Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin

"Dear Tom, I still can't believe it's October. It's rather scary to think I've already spent more than a month at Hogwarts. What if the rest of the year goes by just as quickly and I don't enjoy any of it?" Ginny, lying face-down on her dormitory bed, watched these words slowly fade away.

Ginny had not taken the diary outside of her dormitory since she had arrived at school -- it just didn't feel safe having it out there. It was difficult finding time to write to Tom when she had to share her dormitory with three other girls and did not want any of them, especially not Fleeta Fleece, to find out she had a diary. Thus, she usually wrote to Tom either during the day when they were all elsewhere, which had the unfortunate side effect of making Percy wonder why she was apparently spending so much time in bed, or else late at night when they were all asleep.

"Time passes most quickly when you're enjoying yourself. That means you must already be really enjoying yourself. Do you think you're enjoying Hogwarts?"

"I guess," Ginny wrote back. "I suppose it must be better than being cooped up at the Burrow. That sounds really pathetic coming from a girl who's been waiting for this her whole life, doesn't it?"

"Not at all. It's completely understandable that you would want to get away from such a repressive home life and be on your own for once."

"Well, it's all right here. It's just that a lot of the classes are hard and boring. Snape's is the worst, followed by Lockhart."

"I thought you said Lockhart was an idiot. How hard could his classes be?"

"I haven't told you about Lockhart's classes before? Well, they certainly aren't hard. He just reads his books aloud and sometimes has students reenact parts from them. Fleeta has managed to make herself Lockhart's favorite and always gets the part of the damsel in distress which all the other girls want."

"Except you, of course."

"Of course," Ginny agreed. "It's rather scary how many girls seem to like him. I don't know if Fleeta actually likes him though or if she just likes making the other girls jealous. Either way, those two deserve each other. I'll never know how she ended up in Gryffindor. Personally, I think she would be much more at home in Slytherin."

"You really don't like Slytherin, do you?"

"Of course not! More Dark witches and wizards have come out of Slytherin than any other house! You know, You-Know-Who himself was in Slytherin."

"Really? That's quite interesting..."

* * *

Ginny's arms felt tired, as though she had been using them for some aggravating task for the past hour -- like building a brick wall. She didn't quite remember how they had gotten that way -- she just wanted to rest them. This was when she realized she was outside, just a few yards away from Hagrid's hut, and, for a reason she didn't know, icy cold fear flooded through her body.

The reason for this soon came to her; she had absolutely no recollection whatsoever of how she had gotten there. She desperately racked her brains. The last thing she could remember was sitting in her dormitory and writing in Tom Riddle's diary. She must have decided to go outside or something and had gotten lost in thought, but she had a horrible, foreboding feeling that it was much worse. After all, how could she have gotten so far from her dormitory and not have even the vaguest memory of going there?

She couldn't remember what she might have been thinking about either and desperately looked around for a clue. When she glanced down at herself, she saw there were rooster feathers all over her robes. Panic flooded though her. What was going on? Was she losing her memory? What should she do? Was this serious? Should she tell someone? She was shaking, though not just with fear. It was disagreeably cold out and for some reason she wasn't wearing her cloak. If she had decided to go outside, even without thinking, wouldn't she have still put her cloak on absent-mindedly?

Ginny heard a sound that made her flinch, but it was just Hagrid walking out the front door of his house. She had stopped by Hagrid's hut for tea a few times since the school year started, mostly in the hopes that she might meet Harry there, so she and Hagrid knew each other fairly well. Judging by the dumbstruck look on his face, Ginny must have looked downright panic-stricken.

"Hi, Ginny. Is somethin' wrong?" he asked, sounding concerned.

For a reason she could not have explained, Ginny took off running as fast as she could towards the school. Her heart was pounding and her legs were aching, but she ignored them as she raced down hallways and up staircases. She ran so vigorously that she could barely walk by the time she reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. However, after giving her the password, Ginny forced herself to continue running. The only person in the common room was a fifth year who said "what the --" as she dashed past him.

Hoping he didn't know who she was, Ginny rushed up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. Happy to find her dormitory deserted, she collapsed onto her bed and laid there for what seemed like hours trying to catch her breath. There was a stitch in her side, she could hardly breathe and she was coated in sweat, but she didn't care. She had had to get there as quickly as possible and feeling utterly fatigued was a fair price for that.

Everything's all right now, she told herself. You just need to calm down.

But if she was telling herself everything was all right now, didn't that imply it had not been all right before? Suddenly a deep, impenetrable fear spread through her.

I'm losing control of myself, she thought desperately.

