Greed:
In her first year she had been sorted rather quickly, if nervously, into Gryffindor, the booming cheers coming from four red haired boys helped to calm her as she approached the table adorned with burgundy banners. Unable take her eyes off of the bushy haired girl sitting in between her youngest older brother and the famous Harry Potter, she crawled into a small space on the bench between Ron and Percy.
The girl would stop listening to the headmaster's words periodically and throw glances in Ginny's direction, short glances with varied emotion. Some of them seemed to congratulate her on making it into the rest of her family's house, others seemed as though the girl couldn't quite figure her out. She felt almost like a small specimen, placed under one of those muggle magnifiers that her dad had hidden away in the broom shed. The older witch had been surprisingly interesting to speak to as well as kind to Ginny the day before, while shopping for school supplies with her family. It was not at all what she had expected given that Ron had told her all about the girl's parents being muggle teeth healers, something which, to Ginny, sounded like the most boring job in the world.
"Excuse me Ginny, but could you please pass me the peas?" Her musical tone broke through Ginny's thoughts as she hastily grabbed for the silver bowl of small green peas to pass to the girl's waiting hand, the back of her wrist caught the gravy boat. It all happened in slow motion, she threw out another pale hand to try to grab for it, but it wasn't enough to prevent the thick brown liquid from cascading down Percy's trouser leg and the thunderous clattering the silverware made against the stone floor when it eventually landed. Percy yowled and leapt to his feet, she could feel his anger radiating beside her, but the sympathetic look that Hermione was sending her way was far more worthy of her attention. It was the first time she had felt such a violent embarrassment yet she couldn't get enough of the brunette's eyes.
Gluttony:
By her second year, Ginny had learnt that not all books could be trusted and that she would never be able to sleep properly during a storm again. The sound of the gushing wind and rain cascading against the walls of The Burrow made a noise reminiscent of the chamber she had almost died in. The vibrating thunder would bring her back to the carved, snake-like tunnels where she would sometimes wake, covered in blood and convinced she had hurt, or worse, killed someone. Still, visions of watching the monstrous snake petrify students, some of whom she recognised in passing, some of whom she didn't know, haunted her dreams. Sometimes she would dream of him, spilling words into her mind and forcing her to stalk the empty hallways of the castle in the dead of night, other times she would see Hermione's stone-like body laying on the ground, still staring into the mirror that she had taken to carrying with her that year.
Ginny gave a deep shudder, her vision started to blur until all she could see was a thick blanket of darkness, her muscles began to shake and twitch, and the voice of Tom Riddle spoke from a very far off distance. The sound chilled her to the bone and she tried to grasp some control of her bodily functions so that she could get up and run, to escape. Suddenly the lights sparked back on inside the train carriage, and a gust of wind caught the sweat coating her face and neck causing her body to shiver with twice the vigour. The scene played before her with lightning speed, Harry lay on the floor with the man in the cloak standing over him, he pressed a square of chocolate firmly into her clammy hand and disappeared through the carriage doors. Ron spoke to Harry, now sitting in a seat haphazardly, words that her brain couldn't fully translate yet, stopping to look at Ginny with worried eyes periodically.
Ginny didn't hear the sob exit her body as much as she felt it, her chest shook and she felt a foreign warmth rest over her shoulders. She looked up into the face of Hermione Granger just in time to see her mouth breathing the word, "eat" she pushed Ginny's paler than usual hand, which still cradled the quickly melting chocolate, up to her own mouth. Ginny wanted much more of the chocolate once she took a bite, it was then she knew she would have to repay Hermione a million times over for this small act of kindness.
Envy:
Her third year arrived off the back of an exhilarating trip to the Quidditch World Cup finals, the rush she had felt at watching the determined figures shooting across the sky at break-neck speed made her head spin and the roar of the crowd shook her bones for days afterwards. Ginny wanted to do what they did, wanted to fire across the pitch, covered in dirt and hearing the wind scream furiously in her ears. There would be nothing else for her, she decided determinedly, she would play professionally, perhaps even for her country at the world cup, at the very least she would play for her house.
Neville was nice, and usually quite a good laugh, but she couldn't stop her mind and her eyes from straying across the room to the girl in the floating periwinkle-blue dress. Every time he stepped on her toes she winced and bit her lip, at this rate her shoes weren't going to come off of her feet, they'd be the size of balloons.
