Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin

If there was an emotion which felt worse than guilt, Ginny had never experienced it. In that moment, she really, really just hated herself. If she were another person, she would have punched herself in the face, kicked herself in the shins, pulled her hair, and beat herself to within an inch of her sorry life. Instead she just stood there, shacking and thinking that she hardly deserved to live.

Ginny might have run to avoid getting caught there if she had found herself in this situation months ago, but now she just didn't care anymore. Besides, she was poor innocent Ginny Weasley -- no one would suspect her even if she were found at the scene of the crime. She collapsed to the floor right next to the bodies and let herself cry and cry. She didn't care about her dignity anymore. She didn't deserve dignity -- in fact, she didn't deserve anything other than to be kicked and punched and hurt as much as possible. She was the lowest creature on the face of the earth!

Ginny had never thought her life could come to this. She thought back to that flying accident she had had at the age of six and how she had gone back to try flying again even though she knew she could get hurt again. She had been so brave and so innocent back then! She hadn't attacked anyone or daubed any threatening messages in blood. And Ginny was now sure that it was blood which that horrible message had been written in. What a silly little girl she had been all those months ago when she had convinced herself that it was red paint which she had tried desperately to wash off her hands and clothes! And as that blood had permanently stained her clothes so had it stained her soul. She could never be an innocent little girl again after her clothes were so stained with blood!

It was a bitter irony that Ginny had spent her entire life longing desperately to be older, for it would only be when she was older that she would be allowed to do anything, and right now she wanted nothing more than to be very, very little again -- like maybe five years old or so. Everything was easy when you were five. If anything went wrong when you were five, you could simply go to your mum and dad and expect that they would fix everything. If you ever felt sorry for anything, you knew it would go away after you told your parents. In fact, you never had to think about anything. Five was even before she had begun her secret broomstick practice, so she hadn't even had to think about that.

Ginny remained there for what seemed like a long time and the events which followed became a blur soon afterwards; Professors McGonagall and Flitwick finding her there crying; Ginny telling them an easy lie that she had come across the scene by chance; finding out that the bodies were thankfully -- so thankfully -- only Petrified before she was sent up to Gryffindor Tower; the rest of the students filtering in soon after she got there to hear McGonagall announce stricter rules for their own safety -- all Quidditch games canceled until further notice and no longer going anywhere in the castle unaccompanied by a teacher. The end of McGonagall's speech, however, would stand out firmly and painfully in Ginny's mind.

"I need hardly add that I have rarely been so distressed," she had said. "It is likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught. I would urge anyone who thinks they might know anything about them to come forward."

Ginny almost felt like McGonagall was addressing her directly, telling her that she couldn't hide anymore and might as well surrender herself. Destroying the diary would no longer stop this -- this wouldn't end until a culprit was caught and properly punished. And she was the culprit. No one else could be caught because there was no one else. It would have to be her. Or the school closed. Ginny thought of all the children, who, like her, couldn't wait to go to Hogwarts and would now never get their chance. All thanks to her.

Ginny staggered up to her empty dormitory. She looked around for something to hit herself with. Her mother didn't like it when Ginny hit herself with anything, even if it was something which wouldn't really hurt her, but right now she didn't care. She noticed Tom Riddle's diary was still lying open on her bed. How come she sometimes ended up having the diary with her when she lost her memory, but other times she didn't? Did it mean Riddle was stronger? Had his powers drained at all in the time she hadn't written to him?

Suddenly overcome by rage, she threw Riddle's diary across the room. It simply landed on the floor without being satisfactorily damaged in any way. Still feeling angry, Ginny kicked her bed, meaning to hurt herself more than it. She did hurt herself, but not enough. She wanted to see damage -- and she wanted to feel as hurt on the outside as she felt on the inside! Ginny dived into her bed and started flailing herself in the head with her pillow. It wasn't a very hard object, so she had to make up for that by hitting herself repeatedly every second. However, her aggression left her and she eventually collapsed onto her face.

Still holding the pillow in her right hand, she wept into her bed's sheet. Knowing that Hermione and Penny -- whose full name, Ginny had learned, was Penelope Clearwater -- were only Petrified did not make Ginny feel much better. She was sure she would feel worse if they were dead, but this way it didn't seem to make much of a difference. They could have been dead and it wasn't any feat of Ginny's that had prevented that. She may not have been a murderer, but she might as well have been. And either way, they were currently gone from Ginny's life.

