CHAPTER ONE:  BACK TO HOGWARTS

September 2nd

Have you ever been so tired that you did something incredibly stupid, like squeezing the toothpaste onto your wand instead of your toothbrush?  It wouldn’t have been so bad, except for the fact that Parvati and Lavender saw the whole thing, and what do you want to bet that by breakfast tomorrow someone from Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff is making a joke about it?  That’s how it works at Hogwarts.  The Gossip Grapevine is alive and thriving.

If something like this had happened to me last year I would have been devastated.  I would have sobbed myself to sleep (first, of course, having poured out my poor, tortured soul out to Tom in that cursed diary).

This year I find it rather amusing, and just another proof of my stand theory that secrets are not kept at Hogwarts.  It is impossible.  Secrets are treated as communal property and are shared freely. 

All you would have to do is whisper the name of a guy you find rather attractive to one of my roommates and tomorrow morning he’ll know that you have a mad crush on him and sleep with a picture of him under your pillow — which is why I don’t confide in Mandy, Lisa or Laura. 

They’re good enough people, my roommates.  Well, maybe not Mandy Davenport (who’s a snob) but when she’s not with Mandy, Laura Marchbanks is actually quite nice and Lisa, Jamison in particular would give you the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it, but they just can’t keep secrets.  They tell each other everything.  So I don’t tell them much.

I have a lot of secrets you see, and they are not the kind that would simply be humiliating were they to be found out.  Some could be dangerous to myself and to others were they to fall into the wrong hands.

It is imperative, for instance, that no one know about my bond with Harry, or the fact that it was me that called up the Basilisk to attack all the Muggle-borns last year, or that I am a Natural Elemental Magician.

It is common knowledge among the student body by now that the heir of Slytherin abducted me at the end of last term and took me down to the Chamber of Secrets and that he would have killed me if Harry hadn’t come to my rescue (my hero).

No one, however, is too terribly clear on the details; such as who exactly the heir of Slytherin was, why they chose me, the precise location of the Chamber of Secrets as well as the bond that was forged between Harry and myself because of his having saved my life.

Harry told the whole story, well, as much of it as he knew, to Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and my parents, but none of them will be divulging details any time soon.

As for the four of us that were actually involved, one can’t and three won’t give anyone any information.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate Harry and Ron keeping their mouths shut and as for Professor Lockhart, if ever there was a person who deserved to have their memory erased it’s him.

But even those who think they know all of the details don’t have the whole story.  There is just no way.  They aren’t the ones who shared their soul — however unwillingly — with Tom Riddle.

There are those who suspect that I’m not being entirely truthful when I tell them that I’ve completely recovered.  But there is no recovering from having been mentally raped by the most powerful Dark Wizard in history.  There is no forgetting what he showed me, and even if I could, I don’t think I could bring myself to have it erased.  It is knowledge that I didn’t have before.  My payment for services rendered.  It is a part of me now, and there’s no going back.

So, I can’t talk freely to my roommates and my family would be devastated to hear what really happened to me, and I have no real friends to speak of.  So who can I talk to but my journal?

I know it probably sounds rather melodramatic to say that I don’t have any friends, but I don’t!  Not real friends.  I didn’t have the energy to expend on friends last year and now, now I wonder if I will ever be able to truly make friends with anyone.  How can I when I know that there are things I will never be able to tell them?  I envy Harry and Ron and Hermione their friendship.  They can always tell each other everything.

My journal has become an integral part of my life.  I was wary of taking it at first because of my experience with Tom’s diary, but Bill assured me that the only charm placed on it he put there himself.  No one except me can read what is written here unless I give them express permission.

My beautiful Bill has always understood me and while the specifics of what happened to me when Tom Riddle possessed me may not be something that I can share even with him, he knew that I’d need someone in whom I could confide.

Ginny sighed as she put down her journal and quill on the bedside table.  So many secrets, she thought glumly, letting her fingers caress the soft leather of the journal’s cover.  She had so many secrets and no one to tell them to.  She couldn’t even tell anyone about her first day back to school.  Even by her slightly twisted standards, it had been decidedly weird.

The double awareness — the ability to see what Harry was seeing, hear and feel what he was hearing and feeling — had been plaguing her all day.

