It was funny how Ginny suddenly became an instant celebrity
as the news of what she had done to Draco spread throughout the school. On the way down to breakfast that first
morning, she was constantly being pounded on the back and yells of "Nice work!"
followed her.
Ginny was tired after last night's celebration, and frankly,
a bit nervous about starting her day.
Hermione passed her the sixth year schedule and Ginny nearly choked on
her bacon as she read it.
Harry placed a comforting arm around her as he read over her
shoulder. "It'll be alright, Ginny," he
said. Ron, noticing how pale she had
become, suddenly stood up and walked over to where the two largest boys in her
year were. They were first cousins,
named John and Paul, and "large" was the really nice way of describing
them. Both boys would make Crabbe and
Goyle look like house-elves. Ron said
something to them rather quickly and then sat back down next to Hermione
looking rather pleased with himself. He
winked at Harry.
"Don't worry about any of the Slytherins, Gin," he told her
as he began buttering toast. "I got
them taken care of."
"What did you do?" Ginny demanded. But before he could answer, two owls landed right in the center
of the table. One owl was Hermes, Percy's
owl. The other owl was Errol, the
Weasley family owl who was barely even able to stand as he leaned on Hermes for
support. Both owls had several letters
tied to their legs, holding them out for Ginny. She immediately scanned through them, looking for a red envelope
that meant a Howler. None of them were.
The first letter was from Percy.
Percy
"THAT'S ALL?" Ron
exclaimed as he read the letter. "That's
all the prig has to say? 'Do try to
behave?' I don't believe it!"
Ginny was rather amazed herself. If anyone was going to send her a Howler, it would have been Percy. Tossing the letter aside, she opened the
next one.
Our little sister has finally grown up! We are so proud of you! Love-Gred and Forge.
Ginny couldn't keep back the small grin as she read their
note. Those two could always cheer her
up. Knowing who the final letter was
from, she could barely manage to open it, her fingers trembled so. Harry had to do the honors for her.
Try to keep your older brother out of trouble, dearest. Love, Mum.
Ron nearly fell out of his seat when he read that. "Reckon she didn't know how to deal with you
getting in trouble and thought best to pretend it didn't happen," he said,
staring at the letter in utter shock. "We'd
never get away with something like that," he said with a hint of jealously in
his voice. Harry chuckled next to her. Ginny blushed as she realized he still had
his arm around her, his hand resting on her waist.
She absently poked the food around on her plate, thinking
about how to survive the next few hours.
Having a class with the Slytherins was bad enough, did she have to have
Potions who was taught by their house leader?
Ginny stole a quick glance at the table where the Slytherins were
sitting. Malfoy wasn't there. Pansy Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle and a few of
Malfoy's friends were giving her the nastiest looks imaginable. Ginny turned away, refusing to let them see
how upset she was.
"Don't let them bother you," Harry whispered in her ear,
seeing where her eyes had wandered. "They'll
get over it. We'll make sure of it." Ginny smiled at the tone in his voice. He sounded like he'd enjoy nothing more than
making them "get over it." Always the
hero.
Harry gave her hand one last squeeze as they got up to head
towards their classes. "We'll see you
at lunch, ok?" Hermione called after
her. Ginny noticed Ron nod across the
table. She tried to follow his gaze to
see what he was up to, but lost whomever it was in the shuffle.
Heading down to the dungeons was relatively uneventful,
surprising since she knew for a fact that she'd be running into
Slytherins. But no one seemed to even
bother her, especially when she noticed that both John and Paul were right
behind her. She looked around her;
there was a small circle of Gryffindors surrounding her.
Inside the dungeons, Ginny took her normal seat in the back
of the room. She had learned from
experience that it was better not to gain the attentions of the Potions Master,
and for one with the brightest red hair in existence, it was best to be as far
as one could possibly be. John and Paul
took seats on either side of her, with Colin Creevey and a few of the other
Gryffindors taking seats around her.
The Slytherins couldn't even see her.
Ginny held her breath when Snape reached her name when taking roll,
knowing for sure that he would make some sort of nasty comment, but he merely
called out "Weasley?" and went on to the next name. She then knew she was a goner when the potion she was supposed to
be making turned a bright blue instead of the muddy brown it should be. Her hands were shaking so badly that another
bezoar had slipped from her fingers.
"Do be careful, Miss Weasley," Snape said walking by her cauldron. Ginny frowned. Why didn't he yell at her?
He had just told off Colin Creevy because his potion was too thick! What was going on? The rest of Ginny's day passed by the same way. Her professors treated her like nothing had
happened, although her classmates did continue to whisper congratulations to
her and give her the thumbs up sign behind the teachers' backs. John and Paul dogged her to every class, one
on each side of her as if they were her personal bodyguards; letting up only
when she was in the presence of Harry or Ron.
