Disclaimer: I do not own and did not create Harry Potter. I do not own and did not create any of the characters from Harry Potter. Everything legally belongs to J. K. Rowling, except, perhaps, my plot – which I'm sure has probably been used and twisted before. Therefore, in reality, I don't anything… how sad!

To darkangel1: LOL Thanks, I'm happy I lightened your day! Hope you like chapter 2!

To YoshimiWolfspaw: You don't have to tell me. Technically, I didn't finish reading book 5. I couldn't stand it – yes, Harry has finally become a teenager, but he's become a total ass as well. It was horrible. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is going to be very interesting.

Who doesn't love a good fic which features character death? (die, Harry, die)

-Earlier That Year-

"Ginny? Ginny?"

From the day I came to Hogwarts, something was different. They spoke my name, a curse, they spat. Each time I wrote in that diary my head spun. Tom Riddle was my friend, wasn't he? It was maddening. Sometimes, I could feel him… inside my head. Did I know him?

"Ginny?"

I sighed.

"Yes, Ron?" I asked. I looked toward my brother. He stared at me, as if I was a ghost.

Ever since I had come to Hogwarts, I had been different. Different than I am. Different than I was. I was always changing. There were those who spoke the name of 'Weasley' as if it were a curse to mankind.

Sometimes, in the past, I remember feeling the same way myself. I had hurt, then. I hurt now. My past was a web, tangled and twisted, but in a pattern. Much like that of a spider.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Of course I'm okay." I replied. Was something wrong? "Why wouldn't I be okay?" I asked, uncertainly.

"You seem… distant."

Ever since I had to Hogwarts, I was different. The houses… I remember what the sorting hat told me. Was I really all that different? Red hair, pale as the moon…

Before I had come to Hogwarts, I remember my mother and father telling me stories. They were stories of… me? Yes, me. They were stories me, when I was younger. A baby, barely a toddler. Bad things would happen.

Of course, bad things happened with all of the Weasley children, especially the twins. But they always told me the nice stories. I heard the others from… how did I know the stories? I shook my head, my thoughts scattered and my mind on something it shouldn't be on. In one sentence, I could summon my entire existence:

I was different.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ron asked. He was frowning. I nodded.

"I'm fine."

"Because, you know, you can talk to me about it if you're not." Ron said quickly. No, I was fine. I felt fine.

"I'm fine."

"Okay…" he said, seemingly dropping the issue. I could tell he was still worried. I could feel the times that he stopped what he was doing, every few moments, and looked over at me with a frown on his face. Was something wrong?

I shook my head. Nothing was wrong. My mind had begun to wander again.

Contention
By Riley Murphy
(A.K.A. keywi kitty)

Chapter 1
Sleepless Night

A flash of silver and black. Pale silver, and raven black. Ginny smiled. Silver and Raven… how odd. Her smile faded quickly, however, as she looked upon the faces of two people who had made her existence, and her family's, hell. Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. What did they want? Or had they come to taunt her, as they usually did?

"Weasley, I could tell it was you the moment I-"

Was Draco talking? I blocked him out of my mind and went back to my studies. I couldn't understand what the two of them would be doing in the library, anyhow. They never did any of their homework. They always had someone else do it. And no one protested. It was exactly the opposite. People almost seemed honored at the chance to do the homework of the two gods of Slytherin house.

Gods? Did she just call them gods? Was she being sarcastic, or had she meant that? Ever since that damned diary, she wasn't entirely sure. Oh dear, was Draco talking to her? She'd forgotten.

"WEASLEY?"

Apparently, he didn't take too well to being ignored. He slammed a fist down on the book she was reading. Ginny didn't even flinch or jump in shock.

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"Ginny, are you insane?"

"Yes, I think I am."

Three sickly sweet laughs. A shiver ran down Harry's spine. Three sickly sweet laughs. What was Ginny doing with Draco and Blaise? Just what the hell was she doing?

"Ginny, stop." Harry commanded, trying to knock some sense into the girl. He was pleading to her humanity. Ginny stopped her motions, and Blaise and Draco stared at her for a moment, questioning her motives and loyalties in their minds. Did Ginny still have some humanity left in her?

"Why?" Ginny asked. She grinned, and Draco and Blaise grinned.

"Because, what you're doing is wrong. What's happened to you?" Harry sobbed.

Ginny thought for a moment. What had happened to her?

"Words cannot begin to describe." Ginny told him. She smiled at the two Slytherin boys.

Three sickly sweet laughs.

And Ginny woke up.

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"Is there something you two want, or can I go back to what I was doing?" Ginny asked, ignoring the fist and the torn pages in front of her. Draco growled.

Ever since Ginny had come to Hogwarts, something in her had changed. The only girl born into a large family, all who attended her school, shadowed by a thousand different tales and adventures. She had changed. Somehow, she had changed.

Ginny wondered if anyone else could tell. Would they have known she had dreams… dreams of killing…? What had she dreamt of last night again?

Bittersweet. Or was it sickly sweet?

"All right, Weasley, we'll play it your way." Blaise said, snapping her out of her reverie. It was that same reverie that she slipped into so easily these days.

"What?" she asked. Blaise and Draco frowned. Or glared. Could it have been a glare?

Gods. She was doing it again. Escaping? Or was it being pulled in… Ginny wasn't sure she could tell. Could they tell? Gods, could Zabini and Malfoy tell? What would they think? Would they know what was wrong with her?