She’d been in Herbology, her first class of the day, when an image of Professor Trelawny in her many shawls and bangles and big, buggy glasses had been superimposed over the flutterby bush she’d been attempting to prune.

It wasn’t the projection that had truly disturbed her (even though it appeared that her pruning shears were stuck up Trelawny’s left nostril), mainly because she’d been seeing through Harry’s eyes all summer, and was actually getting used to it.  It wasn’t even Professor Trelawny’s trademark scream that had left her shaky and sweaty (even though Ginny had nearly jumped out of her skin when the image of Professor Trelawny had screamed and clutched at her heart).  It hadn’t even been Trelawny’s prattle about the Grim, for she knew from Fred and George that Trelawny had predicted the death of a girl in their class too — Patricia Stimpson.  Trelawny had warned her that a red headed man would drown her just before Christmas.  According to George, Patricia had been snogging Gilbert Macintyre — a flaming red head — by Boxing Day and there had been a running joke that the only way the prophecy would come true would be if Patricia drowned in Gilbert’s saliva.

No, what had disturbed her most was Harry’s reaction to Trelawny’s words.  He was wondering if she could be right.  The dog he’d seen in the alleyway when he’d run away from his Aunt and Uncle’s house had shaken him up pretty bad.  Harry was afraid.  Harry was afraid that he might be destined to die.  Even worse, if Harry became convinced, what was to keep it from actually happening?

The grim would have explained the big black dog, but if what she’d read in Charlie’s old death omen book was right, Grim’s were spectral dogs, they weren’t supposed to be corporeal. 

And that had been just first period! Charms too had been more than a bit disturbing, though she doubted very much that it had anything to do with Harry.

Flitwick was teaching the second years a basic locomotion charm, which he warned them, was quite difficult.  Ginny was the only person to get it on the first try.  To top it off, she was also able to demonstrate how to reverse and change directions, even make the object rise up or down if necessary. Flitwick had been very impressed.

The ability, however, had given Ginny a chill. Even though she knew she’d never even read about the charm before, much less practiced it, it had felt as if she’d done the charm a hundred times before.  She had done it without even thinking about it. 

She wondered, of course, if this sudden ability could have something to do with her being in touch with Harry, but then decided that it was more likely that this was another residual effect of having had Tom Riddle in her head.  Some of his magical knowledge had rubbed off on her.  It was scary, true, but this at least, unlike speaking Parsletongue, was something she could use.

Ginny stole another glance at her roommates.  All three of them were currently sitting on Mandy Davenport’s bed and reviewing the day’s events.

“Can you believe it?” Laura Marchbanks marveled, her eyes huge.  “Andrew Kirke sat beside me in Charms and Astronomy!

A chorus of giggles followed this revelation.

“I mean, if it had been just one or the other I’d really have thought nothing of it,” Laura added, flipping her long, honey-brown hair over her shoulder with a practiced gesture.  “But both times?”

“Oooh!  He fancies you!” sighed Lisa Jamison, her cheeks pink with excitement, “that explains why he was watching you all through supper!”

“Andrew is just so dreamy!” gushed Mandy Davenport, giving a wriggle that set her golden curls bouncing.  “Such dark hair and those eyes!” she closed her own china-blue orbs, but then opened them wide a second later.  “But blondes are more my type.”

“Blonde Slytherins you mean,” said Laura with a knowing grin.

“Draco Malfoy has got to be the sexiest boy at Hogwarts,” said Mandy as she played absently with the tassel on her bed hangings.  “Have you ever watched the way he walks?”

“He doesn’t walk, he glides,” said Laura, her voice rather breathy.  “And his hands, the way he holds his wand!”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” said Mandy, her cheeks now rather pink.  She and Laura shared a knowing look.

“Wonder what?” asked Lisa innocently.  She was holding her cat, a large, gray tabby with white paws and a patch like a star over one eye.

“What it would be like to have him hold your hand,” said Laura dreamily.

“That’s not all I’d like him to hold!” said Mandy with a naughty grin, and all three of the girls burst into another chorus of giggles.

