Fire Forgotten

Penthesilea

Rating: R
Genres: Romance, Action & Adventure
Relationships: Draco & Ginny
Book: Draco & Ginny, Books 1 - 4
Published: 14/08/2003
Last Updated: 18/10/2003
Status: in_progress

It is her first year and Ginny becomes the first Weasley ever to be in Slytherin. What is a Gryffindor at heart to do when trapped in the snake’s layer? Well, when in Rome, do what the Roman’s do. Then Voldemort makes a choice that changes the course of time. By numerous turns of fate, Ginny is forced to develop new powers she’s never heard of. Complications with Draco, Dumbledore, and Harry abound when Ginny’s life goes haywire and she ends up at Mungo’s in a fit of power. Draco/Ginny all the way. (Warning: This is the alternate story to my fic 'The Unforgettable Fire' in which Draco and Ginny are the main characters. Also, the rating will go up!)

Chapters

1. Year 1 - Forgotten

2. Year 2, Broken

1. Year 1 - Forgotten

Preferred Customer Normal Preferred Customer 5 15 2003-07-27T07:28:00Z 2003-08-14T13:22:00Z 1 5899 33625 Dell Computer Corporation 280 78 39446 10.2625 Clean Clean MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

FIRE FORGOTTEN

Fire and Ice

By: Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire;

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

CHAPTER 1: Year 1, Forgotten

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Creeps this pretty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way our dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.

– Shakespeare (Macbeth – Act 5, scene 5)

On reflection, the first year was the hardest. Being the first Weasley in...in ever...to be put in the Slytherin house is a bit daunting for an eleven year old with puffy-cloud dreams and heart-eyes for the Boy-Who-Lived. I think now that I was naïve, shy, gullible, and utterly hopeless my first year. No longer though.

It all started when I was ten. Just ten years old. I was a skinny little girl with red hair (What Weasley didn’t have red hair?), scabby knees, and a tendency to have a little scuff of dirt on my cute little nose. I had wanted to go to Hogwarts since my oldest brother, Bill had gone. He was out of school by then, doing Merlin-knows-what in Egypt; sandy, filthy place if you ask me. Anyway, back to ten years old. I was just ten years old and going with my mother to Platform 9 ¾, dropping my brothers, George, Fred, and Ron, off on the Hogwarts Express...

“Now what’s the platform number,” Ginny’s mother asked.

“Nine and three-quarters,” Ginny piped, jumping slightly as she said it, a hint of glee in her warm brown eyes. “Mum, can’t I go...”

“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.”

Ginny puffed out her chest indignantly, turning a bit red. She was never old enough. She was never big enough, or smart enough, or funny enough, or strong enough. She was never ENOUGH anything.

“Fred, you next,” her mother said.

“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” Fred said. Ginny could always tell the difference. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m George?”

Ginny giggled behind her hand.

“Sorry, George, dear,” her mother said absently.

“Only joking, I am Fred,” Fred said, laughing as he plowed into the barrier.

Ginny laughed outright now and her mother said, “Very funny,” under her breath.

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind her.

“Hello, dear,” her mother said cheerfully. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new, too.”

Ginny turned around and her breath caught in her throat. It was HIM! She scanned him over with her eyes quickly. Black hair, check. Bright green eyes, check. Kind of skinny, check. Scar (the most important), check. It WAS him!

“Yes, the thing is – the thing is, I don’t know how to –”

“How to get on the platform,” her mother concluded kindly. “Not to worry,” her mother said after he nodded. “All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten...”

Ginny had stopped listening. It was her dream come true. She knew, through many hours of math, that he could be at Hogwarts with her brother Ron, then her when she got accepted. It was just...real...now. She was totally unprepared. Then he left, walking though the barrier before Ron.

After they left, her mother grabbed for Ginny’s hand again, this time taking her though the barrier of Platform 9 ¾. Ginny had been here many times before and all the noises, smells, and sights were familiar to her. The great, scarlet Hogwarts Express loomed above the crowds and she craned her head to look up at it. The sound of screeching owls, mewling cats of all color, and the background of chattering people and witches and wizards announcing the time, the day, advertisements and et cetera filled her ears. And the smell of steam and too many people entered her nose; she was home.

The glory was short-lived. “Fred? George? Are you there?” her mother said, well above the volume of the crowds.

“Coming, Mum,” Fred said. He and George walked over looking over their shoulders as they left.

“Ron,” her mother said. “You’ve got something on your nose.”

“Mum!” he said, wriggling away and jostling Ginny a bit. She was looking around for Harry. Then she saw him again. He was watching them from the train, trying to hide. Ginny licked her lips and turned so she could see him from the corner of her eye.

“Hey, Mum, guess what?” Fred said, casting a little look at Ginny. “Guess who we saw on the train?”

Ginny saw Harry lean back, out of her view.

“You know that black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?”

Yes! Ginny wanted to scream.

“Who?” Ginny’s mother asked in a humoring voice.

“Harry Potter!” the twins said in unison.

Ginny couldn’t contain herself anymore, “Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please...”

“You’ve already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?”

“Asked him,” Fred said with a smug smile. “Saw his scar. It is really there – like lightning.”

Ginny could see Harry’s form in the window once more. She looked up at him for a long while until her mother began saying good-bye.

“We’ll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat,” George joked.

“George,” her mother said in a scandalized voice.

“Only joking, Mum.”

The train whistle blew and the train began to move.

“By Fred, by George, by Ron,” Ginny said, kissing each of her brothers on the cheek in turn.

Then her mother lead her out of King’s Cross and they got ice cream; a great ending for an exciting day.

It was the worst case of hero-worship you could imagine. I mean, it was sick. It was like a disease that ate at my thoughts. I must have thought about him twelve thousand times a day, every day until I saw him that next summer.

Sure I tried to occupy myself. I took up Quidditch, though the house was so lonely, no one to play with, and no one for miles to visit. I really could only practice with my mother, which wasn’t too bad as she had been a Chaser in her seventh year at Hogwarts. She taught me the basics.

Then I started writing, keeping a diary. I’ll read you one of my earliest excerpts. Ahem,

Dear Diary,

Today Mum and I went shopping. It was real exciting, we got to look at the Nimbus 2000; it’s the best broom on the market. Mum is teaching me the piano and guitar, I’m not sure how she knows. She’s teaching me to paint a bit too. Most of my paintings are dumb; I’ve painted people looking suspiciously like Harry Potter. I don’t know what is wrong with me. Ginny Potter...Virginia Anne Potter-Weasley...Virginia Anne Potter...Mrs. Harry Potter...Virginia Potter...Mrs. Virginia Ginny Potter...

Path-e-tic. Really, I guess it wouldn’t have been healthy for me to write anything else. What ten year old girl writes deep meaningful poetry anyway. Oh, I write poetry too. I’ve been told by some that it is quite good actually. Here, this is my first poem:

His eyes are green as a fresh pickled toad,

His hair as dark as a blackboard.

I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,

The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.

Embarrassing, no? Really I did use good enter line rhyming and good simile usage. But really, Gin, “a fresh pickled toad,” it is enough to give him nightmares. Talk about obsession...Merlin...

So with Quidditch, painting, writing, learning to sew, and helping my mother out around the house, I kept my mind more or less out of the clouds. Summer rolled around and George, Fred, and Ron came back. All of them had stories about Hogwarts, and Ron treated me to the real story about what happened with the Sorcerer’s Stone. I had even more itching powder in my pants (figuratively and literally thanks to Fred and George) after that and I’m sure I talked about Harry non stop the rest of summer. Of course my brothers made fun of me, why wouldn’t they, I was a wreck.

One night, I heard a peculiar sound, the sound of an engine revving. This was after Ron hadn’t heard from Harry all summer and was convinced Harry’s aunt and uncle had killed him or something. I put the pieces of the puzzle together too slowly to realize what they were doing.

That morning I knew that he was going to be there, I just...panicked...

Ginny woke up to the unmistakable high-pitched yell of her mother’s voice. She was downstairs and shouting at the top of her lungs. Ah, she must have discovered Fred, George, and Ron’s little drive, she thought.

Ginny got out of bed slowly, savoring the fact that school was starting in less than two weeks. Less than two weeks until Hogwarts with HARRY POTTER! She clenched her heart and slowed her breathing, preparing to go down stairs.

Then went down the stairs and panicked. She darted back up as soon as she got down the stairs. Hiding behind the wall so no one could see or hear her she squealed with her hand over her mouth. She knew he’d be there, why was she being so stupid?

