Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin

"Hand it over, Malfoy," ordered Percy.

"When I've had a look," Malfoy replied as he waved the diary tauntingly in Harry's face.

Ginny was hardly listening -- she was in a daze. Harry had had her diary and now Draco Malfoy had stolen it from him. This wasn't possible. It didn't make any sense. This was just some crazy dream she would wake up from to find Valentine's Day hadn't come yet. When she did wake up, she would make the day go the way it was supposed to and not at all like this.

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry had fired a spell at Malfoy that caused the diary -- her diary -- to fly out of his hands, so Ron could catch it.

"Harry!" scolded Percy. "No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"

Harry didn't seem at all upset, but Ginny was hardly looking at him as she absent-mindedly turned to wander off towards her next class. She still couldn't believe this was happening, but she felt very awake. Could her heart be pounding like this when she was asleep without waking her? But it made no sense -- she had flushed that diary down a toilet weeks ago. How could Harry of all people have gotten ahold of it? What could she do? At least, Malfoy didn't have it anymore...

"I don't think Potter liked your valentine much!" Malfoy shouted at her as she passed him. Ginny's face turned bright red.

It was probably the most embarrassing moment of her entire life! Her hands instinctively covered her face as she ran into class. As soon as she had sat down at her desk, Ginny forced herself to pull her hands away from her face. She looked at them thinking that these shaking hands had opened the Chamber of Secrets and attacked two students just like her. And now the means by which she had done it was in the hands of Harry Potter. She had spent the past weeks thinking she was safe now -- that everything was finally all right -- and all that time things had been worse than ever.

It was only when she heard the bloated voice of Gilderoy Lockhart that she remembered what class she was in.

"Welcome to another class with your favorite celebrity teacher!" he said pompously as the rest of the students sauntered in, some still muffling their laughter over Ginny's valentine.

"And his lovely assistant," Fleeta Fleece chimed in importantly as she glided up to Lockhart's side like a ballerina.

"Miss Fleece, please return to your desk," said Lockhart. This was something he had never said before and it made Fleeta look as though she had just been ordered to move to Siberia.

"What?" she asked faintly.

"Sit at your desk; I have a new assistant today!" he declared. "Come on up here, Miss Wheezily!" Fleeta's cold slate eyes shot daggers at Ginny, who was still shaking with emotion from her humiliation out in the hallway. Ginny would never know how she managed to walk up in front of the class when she only wanted to curl up into a tiny little ball and disappear.

"It's 'Weasley'," she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, "and about my valentine --"

"I take it Harry got it," said Lockhart, winking cheerfully at her. "I made quite a show out of it, didn't I?"

"You know, I didn't ask to have my poem sung aloud," Ginny said hotly.

"I know, I know," said Lockhart proudly. "There's no need to thank me -- I'm just overflowing with brilliant ideas!"

"What?" said Ginny, a little confused. "But I didn't want a big --" Lockhart held up his hand to silence her before she could finish.

"You're quite welcome, Miss Whispy," he said, "but I already told you that you didn't have to thank me. And now I have an extra treat for you today. You'll get to act out the title role from Year with the Yeti! Now, be sure you don't let my good looks distract you."

"Thank you," Ginny said in a sarcastic voice she knew Lockhart would miss, "but I have to go to bathroom now. Bye."

Ginny turned to dash out of the room, feeling her head pounding and trying to ignore the students giggling at her plight. She soon reached the girls' lavatory nearest Lockhart's classroom. It wasn't Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, but the locale still made her think about the day she thought she had rid herself of Tom Riddle's diary. She wondered what really happened to it as she locked herself in a stall. She cried for awhile, surprised to find herself longing for the consolation Tom might have provided. No, she didn't have any desire to write to him anymore! She had made her choice to move on when she had thrown away the diary. And she was completely over Riddle now.

But she wasn't finished with him yet. Harry had Riddle's diary now. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. It seemed impossible, but there was no way she could have mistaken that book she had become so attached to over the past months. In a way it was pointless to wonder how it had happened. It was as though fate had deliberately chosen for her throwing away of the diary to have the worst outcome possible -- as though it were punishing her. She had done the right thing -- she had gotten rid of the diary, but apparently that wasn't good enough. Was she meant to confess -- was that the only way she could properly own up to what she had done? Why wasn't she allowed to end this on her own terms with the remains of her dignity left intact?

