GINNY

"So that's what this has all been about? That Harry wouldn't tell you what he is learning in Dumbledore's lessons?" asked Hermione.

Ginny nodded.

"You didn't feel comfortable telling me before? I could have explained that as well."

"I suppose that wasn't all it was."

"Okay, well what else was it?"

"Blimey, I dunno… let me just think," Ginny rested her forehead on her hands and took a few moments to sort it out. She'd gone straight to Hermione from her conversation with Harry and Ron, all of it was still too fresh in her mind. "If I tell you, you have to promise not to make this a Ginny-Fancies-Harry thing."

"I won't, if it isn't."

"It's not."

Hermione looked skeptical, but nodded.

"You know my rule where I don't tell people things that are none of their business?"

"Yes."

"Well… I sort of broke it… with Harry," Ginny said, predictably making Hermione's eyebrows shoot up. "You promised!" said Ginny, pointing an accusing finger at her friend. Hermione closed her mouth tightly and threw up her hands in mock surrender.

"Anyway, it was the day before coming back to Hogwarts. He and I were alone ripping up cabbages and we got to talking about Slughorn's Party. And I might've mentioned The Gwenog and Dean Debacle to him."

"You told Harry about your argument with Dean?"

Ginny nodded.

"Oh, that sounds awkward! Harry and Ron are so clueless about those sorts of things."

"It wasn't at all, actually," said Ginny. "In fact, we sort of laughed through it. And while we were talking, he told me something as well."

"What'd he say? Not about the lessons? Because if he did, he really shouldn't -"

"No, it's nothing about your blessed lessons. It was something about his parents."

"What about them?"

"He told me in confidence, so I - erm - can't tell you."

Hermione looked flummoxed and asked, "He specifically said not to say?"

"Not exactly, but he said that he hasn't told you or Ron, so I figure he'd like it to stay that way."

"Oh," she said, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes wandering in confusion.

"Stings, doesn't it?" Ginny said, smirking.

Hermione rolled her eyes in response and began processing what Ginny had told her. "So you broke your rule with Harry by telling him about Dean… And then he told you something he hasn't told us... So that's why you were upset when he wouldn't tell you about the lessons. You thought you were on a certain level of confidence. And when he didn't tell you, and you felt betrayed?"

"Uh yeah, I guess that's right. How do you do that?"

"Ginny, you must see how significant that is? Him telling you something he kept to himself about his parents? There's nothing more personal than that to Harry. He must really trust you. The lessons he has with Dumbledore are one thing, those are all about -" Ginny smiled expectantly, hoping Hermione would reveal any scrap of detail. " - other matters."

"You know, for keeping it tightly under wraps, you three nearly slip up a lot," said Ginny. "And yes, I figured as such." Feeling herself smile softly and grow warm at the thought that Harry trusted her.

"Ginny, are you sure you don't still have feelings for-"

"You promised that you wouldn't make it about that!" Ginny threw back. "And, anyway, that's not all. In one of our arguments it came up how I was upset that he'd forgotten about the Chamber and the diary."

"Oh," said Hermione with that belittling tone of pity people used when referencing her first year. Ginny wished she could siphon it out and dump it in a toxic lake somewhere, where it belonged.

"I've always held onto this wish that we'd get to a point where we could discuss it. That maybe it would help me process it all."

"I see," she replied, rubbing the binding of her book. "Ginny, I don't want to discount your feelings. You have every right to need to process what happened in the Chamber. Actually, I think it's important you do. But you should know that Harry has never asked me how I'm doing after something like that has happened. Harry just figures that if you're alive, you're fine. That's … that's one reason I miss Ron so much."

"But Harry asks me how my year is going now."

"Yes, now, he does. He's several years older. Not only that, but just think about it. After the Chamber, it was him running away from the Dursleys, then dealing with finding out about Sirius, then being thrown into the Tournament, then seeing Voldem-"

"Okay, I get your point."

"He's different this year. After the Ministry, he's changed a lot."

Ginny remembered back to Harry's comment from before: "It just feels like things have changed since then … or like I've changed … I dunno." She didn't know exactly what he was thinking when he'd said it, but even she had told Fred and George that something was different about Harry.

"You're right, of course. It's just that all this has brought up some complicated stuff about the Chamber and diary. I'm trying to push it away again, but … I don't know. It's all starting to seep in."

