The train ride started out quite uneventful. Her mum had warned her brothers to keep an eye on her, which made her want to smile and frown at the same time. She had settled on a light nod in her Mum's direction. Her Mum and Dad both looked as though they wanted to reach out towards her, so she gave a brisk "I love you, I'll write soon. Bye!" She brushed passed them, moving quickly to the train before she lost her nerve.
Luna trailed behind her, having been offered a ride to the station with them to save her Dad the trouble. As soon as they were all on the train, her brothers scattered, their Mum's words forgotten.
Percy gave her a short nod and a long look before he wandered off on his own, a slightly conflicted expression on his face. He did at least wait for her to give him a small smile and a nod back before he left.
The twins had no such reservations. With shouts of "Be safe!" and "Stay with Ron!" they were off. She wasn't sure if the twins had really forgiven her for the 'bucket incident' or not, but she didn't want to press too hard to find out. And honestly, she wasn't too keen to spend much time around them anyways. When she was younger, she had loved their carefree attitude, their constant jokes, their easy smiles. Now, she wasn't so sure that they just weren't willing to grow up yet.
Ron tried the hardest. He, Harry, and Hermione had offered to find a compartment that would fit all of them, but Ginny wasn't willing to leave Luna behind. They were so late that the only compartment left they could find was one with an older man, ragged and worn looking, sleeping in it. His trunk, which somehow looked even more battered than his clothes, said R. Lupin.
There wasn't quite enough room for them all to fit comfortably. Without Luna it might have been better, and Ginny could see the look on her face. Luna felt uncomfortable, and unwanted, and intrusive. She was getting ready to make up an excuse to leave, Ginny could see it in her eyes. Instead, Ginny snagged her hand and pulled her in so they could sit on the floor of the compartment together. That gave more room for Ron and his friends to sit on the seats.
The three of them all whispered over her and Luna's heads about who the sleeping man might be. Luna pulled out a copy of the most recent edition of the Quibbler, and the two of them started reading over it together, giggling and discussing and murmuring as quietly as they could. They both staunchly ignored the look Hermione gave them when she saw the name of the paper they pulled out.
The train ride was long and slow and rocking. The blurring trees and countryside lulled Ginny and Luna into a near sleeping state as the Quibbler slowly lost their interest. The chugging of the engine and the roar of the wheels beat in time with Ginny's heart, and she couldn't help but think that maybe Hogwarts wouldn't be so bad this year. She hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before, worrying about going back to the scene of her nightmares, so she let herself rest her eyes, gently, just to grab a little rest.
Later, Ginny wouldn't be able to say what it was that woke her up. It might have been Luna's murmurs next to her, sleep addled and soft, as she jerked next to Ginny in her sleep.
"Mum, no, don't."
It could have been the increased noise in the compartments next to them. Shouts of surprise and screams of terror, loud enough to be heard even through the compartment walls.
"What the hell is-?!"
It was possibly the way the train slowed before coming to a complete stop, with the rhythm and rocking being halted abruptly with an ear-splitting screech. Harry, Hermione, and Ron had stopped whispering as well, only emphasizing the sudden silence of the train engine and the lack of squealing of wheels on tracks as they forewent their attempt to not wake up their potential professor. Instead they spoke at a normal volume, confused and bewildered as they tried to figure out why the train had stopped early.
"We can't be there already, can we?"
But most likely? It was the cold that woke her. Frost on her breath as she woke, rime creeping along the windows like branching vines, goosebumps covering her flesh. It felt like she was in the Chamber again, alone and laying on the cold stone floor.
As she came into full wakefulness, she attempted to lean closer in to Luna for body warmth, scared and confused and looking to burrow away from her fears. It didn't help; all it managed to do was cause Luna to keel out in agony "No, please, don't leave, please."
What was going on? Ginny tried to get up, to move, to run away. She wanted to look at Ron, or Hermione, or Harry to see what they were doing. Were they experiencing the same as her and Luna?
As she looked around, though, the train compartment was gone. All around her was the chamber, cold and damp and uncaring of her plight. She looked up, and reaching out towards her was a demon, a hole in the universe that radiated the biting cold she knew so well. She wanted to scream and to wail and to cry. She knew it. Hogwarts wasn't safe. They'd promised and promised it would be, but it wasn't, it couldn't be, the Chamber was there, and here was a demon, and why, oh why was this happening to her?