Ginny wasn't sure why she was thinking this. She didn't really think she believed in fate anyway. Besides, how or why Harry had ended up with the diary was irrelevant. The pressing issue was what to do about it. What if Harry figured out how the diary worked? Ginny had figured it out the first time she set eyes on it and Harry wasn't particularly stupid, plus he would probably have Hermione helping him. If he did figure it out, would Riddle tell him everything? All her most embarrassing secrets -- including her feelings about Harry -- and her role in the opening of the Chamber? Would Harry, probably meaning well, report her? Was it cruel irony that flushing the diary had resulted in her facing the very fate she had tried to evade?

Ginny could at least presume her secret was safe at the moment. If Harry knew, he would have either confronted her or told someone. But she couldn't afford to waste any more time. She could tell Harry -- or tell him through Hermione, if that made it easier -- and then he would at least hear her side of the story first. But she had so not wanted Harry to know -- that was one of the main possibilities she had been trying so hard to avoid all along. Why hadn't she told Hermione earlier? Hermione would have been so much more likely to feel sorry for Ginny if she had been told back in November. And then Ginny would never have found herself in this terrible fix.

If she wasn't going to tell Harry, she had but one option -- steal back the diary. Those were her two choices; telling or stealing. Was it a coincidence that they were so clearly moral opposites? But, she reasoned, stealing the diary from Harry wouldn't really be that wrong. She had had it first and just because she was taking it back didn't mean she would be writing in it again. Besides, if Harry figured out how to work the diary, she could get expelled. She had to steal it to protect herself. She had that right, didn't she? After all, she had recognized what she was doing and stopped herself. Shouldn't she be allowed to move on without having her entire life ruined?

Ginny remembered a time long ago she had worried that keeping Riddle's diary might count as stealing. And now she was planning to actually steal -- and steal the very same object, no less. But in the months since then she had attacked four denizens of the castle -- she was so, so far beyond stealing now. What had she ever done to deserve this? Why was she being forced to keep a terrible secret and do something bad -- stealing -- to protect herself? She was mostly a good person. Well, everyone had done some bad things, but she didn't think she had ever done anything which made her deserve this.

How had she ended up in this mess? She couldn't help but thinking that if she was truly in the right, she shouldn't have to sneak and steal. Those early days of writing to Tom Riddle had been so innocent. There was no guilt back then -- she had only been thrilled to have a friend who understood her feelings. When had it stopped being so innocent? When had she gone wrong? What would have been the right thing to do?

The walls of the stall around her made her feel closed in. If she had been claustrophobic, this may have upset her. Instead she felt rather safe, but lonely and separate. Ginny wanted to continue crying, but her tears seemed to be all used up. She wanted to cry so she could feel better as you always did after crying, but her tears were being stubborn and the cry she had just had hadn't made her feel much better at all. The hopelessness of it all hit her hard -- even crying couldn't make her feel good anymore! In that moment, she would have given almost anything to not feel so miserable!

Did that include writing to Tom Riddle? Well, maybe it was lucky that that wasn't an option at the moment. She closed her eyes very tightly, but only a few tears came. She wanted out -- she wanted out of this so badly! She had tried to do the right thing and get out of it, but it backfired. And now she had to steal to free herself. Her insides ached badly with the injustice of it all.

But Ginny wasn't going to lose hope. Just because it wasn't fair didn't mean she couldn't handle it.

* * *

Following that day, Ginny was terrified. Every second Harry spent in his dormitory, he could be writing in the diary and she could only imagine what Riddle might be telling him about her. She, however, did not think Harry could be possessed by Riddle as she had. She almost tried to convince herself that he could since it would make her feel that what happened to her could happen to anyone. But she knew it couldn't happen to Harry while he had Ron and Hermione. Riddle would be powerless against someone with real friends -- this she knew for certain.

At least one minor good thing had come out of Valentine's Day. Sending Harry a valentine had apparently impressed Professor Lockhart so much that he had decided Ginny was now his favorite student among the first years. Ginny wouldn't have even cared about this were it not for the effect it had on Fleeta Fleece. Needless to say, Fleeta was not amused that the poor redheaded girl she delighted in mocking had usurped her position in Lockhart's class without even trying. Without Lockhart, Fleeta was no longer the most envied of the first-year girls, but she was much too self-deluded to have noticed it. Ginny considered this sweet revenge and delighted in seeing Fleeta struggle to make eye-rolling students continue to see her as the center of the universe.

