Disclaimer: This story is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended.
DREAMS OF CHILDREN
Chapter Four
Ginny told her everything, told her about her family and how it felt to be the only girl and about how she was sure that Ron fancied Hermione, and how Charlie was going to send her a dragon's tooth from Romania. She even mentioned Harry, relieved that she wouldn't be teased or have to worry about what she said getting back to him.
"I love all my brothers, but when it comes to me and Harry Potter, they're gits."
"Brothers usually are," Cordelia said dryly.
And then, when they'd finished their tea and were nibbling on the biscuits, and Ginny felt sure that they were the only people in the entire world still awake, then they talked about Tom Riddle, and The Chamber of Secrets.
"So, what happened?"
"I went into the chamber, Harry saved me (very gallantly too, for a 12 year old) and we got out using a phoenix."
"Oooooh," Cordy nodded. "Ok, now we've got the bullshit version of the story out of the way, what happened?"
Ginny considered not telling her a moment, but what she'd seen of Cordelia hadn't implied that she's take no for an answer. And she found she wanted to tell her, wanted to yell it from the rooftops, expel it from her body in words if she couldn't expel it from her memory. "I was lonely, and vulnerable, and thought I'd found a friend when I hadn't. And then the whole world saw what a stupid little girl I was and how I nearly got my brother's best mate killed. I-" she raised her chin defiantly. "I blame nobody else. I got what I deserved…"
"Ooooh" Cordy nodded. "So that was bullshit, part deux. What happened?"
Ginny stared down at the biscuit between her fingers, squeezing it and forcing it into crumbs on her lap, trying to think of what she could say. Maybe if she didn't say anything eventually Cordelia would let it drop and she'd- What? Go back to the way she'd been for the last year? Go back to sneaking around and not sleeping and barely eating and… being scared and alone every second of every day? Was she barmy? Why the hell would she want that? She'd managed to get herself trapped on another continent, and she was still trying to pretend everything was all right!
"I just… I wanted someone who was interested in me for a change," she whispered quietly, more ashamed of herself than she'd have ever thought possible. "There's only us and the Lovegoodes in the area, and we can't hang around with the Muggle kids, so all I have is family. And I love them, truly I do, but sometimes…"
"Sometimes you want to stand out from the crowd, to have someone just look at you, right?" Cordy said it quietly, and something about the tone of her voice told Ginny that she was speaking from experience.
"Yeah, that's it. I wanted to not be the littlest Weaseley for a bit. I wanted to be brave and interesting and grown-up. So when I realized that the diary wrote back to me, I talked to it, even though I knew there was something fishy about it. "Never trust something that thinks for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain," that's what my mum said, and I knew she was right. But I wanted to think I was grown up." Her voice dropped till it was barely audible. "I didn't care that the diary might have been dangerous, I thought I could handle it. I thought it would be an adventure, like the ones Ron and Harry had in their first year, like the ones Charlie has when he's training dragons. I was so unbelievably stupid."
"No, you were just unbelievably young," Cordy said, more it seemed to herself than to Ginny.
"That's not good enough!" the younger girl shouted, jumping suddenly to her feet. "That's not a good enough excuse for nearly getting Harry killed, for causing all that grief and pain to everyone who cared about me. I practically spit in their face when I decided to start messing around with that diary, when I chose Tom Riddle over them-" She stopped dead.
"Is that what this is really all about?" Cordelia asked her softly. "That you feel like you betrayed your family? Cos y'know what, Ginny, you didn't."
"I did! I was stupid and weak and I told him everything about me. All the stuff I never showed them, I let that sick bastard get to know me better than anyone else in the whole world! And when I found out what he was, you know what my first thought was? Not, "Oh God, what about my family, how much danger have I put them in?" No, my first thought was embarrassment. I was embarrassed. I was so selfish-"
"Why, because you realized you'd been had? Sweetheart, I've seen some sick, twisted stuff in my time, stuff nobody should see, and trust me, on a scale of one to ten in evilness, you're not even registering. You're like, the diet coke of evil. You said you tried to get rid of the diary, right?"
"Yeah," Ginny didn't see how that was particularly brave, it was just self-preservation and what was she supposed to have done, leave it to keep causing trouble?
"So you, an eleven year old kid, tried to take on the spirit of the most evil wizard who's ever lived, right? Honey, I've seen grown men who don't have those kinda cojones, and you're feeling guilty you didn't succeed? Plenty of people would've walked away, or tried to pretend it wasn't happening, but you tried to stand up to him. And you kept on fighting him, even after he told you it was hopeless. D'you think that that kid, that Harry, would've been able to defeat him if you hadn't softened him up first? Come on, Gin', you're smarter than that!"
