Downfall, by GW by Rihaan

Rating: R
Genres: Angst, Humor
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 27/06/2014
Last Updated: 27/06/2014
Status: In Progress

Every phoenix has to go through a Burning Day.




1. Prologue
-----------

Downfall, by GW

My life is pathetic.

She has him. After seven long years, she has him. I can't believe it. I tried so
hard to get him, and I almost did â€“ I almost bloody did. I love him. With all
of my heart and soul, with everything that I am.

But I refuse to have sloppy seconds.

Fred bought me this diary, shortly after You-Know-Who's defeat, by my ex-future
husband's hand. I've never actually written in the bloody thing. Maybe I'm deathly
afraid of diaries now? That's a laugh. If I was in a laughing mood, I would laugh.

I just never felt the need to share what I was feeling. Now, however I have a few things to get
off my chest, much like those funbags Granger has, something else I apparently won't
get.

I guess it all started when I was four, when I was old enough to actually listen to my
mother's bedtime stories instead of hearing her voice to go to sleep every night. I listened in
rapt attention of everything that the "Boy-Who-Lived" has done. It may have been one
thing, but it was the greatest thing ever to be done. I fell in love with him. I knew, in my heart,
that he was the one for me. He was my knight in shining armor, and he was only a year older than
me. I swore one night, as my cute chocolate brown eyes fluttered into a dream-filled slumber, that
I would make him mine.

Four-year-old Ginny would punch me in the bloody nose. And I wouldn't blame her.

I asked my mother one night to tell me everything that she knew about him. I was in luck, as she
knew my parents when they were in school during her time. They weren't close, but they knew
each other. She told me that the Boy-Who-Lived's father was an exceptional Quidditch Player,
especially at the Chaser and Seeker position. I decided then that when I was old enough, I was
going to try to get on a broom and learn. I knew I was going to one day anyway, considering we have
our own pitch (the only good money-making decision our family has ever made), but right then, I had
incentive.

Occasionally, I have to reiterate how stupid I was, am, and apparently, forever will be. He has
shaped my life. He made me into the person I am today. He crafted me, molded me, and what
do I get? What good karma comes my way after this? If I never liked himâ€¦ how different
would things be?

I probably shouldn't dwell on the past. Nothing but heart-ache. Not like the present gets
any better. If anything, my reflections are making me feel better about myself. Maybe here I can
find out what went wrong, or what mistakes I made.

So, I guess I'll continue.

My mother went on, telling me that no one knows where he is now and everyone wonders if he's
still alive, but I knew, even then, that he was alive. If you can defeat You-Know-Who when you were
a baby, you had to be alive. After all, I couldn't have a dead husband, now could I? We may not
have known where he is, but I knew there was a big chance that he would be at Hogwarts, since his
parents attended there.

I suppose I should've mentioned earlier that when I was four, mum told me his name was
Hairy. That's not a typo. That's what I heard, and that's what I believed for the
longest time. I was so inconceivably stupid.

I decided to learn as much as I could about this boy, who I then discovered, at seven, was
Harry Potter. I still thought the name is pretty weird, though. First and last
name, really. I guess if you put the name through your head a few times, you'll get used to it
after a long while. Ginny Potterâ€¦ Ginny Potterâ€¦ weird, but still doable.

Oh, how I bloody wish for that reality.

Anyway, I learned that his mum was a muggleborn around that time. Even then, I remember having
mixed feelings about non-magical folk. My parents may like them, but I'm not my parents. I
mean, it really isn't fair! Think about it, someone who doesn't know about us, someone who
never even knew we existed, born with magic and can do the same thing we do. I say that magical
abilities should've stayed within magical families, who actually deserved them.

Still, I remember how I was somewhat glad that Harry's mum was dead. One less mother-in-law
to handle.

I'd figured something else out when I was seven. It turned out that the Potters are an
Ancient and Noble House, unlike us Weasleys. In my young mind, that automatically meant that
must've been incredibly RICH! At the thought of him having a bigger castle than Hogwarts, My
love for him grew.

I figured that I've done as much as I could do to study up on him; after all, he had limited
information. I learned everything about his parents, (mostly his dad's family) a man named
Sirius Black, the person who sold out Harry to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I still have no idea why
You-Know-Who personally came to their hideout to kill them, but rumors say that they were a key
part in slowly dismantling him, and given more time, could have actually defeated him. I may have
been a bit sad about him trying to kill a baby, I would have to say, even if he killed Harry's
parents, that it was worth it, considering what happened that night, what with You-Know-Who gone
and all.

When I turned nine, I became frustrated that I could never find a picture of him. My mum and my
dad, who works at the Ministry of Magic by the way, helped me, but I still couldn't find it.
It's pathetic, really. I didn't even know what my future husband's face looked like.
All I knew was that he had brilliant green eyes and he had a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.
I bet he would look chiseled and well-tonedâ€¦his hair smoothed back without the need of a gel or
potion. I bet he would look perfect.

Imagine my fucking surprise.

September 1, 1991 â€“ I don't need to remind myself what happened that day, or where I went.
The only thing I will never be able to recall that day is the look on my face when I saw a
dreadfully pale boy with incredibly messy hair as he glanced cluelessly around the muggle train
station, King's Cross. He looked pathetic! In retrospect, even now I could say that had I known
Filch at the time, he would have been a dead ringer for his son. I quickly turned away, but before
I could wretch, I had to do a double-take on him. I thought I saw something on his forehead. It had
to be coincidental. But it wasn't. Not only did he have the scar, he had the green eyes of his
mother, and some features of his father.