The rest of the summer she would knock things over whenever he came around. She would turn a glorious shade of red every time he spoke to her; thankfully, those times were few and far between. And she would scream into her pillow every night and scribble ‘I love Harry Potter’ and ‘Ginny and Harry forever’ in her diary, whose pages were filling quite quickly and she had very few left.

Finally the day of the trip to Diagon Alley came. I must have spent half my life wondering what I’d be doing this exact day, what I’d be thinking, WHAT I’D BE WEARING? It took me about three hours to finally choose an outfit, not like I had a whole lot of a choice...

“You have these,” Harry mumbled after being thoroughly embarrassed by Guilderoy Lockhart. Ginny didn’t care for him, but her mother loved him. “I’ll buy my own –”

“Bet you loved that, didn’t you, Potter?”

Ginny knew who that was. Draco Malfoy. She’d heard enough from her father and mother and brothers that he was bad news. He sneered at Harry and something inside her snapped.

“Famous Harry Potter,” Malfoy continued. “Can’t even go into a bookshop with out making the front page.”

“Leave him alone, he didn’t want all that!” Ginny said, her Weasley fire thoroughly alight. She gave Malfoy her mightiest glare, satisfied when his smirk faltered ever so slightly. Damn Malfoy scum... she thought.

But he just smirked wider, “Potter, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend!”

Ginny turned the deepest shade of red the pigment of her skin could manage and shut up. That stung.

Basically after that charade, I didn’t speak in front of Harry. Dad got in the fight with Lucius Malfoy after he slipped the Diary in with all my books. I didn’t even notice and I was right there, so how Harry did I’ll never know.

We went home and mother yelled some more, what else was new? She is a yeller my mother. She’d never touch any of us, but yell, you bet. Her face gets all red, and all of her five feet and five inches seem to be seven feet. Then her voice, ouch, it can change octaves faster than you can say ‘Quidditch.’ It’s scary, really it is.

Though not quite as scary as my first day at Hogwarts.

Ron and Harry weren’t on the train! I saw them before I walked thought he barrier with Mum. I saw them with my own two, Merlin-be-damned, big, brown eyes! I learned later, of course, they’d taken Dad’s Ford Anglia and flew it to Hogwarts.

So I rode with Hermione the whole time, which would have been fine if she talked about something other than school or books or Hogwarts, A History. But she didn’t and I was bored out of my mind until she suggested that they go and find Ron and Harry. Fred and George said they’d not seen them since Platform 9 ¾, and then asked me if I thought my boyfriend was cheating on me.

I give fair warning to any one trying to take advantage of me and/or upsetting me and/or trying to rape me, I have a right hook that will knock you off your feet. Charlie taught it to me, and Charlie was not only a Champion Quidditch Captain, he was the best fighter in his year, or so he told it. At any rate, I gave fair warning, and George chose to ignore it.

Hermione ditched me after that, saying something about needing to talk to Neville Longbottom, and left me outside my brother’s and their friend, Lee Jordan’s, compartment very livid.

Why shouldn’t I have the right to defend myself, I mean, I was a big girl, right? I didn’t need anyone, certainly not brother’s who made fun of me at the young and tender age of ten, eleven on the 22nd of September. I was going to be something. Maybe I would be a champion Quidditch Chaser; maybe I would be a great painter, or writer!

I was sick of standing in the collective shadow of my brothers’, I wouldn’t stand for it any more. This may not have been the greatest attitude to enter the Great Hall in because, for one thing, I had no fear, just the intense need to be something, to be noticed...

Ginny was different, sure. Unlike her fellow classmen, she wasn’t nervous or shivering scared. No, Ginny Weasley was determined. Her face set in an unmistakable, unwavering, mask of confidence. She was lead into the hall by the prim and uptight Professor McGonagall.

Professor McGonagall took one look at her and said, “Ah, another Weasley I see.” Then the Deputy Headmistress gave her a piercing look and her expression changed when she saw Ginny’s determined face.

Professor McGonagall frowned as a person would when they didn’t like or trust what they saw would, and began her little speech, “Welcome to Hogwarts. The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take you seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend time in your house common room.

“The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most house points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will become a credit to whichever house becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest that you smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.

“I shall return when we are ready for you. Please wait quietly,” Professor McGonagall finished. She took one more look at Ginny before turning on a heel and leaving the small and frightened first years.

The mousy haired boy who had fallen in the lake behind her spoke up, “What house do you think you’ll be in? Hi, I’m Colin, Colin Creevey.”

“Ginny Weasley,” Ginny said, putting forth her hand, still confident after the little speech of McGonagall’s. “And I expect I’ll be in Gryffindor. All six of my brothers, both my parents, and every relative I’ve ever met has been.”

“Wow! I’m not from a wizarding family; my parents are both Muggle and everything. But did you know, Harry Potter goes here!” he said anxiously.

“I know,” Ginny said, her demeanor faltering just slightly.

“I’m going to take as many pictures as I can to show my brother and my –”

“We are ready for you,” Professor McGonagall said, coming into view again. Ginny was thankful she had interrupted because she was sure she would have had to strangle that kid if he didn’t shut up soon. “Form a line now, all orderly like.”

They did, Ginny near the end, her last name being ‘Weasley’ and all. The line moved slowly, student’s names being called loudly, then their house. The Creevey boy had been the first Gryffindor and Ginny though she might shoot herself if she was the only other Gryffindor with him.

As the Sorting Hat neared her name, she began listening.

“Parkinson, Allen…”

“Slytherin!”

“Quest, Jeremiah…”

“Ravenclaw!”

“Rosier, Evan…”

“Slytherin!”

“Spinnet, Laura…”

“Gryffindor!”

“Strattleford, Olive…”

“Hufflepuff!”

“Weasley, Virginia…”

Ginny walked up to the three-legged chair and Professor McGonagall. Before it went over her eyes, she saw Fred and George giving her a thumb’s up. I’ll show you, she thought almost as darkly as the blackness of the inside of the Sorting Hat.

“Oh, will you now,” a small voice said in her ears. “Another Weasley I see.”

Yes, she gulped mentally.

“Interesting to be sure,” the hat said. “Show who?”

Everyone, Ginny answered darkly.

“Indeed,” the hat said in an amused sounding voice. “Show them what?”

I’m just as good as they are. Show them that even though I’m the youngest, I can still be something. I am not afraid.

“Interesting, interesting. Well, with an attitude like that, I know just where you belong...with SLYTHERIN!”

I was convinced that my life ended here. I had been put into Slytherin.

No one clapped.

Professor McGonagall took the hat off my head, looking at me like I was a leper, and told me to get off the chair and join my table.

My table? MY TABLE? What was she, some sort of insensitive block of ice? How could she ask me to join MY TABLE? I had been made a SLYTHERIN! I was supposed to be a Gryffindor! A Gryffindor! Mum was a Gryffindor, Dad was a Gryffindor, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and every other Weasley I’d ever met, known, or heard of had been a GRYFFINDOR! And she wanted me to join MY TABLE?

So I joined my table. The Slytherin scooted far away from me, far, far, far away from me, looking at me like McGonagall had, like I was diseased. The stopped staring at me long enough to clap for their newest member, Jonathan Wilkes, then started up again.

I still don’t know how I got though that meal. Neither Fred nor George nor Percy came over to me, and Ron and Harry were no where in sight. I was alone...all alone. But I wasn’t scared. In retrospect, that was should have sent my Weird-d-d-dness Detector Scales off the second I recognized it. I wasn’t scared. What the hell was wrong with me? A poor, ten-(soon to be eleven)-year-old Muggle-loving, red-headed, and defenseless WEASLEY sitting at the Slytherin table and I wasn’t scared? No matter how I thought of it, I should have been scared. But I wasn’t. More than anything, I was sad. You have no idea how it feels to be so lost, so utterly lost you can’t even think straight, in an evil world of dark Slytherin intrigue and mind games. It is depressing to know that your family shunned you because of it. And why shouldn’t they? I was an abomination.

Not only that, I couldn’t turn to a Slytherin for comfort, no more than I could turn to my family or any other Gryffindor for that matter. There were no girls in my year, that much I knew, only six boys. Six boys whom I would have to see every day, in every class for the next seven years.

This is where the whole ‘Satan’s Diary’ problem, as I now refer to it, came into play. I was alone, no one to confide in, what the hell was a going to do, talk to a wall? I think not. I was going to write...and write and write and write.

But first something happened I will never forget...

