(A/N) My sincerest apologies for not getting this out sooner. I know some of you have been impatient for the next installment, and I'll try and be more prompt after this.
"You take that back!"
Ginny lifted her head, distracted for a moment from Tom. Colin Creevey was standing in front of a Hufflepuff boy who was about three times his size. His round little face was pink. "You take that back!"
"Why?" the Hufflepuff boy said, putting his hands on his hips. "S'only the truth."
"Is not!" Colin's face was bright red now. "He couldn't be!"
Who couldn't be what? But then Ginny thought, Harry, of course.
"He's not! He's not! He's not the Heir of Slytherin!" Colin was roaring now, the volume incredible coming from that tiny little body. The entire class was staring, and Ginny almost hit herself in the forehead. The idiot!
"He was standing right in front of that cat, and the wall--bet you there was red paint under his fingernails, if anyone had thought to check!"
"If you say one more word," Colin squeaked, doubling up his fists (which could have fit whole into one of the Hufflepuff boy's nostrils) "I'll--I'll--I'll punch you in the mouth!"
There was a moment of silence, as the two combatants glared at each other. It was faintly ludicrous--Colin's head reached to about the other boy's waist. They were never to find out if Colin would have survived the encounter, because just then Professor Flitwick rushed in.
"What's this? What's this? Not fighting, are we, boys?"
"Professor Flitwick, he--"
"I was just--"
"--said that Harry Potter was--"
"--telling the truth, everyone's saying it--"
"--the Heir of Slytherin and he's not! Tell him he's not, Professor!"
"He is, and I'll--"
Professor Flitwick looked as if he wanted to have the argument over with. "Hush, hush, hush! It's past time for class to start! Sit down, sit down--"
"But Professor--!"
"Sit down, Mister Creevey, sit down, I say! This is not the place! You may work it out on your own time!"
Colin sat down slowly, his face still bright red from shouting, his chin stuck out so far she could have shelved books on it. Ginny poked him, hard.
"What?" he hissed, turning on her. Then he blinked at seeing who it was. She'd never spoken to him before.
"Are you that stupid?" she hissed back. "Can you really be that much of an idiot? What was all that screaming about?"
"I was defending him!" Colin growled. "Which is more than I saw you doing, even though your own brother's his very best friend in the whole world--"
"You numbskull, you've just made it worse!"
"What d'you mean, worse? I was standing up for him!"
"You made a big--bloody scene is what you did!" The situation merited some bad language, she felt, and besides, Mum wasn't here to hiss at her. "Nobody would have paid attention to that Hufflepuff if you hadn't taken him seriously!"
It was something she'd learned from Fred and George. Make a loud scene of denial, and people started reasoning that where there was smoke there was fire. Laugh someone out of the room, and you did more to undercut their assertions than any amount of screaming and yelling.
"Someone had to! Someone had to tell him--"
"Mister Creevey! One more word out of you, and it will mean detention!" Professor Flitwick had his hands on his hips, and he was scowling darkly. "And the same to you, Miss Weasley! I mean it!"
Ginny, who had never yet seen the little Charms professor grow angry, clamped her mouth shut. Colin, apparently bested by the threat of detention (from Flitwick, yet!) did the same.
But Ginny's mood, as they practiced their Levitation charms, didn't improve. At the beginning of the year, she had been disposed to like Colin. He had wonderful taste in heroes, after all.
But then when she saw how it embarrassed Harry to be so blatantly worshipped, her opinion had fallen. Really, didn't Colin realize? Signed photos--following him all over--practically having an apoplexy at the thrill of speaking to him--honestly! Ginny acknowledged to herself that she was a sad case, but at least she wasn't obvious.
Not very.
Not too much.
Well--not as obvious as Colin! Because honestly, he was about as subtle as a short plank to the back of the skull.
At the end of the class, as people were gathering up their bags and trying to coax feathers down from the ceiling, Colin whispered, "Hey! Ginny!"
She looked over her shoulder. "What?" she asked coldly.
His expression was sheepish. "I--I reckon maybe you're right. I prob'ly shouldn't have made a scene. Sorry about--um--yelling, and all that." He held out his hand to shake. "Friends?"
Her dark mood shivered and wavered. Maybe--maybe if he was her friend, she could talk him out of taking all those pictures, and embarrassing Harry all the time--
"All--all right," she said hesitantly.
