Racing away from the common room Ginny barreled towards Myrtle's bathroom. Her senses were on fire as she left the portrait.
"Good morning," sang the Fat Lady. Each syllable warbled at a higher C octave. Ginny jumped at the sound of the screeching operatic voice behind her back. She sped away clutching Tom harder underneath the dung-scented cloak.
"Well, that was rude!" the Fat Lady chided towards Sir Cadogan who was visiting an adjoining portrait. "You would think she could at least acknowledge my greeting with a nod."
Ginny didn't care who she offended. She did not have time to worry about hurt feelings or misperceptions. She raced to the marble stair case.
"I am still here."
Visions of several sleepwalking versions of herself projected across the hall. Real Ginny felt ice pulse through her veins as she watched herself. She painted words on the wall where Mrs. Norris was found. She walked like a marionette pulled by an invisible force covered in blood and feathers. Her body sat slumped in a corner with a vacant expression glazing her eyes. Real Ginny closed her eyes and ploughed through the hall to escape the visions. She focused on the apple tree outside her window back home. She counted the branches on the barren winter tree. She fixated on an old bird's nest brittle sticks breaking apart in the winter sun.
Bearing down she scrambled along the slick marble stairs two at a time. At the foot of the stairs the duplicative Ginnys disappeared. She stopped running, gasping the banister desperate to catch her breath. She pulled herself over to the stone wall and leaned into the solidness of the wall to calm her heart.
"I know what you are trying to do. It won't t work."
Pressure and buzzing surrounded Ginny. No. She could fight this. She needed to calm her mind. Tom was not going to win. The burrow. Breathe one, two, three, four. Mum baking. Hold one, two. Dad reading her a book. Release one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
The petrification victims stood silently in front of her. First Mrs. Norris flew through the air until she hung immobile on the wall with Filch wailing at her feet. Colin, with his face behind his camera, smiled at her before lying wooden on the staircase. Justin's prone body indistinguishable underneath Nearly Headless Nick's translucent stone form. Nick's head stood stiffly instead of bobbing above his shoulders. Headless roosters drenched in blood scattered on the floor across the entrance to the hall.
"Look. Look at everyone you hurt. All the lives you destroyed."
Ginny closed her eyes. She pictured Fred and George tying Percy in garland. She watched Ron sulking in his maroon jumper. She smelled the Weasley burrow as she buried her face in Percy's chest. She saw Harry's eyes. His beautiful emerald green eyes smiling. His usual sullen mouth was smiling and laughing. His brilliant bold face looking years younger when he showed his true spirit and smiled.
Ginny kept walking. She was so close. She could get past Tom. This will be behind her. The pressure intensified as a fog descended obstructing her sight. Every step felt as if she was walking through mud puddles, struggling to lift her feet. Slipping she fell and slammed her knee into the hard stone floor tearing her tights. Blood escaped an old scab from her fall on the borrowed broom. The warm blood trickled down her leg and the pain refocused her mind on the present allowing her to break through the fog.
She can do this. She can get up. She can fight. Pushing herself onto her hands and knees she felt her empty stomach ripple with nausea. Her intestines constricted and contracted. Sharp pains radiated throughout her lower abdomen. She will do this. She will get up. She will fight.
Gritting her teeth she crawled on one hand as her other hand clutched the diary closer to her chest. Heat and pain radiated through the cloth burning her torso. Small pebbles from the stone floor stuck in the flowing blood from her cut knee. The pain in her stomach stabbed like a knife cutting through her abdomen. One, two, three, four. Inhaling she re-centered her thoughts. She will not get angry. She will not give into the shame.
She will not fail.
Ginny reached the bathroom. She used the doorknob to pull her upper body upright. Her thighs wobbled unsteadily beneath her weight. Holding onto the doorknob she leaned her weight against the hard wooden door to catch her breath.
A barrage of images flashed in her mind. Harry read the details on her love for him wearing a disgusted horrified expression. Her Mum crouched in a corner with body-wracking sobs as a cold and expressionless Dumbledore expelled Ginny. Her father walked away leaving her alone in the white room. His voice echoing behind the closing door saying, "she isn't worth saving." Every possible image that could evoke an emotional reaction played in a loop.