To make things worse, the Creevey brothers had started
passing around Ginny For President buttons that would change to Don't
Piss Her Off! By the end of the
day, Ginny's temper was on a short leash.
"If you don't make them back off, I swear I'll give you
worse than what Malfoy got!" Ginny nearly screamed at Harry and Ron as she
walked into the common room, John and Paul on her heels. She was so mad, she was shaking.
Harry and Ron, who were playing chess gaped at her. Even the chess pieces looked up in
astonishment.
"I'm serious!" Ginny
roared.
Harry slowly got up to his feet, almost as if he was afraid
of her. "We're sorry, Ginny," he said
in a low tone. "I'll tell them to leave
you alone if that's what you want."
"We were just worried about you," Ron added in the same tone
that Harry was using.
Ginny nodded, suddenly aware of how quiet it had become in
the room. Everyone was staring at her
in mild degrees of shock. Feeling
suddenly very self conscious, she whispered a goodnight and went upstairs to
bed. Maybe things would be better
tomorrow.
********************************
Things did not get better.
Hermione had managed to get rid of the buttons, and Harry and Ron
stopped having her followed, but those were the only good things that happened. Malfoy finally made an appearance during
breakfast that next Monday because Madam Pomfrey refused to keep him in the
hospital since he wasn't actually sick.
The rosy blush to Malfoy's cheeks and cherry lips were still highly
noticeable. His hair had to be stuffed
under a hat, since the locks would immediately grow back if cut with
scissors. The hat wasn't completely
effective, however, because the curls constantly found a way to pop back out,
causing the hat to fly off. Ron and
Harry delighted in telling Ginny that even Snape had commented on her
"handiwork". Malfoy's hat popped off
during a Potions class, landing in Crabbe's cauldron and splashing the contents
all over. Snape then warned Malfoy that
"if you can't keep those pretty curls under control, you're going to have to
serve detention." Snape had to take
twenty points from the Gryffindors before they calmed down.
Ginny soon learned that as a sixth year student, classes
became harder than ever. McGonagall's
Transfiguration homework was relentless now that they had started to work on
animal transfiguration and Professor Flitwick had them all practicing the more
complicated charms (not that she didn't already know a few good ones, the tiny
professor winked at her). Hagrid's Care
of Magical Creatures included new animals such as Mokes, Jarveys, and
Jobberknolls, and they all had to regularly take notes on each of these
creatures during different times of the day.
As the month of September rolled on, Ginny started to notice
how differently her professors treated her from the other students. They all treated her as if she was made of
glass, or a time bomb that was set to go off any moment. It explained why Snape never got nasty when
she messed up in Potions, or why McGonagall didn't say anything about her rock
that was supposed to have been transfigured into a turtle, but Ginny had only
managed to have a rock with a pretty shell.
She knew she wasn't doing her normal sort of work in class, she was
actually quite good in both Potions and Transfiguration, but she couldn't
figure out why she was being treated so differently.
Her friends treated her differently as well. She would constantly find Harry, Ron and
Hermione staring at her with concerned expressions. Sometimes they would gaze at her as if they didn't know her
anymore, which she found quite unnerving.
Ron, being Ron, finally commented on what was bothering them.
"You look sick," he said bluntly one evening as they were
all sitting at a table working on homework.
"Like you've been kissed by a Dementor or something." Hermione and Harry frowned at his choice of
words, but didn't comment otherwise.
Ginny didn't need her brother to tell her she looked awful,
she knew she did. A month of sleepless
nights and endless homework had affected her body. She had lost an enormous amount of weight, her robes hung loosely
as if she were a child walking around in its mother's clothing. Her skin was sallow and colorless, blue
veins and yellow splotches crisscrossed themselves throughout her skin, as
though she was suffering from some dreaded disease. Her bright brown eyes no longer possessed any trace of spark, and
became faded and bloodshot. Even her
red hair, something that she had always considered her best feature, no longer
held the shine and luster it once had and hung limply down her back. She didn't need Ron to tell her what she
looked like, the snickers and whispers behind her back from her classmates
would give it away.
"I'm just tired, Ron.
That's all," she sighed.
"You've been having nightmares ever since you got here,"
Hermione said softly. "One of your roommates
told me."
Ginny sighed. It was
true, her nightmares were now nightly events and she would wake up sweating and
shaking, never quite remembering what she had seen, only a pair of red
snake-like eyes. Ron and Harry looked
even more anxious and concerned at this bit of information and frankly, Ginny
was getting very sick of those looks.
"I'm fine!" she snapped, causing everyone to jerk. Ginny closed her eyes and opened them, "I'm
fine," she repeated more softly. "I'm
just sick of school, that's all." She
looked at them again, seeing that they weren't convinced. "I'm going to bed," she finally said, slamming
her Transfiguration book shut and gathering her things together.
Harry caught up to her at the stairs leading up to her
dormitory. "Wait a minute Ginny!" Ginny stopped and turned, for once in her
life, sick at the sight of Harry Potter.