Ginny got up in a daze, the house prefect, a dark and intimidating sixth year named Amia Taves, lead her and the rest of the house to their common rooms. It was in the dungeons, deep beneath the school.

This furthered my self-hatred later. Think about it. Snakes crawl on the ground. They are disgusting bottom dwellers. They lurk in the holes underneath the world, secluded from the happiness of the sun. I was underneath (literally and figuratively) the whole school and world for that matter.

In the belly of the dragon it seemed, or a snake for that matter. As they entered the common room, the stern, oily-haired, dark eyed, frowning form of Professor Snape met them, looking, well, nasty. He stared hard at her, but she didn’t react. She wasn’t afraid; she was too numb to be afraid.

“I am your Head of House, Severus Snape. Those of you who are new will soon learn that I have something of a short fuse when it comes to other houses. I expect my house to be the best, and I expect them to win in everything they do.

“With that, I leave you,” he said.

Short and sweet, Ginny thought. As everyone was breaking up, he walked straight at her and said, “Ms. Weasley, I’d like to see you in my office, now.”

She nodded and followed him not so calmly. From what she’d heard of Snape from her brothers, he was a pompous git who hated Gryffindors. Would he hate her? She was supposed to be a Gryffindor, right? The hat had made a huge mistake.

“So, Ms. Weasley,” he began, his hands templed in front of him and looking mighty intimidating.

She stayed silent, not sure how she was supposed to answer.

“You have been put in the Slytherin house, Ms. Weasley. I’m sure you’re aware of the awkwardness of all this. Your family is historically Gryffindor; you are the first since the beginning of this school to be put in Slytherin. Are you scared?”

Ginny swallowed. “A bit,” she lied, furious how easily it came off her tongue.

He nodded. “Contrary to what you might have heard, I am available to,” he made a nasty face, “to talk to.”

She nodded, looking into his black orbs. Her obvious lack of fear seemed to upset him a bit and he cleared his throat and said, “You may leave, Ms. Weasley.”

Then she left. Kindness (or something like it) from Snape was something she wouldn’t have expected in a thousand years. But then again, she never in a thousand years expected that she would be sorted into Slytherin, so things were going just her way it seemed.

She crossed the common room; all eyes were on her, most prominently a pair of malicious, gray ones, sparkling in the corner. Ginny tried to ignore this, but it was hard. She went to the room labeled ‘First Year Girl’s Dormitories’ and opened the door. Only one bed was present; no girls as she had suspected. Her stomach got all queasy and she ran to the bathroom behind the first door and puked everything she’d eaten for the past few days into the toilet. She got up and washed her mouth out.

Then she went back to her bed and began unpacking. That was when she stumbled on the most extraordinary of things; a diary. It wasn’t hers though. In fact, it didn’t have any names on it. She opened it and looked down on it. It had the date; that was all.

Walking with it and a quill to her desk, she sat down and thought over what to do. She didn’t buy it, she knew. Maybe her mother had. Sometimes her mother did things like that, just get her things. Like the new robes that she’d been given, her mother just up and gave them to her.

Just as she was about to put quill to parchment, her door opened, which was weird because she was the ONLY female Slytherin first year.

Just her luck, it was Draco Malfoy.

He entered her room, closing the door behind him and smirking. “So, a Weasley in Slytherin. I’m waiting.”

She looked at him, her face completely devoid of every emotion; she was still to numb to feel.

“Well,” he said raising his eyebrow and leaning against a bed frame.

“Get out,” she commanded in a small, yet still forceful voice, boring into his hard gray eyes.

His smirk faltered for a matter of seconds, then he frowned. “There is something odd about you, what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

He frowned deeper, “Shall I just call you Weasley then? Fine. There is something odd about you Weasley, and I plan on figuring you out.”

He turned to leave and then paused in the doorway, “It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.

Then he left. She slammed the diary shut, becoming more and more disgusted with herself with every breath she drew. Ginny threw herself on the bed and cried.

Yes, to my eternal pride, I cried. You thought I was going to say eternal shame, didn’t you? I thought so. No, if anything, I’m proud of the way I handled that day.

The rest of the days that year; eh, not so much.

I remember very precious little about the first month of school. I remember taking long, scaldingly hot showers trying to wash she filth I felt off myself. I remember not being able to look anyone in the eye. I remember my mother’s letter. Here’s just a bit for you to try on for size.

“…and wrote us immediately. I don’t know what to say other than your father and I are proud of you. We know you will honor the morals and values we have taught you, and do your house good. Slytherin needs a happy face as far as I’m concerned, too much frowning in that area of Hogwarts if I can remember correctly. Just remember, we love you with all our hearts…”

Well what else could they say? “We hate you, never come home and don’t bother writing. By the way, does Hogwarts offer summer classes, if so you should look into that?” No, my parents wouldn’t say that. They were too understanding, too noble to do something that drastic, though the letter felt a bit chilly to me.

Another thing, I remember my brother, Ron, and I having a bit of a row at breakfast the next day.

“GINNY!”

Her name was shrieked above the whole school’s chatterings that morning at breakfast.

“VIRGINIA ANNE WEASLEY!” Ron said, charging his sister, Harry and Hermione not able to do a thing.

“What?” Ginny asked as her brother approached.

“WHAT! WHAT! You go and get yourself sorted into SLYTHERIN and all you can say is WHAT?” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

“What do you want me to say?” Ginny said, her voice dead.

“I don’t know! Apologize? Make a big deal out of it? Ask to be RE-SORTED MAYBE? Anything will do!” he said furiously.

Her jaw trembled, but Hermione came to her rescue. “Ron,” she said in a sensible voice, “You know that you can’t be re-sorted, I read it in Hogwarts, A History. Now really, Slytherin has had some fine witches and wizards...”

“LIKE?”

“Well I can’t think of any...” she began but fizzled off into a mumble.

“Ginny?” Harry said, looking straight at her. His bright green eyes brought some emotion to her face. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes,” she said, blushing a bit.

“Well isn’t this cute?” a dull voice drawled from behind them.

Ginny didn’t need to turn around; Harry’s eyes had gone wild with hate.

“Malfoy,” Harry all but growled.

“I see you were talking with the newest Slytherin. How quaint. Going to ask Dumbledore if you can get her re-sorted?”

“Honestly!” Hermione sighed. “Has no one read Hogwarts, A History? You can’t BE re-sorted!”

Draco ignored her and looped Ginny’s arm with his, “Come, let’s go join our house, Weasley.

He led Ginny away, practically quaking with laughter.

Ginny wanted to cry again.

I also remember being very lonely. So lonely, I resorted to a diary. This was the diary that would change me forever.

The thing that gets me every time is, for the longest time, he wouldn’t write back. I would write, then ink would disappear, and I would keep on writing. I really did pour my soul into that diary. I told it everything, and it seemed to listen. Paper does that real well you know. But had I wanted something to listen, I could have talked to a wall. No, I wanted something that would answer.

At first, I thought I had willed the book to answer me, like I had used magic to make it write back. Tom squelched that idea pretty fast.

It became a pattern. Every night, I would be writing in my diary, and Draco Malfoy would come in. He would throw a few choice words at my pride, then leave. Always, though, he would say, “It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

Then he would leave. And he never called me Ginny or Virginia or anything but Weasley. It was always Weasley.

I would go back to pouring my essence into an evil diary from hell until I almost fell asleep. I would drag myself into bed and hold my only friend to my chest, my diary.

Sick, isn’t it? I know. But it didn’t SEEM sick. It SEEMED natural. I guess I played right into Tom’s game in that perspective. He was a good friend. He would listen, be caring, be sensitive. He would offer advice, he would offer sympathy. He was courteous, he was nice. He was like one of those guys you couldn’t help but like.

And my grades went up. You’d think, “Eh, you say your grades went up? How duh ya figure?”

It was like I wanted to impress him, Tom that is. The tiniest, “Good job, Ginny,” is what I lived for. Once again, sick, eh? Well you try being the Weasley-that-was-sorted-into-Slytherin-and-is-the-first-ever-to-do-so-and-has-no-friends-and-is-in-a-deep-well-of-depression-and-wants-to-kill-herself and then we’ll see how picky YOU are about YOUR friends! I LIVED for those words, and I worked damned hard to hear them. Some one wanted me, damn it. It didn’t matter that I was a Gryffindor at heart. I still though of myself that way, back then.

Anyway, I guess it was sometime after Christmas when I began wizening up. All I thought about was the diary, when I’d get to write in it next, what Tom would say, what praise I could get from him. I was his lap dog, his lonely, sick, lap dog and I loved it.

