Posting two chapters since it's been so long...
"Let me get this straight, I told you to check on your sister to make sure she isn't being bullied and you have stolen her diary!" Hermione looked imperious, sitting across from a rapidly wilting pair of Weasley twins in their compartment of the Hogwarts Express. They'd just left their families back on the platform after a full two weeks of holiday, which had largely been a welcome respite from the stressful fall and their ineffective detective campaign against the bigoted prankster.
"We did try to talk to her," George explained. "But she wanted none of it. And she usually is up for flying with us or trying to sneak cookies or catch gnomes and dress them up in holiday costumes but she had-."
"No interest at all!" Fred continued. "Georgie even tried to have a serious heart-to-heart after Christmas, and her face went blank and she totally shut down."
"The only thing she did all break was scribble furiously in this journal."
"But it didn't look like it was making her happy. She looked even more tired and worn out afterwards…"
"So we nicked it. Figured we could read in her own words what's going on-"
"But! Look at it!"
Fred offered the black leather book over to Hermione, who sniffed and started to tell them she wasn't going to invade their sister's privacy when Lee snatched it.
"It's totally empty!" He marvelled, rifling through the pages. "What revealing spells have you tried?"
"Everything we could think of! Even the Muggle lemon-juice and heat tricks."
"Nothing showed up. You two are welcome to give it a go. We're stumped at this point."
"Well, we can try more spells from the library," Hermione mused, intrigued now that the diary held a mystery. "Are you sure she didn't just take a page out of your book and leave a decoy for you to steal?"
"Not judging by her frantic searching this morning," Fred muttered, his ears turning bright red in an unusual admission of guilt.
"Oh, honestly!" Hermione huffed. "We should just return it. She obviously doesn't want us reading it if it's so heavily enchanted."
"But there's also something obviously wrong!" George argued. "I am ashamed we didn't see it until you pointed it out, but she's so reserved and spends all her time alone. She asked us to give her space at Hogwarts so she could be her own person and we did…"
"But now we reckon we ought to have been paying a lot closer attention!" Fred finished. "We just want a hint of what's wrong so we can help."
"Fine," Hermione snapped. "I don't want anything to do with this though. I'm going to go see if I can find her and check that's she's okay. I give you a week before I report you!"
"I think a week of non-reporting is about as good as we're going to get on this one," Lee whispered after the compartment door slammed behind the tiny third year.
"Agreed. Any other ideas on what to try with this?" George asked, poking it with his wand.
"Have you tried writing in it?" Lee suggested.
"No," the twins breathed in unison. "Good idea!"
George dove into a bag, tossing out colored confetti, a few shriveled potions ingredients, some Muggle snacks, a textbook, some crumpled paper, and a lone sock before he emerged victorious with a self-inking quill.
"Who wants the honors?" he offered.
"I'm not volunteering to make your little sister irate. Mini-Lee's being mad is enough for me," Lee joked, although his nervous glance at the door suggested there might have been a hint of truth in his words.
Fred had already pressed the quill to the paper. "Hello Ginny's Diary!" he wrote in his open, looping hand. The ink shimmered for a moment then sank into the paper. He hastily turned the page but saw no trace of it. Flipping back, he saw new letters form.
"Who is this?"
The handwriting wasn't Ginny's. It was in a spidery, eloquent hand that somehow looked incredibly dated.
"Wicked," the three boys breathed.
"Okay, write back to it. Do you reckon there's a password?" George urged.
"What do I say? Ginny's brother?"
"Ginny's crush?" Lee jumped in.
Fred grinned and wrote out "Ginny's crush. Who are you?"
"This is Harry Potter?" the thin writing etched back. The three boys chuckled, and waited to see if the journal would answer the second questions. The book seemed to hesitate then new words appeared. "I'm Tom."
"Okay, so the Boy Who Lived is an obvious choice for a crush, I think that's a decoy," Lee announced.
"Or it's a really crappy diary, spilling secrets like that with basically no provocation," George muttered, looking a bit disappointed.
"Why'd she name it Tom? That's a weird name for a diary. Aren't diaries usually named "diary"? And if not, why a boy? Everyone knows boys are rubbish." Fred wondered.
"Also, where'd she get this? This had to cost loads of money with this sort of protective enchantment, and there's no way Mum sprung for this." George continued.
"Was it a Christmas present? I can't remember if she had this during term," Fred responded.
"I think we should start trying passwords. Just write down things Ginny likes-her favorite books and sweets and see what changes the text," Lee urged.
The boys settled down to brainstorming a long list of potential passwords-the Bat-bogey hex, Quidditch, Gryffindor, Hollyhead Harpies, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Mum's Christmas pudding-to no avail. The ink that bled from the pages questioned what they were writing a few times but never offered to open the diary to them.
** JP ** JP ** JP **
The boys didn't have a chance to update Hermione until after the New Years feast, as they had all been distracted by their own efforts to usher in the new year for the school (This has involved handing out scores of glasses that said "Hogwarts" with the 'o' and circle of 'g' over the eyes that lit up and shot tiny fireworks off the tops for a low fee of 5 sickles, releasing a set of glitter bombs over the faculty table, and setting off their experimental 'singing fireworks' that not only exploded but shouted "Happy New Year" and "Keep up with your resolutions you lazy lout!" and other such "festive" things as they exploded. Even the Headmaster looked irritated when he realized they'd used a variant of the Gemini charm on the glitter, making it just about impossible to remove, which even Hermione counted as a major success.)
But, back in the common room, they showed her the diary and what they'd learned.
"Did you really have to give it a pink glitter cover? Is that a cat on it?" Hermione grouched while squinting at the fake-jewel encrusted feline Lee had painstaking charmed.