Ginny felt her back tingle -- it was such a scary concept. Could that really be happening? What could she do? She suddenly recalled something that had happened to her in her first week at Hogwarts. Late at night, she had been writing to Tom when she seemed to abruptly find herself halfway down the stairs of the girls' dormitories. She hadn't thought much of it at the time, but now it seemed very much like what had just happened to her. Would it happen to her again?

I've got to tell someone while I've still got the chance, she thought desperately. If I don't...

Ginny didn't even let herself finish that sentence, but how could she talk to anyone about this? They would just try to calm her down and tell her everything was all right. And what if everything was all right and she was just overreacting to being a bit spacey? Then she would look so stupid and everyone would continue to think she was "too young". She forced herself to sit up, feeling her heart throb uncontrollably, and let an unsound calmness fall over her.

Stay calm, Ginny, stay calm, she told herself. Everything will be all right.

It seemed to be working. She didn't feel quite so scared anymore, but a painful lump formed in her throat and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. Go on, Ginny -- just let it out. She let herself cry for awhile. Why she felt like crying, she didn't know, but she did. After it was all over, she sat up again, feeling much better. It was almost like all her misery had left her through her tears, leaving her feeling unceasingly peaceful.

See, you don't need to tell anyone. All they would have done is try to calm you down and you just did that all by yourself.

As she mentally patted herself on the back, Ginny took out Tom Riddle's diary and held it very tightly in her arms, feeling that she would be safe while she had him with her. Maybe she didn't need to tell her parents or the teachers about what had happened, but she wouldn't be completely alone with Tom there.

* * *

The following day, however, made Ginny feel worse. It started when she passed Hagrid's hut on her way to Herbology. She was afraid Hagrid might see her and she didn't know how she could possibly explain her behavior of the previous day. As she went through the day, she found herself feeling more and more anxious. What was she supposed to do? She didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone about had happened except Tom and all he had told her was to not panic, which she took to heart. Besides, that was probably what anyone else would have told her to do, expect they would have said it in a more condescending way -- Tom even agreed with that.

Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, Percy spotted her in a corridor on the fifth floor and made a point of telling her how frightfully pale she looked. He told her she should take some of the Pepperup potion being made by Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, to treat the numerous colds that had sprung up with the colder weather. No matter how much Ginny insisted she felt fine, he kept nagging her and reminding her that he was a prefect and "prefects know best".

Eventually, she decided to take the stupid potion just to shut him up. After all, otherwise he probably would have written home and blown the story out of proportion for their mother. However, the Pepperup potion had an unfortunate side effect which Percy had conveniently failed to mention; it left the ears of the drinker smoking for several hours. This was fine for most people, but Ginny was told, in various not-so-polite ways, that with her vivid red hair it made it look as though her head was on fire.

It was very humiliating. Just the stares would have been enough, but then there was the teasing. Peeves the Poltergeist poured a bucket of water over her to try to put out the "fire" and at lunch Draco Malfoy kept walking by the Gryffindor table more time than was natural just so he could call her "fire-head" each time. Ginny took this all in stride, which, having grown up with brothers who teased her all the time, was second nature to her.

While she sat in the library, trying to work on an impossible Astronomy essay and ignore the third-year boys guffawing at her, she was startled by a dreamy voice.

"You drank the Pepperup potion," it said mystically. It was Luna Lovegood, staring rather vaguely at her.

"Thanks for reminding me," Ginny replied darkly.

"You're welcome," said Luna graciously, apparently missing the sarcasm. "You know, you should try to throw it up. All the Pepperup potion was secretly poisoned by Gilderoy Lockhart as part of his evil plan to take over the universe."

"I'll take the chance," said Ginny. "Besides, if it was poison, I expect it would have killed me by now anyway."

"Well, it's your life, not mine," Luna replied as she turned to walk off.

From that point on, Ginny's day only get worse. The nadir had to be when Harry saw her with her ears flaming -- she felt her face turn red as she listened to Percy hastily explain the whole story in a very one-sided manner. Ginny went to bed feeling awful and had an unpleasant dream involving Harry, some gnomes and Percy chasing her around with a goblet full of Pepperup potion.

* * *

The rest of October was fairly rocky for Ginny, but in her opinion at least she persevered considerably well, especially in light of her state. Much to her displeasure, they still had classes on Halloween, which had always been one of her favorite holidays, and one of hers was Potions. That day she managed to bungle a Forgetfulness Potion and Snape had consequently decided that she was "hopeless" and taken ten points from Gryffindor.

Harry, Ron and Hermione, however, were not going to the Halloween feast with the other students. Instead, they would be attending Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party.

"Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?" asked Ginny when Hermione told her about this.

"That's exactly what your brother said," Hermione replied, giggling a little.

"It must be the Weasley thing to say," Ginny mused.

