Glancing to the side I could see Ginny's roommate - Isabella - still deep in sleep, not taking any chances. I silently climbed out of bed, grabbed Ginny's wand and tiptoed to the bathroom.

The bathroom was quite small - and surprisingly muggle-like, perhaps to accommodate all muggleborn freshmen? Or perhaps just for first years who did not know any cleaning spells yet…

Inside I washed my … I mean Ginny's face as the eyes were still sticky as if still in sleep. Then I locked the door and pointed the wand to the side, muttering lumos.

The dark bathroom, no longer illuminated by moonlight, lit up in brightness from the wand. Even though my eyes hurt a bit from the sudden switch from darkness to such bright light I still watched with fascination. Magic. It's magic. I am performing magic. Somehow as if still in disbelief I stared for quite a few minutes still feeling excitement. This was the reason I chose this world. Casting magic myself was better, so much better than watching others cast it, even as Ginny cast it and I looked through her eyes it was different, not quite the same wonderful feeling I was feeling now.

Still excited I remembered what I forgot last time and muttered again - tempus - a hologram of Greenwich time appeared and I knew it was just five minutes past midnight - so I concluded that my possession begins at roughly midnight - I will try to check this as soon as it happens the next time.

Then I just tried various the spells I thought I knew, and most of them just worked, levitation, locking, unlocking, basic transfiguration, severing, softening and various other charms and spells, I picked a piece of toilet paper, tore it to pieces and tried mending charm - and it worked, even Ginny struggled with this one for object broken into more than 3 pieces.

Then as I tried spells I thought I knew… I was met with failure. The famous expectro patronum - not even blue smoke came out, the summoning charm… The soup piece was literally hands reaching away… and did not move one bit.

I quickly understood the problem, even though I knew the name of the spell, and perhaps even intent and emotions required, what it did - I did not know the correct wand movements. I remembered some books on magic theory I read along with Ginny as realisation kicked in - even though wand movements became non-mandatory as one mastered the spells to say - it was because correct movements moved magic in intended way - which with repetition became something akin to muscle-memory 'magic-memory' of sorts? Anyways without casting the spell at least once it did not seem possible to skip wand movements entirely.

Being a bit sad I was just content playing along with spells I did know. I even tried skipping some wand movements and while it did fail most of the time I could do it for some of the spells, so perhaps practising is the key - not like I can spend my possession time better - last time was quite short as I suddenly felt tired and was scared and just went to sleep - I suspected I would get tired again this time before it ended - hence I avoided going out of dorm room - going to bathroom midnight is something quite… normal I would say - in case Ginny took over… soon.

I muttered tempus once again - twelve minutes past midnight. I was not sure how long possession lasted, but I needed at least an hour for a round trip to the library or room of requirements… And unfortunately I needed quite some time spying on other Gryfindors to know their schedule well enough to sneak out and back in. Of course if I had an invisibility cloak it would make things a little easier… But still if the portrait just opened for no one to enter - that was definitely very suspicious for anyone in the common room.

I suddenly remembered that wandless magic was a thing and apparently Riddle was quite good with it… At least with simple spells as he was already able to levitate all sorts of things while not even at Hogwarts.

Excited once again, I put the wand on the sink and focused on the nearby toothbrush, I imagined it flying out and orbiting the room…. but nothing happened. I tried again, this time saying wingardium leviosa in my mind… but still the toothbrush remained in place. Not even a twitch. I facepalmed - of course that won't work, like how could Riddle learn spell incantations before meeting any wizard?

Then I tried a different approach. No imagination, I just stared at the toothbrush, my brows furrowed as if I was angry at it or deep in concentration, then I just commanded in my mind for it to rise. Third time's the charm as they say - it shook a little, no levitation yet, but hey that's something, right?

