"..."
"Eek——"
"Don't make noise——"
William quickly pinched the snout of the yawning Niffler, and after a brief moment of stillness, the Niffler tried to retaliate, only to be subdued by William with one hand once again.
"What's its name?"
Having grown up in the Wizarding World, Ginny recognized this creature and curiously picked up the drowsy little guy.
"... Kabuda." And so William spontaneously gave it a name.
"... Chirp~"
After a moment of stupor, the iron-armored... no, Kabuda happily accepted the name.
"Confundo. (Confounding Charm)"
Quickly, William raised his magic wand, and the spell with a blue glow flashed and disappeared.
"... You mean, this diary can talk to you?"
After doing all this, he looked up at Ginny, who was teasing Kabuda with a Knut.
However, the creature clearly wasn't very interested in the Knut.
"Yes... As long as I write on it, the words disappear — then, it answers my questions." Ginny nodded without hiding anything, perhaps because William had saved her twice in the span of a week, "But it didn't today..."
William nodded. He had just tested many methods on this diary, including but not limited to the Revealing Spell and Counter-Spell, but this black notebook was really just like an ordinary book, with no special features——
If William hadn't seen the blue-golden glow of ancient magic on it, he would have almost believed it.
No... William felt he might have stumbled into the main plotline of "Harry Potter," or at least a side quest.
He could even sense the malice emanating from the diary — although it was deeply hidden, William was familiar with such emotions because the vault he had visited tonight was almost filled with this kind of power.
Hmm...
"How about you give this thing to me?" William pondered for a moment and said, "I can trade you for two new diaries..." Looking at the worn cover of the black notebook, William added with some disdain.
"Ah... give it to you?" For some reason, Ginny's face suddenly turned red, and she hesitated — no one else knew that for nearly two months, she had been talking almost daily with the consciousness inside the notebook—
And during this time, she had told it almost all of her girlish secrets.
The diary knows my secrets → William takes the diary → William will know my secrets → William knows Harry → Harry will know the secrets I want to hide!
Ginny's mind whirled around twice, and she somewhat wanted to refuse—
"... Unwilling?" William noticed Ginny's thoughts and frowned, "But you should know, Weasley... As a wizarding child, you should understand that such self-aware things can't be separated from the Dark Arts."
William had always had a good impression of the Weasley surname, after all, Weasley from a hundred years ago was much more dedicated than a certain Blake.
"I..."
Ginny fidgeted with her fingers in hesitation, her eyes lazily drifting to the diary resting between them.
"... All right, then —" William tapped the table, not insisting, "You keep the diary yourself, but..." he paused, drawing out the condition, "... I'll have to teach you how to resist this kind of thing."
"Alright!" Ginny agreed almost without hesitation, after all, it seemed to entail no harm for her.
Seeing the girl nod, William raised his wand and pointed it at her temple.
A dark blue light glowed, and Ginny blinked, feeling that something had changed, though she couldn't quite say what.
"Hmm... That should do it. If it tries to make you do anything, tell me." William nodded, putting away his wand, "If there's any issue, come find me. I should be able to help sort it out — though I can't handle detentions for uncompleted homework."
"... Alright, thank you." Ginny nodded again, feeling somewhat tired from all the nodding.
"Then that's it for today, you should get to bed——"
Glancing at the time on his watch, William stood up, leading Ginny out of the hall. The warm torches on the walls burned brightly, casting dappling shadows, "Night walks are not a good habit, and the current caretaker is not as kind as the previous one——"
"Aren't you on a night walk too..." Ginny muttered instinctively, accepting the diary William handed back to her, then after bidding goodbye, headed towards the spiral staircase at the center of the entrance hall.
Watching the fiery red figure disappear around the corner, William didn't linger too long in the entrance hall either, as Filch could return at any moment — the path from the hall to Hufflepuff was short enough for him not to get lost.
He originally thought of getting his hands on this diary to study it, after all, things imbued with the essence of ancient magic were rare.
But he decided to let go of this plan. The diary had already grown wary of him——
Firstly, he roughly knew why the diary did not swallow the ink today because as Ginny was writing in it, he stood right in front of her, watching the book's changes with her. Although he believed his Disillusionment Charm wasn't flawless, he felt it was definitely beyond the detection of a mere Dark Arts item, indicating that the book was more complex than just a text communicator as Ginny described.
Secondly, he even recalled vividly who had slipped that book into Ginny's hands——
Lastly, his recent schedule was indeed tight, and he first needed to deal with the werewolf and Dark Wizard issues on hand.
Therefore, after a brief contemplation, he decided to let the diary remain in Ginny's possession for a few more days. After all, the semester had only just begun, and typically in such school stories, incidents wouldn't occur until the end of the term. He even applied a temporary buff using ancient magic on the girl.
So, no rush...
He rubbed Kabuda's rump in his arms, then pulled out the Knut belonging to Ginny from its stomach, and turned towards the kitchen. He was missing those "skillful" little elves —
"... How about having hot pot tonight?"
...
In Gryffindor Tower, within the girls' dormitory.
Back in the dormitory, Ginny had already taken off her wizard robe. The girl, now in a thin white nightgown, sat in front of the desk with the yellow lamp light illuminating the open diary——
"... What did you just say?"
The characters the girl had originally written had long since vanished, replaced by a neatly structured question.
"Where did you go earlier?" Ginny didn't answer but wrote with an ink-stained quill.
"You should be able to guess, Ginny." The handwriting disappeared then reappeared, "He was watching us."
"... He didn't discover you." The girl seemed to accept this response and continued writing.
"Is that so? You didn't tell him anything, did you?"
"Of course not, Tom!" Ginny seemed annoyed by this "unwarranted" suspicion.
"... Very well then."