Cyrus, Master Manipulator

Ginny returned to the Gryffindor common room in less than five minutes.

The Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms were both in towers, though on opposite sides, and the towers connected to the castle's Seventh Floor.

Hogwarts had five towers in all. The tallest, the central tower, served as the Astronomy classroom. The other four stood to the east, south, west, and north. The northern tower housed the Divination classroom, while the western one was the Owlery.

The eastern and southern towers housed the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms and dormitories respectively.

When Ginny crawled in beneath the Fat Lady's statue, several students looked rather surprised.

"Ginny, weren't you serving detention with Ron and the others?" Percy asked with a frown. He was in a foul mood, because every member of the Weasley family except him had been given detention.

In fact, not a single member of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team had escaped.

"That's right, but Professor Flitwick thought my spellwork was very good. He felt I shouldn't waste my time in detention," Ginny said at once.

That made Percy quite happy.

"Well done. I always say you can't go wrong being a good student! Look, Hermione wasn't punished this time either. If you ask me, it'll probably fall to you and me to uphold the Weasley family's reputation!" Percy said as he headed out.

"Where are you going this late?"

"Just a little something..." Percy gave a vague explanation.

Ginny didn't press him. She was in a hurry to find "Mr. Riddle."

Returning briskly to her dormitory, Ginny unlocked her drawer with a spell and spread the black-covered Diary open on her desk. Her ink-dipped quill hovered back and forth above it for a long time. Finally, she took a deep breath and slowly lowered the nib.

"Mr. Riddle, there's something I want to ask you..."

After finishing that sentence, Ginny quickly wrote another without waiting for the Diary to respond. When she first put quill to paper, asking the question had seemed so difficult. Now, however, she couldn't seem to stop, writing all the way to the bottom in one go.

"I'm missing a day's worth of memories-I clearly remember it was Thursday when I went to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, it was Saturday. My classmates all say I took Friday off, but I don't remember doing that at all-what do you think is wrong with me?"

She phrased it delicately, trying not to sound as though she suspected "Mr. Riddle." In truth, perhaps that reflected a small hope in Ginny's heart. She didn't want this to have anything to do with him.

At least there was no clear evidence yet that it did.

Then she watched nervously as the ink vanished into the yellowed paper. It felt as though a tiny person inside her chest was pounding away with a massive hammer, leaving her unable to breathe.

Was it you, Mr. Riddle?

Have I been found out?

Inside the memory space, Cyrus looked at the long passage appearing before him and began considering how to answer.

Judging by what she wrote, she still doesn't seem sure I did it. Should I go along with what she's saying?

Or should I come up with another explanation?

As things stood, Ginny Weasley still trusted him a great deal. If he claimed he knew nothing about it, or blamed it on something else, she would presumably be willing to believe him.

But after considering it, Cyrus decided to tell Ginny the truth-

Sometimes telling the truth was a more sophisticated form of deception than lying.

"You noticed, then. I was going to keep it a secret. I'm sorry, Ginny..." Cyrus tried to make his tone seem as sincere and remorseful as possible.

"I was actually the one controlling your body. An evil magical object like me really is... You should destroy me." "It really was you..." Ginny said in disbelief.

Although she had already suspected as much, Ginny still found it hard to believe when Cyrus admitted the truth himself.

"But-why?" Ginny asked urgently. Yet rather than needing an explanation, what she desperately needed now was an excuse for "Mr. Riddle," something to prove that he wasn't dangerous.

"What?" Cyrus immediately adopted an earnest, solemn tone. "Ginny, whatever the reason, what I did was unforgivable. A magical object actually took control of a wizard's body. If that happened to me, I would destroy it immediately!

"You should do the same. Destroy me, Ginny. I'm only a diary."

"No!" Ginny wrote forcefully. "I don't think you're an evil object-I mean, I think, if you really were evil, why didn't you do anything? Finishing my weekend homework for me hardly counts as an evil act. There's something you can't bring yourself to say, isn't there?"

Seeing that Ginny had supplied an excuse for him before he had even said anything, Cyrus couldn't help reflecting that children were indeed easily deceived. Or perhaps people simply believed what they wanted to believe.

This time, he deliberately remained silent for a long while before replying.

"You're right-" His words carried magic, making Ginny sense sadness and dejection. "I believe I told you before that I'm only a little fragment of memory Tom Riddle left inside the Diary."

"Yes."

"Then have you ever wondered where the real Tom Riddle is now?"

"The real Tom Riddle..." Ginny murmured. In truth, she already had a suspicion. The medal Tom Riddle had received in the Trophy Room dated back fifty years.

"Do you mean you've already..."

"That's right. I've actually been dead for many years." Cyrus began using his "tragic" past to move Ginny. Gryffindor's little lions always let emotion win out over reason. "My death had something to do with Voldemort. He was running rampant back then."

"So you were killed by Voldemort?" Ginny asked, though she clearly had no doubt about the answer.

"That's all in the past-" Cyrus didn't answer, simply continuing on his own. "I was made into a diary while I was still a student. After all these years, I miss this world so terribly. To breathe fresh air again as a living person has always been my wish."

"Mr. Riddle..." Tears streamed down Ginny's face. Although she had considered that "Mr. Riddle" was probably dead, she hadn't expected him to have fallen victim to Voldemort while he was still a student. It was simply too tragic.

She failed to notice the contradiction in what Cyrus was saying. During the summer holidays, he had claimed to have graduated from school.

"No matter what, my actions cannot be forgiven." Cyrus kept berating himself like a practiced manipulator, making Ginny even more upset. How could Ginny, only a first-year, recognize such calculated behavior? Cyrus subjected her to such an onslaught of mind games that her brain practically started smoking.

"Ginny, destroy me, or hand me over to one of the school's professors. But before that, I'd like to meet you-to thank you for talking to me all this time. Being trapped in a diary for decades really is painful and agonizing."