Why couldn't she be left alone?
"What?" she said harshly,
looking down at him from two steps above.
Harry paused for a second, his jaw working silently. "Goodnight," he said finally.
"Goodnight, Harry," she said.
*****************
As Ginny lay in her bed that night, the curtains pulled
tightly around her, she tried to stay awake by reflecting on her first years at
Hogwarts. She was so excited to finally
be going to school with her brothers, especially Ron, whom she idolized. Ron had told her all about his new friend
Harry Potter, the boy whose name she could pronounce before she learned to say
her own, and Harry even came to spend the rest of the summer with them right
before school started. Ginny smiled to
herself as she remembered how different Harry was from her own imaginations of
some tall, handsome boy like those described in the muggle fairy-tales her
father adored. The real Harry
Potter was short, skinny, pale, and wore glasses that showed off a pair of
gorgeous green eyes. She found him
fascinating.
It wasn't easy growing up as the youngest and only girl in a
family of seven children. Ginny had to
live with being the one who was constantly teased, tortured, and harassed. It was one of the reasons that her and Ron
were close as children—besides being only a year apart—they banded themselves
together against the twins, who were the source of the relentless teasing. She was so lonely when he left for Hogwarts,
and it hurt when she realized that Ron no longer wanted to play with her; he
had other friends to hang out with at school.
Ginny thought that would change when she arrived—it didn't. At Hogwarts, she was alone, scared, and
friendless. Ginny had never been around
other girls her age before and didn't know how to talk to them. The girls in her year didn't like her
because she was so shy and silent. In
retrospect, Ginny felt it was easy to see how she became involved in the
Chamber of Secrets. The man in the
diary was the only one she could talk to, the only one who understood where she
was coming from. Tom Riddle was her own
personal friend that she could carry around with her; he would always be there
to listen to her. And so she poured out
her heart and soul to him and he kept the pieces for himself, using her to hurt
Harry. She was young and foolish,
desperate for any sign of friendship, never realizing the consequences of her
actions.
Ginny shivered as she turned over under the warm
covers. She remembered how terrified
she was when she first came to the conclusion that she was the one who
was doing all those terrible things to everyone. Ginny had never felt so trapped before. She was scared to tell the Headmaster, what if she was
expelled? Fred and George probably
wouldn't have believed her if she went to them, "Ha, ha! That's a good one there, Gin," they'd say
laughing. She couldn't tell her
parents, they would be so disappointed in her—"Don't trust things unless you
can see where it keeps its brain!" And of course she'd never tell Ron and
Harry, what would the famous, good, great Harry Potter think of her if he knew
she was evil?
After that first year, Ginny noticed how differently her
family treated her. Going from the one
that everyone picked on to the one that everyone had to look after was not a good
change. Ron resented her presence when
she would trail behind him, Harry and Hermione. If she tried to hang around Fred and George, they would only pick
at her even more and Percy was too busy being Head Boy to pay her any attention
and would snap at her to go find the others.
It wasn't until the return of Voldemort in her fourth year that Ginny
finally became accepted again as a sister and a friend. Ron, probably out of a bit of guilt for not
being there when she needed him, practically insisted that she join his circle
of friends. Actually his words were,
"Ginny, I want you to start hanging around me, Harry and Hermione so we can
keep an eye out for you. Things are
different now."
Ron was right.
Things are different, in many ways. With the Ministry of Magic in shambles and Voldemort in power,
things were very different from the life that she had previously enjoyed. Laughter sounded harsh and forced in the
streets of Diagon Alley. No one could
trust anyone any more as everyone was suspected of working for Voldemort. The Dark Mark was a constant reminder of
what was going on; it flashed almost nightly in the sky, signaling another
death. The Daily Prophet, of course,
kept the news on the quiet so information had to be passed along by word of
mouth and through owls.
Ginny rolled over, peeking through the curtains at her
bedside clock. 5:45am. She could stay awake for another hour. She had to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Ok, so this
chapter is radically different from the original. In fact, only the last part where Ginny tried to stay awake was
kept. This is also the part that
inspired me to write "Dear Tom…"
I'm so glad that everyone seems to like this version better.
And I'm so happy to see that I've
picked up a few new reviewers as well. Thanks
for reading and reviewing, you guys are the best!
GinnyPotter: I'm so
glad you got chapter 25 of HP and the Dark Lord up! Everyone go read that if
you haven't already!
Oh, and I just have to tell everyone to go read w&m_law's
"Heart in Hand." It's a D/G fic, and if
that wasn't enough, she's going to pair Harry with Pansy Parkinson, and she's making
this actually work!!!! The Queen of H/G
is absolutely shocked! I'm serious
though, it's really good as is her other stories, once you get over the fact
that it's Harry and Pansy….I'm just teasing you Amy! : )
