Reputations

Ginny stepped down from the Room of Requirement and paused outside. She must have been in there for hours, although it felt like days. She stood fixed to the spot, trying to get her head around what had just happened. An imaginary attempt to get detention with Snape? Was that really what she needed from that room? And who the heck was Ceridon Cate? With Harry and Hermione she couldn't ask for better friends. And as for her brothers even though they were irritating at times they were still very good friends to her so why did she need an imaginary friend? Especially one as strange and silly as Ceridon. And why, why was she playing stupid games with an arrogant, but definitely not evil Draco Malfoy. Was her need for Malfoy not to be a spineless toad so great that she had to imagine falling in love with him?

"Show me what I really need," she'd asked of the room. What she got was definitely not what she had expected.

She'd had the idea to go to the Room of Requirement just after Harry had broke up with her and wrongly assumed that she would be introduced somewhere peaceful and happy where she could forget about Dumbledore's death and her break-up with Harry. A part of her hoped it would take her to the place where Harry had hid his Advanced Potions book, just so she could feel close to him again.

Instead she found herself as a sixth year, with an imaginary friend and she was falling head over heals with Draco Malfoy and, most inexplicably and embarrassedly of all, trying to be a bad girl. And Snape. Snape was there, his usual sarky self, but, she thought, maybe that room did show me what I really required. I would give anything for Snape to be at Hogwarts now, and not to not have escaped with the Death Eaters and not have killed Dumbledore. The Room of Requirement was a strange place, she concluded. But it seemed to show her what she needed it its own unique way.

She started to trudge slowly down the corridor, deciding to make her way back to the Gryffindor common room. She had planned, along with Ron, Harry and Hermione to stay at Hogwarts for the next few weeks, to try and work out what to do next. She knew Harry, Ron and Hermione were all going off together to search for the missing Horcruxes and she had decided to stay until they left. They weren't the only students still at Hogwarts. Even though Dumbledore was murdered by Snape on school grounds, many parents had elected to keep their children at the school, still believing it was one of the safest places for them in these troubled times. There were no lessons of course, students stayed mainly in their respective common rooms. Although Ginny had spent many hours plotting with the trio in empty classrooms.

She laughed at the imaginary Draco Malfoy she'd met in the Room of Requirement and felt like a traitor. How could she have a need to fantasise about a weak little twerp whose stupidity led to the death of Dumbledore? She was even more repulsed by the Snape that she'd met in that room. It wasn't real, though. She told herself quietly. It wasn't real. It was just what I needed to experience at that time.

She was concentrating so hard on what she had experienced in the Room of Requirement that she failed to notice she was holding tightly on to something in her hand. She looked down at her hand which was grasping the object so hard her skin was turning red.

She uncurled her fingers slowly and found she was clutching a piece of parchment. It took her completely by surprise. "I don't remember taking this into the room with me," she muttered. She opened it slowly. It read: 'Weasley, I may be late, start without me, Draco.'

She froze to the spot. 'But it wasn't real.' She turned slowly to where the door to the Room of Requirement had been and walked back towards it, running her fingers over the wall. 'But it wasn't real,' she repeated again.' But a repeat glance to the note in her hand suggested otherwise.

She felt adrenaline coursing through her. "Show me," she said to the room, her voice loud, but quivering slightly. "Take me back to where I need to be."

The door appeared.