November, 1972

They had been into the second month of their second year before Ginny had realized something: she had forgotten about Voldemort and his Horcruxes, all of the latter being both the key to the former's immortality as well as his downfall; the chink in his armor; the Achilles' Heel. She knew she should've been going over them, since the night she had awoken as Marlene McKinnon; but, she had to admit, she'd been distracted, what with the rivalry between her, James Potter, and Sirius Black; the friendship between her, Andromeda and Narcissa Black; and re-doing her Hogwarts years, all over again.

While that may have served an excuse for someone who was truly eleven-years-old, that didn't work for Ginny: who may have been an eleven-year-old, physically, but was still seventeen-year-old, mentally. She had to deal with it, as well as come to grips, with the fact that she, along with everyone else, attending Hogwarts during the 1972 school year, was not yet the person they would become, in time. She would have to wait, until they had become those same people she'd remembered, from her past life; or, she would have to, by using the old adage, 'let it be.'

'Let it be.' That had been her plan—if she had even had a plan, up until now, that was—at first: she would grow up alongside Marlene and their best friends, until it would become their time to leave their mark on the Wizarding world. She would let it all happen, she thought, until she had come to know Marlene and their friends: and they had become real people, in the time she had become Marlene's twin, as well as not just her sister, but apart of the family that were to be the Marauders. She would have let it all happen, too: she would have just let it be, if she didn't have such a sense of self-preservation within herself, of which she disguised as a Gryffindor trait, but, she suspected was really of Slytherin, instead.

In any case, by the time Ginny had realized she had forgotten about Voldemort's Horcruxes—after a year and a half's time—she had left behind the adage, 'let it be,' and had known she was supposed to complete McGonagall's mission; as well as 'search and destroy' Voldemort, by taking down him, as well as his Death Eaters and Horcruxes. After the entire year and a half, in which she had acquainted herself with the Marauders, Lily Evans, another girl named Alice Fortescue, and had grown ever closer to her own twin, she had scouted out the premises (Was that was one said, Ginny wondered, when carrying out, or bidding their time, on a search and destroy mission?) and was on her way to mapping out the Horcruxes and figuring out how to search and destroy each of them in their special own ways.

This was how she found herself, at the seventh-floor corridor: walking back and down the long hallway, thinking furtively to herself, I need a room that I can hide things from everyone else in this castle; not just once, but the required three times. Then, the pathway to the Room of Requirement had opened up, and had sucked her back inside, closing in on herself magically with an extra wall. Ginny, having grown up in Wizarding families in both lives, thought nothing of it, and turned back to her mission: to find the first Horcrux, the Diadem of Ravenclaw, and, thus, destroy it.

The problem was: the Room of Requirement looked completely different as to how Ginny had remembered it, from the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998. This meant she had no idea how to find the Diadem. She knew she should have planned this out, before she had come up here, to the Room of Requirement. No one knew of her whereabouts, at the moment, nor did she know how to explain herself, if they happened upon her, on the way back to Gryffindor Tower. However, she also knew that she was here now, and she had to make the best of it. So, she steeled herself, and turned round to face what was before her, inside of the Room of Requirement, with that nerve she had been so well-known for in her past life. Raising one of her arms, to the ceiling; she pointed her wand, and, as calm as if she were reading from a romance novel, intoned: "Accio Ravenclaw's Diadem."

Predictably enough, and yet still disappointing to her: no Diadem whizzed past her. So, she made her arm rise once more, and tried a different variation of the spell: "Point Me: Ravenclaw's Diadem."

For the second time, nothing had happened, in response to her second attempt by magic. So, in a burst of frustration, Ginny had thrown down her wand onto the floor. In both lives, she had grown up with magic; it had been beyond her imagination that, one day, it wouldn't work for her, just like it always had done, before. Now, against both her better judgment and her will, she had resorted to searching for the Diadem, by Muggle means. That would entail moving things around and feeling around things, by hand, as if she were a Muggle! She had tried not to let the Black sisters' prejudice of Muggles and Muggle-borns, get to her, and, up until now, she had succeeded. But she couldn't help but feel a twinge of resentment against Muggles, now, for having to act like one of them, for a single moment, instead of using magic, to find the Diadem. She pushed aside the thoughts of her friends; her budding resentment; as well as her misgivings, and, once again, forced herself to get to the bottom of this, and find the lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.