"No it isn't, it's about winning!" The bellowing voice of Ron hit her like a ton of bricks and she turned her head so quickly that she was sure she heard her neck crack. Hermione stood in front of her brother, bundles of her dress in her fists, cheeks wet with stray tears. Ron, for his part, had turned a disgusting shade of puce, eyes popping as he gesticulated wildly. Ginny barely waited for Hermione to exit the hall before slipping away from Neville and following her. She could hear the other girl's sobs as she neared an obscure hallway close to the astronomy tower and slowed to a creep, edging herself gently around the corner until she could see her crumpled against a classroom door.
The blue dress really did look good on Hermione, Ginny decided with some distaste at her own thought process, it pulled at the supple tones in her tanned skin. The brunette slowed her strangled cries and she decided to take another step towards her, shoes making a gentle tap and creak against the ground. Hermione's head shot up at the intrusion and Ginny's breath caught in her throat for a moment, the girl's eyes were reddened and puffy, cheeks and lips glistening with salty tears. Without a second thought, the redhead slid down the hardwood door beside Hermione, thighs resting against each other, and wrapped her arms around the taller girl's shoulders, feeling them shudder under her touch. She noticed a string of soothing breaths leave her own lips as she ran her fingers gently through the chocolate curls, "boys are stupid, forget about them" Ginny's lips whispered against a smooth shoulder, hot breath warming the skin. She breathed in the faintly clean cotton scent of Hermione's hair, this time, Ginny decided that they should forget about boys, completely.
Wrath:
She made it to her fourth year mostly unscathed, well, she thought bitterly, there was still time to have her light snuffed out before the end of the year. At least she'd finally made it on to the Gryffindor house team, the momentary burn of pride overtook the fear coursing through her blood and spurred her on. Ginny couldn't see anything around her but small specks of light and some balls which looked an awful lot like planets, "LUNA! RON!" She screamed into the darkness, floating aimlessly, trying desperately to locate either of them. A strong hand gripped her foot, pulling her backwards towards Neptune and a high pitched voice roared, "Reducto!" She felt herself being grabbed by the scruff of her jumper roughly, someone who sounded suspiciously like her brother babbled about Uranus, there was a rather uncomfortable squeezing feeling and then the three of them popped out of a doorway, falling together on the cold stone in a heap.
The only thing other than the light in the room that Ginny could register was the deep, throbbing, deafening pain in her ankle, it felt like the bones in her leg had turned to lava and were burning through her skin. She panted, crashing against the wall and dragging Luna's hand with her. Luna spoke with Harry who stood, mouth agape at her clearly unhinged brother, before sliding her arm around her waist and trying to support her. Ginny felt herself bristle, "it's only my ankle, I can do it myself!" She hissed, instantly she regret her words as she tumbled sideways and reached out for Luna's arm, steadying herself against it.
They rocketed through another door, clinging on to the blonde beside her for dear life, she hobbled as fast as she could on one foot. Lurching forward, she used a table to support her weight as she watched Luna and Neville sprint off towards Harry's voice. An immobile figure sprawled out on the floor, propped against the wall, caught her eye and she gasped. Hermione. Ginny forced herself off of the table and on to the floor, wildly crawling over to the crumpled girl, all pain of her own forgotten.
"Hermione, Hermione" she breathed as she grasped at the older witch's jumper, shaking her chest with both hands, desperation and fear swelling in her throat. "Hermione…" she almost wailed the girl's name, tears stinging her eyes, shoving her face into the fabric she was gripping maniacally with her fists.
A collection of loud bangs woke Ginny from her feral panic and she leveraged her body enough to face the source in time to watch a wet, vaguely threatening, brain leap from a tank and land firmly in Ron's outstretched hand. The tentacles, if you could call them that, slithered up Ron's body, "Harry!" She screamed, "it'll suffocate him!" In that moment, between Hermione's lifeless body and her brother's imminent asphyxiation by a brain shaped blob, Ginny resolved to kiss Hermione. If they ever got out of this, she would kiss her, only after she'd killed whoever did this to her. Before she could put much more thought into it, she felt something hit her squarely in the face.
Pride:
Her fifth year was her most wondrous yet, she waltzed into the common room behind Ron to a rumble of applause, the Quidditch House Cup grasped tightly in his hands and held high for the crowd of Gryffindors to gaze upon with fierce pride. As much as she would have loved to dwell on the burn in her chest or the beam of achievement in her gut, she had other prizes to seek out. Pushing through the tightly packed bodies, her eyes scanned what little of the room she could see from her low position. Cursing her mother's genes furiously under her breath, Ginny inched higher on to her tip toes, "I'd have to take ten points from Gryffindor for that language" the hair on her neck stood to attention as the voice murmured, barely audible, inches from the skin. A smile formed on her lips as she recognised the offending mouth from where it had came, "of course, I don't think anyone else heard it so I'll let it pass… This time" the redhead turned and dragged Hermione into a bone crushing hug, gripping her ribs and pulling their chests flush. The brunette replied with kind and they stood for what felt like hours, hearts beating against the others.
