Updated 2022

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Third Year of Hogwarts- 1994-1995

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Ginny had high hopes for her summer at the Burrow. She hadn't gotten into trouble during her second year and her marks were pretty respectable after her finals. She thought that maybe her parents and her brothers might have come around and included her a bit. Maybe seem a little more forgiving about how awful she'd been to them the majority of her first year.

That didn't happen though; Ron completely ignored her and would push past her, the twins would prank her room with their experiments, and Percy would turn up his nose whenever he saw her. Her Dad gave her these wary little looks like he was waiting for her to say something that would set off her mother.

Her mother would bark chores at her and then leave. If Ginny was in the kitchen, it was 'do the dishes' and then she'd leave for the sitting room. If Ginny was in the sitting room, she would tell her to dust, and then she'd go out to deal with the laundry. She couldn't stand being in the same room with her.

Ginny was at the point of just wanting to yell out at all of them that it wasn't her fault, whatever happened her first year. It hadn't been her. But she couldn't bloody get it out.

Then Harry showed up and she really felt like she'd hit rock bottom.

It wasn't Harry's fault, mind you. He didn't realize that him coming down to the sitting room in the Weasley Christmas sweater with an 'H' on the front would make things so much worse for her. He had gotten one last Christmas and Ginny hadn't. That stung. Ginny had been passing through the sitting room from the kitchen to head upstairs and away from the sidelong glances when he came down. The rest of her family was in the sitting room and he popped up in front of her and she couldn't take her eyes off of his sweater.

"Doesn't he look nice in his sweater" Fred said.

"Yeah. Like a real member of the family," George picked up.

"Some people just appreciate these things," her mother said. "You look quite nice Harry. I'm glad to see you wearing that. I always put so much care into them." She shot Ginny a look.

Ginny felt her face go red with anger and stomped up the stairs to her room before she said anything to dig her into the ground any deeper.

Hermione came to the Burrow the night before they were all due to leave for the World Cup. All meaning all the Weasley boys, her dad, and Harry and Hermione. Ginny had to stay home with her mum. Apparently, she was too young to go. Except she knew that was a lie. She was being punished. Her dad basically blew apart a Muggle living room, her twin brothers had fed prank sweets to Harry's cousin and nearly had him suffocating to death, but she was the one that was denied the privilege. She used to love Quidditch too.

Hermione didn't like Quidditch, but she'd been invited to go. And she had to stay in Ginny's room for the one night as well. The night she was there Ginny had gone up to bed early, Hermione wasn't too far behind her with that idea. She crawled into the camp bed, and they lay there quiet in the dark.

"Ginny?" Hermione whispered.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Ginny blurted out.

"I... okay," Hermione said. There was a long stretch of silence. "Did you like your book?"

Ginny thought about it. Hermione had meant the Count of Monte Cristo. She did like it. It had everything one could want from a book; suspense, adventure, romance, fighting. It had transported her out of her life for a while. "It was alright," she said. 'And I'm the one responsible for you getting petrified. But not really,' Ginny added in her head. "Good night."

While the others were at the World Cup Ginny would have alone time with her mother. During Ron's first year of school, when Ginny was the only child home, her mum and she would take a break from all the chores and lessons at three to sit down over tea together. They would talk, and gossip and just 'be'. Now it would be just the two of them again, and at three in the afternoon she put the kettle on. It had been over a year. Ginny decided she didn't care how ridiculous it sounded, or what her mum's reaction would be, it was time to tell her.

So, she made the tea and sat down and waited. The tea grew cold while she waited. She poked her head in all the bedrooms and around the garden and the orchard, but she couldn't find her mother anywhere.

Ginny then went to her room and sat down on her bed. Her mum really couldn't stand being around her, so much so that she'd buggered off on the only day that she didn't have anyone else to run interference or something. She went to the window as the sun was going down and saw her coming down the path with grocery bags. She'd gone to town. Something they used to do together too.

It was late by the time Ginny managed to pull herself together. She went downstairs and saw her mum in her chair in the sitting room. She stood in the doorway between the stairs and the kitchen and psyched herself up. She could do this.

"Mum," she said hesitantly. Her mother looked over at her frowning. "I…" she paused. Her mum wasn't getting up to go to another room or looking around the room for any excuse to not look at her. "Mum, I-"

"MOLLY!"

