Yes, I know, I've already got ideas for about fourteen zillion other fics, but this one refused to go away, so I'm writing it. Whether I finish it or not remains to be seen as I seem to lack the dedication to finish anything I start. Hopefully the fact that I'm posting this for others to read and that it's incapable of standing on its own as a oneshot will motivate me to finish it. Only time will tell, I guess.

Quick note: This is not categorized as Angst, but the first several chapters will be pretty angsty. My muse tells me it'll all get better after Hogwarts starts up again. I don't know whether to trust him or not...

Disclaimer: This is fanfiction. FANfiction. Written by a FAN of Harry Potter. I am not British, female, or over twenty years old, so I'm obviously not the author. I do not, have never, and will never own this book series.

To this very day, I still fail to completely comprehend exactly what happened to me during my first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I know that I was just a little eleven-year-old girl, and I was in way over my head. I still have nightmares about it, so many years later. I still dream of the Chamber of Secrets, of Tom Marvolo Riddle, the boy who became a man whose very name was taboo. I have nightmares about the basilisk that I inadvertently set upon the innocent students of my school.

Yes, it was indeed I who opened the Chamber of Secrets in the early nineties. This is the first time I'm telling anyone but my family and closest friends. I opened the Chamber of Secrets and let a monster loose. I'm told by nearly everybody that it was never my fault. They say that I am not to blame. Since Riddle's diary possessed me, I was not responsible for my horrendous actions. I suppose, in a way, they're right. I did it all while possessed by a piece of Voldemort's soul. Does it really help to know that, even though I did some absolutely horrible things, it wasn't my fault?

No, not at all. I still feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it. The nightmares faded with time, replaced by other bad dreams that I accumulated over the years, but that sense of wrongness within me never faded. I still feel as if my very soul were violated. After my experience that year, I felt contaminated, infected in a way that nobody could see or fix. But for a precious few moments, when I woke up in the infirmary, I was happy my nightmare was over.

If only that were true...

The quill paused on the page and a drop of ink from its tip obliterated half of the previous word. The young woman holding the quill paused, staring at the page without seeing it as memories of the past rose to the surface of her mind and threatened to consume her.

Resonance

Chapter 1 – Scarred

"Ah, Miss Weasley, I am glad to see you awake at last."

A little red-haired girl who looked hardly older than eleven blinked in surprise as she heard a familiar voice nearby. She let her eyes focus and saw that she was indeed in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. The last thing Ginny could remember was leaving the Chamber of Secrets with Ron, Professor Lockheart, and Harry.

She suddenly noticed that all of the other hospital beds were empty. That meant that all of the petrified students were finally back to normal. Thank Merlin. She supposed she'd had a rather lucky year, as it was her first night spent in the hospital wing, though the circumstances of her visit were not exactly the best. Though from the stories she'd heard, Madame Pomfrey was already thinking about reserving a bed specifically for Harry, as he had a tendency to end up there even after just two years at Hogwarts.

The back of Ginny's neck was aching slightly, but she barely noticed it and completely forgot about it when she noticed that the Headmaster himself was sitting on a chair next to her bed. At that moment, the girl realized just how much trouble she was probably in. She knew, without a doubt, that he would be angry with her for what she had done. The first-year had put many others' lives in danger when she opened the supposedly-mythical Chamber of Secrets.

I released a bloody basilisk into the school! she realized. I'll be expelled for sure!

When she started shaking with barely-suppressed fear and despair, Dumbledore gently grasped her shoulder. "Now, now," he said gently, "there is no need for tears."

Ginny looked up at him, feeling ashamed and embarrassed. She had once been known as the crybaby of the Weasley family, according to her older brothers. They had teased her so mercilessly about it that she had promised never to cry again on her sixth birthday. She'd had enough.

And now look at me! I'm just about to cry for the second time in two days!

