A/N: I'm sorry if some of this seems confusing (ex: most of the pronouns have no precedent) but I was trying to think of how I talk to myself (I swear that I'm not too crazy), and I rarely make sense to anyone beyond my computer or the stack of coats sitting next to me on the post of my bed. I did tone it down quite a bit, but even so, I think that had I not written it, I would be confused at one or two points. Just remember, vague isn't so bad. You'll live. I think... I'll get a first aid kit just in case.
Ginny held her breath as she listened to Filch pass, frightened lest the minuscule sound give her away. He passed, and Ginny returned her attention to her very dark surroundings.
"Lumos," she whispered. Her wand tip lit, and she gasped. The hidden passage was actually a stairway. A stairway that had carvings winding along the walls. Down was not where she wanted to go. Down was ominous.
If she thought about it too much, this entire situation reminded her of him. That's why she favored NOT thinking too much. The hall behind her would not be Filch-free for the rest of the night. There was no choice.
At least it isn't a stone slide. She could feel the magic around her, just like it had been before, when...
In an effort to stop her treacherous brain, she looked for something to watch or listen. All she could find were the wall carvings and the echo of her footsteps.
Those snakes – they were a very Slytherin decoration. Perhaps Salazar had created this passage, too. She was just thankful that they seemed to be solid, immobile stone.
In a strange way, she missed his attention. He had been the worst and best part of that year – of her life. Friendship and horror. Of course, all of it did turn out to be rather more malignant than she had expected.
Not only had he played with people's lives, unworthily deciding the fates of others, but he had done so only by playing upon her emotions. Nothing would ever undo the havoc he had wreaked upon her heart. Dramatic as it sounded, her innocence lost in one fell swoop of the enemy.
At the age of eleven, she had made an acquaintance that would shape certainly the rest of her school years. It was astonishing when she thought about it, that something so small as the yearning for a friendly face among the throng of people could change her life so dramatically. Ginny often wondered what would have happened had small things been ever so slightly different.
Take a simple case. If she had simply gone with her parents to Diagon Alley on a different day, she would never have met him. Someone else would have had to open the Chamber. If it hadn't been her, would the Chamber have ever been opened? Would Harry have still gone after the unfortunate victim? Would he have come back or would he have disappeared forever?
Ginny's gloomy mental monologue had carried her down much of the stairway. She looked down and counted the steps to the bottom. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. She triumphantly ended her journey of a thousand stairs and looked to face her destination.
She took in the comfortably-sized room and the door on the far wall, but the only thing she processed was him. Tom.
Hermione looked at the Marauder's Map to locate Ginny. She said that she wanted to think, and Hermione expected to see her in one of her normal haunts. There was no trace of Ginny on the map. Not even a secret passage held her name. She had disappeared.
A/N: So, who wants a band-aid? Anyone? Anyone? No casualties? Okay, then I will move on.