Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. Ginny continues her string of awkward apologies before returning home and starting to reclaim her life. There are no magic solutions, no shortcuts to recovery, but sometimes happiness sneaks up and ambushes you when you least think you deserve it.

Author's Note: There is no good reason that it took me three years to write this chapter. Therefore I will not proffer any excuses. I will simply say that I did get there in the end and I hope the results are enjoyable despite the delay.

Thanks to nnozomi and OldFashionedGirl for cleaning up this chapter! Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, bad dialogue, implausible characterizations, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not theirs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
CHAPTER 15: Open Doors
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Ginny fidgeted at the entrance to the trophy room, wondering when Daphne and Ruth would show up. "It's five past," she muttered to Apple, who was leaning calmly against the doorframe. "Doesn't she care?"

Apple shrugged. "Maybe yes, maybe no, but in any case, punctuality has never been Daphne's forte. Don't get angry until quarter past." Something caught her ear and she straightened, peering down the corridor toward the stairs. "Actually, never mind - here they come."

Daphne strode down the corridor like a queen processing through a glittering palace, her chin up and eyes fierce. Ruth trailed after her like a mousy shadow, sour-faced.

"If you're not-" Daphne began.

Apple slid her hand over her cousin's mouth. "Daphne, shut up. The idea is to make a truce, not to set each other off again. If you can't both be civil, Ruth and I will go tell Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape that you two were throwing tantrums like toddlers and nearly upset a trophy case. Right, Ruth?"

Ruth blinked, then smiled. "Sure. That'd be fun."

Ginny looked over at Daphne and saw a matching frustration leaking out around Apple's hand. For one second they were in perfect agreement. "Fine," said Ginny. "Let go of Daphne and let us talk in peace - you and Ruth can go around the corner and plot on your own time."

To her annoyance, Ruth laughed. Apple simply shrugged and held out her free hand. "As you will. Wands."

Ginny blinked. "Wands," Apple repeated. "Hand them over. Daphne, I know exactly how many jinxes you know, and considering your brothers, Ginny, I'd be willing to bet you're just as bad. I'd prefer not to bring the professors down on our heads."

Daphne shook Apple's hand off her mouth with a scowl and slapped her wand into her cousin's hand. As Ginny followed suit, Daphne shoved past her into the trophy room. "If this takes more than fifteen minutes or you hear the sound of unspeakable carnage, come play heroes," Daphne said. "Otherwise, much as I hate to agree with Weasley, go away."

Ginny slid into the trophy room. Daphne slammed the door behind them with a bang and a screech of rusty hinges. Ginny wondered for half a second if Apple and Ruth would be able to hear any unspeakable carnage through the stone walls and heavy oak. Then she decided she didn't care. Daphne didn't scare her.

Daphne folded her arms across her chest and fixed Ginny with a cold stare. "You wanted to talk. So talk."

Ginny took a deep breath and carefully unclenched her fists. She was going to do this. No matter what.

"I don't like you and you don't like me," she said, "but this stupid little war you're trying to fight is annoying everybody around us. I'm never going to grovel and I still don't think I was wrong about everything - you shouldn't have pulled that joke at the flying lesson - but... I'm sorry I jumped down your throat our first day in Potions." She folded her arms, tucking her hands into the warm insides of her elbows. "I... well..."

"You were a prejudiced ninny?" suggested Daphne, still stone-faced.

"No!" snapped Ginny. Then she bit her lip. "Well, maybe. Probably. First you made Xanthe feel awful - you kept talking Hufflepuff down - couldn't you see she thought she'd end up there? And then you smiled at Draco Malfoy, and..." She shrugged, arms still pressed against herself. "He's a Malfoy. You know what our families are like. He was horrible to Ron and Harry and Hermione all last year, and it felt like-"

"Like you held out your hand and somebody spit in your face?" said Daphne. "How d'you think I felt when you went off at me in front of the whole bloody class? I'd been telling Ruth that house rivalries were dumb and we'd break the stupid Gryffindor-Slytherin feud since my cousin and my new friend were dead cool, and then you went and made me a liar. In front of Electra and Angelique and Heather, too!"

"So it was wrong. I said I was sorry, didn't I? Isn't that what you wanted?" said Ginny, straightening to point an accusing finger at Daphne. "I'm not the one who couldn't let it drop. I was fine just not talking to you. I never went around putting dungbombs in your bag, or stealing private things out of your bedroom. That was all you, and it's just as bad as anything I did to you - or worse! I want an apology too!"

"Oh, like pretending nothing happened is so much better?" Daphne said acidly. "Besides, it's not like you're innocent. So what if you stopped talking to me after Christmas. You were still a bloody bitch until then! You dumped pumpkin juice on my head! You made me look like a ninny at the Dueling Club! You hexed me in Potions for months-"

"You hexed me first!" said Ginny.

"That was my foot, not a spell!"

"You still did it first!"

Daphne threw up her hands. "Because you dumped pumpkin juice on my head! You see? You're always the victim, never take responsibility for anything-"

"I do so!"

"No you don't! It's always 'look at poor little Ginny, so sad, so lonely.' Oh, boo hoo. I couldn't let you think you could act like that without consequences! That's probably how the Heir got started, I bet - nobody ever stood up and called him out and he just got worse and worse until-"

Ginny punched her in the face.

Daphne reeled back into the doorframe, hands rising to her cheek. Then she growled and lunged forward, reaching for Ginny's throat and hair.