She wanted to be saved. She desperately wanted Harry to show up, to save her, just like last time. She loathed herself for it, for her weakness, but she knew she couldn't win; she knew she didn't have the strength to survive. In that moment of weakness, she admitted to herself that she wasn't strong enough. She needed someone to save her, and though it rankled it was true! She could already feel the frost covering her body, and she tried to scream Somebody, please, anybody, save me! No words left her lips, and only a silent cry was etched upon her face.
She heard Harry's screams reverberate through her, and she knew then with a scary certainty the truth. He wouldn't save her this time. Nobody could save her. She was alone.
The demon loomed over her, staring at her with its empty cowl. She knew this feeling. This all-encompassing emptiness. She had felt it before, in the chamber. She was losing herself, some indefinable part of her that was important and intrinsic to her; it was being sucked out and in its place all that was left was a hollow husk of who she used to be.
She was dying. Again.
"Your body belongs to the Chamber. It should lie there. Forever. Don't worry, Ginny. It'll be okay. You and I can be friends forever, then, right?"
Tom's words wafted to her ears, like snowflakes on a winter wind. Cold, and stinging, and beautiful. It was her Tom before he'd gone crazy, when he'd been her friend and cared about her, and was just so. Damned. Reasonable.
Ginny screamed. For how long, she wasn't sure. Maybe for only a moment. Maybe for an eternity.
Then suddenly there was a flash of blinding silver light, and the demon screeched as it fled. Its scream tore at her ear drums, and as it retreated she imagined fang and claw and fur attacking cold and dark and death. She looked around and realized she was in the train compartment once again.
No stone floor. No empty-hooded demon. No Tom.
Ginny stopped fighting. She stopped holding on to life as hard as she could, let go of all her tension and will to fight. It was over, now, and she could just let go. At least for a moment.
The last thing Ginny thought before losing consciousness was I knew I shouldn't have come back.
Ginny woke, a scream on her lips. But she was an old hat at this game now, so instead she ended up just gasping deeply for breath, less a screech of terror and more like the noise a dying animal might make. As she awoke, restraining her cries as she locked away her nightmare deep down inside where she didn't have to think on it, she tried to calm her heart; it was racing so fast it'd rival the beating wings of a stampeding hippogryph. She calmed herself, slowly, and looked around; she was in a hospital bed. Off white walls and light-yellow curtains. The too-clean smell pervading her senses combined with the sight of the stars shining through arched glass windows helped calm her down.
She was in Hogwarts. She had survived.
Although if just getting to the school this year was enough to almost kill her, she wasn't sure she was all that eager to see how the rest of the year would go. She looked over at the bed next to her, and saw Harry sleeping quietly. He looked peaceful, in sleep, but uncomfortable as well, as though he wasn't actually getting any rest. It was a weird mixture to see etched upon his face.
Apparently, she wasn't as quiet as she thought she was while waking up, because Madame Pomfrey came bustling over, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"Oh, dearie, you're awake. I didn't think you'd rise until morning." Ginny flinched under the onslaught of spells the matron sent at her, but they were harmless; diagnostic spells, most likely. Ginny even recognized the first one she sent; it was the one Bill had taught her over the summer.
Ginny saw Pomfrey frown at her flinch, but neither of them commented on it. Instead, the older woman pulled a chocolate bar out of her apron and handed it to Ginny.
"You're mostly fine dear. A more severe reaction to the Dementors than most, but not at all surprising. Normally I don't recommend any sweets right before sleeping, but given the circumstances, a bit of chocolate is certainly reasonable. Ring me if you need, Ms. Weasley, but we should both be heading back to bed."
With a few more cursory checks and a last once over, Madame Pomfrey left Ginny to her own devices, hoping they could both get more sleep.
Ginny laid there, the moon peeking down through the tall infirmary windows, and didn't even bother trying to go to sleep. She stared at the glass panes, tear streaked from the rain that plagued the castle earlier in the day, the late summer storm that kept threatening to reappear with drizzles and hints of heavy rain. The hospital room was too clean, too sterile, and while at first it was comforting, the longer she stayed the more it set Ginny on edge. It smelled floral, but in a way that it was Charmed to do so rather than naturally. Ginny couldn't see any fresh flowers anywhere.
