Ginny Weasley and the Chamber of Secrets
Prologue Continued...
Note: Definite AU. I don't have my copy of the second book, so I'm sorry. Pretend Fawkes came late...
Ginny woke up in the chamber. She was cold and felt the wet of the stone she lay on.
"Ginny?"
She sat up swiveled quickly to face the voice. It was Harry. He kneeled next to her, one hand clutching a wound, the other limp with pain. The diary lay speared by a basilisk fang on his left.
Normally, in the presence of the Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley would blush, duck her head and not allow a word to pass her lips in fear of it coming out as an insane mumble in the presence of her crush. But with the twelve-year-old boy panting worriedly at her side, holding his arm to stop what was unmistakably blood...
A random thought came to her in the millisecond she stared at Harry: how was she so accustomed to the sight of blood? It wasn't like the Burrow had been devoid of injury, but usually it made her queasy. Now, however, her stomach made a darker, new sensation at the sight—hunger? Ginny mentally shook her head to clear out the foreign thoughts and began her first conversation with the Boy-Who-Lived.
"Harry! I'm sorry," and indeed she was for all the horror that had happened. Ginny had cried over Ms. Norris, Colin, Justin, Hermione, and Penelope more tears than she cared to remember. Guilt had plagued her ever since the beginning of her suspicions against Tom, though she had never wanted to admit it. "I tried to tell you—it was me! The diary, Tom, I did it. I tried to warn you, but I didn't want to say anything with Percy there."
She almost snorted at the thought of Percy scaring her. Once...but Tom had taken her in ways Percy had only dreamed of.
It was only after her admission of guilt she remembered about Harry's own wound. Normally, she would have asked straight away, but maybe her newfound—affinity—for blood had tricked her into familiar speech.
"Harry, what happened to your arm--?"
"--No time now," Harry cut her off hurriedly. His breath was shallow and he was paler than usual.
A thought came unbidden to Ginny's mind. It was sly and deep, undulating in dark persuasion. So, this is the great hero. A pale, scrawny child rushing off to 'save the day'. Bet he didn't have a back-up plan, no way to get at least one of you out if something went wrong—probably didn't tell anybody. What did you see in him? Not very powerful, not overly smart or handsome...was it fame?Money?
It was Tom. She gasped in surprise and horror, but decided to ignore it for now in favor of helping the noble, strong, hero who had just killed a basilisk for her and saved her life.
"It bit you, Harry, didn't it?" It was a stupid question, the answer blatantly obvious from the gushing blood coming out of the boy's arm.
Ginny knew what to do. She had read it...wait, no she'd never read that, had she? Somewhere in her mind, a spell for concentrating venom and draining it back it it's original spot site of injection and a spell for stopping bleeding had been pushed into the front of her mind by her need. It would...but that was the only way...
She owed Harry her life.
"Harry, I know something to do! Let me see your wand." Ginny ordered, somehow aware of the fact that Tom had taken her wand.
Harry looked at her quizzically, barely able to keep awake from the blood loss.
"It's over there." He nodded to his left.
Next to a bloodied sword lay his wand. Ginny immediately leaned to grab it, and crawled closer to Harry's arm.
"Sano Cruento Membrana," Ginny whispered, slowly drawing two parallel lines across the wound with the tip of the wand. The skin sewed itself back together except for a thin strip in between where she had made the two lines.
Harry felt better already. Well, maybe not better, but not any of the perpetual worse he had been so sure was going to claim him. But he was still to weak, and knew that venom was still in her blood.
But Ginny wasn't done yet.
"Colligo Venenum Morsus," she jerked back the wand then repeated the action twice, each time more gently.
Harry gasped. It felt as though the swelling fluid that had corrupted his blood, indeed all his weight, was being dragged back to the wound. The bite location was slowly turning a greenish-black of bile and venom was being concentrated at the spot, leaving the other parts of the body it had been trying to attack. Harry began to hope...
As the watched the poison begin to collect, Ginny's mind was a mess. Suddenly, the news of what she planned to do seemed to make the way around the who of her consciousness, and all of it rebelled. The new, unexplored part of her that was suspiciously like a umber serpent, rose up in fierce mutiny. It hissed to her desperately, begging to the natural property of humanity that demanded survival. But Ginny had been raised by a family of Gryffindors. They were, if nothing else, a proud house and the magic of those standards were more deeply embedded in Ginny than the recent insurgent in her head.
The collected poison resisted the call of her magic, trying to follow the path of it's dispersion and fight the life of it's prey.
Ginny knew she would have to act soon. A took a deep breath just as the call of a incoming phoenix inspired her to complete her life debt.
Harry was extremely surprised when Ginny took hold of his injured arm. He was even more surprised when she bent her head over his wound, put her lips to the gash, and began to extract the venom from his body by transferring it to her own body.
But Harry was very weak still, he was only a second year, and after all the excitement that day he had no energy to protest as Ginny took the deadly vice onto her own frail frame. He was already stunned a her knowledge of spells, unaware of her own surprise at the facts. As so he watched, aghast, as she paused to take breath—the venom was magical, and unable to be spat out, only transferred—and went back to take the last of the lethal injury.
Already ailing from her adventure with Tom, Ginny's body was unable to fight off the poison very well. She had always been a guarded child, safe in the Burrow or around responsible adults, thus her immune system wasn't as strong as Harry's, and she began to feel faint very quickly. But she couldn't stop. She owed Harry her life, and she had to repay her debt.
Fawkes swooped down upon the two of them just as Ginny had gotten the last bit of poison out of Harry's system. The phoenix trilled a sad note as he looked the pair over. Harry was mostly healed because of Ginny's spells, but was still covered in the the thick hurt of his own blood. Ginny herself was in worse condition. She collapsed as soon as she muttered a diagnostic spell ("Visum Valetudo,") to make sure all of the hurt was out of Harry.
The phoenix tried to get Harry to open up his companion's mouth so to let internal healing take place. Unfortunately, the boy was in no shape to do or understand anything. So Fawkes simply grabbed hold of both of them and flamed to his wizard's office, vowing to come back for the other two after these two were taken care of.
Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his chair, trying to mollify the couple sitting (well one was, the other was pacing in behind of the chair) in front of his desk.
"Molly, I really am sorry. I'm sure Ron will be fine."
"What of Ginny?! My babies are gone, Albus, gone under your care! You try and tell me that it's okay, you try and say Ron will come back, but where is he? And even then, getting the boys back won't bring my little girl!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked at the headmaster.
Dumbledore sighed inwardly, knowing he was indeed guilty for the demise of the last Weasley, and hoping that Ronald was indeed safe. Just then, Aurthur Weasley came to Albus' rescue.
"Dear, why don't you sit down--,"he tried, but before his wife turned her glare on him, an extraordinary event occurred.
"Fawkes--?"
"Merlin!"
"My baby!"
A/N: Thanks for the reviews—both of them. Not much happened, I know...well, at least it's progress. Ani is going to shoot me for leaving my other story for so long.
Please review and tell me what you think! Heck, I don't even mind flames: disagreeing shows more respect than ignoring.
