AN: TRIGGER WARNING for depictions of rape, PTSD, and eating disorders. Please read cautiously. I don't own Harry Potter.
The Kick Inside
When it first starts, there's a chronic pulsing in her head, as if her heart were beating between her ears. Then, there are odd gaps in her memory, stretches of time that are just… gone. Blank. As if they were never there at all. After that, the dreams come. She doesn't want to call them nightmares without being able to remember their contents, but the feelings they leave her with make her want to shed her skin like a snake. She's too dirty for her own body. For some reason, she gets the sense that the dreams are trying to fill in the holes from her waking hours, but since she can't remember anything either way, it only makes things worse.
Her memory doesn't begin to restore itself until after she stops talking to Tom. Once the connection is severed, however briefly, things come back in flashes. She sees herself in third person, out near Hagrid's hut with her wand in hand, or leaving messages in a substance that surely must be blood, or lying prone in bed, curtains drawn, a shadowy hand reaching beneath the hem of her nightgown.
It isn't until she wakes up in the hospital wing at the end of term that she can remember everything. She wishes she didn't. She promptly leans over the side of the bed and vomits. The abrupt motion leaves her head spinning, the sick leaves a metallic, bitter taste in her mouth, and the memories leave her heart beating.
Madam Pomfrey comes running at the sound. "Miss Weasley!"
She squints up at the matron. Everything is too bright and too white and too fresh-looking. The sheets were clean, and now she's getting them dirty. "What happened?" she whispers, her voice catching.
Madam Pomfrey gives her the shortened version: You-Know-Who, possession, the basilisk. Of course, she knows all that, because she remembers now. She just hoped it wasn't true. "Professor Dumbledore will talk to you once you feel a bit better."
"No, no, no," she protests, shaking her head, the motion making her feel a bit sick again. She thinks she might be trembling, but she can't tell.
"Why not?" Madam Pomfrey pauses. She'd cast some sort of diagnostic spell and is inspecting the results.
She turns and buries her face in the pillow. She couldn't talk to the headmaster. He would know. He always knew everything. She didn't know how, but he did. He would take one look at her and know how she let him touch her in the most intimate places, his cold hands pinning her arms to her sides while his mouth whispered sweet words and he cut her open from the inside.
She isn't aware of the calming draught that is fed to her until she begins to feel its effects, her senses no longer lighting up like firecrackers on New Year's Eve. Madam Pomfrey tries to ask what triggered the episode, but she refuses to speak. The matron sighs. "Well, you are in good health, just weak. Rest will cure what ails you with time."
She takes the sleeping draught that is offered to her, eager to slip back into blissful unconsciousness. As her eyes close, she wonders how she can be in good health when she has had such violence done to her.
She asks again and again, "I'm really okay?" until Madam Pomfrey loses her patience, snaps at her, and then gives her a crash course in reading medical diagnostics. Through this, she is finally convinced that the magic, at least, believes she's fine. But she knows she felt something physically break inside her that first time Tom showed up in her bed. Sometimes she thinks she can still feel the pain, the one that ripped her apart and sent bolts of lightning up her spine and left her head pounding, and the steel hands that should have left bruises on her hips but didn't.
As her first year at Hogwarts wraps up, she wonders if she even wants to come back. She doesn't think she'll be able to go back to that dormitory, to close the curtains around her bed and not feel his phantom weight pinning her down and the hardness pressing into her stomach as pieces of clothing are removed from her body. Of all the things she now remembers, that is easily the worst.
She's going crazy, but she hides it. Not well, but she tries. She does her summer homework to distract herself from the memories and to help remind herself that she is in the present, not the past, as she sometimes wakes up thinking she is. She's finished all of her assignments before the first month of vacation is over. Then, she starts reading the worn hand-me-down copies of the second-year books, because she needs to have thoughts in her head that aren't her own.
Two months into the summer, she stops eating. Her parents take her to a mediwizard, who gives her an appetite stimulant. She takes it every morning, but she resists its effects with herculean effort. She's trying to remove all the parts he touched. She stands naked before the mirror (the good thing about being the only sister is not having to share a room) and criticizes herself, imagining the hands that once roamed her body. She thinks about how much less of her there might be tomorrow if only she can get away with consuming the bare minimum. If it turns out she can't starve the fat away, she might just cut it all off with a knife.