"Ginny would never own something this awful, so she won't be suspicious that this is her diary," George seriously explained. Hermione just rolled her eyes.
They ignored her "pre-teen dramatics" and filled her in on what they'd learned about the diary, although she cut them off about 10% into their listing of the "passwords" they'd tried.
"That sounds like really advanced magic. I've never heard of a diary that does that, have you? Do you think she enchanted it herself?"
"Nope," Lee popped his p dramatically. "We think she bought it somewhere or got it for Christmas."
"She's had that journal all year," Hermione corrected. "Don't any of you pay attention?"
"Err, yes, but as we mentioned, we're not-"
"Stalking our baby sister."
"Okay, well that's one theory out. If she bought it, it'd be wicked expensive, so someone must have given it to her. But who?" Lee asked.
"Have you asked Charlie or Bill? They might have been convinced that their favorite sibling… ouch, don't elbow me, I think that's definitely an accurate statement!... needed a well-defended diary before she got sent off to Hogwarts with her malicious older brothers."
"Bill is a curse-breaker," George muttered.
"I doubt it he'd have enchanted a diary named Tom, but I'll write both of them to subtly inquire," Fred offered.
"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Hermione joked. Lee laughed, while the twins both looked affronted.
"But Hermione, can you look into enchantments on books? Please? We need to figure out how to get into it," George wheedled.
"Absolutely not! I know you guys are awesome older brothers. Go be awesome older brothers rather than nicking your sister's secrets. I have enough extra research to do with our monitoring spells, which, if you recall are still utter rubbish AND I have to write my parents after your parents filled them in about the petrifications." She glared at them at the last point. Their exit from the Hogwarts Express in December had been fraught as the Grangers had grilled Hermione why she hadn't told them about the attacks after the Weasleys and Jordans had discussed their worries about it. She'd narrowly escaped with her parental trust in tact after she'd told them that she thought they knew-after all, McGonagall had clearly told the twin's and Lee's parents. Which had then started a whole new set of discussions as to whether Muggleborn's parents were being kept in the dark about these events over her holidays. (The Weasley's reassurances that there were lots of ridiculous rumors about the Giant Squid eating students, the Whomping Willow smushing students, etc. hadn't done much in the way of actually reassuring the Grangers that Hogwarts was a safe place for their daughter.)
"Fine," George agreed. "We'll work on talking to Ginny again while we contact the Old Bros. Freddie, why don't you write to Scrivenshaft's and Flourish and Blott's to see if they have any products like this. And yes, Miss Justice for Ginny, we will return it by the end of the week!"
Hermione didn't look at all appeased, but returned to her reading with only a small huff.
** JP ** JP ** JP **
The letters from Bill and Charlie indicated neither or them had given Ginny a pre-Hogwarts present, which seemed believable largely because both brothers seemed to feel a great deal of guilt they hadn't purchased anything and had promised to send Ginny something shortly.
More frustrating, both Scrivenshaft's and Flourish and Blott's responded they didn't sell any products like that, although the former suggested they'd be willing to split profits if the twins developed such an item.
"Can I borrow the diary for some experiments?" Lee asked after Fred reported their dead-ends on determining the diary's origins.
Hermione held firm on her decision not to aid their endeavor, instead focusing on their monitoring spells and a nascent effort to befriend some Hufflepuffs who might get them closer access to Zacharias Smith, so Lee was forced to take up her mantle in the library.
"Sure," George answered, tossing him the pink book. He'd added a few embellishments in his boredom; it was now festooned with several purple flowers that occasionally emitted poofs of glitter and sparkle madly. The pages themselves he'd tried to tint to no avail.
Lee started writing in the diary, pausing every few sentences to consult on the of the books scattered around him. His expression transitioned from curious to perplexed to a permanent (and unusual) scowl.
"Mates," he finally sighed. "This is a total mystery. I've tried a number of experiments on this to test what sorts of enchantment it might be under. For example, the Marauder's map responds with insults to anyone who doesn't know the password. That sort of behaviour can be accomplished with a Hominem revelio variant and some layered insulting jinxes. Complicated, but pretty predictable. And has known limitations, so the behavior won't deviate that much from the original. This diary doesn't seem to display those limitations-it asks questions about Ginny and will respond to questions about what it knows about her, but they aren't consistent over time. I then asked some questions about "Tom" and it will answer those, which is just bizarre. That behaviour seems more like the way portraits are enchanted, but I can't find anything suggesting that's possible for a book.
"More strangely, this "Tom" enchantment says he's a former student from the 1940s. Why the heck a dead student is a good diary guardian is beyond me."
"Do you think maybe it's not a diary, but some sort of choose your own adventure novel?" Hermione piped up. Lee jumped, not having heard her walk up. She snuggled herself into the couch next to him.
"Maybe? What is a choose your own adventure novel?" Lee queried.
"It's a type of Muggle book. Usually some sort of adventure. You start out with some premise-like the neighborhood is being attacked-and then at the bottom of the page are 3 options like "go investigate the aircraft" and "ignore the flashing lights and make dinner" and "take your dog for a walk in the opposite direction of the aircraft." Then depending on which one you choose, it tells you which page to go to for the story if the character picked that choice. That page then will have more choices after some new text."
"So this Tom could be a character in this story and we write in our decisions? I guess that would fit with why Ginny looked so upset at times writing in it if it was a really dramatic part of the story," George responded slowly.
"Okay, so let's start asking questions about Tom himself to see if that reveals the story," Fred suggested.
Lee scribbled a hasty question asking to learn more about Tom.
"I'm so glad you asked," bled onto the page moments later.