She dreamt of a cold-hearted boy with green eyes that he shouldn't have, of snakes, of slime and darkness and evil, of glittering betrayal, hard and cold as diamonds.
She dreamt of a flashing silver sword, light glinting off the lenses of crooked glasses, a fang sinking deep into her chest and hot poison killing her from the inside out . . .
Her eyes snapped open.
Safe. Oh, safe. Just a dream.
No nightmares here.
The infirmary was filled with delicate morning light. She was warm, and the blankets were soft, and she was utterly happy. For a moment, she couldn't remember why, and then she saw the tin of biscuits on her bedside table, and it all came flooding back. With a happy sigh, she settled down into her nest of blankets, glorying in their cosiness.
"So, Miss Weasley."
She jerked into a sitting position and whirled around to stare at the headmaster.
He smiled at her wide eyes and nodded toward the biscuits. "Finally convinced you're not alone in the world?"
Mute with amazement, she nodded. This was the closest she'd ever been to Professor Dumbledore, not counting two nights before, and the first time alone.
"Madam Pomfrey was quite reluctant to let me visit. It seems you had near-constant company yesterday."
"My brothers," she managed.
"And friends."
"Yes."
"You had a great many people grieving for you, and even worried when they knew you were alive again. More, I'll wager, than you would have ever thought during this year. Professor McGonagall tells me you have always kept to yourself. And I think I can guess why."
"Because I was stupid," she said bitterly, forgetting her awe for a moment.
The headmaster sighed. "Miss Weasley . . . I knew Tom Riddle a long time ago. I'm sure his methods haven't changed any. He would have played on your weaknesses, those feelings of homesickness, of alienation, of loneliness, and manipulated you toward his own ends. In doing so, he amplified those feelings, which then bound you to him even tighter."
"Yes, sir," she said dully. She understood, now, how Tom had manipulated and coaxed her into believing and behaving just as he wanted her too. But it didn't help her any.
"You know, you're really no different than the vast majority of first-year students, Miss Weasley. You all came here a bit frightened, missing your families, a bit uncertain about yourselves. That's a terribly vulnerable time for anybody. It's all too easy to get mixed up with people who do you more harm than good."
"But nobody else got posessed and went round trying to kill people, did they?" she said miserably.
"No. I'm afraid that was simply your bad luck. But--" he leaned forward to emphasize his point. "--it was not your fault. You were as much a victim in all this as Mr. Creevey or Miss Granger."
She looked away and stared at her tin of biscuits, blinking until it wavered back into focus.
"Professor Dumbledore? I--I have a question."
"Don't be afraid to ask, Miss Weasley. Even painful truth is better than ignorance."
She lifted her eyes. "Tom said--Riddle said--that he did all those things--because--I wanted to. He attacked Mrs. Norris because she scratched me, and C-Colin because I was annoyed with him, and Justin Finch-Fletchley because of what happened at the Dueling Club, and--and--it's not true, is it? He wasn't right, was he? Please--sir--" She stumbled to a halt, because Dumbledore's face was solemn. "Sir?"
"In a way, he was right."
Tears swam in her eyes. "Oh--"
He lifted a hand. "Miss Weasley--what did I tell you just a moment ago about Tom Riddle?"
"He--played on my weaknesses," she said wretchedly.
"Precisely. Everyone has thoughts like the ones you've described. When someone is hurt or angered or annoyed, their automatic reaction is to wish some sort of vengeance on the person who has done it to them. Tom merely exploited that wrathful energy and used it for his own ends . . . something he has always been very skilled at, I am afraid."
"Everyone--sir?"
"Everyone."
"Surely not you, sir." Ginny couldn't imagine the kindly, forgiving headmaster ever wanting anyone to suffer.
"Miss Weasley, do you recall the manner of Harry and your brother Ron's arrival at the beginning of the year?"
"Dad's car . . . ?"
"You know, of course, that I think very highly of Harry."
