Ginny

Chapter One

Consilium Capit

Ginny Weasley sat slumped over the Charms books that were strewn across her desk. She was nearly dozing off, but Professor Flitwick did not really notice. He was currently absorbed in explaining to the rest of the class the workings of a Time-Turner, a particularly spectacular example of which had recently been discovered in one of Hogwarts' many disused and forgotten rooms. Ginny was not finding the lesson interesting. Ginny didn't find much interesting at all, really. She yawned behind her hand and rested her head on her arm, and felt herself sinking into sleep.

Ginny shook her head slightly to wake herself up. She knew what accompanied sleep. Writing, forming unbidden on 50-year-old pages; writing that lied. Motionless bodies with horrified eyes, staring at something that wasn't there, something unknown to any, not even the person who had set it on them. Tom Riddle, commanding a huge, hideous serpent with Ginny's tongue; writing deceptive letters to her in her own ink; listening to her worries, laughing because he'd caused them.

Ginny had begun to blame herself for the attacks that had taken place in her first year. Everyone had lied to her, saying it was ultimately Tom's fault, or Lucius Malfoy's. If she'd been a better person, Ginny thought, or more sensible, she wouldn't have written to Tom, she wouldn't have let him control her, she would have realised what was going on sooner and told someone. Then she had beat herself up about that. Tell someone. She should have done something herself; otherwise what was she in Gryffindor for?

Going over this in her head for the umpteenth time, Ginny looked up from the knot in her desk she'd been staring at as she heard her name being called; a cold, mocking voice which she heard so often these days. "Miss Weasley?" it was saying. She shut her eyes tight, but she could see Tom Riddle's sneering face against the swirling darkness of her closed eyelids. They snapped open almost audibly as the voice became high-pitched, squeaky and concerned. Professor Flitwick was looking up at her, his nose just level with the top of her desk.

"Miss Weasley?" he repeated, "are you asleep?"

Ginny nodded hurriedly. If anyone were to think there was something genuinely wrong with her, she might be sent to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey was sure to recommend that she get some rest. Although sleeping potion was intended to bring dreamless sleep, Ginny didn't trust it.

"I trust my lesson hasn't been boring you?" asked Flitwick. Ginny shook her head. She couldn't remember what the lesson had been about, and so hadn't a clue whether it was dull or not. Flitwick looked perplexed.

"Please try not to fall asleep in my lessons," he said, making his way back to the front of the class, "and do try and catch up what you've missed from somebody else."

Ginny sighed. She generally attempted to avoid sleep altogether. Had she been in any state to analyse her condition she would be aware that staying awake as much as possible wouldn't help. All she knew was that sleeping brought dreaming and dreaming was unbearable, because in sleep the horrible visions of Basilisks and Petrification that seeped into her thoughts every hour of the day never faded into safe, secure reality.

Even reality was hard to bear, though. Although it had been years ago, Ginny hated the sympathetic looks that her brothers and their friends - Ginny had no real friends of her own; mostly the other students in her class avoided her because she was prone to breaking down and weeping at seemingly random intervals - gave her whenever the topic was brought up. She didn't want their pity. It just made it worse when they insisted it wasn't her fault as though she was incapable of doing anything for herself.

If only, she thought bitterly, there was some way she could go back and do something about it. That would show them she wasn't utterly helpless on her own. She emitted another sigh, almost a yawn, listening to Flitwick talking almost in the background...

"This particular Time-Turner," he was saying, "has been set to a specific date. However, it can't be determined what precisely that date is without using it, and doing so would be far too risky to be worthwhile. With most Time-Turners, however, it is possible to set the precise amount of time you wish to travel. I would give a demonstration, but that wouldn't be possible without a Time-Turner to every student, and it would be dangerous to keep that many Time-Turners in the school."

Flitwick went on to add that the production and purchase of Time-Turners was strictly regulated because they were very dangerous objects which could create all kinds of horrible and confusing paradoxes about killing an ancestor or a younger version of yourself, or changing history in general. The Time-Turner he was showing them now, Flitwick said, was the only one they currently had in the school.

Changing history. Changing the past.

