History of Magic, Assignment 7 - Write about losing something precious. Alternatively, write about any historic Harry Potter event (any era) with it's outcome changed. (For example: Voldemort killing Harry successfully.)

Payday - Prompts: Ginny/Dean, waves, crash

Ginny's footsteps lightly touched the ground as she crawled out of her Gryffindor red cot.

It was hours past curfew, the Carrows had been creeping around the Room of Requirement of late, and if she ran into any smug children of Death-Eaters, she would likely be killed or tortured, but Ginny slipped out of the Room of Requirement anyway. Neville and Luna didn't understand. She needed to cope with the news by being alone.

She set off down the seventh-floor corridor with her hair disheveled and hand loosely wrapped around her wand. Somehow, she didn't think she would have the strength to use it if she got caught.

Twice as she aimlessly wandered up hidden staircases, through tapestries, in plain sight in halls, Ginny thought she heard quiet footsteps padding along behind her. But both times when she stopped and held her breath, the sounds disappeared. Either she was imagining them or somebody was following her, biding their time before they hit her with a Cruciatus Curse.

Let them catch me, she thought fiercely. They caught my brother. They caught Harry. They caught the smartest witch I've ever known. And now who knows what they're doing to them at Malfoy Manor?

But though the footsteps continued, no curses followed. No leering whispers or malicious hisses, were sent her way. No Carrows jumped from behind, and before Ginny knew it, she had stopped in front of a door. Her destination, she presumed.

It was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

Was Ginny particularly surprised that she had ended up here, where it had all begun for her? Not quite. She cast a spell over the hinges that muffled the creaks, and gently pushed open the door.

When she entered, she lit the torch by the door, and the room was just slightly illuminated. The sinks at the far end of the bathroom looked eerie in the dim light; for a moment, Ginny swore that they were moving apart, that a gaping hole was appearing in the floor -

She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the gasp as she whipped around to leave the bathroom. (Why, why, why had she come here? What demon had possessed her to come back to him? As if he could provide solace. As if he could help when he was the very cause of her pain. The full irony of it crashed down upon her, and she could not stand to be here anymore-)

Ginny had only opened the door when she found herself being pushed back in. Her grip on her wand made her knuckles crack as she lifted it and jabbed it into the person's throat -

"Christ, Ginny, it's me! Shh, some prefects are rounding the corner -"

Dean Thomas put a firm hand over her mouth even as she struggled to turn around and ask him why the hell he was following her around at three o'clock at night/in the morning.

They stayed in that uncomfortable position long enough to become aware that their bodies were unnecessarily pressed up against each other (after all, they had the whole bathroom to maneuver around), and when they finally untangled themselves, the sound of footsteps in the hall had faded.

Ginny immediately hissed, "What the hell are you doing here, Dean? You could have gotten caught-"

"I was making sure you weren't going to get caught!" He pushed himself off the floor so that he was standing above her. "I wanted to make sure that the news didn't make you careless-"

"I'm fine, I don't need a babysitter-"

"I know you don't, but it's okay to feel-"

"Just shut up, okay?!" Ginny whispered furiously. "Thanks for following me and all, but I just need some time alone. Go back to the Room of Requirement while you can."

But Dean Thomas had always noticed things about her that nobody else had (something that she hated at the moment), and he just sighed and said tiredly, "Ginny, please. Talk about it. It'll make-"

Ginny stomped to the other side of the bathroom, seeing as Dean was blocking the exit, and as strong as she was, he was probably stronger. "Don't bullshit me, Dean. It's not going to make it better. Don't say it will."

The expression on Dean's face was so gentle that she almost led herself to believe his words. "It's not going to make them better, but do you think they'll be happy to know that you've apparently given up on safety measures because theirs - because they got caught? They would want you to keep fighting. They would want you to stay safe, all of us do."

She scowled and turned her back on him. She found herself staring at the sinks. It was strange; when she stood beside them in the dark, they looked perfectly normal to her. It was when she was in the light and they were in the shadows that her mind contorted their shape, made them split apart, made a basilisk rise from the gaping hole -

Ginny suppressed the shudder rising from her bones and turned back to Dean again.