“Wonder away, Mandy,” said Laura at last, “he’s spoken for.  He and Pansy Parkinson, it was arranged when they were just kids.”

“What was arranged?” said Lisa curiously.

“They’re betrothed,” said Laura in a resigned tone.

“You’re kidding!” said Lisa incredulously.

“It’s something a lot of the old wizarding families do to keep the bloodlines pure.”

“Well I can look, can’t I?”  Mandy’s tone was pouty.  “I mean, it’s not like they’re married yet or anything.”

“Close enough,” said Laura darkly.  She turned suddenly to address Ginny.

“What about you, Ginevra?  Your family’s pureblood.  Have you been spoken for yet?”

“Six times actually,” said Ginny with an evil grin.

“Excuse me?” said Mandy haughtily.  “How can you be betrothed to six different men?”

“I’m not betrothed to anyone,” said Ginny evenly. 

“But you said-”

“I said I’d been spoken for, not that any of the offers had been accepted.  Before I turned two, six different pureblood families had approached dad with offers for my hand.  Dad turned them all down.”  Ginny shrugged.

“What do you mean, offers?” asked Lisa curiously.  Lisa was Muggle-born and had probably never heard about arranged pureblood marriages.

“They offered my dad money, land — one family even offered him a title in exchange for having me betrothed to their sons.”

“No way!”

“Which families?” said Mandy, interestedly.

“The Notts, the Sandersons and the Malfoys are the only three  Dad’s ever mentioned,” said Ginny, watching with satisfaction as  Mandy’s face turned a dark plum color. “But if he said there were six, I believe him.”

“Your father turned down an offer from the Malfoys?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“To be betrothed to Draco?”

“Unless there’s another son the Malfoys have been hiding in their coat closet,” said Ginny dryly.

Mandy looked stunned.

“But, no offense or anything, Ginny, but your parents aren’t exactly rich.”

“Actually, Mandy, we’re about as far from rich as any family can get.”

“It would have been a really good match!” said Mandy still sounding shocked.  “The Malfoys or the Notts, even the Sanderson’s would have been able to offer your parents a generous price.  My mom’s always saying it’s a pity that great-grandma Nancy was a Muggle-born because otherwise she could have married me off into one of the old wizarding families.”

Ginny gritted her teeth but couldn’t bite back the retort that sprang to her lips.

“Do you believe in slavery, Mandy?”

“Of course not!”

“Because that is what signing a contract like that amounts to — selling your daughter in exchange for money or land or whatever!  And do you really think that you would be able to choose which family your mother would have signed the contract with if you were pureblood?  Whichever offered her the most, that’s who!  You could easily have ended up with Crabbe or Goyle as Malfoy!”

Mandy opened her mouth, took one good look at the cold fury in Ginny’s face and closed it again.

Ginny storned out of the dormitory and down the stairs to the common room.  She didn’t need some snot-nosed, status-obsessed, curl bouncing-

CRACK!

The bolt of lightning and simultaneous clap of thunder stopped Ginny dead in her tracks.  A passage she had read just this morning in her Grandmother’s journal popped into her head.

“A Natural Elemental must maintain serenity of mind at all costs, for an outburst of emotion can be mistakenly interpreted as a request for elemental interference.”

“Damn!” said Ginny eloquently, putting one hand over her heart.

“It’s just lightning,” came a voice from the other side of the window.  It was Harry.

“Startled me is all,” said Ginny, attempting to keep her voice even.

“Yeah, well, it startled me too,” said Harry easily.  “Normally I like watching a storm roll in, but that came out of absolutely nowhere!” he said, grinning at her.  “I mean, there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

You don’t know the half of it, thought Ginny to herself.

“I don’t suppose that it has anything to do with your being in a towering temper?” said Harry, grinning even more broadly.

Ginny stared at him.  He knew!  He knew, but he didn’t realize that he knew.

Keeping her tone light, she decided to answer him in kind.

“Yep.  Whipped it up especially:  one medium sized Weasley special, extra voltage.  If you’d looked closely you would have seen Mandy Davenport’s name etched on the side.

Harry snorted.

“Don’t let her get to you, Ginny, she’s not worth the energy.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to room with her, are you?”

“You’ve got a point,” said Harry, then added, “what did she say?”

