Author's Note: Okay, pay no attention to his story. It's as insane as Ginny. I just felt like writing on this subject, because what Ginny says in the third paragraph from the botom is a theory of mine. Wrong, but a theory nonetheless. So, if you have time, just read this and tell me what you think. Thanks.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

A Little Unbalanced

I am crazy.

There's no use denying it, there's no reason to…because it's the truth, exactly as we despise it- cold, hash, and simple. There's no maybes, no perhaps, no avoiding it.

I'm insane. The funny things that you think about when you go over the past in your mind…though mine's a bit dodgy…makes you laugh…

I used to be so…young. I know that seems ridiculous to say when I'm still just sixteen. Sweet sixteen…nothing sweet about it anymore…it's gone sour. Bitter. Regretful. Spiteful. But I wasn't always like that…no, not really…I used to be so young and happy and lively – to say nothing of ignorant.

I was so lovely…as a child. And then I grew up…too fast…too fast…

It was all their fault. Everyone. They made me like this. Mum, Dad, Percy, Ron, Harry, Hermione…Tom…Merlin, I hate him. Every inch of my body knows him and fears him and writhes in the disgust that he seems to emanate from every pore. I see him in every raindrop that falls… I hear his voice…THAT voice in every whisper of the breeze…his fingers run cold down my spine in the shower…hence the reason why I've been taking baths for the past four years…his taste spoils every morsel of food that passes through my lips…and that acidic, metallic, blood-ringing scent is all I smell.

He may be gone, but all the revolting things that remind me of him have been left behind.

However, there is one sense…some would call it a sixth sense…that his memory utterly dominates, and makes the other five senses seem like mere inconveniences. Until I met Tom, I didn't even know I had that sixth sense…it seems to have been created just for him…to have some unseen connection…some indestructible link that binds me to him, in spirit, but more importantly, in mind.

He destroyed my mind. When I was a little girl, everything was bright and colorful…pretty flowers and rainbows and patched teddy-bears with pink bows. My mind was filled with hearts and stars and clouds and butterflies…all the sweet things that make children so precious.

I turned twelve and suddenly all that was gone. Snakes and spiders, and other creepy-crawlies replaced the flowers, and rainbows, and teddies. The cold, damp dark that consumed me also covered the shining rays of the sun I used to stand under and laugh at. Now I stood out in the pouring rain, freezing and soaked, looking up to the endless black vault that holds us in, seeking an answer to all my questions.

It wasn't until about…oh, I'd say a year after…Tom…that I realized I wasn't that innocent little girl anymore. No more the naïve angel with a stable and happy mind. No longer a radiant ball of joy.

Unless radiant balls of joys scream in the dark and cry in the rain.

In which case, I'm fully applicable to THAT category…

But I'm digressing. I tend to do that. Perhaps this…insanity is a blessing in disguise…a very good disguise…ever since third year, I began to see things…well, differently. I can't really explain it, because I didn't really notice the change for a while. But when you're a little unbalanced…it's like the world overbalances to make up for it, and ends up spilling its answers all over you. Suddenly, I understood everything. I saw the flaws in the perfect Golden Trio, in my friends, but most importantly, in myself.

I was an imperfect human being, and it took a bit of mental instability to knock me down from the goddess-like pillar of faultless excellence I had so mistakenly placed myself on. Where I descended was into a pit of filth and disgusting hatred. It was with a view similar to this that I now saw the world.

Strange how things work, eh…?

But maybe it was all for the better…I mean, yeah, I'm crazy. That's already been established, many times, all by me of course, because I continue to carry on this revolting façade. If only they knew what was going on in my head…but I don't even fully grasp what's happening to me. All I know is that I'm not the same, though I don't know if this change is positive or negative. I mean, how can you evaluate your own sanity?

Mum and Dad were…parents. They weren't great parents, and they weren't abusive psychotics. They were just parents. When I was a girl, they too were elevated to that unattainable level of awe-inspiring perfection. After third year, they were simply a pair of people, not in love, not happy, and nothing special.

They were just the life-forms that brought me up and fed and clothed and sheltered me…and many times I saw that they were not happy about it.

Why is it that everyone used to seem so perfect and impressive, and now they're just grimy and grotesque? It was like someone placed a semi-transparent dirty covering over everything, and what used to be so clear and lucid was now unrecognizably altered into something I didn't want to deal with.