It could have been thirty minutes, to an hour, or even longer, when she had happened upon a suspicious, strangely-shaped item. She held fast onto it, with both hands, and wrenched it off the ground, to lift it, high into the air, so it could reflect the rays of light still emitting from the dusk sky. Against all odds, she had found one of Voldemort's Horcruxes: the lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. She stared at the diadem in amazement, her hands that were wrapped around it, becoming numb as she held onto it for that long.

The flickering image of her ex-boyfriend, Harry Potter, broke through her mind and replaced the diadem in front of her, and for one, irrational, even blissful moment, she had wanted to rush back to Gryffindor Tower and tell him that everything would be alright, for she had found another Horcrux that he, Ron, and Hermione could destroy alongside Dumbledore — then reality came crashing back onto her.

There was no Harry, Ron, Hermione, nor Dumbledore, anymore. There was only Ginny, and she wasn't even a Weasley anymore: just a McKinnon stuck in the 1970s, and quite possibly the last hope the Order of the Phoenix had, against Lord Voldemort, at present moment, since she was the only one, besides Voldemort and his Death Eaters, that knew of the Horcruxes' existence, as well as a vague notion of their locations.

All of a sudden—as she held the diadem—she didn't feel much like celebrating, anymore; on the contrary, she felt like breaking the diadem with her bare hands, and, even if she had done so, no one, except for Voldemort, would ever know the difference. Nor would Harry Potter, himself, never mind the current state of his existence. What was the point of it all, then, if she couldn't tell anyone of her achievement? All she was left with, was anger, as she gripped the diadem in her hands: hatred for the diadem, of what it stood for, and wishing she had enough strength to destroy it with her bare hands, instead of her wand, just like a Muggle would have done so, in her place. She realized she would have to destroy it, anyway, whether by magical or Muggle means. Although she also knew she should have gone, to at least this world's version of either Dumbledore or McGonagall—Horcrux in hand and foreknowledge in mind—she had stayed put, and prepared to dismantle the diadem, as she held it, aloft before herself.

In the aftermath, she'd thought: Even before I had time-traveled to the '70s, I hadn't planned on telling Dumbledore about anything, nor did McGonagall order me to. I'm a Gryffindor, and I was a Weasley: we make our own way, without anyone else's help: not even Dumbledore, himself! If he thinks he knows me, "Miss McKinnon," he has another thing coming!

The blood red eyes—once a vibrant blue—of Tom Riddle glared, with hatred, at Ginny McKinnon. She leapt backward, with both parts equal of horror and fright, and Slytherin's Locket tumbled out of her grasp, onto the floor. It was as if she had time-traveled once again, back to the year of 1972, when she was eleven-years-old and had nearly died at the hands of the memory of the sixteen-year-old, Tom Riddle, in the Chamber of Secrets. But now, there was no Harry Potter to save her.

"I have known you, Ginevra McKinnon, and I have known who you were, as Ginny Weasley. . .

Don't listen to him, Ginny told herself, this isn't the real Tom Riddle.

Ginny knew that, but there was only a small part of herself that believed in it. The whole of herself seemed to be transfixed by Tom Riddle's melodious voice and luminous eyes, both of which seemed to beckon her further, to discover the deep, dark depths of his psyche. . .

"Your goal may be possible, and yet your downfall may be possible, as well. . ."

"Unloved, until it had been too late, by your brother's best friend, who had preferred his other friend. . . Unloved, now, by your best friend, who prefers your sister. . ."