"MUM!"

There were shouts coming from the garden and her mum jumped up from her chair and ran to the kitchen as all the other Weasley's and Ron's friends came in, looking ragged and dirty.

There had been a Death Eater attack at the World Cup. Ron, Harry and Hermione had somehow almost been killed by Aurors and the Dark Mark had been shot up into the sky.

Ginny saw her opportunity to tell her mum everything pass her by. She was too weak to tell her the truth anyways.

()()()

The was the best description for the castle at the start of her third year was 'chaos'. Everyone was so excited about the two new schools impending arrival and the Tri-Wizard Tournament that there was utter chaos; no one was paying attention to their studies, they just wanted to gossip. Ginny found opportunity in that. Her body had begun developing and she needed particular under clothes that she'd never needed before, and once a month she needed a potion for a few days that she hadn't yet learned to brew correctly and didn't have the ingredients for. She had started growing quite a bit taller too, her uniform trousers were ending well above her ankle.

She wouldn't dare ask her parents for money, however she was surrounded by spoiled brats that had no interest in doing their assignments. Her twin brothers had started a business peddling their prank products and that gave her the idea to do her business.

On a very small scale and anonymously, she slipped a note to one of her younger house mates that she could get them an essay. Five Sickles a foot, and she'd need a copy of their previous assignments; and thus she afforded her necessities.

It could be dangerous to her school career if she was caught and reported, but she was the one to instigate every time, and never left the completed works in the same spot. She would only do this for the same person once a month as well. There had been a few of the students that had tried to figure out who she was in the first few months, but she never helped them out again.

By the time the Durmstrang and Beaubaton students arrived she was doing about 4 Galleons a week. Her potions supplies were very nicely stocked, and she had a few beautiful brassieres. There was no way she could get a brand new uniform though without arousing suspicion. She had managed some secondhand trousers that looked the same as her old ones though, and they fit her properly.

Everyone being so focused on the tournament and the new students left little time for her to be bullied, that was allowing her room to breathe. She'd mastered her impassive mask now, the one that betrayed no emotion and made her just another face in the crowd.

And then some stupid Durmstrang boy had to come up to her in the hall one day and throw it all to shit.

"I is Nikolai Anev," the boy said. He was a foot taller than her and had been hanging out around Adrian Pucey and his cronies. He had a shy look to him, shy by Bulgarian standards anyway. He was still broad shouldered and tan with dark hair and dark eyes. The corner of his lips twitched up almost involuntarily. "I like your hair."

She'd been on her way to Runes and cut through the courtyard. She wanted to kick herself for not taking a less travelled route now. She couldn't think of a response that would work best to her advantage. A 'Thank-you' would probably spur further communication. A soft smile would indicate that she may be interested in him.

"I notice you. You notice me?" he continued.

She stood there, stone faced and contemplating her options. "I notice I am late for class." she decided.

"I walk you?" he asked as she moved around him.

"I can find it myself," she dismissed him.

"Dodged a bullet there mate," she heard someone say loudly to Nikolai. "She may look pretty, but she's a crazy bitch." Ginny clenched her jaw and kept on. If that description of her kept the boys away, then she'd take it.

Later that night, when she was brushing her teeth before bed, she thought about it. Being considered a crazy bitch she could deal with, that was nowhere near as dangerous as being considered pretty. She'd heard stories of unwanted advances from the other girls and gave a shiver at the thought.

Ginny looked at herself in the mirror. Her lips were a soft pink, her nose wasn't pointed, or squished, like Pansy Parkinson's, and her freckles were nowhere near as prevalent as they were before she started at Hogwarts; less time in the sun over the years had made them fade. Her eyes were a honey brown color, and her eyebrows had a nice enough arch to them naturally. Her hair was getting quite long, and the red had darkened to a more auburn red. She guessed she was fairly pretty and could tell she would grow to be even more so as she matured.

That would be a problem.

She put her toothbrush away and went to her bed, drawing the hangings closed and casting her newly learned muffling and sticking charms, and she lay in bed to think.

If Tom hadn't corrupted her life, then she'd probably be in Gryffindor Tower right then, gossiping with her dorm mates about how one of the older boys from Durmstrang talked to her. Her brothers would have gotten all protective and threatened the boy to stay away. She would have felt some kind of empowerment from the attention.