Apprehension was not a feeling that the youngest Weasley was accustomed to, she had shed the skin of the bumbling little girl she used to be a long time ago. Even when she shot forwards on her broom, knuckles gripping the handle so hard that they turned white, eyes focused on the small glimmer of gold she saw speeding before her, she didn't suffer from nerves. In fact, she felt the polar opposite, she felt cocksure and powerful, the broom bent to her will, she flattened herself against it and gained an extra gust of speed that propelled her outstretched hand past Chang's. Ginny felt the struggling ball of gold beating its wings against her gloved palm and she held it up, the crowd boomed from behind the throbbing in her ears, Lee Jordan's voice carrying the final commentary over the roaring Gryffindors.
When they finally pulled back, Ginny didn't have time to think about anything else, pressing her lips to the other girl's, she just did what her body told her to in that moment. In fact, she was fairly sure that her mind had ceased to work and she would never be able to think again, maybe she would have to visit Madame Pomfrey for that later. All thoughts were perfectly absent until she felt Hermione's hand on her cheek, pushing against a smear of dried dirt and rubbing against her skin, at that point her brain went at a hundred times the speed it had before. The previous chatter in the room dulled and they separated, one or both of them coming to their senses and the feeling of eyes on them too overwhelming to ignore. Hermione had an almost glazed over, vacant quality about her look that Ginny couldn't help but feel positively smug about. Someone had finally managed to stump the brightest witch of her age, who would have known that all it would take was a blazing kiss. Her eyes flickered over, wide grin still plastered across her features, burning with the trademark Weasley red, to find Ron standing with his arm limp and silver cup trailing in his hand. Her brother's face strained into a mixture of the same contorted look present when the twins transfigured his favourite teddy into a giant spider and what, Ginny only imagined, was the gape of someone who's just seen a person's arm being torn off.
Lust:
If the year before had been her best so far, then her sixth year had been the worst by a long stretch. Ginny had languished at Hogwarts, under the thumb of the Death Eaters, up until the Easter break, when she'd been whisked off to Aunt Muriel's. Between herself, Neville, and Luna, they had managed to form a small resistance that worked against the iron first of Voldemort's supporters, painting incendiary graffiti on the castle walls at night. They had received severe punishment whenever they were caught, some of it physical, at the hands of the Carrows, some of it not so much. Ginny found herself deprived of any visits to Hogsmeade, not that it affected her ability to pilfer some of Honeyduke's wears using the secret tunnel Fred and George told her about in her second year.
The redhead rather ungracefully stumbled out of a portrait hole, into the room of requirement, feeling her face split into an uncontrolled smile at the sight of the tired, but simply stunning older witch. Good things come to those who wait and she had finally been able to touch Hermione's hand again, after what felt like ten years, nothing could ever feel this good, she thought fiercely. They shared a hushed but passionate argument about whether Ginny should be able to leave the room to fight, her words pleaded with Hermione to let her go, but just like her mother she wouldn't shift. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione rushed back, ushering her out of the room, she knew she had to take the chance. Casting one last woeful glance back at the bushy haired girl, she followed Tonks down the staircase.
The two women entered the fray, dodging a well aimed Bombarda, Ginny watched Tonks send a Death Eater that she couldn't quite recognise from behind their mask flying, collapsing into a suit of armour with a rattling noise. Slipping her own wand from her pocket, she aimed at the mass of bodies from the window, sending a jinx outwards, the spell throwing a small figure backwards. "Good girl!" The voice roared at her as Aberforth ambled past, a gaggle of students following him, she spared a small appreciative glance before turning back to send more spells speeding towards the grounds. Waiting for the trio to resurface proved extremely taxing for the younger girl, her mind torn both between willing Hermione's safety and working to make sure she wasn't hit with some unknown curse.