Ginny hadn't really known Hermione that well, but somehow that made it hurt even more. Ginny estimated that they had probably spoken to each other less than twenty times -- perhaps even less than ten times -- over the course of the entire year. Yet Ginny had planned since November that she would tell Hermione about Riddle if she told anyone. The logic by which Ginny had settled on her had almost become irrelevant -- Hermione had simply come to represent the way out of this. And now she was gone by Ginny's own hand.

As for Penny, Ginny had spent months worrying that Percy suspected her and that he might take it out on her if Penny was attacked. The more Ginny thought about it, the more she realized that the victims could not have been two worse choices. Not that she would have wanted anyone attacked, of course. Had Riddle chosen them on purpose? Either way, it drove home the fact that Ginny had successfully managed to doom herself and seal her own fate.

Ginny lifted her head up from her bed to see Riddle's diary still lying on the floor. She would have to pick it up and hide it again to prevent her dorm mates from seeing it. Of course, Kimmy had already seen it, but that was only once and it wouldn't be in her character to search through Ginny's things to sneak another look at it. But Ginny didn't feel like bothering anymore. She didn't have anything to fight for now. No matter how things went, they wouldn't end well for her, so what was the point of even trying?

Ginny sat up to look out her window at the early morning fog drifting over the empty Quidditch pitch and, for the first time in her life, seriously contemplated suicide...

* * *

If Ginny thought things couldn't get any worse, she was proven very wrong the next day. That morning, the students arrived in the Great Hall to find Dumbledore and Hagrid gone. McGonagall explained that Dumbledore had been suspended by the school governors for failing to stop the attacks and that Hagrid had been sent to Azkaban on suspicion of opening the Chamber of Secrets. Ginny had no idea why anyone would think it was a good idea to send the greatest living wizard away during this troubled time. If Dumbledore couldn't stop the attacks, who exactly did they think could?

As "Loony" Lovegood grimly pointed out, this fit her theory that Lockhart was a Ministry spy who had faked the opening of the Chamber to get rid of Dumbledore. Indeed, the day Dumbledore was sent away saw Lockhart begin trying to convince them all that the danger had passed. No one bothered to challenge Luna's theory anymore. Fleeta Fleece had naturally decided Lockhart was "an idiot" rather soon after he started liking Ginny more than her. And while Lockhart still had a few loyal fangirls, most of his female admirers were starting to see him for the fool he was.

And why did they think Hagrid had opened the Chamber anyway? Already feeling guilty about only talking to Hagrid once since October, Ginny couldn't help but wonder if it was something she had done which made them suspect him. Worst of all, Hagrid's fate further sealed her own. If she destroyed the diary and stopped the attacks now, everyone would think it had been Hagrid after all. She couldn't let that happen. Confessing was now truly her only option.

But not only did she not do it, she couldn't even tear herself out of Riddle's grasp. It was outright shameful that Ginny did not stop writing in the diary. She wrote in it very little by now, but she knew that she shouldn't be writing in it at all. And worst of all she knew in her heart that her reduced use of the diary had less to do with resistance and more to do with not getting much joy out of it anymore. Writing to Riddle simply made her feel too guilty to enjoy it even a little. Which she thought was as it should be, but it should have been so the minute she figured out how that diary worked.

Ginny never stopped feeling scared and guilty -- she just went about her day trying to act normal. However, with most of the school feeling miserable about the Chamber, Ginny hardly stood out. But it had gone so far now that she often found herself feeling physically ill, which she tended to use as an excuse to cut class. As she really did feel sick, she didn't think this was exactly dishonest, but it still made her feel guilty -- just like everything else in her life made her feel guilty now. Crying was starting to come so naturally to her that she once burst into tears in the middle of class for absolutely no reason at all. Unable to so much as visit the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher, she couldn't even cry in private, but she didn't care who saw her tears anymore. She didn't even care when Fleeta took to gleefully asking her whether she would start wearing nappies as well. But such was the state of the school that even Fleeta stopped finding her taunting fun rather quickly.

Ginny had mostly stopped considering suicide. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that feeling like you wanted to die and actually killing yourself were two very different things. Instead, she thought about simply running away -- away from her family and Hogwarts and everything she loved and cared about. She even made plans in her head for how she would get away and so forth. If she did run away, she wasn't sure where she would go or how she would survive, but what mostly deterred her was knowing that she would probably give up and go back after a few hours at most. In all the books Ginny had read, that was what always happened to any kid who tried running away.

In any case, the current state of things was intolerable. Hermione was Petrified, Hagrid couldn't come back until everything was resolved, and the school was on the brink of closing. Everything was telling Ginny she simply had to take responsibility whatever the consequences would be. But she was just too scared. How would Harry and Ron feel if they knew she had nearly murdered their closest friend? She certainly knew how thrilled her parents would be to learn that their only daughter had betrayed everything they had ever taught her about right and wrong. She just so, so wanted to end this without anyone knowing. But she didn't have that option anymore.