He grinned at her. "Want to go eat? I'm starved."
She smiled back. "All right."
Over lunch, he told her about his family. "I've got two little brothers, Dennis and Nigel," he said with his mouth full, "and a little sister, Myra. She 'n' Nige're twins. I'm the oldest."
"I'm the youngest," she said. "It's horrible."
"S'not so great being the oldest, either," he grumbled. "Always have to take care of everyone--"
"Never being allowed to do anything that everyone else is doing--"
"Have to set an example--" Colin sighed and swallowed a current bun whole. He washed it down with a fantastic chug of pumpkin juice, then burped. She hit his knuckles with a chicken bone.
"You remind me of Myra," he told her. "She would've done that too. She was a surprise. Mum and Dad weren't wanting to have any more kids than three. Well, Nige was born and then--there was Myra! She didn't show up on the sonograms or anything--"
"What's a sonogram?"
"It's a sort of machine for looking at unborn babies," Colin explained with his mouth full.
"Oh, you mean like an Infansmira Charm?"
"You can do that with magic?"
"Oh, yeah." Imagine doing that by machine! Ginny tried to picture it and shuddered.
"Wow." Colin shook his head. "Bet it's better than the ones we have. Like I said, it didn't show Myra, so when Mum went into the hospital and out she came--bit of a shock for them. And a girl, too--there hasn't been a girl in our part of the family for about fifty years. . . . All my aunts and uncles said she was going to be spoiled rotten, a total brat."
"Is she?"
"A little, but she's really a good sort, is Myra. Likes sport a lot, and she always wins the burping contests."
Ginny shrugged. Burping contests were nothing new to her--Ron was the current champion in her family, although she'd come within seconds of tying him the last time. "Mum says any girl with a lot of brothers learns how to take care of herself." She made a face. "Bet none of them ever had brothers like mine, though."
He looked at her in surprise. "I like your brothers," he said. "Fred and George are really funny, and Percy's always looking after you."
"What about Ron?" she challenged.
He shrugged. "He must be a good sort too, or Harry wouldn't like him."
That much was true, Ginny had to admit.
"Hey!" Colin exclaimed, his mouth falling open so wide that she could see the remains of the last current bun. "D'you reckon my brothers and Myra're wizards too?"
"It's possible," she allowed.
"Wow! Then they'll get to come here and see all this stuff--this is fantastic, living here. I have to pinch myself every morning to make sure it's true. That's why I take all those pictures," he confided, unembarrassed. "I send 'em home. Myra really liked the Quidditch pictures. Reckon she'd be good at it? Like Harry?"
She didn't know his sister; she couldn't say. "Maybe."
It was rather nice to have a friend. It was someone to eat with who wasn't Percy, at least. Tom was a little leery--He probably wants to use you to get closer to Harry Potter, Ginny--but she laughed at that. She was at least as removed from Harry as Colin was, if not more. Depressingly, he barely seemed to know she was alive. (Harry, not Colin. Colin certainly knew.) At any rate, there was no chance anyone could use her to get to him.
However, it was a little embarrassing to be around Colin if Harry was around too--the camera clicked double-time, as Colin's entire body vibrated with excitement. Ginny was usually so busy blushing for him that she forgot to do more than a little mooning of her own.
"He's not a superhero or anything," she tried to explain to Colin on the morning of the first Quidditch match of the year. "He visited my house over the summer. He's really regular--hates broccoli and left his socks inside-out and everything. All the rest is just sort of--bonus."
"He visited you? You're so lucky," Colin breathed.
Ginny couldn't decide whether to hit him or herself. But she couldn't blame him--Harry's story was like something right out of a fairy tale.
She was caught up for a moment, as they walked to the Quidditch pitch, in a lovely pink-tinged daydream starring Harry on a white horse, and herself the lovelorn princess in the tower. Naturally, he rescued her from her foul imprisonment and as he gently lifted her onto his horse (which was quite docile and well-behaved and didn't smell at all) he said . . . he said . . .
"Looks like rain, d'you think?"
She snapped back to reality to see Ron just in front of her, squinting up at the sky.
"Harry can play in rain," Hermione told him, unruffled. "They've been practicing at all sorts of mad times, you know that."
So much for daydreams.
Colin took a picture of her, and she shrieked. "Stop that!"
