Chapter Thirteen: Lapses

As the Christmas holidays approached, I was spending two or three sessions a week with Madame Pomfrey, because I was getting headaches as flashbacks appeared at the most inopportune times (like the one time in Herbology with the Bubotubers… very embarrassing and painful to pass out while holding a pod you've just punctured.) Each time, I would wake up with Madame Pomfrey bending over me, ready to stuff me full of chocolate (and remedies to the Bubotuber pus and such) yet again. It got so bad that at one point I spent a full two days unconscious in the Hospital Wing… not good with end-of-term exams looming, especially in Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Obviously, this recurring illness did not endear me one whit to Professors Umbridge and Snape. Fortunately, I've always been a rather quick study at things, and I was able to catch up in everything, although it meant depending heavily upon Ginny to take double notes. I could tell it was getting to be a strain on her, but she said she would be fine. I never told her the real reason I was having fainting spells and seeing Madame Pomfrey every week, but I think she guessed a bit, having been around Harry for four years and having seen the now-defunct Professor Lockhart (whom I met briefly at St. Mungo's). One day she asked me, point-blank, after reading the particular chapter in the Slinkhard book, if my flashes were related to a crumbling Memory Charm, and if so, why wasn't I a permanent resident of St. Mungo's.

We were on our way to the Great Hall for lunch, and I stopped cold in the middle if the passageway. I gaped at her, then swiftly took her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom. I queried her if she had told anyone else her suspicions, and she negated my fears. I sighed in relief and told her my secret, all of it. She gasped upon hearing that I was Harry's sister, but swore that she'd never tell. I was so relieved to finally have someone in on it that wasn't an adult, I cried. Ginny patted my shoulder and said she'd help me all she could, though she didn't really know how to break a Memory charm from the outside without breaking the person's mind as well. I gulped for air and told her that it was enough that she knew my secret, and was willing to help me.