A few uneventful weeks passed. Ginny woke up, wrote in her diary, went to class, went to meals, and wrote in her diary again before bed.
"Ginny!" cried Hermione one day, having seen her friend walking down the hall.
"Hermione!" Ginny exclaimed warmly. She had been having a rather lonely time during the past few weeks, since Hermione was caught up with the boys and Luna was caught up with schoolwork.
"It's been a while since I've seen you! How are you?" asked Hermione.
"I've been alright, so much schoolwork though! I think Charms is my favorite class," Ginny replied. "That reminds me! I learned a new one the other day! It's called the Bat-Bogey Hex and it's-"
"Oh, disgusting, Ginny!"
"Oh shove off, it's amazing. Seeing those giant winged bogeys attack Malfoy's face…"
At that thought Hermione had to giggle. She stifled it immediately, and glanced around her furtively. "Don't tell the boys I laughed at that, though," she whispered.
"How's Harry doing?" asked Ginny, feigning casualness.
Hermione saw straight through Ginny's act at once. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"
"I could never!" shrieked Ginny. "Let's see you telling Professor Lockhart you fancy him, how about?"
Hermione's cheeks turned pink and she whacked Ginny on the arm with her book of the day. "Don't-what-I like someone else!"
"Sure you do," giggled Ginny. "Gilderoy and Hermione… Hermeroy. Hermeroy Grangeheart. What cute little children you'd have!"
Hermione rolled her eyes, still a little pink, and said, "I regret even saying hello to you."
"Did you know, though, Colin Creevey has Harry's schedule memorized?"
"I figured, seeing as Colin is quite literally everywhere. We. Go. It's horribly annoying."
"He's got such a squeaky little voice I can hear him from kilometers away, for the love of Merlin!"
The bell for classes rang at just that moment, and, after a hurried goodbye, Ginny scurried off to Transfiguration as Hermione ran to Charms.
That night, her dreams were plagued by roosters again, but this time, she heard a voice.
"Rip."
Ginny kept sleeping.
"Tear."
Her legs carried her out of bed.
"Kill."
Ginny asked, "Where?"
"Roosters."
And Ginny knew what to do. She felt her feet walking her to Hagrid's and to his rooster pen. It was a pitch black night, Fang was howling, so no one heard her strangle the rooster or the cry it emitted into the night.
She went to the shed and found a bottle of Flesh-Eating Slug Repellant.
"Evanesco," she whispered, even though the spell was OWL level.
She woke up in the morning and remembered nothing.
Dear Tom, there are rooster feathers all over my front, and I don't know how they got there. I think I'm losing my memory!
Is everything alright?
I was sleeping and then all of a sudden I woke up and I was covered in rooster feathers. I didn't even touch a rooster last night! I don't know what to do!
Oh dear. That doesn't sound very pleasant.
I'm terrified, Tom. This isn't like me, I never sleep-walk, and so I couldn't have gone to the henhouse in my sleep. I think I'm going mad!
No, of course not! You should just go take a nap. You're probably suffering from overwork.
I couldn't have gone through the castle during the night because the caretaker, a Squib named Filch, would have caught me! Oh, Tom, I'm going to listen to you and take a nap. I have never felt this awful before. Talk to you later.
Since she was already awake, she decided to take her breakfast down to the Quidditch pitch. She was interrogated by the Slytherin Quidditch team captain, Marcus Flint, on why she was there, but once he saw she was nothing but a first-year, lost interest in the girl.
Soon the Gryffindor Quidditch team traipsed onto the pitch, and a huge commotion began. Ginny, curious, walked over to the argument.
She was just in time to see Draco Malfoy saying, "I'm the new Slytherin seeker, Weasley. Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team. Good, aren't they? But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."
Hermione interrupted the Slytherins' howls of laughter. "At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in. They got in on pure talent."
Her elation at Hermione's excellent retort was marred by the next few words that Draco uttered.
"No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood."
Ginny was blinded by the anger that flashed before her eyes, but before she could do anything, she heard Ron yelling, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy!"
Something happened, Ginny was unsure of what, but he began belching slugs, and Ginny's tear
"Ron! Ron! Are you all right?" squealed Hermione. Ginny tried to go towards them as they walked to Hagrid's, but the crowd was too thick.
This was why she was to be found crying in the common room while everyone else was enjoying a delicious dinner.
"Ginny, are you alright?"
"No," sobbed Ginny. "I've been very absentminded lately. I wander to a place and don't know how I got there! And I have this horrible feeling…"
"What happened?"
"This year is a bad year for Muggle-borns, Hermione, I just know it!"
She trailed off into sobs. Hermione, not being able to get anything more out of the terrified Ginny, worriedly decided to continue working on her homework.
No one knew that Ginny was right.
No one, that is, except Tom Marvolo Riddle.