An Unhealthy Escape
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters used in this story. I only own the plot.
A/N: Hello! Sorry the last chapter was so short, this one will be longer. I have been reading through reviews and my old chapters to try to find things that need to be fixed or improved. I found a lot of things. Hope you enjoy this chapter! Leave a review telling me what you thought!
SORRY! I know it's been ages since I updated, but I was really sick for several weeks and then right after I started writing this I left to Singapore for two weeks. I will definitely be updating more regularly! Milo.
Chapter 16
Ginny sat on her bed in the silent, dark room. Tears cascaded down her face leaving silvery trails that shined in the small slivers of moonlight that illuminated the room through the thin, threadbare old curtains. Sirius had offered to set up a room for Ginny so she wouldn't have to share with Hermione. Ginny had gratefully accepted, concerned about the number of times she had woken the older witch up in the night with her screaming and thrashing. She was sure Sirius had seen how much it annoyed her to have the other witch fussing over her every night. Hermione really did mean to help, she just didn't know how.
Being in this place had brought back her old nightmares again. She wasn't sure why this was, but Ginny thought it might have something to do with the fact that she was staying in the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, the organization that was fighting Voldemort. It could also just be the aura of dark magic that seemed to emanate from the old, mouldy walls.
Ginny jumped from her bed and ran to the small, worn out chest of drawers on the other side of the room. In the bottom drawer, hidden underneath her makeup and jewellery box was a small coin purse decorated with little red and gold gemstones. Inside were six little strips of metal that had been taken out of a broken muggle shaving razor. She chose one at random and hastily shoved the little purse back in its hidden place in the wooden drawer. Ginny sat back down on her lumpy old mattress and hurriedly rolled up the sleeve of her purple pyjama top.
Quickly, Ginny dug the shining silver blade into the skin on her forearm and dragged it quickly across her wrist. Blood flowed from the wound creating neat little rivers down her arm. She did this one, two, three more times, but she still didn't feel a thing. She was starting to understand why Harry had gone so deep, and cut himself so many times. At first, she had been confused as to why he would do that when he knew full well the dangers of cutting so deep. But now she understood; he was trying to feel again.
Ginny studied her wrist carefully; there was certainly a pattern beginning to emerge. Down near her wrist, the scars were thin and faded, shimmering slightly in the dim white light. But as her gaze moved slowly up her too thin arm, the cuts got deeper, the scars thicker, scarier to look at. Ginny began to cry again; the now dry tear tracks were replaced quickly by fresh ones. She grabbed the blade in her right hand and slashed violently at her wrist, right up near her hand. It took her a good ten seconds to realize what she'd done.
The blood was rushing out of the open wound a little too quickly for Ginny's comfort. It didn't look serious, but it was certainly deeper than she'd ever gone before. Ginny quickly grabbed a towel she had placed next to her bed, wrapping it tightly around her bleeding arm. Although the wound didn't look too deep, if she let it keep bleeding like that she could be in some trouble. She might not die, but she would certainly need medical attention. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief when the bleeding stopped five minutes later.
For what seemed like the millionth time that evening, thoughts of her own pale, bled out corpse lying on the cold, unforgiving wooden floor flooded Ginny's mind. She quickly banished those thoughts; she couldn't do that to Harry, as much as she felt it would ease her pain. But Harry was relying on her, and she knew that she relied on him too.
Ginny knew she needed to go to Harry before she did something stupid, but she was scared that he was going to be mad at her. After all, hadn't she lectured him mere hours ago about breaking that whispered promise they had made in the middle of that sleepless night? It seemed like forever since she had stood in that tiny cramped bathroom with Harry and confiscated his blade. So much had happened. Ginny knew she was being a hypocrite and she felt terrible about it. But if that was what it took to keep Harry safe, then she would do it. After all, she would rather have Harry hate her than not be around to hate her. Even so, it killed Ginny knowing she had broken their promise. She told him off for hurting himself but then took a blade to her wrist the first chance she got. What kind of a girlfriend was she?
Ginny jumped out of bed and ran out of her bedroom, not bothering to try to muffle her loud footsteps, or quiet the echoing bang of the door against the green and silver wall. She sprinted down the hall to the very last door and burst through it, slamming it shut violently behind her. Ignoring the fact that she had probably just woken the entire house, she proceeded to shake Harry awake.
"Harry! Harry wake up," she sobbed. Ginny wasn't sure why she was reacting like this, but she wasn't having a good night tonight. She just wanted to be held. She needed to feel the comforting pressure of him in the bed next to her, the warm feel of his arms holding her tightly to his chest. She needed him. After almost thirty seconds of relentless shaking, Harry woke.
"Ginny? What's wrong?" Harry asked her, concern filling his voice.