Hermione looked concerned, "Do you want to talk to me about it?"

Ginny considered. "I - I don't know if I can just yet."

"Okay."

The image of her fingers covered in blood and feathers on her robes flashed in her mind. But as quickly as it came, she pushed it away. She pulled hard at the edges of her skirt to straighten it down across her legs.

"We're all just growing up, Ginny. We have to be patient with each other."

"Is that what you call what you've been doing with Ron?"

"That is entirely different."

"Wait, so what did you two talk about?"

"He asked me why you and Harry were arguing. At the time we didn't know. But then he wanted me to tell him what has been bothering me and why I haven't been speaking to him."

"Let me guess, you went like this," Ginny raised her chin high in the air and turned it side to side in an exaggerated mock impression of Hermione, who was very much unamused. Grinning unto herself, Ginny stopped to observe her friend.

"He's trying to make amends, Hermione. How long are you going to hold onto this for?"

Hermione's eyes flashed angrily, "What?! You're taking his side too?"

"Don't get cross with me because you chose to go falling in love with my arse of a brother. And if I'm being fair, he doesn't know how much you like him. You said yourself that they can be clueless about this sort of thing. He may be thick, but he cares for you Hermione. Like really, truly cares. And besides, you've got enough brains for the pair of you."

"That doesn't excuse his behavior, or what he's done."

"He's gone and dated another girl because things weren't coming together with the one he actually likes. Sound familiar?" Ginny pointed to herself. "Lavender falls all over him and it pads his fragile ego. But he's starting to avoid her, and I know it's because he sees right through it."

Hermione simply huffed and her chin raised automatically into the air. But quickly realizing what she'd done, she bowed her head forward and glared at the table.

Ginny continued: "How do you see this playing out? Think ahead. Harry can't tell anyone apart from you and Ron about what he's learning with Dumbledore. Stuff I'm assuming will help Harry defend himself against You-Know-Who. We're in a war, Hermione. A war in which three teenagers and a batty old man with an injured hand are the only ones with the classified intel." Ginny paused for emphasis. "Three teens that I know work best when they're together."

Her words caused her friend to recede inside herself and commence staring unseeing at the school books piled high in front of her. Ginny reached across the table to squeeze Hermione's wrist.

"I say this with love. That sometimes we have to get over ourselves and put our personal feelings aside for the sake of the bigger picture."

Ginny left Hermione in the library, seeing as she was refusing to talk to her anyway. She walked very slowly back to Gryffindor Tower, feeling exhausted by all the conversations she'd had today but gearing up to have one more.

It had been almost two weeks now of poor sleep, professors keeping her late after class, fighting back Chamber feelings and not being able to fully enjoy Quidditch. But finally she felt that she was wading into some sense of relief.

Her thoughts drifted to Hermione's reaction that Harry had told her about his parents. She believed it had been significant, but Hermione had confirmed it. Now that Ginny thought about it, earning her place in Harry's trusted circle felt just as special as if he'd told her what he learned with Dumbledore.

Ginny shut down Hermione's voice in her head asking Are you sure you don't still have feelings for Harry? Because to question it would give attention to it. And to give attention to it might keep it alive. Could you starve a piece of yourself out of existence?

Just because someone tells someone else a highly personal detail does not mean they fancy that person. Alright, it was unusual for her to share details. But it didn't mean anything and it might never happen again. So she and Harry trusted each other, that was all.

She saw her life as divided into Before Tom and After Tom. The in between was blank because, well, he'd stolen her memory as well as her innocence.

The Before Tom was her childhood. Her first self. Days were simple back then. They were filled with morning chores and afternoon explorations of the orchards. When she climbed the trees, she imagined that she was narrowly escaping capture from a horde of goblins. She'd run barefoot through grass screaming with laughter and stay up late into the night writing stories about brave witches who could speak with animals (cute ones, not snakes). She'd even saved the most perfect fallen stick as a wand so she could pretend to clear the Burrow of ancient curses. All this she had done while being surrounded by a troop of brothers ready to support her at her every command.

Stories about the Boy-Who-Lived came later when her mother and father told bedtime tales of her two uncles who gave their lives in a war. They told her how little Harry Potter had mysteriously stopped He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Good had conquered evil, and his adventures did not stop when he got to Hogwarts.