"I'm sorry, Professor," she whimpered quietly. "I didn't mean to... It was tom! He—"

The old man held up a hand to silence her, and she complied. "Would you like a lemon drop?" he asked first. When she just stared at him, he sighed and went on to say, "No students were permanently injured or killed by your actions. I already know all about Tom Riddle, as Harry told me the full story once you had fainted from exhaustion. I know you are not to blame, so please relax. You are still weak."

Relief flooded through her as her shoulders sagged. She rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears that were about to fall and let out a quiet sigh. "So...?" she mumbled, not knowing exactly how to put her question into words, but begging for an answer nonetheless.

"You will not be punished in any way," he explained, somehow guessing that she was about to ask that. "You were under the direct control of Lord Voldemort, so no blame rests upon you."

She felt none of the usual irrational fear when she heard the name. "Voldemort?" she whispered. "But...but he's gone! I thought it was Tom—"

"They are one and the same," Dumbledore interrupted with a reluctant sigh. "Tom became known as Lord Voldemort amongst his closest friends while he was a student here. He disappeared soon after his graduation and eventually resurfaced as the dark wizard that the general public is now so afraid to name."

So why aren't I afraid of his name any more? she asked herself.

Professor Dumbledore gazed into her eyes with an usually serious expression that was beginning to frighten her. It felt as if he could see straight into her soul with a single glance and see all of the good and evil within.

"Now, Ginevra, I must speak with you about a related issue. It is of absolutely vital importance," he announced, and her nervousness doubled as she contemplated what he could possibly say next. The back of her neck throbbed slightly, but she ignored it as well as she could, knowing that Dumbledore was demanding her full and undivided attention.

"What is it?" she asked, shaking with fear. Somehow, Ginny instinctually knew exactly what he was going to say, though she couldn't possibly tell what it was. She still knew for a fact that she wouldn't like what he had to say at all.

"When Harry destroyed Tom's diary, something odd happened to you. Harry explained everything, and I believed due to what he said that Tom's memories had simply been lost, gone forever. Now, though, I know that this is not the case." His chin dropped slightly to rest on his interlaced fingers as Ginny realized what he was probably going to say.

"His memories," Dumbledore began, speaking slowly as if he was expecting his words to be proven wrong at any moment, "are now locked up within a part of your own mind."

"I don't want his memories!" Ginny exclaimed, furious and horrified, her terror finally getting the better of her. "I don't even want to know anything about him! I don't want to have anything to do with him! I just want him to go away and leave me alone!"

"I know, Ginevra," he replied after waiting for her outburst to finish. "I wish with all my heart that it were not the case. And worse, yet, they are such an integral part of your memories of last year that I can't remove them without possibly damaging your mind. In addition to that, I imagine that his skill for speaking Parseltongue has been transferred to you as well, to allow you to open the Chamber."

"I don't want to speak Parseltongue," she mumbled, her adrenaline rush completely spent. "I don't want to talk to snakes."

"What one wants and what one receives are rarely completely the same," he advised her. Somehow Ginny had a feeling that he had personal experience with unfulfilled wishes. "However, I was able to delve into your mind while you were unconscious to separate his memories from your own. It's rather crude and probably will not hold for longer than six months or so, but I will begin teaching you a special form of Occlumency when you return after the summer so you may keep your own thoughts organized without my help."

She felt a lance of pain through the back of her neck, and she absently began to rub it. She froze when she felt a scabbed-over cut dead-center on her neck. Dumbledore gave her a shrewd and knowing look as he let out a great sigh.

"When that cut of yours is healed, which should only take another day or two at most, you will bear a scar much like Harry's own," he said. "I must ask that you tell as few people as you can about it. It would raise questions that even I don't believe I can answer as of yet. All I know that, somehow, it is related to the fact that Harry saved your life. Perhaps it is a physical reminder of the Life-Debt you now owe him. Such things have been known to happen from time to time. But it may be something entirely different. If something about your magical gifts goes awry during the summer, I would greatly appreciate it if you owled me at your earliest convenience."

Ginny kept rubbing at the scab as she listened to him. The pain was fading, but it was giving way to an annoying itchy sensation.