"I WILL NOT FAIL!" Ginny shouted violently twisting the doorknob thrusting open Myrtle's bathroom door. She took the diary out of the cloak and threw it as hard as she could into the bathroom. With the skill of a chaser, the diary flew out of her hands in a perfect arch over the furthest stall from the doorway. The diary landed in the last stall with a loud wet plop as echoing splashing toilet water splattered the stall walls. Myrtle caterwauled and sobbing about the cruelty of pranksters targeting her sensitivities. Ginny slammed the bathroom door shut and held the doorknob tight. Her heart pounded in her ears.
Ginny released the door knob dropping the dung-scented cloak. She sprinted back to the dorm with the portraits on the wall passing in a blur. She skidded on the stone in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady out of breath heavily panting.
"Bobbles, Gobstoppers, I forget just please let me in," she cried to the fat lady. Her face was white with consternation as she swayed unsteadily on her feet. She was about to start begging when Percy opened the portrait to leave the common room. Ginny sprinted past him through the opening without responding to his pleas for her to stop.
Ginny tore to the girl's dormitory stairs evading Percy and his questions about what was wrong. She scurried up the steps as Percy lagged behind unable to keep up. As her back foot left the top stair the staircase transformed into a slide as Percy fell flat on his face and slip off the stairwell in a painful belly flop.
"Oy! Ginny! What's wrong? Come back!" His voice reverberating behind her.
Ginny didn't stop until she was in her deserted dorm slamming the door behind her. Her her lungs burned with every rapid intake of breath. Her heart raced so hard it was about to crack through her rib cage.
She was free. Something felt different. It was subtle. Her mind was clear for the first time in months. She tried to focus on something painful. She thought about how everything was her fault. She thought about how disappointed her Mum will be when she finds out. She thought about Harry reading that she loves him. She thought every horrible thought Tom pushed into her head.
But nothing triggered her. No matter how ashamed, angry, hurt, emotional she forced herself to become she didn't lose control. The pressure didn't descend. She didn't lose time. Tom's voice was gone. Laughing she crumpled to the floor with her back sliding against the door. Tom was gone! She did it! She was free!
Exhausted Ginny collapsed into a ball and fell into a dreamless sleep huddled on the floor. For the first time since school started, she was completely alone.
She woke to a flat and numb world. Tom was gone but the residual effects surrounded Ginny like a dense fog clouding her senses. Days turned into nights and nights back into days. Noise, music, light, food all felt duller and lifeless. It was almost as if she was looking at the world through a pane of dirty glass obstructing her view of the sun.
School term restarted. The routine of classes helped ease Ginny back to the world of the living. She felt herself slow coming out of her shell. One morning at breakfast Fred and George were taking the mickey out of Ron. The Cannons lost by over 450 points to the Harpies in a spectacular defeat. This propelled the Harpies above Puddlemere United for the league title. Ron, still aggravated over Hermione's extended jaunt in the hospital wing, grumbled over his porridge. Ginny's internal relief that Hermione suffered from self-inflicted potion damage did not extend to Ron's foul mood. He sat surrounded by a multitude of essays due the following morning and no help for revisions.
"You know we could have the Cannons play against someone more their speed next match." George watched Ron's face contort in annoyance.
"Right dear brother! But where could we find a team that played that piss poorly? We would have to search far and wide!" Fred held his hand turned over his forehead as if the mere thought of the task was so insurmountable it caused him to faint.
"They could start you two losers. Your ugly faces look enough like worn bludgers. Then the Cannons would be able to confuse any opponent have a chance." The words left Ginny's mouth before she realized what she was about to say. Ron, George, and Fred stopped eating and looked at her with their mouths gaping. "Well don't sit there with your mouths' hanging open, a spider is liable to crawl in. What? You never heard a funny joke before?"
All three of them laughed. Ron who had started drinking some milk spewed his drink through his nose. The milk sprayed the table causing Fred to laugh so hard he fell off his chair. George found that so funny he clutched his side as if in pain.