Her mother, of course, is driven insane by her self-imposed plight. She cooks up a storm, all of her favourite foods every day, but after a few bites, the food comes back up on its own. Evidently, her stomach agrees that she could stand to lose a stone or two.
Her parents drag her back to the mediwizard, who performs a full physical exam. She hates the mediwizard. She wonders if he gets his kicks from examining underage girls, even though her mother is in the room. When he comments that she's too small and beginning to be undernourished and that it will likely impact nature from taking its course, she feels a triumphant, vindictive thrill go through her. She has no intention of ever growing breasts or hips. That was always the one thing he didn't like about her. "You're a bit too young for my taste," he'd murmur, hand resting on her flat chest. "It's a pity, but you'll have to do."
After the second mediwizard appointment, she starts eating, just so she won't have to look at her mother's heartbroken face every day. Her parents' relief is short-lived once they discover she's taken to throwing food up immediately after. It's Percy who catches her and rats her out, so she's not speaking to him anymore. Not that she was really speaking to anyone. Occasionally, Ron yells at her or the twins come and try to get her to talk, but she meets them with apathy worthy of a brick wall, and they give up quickly.
In over their heads, her parents take her to St. Mungo's, kicking and screaming, where they make her eat and don't let her run to the toilet afterwards. A so-called professional comes to her room every day and talks at her. She doesn't talk back. She doesn't want to be here. She isn't even allowed to have her books. Surely, there must be laws against this kind of abuse.
The counsellor's name is Brenée, and she specializes in trauma caused by over-exposure to Dark Magic and dark artifacts. She says that all she knows is that Ginny was possessed by a dark object and that the rest of the story is up to her to tell. She gets good at ignoring the counsellor, but sometimes Healer Brenée says things that linger in her thoughts long after the healer has left.
The Veil is thinner for practitioners of Dark Magic, and for those who have encounters with dark artefacts. When Dark Magic is affecting us to an extreme degree, we may be able to hear spirits whispering beyond the Veil. Those who have experienced possession have even reported seeing spirits and interacting with them as though they were as solid as you or me. But it happens almost in another dimension, so there's no proof. People can feel like they're going crazy.
"Can spirits hurt us?" It's two weeks into her stay at St Mungo's when she finally speaks, sitting in rocking chair with her arms crossed and looking out the window to give the impression that she doesn't care about the answer.
"Not in the literal sense," says the counsellor, "but they can cause physical pain."
"How?"
"Your mind speaks to your body just like your body speaks to your mind. Malevolent spirits are often the ones attracted when the Veil is thin, and Dark Magic is like a leech on your mind. Dark Magic and spirits can make you feel real pain by convincing your brain first."
"So it's all in my- in someone's head."
Brenée smiles slightly, not a mean smile, but an encouraging one, like she's coaxing a frightened animal. "Yes and no. There's no evidence, but that doesn't mean you don't have to deal with the fall-out."
She deals with the fall-out. By the time she goes back to Hogwarts, she's gained back almost all of the weight she'd lost. Once she's at Hogwarts, though, she starts losing the shaky hold she'd built on her sanity, like her mind was a broken vase she had painstakingly glued back together day by day, only to be shattered again by an earthquake. She finds herself in McGonagall's office in the middle of the night (she's not sure how she got there, perhaps her roommates brought her), howling about the voice that won't leave her alone and the hands that won't stop touching her. Madam Pomfrey, Dumbledore, and Snape all arrive, and then there really are hands touching her as they try to stop her from ripping into her own flesh.
She thinks they stun her. She wakes up in a private room in the infirmary, the stark white walls and antiseptic smell now reminding her comfortingly of St Mungo's.
"Hello, Ginny," says a dreamy voice to her left. She turns her head to see her friend sitting in a chair by her bedside. Luna has some sort of project in her lap that involves wire and radishes. She appears to be stringing the radishes on the wire like beads. There's also a bag full of feathers beside her, the use of which isn't apparent. Eyes still on the radish in her hand, Luna adds, "It's now, if you're wondering. It can only ever be now, actually. Isn't that funny?"
"Sometimes in my head it's before," Ginny whispers.
Luna stops what she's doing and looks up. "When my mother died, I always thought it was before," she says calmly and casually, as if talking about the weather.
"What did you do?"
