Chapter 2—Alliterations and Angst

Ginny was halfway to the Headmaster's office before she stopped and gave herself a chance to think. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath. Channel Hermione. Be supremely logical. Obviously, going to Dumbledore was the best option available to her. The question was how much she should tell him. Her first instinct was to tell him the truth, but Hermione's warning words about horrible things happening to wizards who meddled with time echoed in her ears. Telling him she was from the future would almost certainly be meddling with time, but even being here in the first place would have an effect, so the real question was how much worse would it be if he knew the truth… Ginny groaned and let her head fall back to rest against the stone wall. There was a reason she'd never been interested in time travel.

"Oi!"

Ginny lifted her head off the stone and peered toward the sound. Remus Lupin was jogging down the corridor toward her. She let her head fall back against the wall and waited for him to draw even with her.

Remus slowed to a halt and tried to hide the fact that he was breathing heavily. "What happened back there? You left in a bit of a hurry. Did they say something terribly offensive?"

Ginny smirked a bit. "You chased me halfway around the castle just to ask if I was offended?"

"I'm damage control for our little group. They tend to be terribly offensive so often that I've developed an immunity to it; ergo, I have to chase angry women through the corridors to see if egos need to be soothed."

Ginny chuckled. "Sounds like you drew the short straw."

"I was elected to this position by a 3-1 vote, I'll have you know. Apparently I have a soothing personality."

"I'll say." Ginny slid down the wall to sit and patted the floor next to her, inviting him to join her. "Thank you for the effort, but I have older brothers, so my skin is pretty thick."

Remus accepted her nonverbal invitation and sat next to her. "What's the matter, then, if it wasn't them?"

Ginny raised her eyebrows. "Sorry?"

"People rarely get angry for no reason." Remus's voice was light, conversational. "I assume there's a reason you stormed out of the Common Room blowing smoke from your ears."

Ginny sighed heavily, blowing hair out of her face and choosing her words carefully. "I'm just frustrated, I suppose. I don't think I'm supposed to be here."

"You're a witch, aren't you? Wizarding school is generally the place for young magical minds to be molded."

"I wasn't questioning my association with Hogwarts." Ginny glanced over at her companion. Their eyes met with a grin. "Nice alliteration."

"Thank you." Remus was silent for a moment. He lifted his right hand off the floor, grazing her arm with his fingers when he offered it to her. "Remus Lupin."

Ginny cast about for a name to provide. Bloody Remus hadn't given her enough time before catching her to think of a fake name. She took the proffered hand. "Ginny."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Just Ginny?"

"For now." A slow smile spread across Remus's face, and Ginny found her own lips stretching to match. Their faces were close. In the torchlight… Ginny pulled her hand away lightly. "I don't suppose you know the way to Professor Dumbledore's office?"

Remus coughed embarrassedly and looked chagrined. "I'm afraid I do. I've been there a few times more than I care to admit."

Ginny raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.

"You met my friends," Remus replied simply. He stood and offered her a hand. "I can show you. I'm a prefect, you know."

Ginny pushed off the floor. "Now you're just bragging."

They walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes, legs moving in companionable unison. The corridors were mostly empty, and Ginny tensed whenever another set of footsteps echoed into hearing, but it was always just a student or two who didn't pay her any particular mind. Why should they? She was just another student.

After a little while, Remus broke the silence. "May I ask why you're here?"

Ginny forced her eyes to remain straight ahead. "Sorry?"

"You're not a Gryffindor, but you were in our Common Room." Remus's voice remained pleasant, neutral, like he was merely making an observation that hadn't made her heart beat just a little bit faster. "One has to wonder why."

One. Two. Three. Ginny counted the long, slow breaths she pulled from the silence before her answer. It was strange… despite her predicament and his question, she didn't feel particularly nervous or fearful. Perhaps it was her because of her first year—after being possessed by Voldemort and nearly dying, it was difficult to get worked up over things. "It's complicated."