"I'm sorry," was all Ginny could whisper as Harry pulled her close. Harry didn't need Ginny to tell him what had happened. Didn't need to see the bloodstained towel to know why Ginny had come to him. Those two whispered words told him everything he needed to know.
Harry wrapped his arms around Ginny and held her while she cried. When she finally stopped, he moved away slightly so that he could look at her.
"Ginny, why did you do it?" he asked softly. Ginny just shrugged.
"I don't even know. I guess I just needed it," Ginny told him. "Harry I'm so sorry. What must you think of me?" Ginny sobbed. "I just lectured you about hurting yourself, told you off and confiscated your blade and then I broke the promise too. I am being such a prat!" Harry merely chuckled.
"It's alright, I understand. Right now I feel like yelling myself hoarse at you for doing this to yourself even though I was passed out on the bathroom floor only a few days ago. But we can't tell each other off," Harry said. "It's not going to help either one of us." Ginny nodded into his shirt.
"Ginny, I've told you a little bit about why I do this to myself, but I feel like I don't really know why you do it," Harry said nervously, weary of her reaction. "Would you tell me?" Ginny was still and silent for almost a whole minute. "It's okay, you don't have to," Harry reassured her.
"No. I want to. I just don't know how." Ginny took a deep breath. "You obviously remember my first year. What happened to me." Harry nodded his head. It wasn't something he was going to be forgetting any time soon. "At first Tom was perfectly nice. He acted like my friend and I believed him. He would listen to me, offer advice and I thought he was honestly trying to help. But then after a while I started getting these blank spots in my memories. It was like there were a few hours that simply didn't exist, and I didn't know where I had been or what I had been doing.
"I still remember finding myself in a random corridor, my hands covered in blood and wondering what I had been doing. Where I had been. I was so scared Harry, and I was only eleven years old. I didn't know what to do." Ginny paused to wipe the tears off her face. Harry held her tighter, his heart clenching painfully at Ginny's words and the pain that was so obvious in her voice.
"After a while I made the connection, between the blank spots and the diary. After all, Dad was always telling us to never trust anything unless you can see where it keeps it's brain. Something he learned from working in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office I suppose." They both laughed slightly, remembering some of the stories Arthur had brought home with him.
"After I figured it out, I tried to get rid of the diary. But then when I saw you had it, I was worried Tom would tell you everything I had told him. I was even more terrified that he would tell you who was opening the Chamber and then you would hate me." Ginny cast her eyes down, too embarrassed to look Harry in the face.
"I would never have hated you, you know that. It wasn't your fault," Harry told her softly. Ginny nodded, clearly unconvinced. "Hey, you don't really think I would have hated you do you?" Harry asked, alarmed.
"I didn't know you very well. And I thought that Tom would make it sound like it was my fault," Ginny whispered. Harry just held her tighter as she continued her tale.
"Anyway, after I got the diary back, Tom was so cruel. He told me things like no one loved, that I was always ignored, that my parents loved my brothers more than they did me." Ginny thought that if Harry held her any tighter she was going to suffocate, but she didn't mind. She knew it meant he cared about her.
"Why did you believe him Ginny?" Harry asked.
"Well when you're eleven years old and someone older and smarter than you says those things, you can't help but believe them I guess. I just felt so… unworthy. So unloved," Ginny mumbled. Harry closed his eyes. He knew what it felt like to have someone telling you that every little thing you do is wrong. He knew what it was like to feel unloved, unwanted. And he wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even his worst enemy.
"Then he made me write that last message on the wall, and he brought me down to the Chamber." Ginny started shivering, the tears now coming thick and fast. "He told me that I was a pretty girl. That maybe I could be of some use to him before I died. Then he… he…" Ginny's voice trailed off as sobs wracked her tiny frame. Harry held her, whispering meaningless reassurance in her ear just as he had done so many times before.
"What did he do to you Ginny?" Harry asked, absolutely terrified to hear the answer. He knew what was coming, but he didn't want to hear it. Didn't want her to make his worst fears come true. In just a few short weeks, Ginny had become the most important person in his life. She was his best friend, the first one he thought of when he needed help. To watch her go through so much pain was worse than any cruciatus curse Voldemort could throw at him. She didn't deserve what Tom did to her.
"He touched me," Ginny sobbed. "And then he kissed me, but I punched him in the face, and he took my wand. He used it to put me under the cruciatus curse. It hurt so badly. I don't remember anything after that." Harry closed his eyes, fighting off the rage that hit him like an earthquake, sudden, forceful and destructive. How dare he?
"Ginny, why did you never tell anybody this? Someone could have helped you," Harry told her with an expression of forced calm. Anyone who didn't know Harry would think he was unaffected by Ginny's story, but Ginny saw the spark in his emerald eyes that spoke volumes, telling her more than angry words ever could. She could see he was furious. Most people were terrified of Harry's temper, but it made Ginny feel safe knowing that he would fight for her, just as she would fight for him.