She spent the night shivering, from the fear or the cold she couldn't tell. Whatever that creature was, that demon, that unending evil, it frightened her. Like all her nightmares wrapped up in one gruesome visage, the demon represented everything that she had spent the summer trying desperately to forget.
All her weaknesses. All her failures. All her fears.
She could only hope desperately that she wouldn't run into one of those again.
She heard a rustling as the sun crested the sky, signaling morning. She looked over and saw Harry laying in the bed, separated from her by a curtain pulled only halfway between them. While he was just coming into wakefulness Ginny still hadn't been able to get back to sleep. He groggily reached for his glasses, and as he put them on, he looked up at her with wide eyes.
"Ginny? What are you doing here?"
"You both had an adverse reaction to the Dementor, Mr. Potter. I dare say it's an uncommon one, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility." Ginny hadn't even heard Madame Pomfrey walk over! The mediwitch had appeared out of nowhere. At least now Ginny knew what those monsters were called. "For those few who have experienced… particular trauma, the Dementors can affect them a bit more harshly."
Ginny couldn't help but notice Luna wasn't with them as well. She'd have thought that Luna losing her Mum qualified as 'particular trauma,' but she wasn't about to say anything about it. She decided she might ask Luna later. Then again, maybe not. That question tread just a bit too close to 'Topics Unmentionable.'
Madame Pomfrey let them go on to breakfast with one last piece of chocolate each, and a recommendation to have hot chocolate with their meals for the foreseeable future. Chocolate was apparently a surefire method of staving off the effects of Dementor exposure.
The hallways Ginny and Harry walked through echoed with their footsteps, stretching long before them and twisting into each other. Ginny didn't know the way from the Hospital Wing to the Great Hall, but thankfully Harry seemed confident.
The silence between them grew as they walked further, and Ginny didn't know how to break it. She wasn't even sure that she wanted to. She had so many things that she felt she needed to say and none of them felt adequate, no matter how she worded it.
Thank you for saving me warred with I'm sorry I was so weak I needed you to save me
How was your summer died in the face of answering any questions about her own summer.
She was willing to bet neither of them wanted to talk about the Dementor. As they finally entered the Great Hall, and headed towards the Gryffindor table, Ginny murmured a quick "Thanks" before scurrying to the opposite end of the table from where she knew he'd sit; Ron and Hermione had saved him a seat.
Ginny wasn't sure what she was thanking him for, specifically, but she didn't care. At least she had said something.
Ginny's first few weeks back at Hogwarts brought out many feelings she didn't expect to experience.
As she walked into the Great Hall at breakfast on her first day, she was one of the earliest people there. But the Hall filled quickly, and all too soon there was simply too much noise. Voices jumbled together, turning into a low, consistent murmur that surrounded Ginny on all edges. She felt squished at the table, people on either side of her that she didn't know. Her breaths started coming in shorter and sharper, and she eventually had to leave.
Breakfast barely half done, she raced out of the Great Hall the moment McGonagall had handed her the new schedule. She bolted out of the room, using the need to get her supplies from her dormitory as an excuse when McGonagall gave her a glare.
She was confused, at first, when she walked into her old dorm room and couldn't find any of her things. She eventually ventured further out, to the next floor up, and was relieved to find her trunk sitting at the edge of a bed.
She couldn't tell if she was more relieved that her stuff hadn't disappeared, or that she wouldn't have to sleep in the same bed as last year, where she had said goodnight to Tom almost every night, and said hello to him nearly every morning.
After her first class, she realized she'd have another problem. Walking through the hallways while they were so crowded between classes wasn't easy for her. She was jostled back and forth as she scurried about, and she tugged her books tightly to her chest. The hallways towered up, twisted in on themselves, and it took forever to get where she was going. The whole way from class to class she was surrounded by her classmates and their loud, chattering noise that battered against her ears.
She wanted desperately to leave it all behind, to run out the front doors of the castle and enjoy the fresh open air. She wanted to feel the sun beat down on her back and listen to nothing louder than the gentle whisper of the breeze. Instead, she was stuck being shuffled about between classes, and she could barely find the space to breathe.