It was all she could do to exist in the same room as him back then. The Boy-Who-Lived with his kind smile, polite manners, messy dark hair and the most brilliant green eyes. This was her Buttered Elbow Era, when she was unable to control her words or her limbs around him. It was as if a hero walked off the front of a Chocolate Frog Card and decided to join them for afternoon tea.

Then came Tom. He was so unlike any of the monsters from the stories because he too had been kind to her. He had even been a friend. She should have realized sooner that he was carefully using the words that she'd shared as means to manipulate her. With her own words and feelings used against her, she grew to question her own sanity. Suddenly it was she who was the corrupted. It was she who was doing the chasing.

Taking back the diary from Harry Potter has been her attempt to do the right thing and save him from Tom. She believed that she could control herself with the diary and therefore control Tom. But she realized too late that she had been wrong. She woke up on the floor of the Chamber to Harry Potter bleeding out, having almost been killed because she had given her power to a former friend.

The aftermath of guilt, blame, and shame left her with a second self she did not recognize.

Now the Boy-Who-Lived was also Harry Potter, her indebted savior. The summer after the Chamber, she wanted to send him a letter to thank him and ask him how he'd overcome You-Know-Who before. After several drafts (how could she trust her writing again?), she figured it'd be best to talk in person. Then when Ginny finally did see him, she still couldn't speak. And he didn't mention it. So just like that, he was unreachable, just like the heroes in those stories.

After Tom, Ginny theoretically had full faculty of her mind. But it had been rearranged. Like someone had put her belongings away without knowing where they normally went. And leaving horrific images in random places for her to stumble upon. Years went by in which she fought a silent battle to sort out thoughts where they normally went and control this new version of herself. At first it was an hourly battle, then a daily one, then weeks would go by until finally she didn't think about it much anymore.

She eventually had to accept that she could never restore herself to exactly who she'd been Before Tom. Even so, she'd sewn herself together in a way that she came to appreciate. No longer could she be manipulated by others or give them power over her. When she spoke, she did so with conviction so no one could question her intentions. She had something to prove, and she used the D.A. lessons and the Department of Mysteries to do it.

Granted, it all would've been easier with Harry Potter's help. He was the only other one who handled the diary and spoke directly to Tom. But the nagging desire to speak to him about the Chamber mixed poorly with her crush on the Boy-Who-Lived, making it all too overwhelming. She was only twelve, after all. Hermione believed that it was just because she fancied him. She did, she didn't deny it, but it was more than just fancying the cute boy with messy hair and green eyes.

So as she healed herself from Tom's psychological trauma, she found her attraction to Harry Potter only served to keep her ensconced in it. So she took Hermione's advice and tried to move on.

Michael had been an experiment. What was it like to think about another boy and start again in that innocent crush stage? It was a refreshingly simple distraction. Particularly with that look Harry paraded around on his face whenever Chang entered a room. How embarrassing for him. When she saw it, she looked away. She looked to Michael. Simple Michael. Of course, when he got petty about Quidditch she simply couldn't be bothered.

Around this time, she began seeing Harry as less the shining hero that she once believed him to be and more just ... normal. In fact, now she had saved him at Grimmauld Place. She saved him from himself, at that! Starving himself up in that room, thinking that he'd actually be capable of mortally injuring her father.

Giving back to him helped to absolve some of the stain of blame that she'd carried since the Chamber. She realized something else - that maybe she didn't need him anymore. She didn't need him to save her. In fact, with one "Lucky you" quip, Easter eggs with icing, and a risky mission to the Ministry, she'd say that she had now repaid him. All things being equal.

Now there was Dean. Good, kind, strong, and handsome Dean. He was more of a laugh than Michael, which initially attracted her to him during D.A. practice. And when they started dating, Dean showed himself to be a traditional romantic. Ginny found this intriguing given her childhood fascination with celebrated witches and wizards. In Dean's eyes Ginny found a peaceful contentment that didn't involve blood, monsters, and psychotic villains.

And Harry? She hoped things could return to being relaxed with him now that they'd cleared up the lessons with Dumbledore. She knew that she'd have to explain her strong reaction and instigation of shouting matches. Ginny grumbled internally recalling how all the recent argue-talk-resolve conversations with Dean might've prepared her for this.

