Author's Note: I apologise for the delay between last chapter and this... although I daresay it was more tolerable than the delay between that chapter and the one before it. What I need to do is stop making promises for when the next chapter will be up, for I invariably break them, and that is not a nice thing to do.
This delay was absolutely essential. It gave me time to think things out better than I would have done if I'd pressured myself to finish this within five days—it allowed me to slow down, and look at what I'd written and compare it with what I'd originally intended, and fix things. I thank God I didn't do what I'd been originally trying to do, and include this chapter (and the next one, actually) in chapter 15. It sounds insane, especially as you read them now, but I had been planning on doing that. I feel the story has a lot more integrity if it isn't rushed like that, and it also takes a whole lot off the reader... you would have had a whole lot to take in in one sitting if I'd had my way.
I think the important thing from now on with this story is that I keep it true to what it was supposed to be in the first place, before I got writer's block and more writer's block and more and more... I need to keep the point in the forefront of my writing, and need to make sure I get there—and take you guys along with me. I've had a problem with that on this fic, I've went waaaay too far out there and lost track of what the readers could keep track of. I'm sorry for that. I think I've re-centred things a bit, in my mind at least, and it might come through in the writing, I dunno. My goal from now on is to make things make sense, no matter how long that takes, whether this fic is twenty or twenty-five or thirty chapters long, I want to make it a congruent story that you might want to read again—and that if you did read again, would make sense to you.
Also: special thanks to Framboesinha (or lindsayleigh1, on the group) for the greatest review I have ever received. You are an author's best friend.
Yesterday's Tomorrow
Potter47
Part Three
October
"Be assured, the wicked will not go unpunished,
but
those who are righteous will escape."
— Proverbs 11.21
Chapter Sixteen
The Broom Shed
29 October,
Dear Harry,
——
Ginny stared at the broom shed after breakfast as usual—except it wasn't breakfast as usual at all.
She shivered as she thought back to it—the tension between Petunia and Molly had finally reached a fever pitch... and what a pitch it turned out to be.
Rubbing her ear without quite realising it, Ginny turned her thoughts away from the fiasco in the kitchen and towards the Enigma of the Broom Shed (as she'd redubbed it) but of course that didn't work because when one tries their best not to think of something they invariably do think of it.
"...tolerated such DESPICABLE conditions for how long? How long? And now you—"
"Despicable conditions? Listen here, Petunia, I have slaved to your every whim for the past two months, and you invariably do nothing more than glance at me as though I were a house-elf's servant!"
Ginny couldn't help but smile at the actual words, she was so proud of her mum for actually getting them out... she knew how that felt, after all. However, she frowned at the volumes, and thought back to the result—Petunia had attempted to storm out the front door—
"Arthur do something, she can't leave, they'll find her—"
—and at her mother's hurried insistence, her father had managed to literally drag Petunia back into the Burrow. By the time they'd crossed the threshold, she had been crying pitifully, like an overgrown baby...
"I miss my china, damn it, I miss my teacups..." she whimpered, and then she gulped audibly. "I miss my Dudley! Vernon...!" She began to sob and Arthur had helped her up to her room, awkwardly.
Ginny's mum had watched the whole ordeal from the kitchen and Ginny could feel her mum's sympathy start to grow for Petunia once again. Without a word on Ginny's part, Molly said, "Yes, the garden, go ahead. Thirty minutes."
And so Ginny sat here now, her pen out and notebook on her lap, staring at the broom shed.
She could not think of anything at all to write.
Biting her lip and shaking her head slightly, Ginny put the book down, covered the pen, and looked away from the broom shed for once, looked at the clouds and the trees and everything else that was perpetually moving, in contrast to the broom shed which never did anything of interest...
I suppose it's good that I don't have anything to write about, Ginny thought, I've only got a few pages left anyway... I wonder if Dad has any more notebooks?
Reminding herself to ask the next time she saw her father, Ginny let her eyes close, and let the sun hit the eyelids, and she watched the orangey-ness because it was so much better than the blackness she was so used to.
