Part 1- Ginny
The hair started as just one of the odd things going on in Ginny's first year. What with the dead chickens and the blood writing, it wasn't anything alarming when you woke from a trance with hair all over your robes and the floor, and pretty much everywhere. At least, not until Ginny tied her hair back for one flying lesson and realised her hairline seemed a bit, well, inconsistent. Either no one noticed, or no one brought it up. After waking up in the chamber of secrets and finally figuring out exactly what had happened, Ginny put it down to a side effect of possession.
At least until, on the Hogwarts express- when the train mysteriously stopped and everything went dark and cold and sad- she felt a sudden twinge of sharp pain, and realised there was a clump of red hairs in her fist. She let go of them, realising they fell from her hand to join what was becoming a collection on the train floor. Ginny pushed them into the corner with her shoe, realising whoever cleaned the train was going to be very confused.
Ginny had true Weasley hair- particularly orange, slightly lighter than her brothers' and dead straight, thick and long like- what was the muggle story Harry told her about-Rapunzel? Every distant relative, family friend- pretty much any over friendly middle aged wizard pointed it out. Since her first year at Hogwarts, she worked out she was pretty. And therefore, lucky. Ginny took advantage of the instant respect, even if in hindsight it was a very shallow way to determine someone's worth. Not that it was an easy experience- she was still poor. A blood traitor, the other purebloods called her. It took her until her third year to really make sense of it.
Over her second year Ginny became more and more conscious of the hair pulling. She tried her best- stopping whenever she realised, and her hair, with the odd thin patch, was generally intact. It didn't exactly show, no matter how much she worried that it did. It wasn't just her scalp that suffered, her eyebrows became sparser and there were gaps in her eyelashes. Well, Ginny denied there was a problem. She didn't want to think of the worst. It started when she was possessed, after all, and she suspected, with the uttermost denial and dread, that whatever Voldemort had done to her hadn't gone away. She may have seen the dead and blinded body of the basilisk herself, but surely Voldemort would find another way to stay alive- and that she again would have something to do with it.
The first person she told was Hermione, in the December of her third year. Hermione had spent the evening in the corner of the common room sifting through various magazines and documents. She was alone, and Ginny herself was just passing, but stopped considering as they'd shared a room all summer, she was the most approachable of all her brothers friends.
"What are you doing Hermione? Left homework to the last minute?" Both were aware of the sheer improbability of this. Hermione looked up from what she was reading and glowered. Being born into magic, Hermione's special interest was a little difficult to comprehend.
"No. And you can tell your brother that I won't help him with anything divination related until Hufflepuff wins the house cup!"
"House cup, maybe not, but the triwizard tournament..." Ginny squinted to see what she was reading.
"That's not the point- why are you so interested in hair products anyway? Yours is fine." Hermione snapped, pulling a stray curl behind her ear. The rest of hair hair was pulled into a plait as if to somehow hid the bushiness. Pretty witches were supposed to hair straight, silky hair, and Hermione felt embarrassed by her own hair.
"Why are you?" Ginny retaliated, trying to avoid talking about herself.
"Um...I wanted to change it...for the ball..." Hermione said. "You wouldn't know anything that would give me straight hair, would you?"
Ginny shook her head. "But...have you found anything to make it grow back fast?"
Hermione's forehead creased. "There's a spell, but, it's surprisingly advanced, and if you get it wrong its ghastly."
"Oh." Ginny sank into the nearest seat.
"What do you need more hair for?" Hermione scoffed.
"Can't you tell? Loads of it's gone!" Ginny said, anger forming. She pushed some of her hair aside to reveal the thinnest patches.
"Well, now you've told me..." Hermione clumsily placed the papers on the floor. "Draco put some foul hex on you?"
"No...its, um, more long term. Ever since the...you know..."
Hermione nodded in understanding. "If you think it's a curse, l've never read of any one cursed after a possession-" Ginny winced at the word. "- that causes hair to fall out."
"It doesn't exactly fall out."
"But how-"
"I tear it out." Ginny said. "And please, don't you dare tell me to stop, because I've tried so hard to stop but I don't realise I'm doing it." Her voice wavered, and Ginny hated that, as after everything that had happened, she didn't want to show any weakness at school.
Hermione paused, her face wrinkled in confusion. Her expression suddenly changed to one of sympathy. "I haven't heard of that before. Probably some kind of stress behaviour. There must be something."