"Oy! Ginners! I don't know what got into you but I like it!" said Fred as he reached up from the floor and pulled himself upright. George continued laughing as tears trickled down his eyes. Ron grabbed napkins from several directions and tried to clean up his milk soaking his half completed parchments. He looked up at Ginny with brightness on his face amidst the chaos.
"I missed you, sis. Don't stop taking the mickey out of these numbskulls. Promise me." Ron said quietly with a seriousness reserved for late night conversations with Mum. Lightness filled Ginny. She beamed watching her brother's making fools of themselves in the middle of breakfast. The weight of battling Tom was lifting.
"Well as much as I love hanging out with you three idiots, I have to get to class." Ginny chugged the remnants of her milk and slammed the glass on the table standing tall beside them. She sauntered out of the Great Hall with more swagger than Oliver Wood after a winning game.
Ginny glided through classes that morning. Potions seemed clearer. Professor Snape's directions left her understanding why she was mincing the beetle eyes into fine slices rather than the book's instructions of large chunks. Her potion brewed to a translucent aquamarine which was close enough to the soft teal to earn her an approving silent nod from Professor Snape.
History of Magic was also more tolerable. Something about the goblin rebellion intrigued her today. Rather than focusing on keeping Tom out of her head, she was able to listen to Professor Binns' lecture. His voice was monotonous and the text was dull, but the subject matter was fascinating. She made several notes about Wizard-Goblin ownership rights for Bill's next letter. For once Ginny was in a good mood walking to Defense Against the Dark Arts. If Professor Binn's lessons were interesting perhaps Lockhart might not be a gigantic blowhard after all.
An hour and a half later Ginny realized her good mood could only mask so much incompetence in teaching. Walking out of the classroom, where she learned nothing beyond Professor Lockhart's favorite quill color for autographing muggle photos, she realized sometimes early impressions are correct.
Ginny walked into the hall looking at her pile of notes and books. She felt something soft and fuzzy hit her chest. Looking up the back of a blonde head with stringy long hair smacked into her face.
"Luna?" The blonde with hair draping over her face turned around.
"Hello, Ginny. Are we friends again?" Luna replied with no intonation of anger or resentment. Her voice carried her typical dreamy quality as if she were asking about the weather instead of the status of a long term friendship.
"When did we stop?"
"Well, I assumed when you stopped responding to my greetings and left me alone you no longer wished to be my friend." Luna looked at her deep in thought. "Oh well, I guess I made a false assumption. How are you?"
"Ladies!" boomed Professor Lockhart's voice as he stepped up to them. He stood behind Ginny's back facing Luna. Ginny's eyes burst as wide as saucers as she failed to contain a mischievous grin. "Have you decided which lucky fellow will be on the receiving end of your Valentine?"
"Well no! There is no one I wish to infect with Nargles in celebration of the beheading of a muggle religious icon." Luna replied in her dreamy voice as if what she was saying was the most basic of common knowledge.
"Erh, well, yes. Of course. Nargles."
"Yes, we really should cover those in your class. Secondary schools are a prime location for infestations. They attract to post-pubescent hormonal surges brought on by lust and mating rituals."
"Erh, well, that should be covered in Care for Magical Creatures." Ginny felt her shoulders begin to shake as she tried to contain her laughter. Over the years, she watched many adults walk into similar conversations with Luna. She bounced on her feet in anticipation of Professor Lockhart trying to navigate a Luna chat.
"No, I do not think so. Your class and defense tactics would be more appropriate. I will bring you some literature from my father during next lesson. It would be more interesting than reviewing your favorite quill selection." Luna's face crinkled in remembrance. Ginny found a reflection on a glass portrait to watch Professor Lockhart's face contort as he processed Luna's words. Ginny coughed to hide her escaping laughter.
"Well now, I must be going. Late for a meeting. Please don't forget to bring your Valentine and 3 sickles to next class. The lucky fellows will receive a special delivery during mealtimes. Try not to break too many hearts." Professor Lockhart turned confused on his heels and scurried away from the awkward conversation.
"Come on Luna, you can take that big brain of yours and help me come up with a Valentine." Ginny locked arms with Luna and leaned her head up onto her shoulder. "I am going to need some help from your hormonal Nargles to get the attention of a certain green-eyed boy."