Difficulties of Avoidance

by dead2self

A/N: Wow, I'm a chapter-writing machine tonight! Go Christmas break! Of course, this chapter has plenty of conflict, which is always fun to write. Enjoy!

I try to reply to a lot of my reviews manually, but I just thought I'd mention here how much reviews mean to me. I love constructive criticism, and although writing this story is just plain fun for me, knowing that people are reading it is just an extra boost. So... To those of you who have reviewed, thank you so much. To those of your who haven't... Thanks for reading anyways! R&R! Thanks!

Edit 06/10/08: Slightly this has been edited.

Edit 11/04/22: Slight edit

In Luna's absence, Ginny was writing Harry more than ever. It got to the point that Hermione actually replied to one of Ginny's letters, restricting her to one letter per day. Ginny had smoldered for an afternoon before Harry wrote a follow-up letter explaining that they were all very stressed and her constant owls (not that he did not enjoy hearing from her—not that her troubles were enjoyable to him!) were something of an inconvenience. It was a humbling realization, but that did not quench Ginny's desire for someone with whom to talk.

So, instead, Ginny threw herself into Quidditch, which was probably a good thing since the Gryffindors had been flattened by Slytherin in their first match. It was the first time Gryffindor had not caught the Snitch (excluding, of course, all of Harry's unavoidable mishaps) in seven years. Ginny mostly faulted herself; she had played so terribly at practice during the week that the team had voted last minute to put her in Seeker, hoping that her quick reflexes would make up for her inattentive flying. The match had taken place only a week after her falling-out with Luna, and she had not been in top form. Her emotional state coupled with her constant, underlying fear about Tom Riddle had put Ginny in such a state that the Snitch had zipped past her face twice without her giving chase.

It was a gift from Harry that marginally alleviated her fears as she went through her days at Hogwarts – the Marauders' Map. He claimed he had no further need for it, not being in the castle himself, and in her hands it could be put to good use. Ginny was beyond thankful; with the map, she could keep tabs on both Riddle (though he did not technically appear on the map, having been locked in the Room of Requirement) and Luna. She resumed taking her meals in the Great Hall, her schoolwork improved, and she was decidedly less of a mess than she had been the whole first quarter of the school year.

Although their involvement with the Order of the Phoenix had made Luna and Ginny fast friends, it did not mean that Ginny had forsaken her friends in Gryffindor. She got by without Luna; she had fun and she even found herself forgetting that she was mad at Luna – or even that she was missing Luna at all. Although they were taking almost all the same N.E.W.T.s, their interaction was minimal. She checked up on Luna using the Marauders' Map, and she knew that the Ravenclaw girl still visited Riddle on a regular basis. Sometimes she even went without Dumbledore as an escort, which worried Ginny. She had seen the way Riddle had looked at Dumbledore when he knew that the erudite old man had been his only escape route. Ginny would not put it past Riddle to jump a girl and wrestle her wand away.

It was the times when Harry could not answer her letters that Ginny missed Luna the most. Obviously, she could not pour out her fears and feelings about Harry to anyone but another person deeply immersed in Order business. Luna was always so good at listening, and for all her social awkwardness, she really did give good advice. Luna, on the other hand, seemed just peachy without Ginny. She carried herself in the airy manner that she had adopted during the first five years of her schooling, and she seemed content to be friends only with herself. Whenever Ginny saw her, it made her alternately angry and sad, so that one day when she was studying in the library, she did something rash.

The Gryffindor study group rarely did much studying when the library was full of interesting people to watch—and taunt. "Look at her, walking around with her nose in the air," Eveline Knapper muttered, having looked up from her notes for a moment. "Thinks she's better than all of us…"

Beside her, Abigail Lawson nodded in agreement. "If you ask me, she's gotten a big head ever since she was made Head Girl."

Gregory Jones twirled his quill between his fingers and leaned back in his seat. "I'll say. She tried to take points from me last week for standing on a crack. Said I was trying to curse someone."