Then the orangey-ness suddenly was the blackness she was used to—and it was cold out, really cold out, didn't she have a sweater on? Her mum never would have let her go out without a sweater on at the end of October, so she must... why couldn't she tell, anyway?
Cold... Very, very cold. Freezing... stone, freezing stone. Hard stone. Freezing hard stone.
Stone?
But—but she was on the garden bench, it wasn't stone, it was... it was... a bench, why was she lying down? She was on the bench...
No. No no no no no. Don't you—
"Don't you see it, Ginny? Don't you feel it?"
Damn it! Ginny had thought she only had to relive this hell night after night, not in between as well... how could she have let herself fall asleep, damn it...?
It is...
"It is...beginning."
"It's already begun, damn it," she muttered, and suddenly the Riddle in front of her blinked and he'd never blinked like that before and Ginny felt something wrong...
"You're not supposed to say that," he said awkwardly, quietly, as though he were an actor in a play, and Ginny had gone off-script.
"Ginny, you're supposed to say 'What is? What are you—what do you—what does it—what is it—'" Ginny's younger self supplied in perfect imitation. Then her face scrunched up in confusion— "Why would you say something like that, that's not how it goes."
"What?"
"No, 'What is?' That's what you're supposed to say."
Ginny blinked. What on earth...
"No, you're not supposed to think that, Ginny."
"Will you just shut up?"
"Oh, I suppose it's lost already, isn't it?"
"What?"
Both selves shrugged. "I don't think you're going to like sleeping tonight, though," the Riddle one said.
"Why?"
He opened his mouth to speak but suddenly he was gone and so was the other one, and so was Ginny because the orangey-ness was back for a moment and then her eyes were open and her mother's face was there.
"Bed."
No thank you, Ginny thought as she stood and walked to her room, dutifully carrying her notebook by her side.
——
Ginny sat on her bed now, watching the sunlight trickle in through the window and still not having anything to write. Well, that wasn't quite as it seemed, for she had written, she'd written of the strange goings on in her mind... but it was a very short, cold writing, it didn't capture her thoughts nearly as well as usual.
Ginny reckoned she was nervous now, for some reason... partly with the understandable fear of the coming night (four o'clock, how long till sleep, four o'clock, probably five hours...) but with the futile anxiety of having only one page left in the notebook.
She'd been gnawing on her lips all day, worse than usual, and they were feeling especially biteable right now—as well as especially painful, but she didn't want to think about that.
So.
One page... front and back, one page... the lines stared up at her tauntingly, hauntingly, yelling at her to deface them with her now-practiced perpendicular writing... but how?
How could she end it? How could she finish off Volume I of the Chronicles of Ginny? It seemed a very permanent gesture... what if her father didn't have anymore notebooks...? (He could find some at work, but still...) What if she couldn't find the desire to write in a new book, what if the magic was gone...? (It's certainly still there now, isn't it, Miss "I had a weird dream. It was in the Chamber again. I don't think it was a dream. It was strange...")
Ginny shook her head to clear the double-mindedness, and turned back to the first page of the book, to see how she'd begun it all—
Dear Harry,
I love you...
Well, that seemed as good a place to start as any, so she copied the five words to the edge of the last page.
I love you...
What else was there to say? There had to be something...
"I miss you so much"? How many times had she told him that? And... and by the time he read this, she'll have seen him anyway, so it seemed pointless to go into how much she missed him yet another time...
Ginny looked up from the near-blank page and looked at her window again, looked at the sunlight...
Shaking her head in disgust at her writer's block, she put her pen to the paper and just let go—let everything pour out, she didn't care if it was repetitive, didn't care if it made sense... she knew it would be the truth, and that was what mattered.
——
Seven o'clock.
Ginny, staring at the ceiling.
Hello, dear crumbling piece of plaster. Long time no see. How've you been? Yeah, I haven't talked much lately...