There wasn't. The two searched through every last advertisement Hermione had accumulated, but nothing seemed to have a solution. Hermione eventually found the potion to smooth out her hair, but concerning Ginny, she folded away the papers and said: "looks like we'll have to turn to the muggle world."
Ginny was hesitant as Hermione sent an owl the next morning to her parents, asking for some kind of muggle stuff. The morning of Christmas Eve the owl returned with a parcel and a note. Hermione gave her a look, considering how Ginny begged not to tell anyone.
"If only you pulled out your teeth." Hermione told her on Christmas afternoon, "I'd think my parents would now better, being a part of the NHS, but no." Ginny made a note to find out what the NHS was. "This is hairspray." Hermione placed a tall and aesthetically hideous bottle on her bedside table. "It will keep your hair put. I've added a couple of charms to make sure it works properly. The two were in Hermione's dormitory, though the other two girls, Lavender and Parvati, (the latter being Harry's date), and Hermione was trying her best to explain Muggle cosmetics, though she wasn't exactly familiar with them herself. She flicked her hair behind her shoulder- it was now straight and silky, and surprisingly long- and pulled out what seemed to be disembodied eyelashes in a box and a small black square.
Hermione took off the lid of the square to reveal a palette of several reddish brown colours and a very small and odd looking brush. "For eyebrows."
Ginny and Hermione spent the next couple of hours perfecting their appearance. Hermione had put her hair in some kind of elaborate knot. She looked completely different without her masses of curls. Ginny settled on moving her parting to the side and spraying it with the odd muggle spray until she was sure it was secure. It took a few attempts to glue on the eyelashes, she wasn't she she'd done her eyebrows evenly, but she felt better. She was certain no one could tell how much hair she had lost.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Who is your date, anyway?"
Hermione looked away. "It's Viktor Krum. He asked me."
"What?"
"Just as friends! But that's why I've got to fit what everyone thinks of as attractive, because everyone will look at me- can you imagine what that skeeter woman would say if I didn't?"
Ginny just felt more concerned for her brother. He wouldn't know who to be more jealous of.
Over the next few months, Ginny perfected the routine, working out how to expertly cover a bald patch, but it never got any easier. She hadn't stopped pulling hair, and one by one her choice in hairstyles narrowed. She couldn't scrape it back because her hairline suffered the worst. She couldn't part it at the middle because her parting was unnaturally wide. She couldn't put it over one shoulder of this side because of the messy, inconsistent patch behind her ear. And the worst part- the suddenly abundant baby hairs, the short and broken strands that she had to keep flattening.
That summer she couldn't take it anymore. At last, people noticed. Her mother hissed at her to stop pulling her hair at the dinner table. George asked if a jinx went wrong when he spots a gap in her eyebrow. Tonks, the metamorphagus, changes from a blonde bob to beautiful, dark red hair to hair waist one morning, before Ginny's own eyes. Maybe it was the air of Grimmauld place, which was doing its best to repel visitors, the threat of Voldemort coming back or Percy or Harry- who to her had always seemed calm to her- was now always on the verge of tears, or a rage, or both. She didn't fully understand, but still, did no one realise how terrible he felt? And yet another part of her, telling her how vain she was, how shallow, to worry about her hair when the very world was falling apart...one evening, after what seemed like hours of crying, she finds so creaky old scissors and cuts what's left to her shoulders. Her mother was furious.
"GINEVRA- WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME YOU WANTED TO- IT'LL BE SO UNEVEN- TAKE YEARS TO GET TO WHERE IT WAS..." But after she calmed down, Ginny explained, and Molly apologised and asked her to do her best for the winter term at least. Hermione, however, lived only what was called "tube stops" away, seemed to go back and forth both houses, until she returned with a heap of paper.
"You have trichotillomania." She declared.
"Tricho-what?" Ginny asked. The name comforted her, a sign she wasn't alone.
"Trichotillomania is a condition where a person feels compelled to pull their hair out." Hermione explained. "They may pull out the hair on their head or in other places, such as their eyebrows or eyelashes. There...doesn't seem to be much anyone can do."
Ginny boarded the Hogwarts express with her head held high, not caring that she'd pulled a load over summer and there was no way everyone didn't notice.