I'm going to have a scar like Harry's? she realized. What does that mean?

"Is there anything else?" she asked out loud with a shaky voice, afraid of what the answer might be. If she had been paying attention at the time, she might have noticed the brief flash of indecision in his eyes. There was something else he wanted to mention, but ultimately decided not to. He quickly schooled his expression and smiled benignly when she looked up at him again.

"No, that it all," he said. He started to leave, but turned back as he was half-way to the door. "I must request that you keep your scar and all of what I have told you a secret from everyone for now, even your family and closest friends. Tell nobody."

"Yes sir," she answered, wishing she could wake up from this crazy dream of hers and forget her whole first year of school.

"Good," he answered. "Also, I thought you might like to know that the final exams have been cancelled. Gryffindor received four hundred points for what Harry, Ron, and Hermione did to save your life. Your house won the cup this year. As the basilisk is dead and the diary destroyed, you are in no further danger, dear child."

"I'm not," she murmured.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "You're not? What are you not?"

"A child," Ginny answered, surprised to even hear the quiet words come from her own mouth. "I'm not a child anymore."

"Tom's influence, correct?" he asked. His tone was even more serious than before. His eyes had lost their usual twinkle as he frowned.

Ginny nodded. "When I first started writing to him, he revealed that he could show me things too. Memories of his or just anything that he could imagine. He stared by showing me happy memories of his time at school. He helped me with my homework when I was having trouble. He said he would show me my future and I saw..." Her face turned red as Dumbledore guessed what she was talking about.

"You saw yourself with Harry?" he asked with a tiny smile. She nodded. "I thought you might have. But what about afterwards?"

"Well, after the first attack, after he had me more completely under his control, the visions changed," she explained. She looked down for a moment, but quickly looked up at him with an expression of shame and horror so profound that he was shocked to see it on one as young as her.

"Yes?" he prodded, knowing that she was having difficulties but needing to know exactly what she had seen, even though he had already guessed.

"A girl in one of my classes made fun of me for being poor," she continued. "She said that I might as well be a...a mudblood, since so many of my friends are. When I told Tom about it one day, he showed me an image of her dead body, the head completely cut off...blood everywhere..." She looked into the old man's eyes, and he was once again shocked to see her expression, though this time he saw rage and despair. "You want to know the worst thing about it?" she asked venomously. "I enjoyed it! I laughed when I saw her that way! I wanted to...I wanted to do it to her the moment I saw it!"

"And it only got worse," Dumbledore murmured. "Am I correct?"

She nodded again and took a deep breath. "He showed me violence, murder, pain, torture, rape... He showed me everything!" she shouted frantically, tears beginning to fall. "I don't want it! I don't want his memories! I don't even want my memories! I want to forget the whole bloody year!"

By the time she finished her tirade, she was sobbing. Dumbledore moved closer and wrapped his arms around her small frame, letting her cry into his robes.

"You're a very strong witch," he whispered into her ear, so quiet that she almost couldn't make it out. "Very few people could last so long if the diary had found its way into their own hands. Many older and smarter witches and wizards have broken completely just experiencing half of what you have seen. Do not be ashamed of what you have done, as Voldemore has tricked many, even those as old and wise as myself. In the coming years, your strength of will and your growing intelligence will be vital." He stopped for a moment, as if unsure what to say next. "Don't be afraid of what is to come."

Just like that, he was gone, leaving the tiny little redhead feeling inexplicably better, but utterly bewildered.

The rest of the term passed like a dream for most of the students. They were ecstatic to discover that the monster was no longer a problem and that their classmates were back to normal. Hermione had congratulated Harry and Ron extensively for figuring out where the Chamber was. Ginny was able to be relatively normal for the first time since she'd found Tom Riddle's diary mixed in with her schoolbooks on the first day of class. She was not happy by any means, but she was grateful that her experience with Tom was finally over for good. Her nights were spent tossing and turning, dreaming of the visions she'd seen while possessed, while her days were spent wandering the castle, still recovering from her nightmarish first year.

