THC/The Houses Competition.
House: Gryffindor
Class: Charms
Prompt:[Object] Riddle's Diary
Category: Round 9 Drabble
Word count: 520
When Ginny found the diary, she didn't think much about what was going to happen after she start writing. After all, what harm could it do?
What Harm Could it Do
It was something so simple, something so unassuming, so innocent;. how was Ginny supposed to know? It was just a book after all, a diary, and what harm could come from a book? But this book, there was something different about it, alarming, dangerous and perhaps even deadly, and yet, she did not turn away. In fact, it called to her and she allowed it to. It made her feel things she never thought possible.
The diary hummed with energy, with magic that Ginny never felt before, such dark, powerful magic. It pulsed out to her in waves, and her stomach twisted in knots as her fingertips grazed over the leather-bound journal. It was soft, even calming; the leather was worn and its pages yellow. At the very bottom of it, embossed in gold lettering, was the name Tom Marvolo Riddle. A name she did not know and a name she would soon regret reading.
Ginny sat on her four-poster bed in the Gryffindor girls' dormitories, the thick crimson curtains drawn across her bed as the journal sat on her lap, an index finger tracing over the sharp edges of the gold lettering. Each letter felt like a jab into her finger, almost like a needle being inserted, injecting something into her veins that made her arm itch and burn.
She knew she shouldn't. Every inch of her was telling her not to, every part of her brain was screaming "no!" That it was magic she should not meddle with, that she should take it to Dumbledore and have it destroyed, but she couldn't help it. She opened it, using the heel of her palm to smooth down the center of the binding. The pages were crisp, ancient, like dust from books that haven't been opened in years. The pages smelled musty along with wood and burnt with small hints of coffee and chocolate. The smell reminded Ginny of times when her father would read to her from old books in front of the fireplace.
Ginny reached for her quill,unscrewing the ink bottle and setting it on her knee before dipping the sharp tip of the quill into the thick black liquid. She brought her hand down to the page and let it hover for a moment, watching as a bead of ink from the quill bled onto the ancient page. The black dot spread out before drying like a dark stain on the pristine parchment..
But it didn't stay there. , The ink seemed to disappear into the paper, leaving nothing behind but the yellow stained pages. Before Ginny even had a chance to ponder what just happened, words appeared before her, letters curling into each other as it spelled out a single word.
"Hello."
Ginny could feel a pull in her arm, a force like she never felt before, compelling her to put the quill down to the page. With one simple sweep of her wrist, she replied back to the mysterious words in the diary..
After all, what could go wrong? It was just a book, a journal and what damage could a silly little diary do?