Apart from her slip up the night of the owlry, she believed they could be good friends. She was aware now that her second self feelings were lurking closer to the surface than she'd realized. So she'd have to be more prepared around Harry if there were to truly be friends. But no matter. She could deal with that, hadn't she proved that before? If she kept it under control, they could just be friends without all those extra complications.

But still, part of her hoped that one day they'd be able to talk about Tom. Because if those Chamber feelings were indeed still there, he might be the only one who could walk through them with her.

Ginny entered Gryffindor Tower and found Harry sitting alone at a table near the large window. He was flicking through pages of his Potions book, not taking in any information. It was late enough now that most students had gone to bed. The Common Room was quiet other than the scratchy sound of the radio.

"Hey, Harry." she sat in the chair beside him.

He looked up from his book and smiled, "Hey."

When his eyes focused on her, she realized too late that she'd perhaps sat too close to him. But scooting back or sitting across the table now would make it awkward. So she took a deep breath to steady her racing heart. "I've talked with Hermione. Same as Ron, she says you're right not to say anything."

He nodded and pulled his lips into an acknowledging smile.

"I just wanted to, erm, explain myself too." Ginny wrapped her arms around her stomach. "I understand now why you won't tell me and I respect it. I just got … triggered? I suppose is the word. Ron will tell you, I can get pretty worked up about the whole little sister being left behind bit. Six older brothers leaving one by one can do that to a person. Not to mention seeing you, Ron, and Hermione always whispering and plotting has never helped."

"You do understand that I don't want to be involved in this stuff all the time," said Harry firmly, but not unkindly.

She nodded. "Yes, I understand that. It's just that every one of my family members has tried hiding me away to shield me after the Chamber. I get it, but I'm tired of it. They see me as their helpless little sister who got kidnapped and almost murdered. When you wouldn't tell me, it felt like that all over again. Like I'm just Ron's little sister and - "

"I don't just see you as Ron's sister," he said.

"I know but it's just…," she looked to ensure no one could overhear her before leaning in closer. She put a hand on the crook of his arm. "I want to help fight Riddle, too, Harry. I thought you of all people would understand that."

"I do," he whispered.

"And I was furious with you for forgetting. I can't lie, it still doesn't feel good. But, Hermione reminded me that maybe you had other things on your mind. And, for Merlin's sake, we were just kids."

He had looked away from her now and began twirling the quill in his hand. He was quiet for a moment before replying, "I'm sorry for not sticking around for you after the Chamber. And I'm sorry that I forgot."

"Like I said, there were other things on your mind," she said, squeezing his elbow gently and then leaning back in her seat. "But, seriously, killing a basilisk is that easy to forget?"

He laughed and finally looked at her again, "Just a regular Tuesday night in my life… I am, though. Really, really sorry."

She sat quietly waiting, wishing he'd follow up with: Do you want to talk about the Chamber? Willing herself to ask: Can we talk about the Chamber?

But neither happened.

"Thanks for saying that." She conceded that it was a step in the right direction. "Besides, if we have another shouting match, I'm afraid Ritchie will resign citing emotional trauma."

"I mean, really, does he ever talk?"

"Maybe all those pumpkin pasties before practice make his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth."

"I'll slip him the anecdote to Ton-Tongue Toffee, that should clear it up."

"Or host a team bonding night, like Oliver Wood used to," she said.

"If you want to hold hands in a circle and chant relaxation exercises before every match, Weasley, you're free to join the Hufflepuffs."

"I don't think so, not after I hexed Smith." She returned his smile and reached down to pick up her bag. "So, what do you think? Go back to being friends?"

"Friends?"

"Yeah. Despite what Fred and George say, being around you can actually be a laugh. And finally getting to say words around you has been nice."

"Been nice… yeah…" he said.

She couldn't help feeling a little taken aback and even embarrassed by his reaction. Perhaps it was because she slipped up and referenced her previous inability to speak around him again. "Look, if you don't want to, that's fine. I just figure for the sake of the team we'd at least better -"

"No, I want to. I do," he interrupted without looking at her. Instead, he focused on yanking out the strands of his feathered quill.

"Erm - okay, then," she said and got up to leave. "Well, goodnight."

"'Night."