Some noticed alright- the very same who were sporting Potter Stinks badges last year, who called her a blood traitor- their eyes sparkled as she explained she had an illness where she lost her hair.
"Don't worry Weazelbee- you could try keeping a diary to cope!" Draco said as he passed her on the train. Ginny felt her eyes well up but was determined to remain composed. But when Luna, who she ended up in a carriage with, nodded and smiled understandingly when she explained Ginny started to rethink her reputation. Neville was equally respectful, and Harry has tried learn everything over the holidays.
"You know, once my aunt gave me such a bad haircut I willed it to grow out overnight." He tried to reassure her. "You never know."
Yet amidst the weird looks, awkward trying-not-to-be-offensive conversation and outright insults of school, Ginny got her first boyfriend. Michael Corner the Ravenclaw, who she held hands with a few times and she begged every last student in her year not to tell Ron, but Dumbledores Army happened and Ginny learnt the Patronus charm- and unsurprisingly the great silvery horse galloping across the Room of Requirement has, quite literally, a long and beautiful mane, and while her own head is sparse and uneven, the embodiment of all her happiness fares better.
That Christmas, however, was the worst yet. Ginny never forgot how long that night was, staring into nothing and of course, pulling and pulling and pulling, not knowing if her father was going to live to see daylight. No one reprimanded her, Ginny lost all her eyelashes and half her eyebrows, and there were damaged red hairs coating the armchair and the floor and herself, putting Crookshanks in moulting season to shame.
Hermione got her more false eyelashes and an eyebrow pencil on Christmas morning- pre charmed to last longer because once she went back to school there was no way she could replace them, and her mothers familiar parcel seems a bit fatter than the last 13 years. Alongside the usual "G" jumper is a woolly hat the same red at her hair. Ginny hid what was left of her hair in it, overwhelmed by the gift. Later on, in St Mungos, Neville Longbottom mumbles that he likes her new hat.
Ginny barely takes it off all of the holidays, and considering how Dumbledore barely bothers with the uniform, she wears it in her lessons as well. Umbridge is hilariously on edge, wanting to confiscate the hat but knowing McGonagall (who is 100% on Ginny's side) would kill her. Quidditch becomes a struggle, because she feels bad asking and doesn't know the spell herself to keep the hat on, goes without it. The rest of the team didn't have a problem but she could just imagine what the a certain Slytherin seeker would have to say about her increasingly thinning hair. Even now, she found there was always strands straying outside the hat to pull at- behind her ears suffer the most. And Michael insisted that he understood but Ginny knew he wanted the cool Ginny as his girlfriend, not the trichotillomaniac. Yet when the inevitable breakup happened her confidence plummets and her dignified image becomes near impossible to maintain. She no longer asked for Hermione's advice, because after all there are bigger problems at the moment. But every single day Ginny passed another witch with long, gorgeous silky hair, and her own is dwindling away under her hat. She had every motivation to stop pulling, and nothing ever worked. Ginny reassured herself that this would be the worst part, but it was very clear that it wasn't.
Ginny didn't quite know what to feel about Sirius's death. She barely knew him, if she was honest. Even so, she took a while to accept it. Sirius was gone, never to return. No, the worst part was Harry- watching any last hope and joy in him shatter, and knowing there was nothing anyone can do. A little later, she heard the creepy old man from Durmstrang is dead and just thinks "ok", because people were dying off everywhere and she could only afford to grieve for those who she actually liked.
She didn't like Michael anymore- but she missed him. There was something about being by herself that seemed to make everything worse. Then there was Dean- this time, Ginny knew he wasn't disappointed in her. He told her how well the hat suited her and backed her up when Draco would make some witty insult. She didn't understanding why Dean implied Draco was some sort of farmer as he approached her as they where about to ask the Fat Lady the password, but it confused him all the same while Seamus burst out laughing.
"Do all purebloods live under a rock?" Dean protested when Ginny asked. "It's funny because he's from Wiltshire."
"Careful insulting people by where they're from, Dean. You are, after all, from Essex." Seamus replied.
Ron was furious, primarily because she got a boyfriend before he did, and before long he started dating Lavender Brown, suspiciously at the same time that he and Hermione appear to get distant.
One night she and Ginny were again browsing for hair products, when the conversation turns back to Ron, and that's when Hermione broke down in tears.