Before she knew it, she was on the Hogwarts Express. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the twins all joined her in a compartment. Fred and George spent half of the ride amusing themselves by setting off several Filibuster Fireworks in the train, shooting them down the corridor to explode outside other compartments, terrifying some of the first years on the train. Percy eventually found out and attempted to confiscate them, but the last one had been ignited not two minutes before he arrived.

Ginny spent the rest of the trip staring absently out the window, reflecting on her year while trying to forget it. Her childhood had been cut drastically short when Tom used her and then left her to pick up the pieces. She had just noticed King's Cross Station coming up in the distance when somebody began to speak.

"Ginny," a familiar voice said, and she tensed. "What did you see Percy doing, that he didn't want you to tell anyone?"

"Oh, that," she replied, relieved that Harry wasn't mentioning Riddle or the Chamber. She forced a quiet giggle and continued, "Well, Percy's got a girlfriend."

Fred had just taken a stack of books from the luggage rack above the window, but he dropped them on George's head after he heard that juicy nugget of possible blackmail material. "What?" he asked, astonished.

"It's that Ravenclaw Prefect," she told them, no longer needing to fake a laugh. Their stunned expressions would make even the gloomiest person chuckle slightly. "That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day. He was so upset when she was—you know—attacked. You won't tease him, will you?"

She pretended to be concerned for the sake of Harry and Hermione (mostly Hermione, who would have pitched a fit if she knew about all of the prank ideas already flowing through the small redhead's mind), but Ron and the twins knew her better than that. Ron was smirking slightly, probably thinking about getting back at his older brother for making him feel so inferior, as the youngest male Weasley. The twins, though, looked as if Christmas had come early.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Fred replied to her question, with a maniacal grin.

"Definitely not," George agreed, his face mirroring his twin's.

Ginny smiled, but anyone who knew her could tell it didn't quite reach her eyes. Though she was amused by her siblings' antics, she still felt horrible, almost sick. Other than a slight paleness of her face, she was able to hid her true emotions behind a smile that convinced everyone.

The whole group got off the train together. Ginny heard Harry, Ron, and Hermione talking about something, but ignored them as she walked through the barrier. The Weasley parents and the Dursley family were both waiting there, though the latter family was standing very far from the rest of the families, casting nervous looks at everyone else. If there were more unpleasant muggles in the world, Ginny mused, she had yet to meet them. She remembered waiting with her parents for Ron and Harry to come through the barrier last summer. Harry's family had been standing near hers, and they looked downright furious to be standing there. This year wasn't any different.

"Bugger," Harry whispered just loud enough for Ginny to overhear. "They found out last summer that I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school."

"I'd reckon just trying hard not to get in trouble would be the best plan," Ron whispered back as Ginny moved slightly closer to listen. "Don't do anything stupid, or we'll have to do something ill-advised just to come rescue you again!"

"I...agree..." Hermione mumbled slowly while giving Ron a weird look. She rarely concurred with anything he said, and she seemed surprised that he had voiced her own thoughts. Ginny smiled slightly as she walked with the group.

"Right, I won't go looking for trouble," Harry whispered back. "It just seems to find me on its own though. It's Dobby's fault that I ended up locked in my room last summer..." His eyes widened. "Merlin, they're going to blame me for escaping with you, Ron!"

Ginny watched with a frown as he meandered towards his aunt and uncle. She clenched her fists in anger when she saw the huge, rotund man make an expression that looked like he'd eaten something rotten. "Nobody should have to go home to a family like that," she mumbled to herself, "especially Harry! How can they be so horrible to him when he's so kind, and generous, and handsome—"

She blushed as the last few words tumbled from her mouth, mentally stopping her train of thought before it went any further. She noticed Harry look back at Ron right before catching her watching him. He smiled and waved, but she blushed again and turned away. Why did she have to be so shy around him? You would think she could talk to him now after he saved her life, but she was still as embarrassed as ever. When she looked back, he was already walking away. She let out a tiny smile when she saw his cousin attempting to walk behind him. He looked as if he were waddling instead. As she watched, the back of her neck started to itch. She absently scratched at the newly-healed wound. She could still feel the slightly raised skin there that formed a shape almost identical to the lightning bolt on Harry's forehead.