Lunch was easier to handle. The lunches were staggered, so the Great Hall wasn't as full as it had been at breakfast, and Ginny managed to last longer. Not the whole time. She felt prickles on the back of her neck the longer she felt closed in, and she couldn't shake the feeling that the whispers just out of reach were about her. She had to remind herself that no one knew it was her who had controlled the basilisk. No one knew it had been her who had terrorized the school. No one knew that she had been so easily taken over by Tom.
She still left lunch early.
Dinner was the worst, though. Just as crowded as breakfast, but everyone showed up at the same time. A stampede of wild students, charging the Great Hall, caused Ginny to recoil in fear. She left after only 15 minutes, before the main course had even started. Staying in the Great Hall would have been like staying underwater, slowly drowning herself in the judgement and the crowds, being swallowed up by the rumbling tide of the voices of so many people.
Ginny tugged the curtains surrounding her bed closed, cast a Silencing Charm around herself, and cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, Ginny went to breakfast early, hoping that things might be a little easier the second day around. Sadly for her, things were worse.
The room filled up too quickly, and Ginny was lucky she'd been sure to finish her whole breakfast as fast as possible, just in case. With a muttered "See you in class" to whoever cared to listen, Ginny left the Great Hall once again.
The hallways continued to stifle her, the Great Hall continued to terrify her. She cried herself to sleep even harder on her second day at Hogwarts. She wouldn't admit it, not in a million years and not to anyone ever, but right on the cusp of sleep, pillow damp and eyes sore, she thought to herself "I wish Tom were here."
Her third day of classes were on a Friday, and Ginny was terrified of the weekend. What would she do with herself? Would her classmates notice when she hid in bed for two days straight?
It was all Ginny could do to get herself out of bed Friday morning, with the thought that three days in a row hiding in her room, and a day of missing classes, would surely draw the wrong sort of attention. She'd bribed herself into going to breakfast and classes on Friday morning with the promise of two days of pure solitude.
But as she approached the sparse Gryffindor table early Friday morning, Ginny was shocked to see a robe with blue and bronze trim settled down, and a bright blonde head of hair attached to a pair of radishes for earrings, sitting easy as you please at the Gryffindor table.
"Luna," Ginny hissed, "what are you doing at my table?"
"You looked rather lonely. And I supposed you could use a friend." Luna was scooping up an odd concoction of jams and spreads onto a piece of toast, and Ginny wasn't entirely sure the toast could still be considered 'edible.'
"You can't just sit at a different house's table!"
Luna looked around, as though surprised to find herself in her seat. "I can't? Then, however did I get here? Have I miraculously become a Gryffindor? I think I'd look good in red."
Ginny just stared at her, dumbstruck, before grumbling "It's scarlet, not red" and sitting down next to her. She'd found over the summer that Luna was now more difficult to argue with after their reunification than she'd ever been in their childhood.
Luna let out a bright smile, and continued adding jams to her toast, until she finally took a single bite, and pronounced it "The worst toast I think I've ever had."
Ginny could only laugh and started working on her own breakfast.
Soon, however, the Great Hall started to swell with students, and Ginny's breaths shortened. Right as she was about to get up and bolt out of the room, she heard Luna pronounce "You know, Ginny, I think this toast is so bad, I can't even finish it. I suppose I'll leave it for any wandering Thermellows. They're known to be quite ravenous, did you know?"
As Luna babbled on about a creature Ginny had never heard of before, and quite possibly didn't exist, she grabbed Ginny's hand and dragged her up from the table. Ginny was so shocked by Luna's actions that she didn't resist at all as Luna took them on a walk around the castle. They wasted away the rest of the breakfast hour before they finally parted for classes.
Ginny realized, as she sat in her class that Friday morning, that she was smiling for the first time since she'd arrived at Hogwarts. At dinner, when Luna did the same exact thing, with nearly the same exact excuse, (substituting a frightening sandwich with far too many condiments for a slice of toast with an exorbitant amount of jams), Ginny pulled her into a quick, tight hug right outside the Great Hall, and whispered "Thanks, Luna."
Luna just hugged her back even tighter.
As she woke up on the morning of her first weekend, Ginny was gripped with fear at the idea of leaving her bed. A whole two days with nothing to do. No classes had assigned homework yet, only reading. The day before had been better, with Luna as a shield against the world, but Luna couldn't protect her forever. She spent the morning doing all her readings, never leaving her bed. She skipped lunch as well to reread all the sections assigned, but she was becoming bored.