“Come again?”

“To make you mad enough to hurl thunderbolts — what did she say?  Or was it something she did?”

“It was what she said.  She made a comment about not believing my dad wouldn’t have accepted one of the marriage offers.  She seemed to think that he actually would have considered it because of the money involved.”

“Whoa there, wait a minute!” said Harry, putting up a hand to stem her flood of words.  “What are you talking about?  What marriage offers? Who’s getting married?”

Ginny put a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle.

“No one’s getting married, Harry.” Yet.

“Then why-”

“Give me a chance to explain.”

Ginny took his hand and led him over to one of the squashy armchairs by the dwindling fire.

“There are only a handful of pureblood wizarding families anymore, Harry.  And some of those, like the Malfoys, will do anything to keep their linage from being tainted by non-wizards.”

Harry nodded.  He’d heard this before.  He and Draco Malfoy were not exactly the best of friends after all and Malfoy was always calling Hermione a mudblood, which was a really foul name for someone who was Muggle-born.

“Well, for some odd reason the pureblood families tend to produce more boy than girl babies, so pureblood witches are considered a rare commodity.”

“Commodity?” said Harry in a low, dangerous voice.  His emerald-green eyes were sparkling, a sure sign that his temper was rising. “As in something you buy or sell?”

“Or trade for, exactly,” said Ginny.

“But-”

“It used to be an accepted custom,” said Ginny, cutting across him, “For pureblood families to arrange marriages between their children.  If purity of the race was important enough to you, you’d do anything within your power to ensure that your son ended up with a nice, pureblood witch.  But like I said, pureblood witches are rare.”

“How rare?” asked Harry, interrupting in turn.

“There are only sixteen of us at Hogwarts,” said Ginny.

“And your dad got offers from other pureblood families so that they could ensure their sons a pureblood wife?” asked Harry, sounding disgusted.

“Six different pureblood families came to dad before I was even two years old and offered him money, land, titles even in exchange for a signed contract between the parties.  Officially I would have been married to the boy right then and there — but it is accepted that arranged marriages are not, erm, consummated until the children reach the age of seventeen.”

“Damn,” said Harry, staring sullenly into the fire.

“Yeah, well, you probably could have guessed it, but nine of the sixteen pureblood witches are in Slytherin.”

“Figures,” Harry growled.  “Pansy Parkinson I bet, and Millicent Bulstrode.”

“Both of whom are already spoken for.”

Harry stared at her.

“Millicent?”

“Yep.  She’s betrothed to Theodore Nott.”

“Oh God!” said Harry with a shudder.

“Exactly!” said Ginny, grinning broadly.  “See how desperate they are?”

“But you’re not.”

“I’m not what?”

“Betrothed.”

“Merlin, no!” said Ginny, laughing outright.  “Can you imagine my dad doing something that snobbish?”

Harry shook his head, then looked up at her, his forehead creased.

“If it’s so important to them, this keeping the bloodline pure bit, then I’m surprised that they haven’t come up with a way to force a pureblood witch into a marriage contract.”

“But there is!  It’s really old magic. Blood magic, actually, and blood magic is considered to be just a step away from the Dark Arts.  You mix the witch and wizard’s blood and there’s some sort of incantation.  Anyway, once it’s been performed, if any man other than the wizard whose blood was used tries to, well, tries to have sex with the witch, she’ll die.”

“She dies?”

“Yeah, not real fair, is it?  First the girl is coerced into a match she probably didn’t want, and then she can be killed if someone else tries to take her.”

Harry shuddered.

“So, if someone could get a drop of your blood they could do this — this charm and bind you to themselves or their son?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

“Well, how do you know someone hasn’t already done that?”

“Well, first off, the charm only works if the girl —or woman — is a virgin.  Secondly, if the charm has been successfully performed, a mark that looks like a complicated knot appears on the inside of your left wrist.”

She held her own wrist out for him to see.  He took it in both of his hands, running his thumbs across the sensitive skin.  Ginny’s breath caught in her chest at his touch.  He’d never voluntarily touched her before and his hands on her skin felt so right somehow.  Ginny had to grin at the look of relief that crossed his face when he saw that her wrist was blemish free.

