A/N: Not sure what to say about this just yet...
Ginevra Weasley brushed her hair 100 times each night.
It all started when she was five years old. She'd gone with her family to visit her mother's father in St. Mungo's. He'd suffered on the wrong end of a Death Eater's wand during the first war and never fully recovered. He hadn't spoken or been very lucid in the years since.
Even at such a young age she knew that her grandfather didn't recognize her. Ginny stared in silent horror at the man drooling as he looked around at her family. He'd never truly met any of her siblings, and she was the youngest.
The Weasley family came once a year to visit, but this was the year her hair had grown past her shoulders. Her mother revered it and chastised her with threats to cut it all off when Ginny would throw fits over untangling spells. It was prettier hair than any of the other Prewitt or Weasley women had been blessed with in generations. Her grandfather was enamoured with it when she walked in, babbling in her direction the moment he set eyes on her. It frightened her, but her mother pushed her forward until she was close enough for him to touch. He grabbed the ends of her hair, and Ginny stilled in fear, her small brown eyes widening.
Arthur, Bill, and Charlie all moved at once toward her, but Molly stopped them with a harsh glare and a sharp swipe of her head. He twisted strands of her hair in his grasp, pulling her closer so he could smell it. Ginny closed her eyes tightly, trying not to gag at the smell of him.
The old man's eyes flicked up to his daughter standing close by. "Molly," he said, and his tone was full of awe. His eyes held more clarity than Ginny had ever seen in them.
Her mother sobbed loudly, frightening Ginny and her grandfather, who dropped the red hair in his grasp and pulled away. His eyes glazed over once more. The toddler turned and ran into her mother's arms, who was still crying.
Later, Molly pulled her daughter aside before she could step into the floo in St. Mungo's lobby. "Ginny," she said, grasping her daughter's shoulders tightly, "You take good care of that hair, you hear me? One-hundred strokes of your brush every night through that hair by hand, got it?"
Ginny looked up into her mother's gaze and nodded silently.
"Every night," her mother repeated, shaking Ginny slightly before letting go. "Now, back home and I'll whip us up some lunch, huh?" she said, assuming her usual chipper mother facade.
Her mother had affixed a small mirror to the wall in Ginny's bedroom at a height the girl could sit on the floor and see herself perfectly. They adjusted it as Ginny grew.
Now she sat on the floor of her room over Christmas break. It was sixth year, and things at Hogwarts had gone to hell. She hadn't been able to communicate with Harry, Hermione, or her brother since they left to hunt for horcruxes. But even if she had, she would've lied about what was happening at Hogwarts.
They couldn't do anything to help.
She looked at herself in the mirror, counting the strokes of her brush aloud as she always did. The sound of her voice kept her grounded as her mind traveled to far off places.
She remembered the countless times she sat at this mirror, brushing her hair, and recalled in vivid detail the event with her grandfather that had bred this little tradition. Ginny had enjoyed the ritual for years. It was calming, a small window of time she got to herself each day. But after her first year at Hogwarts, everything changed. She could barely look at herself in the mirror, and she found her mind going to darker and darker places as she stared at her reflection each night.
Something, though, had always pulled her mind back from the trenches. Bill would knock to ask how her day was. Charlie would bound up the stairs thinking he was quiet, cooing to and pleading with his newest baby dragon not to make any noise as he smuggled it into the house. Percy would recite facts to himself as he walked past her bedroom door. Fred and George would do something down the hall that caused a loud bang. Ron would swing by and ask her to settle an argument about an obscure Quidditch stat. Other times an owl from Harry or Hermione pecking at her window would bring her back to herself.
On this night, however, nothing happened.
"97…"
"98…"
"99…"
"100…"
Ginny, I've missed you.
She blinked, but still there was silence outside her bedroom. There was nothing at the window. There was no one coming. Ginny found her reflection once more in the mirror. The sadistic gleam she'd seen there before was gone.
But she still felt it simmering beneath her skin. Tom's voice was a whisper at the edges of her conscious.