The next minute was a confused muddle of fingers and feet and indecipherable curses, which finally ended when Ginny tripped Daphne and scrambled to sit on her back, leaning forward to press the other girl's arms to the floor. "You- shut- up," she panted. "Don't you ever, ever say that- that I'm like him! You didn't know him! You didn't have him in your head for months and months and nobody to talk to and nobody to help and no idea what to do. I was awful to you because I was stupid. He killed people. It's not the same! It's not anything like the same! And I tried to stop him, I did - I swear I did-"

Ginny gulped, fighting back the stupid, burning tears that wanted to spill out and choke her. Daphne stirred. Ginny shoved down on her arms. "Shut up. Don't move." She swallowed again, and a third time, and let go of Daphne's left arm to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her school robe.

Daphne stayed still, waiting.

"I hate you," Ginny said after a moment. "I wanted to apologize, and you made everything worse. Why do you always p-push at me? Can't you just let it go? I said I was s-sorry - and I'm sorry about the pumpkin juice and the hexes t-too - isn't that enough?"

She was stuttering again. Ginny clamped her teeth on all the words that wanted to escape, and waited for Daphne to answer.

Silence.

"Well? Say something!"

"You told me to shut up. I was trying to cooperate," said Daphne, her voice slightly muffled and distorted by having half her face pressed against the stone floor tiles.

Ginny scowled. "That's not cooperating. That's b-being a toad-licker."

"So? You hate me. I hate you right back. Why should I be nice?"

Ginny closed her eyes, bit her lip, and counted silently to ten. She still wanted to hit Daphne, so she counted back down to one and up to ten again. It didn't help. She couldn't think of anything to say that might change Daphne's mind. Just like she couldn't change Tom's.

Ginny bit her lip harder and ducked her head, trying to breathe.

Tom was gone. He was gone. She'd won. If she could survive Tom, Daphne was nothing. Daphne hated her - so what? Daphne couldn't kill her. Daphne couldn't possess her. Daphne couldn't make her into a murderer.

All Daphne could do was make Ginny angry.

Ginny let go of Daphne's arms and slid off the other girl's back. "You should be nice because it's the right thing to do," she said, scrubbing her damp, prickly eyes with the back of her hand as she stepped away. "But if you don't want to, I don't care anymore. You can tell Apple whatever you want."

Daphne scrambled to her feet and glared warily across the dimly-lit room. "Oh yeah? What are you going to tell her?"

Ginny straightened her back. "I'm going to tell everyone that I apologized to you. I'll tell them exactly what I apologized for, so you can't say I'm trying to weasel out of anything. Then I'll tell them that you wouldn't listen, but I'm done fighting with you. And if you try to keep this stupid fight going, I'll tell everybody - including the professors - about any little thing you do to me, no matter how embarrassing, and ask them not to worry because you're just being a pigheaded baby."

She couldn't change Daphne's mind, but nothing said she had to keep playing Daphne's game. That was the mistake she'd made with Tom - she'd let him define the rules. Ginny was sick and tired of reacting the way other people wanted her to react. She was sick and tired of trying to do everything alone.

Asking for help was the hardest thing in the world. But she could do it. She would do it.

She'd apologized, which took away Daphne's justification for her vendetta. Without a rightful cause, all that was left was Daphne bullying the Heir's last victim. That would go over like- like a Basilisk falling into the Great Hall in the middle of dinner.

Daphne blinked. Then the implications seemed to hit her all at once, and her eyes widened. "That's- that's- you little sneak. That would work on the Gryffindors. That would work on Apple. I think that might even work on Professor Snape - he'd hate it, but he won't break the rules for me. Are you sure you're really a Gryffindor?" A sly smile blossomed on her round face. "You said you had the Heir in your head all year - did he teach you anything?"

Ginny was not going to punch Daphne again. She was not. She wasn't. She really, really wasn't.

That didn't mean she had to be any nicer than Daphne.

Ginny let her breath out in a long, frustrated hiss. Then she returned Daphne's grin with the innocent smile she used when she wanted to make Ron nervous. "That's for me to know and you to worry about. I'm leaving now. Don't talk to me again unless you're willing to apologize for your half of the fight. But don't worry - I won't ask you to grovel."

Ginny turned and opened the trophy room door.

"Well?" said Apple, sticking her head around the corner of the corridor.

"I apologized. Daphne didn't accept. I'm done fighting. If she tries anything else, I'm reporting her to the professors," said Ginny as she walked toward the stairwell. "You and Ruth can ask her about the rest."

Apple blinked. "That's unusually calm for you. Are you certain you're not suffering aftershocks from your experience in the Chamber?"

Was she suffering what? Ginny stopped dead, then turned to Apple with what she was sure must look like absolute lunacy on her face as she fought back an urge to laugh. "What do you think? Of course I'm not over that! Of course I'm not acting like I used to! That doesn't mean I can't change because I want to. I'm tired of being angry. So thanks for asking, but leave me alone."

Ginny stomped up the stairs, hands over her ears to block out anything Apple might try to say. She had an embarrassing explanation to make to the other first years and she wanted to plan it out as carefully as possible, to keep Susan and Danny from trying to take Daphne's side.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Time, which had dragged out like molasses since the Chamber, seemed to pick up speed after that night. Ginny wasn't sure why - she still felt she was faking her way through life - but she stopped herself every time she found herself writing questions about guilt and responsibility in the margins of her class notes.

"I'm not sure what I've learned," she said to Sir Vladislav two weeks later as she sat on his pedestal and stared glumly at Myrtle's bathroom. "Not to do everything alone, obviously. Not to jump to conclusions, I guess. Not to trust strange enchanted objects - no offense," she added as Sir Vladislav shifted with a clank of metal. "But I feel like I ought to have something more to show for nearly dying."

