"Go away, Ginny", Ron said.
Ginny flinched internally, feeling as if Ron had just slapped her. "Oh, that's nice," she said, turned on her heel, and stalked off down the train.
"Go away, Ginny," she thought. Even now, even after everything that happened last year, even now that we're both Hogwarts students, I'm still the baby sister, the annoying tagalong to be brushed away and never ever allowed to do or hear anything interesting. Well, Mister Ronald Bilius Weasley…
Ginny paused her internal rant, suddenly noticing the gusts of wind blowing up and down the train corridor, mussing up hair and making robes and clothes flap in the stiff breeze. She could feel the white magic burning within her, stirred up by her indignation. She stood there for a moment, eyes closed, focused on breathing in and out. The hot fire of her white magic quickly faded to a tiny spark within her, and the air of the train fell still.
Opening her eyes, she continued onward until she spotted a pale blonde head leaning out of a compartment window.
"Hello, Ginny!" Luna called. "Would you care to join us? There's room in here."
"I'd love to, Luna," Ginny responded.
She opened the compartment door and froze. Sitting there across from Luna, was a young boy in Gryffindor robes, with mousy brown hair. Colin Creevy, one of the students upon whom Ginny had released Salazar Slytherin's basilisk the previous year under the influence of Tom Riddle's diary.
Colin stared back, looking as awkward as Ginny felt.
"Come on in, Ginny!" Luna said cheerfully. Mechanically, Ginny stepped into the compartment and hefted her suitcase up onto the rack before dropping to the seat next to Luna.
"So," Luna said, "This is Megan Freeman, she's one of my roommates." She gestured towards the compartment's fourth occupant, a dark-skinned girl in Ravenclaw robes who Ginny had momentarily overlooked in the shock of seeing Colin. "Megan, this is Ginny Weasley."
"Hello Ginny," Megan said, looking up from the book she was reading. "I've heard a lot about you from Luna."
"H-hello, Ginny," Colin said, staring at his lap.
"Hello, Colin," Ginny said back, feeling her face burn as crimson as her hair.
"You two really should talk," Luna said. "You were both Tom's victims this past year, and that's something you have in common that most don't."
Ginny froze. Under her robes, the tyet pendant she now wore had flared hot at Luna's words. The pendant had been a prize from her adventures in Egypt, enchanted to shield the bearer's mind against hostile magic.
What just happened? she thought. Was that Luna trying to do something to me, or was it a coincidence and there's something else on the train, or... Danu have mercy, please don't let Luna have fallen victim to something like Tom.
Across from Ginny, Colin paused for a second. "Who's 'Tom'?" he asked.
"That was You-Know-Who's real name, while he was at school," Ginny said quietly. "Tom Riddle."
"Huh," Colin said, sounding slightly bemused. "You know, I'd never actually thought about it that way before, but Luna's right about us both being His victims." He suddenly perked up, expression changing to a smile. "Say, Ginny, what exactly did happen last year? All I know is that I was… uh... going down to visit Harry in the hospital wing, when I hear something slithering and then see a pair of big yellow eyes, and then next thing I know I'm in the hospital wing and the year's almost over. I mean, I got the basics from Professor Dumbledore like everyone else: there was a basilisk, You-Know-Who possessed you or enchanted you or something and made you release it, he ended up taking you into the Chamber and Harry Potter went after you and killed the basilisk and made You-Know-Who vanish somehow. But what happened beside that? It sounds like a pretty cool story!"
Ginny felt herself recoil, memories coming back. "I'd rather not talk about that," she said.
Colin blushed almost as red as Ginny's hair. "Oh, right. Sorry!" he said. He looked around wildly for a moment, then grabbed one of his textbooks and opened it.
Ginny leaned in closer to Luna. "Luna," she whispered in her ear, "something weird just happened, while you were talking." She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask the question, but Luna pre-empted her.
"Oh, sorry," she whispered back. "You have some kind of anti-Wrackspurt charm, don't you? Like my mum used to make for Dad, that's what that necklace you're wearing is."
"Um…" Ginny said. "I… maybe?" She could feel the pendant beneath her robes.
"I was just speaking Truth," Luna continued, still whispering, "to get Colin to realize that you were Tom's victim just as much as he was. Didn't realize that would set off your charm."
"I… see," Ginny whispered back. She leaned back in her seat, contemplating that for a moment. Like Ginny, Luna was a white mage, a servant of one of the Seven Powers of Light. But where Ginny wielded the power of Thor, dominion over the elements of wind, water, and lightning, Luna's white magic was drawn from Ma'at and had to do with Truth: finding it out, revealing it, and apparently forcing others to acknowledge it. Ginny wasn't quite sure how she felt about finding out that little trick.
