Chapter 27: Poor Ginny
The next morning, Ron and I were heading to the great hall to get some breakfast before going to see Harry in the hospital wing – he'd been badly injured when a bludger had decided to target him for the entire game – but we paused as we passed the staff room.
"… another attack Filius," Professor McGonagall was saying. I knew immediately that the attack they were talking about was the same one that happened to Mrs. Norris.
"A student?" Professor Flitwick was asking. I turned my head around to look at Ron and his face was filled with horror.
"I'm afraid so. A first year, Colin Creevey," McGonagall replied. Upon hearing the name, I felt a shock run through my whole body. Only yesterday Colin had been irritating Harry with his camera and now today he was Petrified.
As Professors McGonagall and Flitwick continued talking about the attack, I motioned for Ron to follow me and we began walking down the corridor. I decided that we would have to skip breakfast and visiting Harry in favor of working on the Polyjuice Potion. Hopefully the sooner we interrogated Malfoy, the sooner we could put an end to the attacks.
"Hermione, this isn't the way to the Great Hall," Ron said tentatively from behind me.
"Ron, were you listening to Professor McGonagall in that room?" I asked, wheeling around.
"Y-yes," he stammered, unnerved by my sudden questioning.
"How are we going to find out if Malfoy is the attacker if we sit around eating all day rather than working on that potion?" I asked, turning back around and continuing down the corridor, leaving Ron standing behind.
After a few seconds, I heard footsteps, and then a couple gasps for breath behind me. "Yeah, alright, good idea," Ron said. "So where're we going?"
"To get supplies," I replied, probably not very helpfully. I lead him down to the student store cupboard and got the ingredients we would need for the next steps. I knew we needed to start stewing the lacewings right away, and we would need to add knotgrass periodically now that the base was finished.
When we had everything we would need, we headed back up to the second floor girl's bathroom and I opened the book to begin. We moved the potion into a cubicle after Ron conveniently pointed out that just because students rarely used this bathroom didn't mean they wouldn't.
I handed Ron the fluxweed and asked him to measure out the correct amount. I took the leeches and began preparing them. When Ron had measured it, I flattened myself against the wall of the cubicle to allow Ron to reach the cauldron to add the fluxweed.
As he was leaning over, the bathroom door creaked open and a voice announced, "It's me."
In his panic, Ron jerked, banging his head on the opposite wall and flinging his arm into the cauldron of water, causing a large splash and a fair amount of water landing on the floor. Instinctively, I gasped, and then clapped a hand over my mouth, as it could be anyone outside the stall, though I had a hunch it was Harry.
Just to be sure, I leaned down and peered through the keyhole in the door and saw Harry standing right in front of me. Relief spread through me. We welcomed him into the cubicle with us – it was becoming extremely crowded now – and Harry revealed that a house elf named Dobby had visited him the night before and he'd learned quite a bit of information.
As the days wore on, I continued to work diligently on the Polyjuice Potion. Harry and Ron participated as well, but I didn't trust them with the finer points of the brewing. This was a complicated potion for an experienced potioneer, let alone a couple of second years that barely paid attention in potions class. No, it was best that I take ownership of the potion. We couldn't afford any mishaps.
Despite all that was going on, I was optimistic. The potion was coming along well, and soon, we'd be able to get some answers. Hopefully once we had them, we could put a stop to all the fear and uncertainty gripping the school.
A couple of days after Colin's attack, I was sitting in the common room working on some transfiguration homework.
"Hermione?" It was Ginny. And she looked terrible.
"Ginny!" I gasped in surprise. I hadn't seen much of the girl recently, and honestly had forgotten about her a little bit. "What's wrong?"
I could see Ginny trying to come up with an answer, but instead she broke down into tears.
"Oh Ginny!" I cried, jumping up and wrapping my arms around the poor girl.
I suddenly realized that in all the excitement of the Polyjuice potion and trying to solve the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets, I hadn't even stopped to think about how this newest attack would be affecting the first years. Colin was a first year – in fact, I'd counselled Ginny not long ago to try to befriend him – and now he was lying stiffly in the hospital wing, unable to move.
I led Ginny over to an empty couch nearby and sat her down on it, keeping my arms around her. She was clinging to me like a leech and I was afraid to let her go.
"I'm sorry," I heard her mutter amidst her sobs.