But seeing Fleeta finally get her comeuppance could hardly make up for Ginny's fear that McGonagall might walk up to her at any moment and tell her that she was in very big trouble. Ginny felt no shame in thinking that she had been in over her head from the start. The circumstances she had found herself in were profoundly dangerous and serious -- no one should have deal with them alone, especially not at the age of eleven. But she had made her choice to do just that back on Halloween when she hardly even comprehended the seriousness of what was happening. However, the way out of this was obvious enough -- even if it would take a lot of guts.

It was awhile before Harry's dormitory was empty concurrently with Ginny having enough nerve to break into it. She got her chance the Friday before the Quidditch game she had been eagerly awaiting in the weeks before Valentine's Day, but had now almost forgotten about. As she often did by that point, she sat in the common room pretending to work on homework -- her grades were struggling again -- while keeping an eye on the staircase leading up to the boys' dormitory.

Ginny knew Harry shared his dormitory with her brother Ron, Neville Longbottom, and two other boys she recognized but didn't know the names of. She just had to wait until she knew all five of them were outside the dormitory and the common room was empty -- then she could sneak up there and hope against hope that she wouldn't run into any boys on the stairway. If she did, she could always claim that she was going up there to visit Ron or something, but she guessed that she wouldn't be able to stop herself from looking nervous or that she might unthinkingly say something which gave something away.

At that moment, the tall black boy from Harry's dormitory was heading across the room. Ginny knew Harry, Ron, and Neville were elsewhere, so that only left one boy who might still be up there.

"Oh, hello there," said the black boy. "I don't believe I've met you before. You're Ron's sister, aren't you?"

"Yeah," said Ginny a little anxiously. "I'm Ginny."

"I'm Dean," the boy said. "I'm going to meet Seamus down by the lake. We're going to see if we can lure the giant squid to the surface so I can draw it."

"Seamus?" she asked.

"Yeah, you've probably seen him around," Dean explained. "He's that sandy-haired Irish bloke." Ginny's heart skipped a beat -- that was the boy she hadn't been sure about, meaning Harry's dormitory must now be empty!

"And he's down by the lake now?" asked Ginny, trying not to sound too happy about this.

"Yeah," said Dean. "He's waiting there for me."

"Well, have fun!" said Ginny, eager for Dean to leave the common room. He was the only student in there other than her at the moment.

"Okay," Dean said. "Maybe our paths will cross again someday."

"Sure," replied Ginny, hardly listening as she thought about what she would have to do next. Dean left through the portrait hole. She waited a few moments to make sure he was really gone before she abandoned her work and rushed towards the boys' staircase.

She looked up the stairs she had seen every day, but never ascended. No one was in the common room to see her go up there -- it was the perfect opportunity. Back at the Burrow, Ginny had been sneaking out to practice flying since the age of six and had never been caught. How would this be any different? She just had to be brave. Screwing up her courage, she ran up the stairs, thankfully not running into anyone, and ducked into the the second-year boys' room as quickly as possible. It was empty just as she had thought -- not that she had doubted herself.

So far, so good. Now she just had to find that diary and get out of there as fast as possible without being seen. Her heart was racing, but the room was quiet -- completely empty and still. As she had suspected, it resembled her own and Hermione's dormitories. Knowing she was in too far to go back now and might as well get this over with, she got down on her knees and crawled towards Harry's cabinet. She hesitated, but then pulled the drawer out and began throwing its contents out. She jumped when she saw something move out of the corner of her eye.

Imagining how much trouble she would be in if she were seen going through Harry's things, she turned in the direction of the movement, but it was only Ron's rat Scabbers. Ron always complained about how useless Scabbers was, but at least he had a pet.

"Hello," she miserably muttered to Scrabbers. He was only a rat. He didn't understand the kind of complex emotions she was feeling. He didn't know what it felt like to betray people who trusted you to do the right thing. He probably didn't even know she wasn't supposed to be in there.

