Ginny

Chapter Two: Familiar Faces...

As she twisted the Time-Turner on its fine golden chain, Ginny felt a strange rushing sensation. Her surroundings disappeared, replaced by whirling colours and high-pitched sounds she could only just hear - but only for a moment. As soon as it had started, the odd experience had stopped.

Ginny blinked. She was still in the dingy stock cupboard. It hadn't worked. She'd failed. Tears began to well in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she suddenly noticed that the stand, on which the shattered remains of the Time-Turner's glass case should have been, was gone. All of the contents of the stock cupboard was different. It didn't look as though it was being used to store material for Charms lessons at all. Transfiguration, perhaps, thought Ginny, opening a few drawers and peering at their contents. She moved towards the cupboard door. It was closed. She was sure she'd left it open behind her. She bit her lip and pushed it. It opened, somewhat reluctantly and with a creak that made Ginny cringe, and the stock cupboard was flooded with light from the windows of the classroom.

Ginny crept towards the door, tentatively turned the handle and peered out through a crack. Outside, the corridor seemed different to the one she was used to, although only in subtle differences. In the stones in the wall; the small amounts of graffiti scratched onto them; the expressions of the witches and wizards in the portraits. There were very few students walking down it. None of them looked rushed or hurried. Ginny didn't recognise any of them.

This must be the past, Ginny thought. She couldn't remember much at all about her first year - except, of course, for Tom - least of all the students, and so she hadn't a clue whether any of the pupils who had strolled past her were still at Hogwarts in what she thought of as 'now'. She decided, however, as she stepped out of the classroom and headed in the opposite direction to which the students had gone, that these were people who had been at the school when she was a first-year. She had no reason for this other than wishful thinking, but by the time she had reached the end of the corridor, Ginny had convinced herself that she had succeeded.

Now all she had to do was find herself.

That shouldn't be too hard, she thought. By the relaxed airs and small numbers of the students she'd seen, Ginny concluded that it must be lunchtime, or break. She'd probably be able to find herself in the Gryffindor common room.

Ginny set off through the labyrinthine corridors of Hogwarts, smiling to herself. She had done it. She was back.

*****

The alarm sounded, a flurry of feet stormed down staircases, rushed along corridors finally bursting into the charms classroom to discover the store cupboard door open and broken glass scattered over the floor. The Time-Turner was gone from its glass casing. A box of pillows had been knocked over and several scrolls of parchment had been dislodged and were now strewn across the floor.

Students from the nearby Gryffindor Tower who had been woken by the screeching of the alarm were shooed back to bed, having been told that it was nothing and that the cat Mrs. Norris had set off the alarm. No one believed the official story.

As Professor McGonagall let the painting slide back over the portrait hole, Ron made his way over to Jessica and Elianna, who were sleepily chattering in a corner.

"Hey, Jess, have you seen Ginny? Is she alright?" Ron looked at the girl, who stared back blankly.

"I don't know. Why do I care where she's gone off to now?" snapped Jessica.

"Come on, Jess, don't be so rude," Elianna cut in. She turned to Ron, looking apologetic. "No, we haven't. She'd already come down before we woke up. I thought she'd gone to find you?"

"Oh. No, she didn't," he answered. Seeing her anxious face, he continued, "but she probably went to the bathroom or something. Erm, I have to go now. Thanks."

He quickly turned and went back to his friends. Jessica started talking almost instantly, but Elianna watched Ron retreat across the common room.

Ron sat down in the small cluster of chairs with Harry and Hermione.

"They haven't seen her," he said blankly.

"She'll be fine, I'm sure," Hermione said quickly.

"But what if she's not? What if she went out at night, and ... and got attacked by whoever stole the Time-Turner? She couldn't defend herself. She could be lying somewhere, hurt, and all I'm doing is sitting here. I want to go and look for her."

"Aren't you overreacting a bit, Ron?" asked Harry. "Ginny's fine. She'll turn up in the morning, I'm sure."

The watched Ron debate this in his head, then he slumped down. Having come to a decision. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Of course I am. Now, lets all go back to sleep and if she's not here by breakfast, we can go and speak to McGonagall, okay?"

Ron looked drowsily at Harry and nodded. The three of them trudged back up to their dormitories.

