Ginny led the trio towards the Gryffindor common room. On the way, she kept glancing at Basil with a questioning gaze.
"Why do you want to see the diary? Shouldn't we get rid of it?"
"No. It's probably a dark artifact, getting rid of it wouldn't be easy. First, we need to find out what it can do and how to counter it."
"Shouldn't we leave that to the professors"
Ginny still had a bit of trauma regarding the diary and didn't want to do anything with it.
"It's fine don't we have Basil, a thousand year old immortal? He should be as good as the professors."
Luna interjected, clearly she was interested in researching the unknown artifact. With her confidence in Basil, she believed that no harm would come to them.
"Yeah, I think we'll be fine Ginny. You know how good Basil is at magic."
Colin also wanted to find out more about the diary but more importantly he couldn't let something that controlled Ginny to get away scot-free.
He thought that letting Ginny get some revenge would be good.
Beside them Basil was wearing a proud face, clearly happy that his friends were praising him.
Soon enough they arrived at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. The fat lady was standing in her portrait holding a glass of wine.
"Good day children. What is the password?"
She seemed to be in a good mood and was humming while sipping her drink.
"Good day to you too. The password is pig snout."
Basil smiled replying to her.
"Correct!"
The portrait swung open and revealed the common room, coloured scarlet and gold.
(I just realized I didn't write about the fat lady so im adding her)(From now on I will do this instead of at the end because I frequently forget some stuff)
The group walked through the enterance, into the common room and towards the stairs for the girls' dormitories.
Along the way they were stared at due to Luna's conspicuous blue Ravenclaw robes. But they also noticed Basil and decided to ignore them considering Basil had a habit of breaking rules and nearly everyone got used to it. They were lucky though, that the by-the-book Hermione Granger and Percy Weasley were not present.
"Wait a moment."
Ginny walked up to her dormitory and collected the diary, firmly holding it so it wouldn't open.
Shivering slightly, she handed the diary over to Basil, who immediately opened it and looked over the blank pages.
"Shouldn't we do this somewhere more discreet?"
Ginny looked around. Fortunately, no one was paying them any attention.
"It's fine. What's the worst that could happen?"
Basil didn't care, but feeling Ginny's stare decided to go out and find an empty classroom.
On their way out though they bumped into Ron and Hermione who just returned after seeing Harry at the infirmary.
"Hey guys what are you doing?"
Ron cheerfully called them.
"We're trying to find out what this is." Basil held up the diary. "Want to look too?"
Ginny's eyes widened, she didn't want her brother knowing about the diary, especially about it controlling her. But if she said anything right now they would become curious so all she could do was bite her lip.
"Dont worry." Luna comforted her. "Although Basil acts careless, he does care and won't tell them."
"Isn't that a diary?"
Hermione scrutinized it and came to an obvious conclusion.
"No no no. You got it wrong."
Basil pointed dramatically to the diary.
"This is a dark artifact made by an unknown dark wizard who somehow snuck it into Hogwarts."
He grinned. "Interested?"
"What? You should give it to the teachers. It's dangerous."
Hermione frowned, clearly upset.
"You don't believe me? Whatever, we'll just find out ourselves."
Basil turned around and prepared to leave.
"Ginny! Is it true?" Ron stared at Ginny. Seeing her nod he then said. "You can't, give it here. I'm gonna give it to McGonagall."
Basil shook his head in response.
"Don't be so hasty, I am skilled at handling dark artifacts. Maybe more than the professors even."
"How can you be better than a professor? You're just a first-year."
Hermione immediately cut him off.
"Just tell a professor."
They went back and forth for a while until Hermione and Ron decided that they couldn't convince them, so they decided to follow them to protect them just in case.
...
"Are you sure this is safe?"
They were in an empty classroom on the third floor sitting around a desk with the diary on top.
The diary was open on the first page with the name Tom Riddle written in neat handwriting.
"Probably." Basil replied.
"What do you mean probably? Do you not know?"
Hermione was shocked that Basil would do something like this when he wasn't sure it was safe.
The others also lost some confidence, but because they saw Basil's magical skills in class and the fact that he was constantly in trouble made them ignore it.
Sighing, Ron looked at the notebook and noticed a familiar name.
"Wait. Tom Riddle?"
The rest looked at him.
"Do you know him?"
They asked.
"Yeah, he was head boy. Saw his trophy in the trophy room."
"When was he at Hogwarts?"
Luna asked.
"Uhh, dunno wasn't really focused on the date."
"Whatever."
Basil flipped the page. It was a blank page.
Again. Blank again.
He kept turning it and blank pages kept appearing.
Then he stopped.
"Did something happen?"
Colin asked.
"No, it's a diary we need to write in it."
He grabbed a quill and began scribbling.
Day 1 It is sunny today.
They watched the words as it slowly got absorbed. Then, after a tense pause, the ink was expelled from the page forming words.
Hello who are you?
Everyone gasped. Except for Ginny, who already knew what would happen.
Basil wrote again.
I am Basil, who are you?
Me? I am Tom Riddle. Are you friends with Ginny?
"What? How does it know you?"
Ron jumped up and looked over to Ginny. She shuddered under his angry glare.
"Did you talk to it?"
Ginny slowly nodded making Ron furious.
"Didn't you listen to dad? He told us about this!" He shouted.
"I... found it in my b-books, I thought it was a p-present from d-dad and mom."
Ginny lowered her head and stammered.
"Ron, don't be too harsh on her, she just started school."
Hermione attempted to calm Ron, putting her hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, she just started school."
"Dark artifacts are known to be cunning and manipulative."
"That is true."
The rest also tried to calm him down.
Ron eventually calmed down. He glared at the diary with a burning gaze.
"Im going to destroy that thing."
(Idk why but I can't think of anything else so im ending the chapter here.)
-_-_-_-_---__-_-_-_-__-_-
I lied.