Ginny followed the direction of where it seemed like the stream of Death Eaters, spiders, and a long list of generally nasty creatures were coming from, working her way through them, passing friends and family. She noted Percy, violently throwing spells at the Minister of Magic with a small smile, he joked with Fred in between curses and her heart swelled, the sound of anguish came soon after but she refused to turn around. She couldn't. Pushing further forward, the stones behind her head exploded with the force of a blast, rubble catching her in the face and allowing blood to trickle down her chin, ducking and turning craning her neck to look, she found another masked Death Eater taking aim at her. Flicking her wand, Ginny managed to deflect a shot of blue but seconds later another erupted from the wand towards her, "Protego!" Her head spun around, the room almost swirling, hair fanning out behind her as she moved. Hermione stood behind her, wand pointed and face viciously rearranged, Ginny glanced back to the man in front of them, he moved his hand and his mask disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Dolohov. She felt herself snarl at him before letting off a spray of as many jinxes and spells as she could muster, half of them ricocheted off of the stone blocks around the man, disorientating him slightly, but one made its way under his raised wand arm, straight at his chest. Dolohov went careering backwards so hard that his head connected with the wall, a sickening crack snapped through the air and Ginny was almost sure she had killed him.
There was no time to consider the pit in her stomach that felt strangely like the only time she had ever fallen off of a broom, the hand on her arm burned her skin and she felt herself being dragged through a doorway, the slamming of the wood waking her from her stupor. "Ginny, what the fuck were you doing?" Hermione's words hissed against her lips before they were muffled between them, swallowed away. Never had she felt like this, time was falling out from underneath them and there wasn't a thing that she could do to stop it. She clawed at Hermione's shirt, feeling the other girl's hands grasping at her skin beneath her jumper, before the cold sting of stone pressed against the exposed flesh around her lower back. There was no other place that Ginny would choose to be than pressed between the wall and Hermione's heaving body, she could barely think, the brunette's hand tangled itself in her fiery hair and gave a sharp pull as her tongue pressed against Ginny's own. Just as sudden as the kick of pleasure her stomach made, the warm mouth pulled away from hers and she jolted back to reality, they both gasped for air and she could see Hermione mentally chastising herself for the loss of control. "We'll have time… later…" her lips moved against an ear cushioned by brown curls, a moment passed and they were back in the hallway, sparks of colour barrelling around them.
Sloth:
Oh the best had absolutely been saved for last, her seventh year had been the anchor back to a sort of continuation of life that she had needed, that they both had needed. The warm cocoon of cotton surrounding her made cracking open her eyes all the more difficult that it should have been, a small stretch helping her stomach to graze against soft skin and a lazy, mischievous smile overtaking Ginny's mouth. Her hands made their way underneath the covers, wriggling to seek out the skin that had just met her own seconds ago. When she made contact she hummed gently, focusing on moving the rest of her body in the same direction her fingers had just set a trail.
She would never stop feeling grateful that Hermione was such an insufferable bookworm, there hadn't really been any question that she would return to Hogwarts to finish her studies, and Ginny herself would hardly let the chance to captain the Gryffindor team go amiss. They had boarded the Express that September with a mixture of excitement and relief, the old castle seemed like a lifeline of normality for them both, however much they had just wanted to sit still, neither of them could. The year so far had been indulgently quiet, they had spent most nights together in the library studying, stealing a few dangerous moments between the dusty shelves, or inside the Quidditch Pitch where Hermione watched quietly and, although she would never admit it in so many words, in mild awe as Ginny tried to forge as formidable team as she could from the remaining students. Occasionally they would spend a few secretive hours in the common room, once they were sure its other inhabitants had retired to bed. Ginny would lean against Hermione's legs, curled up like a cat in front of the fire as the brunette read interesting and restricted books to her. Yes, it was the perfect level of mundane.
The body under her arms moved restlessly and she edged her lips against the girl's neck, fluttering small, soft kisses against the flesh there. The older witch blew a gust of air out of her nose and when she spoke, her voice was thick with sleep, "what time is it?" She turned to meet Ginny's mouth with her own, indulging in a few minutes of stolen touches, the other hand slowly reaching for her watch on the wooden table beside her head. "Merlin! Ginny, get up!" Hermione moaned the words with distress, shooting from the redhead's grasp before she could protest. Ginny propped herself up on one arm, watching the chaos in front of her, the other girl fumbled with robes, almost falling over in the process of draping them over herself. "Come on" it came out as a whine that Ginny was sure didn't help the amused look on her face, "Oh don't look at me like that! We can't afford to be lazy, Gin" the brunette snapped, standing with her arms crossed, tapping her foot in a way that caused the girl in the bed to dissolve into laughter. The tapping noise grew louder and more hurried, pairing with an exasperated sigh, until she had no option but to look up. "For heaven's sake, I'm up, I'm up" she droned, barely maintaining a straight face as she rolled her eyes, at least tomorrow would be Sunday, she thought sullenly, pulling her crumpled robes from the floor, maybe then we can sleep past 10 in the morning.