*****

Ginny had not arrived at breakfast the following day, although Harry and Hermione had sat patiently with Ron at the Gryffindor table for over an hour. According to her roommates, she had not returned to her dormitory last night, either. Ron was not taking it well. He had mutilated a slice of bacon, two hash browns and piece of toast, and was now attacking a kipper. Hermione reached over, plucked the knife and fork out of his hands and pushed the plate across the table out of his reach.

"We can go and speak to McGonagall now, Ron," said Harry. "I don't think she's coming down anytime soon."

Ron sprang up and strode purposefully across the hall, his long legs covering the distance quickly, leaving Harry and Hermione to tag along behind. He brushed past a group of nervous looking first years and through the doors, into the entrance hall. It was eerily deserted, though breakfast was over and most students would be back in their common rooms, collecting books for the lessons. Struggling to catch up with Ron, Harry broke into a half run, attempting to match his friend's pace.

"Do you have any idea what you're going to say to her? It might be good to think about what you're going to say ... " Harry began, trying to calm Ron down.

"'My sister's gone. No one's seen her since last night.' How does that sound?" replied Ron tonelessly.

"I know you're worried, but you want to make sure that it's really an emergency before disturbing everyone else... She won't thank you for prying into her business if she's fine..."

"I'm looking out for her. That's what brothers do.' Ron turned a corner sharply, and bounded us a flight of stairs, three at a time. Harry began to lag behind, not able to keep up. "And if you remember, the last time Ginny went missing she turned up in the Chamber of Secrets! I'm not taking any chances."

Harry gave up both keeping up with and attempting to dissuade his friend from what he thought could be rash, hasty action, and followed Ron to McGonagall's office. When Harry finally managed to catch up, Ron was about to raise fist to knock on the heavy wooden door.

Harry sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Ron..."

Ron tore his gaze away from the door glanced at Harry. "What?"

"...Are you sure -"

"Look, nobody has seen her since last night! I don't care what crap they're telling us, someone broke in. You can't break into Hogwarts. Not without dark magic! Ginny left the dorm, what if she bumped into them! She might have been kidnapped, or something! She could be..." Ron trailed off, and finished quietly, "she could be dead."

Harry had been looking silently at the stone floor since about halfway through Ron's speech. "Ron, I'm sorry... It's just... You know Ginny's a bit..." he paused, not sure how to put it without offending his friend, "... a bit... um, she's not... always... quite there..."

"My sister is not mad!" snapped Ron, causing Harry to flinch. "You're as bad as the kids in her class. They just don't like her 'cos she's not the same as them!"

"Ron, Ron, I didn't mean it in a ... a bad -"

"How can you say someone's insane and not mean it in a bad way?"

Harry hung his head. "I ... I just mean, she might have wandered off somewhere," he said in a small voice, "... you know. She's like that sometimes..." There was a questioning, hopeful tone to his voice.

"Mad, you mean?"

"No! Just... a bit funny... I was going to say... if she's wandered off somewhere, she can't have gone too far... We can check the Marauder's Map. We'll be able to see her on it if she's around."

"What if she's not?"

"Then we can speak to McGonagall. I just think we should check first... since we can."

A few seconds after they had left, Professor McGonagall opened the door of her office, having heard them shouting, and was a little puzzled that nobody was there.

*****

Harry, Ron and Hermione had spent the best part of an hour poring over the Marauder's Map. It had been a difficult process, since they'd had to check all of the little labelled ink dots, of which there were very many indeed. Matters were only made worse by the fact that the writing was so tiny and that the people kept moving around, so by the time they'd checked everyone in a room or corridor, the people in it had changed.

Hermione had earned two annoyed glares from Harry and Ron when she'd had to stifle a giggle upon noticing one of the smaller dots in the kitchens was labelled 'Sminky-Pinky'. Had the atmosphere been less tense, they might have taken a while to have a laugh over the names of a few of the other House Elves.

Unfortunately, even though they had eventually managed to check every dot on the map - some four or five times - none of them was labelled 'Ginny Weasley'. Ron slammed his fist onto the table they were gathered around.

"We've just been wasting time! Who knows what could have happened to her by now?"

"Sorry," murmured Harry. "I just thought it might be worth a try."

"Well, it wasn't! It hasn't got us anywhere!"

"I know!" cried Harry, burying his face in his hands. "I know, OK? And I'm sorry, and I know that however many times I say that it's not going to help!"