Something went 'click' in Ginny's foggy mind. The only really clear thought she'd had for over a year that hadn't been to do with the Chamber of Secrets began to form. She would get hold of that Time-Turner... She could come back to the exact time she had taken it, and nobody would even know she'd been gone... She could tell her past self that the diary wasn't to be trusted, to get rid of it as soon as she'd got hold of it...

The whole horrible business would never have happened. She wouldn't be known only as 'that crazy Weasley girl who unleashed a monster in her first year' by everybody in the school.

The fact that the Time-Turner was set to a specific time had slipped out of her memory's butterfingered grasp on things other than the vivid green of the Basilisk's scales or the cold, harsh laugh of Tom Riddle. All she knew was that she could use it to change her first year at Hogwarts.

Lost in her thoughts, Ginny didn't notice that the rest of her class had left, and had to be nudged into activity by a nervous Ravenclaw third-year whose class were using the room next. She said 'sorry', rather than just making an indistinct apologetic noise, for the first time in months, gathered her things, and left the classroom, her mind fixed on obtaining the Time-Turner.

********

Traipsing through the corridors back up to Gryffindor Tower, after dinner that night, Ginny ran through the scattered bits of a plan she had thought up. She would steal the Time-Turner. That much she knew. If she could get her hands on that one small object then everything could be right again. That precious thing that could save her from oblivion. From being labelled, and judged before she had even begun. Dismissed as a failure. Ginny didn't think she could stand her life, as it was for very much longer. The days seemed to blur together in a mass of accusing thoughts and hushed voices, while the hours seemed to drag by. But she could change that, could change her past, so that it was different. So that she could have another chance. If she could steal the Time-Turner.

That's where her plan faltered. After she had the Time-Turner it should be easy. Turn it over and she would be back in the past. All she had to do was find herself and get rid of the diary. Simple.

Ginny had arrived at the portrait hole, she muttered the password - 'Bowlfresh' - and climbed into the common room. People were scattered lazily about, chattering, doing homework and the like. She scanned the room quickly, for familiar faces and her gaze quickly alighted on three heads; one red; one black; one brown. Ron looked up. He had seen her. Oh, fun, she thought to herself, sympathy. Understanding words. Meaningful looks.

She hurried quickly across the room, avoiding looking in their direction, hoping they would let her be. No such luck.

"Hi, Ginny," a voce called over from the direction of her brother and his friends.

She paused and turned back to her fate. "Mmm," she mumbled in reply.

"How was your day? Charms any good?" Harry looked concernedly at her.

"No, fine, fine. Um, I have to go now. Things, people...yeah..." she trailed off.

Ginny hastily continued over to the entrance of the girls' dormitories, and quickly disappeared through the door.

Ron watched her leave, then turned back to Harry and Hermione.

"I'm worried about her. She's not eating; her marks have slipped."

"I'm sure there's nothing to be bothered about," Hermione reassured him.

"I wish there wasn't. She doesn't seem right. I mean, she was never very outgoing, but to be so isolated all the time ... it's not like her."

Harry and Hermione looked at each other. They knew how protective of his sister Ron was. He could be blowing things out of proportion. Sure, Ginny had seemed a bit quieter than usual recently, but that didn't necessarily mean anything bad.

"I don't think she's been sleeping well. She looks ill. I'm going to Owl mum." Ron made to get up, but Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Ron, don't. It might be nothing and you don't want to worry your mother needlessly."

Ron looked at her, unsure.

"Look, if you really are that concerned, I'll talk to her. I'm sure it's nothing we can't sort out. Please."

He hovered for a moment, indecisive, but finally sat back down, chewing his lip.

"I hope you're right, Hermione," he said, "I hope you're right."

*****

As Ginny ascended the stairs to her dormitory, she could faintly hear voices emanating form her room. It sounded like her roommates were fighting. Jessica Fraser's screechy tones almost drowned out the softer voice of Elianna Howell.

"I swear, if she wakes me up again with her screaming, I'm going to - "

"Do what? We can't do anything. It's not her fault she has nightmares," Elianna cut in.

"Why are you defending her, El?"

"I'm not, but you can't blame her for being screwed up. You know what she went through."

"We all know what she went through. But that was back in first year! You think she'd have got over it by now."

"You don't get over things like that easily. And it can't have helped, having you humiliating her at every turn."