Eveline snorted. "She probably had a real laugh about it afterwards with…" She trailed off, and the whole study group went quiet as they realized they were sitting with Ginny. Ginny glanced at Luna, who was drifting between bookshelves not too far away, and as if sensing that she was being watched, Luna turned toward her. Then her eyes passed over Ginny like she was thin air, and something snapped inside Ginny.

She shrugged. "Luna doesn't have a big head," Ginny said off-handedly, still looking at Luna. "It's just full of fairy dust and hot air and keeps her floating through life believing anyone and anything that has a pulse and half a brain cell."

There was a series of snorts across the table as people agreed. Luna had stopped moving, and Ginny knew that she was listening. Her eyes were wide and unblinking.

"It is creepy though, how her eyes get that really silvery sheen, you know?" said Gregory.

"Yes, like when she stares blankly out the windows during class," Abigail cut in.

"Well, you know what they say about big, bulging eyes." Ginny leaned in and pressed harder. "There could be house elf in the family." She threw in an exaggerated impersonation of a rather tipsy Luna sighting down her wand and then snapping her fingers that brought her table to incontrollable giggles.

It was low and Ginny knew it. Very slowly, Luna blinked and turned away. Ginny watched as Luna left the room and the laughter from her table echoed tauntingly in her ears. The attention at the table shifted to a hunchbacked Hufflepuff who rarely talked, but Ginny felt like there was a rock in her stomach.

Finally, Ginny smuggled the Marauders' Map out of her bag and consulted it under the table. She caught sight of Luna disappearing into the Room of Requirement, and all of her conviction vanished. "Mischief managed," she hissed and threw the map roughly into her bag. Still, she could not help checking it every few minutes to make sure Luna was alright.

It was nearly an hour before Luna appeared on the map. When she did, her dot flew across the map so quickly that Ginny could barely follow it. Suddenly, she stopped in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Ginny snorted; Luna certainly was in the habit of making odd friends lately.

Ginny was almost the last person in the library when Harper approached her, looking sour as usual. "Weasley," he greeted her stiffly. There was a moment of awkward silence until Ginny prodded him to continue.

"You're friends with Lovegood, right?"

Ginny almost answered the negative, but Harper did not wait for a reply. "She's in Myrtle's bathroom right now, disturbing the peace. I tried yelling through the door, but she won't listen."

"I'm not sure I could—"

"I can't have the Head Girl going to pieces in the bathroom. Merlin knows she has enough issues with respect as it is."

Sighing, Ginny began packing up her things. "I doubt anything that I say will help."

Harper only shrugged and motioned for her to hurry. The moment they came into the corridor where the bathroom was located, it was clear why Harper had said Luna was "disturbing the peace." Still, Ginny thought that was a rather heartless way to describe someone bawling at the top of their lungs.

"Go on, then," Harper said, prodding her toward the door. Gearing up for a rather awkward confrontation, Ginny shouldered through the door.

"Thank goodness," groaned Myrtle from her seat atop the sinks. "Could you please get her out of here? Won't stop going on about Tom Riddle. I remember that boy… very handsome, broke lots of hearts."

"Riddle?" Ginny asked in surprise, though she did not wait for an answer. She rushed to the stall where Luna was curled against the divider, and crouched next to her.

"I'm so sorry Luna," she said quickly. "I didn't mean any of it, you know. It's just… I haven't talked to you for so long, and I miss you… and…" Ginny was chilled slightly when Luna turned her watery grey eyes to look at her. Tentatively, Ginny reached out to pull Luna into a hug. There was something distressing about seeing Luna crying. For all her dreamy personality and eccentric behavior, Luna held herself together well.

A moment later, Luna spoke in a soft, broken voice. "You made me very angry, but it wasn't you. It was Tom." Ginny pulled away and stared at Luna, who looked down towards the floor sadly. "You were probably mostly right about him."

"What did he do?" Ginny asked urgently. Luna shrugged wordlessly. Ginny searched Luna's eyes for a moment, and her resolve hardened. "What's the password, Luna? Dumbledore gave it to you, didn't he? You've been going by yourself."