As I was saying, around Christmas, I dumped the Satan’s Diary in Moaning Myrtle’s toilet, hoping to be rid of it forever.

I was lonelier than I’d ever been. Now think; I’m the youngest of a family of seven. I’ve always had people around, annoying or not, the have always been there. And then to go from that many to having no one. If that doesn’t kill you from the inside out, I’m not sure what is supposed to. So I began writing poetry, the first few thousand weren’t any good, but like anything, you just have to practice.

And like before, every night, Draco would come in.

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

I would occasionally say something, though I felt more dead than alive, and I felt more sad than dead, I’ll let you imagine how sad that really is.

Then I saw him with it. Harry Potter with Tom’s Diary. He couldn’t have that book, I knew. Nothing short of getting that book could drive me to do what I did next…

“Hey Colin,” she said in a cheerful voice to the mousy-haired Creevey boy.

“Oh, hi Ginny,” he said in a bright voice.

At least he is too stupid to understand the differences between Gryffindor and Slytherin, she thought to herself.

“I was wondering,” she said. “Do you have any of those pictures of Harry Potter on you?”

“Yeah!” he said, automatically riffling though his bag. Madam Pince glared at me but I ignored her. “Here,” Colin said, giving her a stack of photos.

Damn, she thought. Think fast, Gin.

“Um, Colin,” she said, smiling shyly, “These are all really great, but what about the none-moving ones, I like those better.”

He frowned, “Why would you WANT to see those? They are boring!”

“I like Muggle photographs,” she said, batting her eyelashes.

Colin’s eyes grew huge and he swallowed hard. “Oh?”

I’m going to die!

She bit her bottom lip and said, “Can we see some now?”

He nodded and shoved his belongings in his book bag hastily. Too easy, she thought.

He led her right to the Gryffindor portrait, a fat lady in a red dress. He gave the portrait a password and they entered.

She liked the Gryffindor common room far better than her own. Thankfully it was a Hogsmeade weekend, so lots of kids were gone. The rest didn’t give her a second glance. She was following him, looking around at the same time, until he stopped abruptly and turned around. She almost ran into him and Colin blushed.

“You’re not supposed to go up here, Ginny. I’ll get the photos, it might be a while,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Okay, Colin,” she said sweetly.

He disappeared and she counted to ten before sprinting up the stairs and finding Harry’s room. If it was anymore of a pigsty, she never would have found the diary. As it was she had to throw everything every which way to find it. She grabbed it and sprinted back down the stairs, stuffing Tom’s Diary into her book bag, just as Colin walked down the stairs.

“I’ve got them, Ginny,” he said happily.

Ginny sighed. Now she was going to have to actually look at the pictures. At least she had Tom back.

I’ll admit that after that I threw myself back into the book. I told Tom everything. I BEGGED for forgiveness! And at long last, he gave it to me.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I was sick, sick and depraved.

I loved Tom, and he said he loved me; I could still be a Gryffindor at heart, I still had the bit of emotion it required to be Gryffindor. Isn’t that kind of sad? I still longed to be a Gryffindor. It was like a life’s dream to be told, “Ms. Weasley, there’s been a mistake, you have been sorted into the wrong house. Here, come up to the warm Gryffindor tower and warm your feet. Here you will be welcome, here is your home.”

It is true; I was shunned in the Slytherin common room. I was shunned by Slytherins. Hell, even the Hufflepuffs shunned me and they were supposed to be forgiving! I would have expected that Ravenclaws would be smart enough to figure I couldn’t help I was put in Slytherin, but they looked the other way when I passed too. But Gryffindors avoided me like the plague. I was like a curse, a constant reminder that even the most historically Gryffindor families could have a bad seed.

And just when my depression had hit rock bottom, HE took me. He came out of the fucking book! Who could have called that one?

I remember thinking he looked a bit like Harry, and when I told him it amused him greatly. I didn’t know why then, but he was obsessed with Harry. Always wanting to discuss him, he was almost worse than me, though my crush had been somewhat on the decline.

Anyway, he came out of the book and I don’t remember anything until...

Ginny heard voices. Yes, they were definitely voices. Fuzzy and muffled, but still voices. It was like they were trying to break though the thick wall of cotton surrounding her head. She felt woozy, tired, only half conscious, and very, very, hungry. But she couldn’t make herself move. She could almost feel her life force being dragged out of her, seeping though her skin in a most decidedly evil way.

The voices grew louder and louder, but still they were muffled. She felt so tired. If she could just go to sleep, maybe, she wasn’t afraid; Tom would take care of her.

A scream cut through her conscious. Tom? She asked. She could feel him all the time now, even if she wasn’t writing in the diary. Tom? Are you all right? Tom?

There was no answer. He had always been there before...

She moaned and tried to sit. Opening her eyes she was met by a pair of strikingly green ones. Him! All the barriers broke. Everything she’d carried inside herself since the beginning of term. All the pressure of being put in Slytherin, all the hatred that was cast at her, all the wishes for death in the night, gone, when he looked at her.

She looked around at Harry, blood-soaked but smiling...sort of, and then at the diary in his hands. The dam broke and the tears flowed evenly down her face.

“Harry - oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy – it was me, Harry – but I – I swear I d-didn’t mean to – R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over – and – how did you kill that – that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary –”

“It’s all right,” said Harry. And it was. She was suddenly very scared.

There! Let’s press pause right there. She was suddenly very scared. No, I didn’t do scared. I refused to be scared. I still had that desire to be seen, deep inside...deep, deep, deep inside. And scared people are never noticed. Scared people are cast aside like rag dolls and never looked at after their five minutes in the spotlight. No, I would have more than five minutes, I wouldn’t be scared.

Okay, play.

Harry showed her the diary and the fang hole. “Riddle’s finished,” he said. “Look! Him and the basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here –”

Ginny then panicked. “I’m going to be expelled!” she wept, Harry helping her to her feet awkwardly. “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and –w-what’ll Mum and Dad say?”

Instead of answering her, he urged her forward to a great beautiful bird, which they followed to an area that was caved in.

“Ron!” Harry yelled, pulling Ginny along faster. “Ginny’s okay! I’ve got her!”

Ginny heard Ron’s muffled cheer and his hand grabbed her and pulled her through a gap in the rocks.

“Ginny! I’m so sorry! And you’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened? How – what – where did that bird come from?” Ron said, relief written all over his face.

Ginny burst into a new fit of sobbing and was only vaguely aware of the rest of the journey to her mother’s arms. It seemed like forever since those loving arms had held her, it felt good to be loved again. And then her father followed in suit and hugged her. She was home again. Slytherin forgotten, she was a Gryffindor tonight, and her family loved her.

She wasn’t scared. She was warm and wanted. It was a different way of not being scared though, this was, she knew that evil was out there, but right now, it couldn’t get her. But it was this exact difference that scared her the most.

Then Harry launched into his explanation about the Chamber of Secrets. It took up the better part of twenty minutes. It became a bit dodgy when Professor McGonagall asked how they escaped, but I was saved by Dumbledore telling everyone that Tom Riddle had enchanted me. This seemed to get to my parents even more. I had to tell them that I had written in that diary all year, that I thought it was from them.

Dumbledore sent me to the infirmary and soon every thing was right as rain. My parents left and I took exams. I finished first in my class which I am ashamed to say is mostly because of Tom Riddle.

You wonder why I call him Tom Riddle I think. Well, Harry and Dumbledore call him Voldemort, thinking that is the way that they will escape fear. No, Tom would have loved it for people to fear his name, but he would have loved it even more if people said it out loud. He would think it a challenge to break this person. I say Tom Riddle because this would enrage him beyond all reason of a doubt. His filthy Muggle name; yes, that would get under his skin. If anyone has earned the right to tell call him by this name, it is me. I will forever call him Tom, and he will call me Ginny.

As I was saying; everything was as right as rain. And then he came. (No, not HIM. No, not HE either. I know this is very confusing, I have far too many HEs and HIMs and now I’ve thrown a ‘he’ at you. Tsk, tsk, tsk. HIM is Voldemort or as I say, Tom Riddle. HE is Harry. And ‘he’ is Draco.) He came. Draco Malfoy. Every day before I slept.

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

The coldness came back two times that of before. Every part of me that was Gryffindor was Slytherin again. I wasn’t scared any more. I was too numb to be scared.

Author’s Note: Poem at the beginning, “Fire and Ice,” is by Robert Frost.

2. Year 2, Broken

CHAPTER 2: Year 2, Broken

"Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong."

–Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965)

The summer leading up to my second year was...Merlin, there isn’t one word for it. Lonely, tiring, long, boring, cold, hopeless...take your pick. I had begun to come to grips with who I had become. Not who, what, I had become. It sounds bad, but really it was. It was as if there was a snake and a lion in my heart, each scrambling to take as much as they could. I wavered constantly between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but in the end, loneliness and the cage won, and Salazar Slytherin claimed my mind and heart as his domain.

Regrets? Many. I was eleven, almost twelve, and I had already decided what sort of person I was going to be. I had already decided the path of the snake, the bottom feeder. Amazingly enough I decided this in the period of two weeks I spent in my childhood tree house at the end of second term. I got up from the small expanse of wood high in the trees only to eat and go to the bathroom. My parents were worried, of course; Mum tried to make me drink some anti-depression shit. Sure I was depressed, but I was used to it by now. She was feeling guilty, I know. She’d given me a bit of a cold shoulder all year.

I got out one evening before dinner and walked in the kitchen, said, “Hello, Dad; hello, Mum; what is for dinner?” I sat down at the table. Everyone looked at me oddly, even Percy, the most...How to describe him? Oblivious? Yes, oblivious of the group. Anyway, they looked at me for a moment, thinking it a bit off that I walked in as though I had just gone for a nice walk and not a two week vacation in depression-ville, and then Mum set the food on the table, and we all ate.

Odd? Yes. Slytherin? Yes. Did I care any more? No.

I was coming to what I like to call the “Crossroads.” I wrote a poem about it, want to hear? It is quite good.

“Ahem,

“The Road Not Taken,

“by V. A. Weasley.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

“And sorry I could not travel both

“And be one traveler, long I stood

“And looked down one as far as I could

“To where it bent in the undergrowth;

“Then took the other, as just as fair

“And having perhaps the better claim,

“Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

“Though as for that, the passing there

“Had worn them really about the same,

“And both that morning equally lay

“In leaves no step had trodden black

“Oh, I kept the first for another day!

“Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

“I doubted if I should ever come back.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

“Somewhere ages and ages hence:

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

“I took the one less traveled by,

“And that has made all the difference.”

Of course I didn’t write this when I was eleven; that would be lunacy. I wrote that in my sixth year. I’ve changed a lot from now to then, as you’ll see.

Anyway, back to my “Crossroads.” During this summer, I locked myself into my room and wrote and painted and played music. From what I’ve learned in Muggle Studies, I was quite the hippy. All of my thoughts were dark with little glimmers of hope, and all my poetry and paintings reflected this. I’ve always been of the opinion that the arts could be translated. As if a painting could express the same emotion as a poem; the final product is just different.

My parents and brothers were worried, of course. I mean, their baby Ginners was locked up in her room for hours at a time, her lights dimmed and music and haunting messages coming from within. I imagine I scared them quite a bit that summer.

I was developing myself, I like to think. I was also developing my wardrobe. What? My mother had taught me to sew!

The one fecking good thing that came out of Tom’s diary was I was damned smart because of him. I learned I’m something of an idiot savant in Transfiguration and Arithmancy. Yes, I learned a bit of Arithmancy in my first year. What can I say? I’d do anything for HIM. But when you don’t sleep, you have a lot of time to do other things.

Near the end of the summer, we all went to Egypt off my father’s winnings. Mother was very excited, you know, about getting to see Bill and everything. We hadn’t seen him in so long, we were beginning to worry he’d locked himself up in a vault in Gringotts or something.

I suppose you’d expect me to say Egypt was wonderful, all the new sights and sounds and can someone give me a break! Egypt is a hot, filthy, sandy, gritty, communist country with limited women’s rights and burkas galore! I despise Egypt. The only good thing was the pyramids. They were awesome.

There is something about them. They are old, full of memory. I think that is it. Old magic, long forgotten in the halls of the kings. I never told anyone this, but on one tour of the royal tombs of Akhetaten, I went on a slight detour...

“And this is where we found most of Nefertiti’s jewelry. We even found her wand. We haven’t been able to get it out of the vaults yet though,” Ginny’s oldest brother Bill said, during the tour of the royal tombs of Akhetaten. He had been given leave to take them on a tour of the latest excavation site in Gringotts.

“Nefertiti, we think, was not of noble blood, so she wasn’t a purebred wizard; actually, we think she may have been Muggle-born. But at any rate, she became quite prominent in Egyptian society, and one of the more powerful witches. It was even said she could converse with the gods, especially Aten. She rose to be almost equal with the pharaohs of old.

“The most interesting thing about her, I think, is that her tomb was never found. Some wizards speculate she may not have died at all. That she had been so ahead of her time she fashioned a Sorcerer’s Stone for herself and she lives still today. Codswallop if you ask me, but anything can happen.”

Ginny listened with interest as Bill talked; he sure did know a lot about the ancient wizards and witches of Egypt. There was something about them, some power that was tangible even today in these hallowed grounds.

“Virginia...”

“Virginia...”

“VIRGINIA ANNE WEASLEY!” her mother cried, standing right in front of her.

Ginny blinked her eyes rapidly. Someone had been calling her. Not her mother though. Something powerful, something old, something...else.

Ginny looked at her mother and said, “Coming.”

Her mother gave her an odd look and then began walking. Ginny walked towards the group...

“Virginia...”

Oh, no, I’m not ignoring it this time, she thought, falling off from behind the group. She stopped where she heard the voice and closed her eyes.

“Virginia...”

And then she began walking. It wasn’t even it as if she was walking; it was as though someone else was walking in her body. She could smell the old air becoming cleaner as her feet led her into a large, open room.

She opened her eyes and gasped. There was gold everywhere. Precious jewels and statues. Obsidian, jade, kunzite, gold, silver, bronze, lapis lazuli...everything imaginable. She looked about the hauntingly lit room for a few moments then moved about the area. It was all so beautiful. But she didn’t touch; she knew she couldn’t touch. Something inside her said, NO!

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” a finely tuned voice said from behind her.

Ginny turned around and saw her. She was decked in gold, her skin a light bronze and her hair black as night. She barely wore any clothes, and her white linens exposed one of her breasts.

“Yes,” Ginny answered in awe.

The woman looked in a mirror. “Not many girls find their ways down here anymore. It used to be they would all come; I think the time must be coming.”

“Excuse me?” Ginny said, not understanding.

“The time,” the Egyptian woman said, “of the final battle. You know, good and bad, light and dark?”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Good Aten, you haven’t been contacted before?”

Ginny shook her head.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to explain it then. It would probably be better if you’d met Chani; she is much more patient than I. Let me see, where to begin? I think the beginning should suffice.

“Magic is old, very old indeed. Though in the time I was living, it was quite new and fantastic. People experimented and such, trying to manipulate it to their will. There were, of course, some who were better at it than others, like myself. And then, one day, the prophetess came. We called her Reonet, the Timeless One, for she had no sense of when she was seeing, she just saw.

“One day, she came up with a prophesy foretelling the rise of an evil one, one who would change the world. ‘But with darkness,’ she would say, ‘always comes the light.’ It was about Voldemort.

“It was said he would taint someone pure and innocent, the Virgin Of Light she called this person. Or sometimes even the Virgin From Light; she tended to be a bit shady when talking about the future, didn’t want to give too much away. At any rate, there would be a Dark One, a Virgin Of/From Light, and a Green Knight.

“Morgana le Fay, one of my sisters, thought it was Gawain the Green Knight and tried to persuade him to come with her. As if she could ever be the one in that Prophesy...virgin, my ass.

“Anyway, there are those three. She said something about a Final Battle, more awesome and terrible than ever before, then she died. But before, she infused a bit of truth into me and my sisters. Remember she could reach across time; I saw you getting a bit confused there.

“Our job, my sisters’ and mine, is to find the Virgin Of Light and train her. Someone else trained the Dark One, and someone will train the Green Knight.”

“But...but who are your sisters, and what will they train me for?” Ginny asked.

“Good Aten, you ask a lot of questions. My sisters, let’s see. I have seven, one on each continent. Now I am obviously from Africa, you know, Nefertiti, Maiden of Beauty, not much of a Maiden though.

“Morgana le Fay is my younger sister from Europe, the Maiden of Dark.

“Nysilia is from Antarctica, she is a Maiden of Ice, a, um, Child of Snow; I don’t know how to explain it. She is a tough one. Maybe Maiden of Absence more accurate, absence of feelings.

“Then there is Shijin, a Maiden of the Arts, a poet, painter, writer, et cetera.

