Walking down the corridors to breakfast, Ginny encountered many happy faces, faces that smiled at her as she walked past. But Ginny couldn't muster up the strength to smile back. The smiles were wiped off their faces as she passed them by with the same dead-pan expression on her face. They turned to watch her back as she walked away with expressions of hurt and confusion plain to see on their faces, but with an easy shrug they continued on their way, pushing her out of their minds. Like others, they assumed it was just a bad day. No one attributed her attitude to what had happened a little over a year ago. Logically, who would?

But Ginny was still dogged by the tainted memories of the Chamber of Secrets. Every night, without fail, she would dream of it. Last night had been a particularly bad one, and after waking up early she found she couldn't go back to sleep.

Cold. Everywhere was cold. The hard floor was cold, the air was cold, and she was cold. A small puddle of water lay underneath her, and it seeped through her robes making her even colder. She couldn't ever remember being that cold, not even in the dead of winter. Christmas at the Burrow had been freezing, but nowhere near as cold as this. It ran deep, her bones now ice. The book, that dreaded book, lay near her, and she could feel herself drifting further and further away as the boy got more and more solid. She felt his hard gaze on her, but could make no move to speak, couldn't move at all. Her chest was getting tighter and tighter and she could barely breathe more than shallow breaths. But even that was getting hard. She hoped, she prayed, that no one would die because of her. Even in her near-death state she felt the heavy weight of guilt bearing down on her, just like death was. She hated herself. She was almost glad she was going to die. She never wanted anyone to find out what she had done, for she was absolutely sure they would never understand. Her family would be horrified, ashamed, sickened, repulsed and she would surely be shunned. Maybe locked away forever in the attic with the house ghost, or maybe sent away to Azkaban. Who knew? She didn't want to find out. She wanted to welcome death with open arms, but the cold made that hard, made her resist, even though she didn't want to. But it wouldn't be long, not long at all...
And then his face floated above her face, hair falling way from his forehead to reveal that scar. He pulled her back, back to life, back to where she didn't want to be...
Faces floated around her, faces of all those hurt, faces of all those who loved those hurt, faces of people that could have been hurt, faces, faces, faces, they filled her vision. But one stayed strong. His face. She hated him almost as much as she hated herself. Her expression darkened, and he laughed.
"It's okay, Ginny, you're okay, let's get out of here. You're alive," Harry said with a smirk.
Faces, faces, faces...

She shook her head from the miserable recollection of reality and imagination. And just as she thought she had calmed herself enough, there he was. Walking down the corridor. She looked away furiously, hoping he wouldn't notice her. But how could he not? she thought. Her flaming red hair was a big red target, hard to miss, harder to forget...

"Hey Ginny, how are you?" Harry said, stopping her for conversation.

She blushed, deep to the roots of her hair, and Harry mistook that to mean that she liked him and was embarrassed that he had talked to her. He smiled, somewhat uncomfortable with this mistaken realisation. But Ginny was blushing with fury. She didn't want to talk to him. Ever. And it was not the kind of situation where the deepest hate spurns the deepest love. Ginny wanted Harry dead, or at least purged from her life completely. If the faces weren't reminder enough, he was.

Gritting her teeth, Ginny mumbled a fine and broke away from the conversation. Again, Harry understood this to mean that she was lost for words, or didn't know what to say, and smiled faintly as she left. He was blind to the glares she always threw his way, blind to her reactions to his very presence, blind to everything Ginny felt. Like most people, Harry thought he had done Ginny a favour by saving her life last year. Who wouldn't want to live?

The answer, of course, was one that no one would believe correct. Ginny, a twelve year old girl in her second year at Hogwarts, didn't want to live, not after she had done. But even though she was a Gryffindor, she didn't have the courage, and she couldn't do it to her family. They would know she did it on purpose, whereas they had already accepted her death while she was in the chamber.

Another thing to blame on Harry Potter. For Ginny, the list kept growing longer, and the hate in turn went deeper. She isolated herself completely, focused on her studies (even though it was the end of the year) and soon enough she was rivalling Hermione with the most study-obsessed girl in Gryffindor, or perhaps even the whole school. People talked about her, and put her recent efforts in education down to that she never wanted to be caught in a situation like that again. They assumed that her hard work was so that she could stand and fight next time. But, like other assumptions made about Ginny, they were incorrect. Her studies gave her something else to focus on, something quite apart from the fractured thoughts that would otherwise occupy her mind. They were nothing more than an escape, although a part of her did admit that she wanted to beat her brothers in schooling. It was a rivalry of siblings, a competition to be the best, and she had taken the bait. It just gave her an extra boost and excuse to study the way she did.

It also gave her an excuse to avoid Harry Potter at all costs – for otherwise she feared she would do something drastic, something that no one at Hogwarts would have expected from the "innocent Ginny Weasley". She feared that left long enough alone with the famous Harry Potter, she would kill him.

What she feared even more is that she would be happy about it.