The Quidditch League (Round 1)

Holyhead Harpies - Chaser 1: Write about an attraction to someone or something that can only end in disaster.

Prompts: [setting] Astronomy Tower, [word] inexplicable, [word] cosmic

A.N. I was debating what to write when I realized Ginny's trauma was never fully dealt with after CoS. This is barely brushing the surface, but I wanted to explore the other, darker route she could've gone down. Because of her trauma (or how I've decided it's affected her), she's acting a little OOC, but the essence of her personality is still the same. Hope you enjoy ;)

TW for: Canon manipulation, use of canonical slurs (mudblood, blood traitor, etc.), mental health issues that have been very poorly dealt with, and kinda a little bit of Stockholm syndrome?

Word count: 2756

i don't remember who i was (before you painted all my nights)

There was a time when Ginny hadn't cared, a time when the old robes, frayed jumpers, and hand-me-down clothes hadn't bothered her. She was the only girl, born last after six brothers, so she was especially doted upon, and didn't have to share as many things with them either. Sure, some of her dresses came from mum's old chest of clothes from when she was Ginny's age, but hiding them – and their loose fit – underneath knitwear made them look a thousand times better than any pair of jeans or faded old shirts that Ron was forced to wear, passed down to him from the cycle that was Bill, to Charlie, to Percy, and then the twins.

Growing up sheltered at the Burrow, Ginny had been more or less happy. Her main source of indignation pre-Hogwarts was how her brothers wouldn't let her play Quidditch with them, how their mum would agree and say, "Surely there are better things a girl can do than ride a broom and hit around some balls!" Dad would stay out of the argument, of course, or agree with Mum if he felt she was glaring at him too harshly, but no one would side with Ginny. Not a single soul. She was pampered, and yet forever the odd one out. Excluded because she was a girl, but privileged because she would always be the first one to get new things, whenever they could afford them (because Merlin forbid if she were caught out wearing boys' clothes!)

She could sigh just thinking about all that. They seemed so trivial now, the problems of childhood. Of course, they didn't feel that way back then – having the brooms locked away in the shed because Mum had caught her sneaking out to fly on her own had felt like the end of the world. Being teased by her brothers because she had noodles for arms (even though they were the ones who never let her use the Beaters' bats) had made her hate the world – and them – for at least a week straight, or even two. The reality was that things that had been so inexplicably significant back then weren't so important now.

Funny how that happened…

Funny how little Ginevra Weasley, the youngest of her family, had grown up right under all their noses.

The real problems started in first year, beginning – but not quite ending – with Tom's diary.

"Never trust something that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain," Dad had said. A valid point, but not one that he'd addressed towards Ginny. She was his sweet girl, the one child he could trust not to really step out of line. How would she be so interesting as to interact with a cursed object that could think and talk back? The very idea was laughable. So, as if to laugh in his face, Ginny had written, and written, and written, refusing to tell anyone about her newfound friend even though she knew that – objectively – he was unnatural.

Slowly, Tom had taken over her life; coaxing information out of her like she was a well of water and he was a bucket. By the Halloween of her first year, he knew everything about her and more. He'd absorbed her insecurities and understood them like no one else had, had lent her a listening ear when everyone else had scoffed and seen her as a little girl. It was inexplicable, the way he'd wiggled himself into her life. One day, he was just a diary that wrote back; the next, he was the best friend she never thought she would have.

First year came and went. Ginny failed all of her classes and came out of it a cosmic wreck; insecure, friendless, and – once again – Tom-less. Harry Potter had destroyed his essence, his soul down in the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny had been grateful, of course; Harry had saved her life and brought her back to her family. But even still, despite knowing what Tom had done, how he'd used her and compelled her to do terrible things, she grieved his loss. She lied to the mind healer when they took her to Saint Mungo's for a check-up, pretending like she remembered none of it, like Tom had truly meant nothing to her. In reality, she spent every night sobbing under her blanket; crying because she'd lost the one person who'd implicitly understood her.

Despite everything and the kind of person he was, Tom had never judged her. He'd never sneered at her clothes, never turned his nose up at her old accessories and used books. He'd empowered her; was the only person who'd ever told her she could do whatever she wanted, because she was Ginny Weasley, and the Weasleys – despite being blood traitors – were still purebloods. Even if everything he'd told her was a lie, Ginny knew that that part – at least – was true. She was a Weasley, and that naturally made her better than half of the people she went to school with, no matter how poor she was and how rich they were.