Ginny shook her head to clear it of the insanity—she'd been thinking like Luna there for a minute, and that was vaguely terrifying—and thought about something. She couldn't remember what it was a moment later, which was a peculiar yet familiar feeling... just thinking about somethingness.
Knock, knock.
"Yes?" said Ginny, and her voice came out oddly strangled, as though she'd been half asleep, or perhaps busy thinking about something more important—
"Could I speak with you a minute?"
That was her mum, sounding... a bit worried, there was a disconcerting tremble in the way she said "you."
Ginny sat up and went to the door and her mum was there on the other side—biting her lip.
"Your... your father won't be home tonight," Molly said, not quite looking at Ginny, her voice best described as going back-and-forth—a bit too high one moment, a bit too low the next. "Orders from Professor Dumbledore... busy till morning... I didn't want you to worry."
Ginny wondered what her mum wasn't telling her... probably just the specifics... she didn't need to know anyway, so she didn't press it.
"Thanks," she said.
"You're welcome," said Molly, nodding, and she walked down, away, downstairs... Ginny watched her go, watched her disappear around the wall... she leaned one hand against it on the way down, to balance...
Hey, tomorrow's her birthday... I'd forgotten... Ginny had nothing to give her mum at all, she hoped she didn't mind... but then, since it had been Molly who kept Ginny so tightly wound to home, she couldn't very well have expected Ginny to buy something...
She needs to rest, said Ginny to herself. She's killing herself...
"Mum!" Ginny called, stepping out her bedroom door and moving quickly down the stairs. She caught her mum as she was stepping off the final step, and Molly jumped terribly when she did so.
"Ginny, what are you doing? You frightened me terribly..."
"Sorry... Mum, why don't you go to bed? You look... really tired, you know, and... we've been through this before, haven't we? You're putting too much on yourself..."
"Ginny, Ginny, Ginny... I'm... I'm busy—" And then Molly seemed to surprise herself with a thought, for her face drastically changed in a moment. "Oh dear I can't remember what I'm busy with..."
Ginny smiled then— "Then go to bed. The house isn't going to fall down if you close your eyes, Mum—and you know, you're probably going to, if you don't..."
Molly was pensive for a moment, and then, almost surprisingly, she gave in. "All right. I'm going to make myself a pot of tea first, then I'll go to bed... would you like some?"
"No thanks," said Ginny. "Promise me you won't wash the pot or the mug afterward, OK? You'll make your tea and you'll drink it, and then you'll go to sleep, and you're not going to invent some new chore in the meantime..."
"What's gotten into you, Ginny?" said Molly, sounding suddenly serious, even though she hadn't sounded unserious before. "You don't sound like yourself, you haven't sounded like yourself in ages... you sound like an old maid, that's what you sound like, dear..."
Ginny thought she did sound rather unlike herself, a bit... "Well, Mum, one day I'm going to be one, aren't I? A glimpse of the future, perhaps, maybe your Inner Eye's suddenly tuned itself..."
"Don't talk like that, Ginny, how do you think that makes me feel? My baby's an old maid, what does that make me?"
"I'm not really an old maid, Mum—"
"You should sound like a girl, Ginny, you should sound like you're your age, like you're having the time of your life and you're happy and this isn't very fair, is it?" Molly sniffled then, and Ginny realised she was more tired than she'd suspected, she was going off on a tangent— "You've had a dreadful time of it, with the war on... Thank God you haven't had to go through... my brothers... but still, you should be... happy... are you happy, Ginny?"
"At the moment?" said Ginny.
"Yes... well, I suppose not, what with your being stuck here when everyone else is in school, and Harry being... well. But there's nothing I could have done, is there? I mean... is there anything I can do?"
"Yes, Mum," said Ginny. "You can go to sleep. We've been standing in this stairway for ten minutes now, and you said you'd go to bed."
"Oh... yes... perhaps I won't have that tea after all..."