But she didn't feel empowered. She felt endangered.

Glamour charms were something she hadn't worked on, perhaps there was a way to sort of, de-glamour herself. Maybe there was a spell that could make her look more non-descript; dullen her hair, maybe add more freckles, muddy up her eyes a bit. Maybe that would be enough. Being more plain should get her passed over by the boys.

She'd been focusing her spare time on transfiguration spells to make her clothes fit better. They were getting too snug thanks to her growing bosom and hips. Shrinking clothes down to fit was easy enough, for some reason making them larger was harder to do without making them enormous.

She fell asleep thinking about what books she'd have to find in the library to make her less noticeable.

()()()

Ginny wasn't in attendance when Harry Potter's name was pulled from the Goblet of Fire. And she wasn't in the stands to watch the four champions in their first task either. She avoided large gatherings.

The whole of the rest of the school had made their way to the Quidditch pitch for the first task and she'd never seen the castle so empty.

The castle being empty was exactly what she needed as she snuck into the DADA classroom. She had to master this lesson before she had an audience. They were going to deal with a Boggart soon and she couldn't let the class see what her greatest fear was.

Ginny shivered at the thought of seeing him again but needed to see if she could trick it.

Professor Moody was super paranoid, surely for good reasons, but that made her cautious when she snuck into the classroom. She made careful observation of the door to the room; there didn't seem to be anything to trip an alarm. Even so, she tread carefully as she approached the rattling wardrobe containing the apparition.

She took a deep steadying breath as she reached for the doorknob. She'd read and re-read all she could about Boggarts and practiced the spell over and over again until she was sure she would be able to get it right on the first try.

Spiders. She was afraid of spiders. Spiders are terrifying. Eight legs, multiple eyes, creepy, crawly, terrifying.

She opened the door and stepped back. 'Spiders' she thought as a black mist came out, 'spiders are the scariest thing out there.' The mist morphed slowly, as though confused. She thought of the image in her Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them book of Acromantula's.

Finally, the Boggart morphed into the beast. Ginny let out a sigh of relief staring at the enormous eight-legged, fanged beast and that was her undoing. The Boggart immediately morphed again into Tom Riddle.

Ginny froze in horror.

Standing there in front of her was the boy that had stood over her in the room in her mind that she'd been trapped in, with that same smirk on his face. He charged forward and grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pulled her close to him roughly. "You stupid girl," Boggart Tom Riddle yelled at her. "I'm sending you right back there. You'll never be free of me." He pushed her and she fell back against the desks behind her and down onto the floor. Boggart Tom loomed over her, and she tried quickly to think of a way to make him funny.

He had a malicious grin come over his face as he looked her over. "I see you're developing into a very pretty girl." He crouched down in front of her and trailed a finger down her cheek. "I may have another use for your body too."

She stared into his dark eyes and was reminded of that dog she spent an afternoon with the previous year. The one she suspected, but had no proof, of being Sirius Black.

"Riddikulus," she pointed her wand at him.

Boggart Tom started barking like a dog and scratching behind his ear. Ginny forced herself to laugh as her scared tears rolled down her cheek and managed to send the Boggart back into the wardrobe before collapsing in a desk chair and putting her head in her hands. That had combined two of her deepest darkest fears.

That had not been thought through enough.

There was a distant sound of yelling coming from Professor Moody's office that brought her back to reality. Ginny turned her head sharply in that direction. It sounded like a person was yelling. Like a person trying to get someone's attention. She stared at the door to the office and waited a moment, then heard it again.

This was the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. And Mad-Eye Moody was supposedly a super paranoid ex-Auror. He would have all kinds of mysterious objects that she didn't understand, and possibly that let out yells like that. She thought about whether she should investigate. Going into the office didn't sound like a good idea though, she would get in enough trouble if she was caught being in the classroom, let alone his personal office.

She decided she didn't want to know what that noise was.

Ginny went over to the window, needing to give herself a minute before she tried to deal with the Boggart again.

The Quidditch Pitch was visible from the window.

There was a small burst of fire she could see from inside the stadium. Then a light green dragon appeared for a moment only. If she hadn't felt sorry for Harry Potter before, she did now. He was fourteen and had to face a dragon.