“From Australia and the Islands of the Pacific came my sister Hina, Maiden of Primal Lust, though she would just go right out and say it, she is the Sex Maiden; she is very blunt and practical.

“The Maiden of War, Coatlicue, is also one of my sisters; she is from South America, an Incan witch. Though really, she isn’t a warrior like her name suggests, she was the bringer of war, the herald, um, mother even, from some perspectives.

“Chani is perhaps my favorite sister; she is the youngest. She is the harbinger of knowledge, the keeper of the books and tallier of the dead and living. We call her the Maiden of Intellect; she is from the tribes of the desert Indians of North America.

“As to what they’ll train you for, well, that should be obvious: your part in the Final Battle.”

Ginny was silent for a little while, then she said, “I think you may have the wrong person, sorry.”

Nefertiti looked away from her mirror, one delicate eyebrow raised. “Me, make a mistake? You must be kidding. Look at my face; does this look like the face of someone who makes mistakes? I am the oldest sister; I don’t make mistakes.” Then Nefertiti gave an imperious flip of her hair and turned back to her mirror. “They will come to you in dreams, or as shades, as I am right now.”

Ginny’s face was emotionless as she pondered. Before she could say a thing, Nefertiti stood up. “Ah, I almost forgot.” She walked over to a golden table and rummaged through a jade box. “Ah, here it is,” she said, holding up a ring. “This is my gift to you, Virginia. A symbol that I have imparted my knowledge and training.”

Then Nefertiti tossed her the ring and sat in front of her mirror again, smiling dreamily into her reflection. Ginny examined the ring. It was solid gold with a jade incrusted inscription. It was beautiful.

“What does it say?” Ginny asked, all doubts vanquished.

“My, you are a fickle one. I give you my most beautiful and prized possession, and you say, ‘What does it say?’ like it has to have a meaning. Just like Shijin, you are. ‘Oh, but is there a deeper meaning, Nefertiti?’ I swear, every day. Deeper meaning, my ass. It is jewelry; the inscription says Virgin-Maiden of Beauty. Happy? Just don’t lose it; I don’t have another, okay?”

Ginny nodded, then turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway.

“What now?” Nefertiti said in an exasperated voice.

“I...I wanted to thank you,” Ginny said in a small voice.

Nefertiti’s mirror dropped, and she straightened in her seat. After a moment, she stood and walked over to Ginny. To Ginny, it seemed a tear was in her eye. “You are welcome, child.” Then she kissed Ginny on the forehead.

Ginny’s world spun, the air became old again, and she was back behind her family, following them as though nothing had happened.

An odd daydream to be sure, Ginny thought. She put her hand in her pocket and felt a small object. Pulling it out of her pocket, she gasped. The ring, she thought, amazed. She stuffed it back in her pocket and ran after her family.

Odd, no? My sentiments exactly.

We left Egypt; my mind thus occupied and convinced I was losing my mind or something.

So as I was saying about advancement, I advanced myself (and my wardrobe became considerably bigger...I love transfiguration), and term rolled around again. We went to Diagon Alley, and Ron and Hermione met up with the “escaped” Harry Potter at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor and then later with the rest of my family in the bar of the Leaky Cauldron...

Ginny walked in with her mother, Fred, George, and Percy following. Percy was still acting pompous after being named Head Boy ages ago, practically when his name went down on the list for Hogwarts.

Ginny was far from ready to see Harry and blushed furiously, not looking him in the eye. It was still too hard to look at him after he had saved her the year before.

Merlin! That little incident set me back at least a month. I needed to get away, fast...

Ginny walked meaningfully towards the door, her mother and father knowing she wouldn’t be stopped. They had learned enough that summer; their daughter had changed.

She felt Harry’s eyes on the back of her head and heard him ask, “Is she okay?”

“We don’t rightly know,” Ron replied. “She locked herself up in her old tree house for two weeks. Then she came down, talking like nothing had happened. Then she locks herself in her room. She writes a lot, music and poetry; we think she paints as well.”

“Does it have to do with...?” Hermione said, trailing off.

“Again, we don’t rightly know. I mean, she doesn’t talk much. Mum thought she was depressed. But Ginny just shrugs her off. She’s changed. I’m beginning to think she should have been in Slytherin all along. I mean, even Fred and George don’t joke about it; that is how serious it is.”

Ginny walked out of hearing range and down the streets. She had earned ten Galleons in a poetry contest she’d won over the summer and decided she was going to spend it. But on what?

She decided she’d save some of it and spend some on a nice diary, then some on painting supplies.

She entered Flourish and Blotts for the second time that day and looked for the owner.

“A nice diary, eh?”

She nodded.

He searched around the store for a moment and then popped up and said, “This is the ultimate diary. It has never ending pages that are easily found, a Hide-Me Spell for pages you don’t want read by pesky younger brothers or sisters, and it is ripping proof, water proof, fire proof, and magic proof. And it has a sister book, so if this one is stolen or anything else unforeseen happens, all of your precious thoughts are saved into the sister, and only you can read it. Only ten Galleons at a steal.”

Ginny looked at it speculatively. It was really very nice, green bound with silver designs on the sides, the dates written in silver too. It was perfect. “Six.”

“Ten.”

“Seven.”

“Nine.”

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

“Deal,” she concluded, flipping him the eight Galleons. Art supplies could wait. She would never have to buy a diary again.

He gave her the two books, magically inscribing her name on them with his wand, so it knew her, and she could read it.

She walked happily out of the bookstore, anxious to get writing; maybe she could even transfer all of her writings magically to this new diary then hide the old ones real well.

“Weasley,” a cold drawl said. All the warmth and happiness she might have felt drained. She turned, and there stood the familiar, smirking form of Draco Malfoy.

She didn’t say anything, just walked past him.

He caught up with her easily and jumped in front of her again. “Is that anyway to treat an old Slytherin pal, Weasley? I mean, we were so close in your first year, one hopes they can continue tucking you in every night.”

She stopped dead. This was something she didn’t want to be reminded of.

“Malfoy,” HE said. Ginny turned quickly, her two books clutched to her chest.

“Harry, let me pound him,” Ron said, cracking his knuckles.

Ginny’s jaw trembled; wasn’t her life weird enough without her brother just up and deciding one day she needed protection?

“Weasel, Potter,” Draco said coldly, still wearing a smirk. “Weasley and I were just getting re-acquainted. The end of last term was so long ago.”

“If you –” Ron began.

But Ginny had had enough, and she was too quick for him. “If he what, Ronald? Are you so ready to jump to my side and protect my honor? Where were you last year? I seem to recall you leaving me by myself quite a lot. Are you only going to come and ‘save’ me when it is convenient for YOU!? I know you’re thinking, ‘I’m just protecting her; she’ll appreciate me saving her honor one day!’ What HONOR, Ronald? I’ve lost that; it is gone beyond all hope of recollection. Let it die! I’m a Slytherin now.”

She had said this so fast her face became red and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Everyone stood amazed, even people on the street, which unfortunately consisted of the Patil twins and Lavender Brown. Good, she thought, everyone will know now.

“Well, well, well,” Draco said, “I don’t have anything to add. Come on, Weasley.”

Draco took her arm and led her away. Ginny cast a look backwards. She had crossed the road...and it was colder over here.

It really did happen like that. Innocence lost like that. Eleven and innocence lost. What a way to live! This was the way the Slytherins did it; I was living now...right?

Eh, not so much.

Actually, twenty feet and a left turn later...

“Get the fuck away from me, Malfoy!”

“What is this?” he said with amusement. Everything was a game to him.

“I saved your pride by not saying this in front of Ronald and Harry, BUT YOU ARE AN INSUFFERABLE GIT WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHEN TO TAKE A HINT. LET ME SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU! G-E-T-L-O-S-T!”

I like to think he was surprised by this outburst. He thought I had turned fully. Only in public, thank you very much. My heart was still at war. Funny thing about being born in a Gryffindor family, it never dies totally, the fire inside. It will lay dormant, then flare up in the least likely moment. I had been saving that flame for a summer, and it was hot.

So the first of September, I boarded the Hogwarts Express, went to a secluded car, and didn’t say goodbye to my parents. In fact, I wrote; big surprise there. After an hour or so, the train stopped. Alone in my compartment, I stepped outside to see what was going on.

I found Fred and George within minutes; surprisingly enough, Malfoy was in there, without his cronies Crabbe and Goyle. None of them looked good, not good at all...

“What is going on?” Ginny asked Fred and George, eyeing the very uncomfortable Malfoy in the corner.