"Kidding," he grinned. "I'm just excited." They'd had to pause in the milling crowd at the base of the stairs up to the stands. He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. "Never--" bounce "--seen--" bounce "--a proper--" bounce "Quidditch match--" bounce "--before."
She giggled. "It's fun. My relatives had a game at the family reunion two years ago. It went on for a week."
"A whole week? D'you think that'll happen here? Would we get to miss classes? Wow!"
"Colin, calm down!"
But once they got up into the stands, she was just as excited as Colin. They'd managed somehow to grab a seat at the front, where they could actually see, and she screamed and jumped up and down when the players marched out onto the field. Colin's camera clicked madly beside her.
Several minutes into the match, she noticed something that made her brows draw together. "Colin," she muttered. "Colin!"
He got another shot. "What?"
Her pinky finger slipped into her mouth, and she nibbled anxiously at the nail. "That Bludger--the one Harry just ducked--does it seem as if--it's aiming?"
"Aren't they supposed to do that?"
"No! They're supposed to knock anyone out who's closest, not follow someone around!" Ginny cringed as it narrowly missed Harry again, and moved on to her ring-finger nail. Fred and George were trying to keep it off him, but there were enough near misses to make her completely forget her resolution not to bite her nails.
After several hair-raising minutes, the captain called a time-out and Ginny squinted at the team. The captain, Fred, George, and Harry all seemed to be embroiled in some kind of argument. She hoped, ferociously, that her brothers were being told to keep that ruddy Bludger away from him.
Then they kicked off again, and to her horror, her brothers zoomed off in the opposite direction from Harry. She lost her head completely, leaning out over the rail to screech, "What d'you think you're doing? Get back there, you idiots! Get back there!"
She was hauled back from the railing by the back of her robe, and she turned around, snarling, to see Ron scowling at her. "Don't do that, stupid! Mum'd have our head if you fell off the Quidditch stands!"
She stomped on his foot and turned back around to see Harry swing completely around his broom to avoid the Bludger. "Colin! Did you see that!"
"Yeah! Got a great picture of it, too!"
Ginny wasn't even focused on the game, for maybe the first time in her life. She was too busy watching Harry. "Oh! No, don't--watch out! Ouuuhhh!"
"Er, Ginny? You're--uh--hurting my arm."
Ginny looked down, then pried her fingers off Colin's wrist. The white outline of her fingers on his skin slowly turned red. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"S'all right," he said, flexing his wrist once or twice. "I imagine I'll be able to feel my hand again in a few days."
At that moment, Ron and Hermione both yelled, "Harry, don't--"
Ginny's head shot up, just in time for her to see the Bludger slam into Harry's elbow, with a sickening crunch. "Oh!"
He reeled, but somehow stayed on his broom. But he was only hanging onto it with one hand, the other hanging very strangely at his side. It looked just like the time George had run into a tree on his broomstick, and Ginny knew, with a horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, that it was broken.
"Get to the ground, Harry, get to the ground!" she shrieked. The longer he was up there, the more chance the Bludger would have to go after him again, and one broken arm was quite enough for one day.
It was almost as if he'd heard her, for suddenly he hunched over his broomstick into a steep dive--
"Not that way!" Had his glasses gotten knocked off? He was going to run right into Malfoy!
She was only half-aware of the way the screams and cheers from her fellow Gryffindors were doubling and redoubling.
"He's going to ram him!" Ron howled delightedly. "Yeah, run him over, Harry!"
Furious at his lack of care for his best friend's health, Ginny stomped on his foot.
"Owwwwww, what was that for?"
"His arm's broken, you silly fool!"
"It what? But--"
"Ron! He's got the Snitch!" Hermione squealed. "Look, he's got the Snitch! And--ohmygod--"
Ginny spun around. Harry was just collapsing into a heap of robes on the ground.
In all her life, she'd never known Ron to move so fast. He was halfway down the stairs before she could even lift one foot, Hermione close behind.
"Come on, Colin, come on!"
They thundered across the Quidditch pitch several paces behind her brother and Hermione, dodging the Slytherin team, which was trying to land on them. Colin was yelping, "Myra's going to love this!"
Harry was still out cold, barely moving. Ron was trying to wake him up, and Hermione was nattering about some spell she couldn't quite remember. Ginny turned desperately. "Would somebody please--? Anybody!"