Her brow furrowed and she frowned, that meant there were four dragons at the school. They wouldn't use the same dragon for each of the competitors. That would give the last one an unfair advantage.

There was a small chance her brother Charlie was around somewhere then. Ginny sighed. Apparently Tom had done his job in alienating her from Charlie too.

She looked back at the wardrobe, wanting more than anything not to think about Tom Riddle and all the ramifications that came from him infiltrating her life, Charlie included.

Spiders, and spiders tap dancing.

She focused her attention as hard as possible as she pulled open the wardrobe door one more time and tried again.

It worked. The spider came to life, and the spider tap danced.

No Tom reappeared.

()()()

Ginny hadn't quite nailed her glamour charms by December, and the Nikolai boy found her again and asked her to the dance. It was kind of gross when she thought about their age difference, but she was quite a bit taller than the other girls in her year. She was hoping he didn't realize that he was asking out someone at least four years younger than him. Maybe that was the norm in Bulgaria.

She had prepared for this, just in case, using a translation rune she'd had to write about, for a fifth year for an essay, to get the grammar right. "Az sum tvurde mlad za teb. Ne blagodarya." She told him as straight faced as she could, in what was probably the worst Bulgarian pronunciation he'd ever heard. But that got the message across just fine, and so that none of the French, or Hogwarts students would understand. (Translation: I am too young for you. No, thank you.)

But then a rumor started that she'd told him she was flattered and offered to give him a blow job, just because he'd noticed her.

Apparently, she'd given one to a few of the Durmstrang boys, if the rumors were to be believed. Any time she wasn't at dinner with the rest of the school, that's what she was doing. Not hiding out and completing essays or practicing her magic.

While she didn't understand why everyone was still making up rumors about her of all people, at least the lies wouldn't get her in as much trouble as the truth.

Ginny skipped the second task too. It all took place under water anyways, not exactly a spectator's sport.

()()()

It kind of felt to Ginny like she had a mission, or purpose now. Writing essays for money had given her something to do while she hid out in the library or wherever else. The subjects she was writing about, particularly if it was for an upper classman, was helping her learn more too. And it was easy enough to write endlessly about the theory behind spells, and the history and origins, without being able to actually do the spells.

For example, she'd tried to cast the Patronus charm after writing three separate two-foot essays and it didn't work for her.

She was glad she'd thought to make these students she was writing them for include a copy of their previous work. Trying to imitate their writing style was really the only way to differentiate the essays so they didn't all look the same.

The tournament was giving her tormentors something else to direct their energy at too. However, there were still several lewd comments that were sent her way and every now and then she would feel someone grab at her.

Ron caught Adrian Pucey corner her, and he had wound up rescuing her in a way. Though he didn't realize that was what he'd done.

Adrian was a prefect, and a pervert with a sense of entitlement that came from being on the Quidditch team and a pureblood Slytherin.

She'd been hurrying back to the Common Room after dropping off an essay for Dean Thomas, a Gryffindor. Adrian was on his way to start his rounds and caught her alone in a corridor.

"Ah! Weasley. Out after curfew I see," he gave her a predatory smile and looked her over carefully as he made her way towards her slowly, stalkingly.

She froze. "It. It's not yet curfew," she stuttered and glanced around to see if there might be someone else there that could be a witness to whatever was about to happen or provide some sort of way out. She backed away from him.

He continued towards her and backed her against a wall, held her upper arms so she couldn't get away. "I say it is," he whispered in her ear and pressed himself against her. "Now what would you be willing to do to get out of trouble?" He rubbed himself against her and she could feel his manhood grow hard against her hip. He ducked his head and she turned hers abruptly to the side.

She could probably manage to bring up her knee and get him in the jewels. Maybe he wouldn't want to tell anyone about that.

He let out a laugh at her reaction and let go of one of her arms to cup her breast. "These are coming in nicely." He grabbed at her through her shirt aggressively and she whimpered. "I can tell they'll look nice under this button down as well. Perky" He tweaked her nipple and lowered his head again biting her hard at the base of her neck and she let out a small scream. "Bet you like it rough, don't you?"

There were hurried footsteps coming from the direction she'd come from. "Oi!" Adrian pulled back slightly and looked over at the new arrivals. It was Dean Thomas and he had Ron with him.

