[HPforGrownups] Ginny, Riddle's Diary and Cracking

[Liz Sager]

No: HPFGUIDX 35101

*pulls out her GIANTCOUSHIN and sits by the fire*

>From: "elfundeb" <djdwjt at aol.com> wrote:
>Something that has always bothered me about Ginny is the fact that
>after recovering Riddle's diary from Harry, instead of destroying it
>she opens it up again, leading to 2 more Petrefications and her own
>near-death.  How could anyone be so dumb?

Ginny isn't stupid in CoS. She's a normal eleven year old kid. Well, as 
normal as eleven year old kids ever get in Wizarding Britain, and the diary 
was a bit of naivete on Ginny's part. I doubt that Ginny conciously even 
knew what she was doing when she was wringing the chicken's necks, painting 
the messages on the wall, etc. What Ginny wanted was a person to listen to 
her and confide in, and Tom did that. Granted, his intentions were indeed 
malicious but Ginny had no way of knowing this unless Tom told her so. And 
Revealing His Plans is just not something an Evil, Unassailable Dark Lord 
(even as a sixteen-year-old boy in memory form in a diary) does. Even 
Dumbledore says (to paraphrase) that "many an older and wiser wizard has 
been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort".

But Mr. Weasley's quote still stands as one of my favorites: "Ginny Weasley 
what have I told you? Don't trust something that can think for itself if you 
can't see where it keeps its brain!?" :D

But I was flipping through
>CoS and noticed that Harry, when he had the diary in his possession,
>spent a lot of time flipping through the pages trying to figure it
>out, and even carried it around with him in his backpack though it
>had nothing to do with his classes.  Is it possible that Riddle's
>presence in the diary is so powerful that it lured Harry into these
>actions?

I suspect its partly Harry's curiousity, and partly Tom's ability to cajole 
others into doing what he wants them to do.

>Now, would Ginny crack?  If Ginny was already caught by Riddle's
>diary -- not once but twice -- doesn't this make her a prime
>candidate for cracking?

Ginny could crack. I think that anyone could crack. JKR always manages to 
throw us for a loop.

If Riddle's diary exerts such control
>over the possessor, how was Ginny able to throw it away?  Doesn't
>this demonstrate that she had developed some ability to resist?  And
>after she got the diary back, and it began exerting its power over
>her, she tried to confess to Ron, but lost her nerve when Percy
>showed up.  So maybe the diary wasn't in complete control of her,
>after all.

I don't think it was the diary itself that had power over Ginny. Tom seemed 
like quite the charmer in his youth, too bad he couldn't've retained some of 
those good looks when he became the EUDL (Evil, Unassailable Dark Lord). 
But, like Mr. Weasley said, "An object like that is clearly full of Dark 
Magic."

Liz (who would defend a Weasley to the Virtual Death, but it staying out of 
the Sirius-ly Defensive Debate)

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