days, Ginny was in agony. She had to get that Diary back!

Then one day, when she knew that there would be no one in the boys' dormitory, she ran upstairs.

It took her some time to figure out where Harry had put the Diary, but she found it. Tom was not very happy to see her back, but Ginny ignored it. She had missed him, and she was far to happy to have it back, without any of her secrets spilled.

But what she couldn't ignore was the fact that the memory-losses had come back. But she told herself that the heir of slytherin, her memory-loss and her diary probably had nothing to do with each other." Evelyn shook her head.

"It had, hadn't it?"

"Yes, it actually had. And the diary grew stronger and stronger because Ginny kept spilling all her secrets in it. And then…." She paused dramatically and also to take a sip of a glass of water.

"What? What?"

"The diary got even more evil. It demanded that little Ginny would go to a secret room in the school. There, Tom appeared out of the diary, as a real human."

Evelyn gasped and held her hands before her mouth.

"Ginny had been knocked out, and for a moment, it seemed as if she would die."

She took another sip, glancing at Evelyn and frowning. Maybe she could keep the story a bit less exciting: the girl now almost had tears in her eyes. Time to alter the story a bit and make a more happy ending out of it than it actually was.

"But her brother and Harry had followed her into that secret room. Ron had to stay behind, because his leg was injured, but Harry had followed Ginny and Tom into the secret room and the moment Tom had erupted from the diary, Harry had started to fight him.

"He's strong, isn't he?" Hermione nodded.

"Yes, Harry was very strong. And it didn't take him long before he had managed to put Tom back in the diary, and he was able to destroy the little book.

He then rescued Ginny from the chamber, and brought her to the nurse. There, while Ginny was lying in the bed, he told her that he actually loved her, and would never leave her again. And they lived happily ever after."

Evelyn looked content, but also tired. She quickly kissed the girl on her forehead. "Time to sleep now."

"Hermione, that was a good story. Will you tell me again when you come baby-sit?"

"I have more stories," she whispered, glad with the compliment. "I will tell you another one that's just as good. Good night."

Before Hermione had closed the door, Evelyn had fallen asleep.

She walked downstairs and fell on the couch. It would take the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gutlin another few hours to come home. In that time she would have to clean the kitchen, (Evelyn had made a real mess of the peas she had been supposed to eat) but that could wait.

Grabbing her bag, Hermione pondered for a moment. She wished that real life could be as simple as a fairy-tale sometime.

Although she had been home for only a couple days since her fourth year had ended, she had already received tree letters, whom all needed an answer. She stared at the first one, from Ginny. She told Hermione that they were moving to Snuffles' old home, with some other "friends", of which Hermione could assume they were all there on Dumbledore's orders. The house was in a terrible state, and Ginny told her the nightmares about her 1st year were coming back. Sighing, worried about her friend, she started the letter. It was clear to her that life was far from a fairy tale.

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Hope you liked it! There are still 2 other chapters coming, that's why I don't tell what the other 2 letters contain...

The Evelyn-character here is not the same one as the Evelyn that's appearing in my story "Ginny, Hermione and the half-blood-prince". I'm just really lousy with names, and I like the name "Evelyn"

leave a review if you have some time!

x-mokimik-x