For reasons which were completely beyond Ginny, Professor McGonagall, who was acting Headmistress, decided to go ahead with the end of year exams. Ginny couldn't possibly have twisted her troubled mind into a state receptive to study and she only went through the motions to stop Percy from nagging her. But she knew it was hopeless and that she would fail horribly. And the fact that she was probably on a sure-fire path to taking her first year over again was depressingly the least of her problems, especially considering the school might not even be open for her second first year.

On the morning three days before the exams started -- seventy-two hours before doomsday -- Ginny awoke feeling awful. As usual, she felt no inclination to get out of bed to face yet another day of tedious misery. When she did get up, Ginny and her dorm mates dressed and prepared to go downstairs in silence. Fleeta hadn't even bothered to insult anyone's clothes in a long time, though Ginny suspected Fleeta's unhappiness resulted mostly from her no longer being Lockhart's class pet.

After Fleeta left the room with a weird dispirited version of a strut, Ginny noticed Kimmy looking at her. Kimmy was concerned about her. She didn't know Ginny was the cause of all this. She thought Ginny was just another worried student like her. Kimmy would surely hate Ginny if she knew the truth, but she didn't and so she felt sorry for her instead.

"Kimmy," said Lorelei in a very small voice, breaking the silence. "Kimmy, I've -- I've decided I have to -- to tell you something." Ginny thought she knew where this was going and turned to leave, knowing there would be a high degree of awkwardness.

"Wait, don't go," insisted Lorelei. "Please stay." Ginny turned around and Lorelei locked eyes with her. Lorelei's wide green eyes were asking Ginny to tell Kimmy for her. Ginny replied with own her eyes that Lorelei ought to do it herself. Lorelei sighed.

"Kimmy, I'm -- I'm half-nymph," she said, blushing as she said this. As Ginny had suspected, Kimmy clearly did not see any significance to this.

"She was afraid you wouldn't like her anymore," Ginny explained eventually.

"Oh, of course I still like you!" Kimmy said at once. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because I'm less than human," Lorelei mumbled.

"Oh, no you're not!" exclaimed Kimmy, taking Lorelei in her arms. Tears began to run down Lorelei's oddly ethereal face, but Ginny knew the half-naiad witch would be happier and fuller inside from that moment on. If only the same could ever be true of Ginny...

"I th-thought you would still like me," said Lorelei, "but I was sc-cared. I'm such a mess of emotions! I don't m-mean to be that way -- I think my brain's just messed up from me being... you know. But I had to tell you now. The school will probably c-close soon and I wanted to tell you before -- before we never see each other again."

And thus Ginny left the dormitory feeling worse than ever. As she passed through the room with the bronze fish sculptures, she thought of what a disaster she had created for everyone. She knew Lorelei's father was cold and distant and that Kimmy was the only friend Lorelei had ever had. By causing the school to close, Ginny was splitting them up forever...

Breakfast in the Great Hall was as miserable an affair as ever until McGonagall spoke up with some unexpected words.

"I have good news," she said, causing the room to erupt with cheers. Ginny didn't join in, instead staring at her rolls as though they were tap-dancing. She was sure that this news, whatever it was, would not be good for her.

"Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last," McGonagall continued when the hall finally quieted down. "Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been Petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit."

Most people -- except most of the Slytherins, of course -- were cheering this news, but Ginny was obviously left with a problem. What if one of them had seen her attack them? For some reason, this hadn't occurred to her in the many times she had considered destroying the diary. So flushing the diary wouldn't have worked anyway -- that figured. What would everyone think of her when they found out? She would be disgraced in front of the whole school if not the entire wizarding world.

She had to tell someone now and let her side be heard first. It was so pathetic that she was only coming forward when she was in danger of being found out, but that was still less pathetic than it would be to wait until the victims gave testimony and she would have to explain why she hadn't said anything. She knew telling wouldn't make her feel whole or complete as she was sure Lorelei had felt when she told Kimmy her secret. Ginny's secret was a far less innocent one -- telling it would hurt and hurt a lot, but it had to be done.

Why couldn't she have done this earlier when she could have gone to Hermione? But it was her own fault that Hermione was Petrified. And now there was only one person left whom she could tell -- who might be able to help her, if only a little. All along he had been almost the very last person she had wanted to know, but now she had no choice.

She would have to tell Harry Potter.