He'sâ€¦ grown since that day. Spectacularly so. Maybe, had I not been such a shy little
girl, I would've approached him, and talked to him, and I could have laid the foundation for
something beautiful.

Unfortunately, though, my mother did it for me.

That woman knew what she was doing the moment she started screaming what platform we were on.
Seriously? Could she be more obtuse? By this point, not only were she and dad both Hogwarts
students, every one of my brothers except Ron have been going there for the past nine years in a
row. In front of muggles, she asks Fred and George where the only transportation (for students) to
the school was.

Though, I have to admit, the insanely confused looks on the twins' faces were so bloody
priceless.

I needed to research him. I needed to know what his dysfunction was. Did his parents really
leave him nothing? Did he get access to his money when he became of age? Is it just some new trend
he was trying to start? He's the boy-who-lived, I'm sure the tatters on his person that he
called 'clothes' would likely have its own wardrobe line by Christmas, and that made me
shudder a bit.

I needed to know, so I stupidly asked my mother if I could go to Hogwarts.

They have really strict birthday rules, that I still fully don't understand, and it's
stupid. While I didn't want to leave my friend Luna Lovegood behind, her mother just having
died and all, this was my future I was talking about.

As I would eventually learn, I really should've gone to Hogwarts. It would've just been
better for everyone. Luna had gone a bitâ€¦ off-kilter, and I would be beyond pre-occupied the next
year I finally got to Hogwarts. Who knows, maybe if I had been Harry's friend by then, he
would've noticed that I was acting strangely, and saved me that much sooner.

On second thought. I'm kinda glad it happened this way. Much more romantic. It would've
been less of a story if he had just reported my behavior to the Headmaster. So, I'm grateful
for what happened down the road.

Once again, this would have been the absolute most perfect story had she not shot it
all to hell.

I had the forethought to make Ron promise me to make friends with Harry Potter, but then, I
wasn't so sure anymore.

But I was not going to give up. Old Ginny never gave up.

Still, it took me two months to convince myself.

I even made a pros and cons list on why or why not I should get him. I still remember it.

Cons: Messy hair; broken glasses which indicate he's poor; hand-me-down robes that are worse
than my brothers' robes; taped up shoes; Terribly underfed; Too pale; Makes me wonder if
everyone's mad at him for killing You-Know-Who or something. Maybe he was raised by
You-Know-Who supporters?

Pros: He has a cute owl and he's a hero.

Well, I would have to say that the Cons heavily outweigh the Pros, and that's just from a
glance!

A few days later, Ron owled us and mentioned that he had made friends with him. I'm really
starting to question if my brother has a mind of his own, and if he does, when he would start using
it.

But he was perfect for some key parts to my plans, as I will tell you later.

I found out from Bill one day that Harry is, indeed, very rich, but he didn't even know it
until he showed up at Gringotts, where Bill worked. How pathetic is that? Ron, in his occasional
letters, also wrote that Harry was raised by muggles. I couldn't even read it anymore. I almost
gave up on him completely. That is, until I found out what happened on Halloween.

He beat up a bloody troll. Well, Ron said he and Harry beat up the troll together, but
let's face it, he was probably just there. Anyway, He became a hero again in my eyes. And,
right then, I knew it had to have been a sign, right?

Right?

Right. Only not for me.

In the rest of the letter, Ron gave a mention about how some girl got on his nerves that got
them all in the situation in the first place, but any girl had a tendency to hate him in just a few
short moments.

If only I discovered just how much she would piss me off as well. How incredibly, easily,
irksome she was as a person, and as a confidant.

He had misspelled her name in the letter. I remember it clearly. Hermyohknee. It's
a wonder he can remind himself to breathe once in a while. Still, if I had the chance again, I
would have taken that name, cursed it, and set it to memory â€“ the bitch that became my best
friend in the world, and destroyed me from the inside-out.

And then began the tale of how Hermione Potter caused the downfall of Ginny Weasley.

Or, more importantly, the tale of how Ginny Weasley, from the lowest of depths, began to rise,
and set the world ablaze, leaving nothing but me and Harry Potter, my one true love, and discarding
the other one in the ashes.

I've always believed that if I could become an Animagus, I would become a phoenix. I
can't, by the way â€“ I've tried, multiple times â€“ but if I could. I love to
fly, my hair is bright, and red, and beautiful, and I come from a family of the light. I can't
sing very well, but I can whistle, which is close enough, I imagine. Makes perfect sense, right?
Right.

The day she married Harry Potter was my burning day.

And I've got a plan to rise again.

But I'll get to that. Right now, I've got seven years of Hogwarts to go through. Bear
with me. And, spoiler alert, as the muggles say, what I've got planned is going to be
fucking fantastic.

And everyone will get their chance to burn. Including Harry bloody Potter. Sloppy
seconds needs to know they're sloppy, after all. And he's got a lot to apologize
for.

Oh yeah, this is gonna be great. It hasn't happened yet, but it's gonna be so great!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Hogwarts. Here we go.

-----------------------------------

Author's Note: This one-shot has been resting on my computer for quite some
time now. I've got more stories, but this one, for some reason, felt like it needed to be out
and open.

AU story, of course. I'm going to have to be in a special place to write this, so don't
expect it to be continued anytime soon. The outline is basically Ginny being manipulative. Have we
never considered Molly screaming the platform number, and Ron claiming there were no more empty
compartments, for the sake of Ginny instead of Albus?

Not sure what part I want everything to go AU for her, but it would be before they could ever
get together. Likely before Hermione became a bit of an itch-bay in Canon, so around the end of the
fifth book.



