Chapter Text
Ginny is numb.
She can feel her heart pounding, feel the panic coursing through her, feel hands on her arms, shaking her, but none of it truly registers in her mind.
Even the screams around her, which initially served to heighten the fear flooding through her whole body, have now faded and are overtaken by a shrill ringing in her ears. Her entire body wants to run, fight, get away from it all, but something else in her keeps her feet planted firmly where they are even as she shakes with the desire to escape.
But then she’s moving, a force outside herself propelling her to travel across the field. Ginny barely notices the stumbling steps she takes as her feet connect with and snag on clumps of grass and dirt. Later she might remember the trampling of students’ feet around her, but for now, a small bubble of protection keeps the stampede away.
The cool air of the castle’s interior hits Ginny like a wall, so suddenly and in sharp contrast to the warmth of the June air outside. She distantly registers being rushed up a flight of stairs—somehow she makes it up without trouble—and then the familiar smell of the hospital wing floods her senses and the ringing can’t cover up the sound of voices speaking quickly, frantically, and hurried hands are pulling her onto a bed and raising something to her lips.
She drinks, and sputters at the bitter taste, but a warm feeling fills her, and the ringing fades into a fog as a sense of calm fights back the panic.
But this feels wrong. The calm is wrong. She can’t be calm, not after what happened, not now that she knows he is back.
“Ginny.”
A sharp voice cuts through the fog, and Ginny’s eyes strain to focus on the face in front of her. Familiar dark brown eyes, framed by umber skin, black hair. Becca.
Ginny feels the name on her lips, but she doesn’t remember speaking it.
The voice continues speaking, the sharpness fading slightly but still edged with authority.
“Take a deep breath. Count to five as you do. Come on, breathe in with me.” Ginny tries to breathe in slowly, following Becca’s lead. Her lungs shudder and try to pull in more gasping breaths, but Becca persists.
“Slow it down. Breathe as you count. With me, again.”
They stay like this, Ginny fighting against the panic that constricts her lungs, until she is able to take a long, shaking breath in. She lets it out just as slowly, battling herself for every second.
“Now, again.”
As she breathes, the fog and numbness tinting the world around her fade even more. Ginny can see worried faces at the edge of her vision, but Becca tells her not to focus on them.
“Look at me. Keep breathing Ginny.”
So she does.
One breath in on a count of five, hold it for a two count, then let it out for another count of five. Over, and over, holding Becca’s gaze, her friend's eyes never leaving hers. Slowly, ever so slowly, the shaking stops. Ginny’s muscles are still racked with small tremors, residual from the panic flooding her body, but now she feels herself releasing the tension. Her mind is still a mess of thoughts and memories, but she holds on to her breathing, and eventually Becca helps her lay back on the bed.
The ceiling of the hospital wing is so far away, but Ginny focuses on a single point and breathes. And breathes. And breathes.
—
She isn’t sure how much time has passed when her eyes fly open at the sound of voices, but when she bolts upright she sees her bedside is empty, and a large crowd has formed around another bed.
A head of black hair lays on the pillow, and she knows instantly who has drawn such an audience. While the rest of the hospital wing occupants cluster around Harry, Ginny slips from her bed, and out the open doors of the wing. Her mind is still spinning, racing with memories of the day, but for some reason, everything remains blurry and indistinct. She cannot focus on one moment, but instead, the memories slip through her mind like water through her fingers.
Her name is called, and she turns slowly, seeing three familiar faces rush to her.
“You should be resting.” Becca fusses, giving Ginny a stern look. The twins nod from next to her, and Ginny notes distantly that it is a testament to how serious everything is right now that they aren’t joking or trying to make light of the situation. Instead, the three try to escort her back inside the hospital wing.
“I’m fine,” Ginny insists, pulling back from Becca’s persistent tugs on Ginny’s arms. “I can rest in the dorms, but not here.”
Becca gives her an exasperated look, which surprisingly, Fred and George mirror, looking a little too much like their mum.
“Gin,” George says softly. “You should be somewhere that Madam Pomfrey can keep an eye on you.”
“And,” Fred adds, “Mum would properly lose it if she knew we let you out of her sight.”
“I’ll be fine. I just need to be somewhere that isn’t loud,” Ginny insists, and she can see how torn her brothers look. Becca sighs, turning to the twins.
“You go tell your mum that I’m taking Ginny back to our room. I’ll stay with her, so she doesn’t have to worry.” Ginny knows Becca lowered her voice a little so she can’t hear, and Ginny tries not to feel indignant about the fact that everyone seems to think she needs a caretaker.
But don’t you?