“Well, that would explain why your parents and brothers are so protective of you,” said Harry, grinning back at her and releasing her hand.

“Yeah, well, they don’t need to worry anymore,” said Ginny with a grimace.  “It wouldn’t work on me now anyway.”

“But you’re a pureblood.”

“Yes.”  Ginny waited, watching with amusement as comprehension dawned on his face.

“Are you telling me that your not a — a-” he swallowed hard, “virgin?”

“Right in one,” said Ginny.  She was trying hard now not to laugh outright as the heat began creeping up his neck.

“Ginny, I-” he paused, swallowed again, then said, without looking directly at her, “I don’t mean to sound like another of your brothers or anything, but aren’t you a bit. . .erm . . .young to be having . . .erm. . .sex?”

Then another thought seemed to dawn on him and this time his face reddened not in embarrassment, but in anger, “You’re not telling me that Tom-”

“No, Harry,” she said before he could finish the thought.  “That was bad, and I suppose it was rape, but it was rape on a purely mental level.”  Harry shuddered and she could feel his sudden pity for her, at what she’d gone through.  “But just for the record, Harry, I’ve never had sex.”

“But you said. . .” he paused, as if uncertain how to continue.

“I said that I’m not a virgin — technically.  Remember, Harry, that charm is ancient.  When it was constructed over a thousand years ago ,the only way that one could ensure that a girl was, well, pure, was if the hymen was intact.  If it wasn’t intact there was no way they could guarantee that she hadn’t had sex.”

She watched as Harry’s brow knit in puzzlement, then smoothed out as his primary school science lessons kicked in.

“You make it sound like a safety seal,” said Harry scowling.

“Well, to people like the Malfoys, that’s exactly what it is,” said Ginny, frowning herself.  “Just as long as the label doesn’t read shake well before opening,” she added with an evil grin.

Harry stared at her, then threw back his head and laughed outright.  “I forget that you have six older brothers,” he said, wiping his now streaming eyes.  “That was good.  So, you had some sort of an accident?”

“Yeah, you know that I dance, right?”

“No, I didn’t although, now that you mention it . . .” he looked her up and down critically, “you carry yourself like a dancer.”

“Thanks!” said Ginny brightly.  “Well, last summer I did something stupid.  I tried to go down into a full split without having warmed up first.”

Harry winced.  “Ouch!”

“Exactly.  And, well, that’s all it took.”

Harry remained quiet for several minutes, his face rather pink.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“You can stop blushing now.”

“Sorry, Ginny, it’s just, well . . .” he shrugged.  “I’m glad you don’t have to worry about the charm thing anymore, anyway.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Ginny, grinning at him.  “And Harry, I don’t go around telling everyone about, well about all of this.”

“I should hope not,” said Harry dryly.

“Did I embarrass you?”

“Not much, and I suppose I did ask.”

“You did at that.”

“And it was a rather personal question.”

“That it was, but I did bring up the subject by storming down here and then going off about why I was mad at Mandy.  I should be the one apologizing.”

“Why?”

“Because you have enough on your mind without worrying about me too.”

“Ginny?”

She remained quiet, looking at her feet.

Harry took her chin between his thumb and finger and turned her face up so that she was looking him in the face. 

Ginny felt her breath catch again as his eyes met hers.  God, his eyes!  She could drown in eyes like that.  Right now they were deep and dark and filled with concern.  Concern for her!

“Ginny, I’ll always be here for you, you know that, right?”

Sweet Merlin, does he realize what he’s saying? thought Ginny wildly, or is he just being nice to his best friend’s little sister?

“Except when you’re off rescuing Philosopher’s Stones or tracking giant spiders through the Forbidden Forest or killing Basilisk’s in the Chamber of Secrets,” said Ginny, her mouth very dry.

“It was only one Basilisk,” said Harry quietly.  “And I seem to remember that it was guarding a certain red-headed twelve year old.”

“Yeah, well. . .”

“I mean it Ginny, I don’t care what’s going on.  If you need me, I’ll be here.”

It may be only friendship, thought Ginny sometime later as she tried to go to sleep.  It may be just concern for his best friend’s little sister, but right now it was enough.