August 27
Dear Tom,
We just played a game of Panic downstairs, after supper, and they let Harry win. I let him win, too. I wanted to call his bluff every time, but I just couldn't do it, and I looked around at Fred and George and Ron, and I could tell that they felt the same way. Have you ever played Panic?
Played…? No.
It can be loads of fun. You put your man on the board, and you roll to move your man, and every time you land, you have to draw from a stack of cards. Each person chooses a card and reads off two scary situations, and you have to say which one scares you the most. Like it might say "You are trapped in a dungeon with a Chimaera" and "You are knocked from your broomstick, fifty feet high." And I'd say, well, I'd rather be knocked from my broomstick, because the Chimaera would kill me straight away. And then I'd put my card in the discard pile. Now, the next player can go, or someone can call my bluff. If they call my bluff, then I have to put my hand on the Panic Button, which is a little red crystal ball that comes with the set, and if an alarm sounds, it means I lied. If I lied, I have to pick up all the cards in the discard pile, and move back as many spaces as there are cards. But if I didn't lie, then the person who called my bluff has to move their man back, instead. It's fun, because sometimes you don't even mean to lie, sometimes you don't know which one scares you more until the Panic Button tells you. It's Truth Charmed. It doesn't always work perfectly though, especially if you play with George and Fred, who know how to trick it. I don't know how they do it. Usually they win, and Ron loses because Ron doesn't like to admit what scares him even if we already know. The wireless adverts call it "the game that knows you better than you know yourself" and the funniest one to watch play it is Mum, because whenever the alarm goes off on her, she has a fright. And some of the choices are obviously funny ones, like "You are forced to cluck like a chicken for a stadium filled with people" and "You must Keep a Quidditch game, blindfolded".
Hilarious.
It gets pretty good! Unless you're playing with Harry, and he gets ones like "You are locked in a small space and forgotten for a week" and "You are forced to swallow a liter of goblin bogeys."
Well Harry said the bogeys. And I think that for most people it would probably be the bogeys. But for Harry it's not, and no one called his bluff because we didn't want him to know that we know that he was treated so badly by the Muggles. Tom, he used to get put in a cupboard. He got a lot of cards like that, and no one wanted to… make him feel strange, I guess. So they just let him win. Fancy MY brothers having that much sensitivity. Of course, they didn't have any for me. I lost the game, I never got past the first square. Everybody knows all my fears, it's hard to bluff them.
Then why not… tell the truth?
I didn't want Harry to know I was scared of gnomes when I was little, or that I used to scream every time I saw a Muggle airplane. I tried to pick the other things, because my fears are all so stupid, but FRED and GEORGE and RON kept making me touch the Panic Button and now Harry knows I'm practically a coward.
Are those your… greatest fears… Virginia?
I don't know. Most of the fears in Panic are pretty silly, so they wouldn't be things that stay on your mind. I don't know what my greatest fears are. No one ever asks me things like that.
May I ask?
Yes, it's nice to really talk to someone.
All right. Have you ever… been truly afraid?
All the time. I have nightmares.
Would it help to… talk about them?
Do you think it would?
I have always found that… sharing a burden with a friend… makes it ever so much lighter…
I'm so glad you're my friend. It does help, telling you things. Mostly I'm only afraid when I have nightmares. Sometimes they're about Mum and Dad. I think they're dead, or gone, and I wake up sweating. But more I have the kind where - have you - have you ever had the kind of dream where someone bad is coming up behind you and you can't move your feet to run away?
Tell me how that feels.
It's terrifying. I want to run. I try to run. I go to move my feet but they're locked, it's like I'm hexed, like the time Fred and George were testing their wands before they went off to school to be first years, and they glued my feet to the pathway of the house, and - and you know how I said I was scared of gnomes when I was little, well they all came out and looked at me like they knew I couldn't run and they were going to… I don't know. Bite me. I screamed and screamed and Mum came running and didn't she wallop George and Fred but I've had those nightmares ever since. They got worse though. It's not gnomes behind me in the dreams.
What is it?
I can't turn my head, so I don't know. But it's much, much bigger than gnomes. And it's much more… mean.
What does it want?
To kill me. I know it does. I can tell, even though it never says anything, it just… it's always about to get me, every time. Oh Tom, I hate that dream. I don't want to think about that dream, or I'm afraid I'll have it again. I don't want to talk about my fears. Not right now. I feel like things are in the corners of my room.
Poor Virginia.
No, I'll be all right. Mum says I get too wound up. I'm going to find her and see if she'll make me a cocoa.
Goodnight, Tom.