Ginny did not blame Harry for feeling obligated to go to the deathday party. As Hermione explained, Nearly Headless Nick had gotten Harry out of a pinch of trouble with the school's cranky caretaker Argus Filch. Filch was bad enough all by himself, but he also had a mangy cat named Mrs. Norris who roamed the castle, apparently somehow serving as his eyes and ears. Ginny normally liked cats, but she had decided that Mrs. Norris was an exception.

After all her classes for the day had ended, Ginny sat in her dormitory brooding over what had happened in Potions. She had lost Gryffindor points before (with Snape as a teacher it was rather impossible not to) but she felt worried that if she didn't get much better at Potions, she could lose Gryffindor the house cup. A fine thing it would be she were sorted into Gryffindor only to make them lose the cup.

As she often did whenever she felt particularly upset, she held Tom Riddle's diary tightly in her arms for a few moments. She loved the diary -- or rather she loved the person who lived within it. She could never have expressed what he meant to her. She was holding the diary -- holding Tom -- so close to her and she loved the feeling of closeness...

Ginny had taken out a quill and was about to write in the diary when she stopped and looked around the room as though to make sure no one was hiding in the corners or behind her. She had become so worried about someone seeing her writing in the diary that whenever she wrote in it, she often found herself feeling as though someone was watching her. She knew this didn't make much sense -- with the door closed she surely would have heard it if someone had entered the room -- but looking around in back of her still helped to dispel the feeling.

"Dear Tom," she wrote after deciding the coast was clear, "it's Halloween, one of my favorite days of the year, and I'm having a bad day. I completely messed up a potion today and lost Gryffindor house points. It wasn't for the first time and now I'm getting concerned that I could lose us the house cup."

"That's good, Ginny. It shows that you have great integrity and that you don't try to blame others for your actions. But I don't think there's any need for you to think that you'll lose Gryffindor any more points than the average first year."

Ginny smiled to herself. These words had not brought back the ten points she had lost Gryffindor nor had they made her better at Potions, but they told her that she was still a good person. Feeling better, she quickly wrote down a reply.

"Thank you, Tom, that was really nice of you. You know, my life hasn't gotten any easier since I found you, but with you I feel like I'm not going through it all alone. I just wish something could change for the better. It would be nice if people at least stopped treating me like a five-year-old."

"I know, Ginny. It really breaks my heart to know someone as brave and mature as you can be treated as though she were still a baby."

"Oh Tom, you're so sweet!" Ginny wrote back. "It's really not that bad though. Well, maybe it is, but I'm used to it." This was rather pathetic, but Ginny set down her quill and watched the words fade way, half-wishing she could take them back.

"Ginny, I have to say that I find the fact that you're settling for this treatment at least twice as sad as the fact you're being treated that way in the first place."

Tom Riddle was right; it was wrong that everyone thought Ginny was "too young". She simply didn't allow herself to think about it a great deal because it was rather painful. It made her feel angry, depressed, lonely, misunderstood and rather afraid that her whole childhood would be ruined. All of these emotions weren't at all pleasant and her anger had no where to go since she could never be brought to hate her own family. It all just made her want to cry, but if there was one thing that would reinforce she was "too young" it would be crying over "nothing". Ginny blinked back tears.

"I know you're right," she wrote back, "but it's really painful to think about it. It makes me feel all messed up inside. I don't know what I would've done if I'd never found you. I know I've said this many times, but nobody's ever understood me like you do."

* * *

Ginny thought it was rather nippy wherever she was. The more obvious thing was that her fingers were very sticky. She wanted to get whatever it was off them and instinctively tried to wipe them off on her robes, but the sticky stuff was on her clothes as well. Now that Ginny knew that, she wondered how she had not noticed it before -- the sticky stuff was seeping through her clothes -- it was very uncomfortable. She wanted to change, but then she realized she didn't know where she was.

Fear flooded her as she realized it had happened again -- she had lost her memory for a third time.

Ginny felt rather disoriented. She gradually became aware that the sticky stuff was red paint and that she was in a Hogwarts corridor, though one she didn't recognize. It went to her head -- she was lost in a strange corridor wearing clothes soaked in red paint and she had lost her memory... at least (her body tensed up) she sincerely hoped it was paint. No, it was paint -- it was definitely paint. Ginny wouldn't let herself think any differently.

Then she turned around and realized where she was -- right outside the girls' bathroom haunted by Moaning Myrtle. But she didn't feel much relief considering what was right next to it. It was twelve crudely-written foot-high words proclaiming that the "Chamber of Secrets" had been opened. And hanging under it was Mrs. Norris, looking very dead. Ginny's eyes widened -- she had never seen anything so horrible in her life. If her mother or Percy were around, they would certainly have not allowed her to see this.

Then she realized the words were printed in something very familiar. It didn't take Ginny long to figure it out...

The paint -- it's the same as the paint on my clothes! I did this!