At that moment, she learned why you should be careful what you wish for. Professor Lockhart stampeded past her, glowing with the hope of attention. He shoved Ron aside to bend over Harry, and her brother thumped to his bum on the muddy ground. He glared fiercely at Lockhart, who didn't seem to notice.
Harry blinked once or twice, then groaned. "Oh, no, not you--"
"Doesn't know what he's saying!" Lockhart trumpeted to his audience. His teeth sparkled. "Not to worry, Harry, I'm about to fix your arm--"
Harry tried to roll away. "No, I'll keep it like this, thanks . . ."
Click click clickety click went Colin's camera. Harry wobbled to a slight angle long enough to say, "I don't want a photo of this, Colin!" then flopped over again.
But Colin lifted his camera again, and Ginny took it away from him. "Stop that! He told you not to!"
"Lie back, Harry," Lockhart was saying as the crowd around them thickened. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times."
"Why can't I just go to the hospital wing?"
Ginny thought this very sensible, but Lockhart didn't even listen to the team captain, who was saying the same thing. Instead, he flourished his wand. "Stand back--"
"No--don't--"
There was a sudden flash of light, and Harry's arm went limp. Really limp. Quite frankly, a lot limper than any arm really ought to be . . .
Ginny clapped her hands to her mouth. There was a round of gasps. Colin grabbed his camera back and starting clicking away again.
Harry's bones weren't broken anymore. But neither were they in his arm.
Hours later, Ginny was still angry. "Honestly! What did he think he was doing?"
They were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, among the debris of the victory party. Most of the Gryffindors had already gone to bed, but some hardy specimens, like Fred and George, were still up.
Colin was polishing off a plate of food with the efficiency of a tornado. His camera, which by rights ought to have been smoking from all the use it had gotten that day, was sitting on the table at his side. "Madam Pomfrey'll take care of him," he told her thickly, accidentally spitting out a grape.
"I know that, but it would have been a lot easier all round if Lockhart hadn't gotten to him."
"Simmer down, Ginny," Colin coaxed. "He'll be okay in the morning, and Lockhart just looks stupid."
Ginny giggled. "Not that he needs help."
Colin laughed too. "I thought he was going to croak when he saw what he'd done--"
"And then Hermione Granger--'It was an honest mistake!' Sure, if you're a total fool!" Ginny looked around quickly for Ron or Percy, both of whom would have yelled at her for that. But they'd gone to bed already. Percy didn't hold with criticizing teachers (even Snape!) and Ron wouldn't let anyone but himself make fun of Hermione Granger. Really, boys were so crazy sometimes!
Colin hopped to his feet. "I'm going to visit Harry. Coming?"
"Colin! It's the middle of the night!"
"So? Come on, it'll be fun."
Ginny hesitated, but shook her head. "I don't think so."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"All right--but I'll give him your love."
She shrieked and lobbed a bit of cheese at his head. "Don't you dare!"
He fielded the cheese expertly and grabbed up the last of his grapes. "I'm taking these too."
"What about your camera?" she asked, mostly joking.
"Oh, right!" He picked it up off the table where it sat. "Thanks, Ginny, I would've left it behind."
She had to laugh. "It's the middle of the night, Colin!"
"Never know what you might see," he said cheerily, and ducked out the portrait hole.
Shaking her head, Ginny went up to bed. She was still too excited to sleep, however, and sat up writing to Tom for a few minutes. She'd already told him all about the match, about the Bludger, about Harry's broken and then boneless arm, and now she wrote, Colin went to visit him just now. I thought about going too, but I don't know--it's so late, and he might be asleep.
Sure you're not afraid? Tom teased her.
She blushed. A little--well--I mean--that is . . . if I ever get the chance to talk to Harry, I'd like it to be on my own, and not with people about. Especially not Colin--he's very nice and all, but he does rather dominate a conversation. She laughed to herself. Anyway, it's late. I'd better go to sleep now, Tom. G'nite.
G'nite, Ginny. Sweet dreams.
She put the diary away and curled up under her covers, falling asleep right away.
And almost right away, she dreamt.
The voice of the Sorting Hat whispered in her ear the way it had her first night at Hogwarts. Odd, very odd . . . I haven't seen a mind like this in five hundred years . . . a mind divided. One half, I'd send to Gryffindor--the other half, I'd send to Slytherin.
