Sneaking out on the very first day of school

"Tom! You lied to me!"

Ginny sat fuming at her desk, practically stabbing her quill into the paper.

She was clearly furious. Normally, she addressed Cyrus rather respectfully as "Mr. Riddle."

"Easy there. Don't poke holes in me. Besides, when did I lie to you?" Cyrus replied at once.

"Hmph! You said the Sorting Ceremony would be dangerous! And what happened? It was just some ratty old hat! Was it supposed to bite my head off?" Ginny said angrily. What upset her most was that, before the sorting, she had confidently shown off her "inside information" to the other students, only to...

"You made a complete fool of me!"

Still, she stopped stabbing the book and carefully inspected it. Only after finding that she had left no marks on the diary did she breathe a sigh of relief. In fact, destroying a Horcrux through physical means was almost impossible.

"I never said the Sorting Ceremony would be dangerous. I told you not to worry, that there wouldn't be much danger. And what happened? Just as I said, you came through without a scratch! Congratulations!" Cyrus teased.

After enduring such a long, lonely stretch of time, talking to Ginny was an immense comfort to him, too-Cyrus was not Voldemort, after all.

"Yes! But the way you said it made it sound like I might lose an arm or a leg!"

"It seems one of us has a slightly different understanding of 'not very dangerous.'"

"Thanks, but that was completely harmless! Did you expect that hat to smother me when it went on my head?" Ginny retorted.

"Not necessarily-if you were evil by nature, it would sort you into Azkaban. That's where the danger lies," Cyrus bluffed.

Ginny clearly believed him, however. Her eyes widened.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course. Didn't it speak to you inside your head? The Sorting Hat can see into people's hearts. Anyone evil by nature belongs in Azkaban. It's actually Hogwarts' fifth house, and its representative fantastic beast is the Dementor."

"I've never heard any of this."

"There are plenty of secrets about Hogwarts you don't know! Even Dumbledore couldn't know every secret here. Exploring the castle is great fun. As I recall, sneaking out at night is a Gryffindor tradition," Cyrus said enticingly.

"That's against school rules! And I don't think Percy or Hermione would be happy."

"Really? I think your twin brothers might be willing to support you, though."

Ginny had already told him quite a bit about the Weasley family over the past few days, so Cyrus could say these things without any reservations.

"They certainly love stirring up trouble."

"Let's leave that aside. Did anything interesting happen on your first day of school? Have you made any friends?" Cyrus asked with concern.

"Of course. It was far too interesting!" Ginny wrote heavily on the paper. It was easy to see that she meant the exact opposite. "Harry and Ron were late. They flew all the way here in Dad's car, and several Muggles spotted them. Then they crashed into a Whomping Willow or something and broke it-a lot of people thought they'd be expelled. Luckily, they weren't!"

"That really was quite an eventful experience-"

"I just think it was awful. What if Harry had been expelled? Ron must have talked him into it, and Dad will probably get into trouble, too," Ginny said angrily.

"You care a great deal about this Harry Potter, don't you?" Cyrus asked pointedly.

That instantly threw the furious Ginny into a fluster. Her face flushed, as though he had exposed her little secret.

"No! I just think Harry... he seems very quiet,

not the sort of person who'd be that reckless..." Ginny covered her burning face and wrote this in the diary with one hand. All she could do now was thank her lucky stars that Mr. Riddle couldn't see her, or she would have been mortified.

"So you don't care about him?"

"Of course not!" Ginny denied it quickly, then hesitantly added, "At most-at most, I admire him a little. You know, he defeated You-Know-Who. I grew up hearing stories about him."

"That is quite impressive, so I don't think you need to worry about him. Harry Potter defeated You-Know-Who, which means he practically saved the Wizarding World. If Dumbledore expelled him, he'd receive thousands of Howlers the very next day. Don't you think?"

"You're right." Ginny's spirits lifted considerably, though her cheeks were still rosy.

"I need to go to sleep, Mr. Riddle. I have classes tomorrow."

"Sleep? No, I suggest sneaking out!" Cyrus immediately urged her.

"But..."

"Don't you want to explore the castle?"

"But going during the day would be no different."

"Of course it would! If you always follow the rules, you'll never see Hogwarts at night beneath the silvery moonlight-not to mention how much fun it is to play hide-and-seek with the caretaker! Aren't you even a little tempted?"

"Of course not!"

"Which way should I go?" Ginny quickly wrote in the diary as she walked.

For all her staunch resolve, Ginny had still lost to her curiosity.

She crept along nervously, raising her head every few seconds to glance around. More troubling than any of that, however, was the fact that she still had no idea how the castle was laid out. Even if she wanted to go somewhere, she wouldn't have a clue how to get there.

"Why not take a look at the Fourth-Floor Corridor? Didn't your brother say he faced You-Know-Who there with Harry Potter last year?"

Visit the place where the great Harry Potter had fought?

Ginny's eyes lit up. She thought that was an excellent idea.

"Which way is the Fourth-Floor Corridor?"

"If you're in Gryffindor Tower right now, then..."

A map slowly appeared on the diary's pages.

Cyrus had drawn it from Voldemort's memories. It showed almost no secret passages, since Voldemort had no interest in such boring things. And there was no need to let Ginny know about certain secret chambers.

Ginny took a quick look, then immediately closed the diary. She had heard that teachers sometimes patrolled at night, and she might also run into other students sneaking around. She didn't want anyone to know she was talking to a book.

"The Fourth-Floor Corridor-this way!"

Still inexperienced at sneaking out, Ginny hurried off as soon as she had worked out the direction. She could hardly wait to see where Harry had fought the previous year.

However, she never noticed the dark figure that appeared behind her.