"I don't humiliate her. I just don't have that much tolerance for people like her."

"What do you mean, 'people like her'?"

"Oh, you know," Jessica sighed, "attention seekers."

"What?"

"Come on, I can't be the only person to see it. She has to be putting it on! No one can be that messed up naturally. She just doing it to get Harry's attention."

"Not every one is as shallow as you are, Jess. Some of us have things called 'morals'."

"Oooh, catty."

"Seriously, how can you think she's making it up? Isn't it obvious that whatever happened down there disturbed her mentally?"

"Well, she's certainly disturbing. Have you seen her dolls?"

"They're just china dolls, Jess."

"But she talks to them. It's creepy."

"She's probably just lonely. Lots of people talk to themselves to combat loneliness."

"No they don't, that's stupid. Anyway, if she's lonely, why doesn't she talk to people?"

"She's shy. Besides, I'm sure she doesn't feel like she can talk to any of us. She probably feels like none of us understand."

Too right, thought Ginny. She crept a little closer to the door, so she could hear better.

"Ugh, who cares what she feels. I thought we agreed that we were together on this, we want the Schizophrenia Queen out, so we can get a decent night's sleep."

"I thought you said she was putting it on?"

"Fine, whatever, either she can stop acting or go and be demented on her own, away from us."

"You need to learn the meaning of tact."

"What? I'm tactful! I ooze tact! I Have tact coming out of every orifice in my body."

"Ick, nasty mental picture."

"Oh, sod off."

Ginny moved away from the door. She didn't want to interrupt their conversation and get into a round of "who can look the most uncomfortable while trying not to make it obvious". But what was her other option? She looked down the stairs. Two people or a whole room of people? She'd take two, thank you very much.

She pushed the door open and braced herself.

Conversation ceased almost immediately.

"Oh. It's you," said Jessica tactlessly.

Ginny didn't say anything, but simply crossed the room to her bed, and drew the curtains. She could hear Jessica spluttering indignantly, but soon the door opened and slammed shut and she lay back onto her pillow to the sounds of receding footsteps.

*****

That night, well after midnight, Ginny slipped out of bed. She hadn't slept at all. She never did. The other girls in her dormitory were sleeping soundly. Ginny cast bitter looks at them as she shuffled into her slippers. They could sleep happily. Well, soon, so would she be able to, she reminded herself, as she carefully descended the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. She swung aside the portrait of the Fat Lady, who didn't even stir, and began to make her way to the Charms corridor.

Unfortunately Ginny found it very difficult to remember which was her classroom. Had it occured to her that it was highly unlikely that the Time-Turner was kept in the classroom in which Professor Flitwick had shown it to the class, she might not have become quite so panicked. She was almost in tears simply about the fact that she couldn't remember by the time she thought to actually check the doors for a room she recognised. She eventually located her Charms classroom, hard though it was in the darkness, and nearly wept when she couldn't find a pocket in her pyjamas which she might have put her wand into, before realising she'd been holding it in her hand all along. She bit her lip and croaked, "Lumos," her throat dry, and began to search the room.

As luck would have it the Time-Turner was being kept in a stock cupboard directly adjacent to the classroom, so once she'd got into a tizzy about not being immediately able to locate the object, Ginny only had to open two or three cupboards to finally behold the Time-Turner again.

It was in a glass case, probably alarmed, but the thought didn't even cross Ginny's mind. She looked over her shoulder and leant towards it, giving the glass a cautious tap with her wand. She bit her lip, stuffed her wand up her sleeve, drew back her hand, and hit at the glass case with all the strength she could muster.

To her muggy surprise, it shattered, leaving her free to clutch at the golden hourglass - but as soon as she did so an ear-splitting wail resounded around the cupboard, the room, that entire section of the school. She stumbled backwards trying to escape the noise, knocking over a box of pillows used for summoning charm practise, and scattering a pile of parchments neatly stacked on a shelf. Ginny paused momentarily, her mind unclear with the high-pitched noise, but one thought shone out of the fog: If you use the Time-Turner now, you'll be gone before anybody realises you were here.

Ginny determinedly placed the chain of the Time-Turner round her neck, and turned the little hourglass over.