It was easy, Ginny thought, to lose herself inside her mind. Engulfed within her own thoughts she could escape reality for as long as reality would escape her. Because Ginny had become a burden on reality, and vice versa. There was something about the very air that made her act the way she did. It started with one simple incident. It was in the Great Hall during lunch. Ginny took her usual place alone at the Gryffindor table and tried to tune out the chatter around her. When she thought she could stand it no longer she stood up and screamed, just screamed at everything till she could scream no more. They took her to the Hospital Wing, gave her a calming draught, and blamed her outburst on stress. That was the first but not the last experience she would have with hospitals and calming draughts. The effect was immediate and frightening. She felt her body relax and she fought against it. Her mind was in turmoil but she sat ever peaceful and blank. She was sent out and told to return to class. Sitting on her bed she thought back on that first time. She remembered many more times like that when the pressure was at its worst and she could stand the whispers and talk of war no longer so she screamed. Sometimes it was words and others just the pain inside of her becoming an unearthly shriek. At times it would be so bad she would throw things and lash out at people and not remember. What little friends she had left became afraid of her so the decision that was made, though it was hard, had become the only option.

At that point her thoughts were interrupted by the healer bringing in her daily calming draught. With a glare she swallowed the potion and watched the healer leave. As soon as the door swung shut and the lock clicked Ginny rushed to the bathroom and spit the potion, concealed in the back of the throat, into the sink. She had been doing this for three years, as long as she had been in the mental ward at St. Mungo's. She had no visitors. With a war going on there was little time plus seeing Ginny as placid and empty as she had become was too emotionally draining on her mother. Now and again she would see a familiar face pass by the window in her door as family or friends went to visit those wounded in the war.

Suddenly Ginny heard a hushed conversation between a healer and a familiar voice. The door opened and in walked a tall man with green eyes and messy, black hair. She stared at the man for quite a while trying to see who he was.

"Harry," she said in a whisper of a voice that had not been used in three years.

"Yes Ginny, it's me." He sat down on the bed next to her and the healer left to give them privacy. As he spoke to her she drifted away in her mind again. She didn't understand much of what he was saying anyways. He spoke of Death Eaters, of Voldemort and of things she had long since forgotten about. No news of the war was brought to her for fear of upsetting her and she realized that she didn't even remember why it was being fought. She noted vaguely of Harry mentioning a death in her family but she did not know who.

She came out of her trance and glanced at Harry. There, sticking out of his pocket was something that caused her to show her first emotion since he had arrived. A wand. She was not allowed a wand and had not even seen one in years. She grabbed Harry's shirt and looked at the wand and then into his eyes. She silently begged him. A look of understanding passed between them and Harry stood.

Harry would later remember it almost like a dream how she closed her eyes and tilted back her head, inviting it; how she fell, almost gracefully onto the bed; and most of all how she smiled as the words formed on his lips and took her life from her. For some, Harry realized, death was the only thing left. Ginny didn't need a dementor to drain her soul. Wars can do that to you.