"Life is not fair," Sir Vladislav wrote. "We do not ern all that we get, or get all that we ern. But life is still sweet."

"This year was awfully sour for me," said Ginny, kicking her heels against the marble pedestal. "But... I didn't want to die. Not really. Even when I thought it was the only way to stop Tom, even when I hated my life, I didn't want to die. Some things were good even in the middle of that mess, and they're better now. They'll keep getting better. Right?"

"You will make your life beter," Sir Vladislav agreed. "You know you ar doing the rite thing now, which can give strength even in bad times."

Ginny scowled down at her tatty shoes. "I don't know - I thought I was doing the right thing by fighting Tom on my own, and that never made me feel good. How can I ever be sure I'm making the right choices? And I hate the way people keep looking at me, like I was as bad as Tom or like I was a helpless princess waiting for Harry to save me."

Sir Vladislav held up one gauntlet, signaling that he needed time to write a long response. Ginny kicked her heels and waited, glaring at a pair of first year Ravenclaws - Luna Lovegood and Yukiko Izushima - who passed by and shot her sympathetic glances over their stacks of books. She didn't want sympathy today.

Sir Vladislav tapped her shoulder and handed her a sheet of parchment.

"My parents lived in the North Crusade, als die Deutsch" - these last words were crossed out and replaced by more badly spelled English - "wenn the German nites went to conker the Poles and Balts and make them to become Christian. The Germans looked down at the Poles and the Poles hated the Germans. But my father and mother still fell in lov."

"That can't have been easy," said Ginny, looking up. Sir Vladislav nodded, then gestured for her to keep reading.

"My mother was a Polish witch and would not to become Christian. My father was a German Muggle, and had the toun of Pitula by conkuest to tax and to make Christian und German. They spoke different speeches, praed to different gods, serfed different lords. They married any way. This made grate confusion for other peeple, but my parents wished to make their peeple lern to see each other as peeple, and to be frends. In Pitula, they made the people to be at peace.

"They did a rite thing, and they did it together."

"I am trying not to fight with anyone anymore," said Ginny, folding the parchment in half and running her fingers along the crease. "But I don't see how that has anything to do with me and Tom. You can't make peace with someone who only wants to kill you."

Sir Vladislav took the parchment back and scribbled on the unmarked side. "That is tru. But you can make peace with the girls and boys in your classes. You stopped to fite with Dafnie. Wy not try to become frends with her and the others?"

"I won't try making friends with Daphne Rumluck!" Ginny shouted, and then hunched in on herself, looking around to make sure nobody had been nearby to overhear. "I won't," she repeated more quietly. "I don't like her, she doesn't like me, and what's the point of it anyhow? I don't need to be friends with everyone, especially not Slytherins."

Sir Vladislav's empty visor stared at her reproachfully as he wrote, "Becaus she is Slytherin you shoud try more. I hav seen how wars begin. They start wenn peeple stop to see each other as peeple and see onlie enemies or tools. That is how Tom saw the world. But if Dafnie is too hard, wy not start with other Griffindors?"

With Susan, Danny, and Jasper? Ugh. She was still mad at the boys for deciding Harry was the Heir, and as for Susan... well. But Eugene was all right, Ginny supposed - he was quieter than the other three, and not as prone to snap judgments. Gwen and Jia-li weren't bad either, but Ginny wasn't interested in spending all her time talking Quidditch or giggling about boys. It was bad enough that people knew she liked Harry. She didn't have to go around advertising her crush.

"Maybe later," Ginny said to Sir Vladislav. "I guess I'm just not as brave as your parents." Or as crazy - but that wasn't the sort of thing you said to a friend, so she kept it to herself.

"You ar as brave as yourself, wich is all any one can ask," Sir Vladislav wrote. He nudged Ginny's side with his gauntlet and added, "The sun is brite. The day is warm. I am not your onlie frend. Go outside and away from memories of the Chaember."

"You just want to practice new poses with your sword," Ginny said with a small grin. "Term ends tomorrow. I'll try to say goodbye before they take us to the station Saturday morning, but if I can't get here, have a good summer and I'll see you in September."

Sir Vladislav rested his gauntlet on Ginny's hair for a moment, then waved her off down the corridor.

Ginny stopped by the common room in case Colin needed help with his remedial work, but everyone seemed to be out for the afternoon. She probably ought to find somebody to practice being a friend, but she was tired of acting like everything was fine. So she headed to the greenhouses and spent the afternoon working on a list of minor jobs for Professor Sprout.

"You've been wonderful to have in class this year. Again, if there's anything I can do to help..." Professor Sprout said as she escorted Ginny back to the castle for dinner.

"You already are," Ginny assured her. Then she slowed, twisting a bit of hair around her finger. "Er, are there any projects I could do over the summer for extra credit?"

Professor Sprout looked pleased. "I don't have any ready-made projects aimed at a second-year level, but I can certainly plan a few. Tell me what you have at home by way of a garden and supplies, and I'll avoid anything that requires special equipment."

Describing Mum's garden carried them safely to the Great Hall, past the handful of people who still looked at Ginny with annoyance or pity. "Your home sounds lovely," said Professor Sprout, pushing the doors open. "I'll owl you with some ideas next week."