I want to be in Gryffindor, she'd thought very hard at it. I want to be in Gryffindor!
The hat's voice echoed through the dark tunnels of her dream. A mind divided . . . a mind divided . . . a mind divided. . . .
Darkness--slithery darkness, rushing past her, slime on her robes . . .
"Speak to me, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four."
Her voice, and yet not hers . . . how?
A new voice, hissing alongside her ear. Blood where is blood I want blood!
Tunnels, tunnels, more tunnels, always tunnels . . .
Look for blood let me tear let me rip let me kill let me let me letmeletmeletme
And then, quite suddenly a familiar hallway--a set of stairs--someone on the stairs, pausing and turning--
Bloodbloodblood want blood NOW bloodbloodblood NOW bloodNOWNOW
And a horrible clattering thud, as if a load of bricks had been dropped.
A howl of frustrated rage--no blood? nooooo bloooooooooooood! Want blood!
The not-her/her voice spoke again. "Leave! Leave now! I command you to leave this place and go back to your nest!"
Darkness again, tunnels again, slime and rushing wind again--
Falling . . .
A mind divided . . .
Falling . . .
Ginny woke with a start.
The morning sun was streaming in through the tall windows, illuminating the aged wood of the floorboards with elongated copies of the patterns of ironwork on the glass. All the other beds were empty, the pillows askew and the blankets tumbled. All was very quiet and very still.
Ginny flopped back on her pillows. Such funny dreams--she frowned, trying to remember them, but they were seeping away like water through a sieve. Just dreams, she thought drowsily. Don't matter, just like Tom says.
Funny thing about it--she must have slept several hours, but she didn't feel rested. She felt as if she'd been running about all night. She sighed and curled up deeper into her covers. It was Sunday. She could be a regular sloth if she wanted.
Voices crept up the stairs through the half-open dormitory door. It was just everyone down in the common room, but there was an edge to the noise somehow--a shrill, panicky edge--
Curiosity trumped laziness. Sluggishly, Ginny got up and bundled herself in her wrapper. As she trudged down the stairs, she heard the voices more clearly.
"Completely--"
"--in the infirmary--"
"Just like Mrs. Norris!"
She froze, her foot just touching the next step down.
"And I heard his camera was melted!"
Oh, Tom! A STUDENT got attacked this time!
Who?
It was Colin Creevey--
The Muggle-born who keeps taking pictures of Harry Potter?
Yes! He was going upstairs to see Harry in the hospital wing, and on the way, whatever happened to Mrs. Norris happened to HIM!
So it's happened again, has it?
Yes, and oh, I feel so awful about it all, Tom! We were actually sort of starting to become friends, and now he's just lying there in the hospital wing, like a statue--
But Ginny, you said yourself that he was really annoying. Maybe you're better off--
He wasn't that bad, sometimes. I suppose I could have exaggerated a bit. And I really can't fault his taste, you know--couldn't--oh, Tom!
You can do better than that, Ginny, you know you can. After all, he was just the Muggle-born son of a milkman, and you said yourself he was an absolute laughingstock. Really, what advantage would it have given you? You have to be careful about who you make friends with. I'll tell you something I learned very young--this world's all about the people you know.
I--suppose you're right, Tom, Ginny wrote in small handwriting. It was true what he said, about people one knew. How many times had Mum wished that some of Dad's friends would help him out, so he wouldn't have to work so hard to support all of them? Her finger crept to her mouth, and she began to gnaw. But it would have been nice to have a friend who was just a friend. Poor Colin! He even had his camera with him. It was all melted inside. What could have done that?
A very powerful and dangerous thing. It would have taken a great wizard to control it.
You think someone's doing this on PURPOSE??
Isn't that what everyone's saying?
Some people, yes, but how could anyone be so nasty? Oh, Tom, I almost went with him! With Colin! I would have been Petrified too!
But you're pure-blood. I think you would have been safe.
How can you be sure?
If it's the Heir of Slytherin, he'll be after Muggle-borns, won't he? Because that's who Slytherin hated, if I remember correctly. You're pure.
Yes, but--oh, it's all so confusing and frightening. I never thought Hogwarts was going to be like this. I thought it was going to be the time of my life here, because that's what Bill and Charlie and Percy and Fred and George and Ron have all said. But first it was just horrid and now it's awful!