Who cares if it's an illusion, I want that goddamn clarity back. But no matter how many times I wish it, it never comes back. And with each wish, the adamant yearning wears away little by little. With every wish, it gets less urgent and this state of vagueness becomes easier to understand. And with every wish, I realize somewhere behind that dirty protective film, in the deep and tormenting recesses of my mind, that I want to understand. It hurt, but I needed to understand.

Just as I needed that deceptive assurance of greatness in everything I associated with. No one can discern why people need these securities. Perhaps it only occurs in people not in the "right" state of mind (by "right" I mean, clinical terms, otherwise known as crazy), but I craved it like air and magic.

So fourth year came and went, and things just got worse and worse. The worst thing was Tom…he followed me everywhere. Even though I knew Voldemort wasn't at Hogwarts, I still cowered around the corners and jumped at every little thing.

Everyone just thought I was skittish and nervous. If they knew what a nervous wreck I would become…they'd have locked me away in St. Mungo's. I was so lost and scared. Time was out of my control. It blazed forward and screeched to a halt where it flipped back and forth so many times that I lost track of where or when I was. I would wake up suddenly in class while in the middle of performing a charm I had no recollection of learning or beginning. Weeks disappeared and I became an even larger bundle of nerves.

One thing never changed. Every day I bathed. I can at least remember my angry dorm-mates pounding endlessly on the door for the hours that I spent submerged in the water. I'd never really cared much for baths…I'd take them whenever I remembered…once every few days. But this was ceaseless…everyday I felt dirty. There was some invisible layer of filth that came along with my condition. I had to wash away every tear, every scream, every shudder or convulsion.

That was how my days were filled. No more romanticizing about Harry Potter. Hell, I was just trying to keep my dismal grades straight. Between the time jumps, the baths, the crying and the screams, and the fits I barely had time to question myself. All I knew was that I was mad, and no one could find out.

Over the summer after that fourth year, things seemed to be leveling out. Maybe I was getting over a phase that had come from that scare with Tom.

However, my summer was not destined to be spent frolicking and laughing with friends and family. It was to be spent hiding in my room, almost never coming down for meals, crying and running away every once in a while to scream my head off.

The reason? My loving, caring, fucking observant brother Percy. Damn him. He came home that summer for a week, right before the whole ordeal with the Order. He made my life hell. Stupid and daft though he is, he was the only one to realize that something was wrong with me. And how else would he make things right than by yelling at me and scolding me, and making that summer hell.

Needless to say, from that moment on, everything went pear-shaped. I practically lived in the rain and in the bath. My skin was growing thinner and tauter and pale and soft. My eyes lost their shine, and had anyone but Percy cared to notice, they would have seen how hollow I was. My hair went limp and stringy, and I had to use skin make-up to cover the black bags under my eyes. It seemed that I never slept. I never ate. I never lived.

But things are a bit different now. I've lived comfortably with myself for the past year, because something unexplainable happened. After the end of this summer, I'll turn seventeen, and be in my last year at Hogwarts. And it seemed that this knowledge saved me. I realized that after this year, I would be free. My mind is already free and lost. But with the loss of my mind, I gained so much more. A wisdom of the world and everything in it. I no longer sum up or generalize people I see, but I see them as blank books that need to be written in. For the sake of avoiding overused clichés, I'll not say a word about books and their covers. But that's how it is.

I understand society, life, people, and the most glorious of glories…me. I understand myself. I understand that, yeah, I'm insane. But I've accepted that. I live with it. And I've grown to love it. It scares me, it scares people, but it's given me so much. What destroyed my life gave me something to live for.

Weird, I know. But that's just how it is. I still cry, I still scream, I still bathe everyday, and I still lose track of time.

But then again, doesn't everybody to some degree? What if everyone is (to some degree) insane? What if it just takes a trigger to let loose that unbalancing force that tilts not only the stability of your mind, but the entire weight of the world, and the mass of all the things on it? What if that shift allows you insight into all the things that have been slanted? What if insanity is just that unbalance augmented to a heightened level that just seems wrong? What if I'm not sick? What if I'm just gifted? What if this burden that plagues so many is actually a miracle bestowed on those who might be able to handle it?

Whatever the case, it doesn't matter. Soon, I'll be on my own. I plan to write. Maybe I'll write my story, maybe I'll write fiction…maybe I'll re-write the Defense Against the Dark Arts books. I just plan to write, because I love it; it gives me a chance to expond whatever obscure thing I'm feeling. I've heard of many allegedly "crazy" people who have become great literary geniuses because of that second sight into life. Even if it doesn't work out, I'll still live. I'll find something to do, because I'll always have my insanity.

My talent.