"Thanks," said Ginny, and hurried over to the Gryffindor table, where Colin waved her into an empty seat across from Apple. Ginny pulled up her most convincing smile and prepared to ask about their days.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Friday was the last day of classes, and even Professor McGonagall unbent enough to hand out shortbread biscuits to everyone and teach them how to disguise biscuit tins so they looked like miniature chests for delicate Potions ingredients. "Do not try to fool Professor Snape with this trick next year," she said as she finished the lesson. "He's been known to insist on students using smuggled snacks to make potions, and to assign detention or deduct house points for the resulting failures."

Ginny mumbled a promise of good behavior along with the other first years. Privately, though, she wondered what else could be done with boxes that looked like other boxes. Had the twins ever done much with transfigured labels?

The last lesson of term should have been History of Magic. By mutual agreement, everyone skipped it and headed outside after lunch.

The first year Hufflepuffs didn't have any lessons on Friday afternoons, so unless they'd decided to pack instead of enjoying the sunshine, Xanthe and her friends should be down by the lake. Ginny still felt awkward around them, but she'd managed to convince Xanthe that taking responsibility for what she'd done this year was different from saying everything Tom had done was also her fault. And it wasn't as if Caroline and Anne cared either way, as long as Ginny was willing to pitch in and complain about lessons, play tag (which inevitably degenerated into trying to dunk each other in the lake), share horror stories about the general idiocy of parents, teach Xanthe to turn cartwheels, or whatever else they felt like getting up to.

Sometimes that indifference made Ginny feel like screaming that horrible things had happened and why didn't anyone care? More often, she was grateful for the lack of pressure, especially compared to the way her own housemates still weren't quite sure how to treat her.

She was about to slip off in search of the Hufflepuffs when Susan caught her arm.

"Ginny-" she started.

Ginny shook Susan's hand away, not wanting to spoil the afternoon with an argument. "I am trying to have a good day. I don't want to argue with you. I've been perfectly happy ignoring you - why can't you keep ignoring me?"

Susan hissed between her teeth and looked around at the other first years, who had stopped to watch with open interest. "I- look- will you people go away and let me talk to Ginny in private?"

"You wouldn't let me apologize to Colin in private," Ginny pointed out.

Behind her, Colin sighed. "Ginny, you're being mean again. Stop it."

Ginny gritted her teeth. She'd been having a good morning - she hadn't thought of Tom more than once - and now Colin wanted her to make nice and smile at Susan? He was such an annoying little toad-licker. But she was trying not to push people away.

"Follow me and we'll talk. If anyone tries to follow us, I'll tell my brothers you were bothering me." She stomped off across the grounds, heading around the castle to the deserted Quidditch pitch. Susan trailed after, equally annoyed.

When they reached the middle of the pitch, well away from any curious ears, Ginny flopped down onto the grass and stared up at the sky. It would probably be easier not to get mad if she didn't have to look at Susan. And the sky was gorgeous, blue and bright and big enough to swallow her alive. Ginny spread her arms and buried her hands in the grass, working her fingers down between the roots to touch the cool, springy earth.

"Well?" she said.

Susan edged into her field of vision and looked down, eyes narrow and jaw clenched. "You know, I don't even know why I wanted to talk to you anymore. You're not the Heir, it wasn't your fault, okay, fine, whatever. You're still a stuck-up, self-righteous cow, and you take every stupid little thing and make it into a giant stinking mess. Forget it."

"Fine," said Ginny. "You don't like me, I don't like you, let's never talk again. I'm glad we agree." She closed her eyes, hoping Susan would take the hint and leave. The grass tickled the back of her neck and she wiggled her toes as she inched sideways into a more comfortable position. Her shoes were getting a little tight. Mum would probably insist on buying new ones this summer.

"We do not agree!" said Susan. There was a rustle and thump; Ginny peeked through slitted eyes and watched as Susan settled herself cross-legged on the ground. "Look, we're housemates and classmates, right?" said Susan, plucking a blade of grass and tearing it methodically to shreds. "We're stuck with each other for the next six years. We need to learn how to get along. Your family's just as big as mine, so I know you know how that works."

"Yeah. I know," Ginny said reluctantly. She didn't always like her brothers, but they'd long since thrashed out ways to work around each other's most annoying quirks - and avoidance was not a workable method, not like with Daphne. Gryffindors could get away from Slytherins. Getting away from each other was a different flock of owls altogether. Susan was right. She and Ginny didn't have to be friends, but they had to figure out how to get by. Drat, bother, and toad-guts.

"So look. I shouldn't have let Daphne muck around with your stupid poems. That was wrong. And I probably should've tried to listen about the Heir, even though I still say the evidence pointed right at Harry Potter."

Ginny shoved herself up on her elbows. "Riddle was framing-"

"Yes, but since nobody else knew about Riddle, what were we supposed to think?" Susan interrupted. "It was a good frame job. Of course it worked and of course I thought Harry Potter was the Heir. But that's not the point."

"Then what is?"

"Would you let me bloody talk?" said Susan, waving her arms wildly, specks of shredded grass flying every which way. "The point is, I got pissed off at you because you overreacted to Daphne way back in September. I like Daphne, she's fun, all right? You were so glum and standoffish and all grumpyguts about everything - it's exhausting trying to talk to you - and... and I've a temper too. I overreacted. It was stupid. And I hate backing down." She grimaced and plucked another blade of grass. "So, this is me backing down and saying I was wrong about some things."

"Only some things?"

"You were still wrong about Daphne, and you still make things a thousand times more dramatic than they need to be," said Susan. "All right, you really were caught up in a horror story, but how were the rest of us to know?"

"I'd think the Petrified bodies might be a clue," said Ginny, giving in and sitting up properly so she and Susan were on the same level.

