This is written as response to the One Line Competition at the HPFC forum here at . It has been written down fairly quickly and I currently do not have a Beta, so there might be the occasional error in it. I've re-read it a few times myself, so I believe I've caught most if not all of them. Still, if you spot any, please point them out to me.
For now a one-shot. Might make a chaptered fic out of it later, not sure about that.

I highly appreciate reviews.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. This work is intended to be Fanfiction, which means I am a fan. In other words, I do not own the rights to Harry Potter or anything connected to it. No profit is being made from this work.

Warnings: Dark themes, small amount of bad language/cursing. Contains events that are not mentioned in canon (although I feel it could have been canon).

Rating: T

Summary: Ginny Weasley, still struggling with the events that happened during her first year, makes a difficult choice.

The Black Lake

The water looked deep and inviting. Inviting to Ginevra Weasley, at least, in a dark and morbid way. It was as though the Lake was calling out to her, trying to lure her. A part of her longed for the cold bite of the water. It was late November, not truly winter yet, but she did not doubt that the water would be freezing cold.

She took a step towards it and shivered, although not at the thought of how cold the water would be. No, the coldness that had made her shiver came from within.

"It would be so easy," she quietly murmured, then shook her head harshly, as though trying to banish every thought that had even the slightest chance of leading there.
"No," she told herself firmly, "I can't do that. I cannot let myself be the weak girl He said I was."

Almost unwillingly, she took another step towards the lake.

"I can't do that," she repeated, softly but forceful. "Not just because it would prove Him right. You know what it would do to mum and dad, Ginny..."
A tear appeared in her left eye, and although she furiously tried to blink it away, it did not help.
"You've seen what nearly losing you did to them." More tears followed quickly as she remembered how worried they had been in the summer after her first year.

"Bill and Charlie... they would never understand." She tried to wipe the tears from her face with her sleeve, feeling a sharp pang of regret in her heart. She knew she should have told them what had happened during her first year at Hogwarts. Instead, she had – with much difficulty – managed to keep her parents and her other brothers from telling them, claiming she simply wanted to get over it and would tell them when she was ready. Not that she had. She hadn't wanted them to worry. Still didn't want them to.

Another step.

She had been all too willing to put it behind her and to forget. She bitterly snorted. As if. Perhaps it would have been possible if Hogwarts hadn't been surrounded by those Dementors last year, making her relive it all over again every time she stepped outside the castle.

Another step.

She doubted, though, that she would have been able to forget even if those Dementors had not been there. She still had nightmares about her first year from time to time after all, and there were no Dementors around now. She still felt that aching, chilling coldness inside her. Certainly, the Dementors hadn't made things easier, but they were not the cause. Inside her was an unnatural cold and darkness, a void...

Another step.

...where He had been. It was as though when He had been driven out of her, he had taken part of her with him. Harry had saved her, and she was eternally grateful for that – mainly because it meant sparing her loved ones the pain of her demise – but he hadn't been able to save all of her. Some days, she almost wished he had been too late. Almost, because she knew how much pain it would've caused her siblings, her parents and Harry, and she did not wish that pain upon them.

Another step closer.

Harry might not have been too late, but he hadn't been there in time either, not truly. A part of her was missing, taken away the moment He left her. She felt the void, she felt that a part of her was missing. Some days, she could also not help but wonder if all of him had truly been driven out of her, or if a small part of him was still there, buried deep inside her.

It didn't matter, though. Not truly. She might be willing to admit to herself that a part of her was missing, and that maybe, just maybe, a small part of Him was still there, still inside her, that perhaps she was tainted worse than everyone assumed, but she would never admit it to others. She might have lost more than her child-like naivety and innocence, but she would never tell them. They'd never know.

Harry... she could never tell Harry. He would blame herself, she knew, and he had been blamed enough for things he didn't do, things that were not his fault. Even now, he was being accused of having entered himself in the Triwizard Tournament. Ginny softly shook her head. She couldn't see how people could be so blind.