"Would you have told anybody?" was Ginny's reply. Harry agreed with her, but that didn't make him any happier about it.
"So this is why you started hurting yourself," Harry said. Ginny nodded.
"After he… after that I felt so dirty. So violated. When he was torturing me, it hurt like hell, but I couldn't help thinking that I deserved it. That it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me, and that's why he chose me instead of someone else. And then the next year at school, everyone knew that I had been the one opening the Chamber. The Slytherins would make a big deal of it, surrounding me in the corridors and yelling that the Heir of Slytherin was coming through, just like Fred and George did to you. But they didn't mean it to be funny. So I started hurting myself.
"After a few years, I realized that it wasn't my fault. That I was eleven and there was nothing I could do. Sure I could have listened to my father about the brain thing, stopped writing in the diary once I realized what it was. But there were so many things so many people could have done. I tried to stop, but I was addicted.
"I was addicted to the pain; addicted to how it made me feel; addicted to watching my own blood drip down my wrist. I was addicted to looking in the mirror and watching myself grow thinner and thinner until there was an unnatural gap between my thighs and every single one of my ribs poked out of my skin. I was addicted to the pretty patterns on my wrist and what they represent. And I couldn't stop."
Harry listened as Ginny painted her terribly twisted picture using only words. He had never fully understood the magnitude of what she had been through. Sure he knew she had been possessed, but he had never thought about how she must have felt, waking up somewhere with no recollection of the past few hours, only knowing that she had done something terrible. And he certainly never knew the full extent of the emotional damage Tom had done.
"I will kill him," Harry vowed. "I will kill him for what he did to you." Ginny couldn't help but wince slightly at his cold, unforgiving tone.
"Not without me you won't," she said, her voice steady and unwavering. If it were Ron or Hermione, he may have argued, but he knew that Ginny would be with him every step of the way; there was nothing he could do about it. Both fell into an uneasy sleep, haunted by images from Ginny's horrifying tale.
+APWBDAPWBDAPWBD+
"Albus, cornering them again is not going to work! You saw how terrified they were!" Remus exclaimed indignantly.
"Yes, but they spoke to us. That's all I'm worried about," Dumbledore replied gravely.
"Albus, I know you mean only the best; anyone with eyes can see how deeply you care for Harry. But this is not the way to get them to speak to us!" Remus said firmly.
Sirius, Remus, Severus and Minerva sat in the comfortable wooden chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk. Their attempt to get Harry and Ginny to talk about what was happening had failed miserably.
"Albus, Remus is right," Sirius cut in. "As I'm sure you remember, I know what it is like to have people press you for personal information like that. There were too many people in that room, even after you kicked Minerva and Poppy out. They were scared, they were frightened and they didn't tell us shit," Sirius said, his fingers massaging his temples as if he was warding off a headache.
"I know," Dumbledore conceded miserably, his customary twinkle absent from his bright blue eyes. "But we need to help them. They have suffered so much already, they don't deserve this. They are merely children and they have been through pain I would not wish on my greatest enemies." Dumbledore paused, looking at Sirius wearily; he knew the man would not like what he had to say next.
"I think that, after reviewing your concerns, the best thing for Harry and Ginny is to have them meet regularly with both Sirius… and Severus." Dumbledore had expected the uproar that followed his words.
"Why on earth do I have to talk to the brats?"
"Bloody greasy git will probably make them want to hurt themselves more!"
"The child is as arrogant as his late father once was."
"I refuse to work with him, and I refuse to leave my godson and Ginny in a room alone with him!"
"Stupid mutt has taught them both to hate my guts! How the bloody hell am I meant to deal with such insubordination!"
Remus had his head buried in his hands and Minerva's lips were about as think as Albus had ever seen them. After about a minute of this, Dumbledore apparently got sick of the childish insults and whining.
"SILENCE!" Albus roared, making everybody jump. "As I said, I think that this is what is best for harry and Ginny. Sirius, you have experienced abuse at the hands of family members before. Severus, you know why I am asking you," Dumbledore said, his X-Ray eyes surveying both of the men. "I am not discussing this anymore, you will have to work together. I expect you both to be on your best behaviour."
Remus couldn't help but snort slightly at this.
"Is there something wrong, my dear boy?" Albus asked Remus, the twinkle back in his eyes.
"Nothing at all sir," Remus replied.
"That will be all then," Dumbledore told them, effectively dismissing them all. He merely rolled his eyes at the mutters that could be heard as Sirius and Severus walked down the stairs. Albus chuckled to himself; it was good to know that some things would never change.
A/N: Hello! I don't really like the ending, but oh well. Tell me what you thought! I promise the next chapter will be up much sooner than this one was! Milo.