"So, Ginny," Luna said out loud, "How was your vacation? Did you meet any Winged Sun Serpents?"
Ginny blinked, startled out of her train of thought. "Actually, yes," she said. "How'd you know?"
"Just an educated guess," Luna replied with a smile. "I knew you were going to visit some tombs, and you get a lot of Sun Serpents around there. Plus I knew you're the kind of girl who they'd come out to see. So anyway, what happened?"
"Well…" Ginny said, thinking quickly. Some of this story she'd have to save for when she and Luna had privacy, to keep her status as a white mage secret, but most of the trip she could share.
"Let's see, first we spent a few days in Cairo…" she began.
Hours later
It was pitch-black and pouring down rain outside the train. Ginny was flipping through some back issues of the Quibbler Luna had lent her, while Luna was sketching a picture of some creature Ginny didn't recognize, something that looked like an enormous dragon with seven pairs of wings. Suddenly, the train began to slow down.
"Why are we slowing?" Megan asked, looking up from her book. "We can't be at Hogwarts yet… can we?"
"I don't know," Ginny said, hand falling to where her wand was tucked into her pocket. "You'd think a prefect would have warned us, I know they did last year."
The train was still slowing. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded ever louder and louder against the windows.
Ginny, who was closest to the door, poked her head out into the corridor. All up and down the corridor heads were sticking out of compartments, none offering any clue as to the reason for the train's slowdown.
The train came to a stop with a sudden jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told Ginny that luggage had fallen out of racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.
"What's going on?" Colin asked in the dark.
Ginny ducked her head back into the compartment and drew her wand. "Lumos," she said. The tip of her wand lit up with a bright white glow, and Luna screamed. It was an earsplitting shriek of utter panic, like nothing Ginny had ever heard before, and it startled her so much that her wand went out again. But the momentary glimpse she'd gotten of Luna's face, and the expression of wide-eyed terror it bore, seemed burned into her memory.
"They're coming!" Luna shrieked, hand fastening onto Ginny's arm with a grip of iron. "They're coming! Oh Almighty, they're coming!"
There was a loud crack and a sudden sense of extreme pressure, as if she were being squeezed through a too-tight rubber tube, and then Luna released her and Ginny staggered, tripped over someone's legs, and landed on top of something covered in fabric and and with protruding ribs and knobs.
"Oof," the thing under her said in Harry Potter's voice, right in her ear, and Ginny felt herself blush as she realized what, or rather who, she was draped all over.
"What's going on?" Hermione's voice said out of the darkness.
"Who's that?" Ron said at the same moment.
"Quiet," a voice said, and then the compartment lit up with flickering light.
Blinking against the light, Ginny finally managed to get off Harry and back to her feet. She was somehow in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's compartment. Luna was lying crumpled on the floor, and a rather weathered-looking man in shabby robes was standing in one corner, what looked like a handful of flames in his hand.
"Ginny?" Ron said, sounding baffled. "What in Merlin's name are you doing here? And how'd you get in here? Wait, is that Loon-... Luna Lovegood?"
Before Ginny could respond, the door opened, revealing Neville Longbottom.
"Sorry, do you know what's going on?" he said.
"Come on in," the adult said. "And sit down, both of you."
Neville squeezed past Ginny and dropped into a seat next to Hermione. Ginny looked around, trying to figure out how to get to the empty seats on the far side of the compartment without stepping on Luna.
"Get behind me," the adult said in a low voice, levitating Luna into the seat he had just occupied with a wave of his wand. He stepped forward, squeezing around Ginny, and she was just getting ready to squeeze in between Ron and Luna when there was a long, slow, rattling breath from behind her. Ginny felt a wave of cold. Beneath her robes, the tyet pendant burnt hot, and Ginny felt its power like a wall of heat around her mind, felt the chill pressing against it and pushing through.
Ginny spun to see a figure standing in the doorway, clad in long black robes, its face invisible in the darkness beneath its hood where the flickering light of the flames didn't penetrate. A hand stuck out from one sleeve, scabby and slimy and gray like something drowned, the other hand hidden behind the doorframe.
The world seemed to swim around Ginny, memories of Tom bubbling up from the back of her mind, and somehow she knew that the thing before her was the same as Tom, pure unmitigated evil. She couldn't see, she was drowning in cold, she could feel it pressing in on her like Tom when he took her over…
She heard the mystery adult shouting, but then white fog consumed her world and she knew no more.
AN1: Happy solstice, everyone!
AN2: No, you're not supposed to know what happened in Egypt. I may go back and explore that story later, but for now I think it works better as an offscreen adventure.