Chapter 2: It All Starts
"Thank God!" Ginny muttered as they slowly arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She quickly got her luggage and left the compartment as fast as she could. She was sure of one thing; she did not want to stay in that compartment with Malfoy any longer. Pratt.
Throughout the mass of people exiting the train, she had two objectives. One: Avoid her brother, and two: finding an empty carriage. Mission accomplished.
She got in and willed it to start going to the school. Closing her eyes she dozed off into a nice, calm sleep which unfortunately lasted all of three minutes before she was brought back to life rudely by a loud noise outside the carriage door. Groaning, Ginny poked her head outside, and noticed that they were at the school. Sighing, she groggily got out of the carriage and walked up to the school with less confidence then she thought she had.
Walking into the familiar sight of the Entrance Hall, she stopped in admiration. Hogwarts was more her home than the Burrow ever would be. She was broken from her awe as the crowd of students rushed into the Great Hall, pulling her along with them.
Sitting down at the Gryffindor table, Ginny sighed and turned to face the front. Everyone was laughing and smiling. Every one was happy. Hell, even her brother was happy. Maybe I made a mistake this morning… She quickly shrugged the thought off. But as she heard Dumbledore get up to speak to the students a few minutes later, she couldn't help but think: I don't belong here.
She looked around the hall to Luna. They hadn't spoken since last year. Since…straightening up she refused to let her mind wander there. That was the past. But she still couldn't shrug off the feeling that she was entirely alone in the world.
"…This year will be one of our hardest. As a school, as students, we must bond together like never before. The future very well could be affected by the choices we make. I want all of you to remember that this year. But let's not discourage your empty stomachs any longer!" he said happily, clapping his hands once, so that every type of food appeared right in front of their very eyes. It all looked so delicious, but she could never have it. She wouldn't let herself. She had to be perfect. Why? What's the point? Charlie isn't here anymore. Why bother? A nagging voice said in the back of her mind. She didn't listen. Putting a tiny amount of food on her plate, she played with her food until she heard her brother and his friends start to talk in hushed whispers.
Judging by their side-long glances at her, she assumed they were talking about her, even though they weren't, but she didn't know that. They were in fact talking about asking Sirius what Dumbledore was talking about today at the welcoming feast.
She continued playing with her dinner, dividing her food into sections, making it look like she was eating something. It was an art, her art. Her scoop of mashed potatoes was divided into fourths, and then those fourths into halves. There were eight equal parts. She ate one of them. Next she repeated the process with her green beans. She was nearly finished, eating a total of three bites before she heard someone speak behind her in a cold voice.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the new school lap dog," He said, smirking slightly. He turned to Pansy, who was standing obediently beside him.
"Well I best be off, I have to catch some sleep. You could use some too Weasel. You do look like shit, but that's not much of a change is it?" He looked her up and down. "You could do to loose a pound or two." he said smirking, before he left the Great Hall, whistling some odd tune.
Hoping that the effect of that last comment would not be revealed in her eyes, Ginny pushed her plate away and left for the common room. Leave it to Malfoy to turn a bad day even worse.
She entered through the portrait of the fat lady to Gryffindor tower silently. The last thing she wanted to do was answer useless questions that had no impact on her, and just made her feel more like a failure. Closing her door, Ginny leaned against it and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves. Why am I even nervous? She asked herself over and over again.
Malfoy's words ran through her mind involuntarily. "You could do to loose a pound..." Had he been serious? Was she really fat? She had tried so hard to be thin. She started breathing heavily. She was fat. Oh God... Those three bites she had eaten… They were making her fat.
In a last attempt at calming down, she went to her trunk and pulled out her trusting shard of silver. She barely looked at it as she shed her shirt. Looking in the mirror, she saw that Malfoy had been right. She was fat.
Fat, fat, fat, fat, fat! The words kept repeating themselves over and over in her mind.
"Stop it!" She screamed into the empty dorm room. But they didn't. They got louder.
Fat! Fat! Fat!
She took her blade to her stomach, her protruding stomach. It horrified her. Digging the knife in, she barely noticed the pain. The blood loss would make her thin, she reasoned. Twice more, she ran the blade quickly across her skin, one for each bite she ate. She watched as the indented scars would start out white, and then the blood would come seeping out, almost lazily.
