Disclaimer: Not mine. I swear. The HPUniverse belongs to JKR. Really. (Unfortunately.)
***I decided that Loneliness needed more to the story, and the suggestion of my FIRST reviewer for that story helped the idea along. Thanx!
Faithfulness
Fate was something that Ginny Weasley had never really believed in. Her mother was always nattering on about how Ginny was fated to marry Harry Potter, but the young redhead had always taken that with a pinch of salt. Of course, when she finally met Harry, she made a complete and total fool of herself, but he was just so nice! By her first year, Ginny had a full-fledged crush on the dark-haired boy.
As she probably should have expected, Ginny's first year was anything but calm. In hindsight, she should have told someone what was going on, but she was so terrified, by the midpoint of the year, that she dared not tell anyone. Something inside her heart made Ginny attempt to tell three different people. Luna was the first person she told, because the strange blonde had been Ginny's friend forever. Neville, she tried next, but she couldn't get it out.
It was a last ditch effort of hers, to try and tell Harry. She just knew he would believe her, although how she knew, Ginny was unsure. But with her idiot brother in the way, and another idiot brother running interference, she just couldn't spit it out. And suddenly, it was too late. She was writing something on the wall – "Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever…" – and it was so dark, and everything was spinning, and a loud crashing noise impinged on her senses just before everything went black.
The return to consciousness was sharp and painful, and Ginny gasped to see Harry only a few feet away from her, eyes unfocused and arm bleeding onto the floor. Despite the fact that he was the one injured, and she was fine, the poor boy attempted to reassure her. Ginny could feel something in the back of her mind, like a welling tidal wave, but shoved it forcefully away. Not now, she told herself. Not now.
Her collapse, later that evening, was attributed to exhaustion and magical weakness. Ginny wanted to laugh, but she was too busy resorting memories of a life that was long past to summon the energy. She felt like a tiny fishing boat in the center of a hurricane, as the memories and emotions swept her up and made away with her.
Further examination of her body showed no signs of trauma, so Madam Pomfrey freed Ginny into the school again. Unknown to the medi-witch, Ginny was just barely dealing with emotional overload. Her mind screamed that she was all alone, and her body was attempting to deal with a century's worth of memories and knowledge stuffed into an eleven-year-old. Ginny spent the rest of the year in a daze. She was so, so alone! But then, on the train –
Undiluted joy filled every crevice of Ginny's body as she stared into a pair of silvery eyes that she had thought had been lost. Physically, she had seen them so many times before, but now…! And she had someone with whom she could truly be herself, while a projection of the shy and nervous Ginny was shown to the rest of the school.
Life through the next two years was almost unbearably dull, and yet, were also the best things in Ginny's life. School was undeniably boring, but her special time hidden in the Room of Requirement with her lovely Ro was like a dream. She now knew, knew why she had always been best friends with Luna, and the two of them were better than friends now. Ginny found herself giggling over her stupid crush from her first year. Why would she have a crush on someone who was so obviously not hers?
Night and day, Ginny felt a feeling of foreboding, which was fulfilled with the return of Voldemort. Fed up with her overprotective mother and playing the act of a timid child all the time, Ginny made a snap decision to free her true personality in the coming year. It was time to unleash the fury that had grown with each thing that she had seen since her second year.
Excitement bubbled through her body as she fought alongside Luna and Harry and Neville. Together, her mind screamed, Together! Spells screamed by, and the air very nearly vibrated with the intense power pouring this way and that, but Ginny felt an exhilaration she had not felt in ages. And then it was all over so fast, Neville hit by the Cruciatus, and the flicker of shock in his eyes as he collapsed to the ground.
She saw the fury in Harry's eyes as Neville fell to the ground, the shock as Sirius Black fell through the Veil, and suddenly, a feeling of completion – like the last tumbler of a lock falling into place. Harry turned, his eyes burning, and lifted Neville from the ground, and their eyes locked, and Ginny felt her heart sing as she saw Neville mouth, "Salazar?" and then the power growing to a palpable electricity, and there was Luna, stumbling into the room –
Swelling power made it difficult to breathe, and Ginny could suddenly See the different colors swirling through the air and burning in the eyes of her most beloved – icy silver from her love, hot gold from the fiercest lion in existence, and deadly green from the most famous teenager in the wizarding world. And even as Harry dashed after Bellatrix, Neville stumbling after him, and Luna held Ginny from her broken ankle, she felt as if the world was finally the way it was supposed to be.
FAITHFULNESS. Ever since her world had been forcibly torn apart and put back together, Ginny had clung faithfully to the hope, the desperate belief that the two parts of four that were not yet there, they would come. She had to believe it, she was Loyal and Faithful – that was who she was. It may have taken pain and tragedy to remake her world and rebuild her soul, but Ginny felt alive, now. She was One of Four, once again. Luna, Neville, Ginny, Harry. Rowena, Godric, Helga, Salazar.
Helga Hufflepuff was reborn, and woe betide those who hurt the ones to whom she was Faithful.
AN: And so ends Part One, the entry of the Founders! Next up, the first fourth of Part Two, Summertime. If anyone missed it - Luna retrieved Rowena's memories when her mother died, Ginny was reborn as Helga when she woke from the diary, Neville became Godric after Bellatrix's Cruciatus Curse, and Sirius' death brought back Salazar from within Harry.