Her stomach was too empty by dinner time, and she had to relent. She went down for dinner, scurrying between groups of people and avoiding getting too close. Her dinner was eaten as slowly as she could, hoping that the draw of her hunger might outweigh her fear of the Great Hall. The truth was, her solitude was not as comforting as she imagined it to be. She wanted everyone to leave her space, but she hated to be alone with nothing to do but think her own thoughts.
What would she do tomorrow? What would she do tonight? Ginny had been doing quite well with her nightmares, and classes had been engaging enough that even if she wasn't physically tired, her brain felt enough like mush that sleep was a welcome embrace.
But with no classes planned and no homework left Ginny feared her weekends, and the nightmares an idle day or two might bring.
Once again, Luna provided an answer.
"I was thinking we should go exploring, Ginny. It'll be like an adventure."
"Are you sure, Luna?"
Luna simply grabbed her hand and whisked her away.
"I've heard there's a secret passageway on the fourth floor that is lit up by a magical moss. Flickering Bushwicks are known to hate sunlight, and are also known hate the dark. It'd be a perfect place to find some, don't you think?"
And just like that a new schedule was born. Ginny and Luna spent all Saturday evening, and all of Sunday as well, exploring Hogwarts and all the secrets it had to offer.
During the week, the hallways seemed foreboding. Cramped, stretching, twisting in on themselves, they hemmed Ginny in. But spending the weekend with Luna, on the floors and in the spaces no one had been to for years, Ginny could steady herself with a breath and ignore the dreary grey of the stone, or the gargoyle's too piercing eyes, the suits of armor that creaked when no one was around.
The following week, by mutual agreement but with no words spoken, Ginny and Luna did all their homework together, nearly the day it was assigned. They continued that agreement every subsequent week for the rest of the year, as well. They almost never had homework left by the weekend except for the occasional long essay or project, and as a result their weekends were often filled with long walks along the castle, exploring together.
Some days they were looking for something specific. An interesting tapestry Luna had read about, a particular hidden passageway, or one of Luna's many creatures. But always while they explored, they talked.
They had a tendency to chat about the work they'd been doing in school that week. Ginny still had some areas where she very clearly hadn't been paying attention during their first year, and it showed. Luna had an interesting opinion on almost everything, and their talks over the weekend helped cover any gaps Ginny found in her education.
Even more interesting were the instances where Ginny had more knowledge than she was supposed to. She tried hard to not focus too intensely on any of the potential reasons why.
Luna was able to follow a conversational thread like a bloodhound, reaching new conclusions and sniffing out ideas whenever Ginny showed an inclination towards a topic that they hadn't covered in class. It was scattered throughout the subjects but was most easy to see when she referenced some principle of arithmancy, or some obscure rune that would be relevant. Leftover remnants of her time with Tom.
Luna skimmed over those moments as though they were nothing out of the ordinary, and simply expanded on the discussion as though it was normal to casually dissect obscure knowledge. Or at least, obscure to them by their second-year standards. Ginny merely added it to the list of things which made Luna wonderful.
Their talks weren't always about school work, though. Ginny couldn't stop laughing when Luna had gone off on a huge rant about Draco Malfoy, Hippogryphs, the proper respect that magical creatures still didn't receive and a whole weekend worth of mumblings that sounded suspiciously like "dunderheads who don't deserve being named after dragons." Luna's use of one of Professor's Snape's favorite words just increased Ginny's amusement.
Ginny never let her guard down, though. Hogwarts still didn't feel safe; it didn't feel like home. She avoided the second floor like it was filled with cursed fire, going near it only to pass it on the stairs to a different floor. Luna never mentioned this either, and Ginny could only assume that the Headmaster had something to do with none of her classes being scheduled on the second floor.
All in all, her first month back at Hogwarts was lukewarm. It wasn't the living embodiment of her nightmares she had envisioned in her pondering and worrying over the summer. But it also certainly wasn't the home away from home she'd been dreaming of for her entire childhood.
Ginny resolved herself to a half-life at Hogwarts. Maybe in time, it would get better. She promised herself that each successive month without trouble would make it easier and easier to feel at home.
The first week of October proved to remind her that Hogwarts, as it was, would never be her home.