——
Ginny was headed back to her room when she noticed Petunia's door was open a crack—somehow unable to stop herself, she peered inside, to see Harry's aunt sleeping dead-looking upon one of the beds... and then Ginny saw that she wasn't quite so dead-looking as she normally was, because her mouth was moving rapidly.
"No, no, no, no, not Dudley, please not Dudley..."
Her body convulsed in a great sleep-shiver then, and calmed, and the muttering continued softly...
"Nooooo..."
Ginny pulled her gaze away. She was, somehow, the soundest mind in this house of broken women, despite her illness...
Whatever happened to that, anyway? She unconsciously rubbed the top of her head, perhaps trying-but-not-really-trying to find the bump Madam Pomfrey had found...
Biting her lip, Ginny thought about that whole debacle, and not for the first time came to the disappointing conclusion—
Madam Pomfrey had come back two days after the first time, appearing full of anxiety and empty of everything else.
"I'm sorry," she had said, "this bruise... I'd thought... I've never seen anything quite the same before. I'd thought it was... well, there was one thing it might have been... but it wasn't, I looked it all up, not to worry..." She had made to leave then, and then doubled back, as though to make sure of something—
"Miss Weasley... you... have you had any multiple-dreams lately? What I mean is..." she had added, at Ginny's blank look, "double-dreams, or triple-dreams, quadruple, quintuple... nothing like that, yes?" Ginny hadn't, and she said as much—the only dreams she had been having were the ones of her Chamber, the same over and over again and never double- or triple-...
Madam Pomfrey had seemed reassured, and she'd left, promising to do more research. She'd said to alert her if anything out of the ordinary happened, and she hadn't checked back since.
Ginny felt fine...
——
Nine o'clock.
Ginny, staring at the ceiling.
The crumbling piece of plaster was dreadfully tired of Ginny's persistent, beating, silence, and so it decided to attack. It landed listlessly on her cheek, and she blew it off, jerking awkwardly.
Without realising it, Ginny closed her eyes—she only noticed when she realised everything was all black. She was tired... very tired... but should she sleep? What had Tom said?
I don't think you're going to like sleeping tonight...
What did that mean? Was she going to go back to her Chamber, but have it all different again? Would they torment her... tease her... make fun of her... blame her, make her feel... awful... would her self want to play hide and seek again?
She was so very tired... she remembered when she was little she used to try to stay awake when her father worked late, to be able to greet him when he returned, to have him tuck her in to bed... and she'd invariably fallen asleep faster than she would have otherwise. The striving for wakefulness only makes you more sleepy...
It was rather chilly... late October, after all...
Ginny made to pull the blanket over her tighter, but it wasn't there.
It was cold.
Cold... Very, very cold. Freezing... stone, freezing stone. Hard stone. Freezing hard stone.
Her eyes opened. Had they been closed? (Yes, they had.) She couldn't remember. (Yes, I could.) Something felt odd. (Yes, it does.)
She looked around. No...not again... (It's not really that surprising, actually.)
Stone pillars towered around her. An enormous statue rose by the back wall of the chamber.
The Chamber.
The Chamber of Secrets.
"Ginny, Ginny, listen—" said her voice in her ear—her younger self was leaning over her, beside her, her mouth in Ginny's ear—
"Ginny, be careful. You know what's real. You know it. Don't let yourself forget."
Ginny looked up, saw her self, and before she could even voice the "Wha...?" that was forming behind her mouth, her self was gone, replaced by the blackness of her bedroom.
That was... abrupt.
Ginny looked up again now, though she couldn't quite remember looking down, and she saw the crumbling bit of plaster above her, the very same one she'd spoken with earlier—
But it fell...
And so did she, didn't she? She had a memory of falling, when had that been, when had she fallen? What had she fallen through?
She shook her head to clear the strange, illsensical thoughts, and she saw the darkness and the darkness was too much, and then it was gone because the flashes were coming from the window and they illuminated the Dementor that happened to be floating above her bed.
The what the what the what the...?