"Don't apologize," I insisted. "Of course you're upset. He was your friend."
"Right," Ginny nodded, pulling away and wiping the tears from her eyes. "Hermione, I need to tell you something."
"Go ahead," I urged her. If there was anything I could do to help the miserable girl, I would. Not just because she was Ron's sister – although that was a large part of it – but also because I hated to see people in such pain.
"I don't really know how to say it," Ginny continued hesitantly. "I can't – I can't remember – "
"What can't you remember?" I frowned.
"I don't know!" Ginny cried, throwing her hands up in the air. "I can't remember anything. From that night. Where I was, what I was doing – "
"You mean from the night Colin was attacked?" I asked gently.
I couldn't help but feel a little guilty for the turmoil Ginny was experiencing. It was my advice that had led her to befriend Colin, and it was clear now that she'd grown close to him since our last conversation. And now in her grief, she was trying to make sense of something that couldn't be made sense of. She needed answers, but I had no answers to give. Not until the Polyjuice potion was ready at least.
Ginny nodded in response to my question, and I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Ginny I'm sorry you're upset," I said. "But it's not your fault that this happened to him. The attack happened late at night; you were probably in bed. You couldn't have known he would be out past curfew, and you couldn't have protected him if you'd been there."
"But that's not – "
"And he's going to be okay, you know," I added, cutting her off. "He'd not dead, just petrified. Once they prepare the restorative draught, he'll be right back to normal."
"You don't understand!" Ginny cried. "You don't understand anything."
She turned away from me and I felt wretched. But maybe she was right. Maybe I couldn't understand what she was going through because I didn't really know her all that well. Maybe she needed to talk to someone who knew her better than I did.
"Do you want me to go and find Ron?" I asked. "Or Fred, or George, or Percy? Maybe you could talk to one of them?"
"No, I can't – never mind," Ginny insisted, clamming up. "Forget I said anything, okay Hermione?"
Feeling at a loss, I tried to follow Ginny as she headed towards the staircase that led to the girls' dormitories, but she stopped me.
"Seriously Hermione," she warned. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Alright," I said, backing off. "But if you ever do want to talk – "
I didn't bother finishing my sentence because she was already gone.
A couple of weeks later, I knew we were going to need the Boomslang skin and the Bicorn horn soon if we were going to make the potion properly. I also knew that the only place in the whole school that I had a chance of finding the ingredients would be in Professor Snape's private store cupboard.
As our next potions lesson came closer, I knew we would need to get the ingredients then, as another week would probably ruin the potion. Harry and Ron weren't coming up with any ideas, so I made a plan.
When Thursday's potions class arrived, I was feeling extremely nervous. Stealing was a pretty huge deal and I couldn't even imagine what would happen if I got caught. It took all of my concentration to focus on brewing my Swelling Solution and I almost added fluxweed instead of the dried nettles I was supposed to be adding because my mind was on the Polyjuice Potion that was simmering in the bathroom.
Harry was supposed to wait for my signal for the diversion, but Snape had spent most of the class watching him. When he finally turned his back to walk towards the front of the room, I glanced over at Harry and nodded, and then proceeded to the student store cupboard in the back, pretending to be getting some more bat spleens.
I waited at the cupboard and then there was an explosion. This was my cue, so I checked to make sure Snape was looking elsewhere and I slipped out the door. Once I was out the door, I ran down the corridor to Snape's office and burst into his store cupboard. It was exhilarating. My heart was pounding and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. If Professor Snape caught me – well I couldn't take the time to think about that scary possibility.
I searched frantically until I found what I needed and took it. I made sure to put everything back the way it was and then I shut the door behind me and ran back to the classroom, hoping I hadn't taken too long.
When I reached the door to the classroom, I hid the ingredients under my robes and peeked in. Snape was administering a Deflating Draft to Malfoy, so I slipped back into the room and inconspicuously made my way back to my station and slipped the stolen ingredients into my bag, relieved that I'd made it.
Snape was furious when he found the remnants of the firework Harry had thrown in Goyle's cauldron. Thankfully, the bell rang ten minutes later and he never found out for certain who threw it.
After class, we ran to the bathroom and I went straight to the potion and added the new ingredients. As I started stirring, I consulted the directions and decided that it would be ready in two weeks, just in time for Christmas. It was time to start devising a new plan.