"I stayed at St Mungo's, too." How Luna knows she was at St Mungo's is a mystery. She hopes it isn't like how the whole school knows about the Chamber because it's technically secret. "There was a very nice witch who helped me. Sometimes I still owl her."
"I didn't know you could do that."
Luna shrugs. "They want to help you. I think a lot of them have their own experiences with nargles."
The reference to nargles throws her. She'd forgotten about that aspect of Luna's. Suddenly, she feels guilty. Luna started off as her best friend at Hogwarts last year, and she's been neglecting her for months. She's been neglecting everyone, actually. No wonder not even her family wants to be around her, when she's so sullen and snappy and unstable.
"I think your family would love to talk to you if you let them," Luna says, and Ginny isn't sure if she said her last thought out loud or if it's just Luna's uncanny ability to know what people are feeling.
"My family doesn't know. The only one who knows is the counsellor from St Mungo's. My family thinks it was just possession."
Luna doesn't ask what exact her family doesn't know, just says in her wise way, "They don't have to know, you just have to let them in."
At this point, Madam Pomfrey and the entourage of professors arrives and puts an end to their conversation. Luna gets up and leaves without a word, but she does toss Ginny a radish before departing, which she catches reflexively. What am I supposed to do with this? she wonders. She swears she hears Snape snort.
They change the layout of her dormitory so that her bed is on the other side of the room and tucked away into an alcove to give her more privacy. That small change helps her sleep at night. She feels a bit better. Safer. On an impulse, she hangs the radish gifted to her by Luna with a sticking charm on the wall. She can see it when she's lying in bed at night, and it makes her smile.
She sends an owl to St Mungo's and requests that her letter be forwarded to Healer Brenée A very kind letter from the counsellor is delivered the next day. She begins sleeping with it under her pillow.
Her family still doesn't know, but she apologizes to them for all that she's putting them through. The response makes her cry.
"Professor Snape explained that prolonged emotional difficulty is only expected after possession," writes her mother. "All we care about is your well-being. We love you so much, Ginny."
She puts that letter under her pillow, too. She doesn't believe in all the stuff that Luna does, but she likes the reminders that people care for her.
She and Luna are sitting by the lake one day, soaking up the last of the autumn sunshine, when Luna says, "Did you know that the human body is constantly building itself back up?"
She shakes her head, slightly irritated. She's having a bad day, and the body is the last thing she wants to be thinking about right now.
"Muggles figure that every seven years, the skin cells are entirely new. I know it's only been less than one year, but I bet there are already lots of places he hasn't touched."
She freezes. She's just thinking that maybe she'll get up and run away when Luna adds, "By the way, I'm sorry I didn't say anything."
This sends her thoughts reeling in an entirely different direction. "What do you mean?" she asks.
"It's very hard to be responsible for yourself." Luna looks sorrowful now. "I knew something was wrong, but I didn't say anything. The wrackspurts were lying to me, too, but that isn't an excuse."
"You couldn't have done anything," Ginny says awkwardly. She's still a bit puzzled about this line of conversation.
"Maybe," says Luna, shrugging. "I'm still sorry."
"Well. Thanks."
She owls Healer Brenée at least once a week, sometimes more. By the time the Christmas break comes around, she's surprised to realize that she spends less and less time thinking about him. When she goes home, her family flocks around her. Her brothers have been strangely protective and serious all term, but over the holidays, they slowly return to their usual antics. They still don't rough house with her the way they used to, and for that she's thankful; but one night, the twins convince her to pull a Christmas cracker with them, and a shower of golden glitter explodes out and coats her entire body. The twins fall into hysterical laughter, teasing her about being a disco ball, the second brightest star in the universe, needing sunglasses to look at her. The glitter sticks to her for almost three days, but it makes her smile when she sees it.
Her parents are overjoyed. When the children are due to return to Hogwarts, her mother pulls her into a crushing hug and says, "It makes me so happy to see you back to normal."
She ponders over those words the train ride back. When she sees Luna the next day, she asks, "Do you think I'm back to normal?"
Luna tilts her head to one side, looking a bit like a cocker spaniel puppy, her wavy blonde hair tied in two loose ponytails that frame her face. "Do you think you are?"
"I don't know," Ginny says. "I still feel different."
"Bad different?"
She thinks about it for a while. "No," she decides, then adds, "well, sometimes. But mostly just… different different."
Luna gives her a broad smile. "I think that's called growing," she says, and Ginny can't help but smile back.