"Argh!" Susan threw up her hands. "This is exactly what I'm talking about! No matter what people say, you go out of your way to take it badly. Not everyone is out to get you! I'm not out to get you! You were fun for a bit when we first met. You told jokes. I remember that. Did your stupid Heir steal your sense of humor along with trying to kill you?"

"You know what? I bet he did! I bet he stole it, and ate it, and it tasted like chicken!" snapped Ginny.

She stared at Susan, not quite believing those words had just come out of her own mouth. Susan stared back, equally surprised.

Then, helplessly, Susan started to giggle.

"Chicken!" she gasped through her laughter. "Jokes taste like chicken! What on- who says- are you completely barking mad?"

"Maybe I am!"

Susan kept laughing, as if Ginny were the most ridiculous thing she'd seen in her life. As if she were so pathetic and stupid that-

No.

Wait.

As if Ginny had just said something ridiculous - which she had. That didn't mean Susan was laughing at her, or at least no more than Ginny laughed at Fred and George when they did something absurdly over the top. Not everyone was out to get her, right? And she was so tired of being angry.

"Maybe I am barking," she repeated, smiling almost despite herself. "But so's Dumbledore, so who cares?"

Susan grinned. "Who indeed! Look, we're not friends, but can we at least call pax and start over? I'd like to get to know you when you're not halfway possessed and I hope I come off better when I'm not on my high horse."

She stuck out her hand.

After a moment, Ginny clasped it and shook. "Truce."

They stood awkwardly for a few seconds, neither wanting to be first to break away. Then Susan made a face and loosened her grip. "All right, this is getting stupid. I know you don't want me hanging around even if we're not angry at each other, so I'll go find the boys and you can get on with whatever you were planning. I'll see you at supper." She scrambled to her feet, dusted the grass from her hands, and strode off the Quidditch pitch, blonde hair shining in the early summer sun.

Ginny flung herself backward onto the grass again and stared up at the endless blue sky. At the edge of her vision, a cluster of puffy clouds was drifting lazily in from the west, like a flock of giant airborne sheep. Mum had wanted to get a sheep once, back when she'd started knitting. Ginny wondered why that hadn't worked out. It might be interesting to have a sheep, especially if they got a dog to look after it. But maybe a sheep would get into the garden and eat all the vegetables...

Lost in idle thought, Ginny closed her eyes and soaked up the sun until a passing cloud cloaked her in shadow. Then she rolled back to her feet and set off to find Xanthe.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Hogwarts on Saturday morning was like the Burrow on September first, writ a hundred times larger, louder, and more disorganized. Somehow nobody was quite finished packing, the prefects had lost the tags that would identify everybody's trunks after the house elves whisked them from the castle to the train platform, and breakfast was inexplicably half an hour late. Ginny, who was used to this sort of madness, pulled her things together faster than any of the other first year Gryffindors. She tried not to look smug as she sat in an armchair in the common room watching her housemates rush about like headless chickens. Judging by the annoyed looks Apple, Susan, and Colin kept shooting her, she wasn't hiding her amusement well.

Finally they all trooped down to the lake, piled into the same tiny boats that had carried them to Hogwarts last autumn, milled around the platform until they found their trunks, and settled down to wait for the Hogwarts Express. Ginny spotted Xanthe squashed between Anne and Caroline, and waved.

"Don't forget to write!" she shouted over the din of voices, the screeches of cats and owls, and the roar of the approaching train.

"I won't!" Xanthe shouted back. "See you in September! Oh! And I wanted to ask you-"

But whatever she was trying to say was lost under the whistle and the pounding of the Hogwarts Express as it pulled up to the platform. Ginny pointed at her ears and shook her head. After a moment, Xanthe shrugged and made a scribbling motion over the palm of her hand, as if writing a letter. Ginny nodded, and then Xanthe whirled and ran to catch up to her fellow Hufflepuffs as they boarded the train, her trunk levitating behind her.

Ginny looked for Apple and Colin, but they had vanished. Drat. She didn't want to get stuck in a compartment without any friends. Maybe she could find one of her brothers.

She levitated her trunk and stepped up into the train, glancing along the corridor toward the rear of the car. No sign of her housemates, nor her family. Double drat.

A compartment door slid open and Daphne Rumluck stuck her head into the corridor, looking away from Ginny. Triple drat and a bucketful of toad guts.

Ginny took half a step backward toward the door of the train car, then stopped. She wasn't going to fight with Daphne anymore. That didn't mean she was going to hide. If Daphne wanted to make a scene, that was her own problem.

Daphne turned toward Ginny with vague annoyance on her face. Then her gaze sharpened and she made a disgusted expression. "Oh, you," she said. A silver Persian cat peered out from around her shin and hissed, echoing its mistress.

Ginny shrugged.

Daphne sighed. "Right, right, there's no point if you won't fight back. Hey. Have you seen Apple? She promised she'd sit with me and Ruth on our way to London but I couldn't find her on the platform and it would be just my luck if she's found a compartment and thinks I ought to come to her instead of the other way around."

"She didn't plan that out beforehand?" asked Ginny.

Daphne bent down and scooped up her cat, which promptly scrambled its way onto her shoulder. "Oh, probably," she said airily, "but where's the fun in that? Apple needs someone to shake her up and drag her into things or she'd never have any life at all. None of you Gryffindors did a good job of that this year. You'd better shape up or my vengeance will be swift and terrible." She grinned.

It was a strangely non-threatening smile, Ginny thought. Almost friendly.