In the aftermath of her first year, with much wallowing having been done (both at home and in Egypt), Ginny had only one regret, and it wasn't something her mum or dad would want to hear. It wasn't that she'd confided in a dark object, knowing very well that the diary could be one, but rather what she'd said; what she'd spent most of her time writing about. Tom had given her a lot of advice about Harry Potter, had even told her how to best attract his attention (though she had been too chicken to follow any of that advice), but it was only because Ginny had spent her mornings and nights gushing about the gallant boy-who-lived, how she couldn't believe that he was her brother's best friend, how she desperately wanted to be as close to him as Ron was.

After everything that had happened, she wished she'd been a bit more mature; wished she'd talked about other, more useful things. Tom would know how to stop the others from snickering at her, after all. He would tell her what to do if she'd asked; he would tell her how to put them in their place. He would know all the best tricks to look richer than you actually are ("I grew up in an orphanage, you know? I wasn't much better off than you are."); he would help her be better and not the laughing stock that her family had forced her to be. He knew all about having disappointing family members, he'd said. Her plight was not unusual to him, because it had been his too. He'd told her all about how they used to laugh at him when he'd first come to Hogwarts, how it made him angry and want to lash out ("I showed them, though, Ginevra. I showed them, and you can too.").

If only Tom were still here… He'd know what to do.

The problems started in first year, but they didn't stop there.

Ginny spent her second year stewing all on her lonesome, talking to no one except Colin Creevey (and even then, only because he'd attached himself to her like a leech). Harry Potter, though he'd saved her last year, had gone back to forgetting that she existed, and her brothers were as ignorant of her presence as they'd always been. With no Tom to talk to, and almost all of her yearmates aware that she'd failed virtually every first-year class she had (aware that she wouldn't be here if Dumbledore hadn't canceled exams last year), Ginny ended up as isolated as she'd ever been. Hogwarts was supposed to be her refuge; Gryffindor was supposed to be where she found friends who'd understand her. As it turned out, no one wanted to be her friend. No one wanted to be associated with the girl who'd flopped pretty much the easiest year out of the seven they'd have.

That, perhaps, was why everything went down the way it did; why – to her family – Ginny's behavior went through an inexplicable change. If only her brothers – overprotective only when it suited them – had paid more attention to her…

The Astronomy Tower was her choice of place to sulk. She'd chosen it predominantly because it was where she used to write to Tom, but also because there were too many stairs, and Colin Creevey tended not to follow her due to that.

"Anything to get rid of him," Ginny thought irritably, positioning her new diary – one that decidedly did not write back – on her lap.

The late afternoon sun illuminated the area she was sitting at, bathing the ancient gray stones with a pleasant orange-ish yellow light that suited wonderfully for the task she was about to embark on: chronicling the events of her day, writing them out as though she were writing to Tom.

Professor Flitwick pulled me aside today. She began scribbling. He said my charms skills aren't up to a second-year level. I know he didn't want to embarrass me; that's why he called me up when everyone was packing. But couldn't he have waited a little? That awful Romilda Vane heard him as she was leaving, and now everyone knows how terribly behind I am. They're all making fun of me; I can hear them. I asked Percy to make them stop, but he just told me to ignore them; that if I didn't pay any attention to their "nonsense", they'd give up eventually. Ugh. As if. What's the use of having your older brother as Head Boy, if he won't stop people from bullying you? Nothing, that's what.

You'd put them right in their place if you were here, Tom. I know you would. You were Head Boy too, weren't you? I bet you were a thousand times more effective than Percy "stick-up-his-arse" Weasley. You wouldn't have–

"Ginny? What are you doing here?"

Ginny jumped, sending the diary flying off her lap. She'd been so ensconced in her writing that she hadn't heard any footsteps, hadn't realized that someone had come up the Astronomy Tower.

"Nothing," she said quickly, rubbing her sweaty palms on her robes. "What do you want, Hermione?"

The bushy-haired girl held up a star chart and a shrunken telescope. "I'm here for class." She frowned. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Ginny reeled back defensively. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look a little flushed." Hermione put her stuff down and put a hand on Ginny's forehead as if to take her temperature. "I just–"

"I'm fine!" Ginny shoved her hand away, glaring at her resentfully. "Stop trying to baby me."

Hermione shook her head, giving her an insufferably disappointed look that she had no right to give. "Like I said, I'm only concerned for you. As Ron's friend, I think I have a right to be."

"You're Ron's friend, not mine." Ginny snapped. "Go away."

"I heard what happened in Charms, you know. I heard what Professor Flitwick said."

"Y-you what?" The redhead swallowed harshly. "Who told you?"

"One of the girls in your class. You know, if you need help, you should just say so."

"I don't need your help." Ginny huffed. "I'm fine on my own."