"It's absolutely ridiculous- I say nothing, I don't do anything at all- and then Ron gets a girlfriend- and it's not me- and its my fault- I should have asked him...but I didn't and now I'm jealous and it's not his fault but- I hate him for it..." She blabbered incoherently.
"I don't know what you see in ickle Ronnie-" Hermione smiled a little. "but then, he is my brother." Ginny replied.
"I don't see the point in abandoning my coursework for a matter of unrequited love." Hermione affirmed, bringing a half written essay out from under the Quibbler. It seemed she was trying to reassure herself more than Ginny. "Parvati seems a little off ever since Lavender started going out with Ron. I don't suppose she fancied him too?"
"Mhm." Ginny responded.
Harry seemed to have almost settled. She heard he had been suspiciously excelling in Potions and had seen herself how happy it made him to not only be back at Quidditch but the captain. Even so, he slowly grew more awkward when talking to her- but not as though Ginny had fallen out of his favour.
One rehearsal, when Harry reaches out to take the snitch, Ginny noticed small scabs all over Harry's hand. She assumed he spilt one his suspiciously excellent potions.
"By now you must have found a way to keep the hat on while flying." Harry said as the training session ended.
"Ehh, I suppose." Ginny admitted. "But, to be honest, it's sometimes not bad to let my head have some air, even if my hair isn't the prettiest, Anyway, if Phlegm is joining the family I don't have to be the attractive one anymore."
Harry laughed.
"Did you spill Bloodroot potion on your hand then?" Ginny asked.
Harry suddenly stopped laughing, and his green eyes darted around the pitch. Everyone else had gone in. He tugged the sleeve of his robe over his hand. "Um. Well. I hope you of all people could understand."
Ginny nodded, a gesture for him to continue.
"You remember Umbridge's detentions, and everyone's...lines have healed. But I...started doing this thing, and they didn't heal. Look," Harry leaned closer, pulling his sleeve back. I MUST NOT TELL LIES was etched, purplish and shiny, with the odd scab or open sore surrounding it. He then revealed his other hand, equally dotted with scars. "I don't realise when, put I scratch at my hands until..." Harry had gone red. "It must seem really weird."
"I tear out my own hair, Harry." Ginny reassured, gesturing to the largest bald patch at the side of her head. "I don't think it's weird." A flicker of a smile reappeared on Harry's face.
The conversation changed a lot for Ginny. The two felt closer, as though they could be more open with each other. Before, it was always her brother Ron, and her friend Hermione and Harry the celebrity who she used to fancy who she didn't know quite so well. She wasn't even sure if that was the truth- the "used to" part, at least. Ginny struggles and struggles and realises the crush has come back with a vengeance. The moment she realises she breaks up with Dean, and it was painful but she didn't dare be with him while she loved someone else. Dean was upset, naturally, but they promised to stay on good terms because he stood up to Draco to many times for him to be forgotten.
She tore out more and more hair as OWLS approached. There was always that one hair that escaped the hat. Ginny realised what was odd about trichotillomania. Just a few hairs at a time.
Surely not enough to show. But Ginny told herself this a lot. And the bald patches got bigger.
She already knew that falling in love with the right person was never the cure. And neither her nor Harry get better once they're together- but it does bring a bit of happiness to an otherwise dismal time.
If she hadn't had the incident at the ministry last year, or witnessed triwizard tournament, not to mention her entire first year, the death eaters taking over the school might have been a shock. What is a shock, however, is when her curiosity led her to the expanding crowd. She pushed past the distressed students to find an old man on the floor, very still and a cursed, blackened hand.
Dumbledore being dead was a weird thing to witness. She would not mourn, to be exact. It wasn't his death that devastated the wizarding world. It was the inevitable crumble to ruins of what was good in the world. Hermione said trich thought to be triggered by stress in some cases- so current circumstances led her hair to be diminishing fast.
In the holidays, Ginny considered if she'd rather have scars over hair face like her eldest brother of it meant having a full head of hair. (Absolutely.) Phlegm finally became accepted in the family, and now all were focusing on the wedding.
The wedding. Which meant Ginny was a bridesmaid. Which meant she has to look beautiful. Which meant having lots of hair.
Molly shed tears looking at the state of Ginny's head. Shorter ginger strands stood up vertical, the longest strands brushed her shoulders, and all so thin her scalp could be seen through it, with no way of hiding bald patches. Ginny cried a bit also, because she just wanted to look at least normal next to a part-veela bride.