A small voice from the back of her mind speaks up, and Ginny tries to ignore it, letting Becca escort her down the stairs and toward Gryffindor Tower. They make the walk in silence, Ginny completely lost in her thoughts, trying to stop the residual anger lingering in her at the thought that her friends and family think she’s so fragile that she needs to be constantly watched. She’d expect that from her mum, of course, but the twins and Becca have never treated her like a breakable thing, at least not recently. Not since-
Then the doors at the end of the hall burst open as they reach the bottom of the stairs, and in storms Cornelius Fudge, followed closely by a fuming Professor McGonagall and a creature Ginny recognizes all too well.
Becca pulls the two of them into an empty classroom, and all Ginny can do is watch in horror as the dementor follows Fudge and McGonagall up the stairs. Its presence settles a coldness over the whole room, despite the wood and stone mostly separating them from the hall where the creature glides. Ginny hears none of the conversation between the two older wizards, she only can watch the hooded creature and try not to listen to the cruel, whispering voice that has become vocal in the back of her mind.
He’s back, he’s back, he’s back.
The voice is gone as quickly as it came, and the dementor turns the corner up the stairs with the two wizards, the conversation fading as they go, and the chill slowly leaves Ginny’s body. Becca gives her a concerned look she pretends not to notice, and they continue their walk, the silence louder than the rushing of blood in Ginny’s ears.
The common room is full when they reach it, and they push through the crowd unnoticed, finding the dorm mercifully empty. Ginny climbs straight into her bed, curling onto her side and drawing the curtains without a word. She hears Becca sigh and sit down on her own bed but pays her friend no mind.
Her hand goes automatically to the fang, still under her pillow as always. Ginny traces her thumb along the edge of it, imagining she can feel where the ink stain ends and the pale color of the bone begins. She focuses on the sensation, instead of the memories it drags up, of waking in the Chamber, seeing Harry battered and bloodied above her, feeling cold and empty after Tom’s vanquishing.
She hates that feeling, hates the fact that her tormentor's absence made her feel like something was missing, rather than that she was freed.
She hates how easily the memories rise up anytime he is even mentioned, and how quickly they take over as they did today when it truly feels like he could return.
And then he did.
She pushes back the panic and lets the hate flow through her instead, pressing her thumb down onto the tip of the fang. It’s dulled a little, no longer as sharp as it was when it was plunged into the pages of the wretched diary, but the shock of pain clears her mind.
She hates how much of a hold those memories have on her still, and hates how she falls apart after all this time of trying to stay put together.
As Ginny lays there in her bed, fang pressing into her thumb, she lets the hate course through her, washing away the panic and terror from before. It tires her, to hate this much, and as she releases her vice grip on the fang, removing her tortured thumb from its tip, she finally lets the tears fall.
They fall silently, dripping down her face, pooling on the pillow as she trembles, arms wrapped around her stomach.
Eventually, the tears dry, but by then she is long asleep.
—
The last days of the term pass in a blur. Ginny wakes up with the numbness returned, and the fog persists.
She barely registers Dumbledore’s words at the last feast, but she has a startling moment of clarity as the whole hall stands in honor of Cedric. She sees Harry turn white as parchment when Dumbledore calls him out, sees Cho crying at the Ravenclaw table, and then they are sitting again and the fog comes over her once more.
She packs her trunk that evening, Becca silent beside her. Her hand hesitates over the fang, and eventually, she leaves it under her pillow to take on the train in the morning. Later, she finds it in that same spot and holds on to it as she fights off the memories and falls into a fitful sleep.
The rush to leave the next morning is noticeably more frantic than in previous years. No one wants to remain much longer where they don’t feel safe, and despite any assurances some of the prefects make that Hogwarts is perfectly safe, the younger students especially rush to the waiting carriages. Ginny and her friends follow at a slower pace, dragging their trunks through the halls. There’s a strange sort of silence that bubbles around their small group, and none of them speak as the other students flow around them.
“Ginny!” A call from behind her breaks Ginny out of her mindless walk, and she looks up to see she and her friends have exited the castle and are standing in the courtyard with the carriages waiting.
Michael walks over from a carriage where his friends and Quidditch teammates are loading their things.
“You guys go ahead, I’ll meet you in a second,” Ginny says to Becca and Colin as Michael approaches, and they hesitate before walking over to put their trunks in an empty carriage.
“How are you?” Michael’s voice is coated with worry, his brow furrowed and he reaches out, taking her hands in his as he comes to stand in front of her.
Ginny hesitates.
How can she explain to Michael exactly how much Cedric’s death has affected her, not because she was close to the boy, but because of the circumstances surrounding his death, and what that means for everyone she loves? He doesn’t know the memories and voice she has struggled against since her first year, maybe he barely remembers who she became at the end of that year.