"Are you apologizing to me?" she asked.

"Of course not! But I'm not fighting with you any more either," said Daphne. "Apple's decided to be your friend - which if you ask me really means she's decided you're an interesting problem to solve or a project to play with - and there'll be no living with her if we don't at least pretend to play nice. So I accept your apology, and maybe next year I'll see why my cousin thinks you're worth her time." Her cat's tail lashed, and she reached up to rub behind its ears.

Ginny bit her tongue and carefully counted to ten. Then she said, "Fine. I haven't seen Apple or Colin since the platform but they probably got on at this door. If you haven't seen them, they must have gone that way." She pointed toward the front of the train.

"I'm pretty sure I saw some of your brothers back that way," said Daphne, gesturing over her shoulder toward the rear of the train. "That carrot hair stands out a bit."

"Does it? I hadn't noticed," said Ginny. "Thanks, though."

They smiled insincerely at each other and headed in opposite directions, their sleeves brushing as they passed. It was strange not to be wearing robes, Ginny thought, after a full school year getting used to the way they hung from her shoulders and swirled around her legs. They weren't half bad in the winter - Hogwarts was too big and too old for warming charms to keep out all the drafts or even heat the floors very much, so an extra layer was nice. But now that summer had come, robes were hot and uncomfortable. And she never wore them at home anyhow.

It was weird to think she'd be home by suppertime. Back at the Burrow, eating with her parents around the same table as always, sleeping in her own bed in her own room like she had for eleven years. Like nothing had happened, like the past year hadn't touched or changed her at all.

Except she had changed. She wanted something to mark that.

Lost in thought, Ginny didn't notice a compartment door slide open until someone leapt out and snatched her off her feet.

"Gin-Gin!" cried Fred as he pulled her into the compartment like a reverse jack-in-the-box.

"Gin and tonic!" said George, pushing her trunk in and maneuvering it up onto a shelf.

"Ginger beer!"

"Gingivitis!"

"I say, are you implying our favorite ickle Ginnykins is a form of mouth disease?" said Fred, interrupting the stream of idiotic nicknames. He dumped Ginny unceremoniously onto one of the bench seats and sat down beside her.

"I get carried away, you know how it is," said George with an indifferent shrug, dropping to sit on Ginny's left.

Across the compartment, Ron rolled his eyes, Hermione hid a giggle behind her hand, and Harry looked somewhere between alarmed and completely baffled. Ginny felt her face and ears burning red with utter mortification. She wanted to sink through the floor of the train.

"I hate you," she muttered, elbowing both of the twins.

"She doesn't mean it, of course," George assured Harry and Hermione. "She's under the pernicious influence of the Opposite Hex. Everything she says is the opposite of what she means. Fred and I will translate."

"Idiots," said Ginny, fondly.

"By this she means, 'Thank you, my genius brothers, for discerning my plight and lovingly lending your aid to me in my time of need,'" said Fred. Ginny elbowed him again. He patted her head and smiled.

"I am going to hex you," said Ginny.

"By that she means-" George started, but Harry interrupted.

"Could you hex me instead?" he asked.

Ginny stared blankly at him. The train whistle blew three long blasts. Through the window, she could see Hagrid stumping up and down the platform, hurrying stragglers aboard.

"I don't mean actually hex me," said Harry, looking slightly put out at everybody's stupefied expressions. "I just want to practice disarming charms while we're still allowed to use magic."

"A man after our own hearts," said George, "though your choice of method is barmy."

Now it was Harry turn to stare blankly. "What's barmy about being able to defend yourself?"

Ginny caught Ron's eyes and made the little combination of expression and gesture that meant 'distract the person talking, I have a plan.' Usually this meant distracting Percy or Mum, but if Ron hadn't forgotten...

He rolled his eyes at her but said, "Oi, let's not start mucking around with hexes until we're well away from the professors - they'd probably dump extra summer work on us, and sod that. I have a better idea anyway. Do you two have any fireworks left?"

"Ron, I'm hurt that you have so little faith in us. Of course we have fireworks!" said Fred.

"Let's set them off as the train starts," said Ron.

The twins looked at each other over Ginny's head. Matching evil smiles spread across their freckled faces.

"Why didn't we think of that?" asked George.

"I've no idea," said Fred, "but who cares? Fetch the Filibusters!"

George pulled a bundle of fireworks from his trunk, Fred opened the window, and as the train puffed away from the station, they showed Ginny, Ron, and Harry how to set them off with a carefully aimed Incendio. Hermione refused to pitch in and did her best to look disapproving, but she didn't tell them to stop. Ginny figured that meant she secretly enjoyed the bang and flash as much as the rest of them.

Judging by the cheers audible over the roar and rattle of the train and the rush of the wind, the other students enjoyed the show. But all too soon they ran out, Fred shut the window, and they settled in for the long ride home.

They did practice disarming charms, as well as less purposeful magic - transfiguring each other's buttons and shoelaces, levitating the snacks Harry and Hermione bought from the passing trolley, stacking their textbooks and making each one turn a different color - but eventually Ron pulled out his deck of cards and they began a cutthroat Exploding Snap tournament. Hermione conceded early and sat in the corner attempting to read a supplementary history textbook, and Ron and Ginny jointly forced Fred out an hour later, which left three Weasleys and Harry in a neck-and-neck race until the train whistle sounded again and they realized they were almost at King's Cross.

"Who won?" asked Ron.

"Who cares?" said George.

"Harry and I tied," said Ginny, who had been keeping score on a piece of parchment. "It's fun to beat Ron at card games, isn't it?" She smiled at Harry.