Once she finished with the cabinet, she climbed onto Harry's bed. Knowing she was where Harry slept every night sent a strange twinge through her body. She wanted to curl up under the covers and go to sleep right there. She imagined Harry finding her there and climbing into the bed to snuggle up with her even though she knew he would be much more likely to scream. Partly to help her resist the temptation to act out this weird fantasy and partly to check if the diary was there, Ginny began ripping Harry's bedclothes off and tossing them away behind her.

She did this very quickly and soon the bed was bare. She wouldn't be tempted to curl and sleep there now. After that, she searched Harry's cloak, pulling out all the pockets and accidentally ripping it in her nervousness. Then her eyes drifted towards the dormitory's entrance and she saw, with a sharp jolt of her heart, that the door had swung open. How long had it been like that, allowing anyone passing to just look in and see what she was doing?

Oh, Ginny, you're so stupid! she thought as she ran up and closed the door, hoping desperately that she somehow hadn't been seen.

Still diariless, she tired to think of where else Harry might keep that little black book when she spotted his trunk. Wondering how she could have been so stupid, she opened it and began throwing the contents out. If she hadn't been so scared that someone was about to walk in the door and catch her, she might have been happy to have the opportunity to look at Harry's things, but instead she hardly let her mind even register anything about each object other than it not being the one she sought.

And then she found Tom Riddle's diary at long last, placed among Gilderoy Lockhart's flashy books. To her surprise, she immediately hugged it. She had it back -- all she would have to do is get back to her dormitory. That's all I have to do, she thought while her heart beat so hard that she thought her chest might burst. It would all be okay. Once she had the diary back, she could destroy it in a more permanent way and everything would be all right again.

Ginny peeked out the door to check for anyone who might be out there. She saw Fred and George coming down the stairs and quickly slammed the door shut until their voices passed, thinking it was a wonder they hadn't heard her heart thumping. She opened the door again, and ran down the staircase to the common room. She'd made it.

She was out -- she had the diary back -- it was all over. It had been so easy she wondered why she had waited this long to do it. She was too happy to care about picking up the homework she had left out on a table. Instead, she headed straight up to her own dormitory. Kimmy and Lorelei were in there talking to each other.

"I'm not sure I want to go to the game tomorrow," said Lorelei gloomily. "Last time I was so scared that someone would get hit by one of the Blunders and die. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"Bludgers," Ginny corrected automatically as she surreptitiously slid the diary back under her mattress. Ginny had not told Kimmy about Lorelei's secret. She thought Kimmy should know, but Ginny had made a promise and it was Lorelei's business anyway.

Ginny collapsed onto her bed. Somehow, it didn't seem as soft as Harry's had been, as though it had been cursed by all the times she had cried there. I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe, she thought, though it seemed no one had told her heart that. She felt quite proud of herself knowing that she had manged to pull this off. All she would have to do now was get rid of Riddle's diary for good. Not that she was tempted to write in it anymore, of course. She had gone a long time without Riddle and there was no way she could ever go back to him. She was beyond that now.

* * *

Ginny went to bed early that night and consequently woke up very early the next morning. She couldn't sleep, so she paced around, trying to think about the Quidditch match that would be taking place that day and not about how she was once again free to write to Tom Riddle. Having nothing else to do, she had already gotten dressed.

Writing to Tom Riddle was so much more tempting when she felt alone and was bored, but she knew what would happen if she gave in. She couldn't allow herself to do that. She did have to wonder how he might have responded if she wrote to him, especially if he'd been in communication with Harry. How would he feel about having her back? He probably wouldn't feel anything, she thought savagely, since he was nothing but an evil force which hurt people.

Ginny sat down on her bed. When she started to consider how she would destroy the diary, she found that she had very mixed feelings about doing it. She knew it had to be destroyed -- going halfway was what had allowed Harry to get ahold of it last time. But she just didn't want it to be permanently destroyed even thought she knew it had to be. And part of her still wanted to take out the diary and start writing to Tom Riddle again.

Without really thinking about it, Ginny took out the diary and looked at it for a long time. Both love and hatred for it coursed through her body. It was amazing how she could have such strong and such opposite feelings about the same thing. Her hands shook and for a moment she was ready to run down into the common room that very instant and hurtle that horrible book right into the fireplace. But she didn't and the moment passed. Instead, she opened it and flipped through the blank pages. Had Harry written in any of them, she wondered.

It took a long time, long enough for the earliest traces of dawn to appear in the sky outside, but her resolve finally broke after countless minutes of flipping through the pages and wondering. She had to know how he would respond to having her back.