Harry reached up to scratch his own, more visible scar as he disappeared around a corner, but Ginny barely noticed as she turned away to follow her own family outside.

Professor Dumbledore sat in his office, deep in thought. He knew that the young Miss Weasley's new scare bore great significance, as it mirrored the very scar that rested on Harry's forehead. He was not quite sure about it, but if his theory was correct, she would have a very large part to play in the future.

If anyone were to walk into his office at that very moment, they would see him gazing intently at an empty chessboard and the pieces lying into a pile next to it. His eyes were narrowed in a look of intense contemplation. They might wonder what he was thinking, whether he was contemplating chess strategy or simply lost in his own thoughts. The truth was that his thoughts and the chessboard in front of him were indeed connected, but in an unexpected way.

"The war is coming," he muttered under his breath as he continued to stare at the board. "Voldemort is preparing already, even though he has yet to find a body. He is definitely not finished with his crusade..."

He placed all of the black pawns on the board in their proper places and stopped for a moment to look at them. "His Death Eaters are just like these pawns in the grand scheme of things. They can be sacrificed without much cause. His other pieces are far more important."

He picked up a rook and rolled it idly between finger and thumb, gazing at it and wondering. "His diary," he finally decided. "The diary was important, but it was destroyed. Perhaps it was more important than Lucius realized. But just how vital was it? Could Voldemort create something similar?" He shrugged and placed the rook on the board. "Expect the unexpected, I suppose.

"Seven," he continued, looking at the remaining black pieces and the one rook on the board. "Seven is the most magical number. Seven of what? That is the true question. Seven entities to increase his power beyond its mortal limit..." He placed the other rook, both knights, and both bishops on the board. "Six separate from himself, but he makes the seventh." The king was placed in its appropriate square. Then he picked up the queen. "Harry's odd connection to him is important as well..."

With all the black pieces placed, he glanced at the white side of the board. "The Order," he mumbled, placing all of the white pawns in their appropriate places. "I'll have to speak with them at some point. Perhaps in a few years though. I wouldn't want to raise undue concern. And then there is Severus," he continued, placing a white rook, "who will do what he must when the time comes." He continued mumbling to himself, deciding that the other rook represented the Ministry of Magic, while the two knights represented Ron and Hermione and one of the bishops represented Lily's sacrifice, which still protected him to this day. His hand lingered over the king, but he ended up placing the other bishop on the board instead.

"So I'm just a bishop," he mused as he looked at the piece. "I'm important, but not the most vital of all. No, that honor falls to..." He placed the king on the board and said, "Harry Potter. He is the cornerstone of everything. If he cannot withstand the pressure, if he crumbles, the Order will fall and Voldemort will win."

He contemplated the last remaining piece, the queen, twirling it absently through his fingers. "The queen is the king's strength," he finally announced quietly. "She is the most valuable piece aside from the king, but is important in many other ways as well. She can move in any direction and adapt to any situation that has even the tiniest chance of victory. Before, I thought Hermione and Ron would both be represented together by this piece..."

He finally placed it on the board. "I was wrong. It appears that this position is Ginny's alone. She has no idea just how important she is yet, but she will eventually come to fill her role in the events to come."

He took a moment to look over the completely set-up chessboard carefully, thinking deeply about the war he knew was looming. Each piece was, in his mind, a person or group that would be pivotal when the war finally began. And they were all connected to each other in elusive and intriguing ways, not just because they were on the same side. He contemplated chess strategy and wartime tactics for a moment.

Then he moved one of his pawns forward and sat back to look at the board.

"Your move, Tom."

A/N: That's it for my first chapter. Please review, criticize constructively, etc. Flames will be either ignored or reflected with double the intensity. If you find any errors in continuity, British slang, spelling, grammar, syntax, etc., be sure to let me know so I can fix it!