And maybe he is only asking out of concern because, just like many other students around them, she’s moving as though she has no destination, with an emptiness following the disastrous end to the Tournament. Plenty of students are scared now, and the effort to try and explain why the terror she feels is even more pronounced just threatens to drain her already depleted energy.
So she just shrugs. “I’m just a little shaken up, I guess.”
Michael nods as if he understands, and maybe he’s trying to be supportive, but the gesture just reminds her again how distant they are despite all the time they spent together this spring. He pulls her into a hug that catches her off guard, and she sinks into it, finding a little more comfort in the contact than she found before.
After a moment of silence, he pulls out of the hug, and they start walking over to the waiting carriages.
“We should hang out this summer,” Michael says, less of a suggestion and more like a statement, but Ginny nods in agreement. She wants this summer to be different than before, wants to go out and away from the Burrow, visit friends, and not be under the watchful and worried eye of her mum all the time.
“I’ll send you an owl,” he promises, kissing her quickly on the forehead before climbing up to sit next to his friends. Ginny waves as the horseless carriage rolls off, and turns away.
Becca and Colin wait in a carriage with some other Gryffindor from their year. They both are clearly trying not to ask her about the interaction they just witnessed, and the three ride up to the train in silence.
The cars on the train fill quickly, and by the time they arrive at the station, there are none left empty. The trio makes their way down the line, and Ginny, who somehow ended up in front, peers into the cars and hopes for familiar faces to sit with. Near the end, she finds a car that looks empty. Upon further inspection, however, it appears to be occupied by a single figure.
Ginny’s heart does a funny skip in her chest when she sees it’s Luna.
Without really thinking, she opens the door. Luna turns, a smile lighting her face when her eyes land on Ginny.
“Hey Luna, mind if we join you?” Ginny leaves out the fact that every other compartment is full, but a small corner of her mind whispers she’d still be in here even if that weren’t true.
“Not at all.” Luna’s smile is infectious, and Ginny returns it as the three pile in. Becca and Colin mumble soft “thank you’s” as they bring in their things, and sit opposite Luna. Ginny sits next to her, and gives her friends pointed looks.
“So, Luna, do you have any plans for the summer?” Becca asks politely, shooting a look back at Ginny.
“Oh yes. My father and I are going to search for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack this July. It’ll be difficult but Father’s had many reports sent to him of their presence in the Swedish countryside.”
Colin looks flummoxed but says nothing, and Becca simply nods and murmurs, “How interesting.”
A knock at the door and Ginny looks up, grateful for another distraction. Kat and Claire wander in, both without their things, and Ginny assumes this means they’ve found other compartments. But Luna invites them to sit, and, Ginny notices, Claire takes her seat right next to Becca. Neither girl acknowledges the other besides a nod, and Colin rolls his eyes in exasperation.
Kat sits next to Ginny and speaks to her almost immediately. “How are you feeling?”
Ginny glances around in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I saw you after the last task, and I’ve seen you since. I don’t mean to pry, but anyone who pays attention can tell something is wrong.”
“You’re usually very happy, but since Cedric died you’ve been lost. It’s almost like a blibbering humdinger caught hold of you, but they aren’t in season. Did you love him?”
Ginny casts a bemused look at Luna, who clarifies, “Cedric. Did you love him? Is that why you are so lost now?”
Ginny shakes her head. “No, no I’m not sad about Cedric. I mean, it’s awful what happened to him, really it is, but he’s not… that’s not the reason I-” Her vision blurs a bit and her voice drops off as the image of the Dark Mark in the sky comes to her mind unbidden.
“Ginny,” Becca says softly from across the compartment. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Ginny shakes her head though, and takes a few deep breaths. “It’s fine, I… I just have a lot of bad memories from our first year, and…what happened with Cedric, and what that means…”
“You mean now that Lord Voldemort is back.” It’s Claire who finishes her thought. Becca and Kat flinch at the name, but Ginny simply nods.
“Yes.”
The compartment is silent for a moment, and then Kat puts a hand on Ginny’s shoulder. “Thank you for sharing with us. I know none of us can relate to what you feel, but let us know if there is anything we can do to help.” Ginny doesn’t comment on Kat making the declarative statement for everyone there, but she is grateful nonetheless.
They are silent for a while, and Ginny stares past Luna out the window to the rolling fields beyond.
Eventually, Colin and Kat get orders from the group for the trolly witch, and after they leave Becca and Claire fall into a quiet conversation Ginny doesn’t bother to try and listen in to. She can feel Luna’s eyes on her, the girls’ gaze pensive and calm, but she makes no move to engage in conversation.
Ginny almost wishes she would, but right now any more talking feels like it would be too much.
The fields outside the train roll on, the sun casting shadows through the clouds, and even after her tired eyes drift closed, Ginny can see the lulling shapes stretching on endlessly.