The first time it happened, Ginny Weasley hadn't realized she lost time.
Transfiguration was stupid-easy to perform, but bloody-awful to explain. Frustrated, Ginny's hour in the library crafting the essay for Professor McGonagall's class stretched to two hours. Then longer.
When she woke up face down on the library table, Ginny scrambled to her feet and raced through the deserted stacks. It was after curfew. Sprinting back to the tower, Ginny got caught by a prefect, and lost five points for Gryffindor.
She also forgot about her Transfiguration essay. She didn't realize until she was sitting in class the next day, she had nothing to turn in.
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The second time Ginny Weasley lost time, she hadn't remembered getting into her nightclothes.
She had been writing in a dark corner in the crowded, but still lonely, common room.
Then, it was morning. She must have been so tired. She couldn't even remember her decision to call it a night and head up to the dorm.
Also, she must have been so tired she forgot about finishing her Astronomy chart. She lost ten points and only received half-credit for turning it in late.
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The third time Ginny Weasley lost time, Mrs. Norris was petrified.
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November came. Harry Potter's arm got shattered by a Bludger. His bone was removed.
Ginny still couldn't make her voice work in front of Harry. She couldn't remember the last time she spoke to anyone at all, save for answering an occasional question in class.
But Ginny knew better than anyone how awful it was to regrow bones, so she made Harry a card.
She struggled to make it perfect, crafting a friendly poem and decorating it with colorful charms.
When she realized she had fallen asleep in the library again, the card sat in front of her.
The message inside was a rhyme.
It wasn't a very nice rhyme, though.
Staring at ugly words in her own handwriting, Ginny realized something was wrong.
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The next time she lost time, Ginny woke up in the forest behind Hagrid's hut.
Her wrists stung. Covered in tiny red pecks and broken skin. Confused, Ginny ran shaking fingers over the welts, and realized her sleeves were covered in blood and feathers.
Dead roosters stretched out in a tidy row before her.
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With minute-by-minute precision, Ginny began to track her day.
In her diary.
But Ginny also tracked her day in the back of her transfiguration book.
The two entries didn't match.
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Ginny woke soaked to the skin, laying in wet robes on the floor of the bathroom.
Beside her, her diary lay open.
Unable to resist, her trembling hands reached for it.
Words slowly bled onto the page.
What have you done, Ginevra?
Ginny hurled Tom into the toilet and ran.
She turned back, and flushed, just for good measure.
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Ginny decided to be brave.
But brave turned out to be humiliating.
Singing dwarves and pickled toads and sniggering Malfoy.
Harry clutching a diary; Tom poised to clutch Harry.
Ginny stole Tom back.
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Schoolwork lay undone. Meals sat uneaten.
Ginny had to stay awake.
Sneaking into the infirmary, wand in hand, she accio-ed a Wide-eye potion.
Then another.
And another.
When the fifth stolen flask slapped into her palm, Ginny's hands trembled.
She realized she had never been taught the summoning spell.
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Ginny felt the compulsion, the constant compulsion, to write to Tom.
She petrified her hands.
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Ginny felt the compulsion, the constant compulsion, to write to Tom.
She snapped all her quills.
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Ginny felt the compulsion, the constant compulsion, to write to Tom.
She woke up in the bathroom with shallow cuts on her arm. Jagged chunks of her Weasley hair lay on the floor next to a pair of scissors.
On the mirror, runny red words.
Stop fighting, Ginevra.
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Ginny felt the compulsion and tried to tell one of her brothers.
But she couldn't.
They were busy.
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Ginny felt the compulsion.
She locked herself in a broom closet, pitching her wand under the door.
Ginny woke up on her back. Trapped in a chest, covered by a slab.
She screamed and screamed, but no one heard.
She kicked and scratched, but the slab wouldn't move.
Something poked her ankle.
It was her wand.
She wiggled, squirmed to slide it up, up, up, to her palm.
Levitating the lid away, light illuminated words cut into its face.
You can't hide, Ginevra.
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Ginny felt the compulsion.
She limped down the corridor. Each step like dragging a boulder.
The gargoyle stared, unseeing. Ginny banged on stone wings, begging.
But she woke in a pool of moonlight, a silver beam through the roof of the greenhouse.
Her robe was missing, as was one shoe. Her shirt was smeared with soil, a single sleeve ripped.
Shattered on the floor, shards of broken pots.
Surrounding, encircling, dozens of mandrakes writhing in agony.
Their screams were fatal, but Ginny didn't die.
Squirming, tearing, naked roots thrashing. Struggling to screech through lips sewn shut.
A quill in her hand.
Ink on her arm.
Words.
Be Good, Ginevra.
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A/N – Please forgive me, I know, it's short. It hardly seems fair to skimp on a weekly update like that. I promise I've got some mammoth chapters in the pipeline to make up for the fast track through Tom. I'm far more interested in how Ginny recovers, and I'd rather spend word count on canon-adjacent things Ginny does we don't know about from the books and the canon divergence down the road. Thank you all for reading – I've been appreciating your comments so much… they brighten my day and make me excited to write! But I fully understand if you want to yell at me for this one. 😊