"Yes, sir."
"And the last thing I would ever want is for him to be hurt needlessly."
"Yes, sir."
"When I heard what he and Ron had done, I wanted to strangle him."
In spite of herself, a watery giggle popped out of Ginny's mouth. "But--sir--I heard you didn't shout or anything! Ron said--"
"Because I was able to control myself."
Ginny sobered. "That's what I should have done, then?"
"You're not listening. You did control yourself. What Tom did was take those destructive thoughts after you'd battled them back and let them out. He may have chosen his victims because of your feelings, but he was the one who Petrified them."
"But I still--"
"Everyone has a dark side. It--"
She broke in. "He said that too. He said mine was just stronger than most."
"Not at all, Miss Weasley," the headmaster said forcefully. "That darkness--it's part of being human. Part of growing up, I'm afraid, is understanding what to do with it."
She studied him, and thought about that. Finally, she nodded.
He smiled. "It won't be easy, but what you need do now is to put it behind you. That does not mean pretending it didn't happen, mind you. Just remember that you have friends and family who will always listen if you have something to say. Don't keep it locked inside anymore."
"I won't," she promised. "Every time I tell someone about it, I feel better. It's like I'm letting something out."
"Exactly." He got to his feet. "Madam Pomfrey tells me you're to be allowed out of the infirmary today. I'm sure you're ready to go."
"Yes, sir!" She winced at how loud that had been, and looked around to check that the nurse wasn't around to hear Ginny casting aspersions on her infirmary.
Professor Dumbledore laughed. "I shall leave you now. I hope the remainder of your term, such as it is, will be better than it has been, although that shouldn't be hard."
"No, sir." As he turned to go, she remembered something. "Professor!"
He looked back. "Yes?"
She fumbled in her bedside table and found what she'd been looking for. "Professor," she said, holding out the golden feather. "Your bird left this in my hand. Do you want it back?" She hoped he didn't. She loved to look at it, the shining gold and the feathery softness so at odds with each other. But it was his, sort of.
He stared at it for several seconds, taken aback for the first time she'd ever seen. "Fawkes--gave you that?"
"I don't s'pose he actually gave it to me--I mean, he took off flying and--"
"Fawkes doesn't molt like other birds. When he gives out a feather, it's for a reason." He studied it and her for several seconds. It looked as if he were thinking hard. Suddenly, he smiled. "Keep it."
"D'you mean it?"
"It's yours. Do with it as you like."
She clutched it to her heart. "Thank you!"
"It's not mine to bestow, it's Fawkes'. And he's already done that."
She put it back in her bedside table as carefully as a treasure.
"And now, I think it's time for your breakfast. If you'll excuse me--"
"Of course. Thank you, Professor. Not just for the feather, but everything."
"You're exceedingly welcome, my dear."
As he turned away, she heard the faintest edge of a murmur. "I can take a hint, old friend."
With no exams, no Professor Lockhart, and best of all, no Tom, the last few days of Ginny's first year were practically perfect. There wasn't one single rainy day. She was with her friends almost from dawn to dusk, and her brothers were going out of their way to pay affectionate, if brotherly, attention to her. She felt as light as a bird, set free from a dense iron cage.
In spite of how happy she was at Hogwarts now, she also couldn't wait to get home. Her parents had had to go the morning after her resurrection from the Chamber of Secrets, and she wanted more than anything to hug them again, and go sit in her tiny room with the soft toys on the shelves, and play Quidditch Champions of the World in the orchard with her brothers. After a whole year of trying as hard as she could to grow up, she felt as if she needed to be a little girl again, at least for a little while.
On the last day of term, she woke up uncharacteristically early. When she couldn't get back to sleep, she went and sat on the window-seat, watching the pale pink light of sunrise creep over the castle and the grounds, shimmering off the still surface of the lake and chasing away the dark shadows at the edges of the Forbidden Forest. So many horrible things had happened to her this year, but so many wonderful things as well. Strange how the two were so bound together.