He smiled back as he handed his stack of cards to Ron. "Yeah, especially after he wipes me out in chess every time."

"He wipes everyone out," said Ginny. "Even Percy, which annoys him because he's the one who taught Ron to play in the first place."

"Hang on, that reminds me," said Harry, leaning forward with an intent gleam in his eyes. "Ginny, what did you see Percy doing that he didn't want you to tell anyone?"

Ginny went blank for a moment. Harry was staring at her! In maybe a good way? What was she supposed to do? Oh, help. Then her mind made sense of his question and she remembered the horrible morning when Percy had accidentally stopped her from confessing about Tom. What had he- oh, right, Penelope! And his horrible cologne, and sneaking around, and really, it was too silly to think of Percy being romantic.

"Oh, that," she said, not bothering to hide her amusement. "Well... Percy's got a girlfriend."

Fred dropped a stack of books on George's head.

"What?"

"It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater," said Ginny. "That's who he was writing to all last summer. He's been meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day. He was so upset when she was," - Ginny hesitated for a moment, then pushed onward - "you know, attacked." Stupid Tom. Why couldn't she get away from him?

"You won't tease him, will you?" she finished, doing her best impression of innocence. Whatever the twins did wouldn't be her fault! This was not in any way, shape, or form any kind of revenge! Not in the slightest!

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Fred, looking like his birthday had come early.

"Definitely not," said George, sniggering.

Hermione looked slightly anxious. Ginny caught her eye and mouthed, 'Opposite Hex.' Then she grinned. Really, anyone who'd believe she didn't know what the twins would do with that kind of blackmail was hopelessly naïve. She was a Weasley, for Merlin's sake!

The Hogwarts Express slowed and finally stopped. Ginny helped George lift her trunk down and began dragging it through the door; their compartment was at the end of the train car and if she hurried she could get onto the platform before everyone else clogged the corridor. Behind her, Harry was saying something about telephone numbers. Ginny remembered Xanthe's muddled explanations and wondered if she could work up the nerve to call him sometime during the summer, or at least to say hi after Ron and Mum got done talking Harry's ears off.

"I still say they ought to allow magic until we're back in the Muggle part of King's Cross," said Fred as he and George flanked Ginny. "Dragging trunks is such a pain."

"Mum will have a trolley," said Ginny. "She always does."

"It's the principle of the thing," said George. "Aha! There she is, and Dad, too. Hurry up, let her hug you before she explodes."

"Why am I the one who has to get squeezed half to death?" Ginny asked, but she dropped her trunk for the twins to deal with and jogged forward to let her parents envelop her. It wasn't as if she minded knowing they loved her.

She let Mum hold her hand as they crossed back into the Muggle world.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Her first days home were odd, even without counting the spectacular failure of Ron's attempt to use a public telephone in Ottery St. Catchpole to call Harry. Mum made Ginny's favorites at every meal and visibly bit her tongue to stop herself from yelling when Ginny accidentally broke a lamp, or refused to get out of bed the second morning, or did anything that would normally have earned a scolding. Dad didn't act so peculiar, but he was home a lot more than usual - he'd taken half days at the Ministry and brought piles of paperwork to sort through in the kitchen instead of in his office. Her brothers weren't so obvious - for one thing, they were distracted by the whole "Percy's secret girlfriend" mess - but even they were acting suspiciously nice.

This often took the form of deliberately annoying her when she'd been quiet for a while, but even so. They were paying too much attention.

It wasn't bad, exactly, but Ginny felt a bit like she'd stumbled into some other Ginny Weasley's life instead of her own. Or maybe like she was stuck inside a muffling charm and couldn't make the world notice her the way it ought to. She tried to distract herself by starting on Professor Sprout's Herbology projects and even reading her brothers' old textbooks, but that only worked in patches.

On the third of July, two strange owls arrived: one from the Daily Prophet (probably a bill) and one with a letter addressed to Ginny in Xanthe's looping, smudgy handwriting. The post owl flew away as soon as Mum tucked a Knut into its pouch, but Xanthe's owl snatched a piece of raw chicken from Mum's cutting board, gulped it down, and perched on the kitchen windowsill looking like it could wait until the end of the world for Ginny to write an answer.

Ginny took the envelope into the garden and tucked herself between the tomatoes and the fence where nobody could see her from the house. Then she unfolded the letter and began to read.

Dear Ginny,

It's odd to be back in the Muggle world after so long at Hogwarts. Of course, it's not as if there's no magic at all in the house - there's Mum's potions lab, and the Floo hookup, and so on - but I keep expecting the photographs to move, and then they don't. Also Dad's making me study algebra, which is a kind of mathematics, to keep up the story that I'm at a normal public school instead of learning magic. I don't mind much, you know. It will make calculating star paths for astronomy much easier! (You'd hate it of course.)

I meant to ask you before we left Hogwarts, but would you like to visit me this summer? Caroline's visiting family in Ghana, but Anne might be able to come. I'd love to introduce you to Mum and Dad and show you around Stonybrook - that's the Winterbourne family manor, where my grandfather lives. Mum and I spend summers with him. It's probably not as fun as your family's house, but I know Grandfather has books about Occlumency if you want to keep practicing that. And we have family pictures. I know there are some of my Aunt Rose from when she was at Hogwarts. There might even be one with Tom Riddle lurking around the edges.