I tried a few more times and managed to get it floating… a few centimetres - not even enough to get it out of the cup, but progress is progress, I was not complaining. I was about to practise some more, but a sudden feeling of weakness overcame me. I knew what this was… my possession was coming to an end. I quickly picked up my wand, muttered tempus and noticed that it was just nineteen minutes after midnight. I quickly unlocked the door with a charm - as that was faster, then walked back to bed at normal speed - just in case Isabella was awake, which was unneeded as I heard her snoring just a few steps into the room. I put my wand on top of the bedside drawers - roughly the same spot Ginny left it last night. Then climbed back to bed and counted the seconds.

Soon time hit about twenty minutes past midnight - well according to my calculations I could be off by some seconds… or minutes - it was hard counting seconds in your mind while doing other things. And moments after I just feel as if to sleep - but ended back in bookscape, looking at the now familiar black screen - it was usually black when Ginny sleeps or closes her eyes, well it did show her dreams sometimes, but she usually dreamed of just flying with a broom, holding hands with Harry Potter or creating some fancy new spell and sometimes just plain weird dreams - where I had no idea what was happening even.

The morning arrived and Ginny woke up a bit startled with unfamiliar sight, but just moments later realised that this was her new room at Hogwarts she just smiled and stretched her limbs still yawning.

Looking around across the room she could see Isabella was already awake and dressed, making up her bed. As if feeling her gaze she turned to Ginny for a quick greeting - "Good morning Ginny"

Ginny waved back, while still in bed - "Morning Isabella"

Her room-mate seemed slightly annoyed by her name - "Just call me Bella, Isabella is just too long"

Ginny just smiled adjusting her greeting - she was not too fond of long names either - "Morning Bella"

Bella smiled back and started going over her trunk - it was concerning that lessons began right after breakfast, but weekly schedules were distributed during the meal as well - were the students supposed to drag all the textbooks and cauldron everywhere? With those thoughts in mind she expressed her concerns -

"Hurry up, we might need to come back here to grab required books after breakfast"

Ginny just nodded as she started preparing quickly - rushing was not a new thing for her as her mother could be so furious the few times she overslept and missed breakfast.

After quickly dressing up, a quick shower and brushing her teeth her room mate once again hurried her - there was not much time left until the breakfast and navigation in this new school was not very smooth - the kind perfect girl explained to them yesterday that some staircases could take quite some time to rotate properly in place.

Ginny finished flushing and hurried along - "I am ready! Let's go, Bella"

The girls hurried down the stairs from the girls wing to the common room - there already were a group of first years awaiting to escort them to the great hall.

Just a few minutes later the last first year showed up - some boy holding a camera - perhaps Colin? And the group was escorted to the great hall at leisurely pace. Perfects also gave them some tips about navigating the castle - which portraits were reliable to ask for directions, and how to ask for it - as some portraits were always lying so you needed to follow directions in reverse.

Back at the great hall Ginny caught Luna's gaze from the neighbouring table and exchanged greetings by waving hands. Then she was happy to see an empty spot near Hermione so she went there to chat with her friend.

Some time during the meal professor Mcgonagall went around the table distributing schedules for all people in her house. Then breakfast ended early as most early year students hurried back to the dorms to grab necessary school textbooks and other things for the day. Hermione bid her farewell in the commotion, shouting about teaching her some shrinking charms and featherweight charms later at the library so she could carry all supplies everywhere without effort.

Bidding her friend farewell, Ginny hurried along with other first years back to the dorm room along with Bella to grab her school supplies and then hurry to her first lesson - Transfiguration. Luckily they did not have potions on the first day as running with a large cauldron seemed quite tiring.

Transfiguration was… easy. Too easy in fact - Ginny sighted as she just flipped along the textbook reading it… for the second time. She succeeded with the needle on the first try, on the further attempts she could even change the colour and add some patterns on top… but that's it - ten minutes of one hour lesson. Professor was impressed, surely, and she got some points… But that's it, the excitement ended as she realised the teacher was not about to give extra tasks or exercises. She spent another twenty minutes teaching her seat-mate Bella how to accomplish the task… And the rest half of the lesson just flipping through the schoolbooks.