"What?" Adrian asked him angrily.

Dean took stock of who it was that was in the corridor and looked over to Ron for some kind of direction. Ginny locked eyes with her brother. She was so relieved to see him. She hoped he could read the situation and how scared she was.

He didn't.

He looked disgusted with her. She was a third-year and Adrian was a sixth. That alone should have tipped him off that this was not wanted attention on her part. "Ugh. You know there are at least broom cupboards for that," Ron scoffed.

"What can I say. She wants it where she wants it," Adrian smirked at them and rubbed against her again.

Ginny looked at Adrian incredulously. The nerve! He attacks her and tells them she wanted it? Her anger gave her motivation. She thrust her pelvis off the wall to get him to move backwards. He let her go, and she stormed off towards Slytherin. He didn't make a move to follow her.

She heard him turn back to Ron. "Your sister is a real feisty one. I like that."

Ron scoffed again and she picked up her pace.

Ginny flew through the Common Room and received a few looks and comments on the state of her uniform and hair. When she got to her dorm room she went immediately to the bathroom and checked herself in the mirror. Her hair was in disarray at the back and her shirt was ruffled and slightly off center. Her face was completely flush with anger as well.

Yep, she looked like she'd just been ravaged. Ginny growled in frustration and rage and locked the door to have a shower. She was so angry with herself for letting that happen. She'd had her wand on her! And he hadn't even used magic, simply his size and strength to overpower her.

Ginny took off her shirt and looked at her arms where he'd held her. They were already starting to show the bruise from his fingers. Her neck was displaying a pretty obvious bite mark. The worst part of all of it was how she felt she'd had no control of the situation when she was in it.

Again, she couldn't even find her voice to ask Dean and Ron for help. And why not?

She quickly peeled off the rest of her clothes to get in the shower. She desperately wanted to hide her tears, even if it was just from herself.

Ginny had had to do a few essays on the disillusionment charm for sixth years. She needed to practice that one more and get it right. There was no way she wanted this situation to happen again.

She grabbed the soap and scrubbed aggressively at every part on her body that he had come in contact with. As she scrubbed, she got more and more angry. Not with herself though, at Adrian Pucey.

She was so tired of being the victim. From now on she was going to pay special attention to him and find a way to make him pay for this.

()()()

Before the third task was upon them she'd managed to figure out a spell that made her dorm mates completely forget where her bed and belongings were. Super useful! There was a partial circle around her bed and desk area that they just kind of glossed over.

The morning of the last task she was looking forward to having free reign of the library while everyone was once again down at the Quidditch Pitch when she got a shock.

Her mum and brother Bill were walking around the castle with Harry!

Ginny ducked out of their sight behind a tapestry in an alcove while they passed. She had figured Harry Potter had taken her place as the seventh Weasley by now, but it made her want to cry whenever she saw someone from her family hugging him. When she was sure they'd passed, she continued back towards the library and had another shock seeing the headmaster with a dog; the exact same dog she'd assumed was Sirius Black last year, except now he had a bit more meat on his bones.

She kept her mask in place, not letting on how confused she was about the situation. But she did lock eyes with the dog for only a moment before she passed them. The dog winked at her. She was positive that it had winked at her.

It was Sirius Black! She bloody well knew it too! So, Sirius Black was in cahoots with Albus Dumbledore! That probably meant that he was actually innocent of his crimes.

Unless it actually was a dog and she was actually crazy, she reminded herself.

()

Ginny did not attend the farewell feast. It would be a morose affair.

One of the champions had died.

Everyone seemed super surprised about it, which she didn't understand because the reason that there hadn't been a Tri-Wizard Tournament in centuries was because the champions would wind up dead. She had a hard time admitting it to herself, but she was grateful that it hadn't been Harry Potter that died. He didn't deserve that. Not that Cedric Diggory did deserve to die, it was just that she didn't know him as well as she knew Harry.

On the train back to London she finally overheard about Dumbledore and Harry Potter claiming that Voldemort was back.

She wasn't stupid either. She had figured out who he really was. One couldn't spend endless hours in the library still too dumb to be able to connect the dots.

Tom Riddle was back.

She had a feeling her Boggart wasn't going to be turning into a spider anymore.

()()()