Then again, Molly cried about everything. She'd perfected the cake itself yet could find anything to ice it with.
"It's the shops, they're all closing down. I only just about got the ingredients for the cake. It's...you-know-who. Everyone's too scared and no one else is buying ingredients for a wedding cake."
Hermione looked up, her brown eyes widening like always when she had an idea. She disappeared for a bit, and returns at the burrow slamming an orange shopping bag on the table.
"Business is fine in the muggle world." Hermione pulled out a bag labelled "icing sugar". Molly was overjoyed, even if a little less magic was used on the wedding cake. Hermione also took out various muggle sweets for everyone's consumption. "I thought I might as well. You've never tried them. And normally my parents wouldn't approve...but they...aren't here."
Ginny and her brothers found the sweets ultimately disappointing, after growing up with chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts. Harry said something about what had happened when he stole his cousins sweets once (no one was more upset by this than Molly). Arthur cared more about the idea of supermarkets and begged Hermione to tell him where to find it.
And so, for the first time, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Harry and the twins explored the town they actually live in, always stunned by how everything is going normal here. Harry celebrated nobody knowing who he was- to the muggles, they were just ordinary kids. Except for the time they invite Luna to join them.
Ginny found a solution to the bridesmaid hair. They cut of part off her dress, shortening it considerably, and sew it into a close fitting hat. Hermione said it was similar to the fashion of the 1920's in the muggle world, and that the now knee length dress fit the theme better.
All the happiness was short lived and soon everything she cared about was lost. Harry,
Ron, and Hermione disappeared,and going back to school to find Snape as a headteacher made it all worse. Everyone felt betrayed by Harry's absence and complained that everything was boring without Ron and Hermione couldn't help out with homework. Although, Lavender and Parvati mind slightly less than everyone else that their oblivious third wheel was gone.
It finally happened: Ginny was completely bald.
The was no more hair to pull. She neglected drawing on eyebrows and putting on false eyelashes. People no longer cared about appearance. Her hair couldn't grow back fast enough. Dean disappeared. Luna disappeared. Not only that, but her beloved hat was on its last legs.
This was the worst time.
The old doubt began to resurface. She hadn't let herself think of it these past years. But now- the students woke up and went to lessons teaching them to follow him. Telling them that at some point, the snake writhing from the skull would be etched into their own skin. And here was Ginny, who survived a possession from the Dark Lord himself, and now she's torn out all her hair. Most likely a side effect, that he who must not be named still had some control over her.
The best person to speak to would, of course, be Harry, but Harry was gone. He's alive, Ginny told herself. He will come back.
The second of May, 1998, is the worst day of her life so far. That's when Fred-
And Harry-
Harry came back from the dead.
Fred didn't.
But Voldemort's gone, forever this time. And the trich remains. It was never a curse, nor a sign of possession, but just an illness that muggles got too. So, for once, the urge to pull was a comfort.
When the battle's all over, the Weasleys are famous enough to have the spare galleon. The hat one day falls apart in her hands, but this time, Ginny bought a wig. It didn't matter if it wasn't real, her hair was back after all this time.
She stays with Harry, the boy who picks his skin and the girl who pulls out her hair. Ginny does her NEWTS properly this time, but Quidditch had always been where her heart belonged. Hermione finally starts dating Ron. Fleur donates all her hair to some muggle charity- "in Ginny's 'onour," but it's less flattering when it all grows back in three weeks (the veela genes). Hermione never smoothens out her hair again and works hard against the unrealistic expectations for young witches in the Ministry. Ginny invests in a curly blonde wig and can leave the house without being stopped for autographs. Molly knits hats for every colour of the rainbow. Arthur tries to organise a day out to Asda. George tries his best. Percy is forgiven. Charlie continued working with dragons.
At 20 Ginny just about regained a full head of hair. She tries as hard as she can not to pull, but she still does. She just has to learn to make peace with it. Wig, hat, what's left of her own hair. Ginny's comfortable with all of them.
Eventually Ginny stumbles across some fanmail from what appeared to be a child. A 9 year old who had pulled out a lot of hair saying thank you for having the same problem and being a - what are they called- "disney princess" sort of role model. Ginny smiles and keeps the letter, mentally giving her one piece of advice.
Be Brave.