Her eyes widened in horror—a Dementor? Here? Yes, here, right there, its horrible mouth seemingly glowing in the darkness. Futilely, Ginny tried to do something, to move, to cast a spell, but she could not do something, could not move...
The Dementor lowered its hood, and it leaned over towards her mouth and it began to suck, and—
Suddenly it was Harry, kissing her, and they were atop the Astronomy Tower and her rainbow was there, in the sky above them, glittering with colour, and Ginny leaned into Harry, clutching at him, hoping he would stay with her forever.
And then he pulled back, and it was Tom, and he smiled and smiled and laughed and laughed and she fell back in horror. She landed on her pillow and her eyes snapped open.
Breathing heavily, Ginny stared at the ceiling above her. Nightmare, she thought. Only a nightmare.
"But nightmares are reality," hissed a voice by Ginny's ear. "Whether you think they are or not."
Ginny rolled to her side, falling off of the bed and catching a glimpse of Tom, now smirking on her pillow, as she fell.
Falling, falling... the ultimate feeling of helplessness. Not a thing to do to prevent the inevitable crash...
Ginny was in the air, in the sky, and she was soon no longer sure whether she was falling down or the sky was falling up. Her eyes tried to close, but they could not. They stung painfully from the wind, and Ginny felt them watering. When was she going to land? She could not see anything but clouds...
But then she was on fire, it seemed. She was melting...melting, but at the same time she felt drenched with water. Or was it sweat? No, it was cool, like water; she was swimming, and melting, and dying and breathing, all at once.
And then she was floating, no, flying. She was on her broom, flying high above the grounds of Hogwarts, and it had just rained, because there was the rainbow above the school, and she flew without knowing where she was going. She was above the Astronomy Tower now, and Harry was there, kissing someone, but it wasn't her he was kissing—Ginny charged her broom down at them, and without realising it she had hit them and they went flying without brooms, right off the edge of the tower.
Panicked, Ginny swooped around. She couldn't care less about Cho—it must have been Cho, after all, it was Cho last time—but Harry was falling as well, and she sped as quick as she could to try to catch up. She was level with him, and his eyes were open, and he spoke to her, and the whole world was gone except for his voice. It chilled her to the bone, and it seemed they were no longer moving.
"You can't save me, Ginny," he said. "You could never save me. I'm gone. And you can't do anything."
"No!" said Ginny, trying with all her might to catch hold of him. She couldn't. "I can save you!"
He shook his head. "You could never save me. I'm dying, and it's all your fault."
"No!" said Ginny again, reaching as far as she could reach, but she could not grab hold of Harry. He closed his mouth and his eyes and suddenly they were falling again and he hit the ground, and he was gone.
"NO!" screamed Ginny, and she fell once again, over the edge of her bed, and awoke with a loud thud. Her eyes opened once again—but now they really were open. She was awake, really now, and she took a deep breath before getting to her feet.
"Only a nightmare," said Ginny aloud, and though no voice answered her this time, but Ginny knew that she was wrong. It hadn't been only a nightmare. It had been much more than that.
She paced back and forth a minute, just a few steps forward and back along her floor, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand, trying to clear it... it wouldn't quite work.
She was really awake now, she knew that much at least. She sat down on the edge of her bed and took a breath, calm down, calm down, calm... what had that been about, anyway?
Ginny could not help feel a sense of deja vu at her nightmare... yes, she remembered now, she had had one very similar to it, just before the Chamber had started repeating itself. Back in July...
Her room was suddenly illuminated and she wanted to swear.
She threw herself backwards on her bed, slamming down into the mattress and covering her head with her arms, to block out the light—she didn't want this to be a dream, she'd been so sure she'd woken up, but now the stupid broom shed was flashing so she must still be asleep...
She opened one eye and peeked out through her arms into the darkness of the room—she certainly felt awake...
FLASH.
Her eye closed again on its own accord, and she told herself Wake up, wake up, wake up...! but she didn't wake up because she wasn't asleep.
