Author Note: Episode Date April 4th 1997
Ginny was sitting in the common room of the open ward she had been reassigned to in the hospital. She had been responding to the therapy and treatment for the years of disruption in her mind. Lingering effects from the possession as well as the tampering by Pettigrew, aka Scabbers had been found by Legilemens. The fact that a wizard who was supposed to be dead had been inside her head multiple times over several years after his apparent death was being forwarded to the DMLE. Her father had said it might at least help exonerate Sirius Black, even if it would only be posthumously.
She was not sure how she felt about that. Good she supposed that her sickness would help harry clear his Godfather's name. The only problem was that the tampering had managed to grow and develop inside her head with parts of the lingering spirit of Riddle into a creature she had begun to call the Whisperman. Because he would whisper bad things into her head while she was asleep, only she had begun to hear him while she was awake too just before Christmas. That's why she had attacked her mum when she had interfered in taking Harry for herself.
Ginny sighed as she had not heard whisperman for several days. The lingering bits of Riddle had been removed, apparently her brother and his friends had not managed to remove all of it in Egypt. She wasn't angry with them as they had tried their best. The healers at Saint Mungos though had specialized in possession they had told her. Whisperman though was part of her own psyche. Which made it far more difficult to remove him. That was the goal though.
Whisperman made her confused and angry and want to hurt others if she didn't get her way. She didn't like that. She was still feeling guilty for what Riddle had used her to do to her friends and the others at school. She was doing better but she still needed help.
"Ginny? Can I speak to you for a few minutes?" She heard Healer Masterson call to her. She liked him. He was a very nice, tall dark haired man. He reminded her of her dad. Plus he had the same name as her oldest brother.
"Sure thing Healer Bill." She said using the nickname he allowed the teen residents to use.
Stepping to the side with the nurse's station not far away the two of them sat at a pair of chairs that were angled towards each other. The healer held a folded piece of parchment. "So Ginny you remember when you wrote a letter to Harry Potter?"
She sighed before nodding, "Yeah. I do."
"Okay well he wrote you back. Now how do you feel about it?" He asked carefully.
Ginny licked her lips as she tried to calm down, a part of her wanted to rip the letter from him and read it. See what Harry had written to her. She knew though that it probably wouldn't be that he loved her like she wanted. She wanted to throw it away if he didn't love her. He loved Hermione not Ginny. But she still wanted to hear from him. She wanted to be his friend and wanted him to be her friend too. Whisperman had
"Ginny?" Healer Bill had asked softly.
"I'm not sure." She honestly said. "I want to read it though. I want to see what he says."
"Okay. Now I've read it, your parents had given us permission to read your mail to make sure nothing would upset you. He mentions Hermione in it, will that be a problem?"
Ginny considered how she felt. She felt the stirrings of jealousy and anger at the mention of her name in connection with harry but she pushed it down. "I think I'm okay. I felt a little bit of anger and jealousy though."
"Well you managed to control it very nicely. You're doing a good job. So do you think you can read this?"he said holding the parchment out to her.
She took a deep breath and with a shakey hand took it.
"Now remember if it gets too hard, or you start getting overwhelmed we can stop." The healer reminded her.
Ginny nodded as she unfolded the parchment and saw Harry's sloppy casual scrawl meandering across the page in one long drawn out monologue. Each word looking like it was trying to escape the paragraph it was part of.
Dear Ginny, I was not sure how to do this, or what to say. I'm not usually very good at expressing my feelings, especially in a letter. I talked to your parents and asked them if they felt you were well enough to hear from me as I didn't want to see you get hurt. They said you were doing much better so I should write to you. So here it is. I'm not sure what to say other than I'm not angry at you. And I don't pity you either. I know how it can be to have Tom in your head, and Pettigrew did that to you too. So Hermione says I should explain to you how I feel about you. Molly and Arthur agree so that we can build on things from a position of honesty they say. I am not entirely sure how I feel about you Ginny or how to say some of it so I'll just say it. Arthur told me they read your post so they'll erase anything I say badly I hope. I care about you Ginny, but more like a sister I guess. I've never had a sister so I'm not sure what that feels like. My family doesn't approve of openly having feelings. I know it feels different when I think about you than it does when I think about Hermione though. If that makes sense. I hope that doesn't hurt you but Hermione said I should be honest. And she's going to read this before I send it to make sure I don't sound too much like a gibbering idiot. So we can thank her later for that. I really would like us to remain friends though and be part of each other's lives but not the way you want me to be. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. I like you and I feel happy around you but not in a way that makes me want to make babies with you. Molly said you seem to be over that obsession with me but still I want to make sure you understand my feelings. None of us are angry at you or want to stop being your friend. We miss you. And I know you'll fly again, you're a strong person and will come back from this. All you have to do is work with the healers. Your spot on the team will still be there when you're ready. So please get better, I need a good seeker on my team. Cormac is tolerable but if we could use his ego to power a broom we could fly to the moon. Well I don't know what else to say right now so I'll finish this letter and just say that I hope you're feeling better and that I didn't hurt you. Take care. Your friend, Harry.
Ginny had managed to read the entire letter without breaking down. It had come close a few times, especially when he mentioned Hermione. She looked up at the healer who had been quietly watching her, "Did you erase anything?"
Healer Masterson shook his head with a smile, "Amazingly enough we actually don't censor the post as much as people might think. Only if its something especially damaging or inflammatory do we do so. But I agree with him that you need to know how he honestly feels. So you can understand how your feelings affect him. And how his affect you."
Ginny folded the parchment back up, "Can I keep this?"
Masterson smiled, "Of course you can. Its your post you know."
Ginny sighed, "Thanks."
"So you wanna talk about this?"
"Can we do so in a few minutes. I wanna. I wanna think about it." She said tapping the folded parchment.
"Okay. You ask Nurse Noel to page me when you're ready and we'll sit and talk. I'll go visit with a few of the other guests here." He said giving her a warm smile.
Ginny sighed as she sorted out her feelings.
Review Replies
jadesabrexiv: Thank you. Hermione is shaping up to be the team mom somewhat. She will listen, talk, help and when required end the absolute life of someone who messes with her team. As for Ginny oh yeah. Going into her mind with Telepathy would be an interesting and fantastic journey through a pain filled landscape. But she'll get better. Better being a relative term.
OfficerDonNZ: Thank you then. I wanted to make Ginny's actions be understandable and from a position where she is not the bad guy. Too many stories (Even some of my own I admit) put her in the position of wanting Harry for selfish reasons or for just plain greed. I wanted to explore in this story the idea of what would happen with a young girl's crush, couple with a possession by a dark spirit, and tampering by outside forces, stirred and allowed to simmer for several years be. So she is supposed to be sympathetic. As for Harry's letter reply I tried to show that he's a teen male with conflicting thoughts and feelings who lacks the capacity to express them as eloquently as he might, even with two intelligent females hovering over his shoulder while he writes the letter. I'm not sure I managed that one as nicely as I wanted but my wife says its good. So I trust her so it is good. Lol. And oh yeah. I bet Harry plays mainly for the thrill of flying too. If I could get a broom or sky cycle or whatever that flew like that I'd play whatever crazy game you wanted to play to have an excuse to fly. I'm sure Harry does too.