"Go back," she told him, with less anger in her voice. "I'm fine. I just want a few minutes."

He didn't make a motion to leave, which was annoying, but he didn't insist she instantly return to the Room of Requirement, which Ginny had to appreciate.

She made her way to the wall and sat against it, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. A few seconds later, she felt Dean sink next to her. They sat in silence, and she didn't know for how long they did so. She did not care to know. She wondered if Ron cared to know. If Harry cared to know. If Hermione knew.

The Daily Prophet had been explicit enough, though (as Neville and Luna had told her countless times) they couldn't be certain that everything the Prophet said was true, seeing as it was controlled by Voldemort. But every lie had a grain of truth embedded in it, and even a grain of truth in the Prophet's main article would be far too much.

Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger had been caught in a forest two nights ago. They were currently being held in Malfoy Manor, where they were being questioned by the Dark Lord himself and his faithful followers. They were alive, but, in the article's own words, "if the prisoners continue to refuse to cooperate, we may have to resort to less friendly tactics".

It had been horrible. A horrible article, a horrible day, a horrible thought that was a horrible reality. Ginny had been restless all day, and so had the rest of the school. The professors, Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs had been mourning the losses that now seemed inevitable. The Headmaster, Slytherins, and Carrows had been gloating.

She drew her knees to her chest, suddenly tired. "I don't think they're going to - going to let them go," she exhaled, more to get the words out than anything else.

"I-" Dean let out a long breath. "I don't know, Gin. I don't know. They might."

"No. I don't think so."

"We have to think pos-"

"They'll kill Hermione first, because she's muggleborn."

"Gin, don't-"

"Then my brother, because he's a blood traitor, and because they'll want Harry to hurt, you know?"

"Ginny-" Dean sounded desperate, and his hands slapped onto the ground as if trying to steady himself.

But Ginny was utterly detached as she rattled off her final prediction. "And then, of course, they'll kill Harry. I think they'll do it in a public place, or at least at a place where people can watch him die. They'll want him to be a symbol of our demise, to show us that we're not strong enough without him. Right?"

Dean's face was utterly white, and his dark eyes were wide and fearful. "Right, Dean?" His mouth moved but no words came out. "Right?"

He did not answer. Ginny's sudden frustration at his inability to speak quickly faded with a tired sigh. The calmness that had temporarily taken over her body was gone; waves after waves of pain, exhaustion, agony, despair, and loss tumbled down upon her thin body. Ginny put her face in her hands and tried to rub the bags away from under her eyes.

Silence once more filled in from the edges of the room. Ginny let it envelop her and her pain, sinking into the cold embrace of desolation.

"Dean?"

"Hm?"

Ginny reached out a hand, feeling her way towards him. When she found his hand, she clasped his fingers tightly. Dean was warm; she was cold.

"Harry, Ron, Hermione - I knew that they were leaving," she whispered to him, closing her eyes. "We all did. We didn't stop them."

He didn't speak for a while, but when he did, he sounded firm. "You couldn't have if they were determined to go."

"I know." She bit down on her lip. Her grip tightened on Dean's hand. "But we might have, then they wouldn't have gotten caught."

"Maybe," said Dean. His thumb stroked over her cold fingers.

"Dean-" Her voice caught at the back of her throat as she thought of the last night she had seen the trio. What had her last words to Hermione been? Had her kiss and cold affront really have been the last impression she'd made on Harry? Ron, her brother… had her last words to him been an insult of his hair, of his clumsy dancing? She hadn't told her brother she loved him. She hadn't said those essential words to him since… she didn't remember when.

"Dean," she said again, her voice high and unlike her, and he understood and lay her head in his lap.

"It'll be over soon," he promised her. "Harry, Ron, Hermione, they'll be okay. They'll get themselves out of there. They always do."

She didn't believe him. But she was relieved to hear the words anyway.