“Don’t know,” Fred said, completely devoid of laughter. He was supposed to poke fun and be annoying. But something was wrong.

“G-Ginny, be-behind you,” George stammered.

I turned around and saw the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. It was tall and cloaked in stinking robes that were practically rotting off its body. And it smelled of death. I will NEVER forget that smell.

Ginny gasped as the hulking thing stood before her. “What are you?”

It didn’t answer, just moved away.

Like the aftershock of a bomb, it hit her. Grief, hate, pain, loneliness, revulsion...but most of all loneliness. She fell on her knees and shivered.

“What was that thing?” she asked.

It was a Dementor. I will never forget that stench. I’ve tried many times to get it right, the expression of the smell, the feel. I managed a bit of it once, though that happened in the summer after my fifth year, which you’ll surely hear about.

That was the year the Dementors came to Hogwarts, looking for Black and all. I’m not sure what to think about that whole thing; I wasn’t really involved anyway. Come to think of it, I kept pretty much to myself in my second year.

That, of course, didn’t stop Malfoy.

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

Every night. I can hear him say it in my head now. I can envision his smirk where he paused between “It doesn’t matter” and “you’ll probably...”

Make no mistake; I was by no means attracted to Draco Malfoy. In fact, I wasn’t anything to him, or he to me. I hadn’t forgotten emotion, far from it, I was reminded of it twenty-four seven.

Let me explain something, because I’m not sure you understand...I AM THE ONLY WEASLEY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE WHOLE FECKING SCHOOL TO BE PUT IN SLYHTHERIN!

I was a loner, an outsider, a lost puppy in the streets of the Slytherin common room. This goes for all my years at Hogwarts. All those feelings of loneliness and pain and doubt, they were too much. My family despised me; Gryffindors despised me; Slytherins looked down on me because of my family history, wondering what was really wrong with me.

Two words: Emotional Overload.

What else could drive a girl to pour her soul into a diary, lock herself in her room, and freeze over? It was the only way I could protect myself! Think about it, would you rather be inundated with emotion, flailing your arms and hoping to catch on something sturdy in your sea of doubt, or would you rather freeze over and not have to think about anything? Wouldn’t you rather be so numb to everything that you aren’t hurt? I would much rather freeze than drown, but that is just me.

But back to my second year. Once again, I don’t have many thoughts about that year; I was learning how to freeze over, bite me.

There were a couple of things though, one of them being one night, the night after Gryffindor played Slytherin in the Quidditch finals...

Ginny was sure he wouldn’t come. She had seen the match; she knew what had happened. Slytherin had lost. The Cup went to Gryffindor for the first time since her brother Charlie had played. The very small Gryffindor in her heart was celebrating, and she would have felt warm if it weren’t for the chill. She fingered Nefertiti’s ring; that always gave her a bit of confidence.

She was writing in her diary when the door flew open. Malfoy stood in the doorway, his usual smirk gone, replaced by his angry frown; he hated losing. But what surprised her most, was that he was here. He had just lost Slytherin the Cup, and he was still going to say it. He hadn’t missed a day, even when he had spent the night in the infirmary for his “arm injury.”

He was soaked from head to toe as he glared at her. She turned back to her desk, which she had learned to transfigure into a vanity. “Upset?” she asked.

She heard him growl. “I bet you’re happy, Weasley.”

“Why would I be happy? My house just lost the Cup. Besides, when have you ever known me to be happy? I was put in Slytherin; I’m still in mourning, in shame.”

He frowned and said, “It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

Then he left. I’m really not sure why that sticks out in my mind. There was just something about the way he was. It was like we had a connection for a fraction of a moment. I didn’t like it.

But I ignored it. Once again, I threw myself into my studies and my writing; nothing could stop me once I got started. I forgot about everything, sleeping and eating among them. It must have got pretty bad, because sometime near the end of term and after Ron and Hermione had gotten over their silly little spat, Ron, Harry, and Hermione had the audacity to confront me about it.

Ginny was sitting in the library, doing some extra Transfiguration homework next to a fellow Slytherin, Jonathan Wilkes. He was in her year but didn’t seem to mind her too much, or at least he wasn’t one of the ones who cast her dirty looks in the common room or said snide things about her family, their wealth, or anything else nasty they could say about her. No, he was neutral, which could have kind of been like having a friend, but it wasn’t.

“Ginny,” a timid voice said from behind her. She didn’t even have to look up; it was her brother.

“Ronald,” she answered, not turning around. She was still upset with him about what he had done on Diagon Alley.

“Can I talk to you?” he said in a voice that betrayed he was having a hard time controlling his temper.

Ginny sat with her eyes closed for a moment then stuffed her things in her book bag and stood from the table. Jonathan was looking at her oddly, but she didn’t care.

“You can,” she said, hitching her bag over her shoulder, casting sidelong glances at Hermione and Harry, both of whom looked decidedly uneasy.

Ron gritted his teeth and led her out of the library and into a deserted classroom, Harry and Hermione in tow.

“What do you want, Ronald?” she asked in the level voice she knew would drive him over the edge.

“WHAT DO I –” he began, but Hermione laid a hand on his forearm. “What do I want?” he asked again. “Ginny, I’m your brother. I’m worried about you. Fred and George and Percy are all worried about you.”

“Ginny,” Hermione said in a pleading voice. “We’ve been watching you. You barely eat, you are the first one in the library and the last one out, and that is saying a lot because I’m in there as well, and you know how late I study. On top of that, you look emaciated and tired. We want to help you.”

“We are your friends still,” Harry said kindly.

Sure, they meant well. They always mean well. But does it ever come out ‘well’?

Eh, not so much.

Ginny was quiet a moment, then she said, “Hmm. I see. So, my ‘friends’ just left me alone my first year when I got sorted into Slytherin. My ‘friends’ left me out to dry when I was waiting for the comfort I would later find in Tom, which, by the way, is really, very sick. My ‘FRIENDS’ who only seem to care when it suits their need for nobility. I don’t think so, sorry. If this is what friends do, I have a whole bloody world of friends. Friends, pfft! I don’t have any friends; I don’t want any friends.”

“Ginny,” Harry began in a hurt voice.

Ginny interrupted him again. “You want me to eat, fine. You want me to sleep, fine. You want me to change from what I’ve become, what I’ve been made into by some mysterious and cruel turn of fate, I don’t think so. Find another plaything, Harry Potter; I’ll not be pushed around. Now if you’ll all excuse me...”

She pushed past her brother and stalked out of the room. Before she left, she heard Hermione say, “That could have gone better.”

“Like I said, she may actually belong in Slytherin,” Ron said gloomily.

“Don’t say that,” she heard Harry mumble.

Ginny rounded the corner hard and would have run into Professor McGonagall if she had been less alert.

“Oh, it is you, Ms. Weasley. I was looking for you; coming back from the library?”

Ginny nodded. “I was doing some Transfiguration extra credit.”

“That is precisely what I wanted to speak with you about, Ms. Weasley. It has come to my attention that my classes aren’t challenging you enough; it’s child’s play to you. I want to advance you to the next level. Next year, if you want, I will move you into the Advanced Transfiguration class for sixth and seventh years. I know this is a big step, but I really believe you need it. What do you think?”

Ginny blinked a few times. “I’ll only be a third year, though.”

“Yes, which is why I will totally understand if you don’t wish to participate.”

“I want to do it,” Ginny said forcefully.

Professor McGonagall looked at her sharply, just as she had when she first saw her. “I’ll tell the Headmaster you’ve agreed then. I would also like to make a suggestion, Ms. Weasley, to take Arithmancy next term; I have a feeling you’ll enjoy it.”

“I’ve already signed up,” Ginny informed her.

“Good, good,” the professor said primly. “And again, I hope you will be challenged in my class, Ms. Weasley.”

“Thank you, Professor McGonagall,” Ginny said, starting off to her the dungeons.

“Oh, and Ms. Weasley,” Professor McGonagall said, almost as if an afterthought. “Do eat something; you are skin and bone, child.”

Needless to say, I began eating more. Four people in one day is quite enough.

So winter melted into spring, but the chilly wind that whipped around my heart stayed in place.

I also experimented with Nefertiti’s ring a bit. It was an odd sensation, wearing the ring. It made me feel...I don’t know how to explain it to you...beautiful, maybe? It gave me a confidence, something solid to move my life about on. Sort of like the Earth’s axis. Something I could depend on and plan on. It was a good feeling. I didn’t wear it often though; there was something that seemed to be missing, as though I should get another part of the puzzle before putting it together.