It started with little things. Small occurrences that Ginny could easily overlook. That Ginny did overlook, to her shame. Some of the same signs that she had had the year before were present, but because it was Luna, eccentric, creative, hard to predict Luna, she ignored them.
Luna was wearing mismatched earrings; one earing was a radish and one was a pebble with a hole carved through it, even though the day before she'd had two radishes. The next day she was only wearing one earring. She came to class without shoes, and two days later came completely barefoot. Luna misplaced papers that Ginny knew she had written; Ginny had to speak up and defend her to Professor McGonagall more than once.
"Yes, Luna wrote those papers, I was with her when she wrote them. We did them together in the library."
"Well then she can have until tomorrow to find it. But forgetfulness and a disorganized mind will do her no help in her practical studies."
When Luna's bottle cap necklace went missing though, Ginny started to get suspicious. Luna never mentioned it, but Ginny knew collecting bottle caps and butterbeer corks and making jewelry with them was something that the Lovegoods used to do as a family; all three of them together, before Luna's Mum passed away.
Luna would never willingly lose her necklace unless she had a new one already made to wear. She almost never took the thing off!
So Ginny began to follow Luna, definitely not stalking her! She couldn't bring it up directly, not unless she knew she was sure. If Luna was being targeted by something like Tom, then Ginny and Luna had no chance to beat it. She didn't know how she would save Luna, but that was a problem for later. First was confirming that there was a problem at all.
When Luna left their study sessions, Ginny would be only a minute or two behind. And whenever they didn't have a class together, Ginny would ask to leave for the bathroom before class ended, or make up some other excuse to leave class early.
After a week of skulking about, she was running out of excuses to leave class early and was nearing the end of her rope. She got lucky right after lunch at the end of the week when Luna had left early. They no longer sat at Lunch every day, only about half of them. But Ginny always kept Luna in a spot she could see her. So when Luna left abruptly, Ginny followed after her.
Ginny almost lost her in the hallways, but heard the pattering of running feet, followed by a glimpse of golden hair that flashed in the corner of her eye. As she looked, she saw whoever it was, was being followed by three taller students. All of them were wearing blue and bronze as well.
And all four of them were headed down the stairs to the second floor. Ginny still hadn't gathered the courage to go there, and she was grateful none of her classes had been scheduled on that floor. She was quite sure it wasn't a coincidence.
She dithered near the staircase, desperately fighting with herself.
I need to know what's going on with Luna!
I can't go to the second floor, I just CAN'T!
She heard high pitched titters and laughter, and a sharp cry that sounded too much like Luna, and Ginny didn't even have time to finish making a decision. Her body was moving on its own.
She flew down the stairs, two steps at a time, and ran towards the soft sound of muffled sobbing. She came to a halt right as she turned a corner, and flung herself back the way she came. Ginny had seen the backs of three girls surrounding a crumpled form, taunting, mocking, jeering.
Ginny peeked around the corner, slowy, cautiously, praying she'd go unnoticed.
That crumpled form had blonde hair, blue trim on her robes, and a freshly picked radish attached to her ear.
"Oi, Loony, it's not very nice to run out of lunch like that. We were just being nice!" Ginny had noticed the three girls laughing uproariously at lunch but hadn't realized they'd been staring at Luna. She had been so focused on Luna in particular that she hadn't paid much attention to the source of the three girl's humor.
"We were just looking over your paper for you, the one you gave us this morning, to tell you if you got anything wrong. Duh. That's no reason to run away from us."
"Last time you did that you… you ripped my paper up. McGonagall got mad at me. If it happens again I'll lose points for Ravenclaw!" Luna's voice wavered as she spoke.
"Well of course we had to rip it up, Loony. You wrote all your crazy, silly, Loony ideas in it, just like your Dad does in his dumb paper. Why won't you just write normal papers!"
"The fact that some animals are resistant to magic, and transfigura-."
"Loony, there's no such things as Wrackles! They can't be resistant to anything!"
It was the defeated way that Luna muttered "Nargles" that spurred Ginny into action.
While she'd been watching this whole encounter, she'd warred with herself.
It's none of your business. You have other things to worry about. Come on, Ginny, just walk away said the voice that sounded a bit too much like how she had imagined Tom to sound when he was nice to her, in the beginning of last year.
