A/N: Written for the three by three characterization challenge (Character: Ginny Weasley), the Chutes and Ladders Challenge (Prompt: Neutral) and the Ultimate Patronus Quest Challenge (B,6: Write about Ginny Weasley)
When Ginny stumbles onto the boggart, she's angry. The room of requirements is packed and she's suffocating over still being the girl who wrote in a diary, no matter how much she's changed. There are kids now, people who need her. She's not interested- once upon a time, there had been a girl who signed her own death note in blood. Nobody saved her. These kids will deal on their own.
Neville thinks otherwise- he's grown two inches this year, tall, broad and quietly confident. Ginny doesn't care. People may have short memories but Neville will always be awkward and uncomfortable, tripping on his own feet in the great hall. He's just as damaged as she is and Ginny doesn't get where he gets this kindness from. Hers is all gone, used up when she realized how little the world cares.
The boggart turns to her family first: Dead Bill. Dead Charlie. Dead Percy, not matter how much of a prat he is. The twins, tortured in their joke shop. Dead Ron, throat slit. Dead Hermione, books discarded. Dead Luna, smile faded in fear. Dead Fleur, smugness turned to defiance. Dead Harry, the world doomed in his wake.
Ginny can't muster up the energy to care. If Voldemort wins, the dead will be far luckier than the living. Harry may be a hero but he's still a child. Her faith is gone along with her sanity.
The Boggart turns into her next, smiling the same way Tom did in the chamber. It's another possibility for her, a world in which the seventh child joins a boy who's equally forgotten. She doesn't fear this either- she has a family and a cause, no matter how often they both shatter then eggshells of her mind. She has no neutral bone in her broken body. She's not Tom, no matter how often she borrows his charm to rally the DA.
And finally, the Boggart is Tom; tall, handsome and smug, the boy who she loved and hated and feared in equal amounts.
She's not scared of him either. He's the monster under everyone's bed but once upon a time, he was the monster in her head and she can't wait to see him dead, no matter what it takes.
The mirror is tall and golden, heart's desires painted in promises across its surface.
She sees herself, of course she does, because no matter how far she runs she'll always be the death-shrouded girl who wrote in a diary because no one ever wrote to her.
She gets letters these days, but she leaves them unanswered. The ministry is tracking all blood traitors and she's one of them, even when it's her blood that betrayed her in her time of need.
"What do you see, Ginny?" Luna asks, eyes staring at mirror in curiously.
"Skies perfect for flying." Ginny answers and its much of a truth as she can make it after years of painting smiles on her face.
Luna turns her head sideways, eyes boring into Ginny. "Yes, you do seem to be suffocating these days."
You don't know half of it, Ginny thinks and turns to leave.
"That's a pretty horse!" Colin exclaims and Ginny sees Harry look away, eyes pained.
Good, Ginny thinks. Harry needs to realize this, because they are not his parents, soulmates and a story passed down through the family. She's not dying again, not even for him. Harry would die for her, she knows that, but Harry's the better half of two of them.
Later that evening, under the light of the flickering fire, Ginny asks the question she knows Hermione can answer.
"What does a horse represent?" Ginny asks, staring at the crimson ceiling.
Hermione is off in a breathlessness exclamation, blabbering about symbols and ideology.
Practicality. Endurance. Devotion. Stability.
Good. Ginny never wants to be anything but herself ever again.