So beautiful, She quickly corrected herself. The blood was beautiful. She never was beautiful. She looked like shit, but she could change that. She decided that she would not eat. That was it, not try, and just do! She was going to be thin even if it killed her.
She grabbed a cloth out of the dresser and cleaned up the distinct rivers that had formed along her pale skin and held them against her three wounds. Breathing a sigh of relief, she muttered a small charm to stop the bleeding so that she could change into her pajamas. Tomorrow was a new day. Ginny went to bed in a contented state of determination and for a strange reason, safety.
The next morning, she woke up with a blistering head ache, tired and lightheaded she grumbled about noisy roommates, stupid birds, and the bright sun. Getting up she went over to her bathroom to have a quick shower and got dressed in her uniform for the day.
She looked at the size of her uniform, it was an 8. She could do so much better than that. By the first Hogsmeade weekend, she resolved she would get down to a size 6. Taking a look in the mirror, she saw that a size 6 would not cure everything, but it was a start.
The red-head started to head to the Great Hall for breakfast when she remembered her proclamation. No Eating. The wounds on her stomach hurt every time she moved; a reminder that she was not to eat. Slowing down in the middle of the hallway, she turned on her heel and headed in the opposite direction of the library. Upon reaching her destination, she saw Hermione coming out.
"Preparing for your new classes, Ginny?" The older girl asked her. She shrugged.
"Something like that."
"Have you already eaten? I saw you last night, you hardly ate anything. You should be eating more; it could hurt your academics if you don't. Come to breakfast with me," Hermione offered, readjusting the heavy books in her arms.
Sighing, Ginny said, "I'm not really hungry Hermione. Now please leave me alone. Like you said, I have to 'prepare for my new classes'."
As Hermione departed, Ginny changed her mind. She had nothing to do in the Library anyway; she had already read all the books for the year that had been assigned. She stepped out of the library and took a sharp turn towards the dungeons. Not where one would expect her to go, not voluntarily at least. She headed past the Potions class; going straight to Severus Snape's office.
Finally getting to the door, she opened it and walked right in. The infamous potions master was sitting at his desk, so she decided to wait for him and sat down in one of the chairs in the room. Ginny studied her nails as she waited for him to acknowledge her. Finally, he lifted his head up from the letter he was reading to see his favorite student staring back at him. Raising his eyebrows up, he set the letter aside as he addressed the girl.
"Miss Weasley, what can I do for you?" he asked her, a slightly mocking tint to his voice.
"Severus, you disappoint me. I swear your memory was much better last year when I told you six thousand times to call me Ginny." She said with a smirk.
He glared slightly at her before giving her a haughty reply, "Shouldn't you be at breakfast instead of down here annoying me?"
He was curious on why she wasn't in the Great Hall. She wasn't the type to miss anything, class or meals. In fact, he didn't remember her having missed a meal in the entire time they had known each other; which was quite a while. Their odd friendship had started in her first year. She had been practicing a potion after class, which he normally left until his advanced fourth year students. When he'd asked her why she needed a mind-shielding potion, she merely shrugged and replied that she was having odd dreams, and thought the potion might decrease them.
Of course, he didn't buy it at all, asking her again why she needed such an advanced potion. Even when he explained to her that the potion she wanted to brew would not do anything against dreams unless they were brought on by another force outside of her own consciousness, she had been insistent. For the next three weeks, every day after his last class she would come to work on the potion. And every day he would ask her why she needed it.
By the time she had accomplished it, a noble feat in his eyes, they had come to more civil terms than any of his other students. After the potion had been accomplished, she came by anyway to brew another potion. One day he asked her why she voluntarily came to his classroom when most students shuddered at the thought.
"Most students don't see you as I do."
"Oh? Please elaborate."
"Most students see you as trying to be evil so that people stay away from you. But it's not true. You act evil because it amuses you like nothing else. You're a true Slytherin."
He had laughed at that comment, telling her she was the first student to get that right in over ten years. She then had raised her eyebrows at him, asking "Surely you're not that old?" and giggling when he glared at her.
Ever since then, they had become closer than anyone thought possible. She was like his daughter. If only she could be my daughter... he thought in longing as he gazed upon the sixth year. She seemed to shrink away from him when he asked that question. "Why aren't you at breakfast?" he repeated.