Ginny paused. Shortly after they'd been let out of the hospital wing, before her family had arrived, Harry had said that she was the reason he'd been able to defeat Riddle. It was to this day the only time they'd ever broached the subject. At the time she'd thought he was just trying to make her feel better, but maybe-
"They wince when they look at me, Cordy," Ginny whispered, and in that moment Cordelia realized with a heart-breaking wrench what the little girl they'd taken out of The Chamber of Secrets must have looked like. "Harry winces when he looks at me. Why would they do that if they didn't think I was a horrible person for letting Riddle get that close to me?" She knew her voice sounded lost, tiny amid the room. "They must know, know how weak I was…"
Cordelia knelt down in front of the little witch and forced her to look into her eyes. "Sweetheart, I'm older than you, and I've fought some bad stuff: when it comes to darkness I know my shit. And you know what? Things like Tom Riddle don't feed on the weak. They feed on the strong and lead the weak. You are not weak, Ginny. If you were, you'd still be in The Chamber of Secrets, and Harry and everyone else you care about would probably be dead. But they're not, honey. You're only weak if you define yourself by what happened, if you start to believe Riddle's hype about who and what you are." Ginny could feel the tears begin to prickle at her lashes. "You made a mistake, it happens. And maybe there were selfish reasons why you kept talking to the diary. But when the time came you did what was right, and you fought for the people you love. That's all any of us can do."
"Oh, and I suppose I should just forgive everyone and move on."
"Hell no! Stay as mad at Riddle as you want, and for as long as you like. But forgive yourself Ginny, because if you don't, Tom Riddle did kill you in the Chamber of Secrets, he just let you take your time dying."
Ginny sniffled, thinking how impossible it was to be dignified when you'd been crying. What Cordelia said made sense. She'd been dying a little bit at a time ever since they'd brought her out of the chamber, she'd just been hiding the symptoms. But if she didn't stop, if she didn't stand up and face this then she might as well have stayed with Tommy Boy. You made a mistake, it happens. Not one person had had the bottle to put it that simply at home, and in the silence surrounding what happened her fears had been left to fester and multiply. Until one night she'd found herself in another Chamber of Secrets, on the other side of the world, and once again she'd been saved. Did she really want to see if she'd be saved a third time? And maybe, just maybe, there was a reason she'd survived. But she'd never know if she continued the way she'd been going, lurching towards catastrophe.
There was a beat of silence.
"Can I have another biscuit please?" she said softly. "I'm going to need to build my strength back up if I'm going to recover those, what did you call them? Cojones of mine." A small wan smile split her face, the first genuine expression of happiness she'd made in what felt like a lifetime. Cordy answered with her own bright grin. It was small, but it was a start.
"Ginny, this is time for the big guns. Do you know what triple chocolate mocha melt ice-cream is?" She shook her head. "Guess one of the boys is gonna be running to the corner store. Oh Angel…"
The giant man trudged down the stairs. "Cordelia, it's three in the morning. What do you want at three in the AM?"
"I thought your kind liked to sleep all day and party all night."
"That's a Joel Schumacher movie, Cordy."
"Well this is "Saving Private Ginny," and we need ice-cream."
"Would it do any good to protest?"
"None whatsoever," she said sweetly, winking at Ginny.
"Fine, I'll get my coat." He sounded uncannily like a child when he pouted like that, the little witch thought. "The usual?" Cordy nodded. The vampire went out muttering under his breath. Ginny couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard some quite advanced hexwork in amongst the whining. Maybe he had some wizarding relatives.
"Wish I could get Harry to do that stuff for me," Ginny sighed, sliding a sneaky look at her hostess. Apparently Cordy knew where this particular conversation was heading.
"He's not my Harry," she said through gritted teeth; apparently she'd had this conversation before.
"Maybe he's your Ron then. Oooh, or maybe he's your Draco, have you ever considered that?"
"Good looking rich kid with a father who's soon gonna be kicking the bucket? Yeah, I could go for that." She grinned. "Course, it would seem that red-heads are more his style."
"Why I-" Ginny stopped. "You're better at this game than I am, aren't you?"
"Oh yeah."
"So, terrible weather we've been having then, eh?"
That night, Ginny remembered how to laugh.
A/N Anyone still out there? You likee, you let me know... Next one's the last one...