"I assumed." Remus smiled at her briefly but said nothing more on the subject. He gestured to their right. "That statue was built by giants, you know."

As they walked on, Ginny wondered to herself why she had asked for help that she certainly didn't need. It only took a moment for the answer to come. The other Marauders were right—Remus did have a soothing personality. Walking with him, making amiable small talk… in a lot of ways, it was reminiscent of her second year. She had been recovering from her ordeal in the Chamber of Secrets, been something of a social leper because of it, and had generally had a rough go of it. Remus had been her favorite professor during those times—just calming and kind, never pushing her to speak but always willing to listen. This Remus was much younger, of course, but Ginny could see, even now, the traits that would later make him so popular with the students.

"Here we are."

Ginny hadn't realized they had reached the stone gargoyle before Remus's words pulled her focus back to the present. "Thank you for your help."

"My pleasure." Remus smiled kindly. "Would you like me to come up with you?"

"No, I think I'd better go alone."

"As you wish. The password is Pumpkin Pasty."

Out of the six people she'd encountered since arriving here, four of them were dead in her own time. Ginny wasn't squeamish. She'd seen her share of death, dealt with fallen friends and comrades, and endured more than her share of grief and heartache over the years. She had cried when Sirius died, cried for the friend that she'd lost and for the greater losses that Harry and Remus had had to endure. She had cried when Dumbledore had died, cried for the senseless death of a man who had been her headmaster and friend for five years. She had dealt with her grief and moved on, knowing that accepting their deaths was necessary for getting on with her life.

Now they were alive again, well and untainted by the betrayals and intrigues that were to come. Ginny was strong but talking with these people, knowing what was going to happen to them and how their lives would be ripped apart… it wasn't easy.

"Well, Miss…" Dumbledore looked momentarily at a loss without a last name to fill the void. "Ginny. It seems we have quite the predicament on our hands."

"Do tell." Ginny swallowed her discomfort. "I don't suppose you know a spell that will whisk me back to my time, no harm done? Or maybe you have a spare Time Turner lying around?"

"I'm afraid the answer to both parts of your query is no." Dumbledore moved to sit behind his desk, sinking into the chair with the air of a man intrigued by a puzzle. "Time Turners are designed to transport the user into the past or future by a matter of hours, not some twenty years. It is possible that one could be modified to be useful to you, but I'm afraid it would take some time. As secrecy is of the utmost importance, the task will fall to Professor McGonagall and I, and neither of us is an expert in time travel. You will have to remain here for the time being."

Ginny accepted the loss of her seventh year with remarkable grace, a brief closing of her eyes the only moment of mourning she allowed herself. "What shall I do in the meantime?"

"Assuming you are still in school in your own time, I would extend you an invitation to attend classes here for the duration of your stay. As you will have a decided lack of scholastic records, I suppose I could take your word for your placement levels." Dumbledore looked at her mildly, waiting patiently for a reply.

"I'd have to live somewhere, find clothing and school supplies, invent a backstory…" Ginny trailed off as the enormity of the undertaking dawned upon her for the first time. She looked from Professor Dumbledore to McGonagall and back again. "I assume I'd have to be sorted again?"

"Of course, of course." Dumbledore waved away her concerns and sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. "Naturally, our most pressing concern is your origins. For the safety of everyone involved, in this time and in your own, I must insist on absolute secrecy."

Ginny nodded. "I understand."

A/N: A quick note about Ginny's angst in the second half of this chapter: technically speaking I know that, as of the end of the seventh book, FIVE of the six people she has met so far are dead in her time—Sirius, Peter, Lily, James, Dumbledore, and Remus. However, given that this is a Ginny/Remus story, you'll have to bear with me as I alter canon a bit to allow that last one to be alive.

Speaking of altered canon, the whole timeline of Ginny's time is going to be a bit compacted. Though she is just starting her seventh year, I'm going to say the war is already over. It went down mostly as it did in the book with just a few exceptions—Remus lived, Snape lived, Fred lived, and Harry and Ginny didn't get back together.