No response.
Sighing, he put down his quill, and turned all his attention on the girl in front of him. "What's wrong Ginerva? And don't say that nothing is. I know you better than that."
Sighing, she looked down at her hands, that were clasped on her lap like a little school girl. He was one of the few that she let her guard down around. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before getting the words out.
"I don't know, Severus. I saw Hermione in the library not ten minutes ago. She's been so different to me lately, I can't explain it. She asked me why I wasn't eating, and I couldn't answer her. And also, I think Malfoy almost saw my wrists this summer when I saw him in Diagon Alley. I can't help but think he's going to use that against me and torment me the rest of my life.
"Ronald doesn't care about me, and he never has. He called me a bitch this morning. He's never done that. Even if I provoked him, he still acted civil to me. It seems like he wants me to be in pain, like he wants me to hate him. To top it off, Harry keeps staring at me, and it's so unnerving. It's really starting to scare me.
"I don't know what to do anymore, Severus!" she whispered the last sentence, a tear slowly falling down her cheek softly unchecked.
Sighing, Severus stood up from his desk, and walked over to the girl. Wiping the tear off her cheek, he put his arm across her shoulder; not wanting her to cry after so many years. "Look Gin, I know they're being a nuisance -" he started, but he got cut off abruptly.
"It's more than that! They truly make me feel like no one in the world cares about me!" Ginny stated bluntly. "And being in Gryffindor doesn't make it any better. I hardly know anyone there, and they don't understand me at all."
Severus raised his eyebrows again, "Ginerva, listen to me, I care about you. Don't ever forget that. Look, I know you're not happy in Gryffindor, but when you were sorted in your first year, it was for the best. Try and see some good in this."
"Yes, but Severus, I was never supposed to be in Gryffindor. I begged the hat to put me there so that my brothers would be proud of me. Load of good that did."
"What do you mean; you weren't supposed to be in Gryffindor?"
She turned away from him slightly. "I was supposed to be in another house. It never told me which one though, God I wish I could switch to Slytherin!"
He turned her around to face him "Ginny, you can't just immediately switch houses; whether you like it or not." He said gently. It would be paradise for him if she switched, but he was thinking of what her family would say. Plus, his house was not keen on inviting just anyone into Slytherin, especially a once-Gryffindor, and on top of that a Weasley to boot.
Her favorite brother, Charlie, probably would just encourage her; but what about her mother, and her other brothers? Would they call her a traitor? He's sure her brother Ron would call her a traitor. Sighing he told her to ask Dumbledore about it.
He didn't mind, in fact, he would love to have her in his house. He could take better care of her and not treat her as filth like she was now. He would be able to do anything. He just wished that she was happy again. He hasn't seen her happy for two whole years, since her father – the only man apart from Charlie who had ever cared about her – had passed away. He watched her leave the classroom feeling slightly happier then she was before.
Sighing again, he went back to his desk and started to plan out what he was going to teach the 6th years this year.
Walking to Professor Dumbledore's office, Ginny was singing under her breath, a tune that she had in her head. She then started to hum the words of the song, "Rose, Rose, Rose Red. Will I ever see thee wed? I shall marry at thy will, sire, at thy will." But she stopped when she heard a harsh voice from behind her, Malfoy. She should have guessed. She continued to walk, ignoring him whilst he made more and more vulgar comments about her and her family.
Frustrated, she turned around and snapped "What's wrong Malfoy? Can't stop following me? What would you like now, hmm? Degrade my family? Talk about how poor I am, or how shabby my clothes look? Well let me save you the trouble, because I already know. So fuck off." She said, then turned on her heel and strutted toward the Gargoyle and rang the small bell put in place for students. She waited patiently until the gargoyle turned around, winding into a stone staircase. Climbing up the steps, she prayed that she would one day find vengeance to the life she lived.
A/N: I'm finally done Chapter 2, now hopefully you guys will enjoy this Chapter! Also, for the anorexic scene, the size eight is a UK size, equivalent to a US size 6. Just to let you guys know!! Anyway, review please! I know that Dumbledore's office requires a password. But the bell worked better for me. I'd like to thank Mrs. T. Felton for doing an awesome job in proofreading my story again! Please review!