"Better luck next year, eh?" she murmured, and smiled.
Several hours later, she and Carmen were huffing and puffing as they tried to lever Carmen's trunk into the compartment they'd picked. "What'd--you--pack?" Ginny wheezed.
"Every--thing," Carmen groaned. "Ouch!" She'd bumped her elbow on the door of the compartment.
Jeremy and Colin, their things already loaded in, were arguing amiably about Quidditch. "The Cannons! You madman--look, I know you're new to this, but at least pick a better team--"
"A--little help--here," Ginny said pointedly.
Jeremy looked over at them, red-faced and sweating. "You've got it," he said, and went back to extolling the virtues of the Ballycastle Bats.
"Boys!" Carmen groaned, and made sure to step on his foot as they staggered past.
When Carmen's trunk finally sat atop the racks, Ginny collapsed in her seat by the window and panted for several minutes. When she got her breath back, Jeremy and Colin were still at it, with Carmen interjecting praise of the Wimbourne Wasps whenever she could get a word in edgewise. Ginny was just considering whether to even the odds and boost up Ron's favorite team when she saw him out the window, at the front end of his beaten-up trunk.
He grinned at her, crossed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue. She plastered her face against the glass, squashing her nose, chin, and forehead, and blew out her cheeks like a puffer fish. Then she focused again so she could see the look on Ron's face, and realized that the puzzled green eyes she was staring into were definitely not her brother's.
With a squawk, she leapt backward away from the window and slid down in her seat, her face burning as she worked it out. Harry had been at the back end of the trunk, and Ron had simply kept walking, knowing exactly what she was going to do.
Carmen broke off arguing and looked at her. "What was that all about?"
"I'm going to kill Ron," Ginny said, and told them.
Jeremy almost fell off the seat laughing, and she threw a slightly squashed Chocolate Frog at his head. "Thanks a lot!"
"Oh, come on," he said. "He's just like us. He's nothing special. I don't see why you get so weird about him."
Ginny's mouth dropped open. "Nothing special?"
"You said yourself he was just ordinary," Colin put in. "You said he hated broccoli, even." This was apparently the height of normalcy, for Colin.
Ginny thought about that. Well, all right. Harry wasn't really a knight in shining armor, the way she'd imagined him. But he was real, and somehow that made him even more special. He did all the brave things he did for real. She said, "I know. He is just normal. But there's--something more about him. And it's those things together that make him him and I . . . I'm babbling, aren't I?"
Her friends nodded.
Out the window, the twins ambled past, each carrying a trunk on their shoulders. They grinned at her, and George shifted one hand to wave. The weight of the trunk overbalanced him, and he staggered dramatically for a second, then straightened up, his face telegraphing Ta-da!
They all laughed. "Your brothers," Colin declared, "are really cool."
"I like them," she said.
"Didn't used to be that way," Carmen said.
"Oh well, you know . . ." Reaching a sudden decision, she got up.
"Where're you going?" Jeremy asked.
"I think I'm going to sit with my brothers for the ride home. I've been so beastly to them all year, and they really were worried about me--"
"And it makes no nevermind to you that Harry Potter's sitting with Ron, does it now?" Jeremy said slyly.
Ginny put her nose in the air. "Certainly not!" But she winked at Carmen, who covered her mouth to stifle her own laughter.
Waiting outside with Hermione for all her brothers and Harry to change out of their robes and into Muggle clothing before they pulled into Kings' Cross, Ginny decided she'd behaved herself very well. She hadn't blushed or giggled or even gone mute once since settling into her seat. Maybe--maybe she was over him?
The compartment door opened, and Harry stuck his head out, giving them a grin. His hair was wilder than ever from having a shirt pulled over it, and she almost reached out to smooth it down. "Safe now, you can come in . . ."
No, she wasn't.