"Hello, Tom," she wrote, knowing he would recognize her handwriting. Her heart pounded uncontrollably as she watched the words disappear and Riddle's response fade in.

"Hello again, Ginny. Are you feeling okay? I've been so worried about you."

No, this was wrong! She couldn't do this. It was wrong, wrong, wrong! She slammed the diary shut, stuffed it under her mattress, and started to run out of the room. But she paused in the doorway. She got an idea. Did she dare? Well, she might as well. Ginny walked back to the bed, heart thumping louder than ever, and took out the diary.

"I feel wrong, Tom," she wrote. "Very wrong. I shouldn't be writing to you." There -- she'd done it. She'd finally told him the truth about how he really made her feel. She was sure he must already know, but now he would have to acknowledge it and defend himself.

"Why would you say such a thing, Ginny? I love you. I would never hurt you."

Oh, so he was going to deny it. That was clever. Well, she would have to spell it out for him then. Her hands were sweaty and shaking as she dipped her quill into her ink bottle again.

"Well, every time I've lost my memory, the last thing I always remember is writing to you and --"

She had planned to write more, but her hand was shaking too much and the words faded away when she paused. Still, she'd done it. Now she just had to wait a few agonizing seconds to see how he would take it.

"Oh, Ginny -- poor Ginny. I realize how this must look from your point of view. You're an intelligent girl, so I couldn't have expected you to miss the unfortunate coincidences which point to my guilt. No doubt you have been told not to trust objects which appear to think for themselves without a brain. It would be very easy, though quite mistaken of you, to see this diary as such a Dark object. Unfortunately, I have no proof to offer you but my word. But you must know in your heart that I love you and would never hurt you in any way. Shouldn't that be enough?"

Doubt descended over her. Could he possibly be telling the truth? He sounded so sincere. And it would be so sweet if he really loved her that much! But how else could she explain the attacks? He must be lying, but how could he be? No, he was lying! He was only telling her to look in her heart because he knew she loved him and he had no real proof. And he had no proof because he was lying! He was a liar -- a terrible, evil liar who played with her delicate emotions like they were nothing!

Ginny shoved the diary under her blanket and flopped down on her bed to stare up at the ceiling. She would destroy the diary and permanently this time. Then this would all be over for good. Tears were in her eyes. A part of her wanted to write to Riddle about how she was feeling right now -- about how she was essentially thinking of killing him. He would insist she not do that and tell her lies to defend himself, but at least she would be talking to someone about it. And she still felt so close to him. Her brain knew not to trust him, but her heart still thought she could tell him anything. He listened to her like no one else would and treated her feelings like they actually mattered. He didn't judge her for having stupid thoughts or tell her that she didn't know anything.

Ginny brought the diary into her arms. Once she was hugging it, an emptiness in her heart felt like it was filled. She didn't just love him, he was a part of her now! Maybe she wasn't a part of him, but he was certainly a part of her. It may have been one-way love, but there was real love. And it went beyond love now -- beyond anything. She could no longer escape him. All she knew was that she loved him and she didn't care what he did to her. She tried to think of what he was making her do to others and how selfish it was of her to play with their lives, but her mind wouldn't take it in. She needed him! She could no longer be a full person without him.

"I do love you, Tom," she wrote eventually.

"Very good, Ginny. I knew you would come around. Now tell me how you're feeling. I can make everything right. You just have to trust me completely."

"I trust you, Tom."

* * *

The tapestry had quite an interesting design -- the lines of thread weaving in and out so it was impossible to follow. It made Ginny's head hurt trying to figure it all out. Why was she looking at this? How had she gotten there? Suddenly, it hit hurt.

She knew it instantly.

She didn't have to rack her brains.

She had lost her memory again.

She thought desperately about what she might have been doing even though she knew it was in vain. There was no escaping it this time.

Ginny! a voice in her head yelled. What have you done? You horrible, horrible person! What's wrong with you? Someone could be dead for all you know! You could be a murderer right now!

Shaking with the fear of that unspeakable possibility, Ginny turned around to see two people on the floor. They looked Petrified to her, but she didn't know how to check. And if she had known how, she would have been much too scared to do it -- scared that they were dead.

They were Hermione and Percy's girlfriend Penny.