Hermione, who had just tapped the Map with her want and muttered a disheartened 'Mischief Managed', glared at them both. "If you're that worried, why not do something rather than mope about shouting and wallowing in misery? If you want to keep doing that, fine by me, but I'm going to see McGonagall."

"You're right, Hermione," said Harry. "I'm sorry. We should head back to her office."

"Yeah," Ron nodded, then glanced at Harry. "Harry? Can you please stop saying sorry?"

"Sorry."

In other circumstances Ron might have felt compelled to whack his friend around the head with the nearest textbook, but instead he sighed and shook his head.

*****

As they approached Professor McGonagall's office, neither Harry, Ron nor Hermione spoke. They'd already agreed that, if she asked, they should tell McGonagall about the Marauder's Map. It would save time, because if they weren't able to provide a reason for their knowing Ginny wasn't in Hogwarts, the teachers might decide it would be best to search the school, which would waste time - something which they were sure was of the essence for Ginny's safety (A/N: How very, very wrong they are...).

As they turned the corner, the three students were just in time to see McGonagall leaving her office. Ron was about to dash towards her when she turned and looked straight at them, seeming a little surprised.

"Ah. Mr Weasley," she said, her voice somewhat tense, "I was just about to come looking for you. I... wanted to speak to you about your sister."

"That's what we wanted to tell you, Professor," said Ron quickly. "She's gone, and -"

"I know. Immediately after the ... incident last night, we conducted a quick head-count to check that everyone who should be there was present. Ginny was missing. We didn't want to worry students without due cause, especially so late at night after a panic like that, but I noticed she was also absent at breakfast this morning. I've been informed by her teachers that Ginny has been acting ... a little odd in lessons recently. I was going to ask you if you might know any reason for her running away?"

"Run away?" said Hermione, looking confused. "I don't think she'd run away..."

"We thought her going missing might have had something to do with what happened last night, Professor," cut in Harry.

Professor McGonagall paused. "You don't believe it was Mrs. Norris, then," she said, smiling slightly. "Well, I suppose you should know, really. Last night, something was stolen from the Charms department. A Time-Turner. We can only assume that either somebody broke in or that a student took it. All we know about the Time-Turner is that it was set to a date, but we don't know when that was. I can understand why it would be stolen; it's a rare and valuable thing. Whoever took it got away very quickly. They might have used the Time-Turner, but anybody attempting stealing it would probably know that using it to get away from the scene of the crime would be most impractical, since they'd have no idea where or when they'd end up. It's possible that Miss Weasley took it, but I can't think why she would want to."

"Ginny wouldn't steal something!" exclaimed Ron. "I know ... I know she sometimes goes and wanders about the corridors after dark... but she wouldn't..."

Hermione swallowed. "We think Ginny might've ... got in the way of whoever did steal it."

"That's possible too," replied McGonagall. "But it could just be coincidence. She might have just got lost somewhere in the school in all the confusion last night. There was a lot of noise and quite a few people running around, that sort of thing. She could just be somewhere on the grounds."

Harry bit his lip. "No," he said. "No. She's nowhere at Hogwarts."

*****

Ginny knew it wasn't far to the Gryffindor common room, but it was only as she was climbing what she knew to be the last staircase that it occurred to her that she couldn't remember what any of the passwords in her second year had been. She stood stock still on the stairs, staring up them. She could just make out the top of the Fat Lady's head and the portrait frame. She took a deep breath and was about to move towards it, hoping she might be able to guess, when what she could see of the portrait moved. Someone was coming out. Someone might see her. Terrified, Ginny turned and fled. She pelted down the stairs, skidded round corners, hiding when she thought anyone was coming. She felt she had to find somewhere nobody would see her. She dashed through the mercifully empty entrance hall and out onto the grounds. It was raining horribly, but she didn't really notice.

She pounded away from the school, becoming drenched to the skin. Her thin cotton pyjamas were sticking to her skin; rivulets of rainwater ran down her face, collecting on her chin. It was cold out side. Far colder than a normal September. Ginny dragged her bare feet through the mud, slowing marginally as she approached the greenhouses.

Hurrying past them, a little out of breath, she had her eyes to the floor, so when she bumped into someone, dropping her wand, the first things she saw were the broomstick he was holding and his Quidditch robes.

Ginny looked up.

It was Harry.