I learned this was true one night near the end of term...

Ginny had just returned from the library. It was late, and she had been studying for her Charms exam the next day. She dropped a few lines in her diary, and Malfoy came in as usual.

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll probably be dead by morning anyway.”

Didn’t he know she was already dead?

She slipped under her covers and turned off the light, determined that all she needed was some sleep and a good breakfast and the Charms exam was as good as aced.

Okay, you know that state between sleep and awake? That time where you are barely conscious enough to hear and react, but you still know you are awake? When dreaming like this, it is kind of that feeling. It is like you are conscious of your body, but you don’t really need it; it is all in your head.

“Virginia...”

“Virginia...”

Ginny’s world spun slowly until a mist enveloped her, and when it cleared, she was in a chilly, frost-covered field. She looked around her and recognized where she was. It was just like it was supposed to look in all the books.

“Avalon?” she whispered.

“Yes, Virginia,” a woman said. She had a slow, deliberate speech that demanded you pay attention. She was short, just taller than Ginny, and that wasn’t saying much. She had long, black, tightly curled hair that hung below her waist. She wore a black dress, archaically cut with long, flowing sleeves and a high neckline that perfectly matched her hauntingly dark, black eyes. She had a crescent moon tattooed crudely on her forehead and a thinly spun, golden tiara and a single, solid, black ring, perhaps made of obsidian. “You are in Avalon. I know why you are here, but do you?”

“Are you Morgana le Fay?” Ginny asked, looking amazed on the beautifully dark woman.

“I am she. I see you have Nefertiti’s ring; you do know what you are doing here, I see.”

Ginny nodded.

“Good. Then you know I have something for you.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Morgana said with a slight smile. She took the black ring off her long, pale finger and held it out to Ginny.

Ginny took it and shivered; it stank of power, of dark power, of death. Ginny gagged and almost dropped the ring. On it, in silver writing, was, “Virgin-Maiden of Dark,” Morgana informed her.

With Morgana still standing over her, Ginny looked up and said, “Why do they call you the Maiden of Dark?”

The little smile on Morgana’s face broadened. Then a pitch-black aura of light came off of her. She seemed to grow, and her eyes turned solid black, so that there was no white. When she reached somewhere around eight feet, she stopped, and spoke. “Virginia, this is why I am called the Maiden of Dark. The dark forces of magic flow though my veins, and in yours. Use them wisely, as I have. Don’t be misled, don’t be misguided, they are to be used only in the most desperate of circumstances.”

The mist began to rise again, and Morgana spoke for the final time, “Virginia, I impart my training and knowledge to you...”

Ginny woke and sat up quickly, panting slightly. In her hand was the black, obsidian ring. Well, then, she thought, one more to add to my collection.

Morgana’s ring made me feel much different from Nefertiti’s. Morgana’s radiated power and strength, and the darkness. I have my suspicions on how good Morgana le Fay was in her time; I had always pinned her as the dark type. This only confirmed it. I mean, the woman stank of death! It was like being next to a Dementor, only she sucked out your power, not your happiness. Odd to be sure. It gave me a lot of new material to work with though.

Though I hardly needed new things to talk about. The whole Black shenanigan didn’t pass over well, not at all. Snape roared about the dungeons, snapping at anyone who looked at him too long. He was mighty upset about losing the Order of Merlin, and it showed. I got the feeling it might have been something personal, but what do I know? And Malfoy didn’t get over the fact that Buckbeak had managed to escape and told anyone who would listen that Hagrid had set him free and smuggled him out.

But as I was saying, it was the end of term; summer was in three short days, and I was itching to get away. Away from all the people really. Away from the hype as well. There had been a lot of talk about Harry Potter and Sirius Black; even Draco was known to talk about it once in a while, when other news was old.

The End of Term Feast rolled around, and I was inclined to sit though Gryffindor winning the third house championship in a row. It wasn’t like I cared, but I think the lion may have gained some space in my heart. I felt warmer inside, warmer than I’d felt in a long time, and I didn’t like it. I put on Morgana’s ring; that was enough to make me feel cold inside temporarily, though I noticed if I left it on too long, I felt just downright evil. Three minutes with it on and I was able to think clearly again; my mind wasn’t confused with trifles like emotions.

I followed my house back to the dungeons, intent on packing that night so I could have a bit of a lie-in the next morning before I had to leave on the Express.

“Hello, Malfoy,” Ginny said, throwing the last bits of spare parchment in Bill’s old trunk.

“A hello? Someone must be in a good mood,” he said in his normal drawl.

“Summer starts as soon as I get home; aren’t you anxious to be away from school?”

Malfoy snorted, “Hardly.”

Ginny felt it wouldn’t be safe to continue along that line of questioning. She sat down on her bed, crossing her legs and looking over at the sulking Malfoy. “I never once have asked you, but why do you come in here?”

He looked at her sharply, as if someone had pierced him with a white hot rod. Then his face calmed, “I told you, I’m going to figure you out.”

“No.”

“No? No what?” he said, trying to sound amused, but somehow, Ginny wasn’t fooled.

“‘No’ as in no, that isn’t the reason,” she replied, perfectly calm. She felt no fear.

“So Weasley thinks she knows me now?” Malfoy said coldly.

“I never said that,” Ginny said indignantly. “I just said that isn’t the reason. What do you fear, Malfoy?”

He looked at her for a long, hard moment. Then he said, “Fear? A Malfoy never fears.”

“I think you fear your father. I think you fear other Slytherins. I think you fear Dumbledore. I think you even fear me, or why else would you care? Hold your friends close, but your enemies closer, Malfoy.”

His jaw clinched; he wheeled around and made for the door handle.

“We weren’t done, Malfoy. You still haven’t said yet what the real reason is for you coming in here.”

Ginny was now standing, walking towards Malfoy slowly and deliberately, like Morgana would do.

“Nothing!” he spat.

“Afraid to tell me what you fear? Afraid to admit weakness? Come, we are all ‘friends’ here, Malfoy; what makes your heart stop?” Ginny said forcefully. She didn’t know what was driving her to do this, it was just coming out.

Malfoy had backed himself up into the wall, eyes full of fear and hands pressed against the stone. Then he hung his head in defeat. “Yes,” he said.

Ginny let out a breath she had been holding. “I know,” she said, taking the ring off inside her pocket; she didn’t even remember putting it on.

Malfoy didn’t look her in the eyes for a long time. But soon, he straightened and looked at her calmly.

“My name is Virginia, but lots of people call me Ginny,” she said evenly.

He looked confused for a moment, then remembering he had asked her that her first day of school, nodded his head. He made his way to the door, but before he could leave, Ginny called out, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He looked back at her, his cold gray eyes a little warmer. “No, not tonight, Virginia.”

She nodded, and he left.

I wouldn’t see him until the beginning of next term. I suppose you could say I was sad about it, but how can you be sad about losing a friend you never had? It is widely known that Malfoys don’t make friends. Friends are dangerous when you hang around in those circles; cronies work much better. A stupid person can’t betray you...they are too stupid.

I did, however, write something about him; though after meeting his father, it could work for him as well.

“Sympathy for the Devil,

“by V. A. Weasley,

“Please allow me to introduce myself; I'm a man of wealth and taste.

“I've been around for a long, long year, stole many a man's soul and fate.

“And I was 'round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain.

“Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

“But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game

“Stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change.

“Killed the Czar and his ministers,

“Anastasia screamed in vain.

“I rode a tank in a general's rank when the Blitzkrieg raged,

“And the bodies stank.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

“What's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

“I watched the gleam while you kings and queens fought for ten decades for the Goth

they made.

“I shouted out ‘Who killed the Kennedys?’ when after all it was you and me.

“Let me please introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste.

“And I laid tracks for troubadours who got killed before they reached Bombay.

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

“But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.

“Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners Saints as I end this tale.

“Just call me Lucifer, 'cause I'm in need of some restraint.

“So if you meet me, have some courtesy,

“Have some sympathy, and some taste.

“Use all your well learned qualities or I'll lay your soul to waste

“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

“But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game.”

I think it sums up the Malfoy men quite well. They do have many attitudes I imagine the devil would.

At any rate, my second year ended much healthier than my first. That is if you could call a girl with no real feelings and a newfound obsession with darkness and power healthy. But I had my physical health. Mother met me at the platform, another year gone. She looked relived and scared to see me, I think. It is odd to have no family.

Author’s Note: “The Road Not Taken” is by Robert Frost and “Sympathy for the Devil” is by the Rolling Stones.