Another step. The fact that she was now up to her ankles in the ice-cold water didn't register.

"Not that I have much of a right to say anything about blindness or misjudging people," she laughed bitterly. "I'm just glad that Ron finally saw the light – even if it took a bloody dragon."

Ron. Another reason why she shouldn't, couldn't do this. She had heard how distraught he had been at the news that she had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets – and although no one else knew, except maybe Harry – they shared a dorm, after all – she knew that he had had a few nightmares about it as well. He might be a stupid prat at times, and rarely thought before speaking, but he didn't deserve to be hurt like that.

Fred and George... they might hide themselves behind their jokes and pranks, but they were the brothers she had been closest to since Bill left, first for Hogwarts, then to Egypt. She knew they would be distraught as well. And Percy... they had grown apart more and more, but she remembered how he had always been there for her when they were younger – even if he had been overly fond of rules and regulations even then – and grown apart or not, he was still her brother. She couldn't hurt him either.

And yet she took another step forwards, into the lake.

It didn't matter than she no longer was the girl she had once been, that she would never be that girl again. It didn't matter that the Ginny Weasley they knew had, in a way, died down in the Chamber. You can't be possessed and nearly drained of life by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and remain the same person you were before. She knew His taint would never leave her completely, and that the void He left behind might never be truly filled – but she could live with that, as long as those she loved wouldn't be hurt, or at least she thought.

One more step.

She knew she was not the same girl she had been when she wrote in the diary for the first time, and she knew she had truly been tainted. She had never told anyone about everything that had happened down in the Chamber, not that final time when Harry had saved her but those before. At first, it had been because she did not remember – but slowly the gaps in her memory filled themselves and the blanks disappeared. She didn't know if the Dementors that had been around the school last year had played a role in that, or if her memories would always have returned. She couldn't tell anyone, though. They had finally stopped worrying about her and she didn't want them to worry all over again. As long as those she cared for were spared her suffering, she could live with pretending she was okay.

'Is that truly so, though?' A part of her asked, "Shouldn't you live for yourself as well, not just to keep others from being hurt?' Ginny sighed softly. What did she have to live for? She felt so empty, so dirty. She was fine with pretending that all was well, though.
'Really?' The sneer she could almost hear could easily have passed as Snape's, but it was her own mind. 'Then why in Merlin's name are you standing here? Make a choice, girl. Live for yourself... or don't live at all.'

It was only then that Ginny became truly aware that she was standing in the Black Lake and that the water reached almost up to her shoulders. Rain lashed down her face. She couldn't help but wonder when it had started raining, or how she had managed to not notice standing in this icy cold water.

She tried to turn around to get back to the castle as she shivered from the cold. Her foot slipped and she went down under water. It took all strength she had, not physically but mentally, to swim back up to the surface and get out of the lake. As she ran up to Hogwarts, unwilling to look back, afraid she would be unable to resist if she laid eyes upon the lake again, she could not help but be grateful that it was raining. It gave her an explanation how she had become so soaked.

"I couldn't hurt my family like that, could I?" she whispered softly.
Her own mind supplied the answer. 'You could. You almost did so. If you keep living for others, rather than yourself, you probably will.' Tears rolled down her face as she acknowledged that. She had come too close, far too close already now. What would happen after living years and years for others? She shivered. It was true... she probably would kill herself someday then. She had to change.

She had to. She didn't want to hurt her family or Harry, but if she lived her life only for them, she was bound to hurt them in one of the worst ways possible one day.

It was with that thought in mind that she made a choice and decided to start living again, instead of pretending. She promised herself to tell Bill and Charlie about her first year during the summer.

When the Second Task came and Harry had to dive into the cold Black Lake, she cheered him on. When Fred and George Weasley teased her later and mentioned that she probably would've wished to be the one Harry'd miss most, the one at the bottom of the Lake, she laughed together with them.

And yet, a part of her couldn't help but feel that they were right... that she should have been the one at the bottom of the Black Lake. Just not in the way her brothers thought.