What do you think you could do, anyways? You're just a stupid little girl, you'd just get yourself hurt. You'd cause more harm than good if you did anything about it said the voice that sounded exactly like Tom did in the Chamber when she had laid down to die.
But she's your friend said a third voice. It was so quiet, drowned out by the other two, but she grasped at it and held on for all she was worth. Maybe it was her Gryffindor courage, finally rearing its head. Maybe it was Luna's voice, floating on the wind between tree branches in the apple orchard. If she had any kind of luck, it would be her own voice, showing her the kind of person she could grow into being.
She definitely decided to ignore whichever part of her it was that had the thought Just be smart about it. If you're going to hurt them, you'd better do it right. Because Ginny couldn't tell for the life of her if that was her own voice or Tom's. She was afraid to think too much on it; either answer was a bad one.
"Flippendo" she muttered, aiming at the girl in the middle. That one looked like the ringleader. "Petrificus Totalus." Ginny had looked up the Full-Body Bind after the success of her Leg-Locker Curse over the summer, and she was glad she had. She felt the magic of her Curse take effect, and smiled to herself, a smirk that creeped up her lips.
All three girls were faced away from her, so she managed to catch her target perfectly unawares. The girl in the center went flying, her glasses scattering across the floor and her blonde hair whipping around her head, and then just as suddenly her body seized up.
The other two bullies turned around in shock. Another blonde girl gave a shout of "Kim!" as the third member of their group, a redhead with a sneer on her face, glared at Ginny. Ginny walked forward, tensing her body as tight as she could to keep from shaking. It took everything she had to keep her head held high, and her eyes clear, as she looked at them. Intimidate them. You've taken one of them out, now get them to back down.
"Leave Luna alone" she said, in her firmest voice.
"Look at the ickle witchie, Felicity," the redhead said "she wants to save her girlfriend, Loony."
The other girl, apparently named Felicity, lazily waved her wand at the girl who was still Petrified on the floor, and drawled "Finite Incantatem. It's not very brave of you to attack us from behind. You sure you shouldn't be wearing silver and green?"
Ginny's mouth went dry, and her knuckles creaked as she gripped her wand tighter. She felt her eyes narrow, and moved to raise her wand against them again. She saw the girl Kim was trying to stand up from being knocked over. Ginny doubted she could fight two of them at once, and she knew for a fact she couldn't fight three of them. Stupid! Should have attacked them all at once!
"Locomotor Mortis" Ginny hissed.
"Protego!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"Accio Wand!"
In short succession a shield went up, and Ginny felt her wand fly out of her hand. She managed to twist her hand at the last second so it wouldn't fly straight at the bullies, but it didn't matter in the end. All three Ravenclaws were standing now. Even worse, they were obviously more advanced than Ginny thought - they were casting those spells with ease and confidence. Her wand took a sharp turn in mid-air and flew right into the bully's waiting hand.
Ginny kept her head high and her lip firm as she eyed the three girls, wandless and terrified. She wouldn't let them see how scared she was.
"Hey, Olivia, isn't this the girl who fainted on the train like Potter?" The ringleader, Kim, said to the redhead.
"Yeah, I think it is! What was her name, again?"
"She's obviously a Weasley - look at her clothes, and her hair! She sticks out like a sore thumb, with her bright red hair and shabby hand-me-downs."
"I think her name was Gin-or-Jen-something. Virginia? Jennifer?"
"Does it really matter?" The third girl, Felicity finally spoke up. "She's sticking up for Loony - she's obviously crazy as well!"
The three girls loomed over, imposing and menacing. They'd been slowly advancing as they spoke, and now they surrounded her. Ginny's chest constricted as they taunted her, as their words flew in her face and stripped her down. She didn't know if they did it on purpose, but their words cut deeper than they knew.
Olivia snapped "Ginny! Her name is Ginny! Her brothers are the Weasley twins, and I remember them talking about her at the Welcome Feast. They were soooo worried about their ickle baby sister, Ginny!"
Felicity sneered at her "What were you so scared of, baby? Did the big, bad dementors make you cry? What's a scaredy cat like you doing hexing us? There's no way you'd be Gryffindor enough for that if our backs hadn't been turned!"
"Little baby Gin-gin, crying all the time. Fainting at dementors and casting from behind!" Kim sing-songed at her. Felicity and Olivia cackled together, an ugly grating sound against Ginny's ears.