But she'd stop being so obvious about it all the time, she vowed, ducking back into the compartment. No more valentines, no more swooning and mooning. If she couldn't get over it--and to be honest, she didn't really want to--she was just going to keep it to herself and stop troubling him.
"Ginny," Harry said suddenly, startling her, "what did you see Percy doing, that he didn't want you to tell anyone?"
"Oh, that," said Ginny, giggling. She had to; it was too funny. "Well--Percy's got a girlfriend."
Jaws dropped all around the compartment, and Fred fumbled a whole stack of books, accidentally dumping them on George's head. "What?"
"It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater," Ginny explained, grinning broadly. It was so nice to be the one giving out information. "That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day. He was so upset when she was--you know--attacked." She had a momentary attack of conscience--after all, Percy had looked after her practically the entire year, and this was a fine way to pay him back. "You won't tease him, will you?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," said Fred, picking up the books with a wide, evil grin on his face.
"Definitely not," said George, who was snickering madly.
They did, of course, and Percy gave her dark looks, but she told him, "It would have come out sooner or later. If you're going to be a Weasley, Percy, you'll have to take some of this teasing."
Percy almost laughed at that. They were on the train to the pyramids, and she and Percy were playing chess. "That's a different tone you're taking, Ginny," he said, moving his pawn.
She watched her bishop knock that pawn over before answering. "Well--I suppose horrible brothers are better than no brothers. Your move."
"Hmmm . . ."
He made the safest move he could, and she shook her head. Caution was all very well and good, but not in this game. She moved her queen. "Checkmate."
"What!" said Percy.
Ron, who had sitting by, waiting for Percy to lose so he could play, laughed at him. "Come on now, Miss General," he told Ginny, "set up. I want to beat you before we get there."
Ginny obediently set up. "I'm black," she announced.
Ron didn't so much as blink. "All right."
All her brothers had been making a special effort to be nice to her lately, as if to prove to her that they really did love her--but she didn't need it. That first day after her return from the Chamber of Secrets had been enough to prove that a hundred times over.
Of course, she thought darkly a few hours later, there were times when her brothers' new solicitousness got on her nerves.
"I don't think you should go in there, Ginny," Percy said stuffily. "It's really quite--"
"Bloody fantastic," Fred was saying as he and George came out of the inner chamber of the pyramid they stood in. "Did you notice the--"
Percy gave a sharp cough, and George looked round to see his folded arms and Ginny's stubborn expression. Comprehension flashed in his face, and he jumped into the flow of Fred's gushing.
"Headless mummies--y'know, Fred, wish I hadn't gone in now I've seen it--"
Fred goggled. "What? They were--" George jabbed him hard in the ribs and darted his eyes towards Ginny. Fred hesitated, then switched tacks with lightning speed. "--scary, really scary, I really think I'm going to have nightmares now--"
Ginny snorted loudly. Fred hadn't had a nightmare for ten years at least.
"Let's go somewhere else," he continued. "Oy, Ginny, y'want to see the princess's tomb? We're going there next."
George picked up the flow easily, although it was clearly news to him. "Oh yeah, it's dead wicked, she's got all sorts of--of--" he fumbled for something that would seem dead wicked to Ginny, "--jewelry and things--"
Ginny looked at the three of them, ranged in front of the vizier's tomb like a red-topped wall, and rolled her eyes. She might as well give up for the moment. Later on, she'd see about sneaking into that tomb and seeing those headless mummies they were going on about.
"All right," she said, seeds of sisterly revenge poking their first tendrils out. "Let's go see all this jewelry, shall we? I just love jewelry . . . how about clothes? Any of her clothes still there?"
The twins gave each other dismayed looks.
"Don't forget," Percy shouted after them. "Mum wants a picture before we leave!"
Ginny took her copy of the picture down from her wall and smiled at it. She'd liked that trip. Her brothers had spoiled her rotten.
