Ginny Weasley was lying in her bed at the burrow, mind spinning frantically. The world seemed to comply with her mind and the room started to rotate about her head. Black and white and green and crimson and gold and silver swirled together above her head, and she fell upwards into the abyss the colors created. She could see the magic flowing out of her as it was stolen by the void; The void that had consumed her ever since Tom Riddle had departed from her mind and her body.
She awoke with a scream, and continued screaming as she was smothered by the terrifying darkness that surrounded her. Then she smelled the familiar scent of her dorm at Hogwarts, and her racing heart calmed. But not her racing mind. Her brain continued reeling as she thought about the dream that had pursued her for the past 5 years since the time when she was freed from Tom Riddle's grasp. Well, not freed, exactly. The dreams still had her in Tom's grasp, and she knew that the void left when this entity was ripped from her could only be filled when she was possessed fully by the spirit of another.
She had tried to fill the void; tried with magic, with filling her days to the brim, with friendship, and with love. But every time she got close enough to someone to give herself away to them, she could fill the rejection and knew that they would not fill the void, they would merely cause it to grow more needy, more desperate.
She sat pondering, as she had many times, about why no one would fill the void. She realized, as she had many times, that maybe it was because no one was pure-blooded. Oh, wait, she remembered (as she had many times). There was that raven claw in her fourth year. Now, she pondered, as she had many times, maybe there was another factor. Maybe…what?
Ginny considered her dream, as she had many times. Black…white. Someone opposite from her. Tom had been opposite. Opposite in what? Gender, obviously. Family status, wealth, upbringing…house. Slytherin. Gryffindor. Green and silver. Crimson and cold. The thought revolted her, as it always did. Give herself over completely to a Slytherin pure-blooded megalomaniac.
But she had before!
But that was a mistake. She hadn't known. She didn't know what Tom was like.
VOLDEMORT! His name is Voldemort!, Ginny chastised herself.
As usual she dismissed the thought of Slytherin, knowing that it would come back the next day whenever she saw someone in robes with green and silver accents. Knowing it would come back the next night, and the next, and the next.
Ginny closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, knowing that it was futile, knowing that she would have to perform a concealment charm as she did every morning to hide the bags that were always under her eyes, knowing that she would have to conjure up false energy to hide the fact that she didn't sleep, knowing that it would just wear her out more.
She lay motionless for hours trying to forget the passage of time, but agonizingly aware of every second, aware of the sun slowly getting brighter through the crack in her curtains.
Ginny lifted the silencing charm she always put around her bed to keep her screams from the others. The sound of birds outside echoed into her ears, agonizingly painful from the lack of sleep, and agonizingly beautiful because they rang with the freedom she would never have.