The following lessons were very easy as well - some even worse than her first one. History was just teached by a ghost… who just read a textbook in a boring monotone voice…. Then there was Defence against the dark arts - which should be labelled Gilderoy fan club meeting, though Ginny could hardly complain about that one - she heard the position was cursed. Her favourite lessons were flying - she just enjoyed being able to fly around after finished assignments, charms - where professor Flitwick was quick to come up with spell variations for her to try and exercises of increasing difficulty, for both her and Luna as luckily the charms were together with Ravenclaws. Herbology was just… tedious - some magical plants were just annoying. Then finally there was potions… which while interesting on its own, only had some greasy haired teacher… who just badmouthed any non-slytherin student without teaching anything… At least his grading was surprisingly fair.

After classes Ginny spent her time mostly in the library with Hermione and Luna, sometimes back in her dorm, just calmly reading or chatting with 'her' diary. Sometimes she went outside to fly around with the school brooms - after passing all flying lesson assignments madam Hooch gave permission for even first years to fly around on their free time with school brooms. She also chatted with her dorm mate, Bella more - mostly discussing daily muggle and wizard life differences and school subjects. The girl was also fond of exploring the castle from time to time - she already found quite a few useful or interesting shortcuts.

She was learning charms and reading up on magic fairly quickly, even by Hermione standards who seemed fond of tutoring her new friends from time to time and discussing various magical theories.

The days passed quickly and soon a whole month has passed - the possession timer has increased to around an hour and half. Yet here I was, still spending possessions locking myself away in the bathroom, but no matter, things will change soon.

You see, Ginny picked up an interesting book from the library - some thick book called 'Charms for all situations' - interesting in a way that it covered disillusionment char, so I could finally get some way to sneak out and visit two appealing places - room of requirements and Hogwarts library. I was not too sure if the room had access to the restricted section, if it did I could only focus on that one place.

It's not like I was wasting all the past month away - I practised all spells Ginny came across and some wandless magic, I even took a peek to the common room from time to time, having thoughts of sneaking out anyways if it was consistently empty.

Alas Gryffindors seemingly were quite night owls - common room was buzzing with activity at midnight - some gryffs were playing chess, other cards, a few couples were making out, quite a few students were sneaking out outside - perhaps to meet their out of house romance partners? Still the point being that, unfortunately, there was no easy way of sneaking out without a baggage of trouble - many people would see her sneaking out, many would mention it to someone - perhaps to her twin brothers as a passing joke, and Ginny would notice something is wrong as she would have no memories of sneaking out…

Hence the delay - which would hopefully be resolved soon, just depending on how hard disillusionment charm was to learn - even Ginny could not successfully cast it yet, but still she only picked the book up yesterday and came across it today… Perhaps I would be more lucky.

Lately I have been keeping a bit of a distance between me and the girl - you see possession timer seems to increase… as Ginny poured more of her emotions inside the book - on days where we barely had time to chat, or the chat was not very… engaging - the timer barely increased at all. Just subtly redirecting the chat to her other friends made Ginny focus on them a bit more - hence decreasing the time to chat with me, which in result slowed down possession somewhat…

As I waited, midnight soon came, and a special - now familiar - feeling overcame me as I was back into control of the body. With practised motions I grabbed Ginny's wand and went to the bathroom.

I turned to the mirror while wandlessly emitting dim light from my left hand - just to see myself in the mirror. And yes I could now perform very basic spells wandlessly - only levitation and lumos charms so far, but I was working towards mastering basic transfiguration as well.

I remembered the disillusionment spell diagram in my head and followed the wand movements and cast the spell.

My body rippled as if I was a charmeleon of sorts - but I was still very much visible, maybe a bit blurry - it seems I still have some work to do before finally sneaking out…