That probably doesn't make you want to visit, does it? But I think maybe it would help to see things from when he was a real person, not just an evil spell in a diary. If Riddle felt more like a person, it might be easier to realize he was a bully and a bastard and he forced you into doing what he wanted just like if he'd held you at wandpoint, you know?

Also Grandfather has gorgeous formal gardens. I bet you'd love them.

Write back and tell me how you're doing!

Your friend,
Xanthe

Ginny folded the letter and stared at the tomato plants. They were getting tall, enough that Mum had already tied the stalks to the middle strand of twine strung between wooden stakes, but the tomatoes themselves were only tiny green dots, not even the size of her fingernail. Only the leaf shapes (and the fact that Mum planted tomatoes along the fence every year) identified them, and if you couldn't recognize those signs there was no clue that come autumn those tiny green lumps would swell to ten or twenty times their current size and turn brilliant orange-red.

Like she hadn't known Tom would turn out to be evil, even though there were clues that somebody else might have noticed.

Somebody smarter. Somebody less naïve. Somebody who didn't want to grab hold of any excuse to keep hating Daphne Rumluck, to think her housemates were idiots, to believe she had a friend who liked her for her instead of just for finally being the hoped-for Weasley girl. Somebody who'd paid attention to Dad's warning about magical objects that could think for themselves.

Xanthe was right - that wasn't all her fault. Tom was a bully and a liar. He had threatened her with magic. But she hadn't warned anyone else about him once she'd learned the truth. She hadn't given the diary to anybody who might have known a foolproof way to destroy it. People had suffered because of those choices.

They were her choices. Her failures. Her responsibility.

Xanthe couldn't argue them away from her.

Besides, Ginny knew perfectly well that Tom had been a person. He'd been her friend and then her enemy. She'd seen his face, heard his voice - she could picture him clear as life if she closed her eyes and stopped trying to avoid thinking about him. A few old photographs wouldn't do anything about her real problems.

On the other hand, she wouldn't have to pretend she was fine around Xanthe, who probably wouldn't believe that anyhow. And a visit might be fun for other reasons too - maybe they could practice flying and other things that were impossible with stupid overprotective brothers always hovering around. If she could talk Mum and Dad into letting her out of their sight for more than five minutes at a time.

As if to prove how hard that would be, she looked up to see Ron skirting awkwardly around the aubergines. "Hey Ginny, don't spend all day out here. You'll turn into a tomato." At Ginny's sour look, he held up his hands as if to say it wasn't his idea to bother her. "Mum wants you to come in for a family meeting - something about that Daily Prophet owl - and to tell her who your letter's from."

"Xanthe Delaflor. She's in Hufflepuff, you wouldn't know her," Ginny added in response to Ron's blank look.

"So not all of them believed Ernie Macmillan," Ron said, dropping to the ground beside her. "Ha. Better than I can say for our own house."

Ginny hit him with the folded letter. "Would you give over about that already? People are stupid, they jumped to conclusions, and it's not like I didn't give Riddle all the information he needed to do a good frame job. Besides, I know at least one Gryffindor who thought Harry being the Heir was a dumb idea."

"Really? Who?" asked Ron

Ginny didn't feel like explaining Apple, especially since that would lead on to talking about Daphne and Susan and all the ways she'd messed up at getting along with people. She hit Ron with the letter again. It seemed simpler. "None of your business. Anyhow, Xanthe's invited me to visit this summer. Her mum's a Winterbourne, so they have a manor and everything."

Ron shifted closer and scowled. "I dunno, do you really think that's a good idea? You know what some of the old pureblood families are like. What will she want in return?"

Since the letter obviously wasn't doing any good, Ginny punched her brother in the shoulder. "Don't be such a git. Xanthe's my friend; she wants to see me. It'd be like us having Harry over last summer, only without the kidnapping part."

Ron snorted. "So more like if we invited Hermione to visit, really." He pushed himself back to his feet and dusted his trousers, then offered a hand down toward Ginny. "Come on, let's get inside before Mum decides we need more chores to remind us who's boss around here."

Ginny hesitated a moment before taking his hand. "I am sorry I didn't tell you," she said. "About Riddle, I mean. I should have. You're my favorite brother, we've always done everything together. But I suppose..."

"I was always with Harry and Hermione?" Ron finished as he helped her to her feet. "Yeah, that's how the world goes, isn't it? S'not like the twins had much time for me my first year, nor Percy for them I bet. Probably not Bill and Charlie either." He kicked idly at a passing gnome, which squeaked and scuttled into the courgette patch. "You should go visit this Xanthe of yours, even if she is a Winterbourne. Good friends are worth- they're worth a lot."

"Yeah. They are," said Ginny. She turned to face Ron, walking backward along the path. "So hey, d'you know what the Daily Prophet thing's about?"

Ron shrugged. "Not a bloody clue - Mum wouldn't say until everyone's in the kitchen. But she didn't seem pissed off so it's probably good news."

"Like what, free newspapers for a year?"

"Dunno," said Ron with another shrug. Then he grinned. "Ha, I tell you what - maybe Dad won that lottery drawing Mum was yelling about last week."

"Us, win lotteries? Never happen," said Ginny, turning just before she backed into the kitchen door. She pressed her ear to the wood for a moment, but either nobody was talking or someone had put up a privacy charm. Toad guts.

"You never know. Weirder things have happened! They've even happened this very year, and we're due a bit of good luck," said Ron. "Now come on, turn the knob and let's get inside before Mum has kittens."

He slung his arm over Ginny's shoulders in a companionable hug, and they walked through the door together.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

AN: Thank you for reading, and please review! I appreciate all feedback, but I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and why.