She felt hemmed in as the girls towered above her, larger than life. Her breathing was coming faster now, in short sharp breaths, and she could hear the thrum of her heartbeat as it picked up pace. The fear made sweat drip down her back in slow rivulets. Her memory flashed to the last time she'd been laying on the ground with an enemy peering down at her from above; Dementors. Tom. It took all her focus, but she stayed in the present. She let the bullies cutting remarks wound her deeply as she listened to every single word, tried to separate them from the sentence they were in and desensitize herself to them, in an attempt to keep herself under control.
As the taunted and jeered, the three girls blurred together until Ginny could no longer tell who said what, or who was her. She retreated into herself as they send a verbal onslaught against her, and she weathered it all, counting each word until the storm was over.
But finally, something they said broke through her haze of intense focus and control to bring her up short.
"She's not a very good Gryffindor, is she? She'd make a much better Slytherin, always fainting, and sneaking."
I'm not like Tom, I'm not like Tom, I'm not like Tom. Ginny repeated this mantra to herself over and over, but she felt the water stinging at her eyes as she stared up at them. She looked past them, to Luna's form on the ground. They locked eyes, and Ginny could see how Luna wanted to come to her rescue. But it would just be both of them being tormented if Luna did anything to stand up for herself. Ginny pleaded with her eyes, begged Luna to just let it go.
Luna's face broke, and tears welled in her friend's eyes as well, but Luna stayed on the ground where she was.
"What's an ickle cry baby doing standing up for someone like Loony, huh?"
"Oooh, oooh, maybe they really are dating!"
"Yuck, who'd want to date Loony?"
"Maybe they're both crazy! But if they're dating" Olivia smirked "then they should have cute nicknames for each other. Loony is Loony, obviously, because she's nuts just like her dad. But what's ickle Gin-gin's name, hmm?"
"Cry baby?"
"Scaredy cat?"
"Wanna-be Slytherin?"
"No, no, no. Look at the poor thing shaking! She's not just scared, girls, she's terrified! I bet she looked just like this when she saw the Dementor. Sitting there shaking, and quivering, and jittering."
"That's IT! Look at little Ginny Jitters!"
"Aw, come on, Jitters, don't you like your nickname? We all know it's true!"
Cackling, mocking, jarring laughter echoed around her, and the two voices came back with a fury, they warred in her head again. She closed her eyes to try and block it out, but she couldn't escape the voices in her head any better than she could escape the voices of her tormentors as they cornered her.
They're right. You're just a scared, stupid, weak little girl. You ARE little Ginny Jitters, and you're useless. You should just give up.
HOW DARE THEY?! Burn them, tear them, rip them! Shred them to pieces! Pull them apart and make sure they're never put together again! Worthless, shrieking banshees, demolish them!
Both voices sounded just like Tom.
Both voices sounded just like her.
"FURNUNCULUS!" was the shout that accompanied a sharp, sudden burst of pain across her brow and down her cheeks.
"Don't you ignore us, Jitters! Maybe when you look in the mirror, and see your ugly mug, it'll remind you to pay attention when we're talking to you!"
The three girls walked away then, giggling to each other. Leaving her there, sobbing on the ground with painful spots all across her face, like she was nothing more than trash. Her despair only a momentary diversion in the drama of their lives.
With one last wracking sob, she tore her eyes away from the three older girls as they sauntered off, and back towards Luna. They locked eyes, and Ginny crawled over to her friend. Ginny grasped Luna in her arms arms and pulled her in close for a tight hug.
It was the first hug Ginny had in over a year that didn't leave her terrified.
"Why?!" Ginny hissed in her friend's ear. "Why didn't you tell me?!"
Luna's voice was wasn't strained. It wasn't raspy from crying, it wasn't harsh from shouting. It was as serene as ever, calming and smooth, but ever so much softer than normal as she murmured.
"I told you already; it's nice to have a friend. I didn't want to lose you."
Ginny grasped her tighter, then. "Never, Luna. You'll never lose me. Never again. I won't let you be alone. I won't let you handle those three alone."
"There's more. They're the worst, but there are so many more."
"I won't let you handle any of it alone. Okay?"
The pause was longer than Ginny would have liked.
"Okay."