"Pepper Imps," Luna answered before she registered what Ginny had asked, but when Ginny stood up, her eyes widened. "Wait, Ginny, you can't—!"

Ginny did not wait for Luna to finish her sentence. She dashed out of the bathroom, nearly bowling over Harper in her haste, and sprinted the whole way to the seventh floor corridor. She shouted "Pepper Imps" as she approached the door and slowed only a fraction to throw it open.

The security spells splashed around her like a waterfall as she burst into the room, her wand already drawn. "Riddle!" she bellowed, locating him in an instant. Before he even had a chance to speak, Ginny hit him with the strongest Bat-Bogey Hex that she could conjure. She crossed the room in quick strides and hauled Riddle to his feet, only to hit him again with a particularly nasty Stinging Hex that sent him reeling.

"I can't believe you!" she snarled. "A month, all she talked about was how human you were, how good of a person you could be, how I should give you a chance." Ginny saw Riddle start to shift in her direction and she snapped, "Locomotor Mortis!"

Riddle's legs snapped together and he toppled onto the floor, catching himself only a moment before his face would have made impact. Ginny allowed herself a moment to feel disappointed, and then she realized that he was saying something into the floor. She caught only the tail end.

"…my fault she's foolishly naïve."

It was enough to rekindle the fire in Ginny's head. "Naïve?" she repeated. "Naïve! Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Of course," Riddle answered smoothly, finally successful in propping himself upright and hauling his frozen legs in front of him. "It's all going exactly as planned."

"Planned?" Ginny asked, leveling her wand at him.

"Yes, planned," he said. "I was curious. You seemed especially wary of me when we met, but above all else, I wondered why the headmaster was showing you his security measures." When their eyes met, an involuntary shiver laced up Ginny's spine, and Riddle smiled as his point was proven. Her hands were shaking even though she had him at her mercy.

"At first I thought befriending your eccentric friend would lure you back, but then you got in a row, and I had to change tactics. Maybe I should have used this method from the beginning?" He smiled and motioned at her. "You came so quickly. How Gryffindor."

For a moment, all Ginny could do was stare at him. Hearing Luna talk about him, Ginny had almost forgotten what Tom Riddle was really like. Now it was obvious that the piece of soul he had deposited in the diary was no different than the whole package sitting before her. The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end.

"You're pureblood, aren't you?" Riddle continued, unaware of Ginny's thoughts. "Red hair… probably a Weasley or a Prewett, then, am I correct?"

Ginny struck fast, hitting him with a messy Levicorpus spell. Riddle was jerked up roughly by his ankle, and quivered uneasily in midair, as if the invisible string holding him up might break at any moment. "You hurt Luna so that you could talk to me?" she asked dangerously. She was surprisingly unaffected by the look of hatred Riddle was flashing her.

"Flattering, isn't it?" Riddle spat, none too happy to be in such an undignified position. "Although it took her two weeks to realize I was being condescending…"

"Just to satisfy your curiosity…"

"… and another week or so to realize I was being downright nasty. The girl is a complete—"

"I've never seen Luna cry," Ginny said abruptly. "Not on the anniversary of her mother's death, not when she didn't have friends, not when everyone made fun of her – never. And you did it. So, I'm here; you talked to me. And you know what? You'll never see me again, and if I have my way, you'll be dead by the end of the year." She muttered the counter-jinx, and after Riddle crashed to the floor, she slashed one last, vicious Tarantallegra jinx at him for good measure. Then she turned toward the door.

And remembered that it only revealed itself to Dumbledore's wand.

She froze. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Riddle was still jerking around on the floor, trying to control his locked, dancing legs. All of Ginny's rage dissipated as she realized what a compromising situation she had placed herself in. It was already late, and the only person that knew Ginny was in this room was Luna Lovegood. Ginny could only pray that Luna had the sense of mind to remember that Ginny's wand did not have the capability to open the exit, but considering the state in which she had found Luna, Ginny somewhat doubted that.

"It seems I've made a rather stupid mistake," Ginny said as she approached Tom Riddle once again, this time casting a full-body bind on him. "I hope you don't mind some company for the night."