By now, Ginny had been sucked into the entity that was Tom Riddle; hanging on to his every word, and practically begging to hear more from him. It seemed impossible for Ginny to fight back, to regain her senses and bearing, to gather the strength to tear herself away from him. . .

Only when Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had appeared, from Ravenclaw's Diadem, beside Tom Riddle, did Ginny finally wrench herself away from the sixteen-year-old Dark Lord. Ginny gave a piercing scream, and, at the sight of her ex-boyfriend and best friend, fell to the ground, in a crumpled heap.

"We have no need of you. . . Why come back home? We're better off without you, happier without you, glad of your absensce. . . We have come together as one, finally freed from your naivety, your inexperience, your self-righteousness. . ."

"Self-righteousness! . . .Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Hermione Granger? What have you ever done, compared with the one who had helped defeat the Dark Lord? What are you, compared with the Brightest Witch of her Generation?

"Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a daughter, would be glad to exchange. . ."

"Who wouldn't prefer her, what man would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him. . ."

With yet another piercing scream, Ginny made a grab for the sword of Gryffindor, which was still laying upon the floor beside her, and plunged it straight into the Horcrux. The two spirits, of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, both of whom had replaced the ghost of sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle, had whisked away into thin air. They'd disappeared from the spot in which they had whirled through: entrancing her with their bodies, as well as their embrace of love. She, however, not one to lose her nerve, usually, now clutched at a stitch in her chest; and, letting the sword of Gryffindor drop to the floor with a noisy clatter, let herself go; sinking down onto the ground, and lying in a crumpled heap, until it was time for her to return to the girls' dormitory at Gryffindor Tower.

"Where have you been all night?" Marlene wanted to know, in a skeptical voice; she looked round at her twin, expecting an answer.

"Around," said Ginny vaguely, and Marlene raised her eyebrow, just as disbelieving as before. Ginny sighed, and added: "I was only working on my Charms essay. Look." She held it up for confirmation. Marlene spared it a glance, before she had decided it was good enough to pass her inspection. Then, she bid Ginny goodnight, and headed to her own four-poster bed: just across from Ginny's, who felt a pang of relief, that Marlene hadn't looked too closely at her Charms paper. Padding over to her own bed, she fell into a heap, much in the same way she had, at the Room of Requirement, and sank into a deep sleep, until it was time for her to wake up in the morning for lessons.

Author's Note: Please R&R!

Now that that (shameless) bit of promotion is out of the way. . .

I know, I know, this is a filler chapter. The first one in the story, I think, not counting the obligatory King's Cross chapter. I don't like filler chapters; you may not like filler chapters; no one likes filler chapters. But Ginny (&co.,) have to get rid of those darned things—ahem, I mean Horcruxes—sometime, since this is a Harry Potter fanfic, of course.

In any case, now that that is over with by now, there has been a notice for the last chapter for the dynamics between Ginny, Regulus, and Sirius. I would just like to clear that up before there are any more misunderstandings/notices. Yes, they may have been only 12 (in Ginny and Sirius' cases) and 11 (in Regulus' case), however, research has been shown that teenagers start getting in their feelings, to put it lightly, at around the age of 13. For example, with my OTP, Lily and James Potter: the first time we see James ask out Lily, in the books, was in their fifth year, after O.W.L exams. In fandom, my fellow Jily shippers often claim that James first started asking out Lily back in third year.

The jury is still out on that one, however, in this story, Ginny and Sirius will start (very) casually dating at the start of second year (since Ginny has been banned from Grimmauld Place since Christmas, and was therefore unable to visit/date Sirius in the summer), and we'll see how that goes from there on. Once again, I hope that clears everything up, and yes, there is still more to come with our dearest Death Eater-in-training Regulus! In any case, thank you for reading all the way to the end of this dull and wordy Author's Note, and hopefully you will add your thoughts in a review. Chapter 12 will be up and coming as soon as possible, and not be a filler chapter!

PS: Some, not all, of the Horcrux scene, in this chapter, is based off of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, American E-book edition, p. 375 - p. 378.

— frozenphantom