His eyes moved across the pages, from the upper left corner to the lower right, like a man searching for water in the desert, scanning every inch of ground without overlooking a single crack that might hide water. After reaching the last page, he closed the diary and placed it to his left. Then he picked up the second one.
He moved as he had before—first examining the cover, then the title page, then turning the pages one by one. He flipped through them even more slowly than before. His fingers lingered longer on each sheet. His eyes narrowed, and his brow creased faintly, as though he were looking beneath those blank pages for something else. After reaching the last page, he closed the second diary as well and set it to his right. He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on the table, and looked at the two diaries.
"What did the examination reveal?" McGonagall asked.
"They are both empty." Dumbledore's voice was quiet, but every word was clear. "The difference is that Ginny's bears her name on the title page. Apart from that, there are no traces of ink, no residue from anything that was written and erased. No traces of magic. No fluctuations of Dark Magic. Nothing that could prove they had ever 'lived.'" He paused and lightly tapped the table with one finger. "But they are not the same diary."
McGonagall frowned. "What do you mean?"
Dumbledore extended his left hand and picked up the diary on the left—Ginny's. He pressed his thumb firmly against its cover, then released it. A shallow indentation remained, quickly fading away.
"Ginny's has a calfskin cover. The grain is coarse, and it feels stiff to the touch. The inner pages are made of linen paper, with thick fibers.