"I'm sure you are." Hermione nodded condescendingly. Before Ginny could say anything else, she cocked her head and – kneeling – picked up the diary that had fallen on the ground. "What's this?"

Ginny's eyes widened. "That's mine! Give it here!"

But Hermione – cosmically intolerable snoop that she was – had already begun reading the page Ginny had been writing on. Her chocolate brown eyes widened as she took in the words, realizing just who her friend's sister was writing to, even while knowing she wouldn't receive an answer.

"You're still writing to him!?" she cried out incredulously.

"And if I am?" Ginny sniffed out, tears gathering in her eyes for reasons beyond her.

"Ginny, do you realize what he did?" Hermione hissed out, brown eyes so wide they could've been of cosmic proportions. "Do you realize what he made you do?"

"Oh, no, I only lived through it!" The redhead lurched forward, trying to snatch the diary out of her hands, but Hermione held it up just out of her reach.

"This is why you've been acting so strangely, isn't it?" She huffed out. "Writing to– to him. Don't you remember what he did to me? To Colin? To Penelope Clearwater?" She began flipping through the diary, reading some of the other entries.

"Stop that!" Ginny yelped out. "Those are private! You can't read them!"

Hermione only shook her head. "You're clearly not doing well, Ginny. Not if you're writing to him." Then she looked up with the most pitying look on her face, which made Ginny see red, and said, placating, "But it's alright. We can get you the help you need. Just–"

"I don't need help from a filthy little Mudblood like you!" Ginny snarled and launched herself at Hermione, who was momentarily frozen in shock, snatching the diary right out of her hands.

"Gin?" Ron cried out from the stairs, having just come up with Harry. "What in Merlin's name!?"

"What's going on?" Harry frowned, hurrying over to help his friend up. "Hermione?"

Hermione was still as stiff as a statue, her eyes darting to and fro in a daze. Ginny had no such compunctions. "I'm saying it like it is." She sneered. "She had no business going through my diary like that."

"That still doesn't mean you can say that word!" Ron whispered heatedly. "You know what it means!"

"Yeah, and I don't care." Ginny retorted.

Harry, ever the peacemaker, tried to intervene. "Look, I don't know what's happened between you two, but Ron's right, Ginny. That's a foul word, and you shouldn't have called Hermione that. If you would just apologize–"

"I'm not apologizing!" Ginny shook her head, grabbing her bag from the stone floor. "Not when it's the truth."

"Ginny–!" Ron began, stepping forward in an almost threatening manner.

"No, no, she's just saying it like it is." A new, rather smug voice joined the conversation.

They all turned around to see Draco Malfoy standing there, a darkly satisfied look on his face, holding his own astronomy equipment and flanked by his two henchmen in front of the winding staircase. He weighed Ginny with a calculating look before shoving his telescope into Crabbe's arms, swaggering forward with that attitude of his that every Gryffindor not-so-secretly despised.

"Shove off, Malfoy!" Ron snarled, drawing out his wand.

The smirk on Malfoy's face widened, taking on an almost predatory look to it. He didn't even bother taking his own wand out as he answered, "I'd be careful if I were you, Weaselbee. Don't want to end up vomiting slugs again, do you?"

"The only one vomiting slugs will be you!"

Malfoy shook his head, then, rolling back his shoulders and closing his eyes like he was exhausted from dealing with a particularly petulant child. When he opened his eyes again, a cross between the Malfoy icy-blue and his mother's silvery gray, he was sneering down at Ron – a couple of inches taller than he was – reverting once more to the mini-Lucius they all knew him to be. "Even your sister's seen the light, Weaselbee. I don't know how, seeing as she's surrounded by dullards like you, but she has. And it won't take her long to start seeing other things too."

"You shut your mouth, Malfoy. You shut up right now." Ron hissed, jabbing his wand into Malfoy's chest.

But Malfoy wouldn't let up. He turned to Ginny, crassly shoving her brother away so he could be face-to-face with her. "My father will be pleased to know that not all of the Weasleys have fallen as low as that Muggle-loving fool, Arthur Weasley." He waved a careless hand at Crabbe and Goyle behind him. "Should you wish to engage with more… edified company… Well, you know where to find us, Weaselette."

"My name's Ginny…" Ginny whispered weakly. "Ginevra."

If possible, Malfoy's smirk turned even broader at that. Giving Ron a wicked look, he acknowledged what he'd just been told. "Ginevra, then." As he swaggered past her, he added, "I'll see you around, Ginevra."

Ginny could stare at his retreating back, not quite understanding what had just happened.

When she turned back to look at her brother and his friends, they were staring at her like she was a stranger.