"I sa-"

"Do you see me?" she asked. She'd interrupted Blaise. Blaise glared at her.

"What the hell are you talking about? Of course I can bloody see you."

Snap. Ginny flinched. Snap?

"Weasley, what the hell's wrong with you!" Draco snapped. Ginny stared at the boy.

Snap. Snap?

"Wrong? There's nothing wrong with me." Ginny replied, her voice cutting like a thousand knives. She thought she saw Draco flinch, as if he really had been cut by a thousand knives.

Knives… knives were…. Ginny remembered knives. Her mother used them, when cooking. They were sharp, and she had been cut by them a few times. Accidentally of course.

"Did I hurt you?" Ginny asked.

Why was she asking? Even Blaise and Draco frowned.

"Are you insane?" Blaise asked.

"Are you insane?"

"…Yes, I think I am."

"No." Ginny answered defiantly. Now where had that come from? It was familiar. Hazy, like a dream.

After a brief look between each other, Blaise and Draco wandered away. Ginny went back to her book.

She had been different, especially since that diary. Tom Riddle… a name Ginny knew better than her own. Had he done something to her? Ginny frowned, scrunching her eyes as she read the words. Different….

What was wrong with being different?

"Weasley's finally lost her mind." Draco muttered as he walked away, loud enough for Ginny to hear.

"Never had a mind to lose." Blaise protested.

Ginny sighed and stared down at her book.

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Over the next few days, Ginny felt spacey. She chuckled. Spacey… such a fun word. But spacey didn't exactly describe it. Yes, she was different… but something had changed. It was a different Ginny was not used to. Her mind would stray from the task at hand and she would find herself babbling incoherently about things that made no sense.

It might have been so bad, were she not getting stares, and sometimes glares, from the entire student when she accidentally castrated a fellow Gryffindor for no apparent reason. Of course, it probably didn't help that when she went to the hospital wing to see how he was doing and apologize, she interrupted the operation to re-grow the boy's testicles (which must've been somethin' to see… LOL), and then nearly destroyed half the wing after she was allowed in and the boy called her a freak.

The oddest part of all of it was that Ginny didn't really seem to care. She just blinked and sighed at the wreckage that was once the hospital wing and walked off. She didn't even notice when she gave the boy the finger… to which he swiftly replied something along the lines of:

"Not even in my nuts were working right!"

Of course, Ginny ignored him.

She went beyond the limits of surprised when she saw Draco and Blaise stealing glances at her every now and then. Blaise would watch her movements daily and grin slightly every time she spaced out. Draco, however, would watch everything she did. It went on, sometimes for hours on end – and every time he would try to catch her gaze, keeping their locked for as long as possible.

Then he would smirk, sometimes wink, and go back to what he was doing.

Ignore him… her mind told her.

It was on a particularly sleepless night that Ginny looked around the room and realized it was far later than she should have been up, but she couldn't sleep at all. There were three hours left until sunrise and she hadn't slept at all. That wasn't exactly a good sign.

Sighing, she stood up and rummaged around her trunk quietly, pulling out a black cloak. She decided that perhaps a small walk would help her sleep. In the very least, it would keep her from lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and twitching excessively. She would like that.

Later on, she would realize that going out of the portrait hole and wandering aimlessly was a sure way to get caught by Filch, and it wasn't the smartest thing to do. Plus, she would run into that damned cat. She hated that cat.

Wait… later on, she would realize…? Where was she going anyway?

That didn't make much sense. The garden? It was still dark enough, she doubted anyone would be able to see her.

That's where she was going! The garden….

Why?

Ginny Weasley was about to step out of the portrait hole when she felt a sharp twist in her gut. She struggled not to whimper, and covered her mouth to keep a noise from escaping, as she doubled over. It felt like cramps, only it was sharper. Sharper, and… jagged? It hurt, that was all she knew for sure.

Then it was gone. Completely gone. Not a trace – or even the feeling – of having something even remotely painful or draining happen to her. Now that was odd… Why was that happening?

She opened the portrait hole and stepped out, looking left and right to make sure the coast was clear.

She was glad to find, though, that Filch had just passed and was walking at least two or three yards away from her, without that bloody cat to glare at her and out her. She smirked and walked in the other direction, having successfully escaped one of the most annoying people she had ever met.

She walked the halls, down the stairs, around the corners, and finally came to the secret passage to the outside, where she could go straight into the gardens and fall into the flower beds. She could sleep then, for sure.

It didn't occur to her, however, that she hadn't really known the way down there…

After inhaling the scents of a thousand different kinds of flowers, she fell back into an empty patch so that she crush them the buds, and closed her eyes. She fell asleep almost instantly.

When her eyes opened again, she found herself looking up into the familiar face of Draco Malfoy, blond bangs falling into his eyes. She glared up at him.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Draco simply grinned.

End Chapter… 1? Yeah, 1!...

A/N: Sorry. I wanted this up yesterday, but I'm an insomniac – so while my muse was dead at midnight last night, it came back around noon, only to have me fall asleep and wake just in time for my dentists' appointment. It's horrible, my mouth is still sore from that shitty needle. GRRR!

Anyway, remember to review. Hey, guess at what's up with Ginny even! COME ON! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Only seven pages, but I promise, it'll pick up!