She put it in the pocket on the side of her new trunk. Her old one had rather spectacularly given up the ghost just after their return from Egypt, and her mum had found her a great new one, with all sorts of little hidey-holes and secret panels. Fred and George had broken into it three times this summer at least, and they hadn't found a single thing.
She was grimacing at the socks that Fred and George had included in their first-ever load of laundry, when there was a knock at her door. "Come in," she called out.
At the door, her mum said, "I've got robes for you." She looked at the pink socks. "Don't pack those, dear, I've got to Bleach-Charm them for about three days. I told them not to put that red shirt in."
Ginny laughed and traded socks for robes. "Thanks, Mum." She started packing them.
"Not like that, fold them in three."
"Muuuuuuum--" But she folded them again, to make her mother happy.
Her mother nodded and looked across the room at the dusty shelf of soft toys. "Are you taking Sparkle with you?" she asked.
Ginny's hands stilled in the robes. "I didn't last year."
"I think he missed you last year."
She stared out the window, at the leaves on the old oak tree that had stood outside her bedroom window as long as she could remember. "I missed him too." She made up her mind and turned around quickly. "Can you give him here, Mum? I think I've got room."
Her mother took the unicorn down from the shelf and tenderly brushed dust out of his fur. He'd been white once, but love had turned him a blotchy grey a long time ago. "Do you want me to patch up his horn? He's losing stuffing."
"I'll do it." Ginny hugged him briefly before setting him next to her trunk, to be packed on top. She went on folding the robes, expecting her mother to leave.
Instead, her mother said, "I have something else to give you."
Ginny looked over her shoulder, puzzled. "What, Mum?"
Her mother took a small blue book out of her robes and set it down on her desk. "That."
Ginny froze in the act of folding more socks together. "Mum--"
"It's a diary."
She shut her eyes. "Mum, no, Mummy."
Her mother's voice echoed in the darkness inside her head. "I thought you should have one."
"I don't want a diary," Ginny said in a hollow whisper. "That's what got me in trouble last time."
"It's completely unenchanted. Your dad got it at a Muggle shop the other day--you know, when he came home in such a good mood. You can put anything on it you like, but there's nothing there right now."
"Mummy--"
"The only person you'd be talking to would be yourself."
Ginny opened her eyes.
Her mother wasn't looking at her. She was contemplating the diary. "You don't have to take it if you don't want it. But I think you should."
Ginny stared at it, too.
"Just think about it." Her mother left, closing the door behind her.
Ginny sank down on her bed, on top of the pile of brand-new bras that she'd been so proud of, and stared at the diary for several minutes.
The only person you'd be talking to would be yourself.
She'd missed writing in a diary. She'd pushed that feeling away, telling herself fiercely not to be silly, but the truth was she did need an outlet. That was why she'd taken to Tom in the first place. Writing to her friends just wasn't the same. She couldn't tell them everything.
Slowly, she opened a panel in her trunk and looked at the softly glowing phoenix feather that rested there. It was like a good-luck charm, a promise. Charlie had made it into a quill for her during the Egypt trip, but she'd never written with it. Somehow, she didn't know what deserved to be written by such a talisman.
She took it out and held it in her hand for a moment. It felt almost heavier than a normal quill, as if it really were made of gold.
Maybe she needed that good luck right now.
She took the two steps to her desk, took out a bottle of ink, and opened the diary. For several seconds, she looked down at the blank pages. Scenes from a living nightmare flashed and flickered before her eyes, and she shook her head hard. They scattered like rats from a strong light, darting into the shadows.
She dipped the phoenix-feather quill into the ink and wrote, My name is Virginia Myrtle Weasley. Mostly called Ginny. And sometimes Ginny-Ginny-Wee-One, but only by special people.
She paused for a moment. The ink didn't sink in, but stayed on the page, the shine dulling as it dried. She smiled and dipped her quill again.
This is MY diary.