Sitting up again, she waited a moment, and then saw the flash once again, flooding her room with light from outside her window, just as it had all that time ago, on the first of the month...
She stood, and walked cautiously to the window—half of her still expecting a Dementor to show up or to suddenly change perspective and be falling off a tower, or perhaps to find herself in the Chamber again... but no, she was really awake, and she was really standing by the window, and she really was seeing the broom shed illuminated with light.
FLASH.
The broom shed, yes, the Riddle of the Broom Shed...
She shook her head—the Mystery of the Broom Shed, not the Rid—no, the Enigma of the Broom Shed, that was it...
It doesn't matter, she reminded herself.
Watching out the window, Ginny didn't know what this meant—surely if there had been Death Eaters, they would have been taken care of the first time, they would have been caught, and would most definitely not be back? Surely Dumbledore had known exactly what had happened, and had told Ginny's dad, and that was why he hadn't appeared worried again after that night...?
Then what was causing the flash?
Ginny sighed, and turned away from the window—she picked up her wand on the bedside table, slipped on her slippers, and set quietly out of her room.
——
Click, Ginny turned the lock on the kitchen door—it echoed loudly in the silent, nighttime-house and stepped out in the garden just as the broom shed flashed once again.
It's so bright... she marvelled, even though she'd seen it so many times before. It shocked her, the brightness... now that she was outside, the light appeared nothing short of otherworldly.
She began to walk towards it, anxiously—part of her didn't want to see it, wanted to go back inside because what if it was Death Eaters after all...? but the rest of her felt an incredibly strong pull towards the broom shed, towards the light...
Ginny had to remind herself to keep her wand raised.
Step, step, step, the grass frigid beneath her slippered feet, Ginny moved closer... the thought struck her that this was the farthest she'd been from the house in forever...
Wand UP, arm...
Why was she having such trouble with that? She may very well have been leading herself into certain peril, and yet she was struggling to remind herself there was any danger at all.
...since when was the broom shed this far away...?
For a split second she considered the possibility that she was still dreaming, and that was why it was taking so very long to reach the light—but the coolness beneath her feet and the wintry air biting at her arms told her otherwise. And besides... she was there.
Ginny swallowed, took a breath, and bit her lip all at once and wondered what that must have looked like.
Suddenly she had no idea what she was doing—should she just open the door, now that she was here? Surely that would make sense, but... she couldn't seem to get her arm to move towards it.
"Who are you?" she said aloud, instead, attempting to shout but finding herself unable... it was almost as though she were afraid to wake her mum, and that was why she couldn't raise her voice... but of course that couldn't have been the only reason.
There was no answer, not even another flash...
"WHO are you?" she said again, louder, and when there was no response she had the distinct feeling she was talking to a broom shed.
...which she was.
Shaking her head, and telling herself there was no alternative, Ginny flung her arm rather wildly at the doorknob, and just as she pulled it wide—
FLASH.
——
Am I asleep?
It's so bright... I must be asleep.
...but then, I've never dreamt of something this bright before...
...maybe I'm dead. Could that be it? Is this what death is like?
But how could I be dead? Was it Death Eaters after all? Was that flash a Killing Curse?
...but it was white...
...it IS white...
This isn't green, this is whiter than white.
I'm not dead.
Am I dreaming...?
——
The flash was gone as soon as it had appeared, and Ginny found herself standing just where she'd been before—in the doorway of the broom shed. The doorknob was still in her fist, and her wand in her other hand... and the flash was gone, was it not...?
Then what is that light?
There was still a light, in the centre of the broom shed, a bright, bright light. But it wasn't just a light—it was a body, a body bathed in that blinding white light, and Ginny could not blink. That was her first thought, that she could not blink even if she were to try...
"Who are you?" she said again, quietly.
"Who are you?" repeated the figure in a ghostly voice, a haunting voice, a voice that seemed more like an echo than a voice in its own right—perhaps it was...perhaps it was only an echo of what Ginny had said.
"Ginny Weasley," she said, answering the question she wasn't sure if the spirit had asked...
"Ginny Weasley," it repeated, and nodded, somehow... she wasn't sure how she saw that it nodded, it didn't really have a defined head. All she could see were its wings, it had great shining wings that could hardly be told apart from its body—she only noticed them because they were bent. Its wings were bent, and she trusted it, somehow.
"Why are you here?" said Ginny, and she expected another echo, but instead received a reply:
"We are here to draw you out," it said, this... angel said, for that was what it seemed to be the most, except perhaps an anti-Dementor...
"Draw me out?" said Ginny harshly—that didn't sound good, she'd thought this thing was good, it felt good, inherently not-bad...
"Yes, Ginny Weasley, to draw you out. We are here to draw you away from here and towards where you are needed."
"Hang on... we?" Ginny only saw one of this thing, how could it be a 'we'?
"Yes," it said, and it left it at that.
"Why are you... drawing me out now? What are you?"
"We are drawing you out now because you are to be needed."
"Why? What am I needed for? What... that was you before, wasn't it? The first time? Why then, why were you trying to draw me out then?"
"We were not trying to draw you out then, we are drawing you out now, and then led to now."
"What?" said Ginny, for surely she had no idea what it was saying... and yet, she somehow did. It felt at least as though this thing were saying that the first night of flashing had been to prepare her for this night, when she would actually be needed... as though this thing had teased her in advance so that she would not hesitate to respond when the time actually came.
Came for what? Time for what?
"What am I needed for?" she asked again, and the angel did not answer.
"Go," it said. "Go now."
"What?" she said again, but it did not answer—probably because it knew, again, that she wasn't really asking because somehow she understood.
"Go, Ginny Weasley. Go."
And then it went. Gone in a moment that lasted forever, this thing, this anti-Dementor, this angel, it... went, it disappeared, faded into nothingness, faded to nothing...
And when it was gone, she saw—inexplicably clearly, despite the near-blackness of the night—just in its place... her broom.
——
Ginny felt the cold whip about her face—and along with that nasty little twig, a thought struck her. It most likely should not have been this cold, this early—it was only Halloween morning, now, after all, why was it so very frigid?
She shivered and held tighter to the broom, huddling herself closer to the wooden handle and keeping herself as small as she could, so as to gain speed.
Was she really doing this? Had she really, honestly, truly broken out of that damned prison of her mind? Had that damned angel really had this in its head the whole time, was this why she had seen the flashes to begin with, was all of it really nothing more than a way to get her out of the Burrow...?
It certainly seemed so... Ginny shook her head at the insanity.
Was she really going to see Harry again... today? Oh, Lord, how long had it been? Only two months, really, but it felt so very much longer... she wanted to hug him, more than anything else, she wanted to hug him and be hugged by him, she could almost—but not quite—remember what that felt like...
DAMN IT, she thought—she hadn't taken the notebook with her, all those pages and pages of words to him... part of her wanted to turn back for it, but she wouldn't dare. If her mum caught her, she'd never get another chance... and she could tell Harry everything in person, anyway, what did it really matter?
Thinking of her mum, Ginny realised with a bit of trepidation that today was October the Thirtieth... today was her mum's birthday, and today of all days she'd deserted her. That was awful... her mum would be heartbroken... perhaps she should turn back after all...?
But no, it was too far, she'd gone too far to turn back now... looking around her, and thinking, she figured that she must be just about in Scotland by—
Ginny suddenly felt an indescribable pain, sharp, stabbing... all over her body, OH... oh... ow...
And then she felt a distinct pain in her shoulder, even though the stabbing pains were still encompassing the rest of her, this was new, this was different... and she realised she'd fallen off the broom, and hit the ground—that was this new feeling, her shoulder hitting the ground—and then the world was black.
Chapter Seventeen
Coming Soon
Review, everybody... please. (I just got review number 50 on fanfiction,net! Yay!—who wants to make it 60 by chapter seventeen...:) )