She wakes suddenly, gasping out her fear. It is early. She sits up and looks around the dormitory at the slumbering forms of her classmates. She could probably go back to sleep if she tried hard enough; instead she picks up a book from the floor beside her bed and begins to read.
At breakfast, she keeps her head down and her mouth shut. The talk all around is of the Solstice Dance that will start in a few short hours, but Ginny cannot muster any enthusiasm. She has a pretty golden dress and she’s going with Harry, and a few years ago this would have been a dream for her. But the dress is second-hand and taken in, and the date is merely as friends, and she is suddenly very tired. She could tell this to her fourth-year friends and garner some sympathy, though more likely they would tease her for being over-excited. She could tell this to the three, as she still thinks of them, and they would look sympathetic, but Harry has it worse and so does Ron, probably, and she would feel like a whiny little brat. It is an effort for her, sometimes, to behave the way she knows she should.
It can be frighteningly easy, though, to slip into the skin of the girl she never was, to pass herself off as one of the crowd. Normal, perhaps slightly on the cute side, with no obvious distinguishing features, small and slight and easily overlooked. She finds that she likes being a brunette. It’s possible to pretend she isn’t a Weasley, with generations of family history to live up to and the expectations of brothers and parents and other relatives resting on her delicate shoulders. Her name shouldn’t be Ginny, she thinks. Perhaps she could be Mary instead, a Muggle-born, an only child, with divorced parents and three dogs at her father’s house because her mother is allergic. Mary wouldn’t have to settle for hand-me-down textbooks because there wouldn’t be anyone to hand them down. Mary wouldn’t have a pathetic crush on a boy who only looked twice at her because of her brother. Mary wouldn’t have nearly lost her soul to another boy’s essence infused in a diary because nobody would have thought to give the accursed thing to Mary in the first place.
She spends most of the morning reading, sitting peaceably in a corner with Hermione. The older girl is studying, of course, but Ginny is happy to relax with a novel and a glass of orange juice. The novel she has is, in fact, on loan from Hermione, and Ginny has already read it once through. She cannot admit to that, however, without revealing the hours she spends distracting herself when she is supposed to be sleeping. So she reads it for the second time, and is perfectly happy to do so. Hermione has good taste in these matters; at least, in the recommendations she chooses to make. Ginny wouldn’t mind being Hermione instead of Mary. She’s not too far off from the ideal. But then she would have to spend a lot of the time snogging her own brother, so that’s probably a bad idea.
Later, she is one of the only girls left in the Common Room – the rest of them have already started primping and preparing for the big event in the evening. Even Hermione has left to wash her hair, and so Ginny is a little surprised when someone sits down next to her. It turns out to be Harry. “Looking forward to the dance?” he asks, and suddenly she is crying. She feels slightly guilty for confusing the poor boy so, but mostly she is relieved that she can finally let go of the fear.
Eventually, she calms. Harry has one arm around her shoulders, and is gazing at her with eyes full of concern. She gives him a wan smile, intended to reassure, and he squeezes her a little closer. “I guess you want to know what that was about,” Ginny says, and Harry nods with an expression that says something along the lines of, “well, duh.” She takes a few more moment to craft her explanation more quickly, then begins. “I’ve been having dreams,” she says. “Not like yours, of course, but they’re about him. The way I knew him, though, in first year. And, uh, they’re all the same.” She pauses, swallows, and continues.
“I’m sitting in the Great Hall, and it’s at the ball, tonight. Everybody’s waltzing round the floor, and I’m just sitting waiting. Then Tom walks over and asks me to dance, and I take his hand. Then all of a sudden we’re in the middle of the floor, and I look at the people and they’re all dead, and as soon as I realise that…” she sniffs back more tears, determined to reach the end of her tale. She whispers, “we’re dancing on your corpses. And he’s kissing me. And I’m happy.” Harry guides her head down to lean on his shoulder, and holds her close. They sit, quietly. Together.
It is hard for her to push the images away as she walks into the Hall that night, but Harry stays close by her side, protective. He is flanked by Ron and Hermione, and the four of them make a grand entrance. She feels disapproving eyes upon her and laughs instead of cringing – how can the girls who wish they were in her place hope to intimidate her, when she has been face-to-face with the Dark Lord?
They are a joyful company for a few hours, separating rarely. She smiles approvingly when Ron asks Hermione to dance, having kicked him in the shins more than once and reminded him the day before that he knew how to dance and he knew that it would please his girlfriend. Still it surprises her when Harry stands and extends his hand to her, pulling her out on the floor to whirl alongside her friends and family.
She dances with her brothers and she dances with Harry and then, when she is happy, when she is standing by the wall leaning comfortably into Harry’s embrace, it happens. A pull behind her navel, a little like a portkey, and she knows that something terrible is about to happen and she is powerless to stop it. And then she is rising, moving away from the safety of his arms, hearing the cries of those around her and not caring in the slightest.
He is there for her, and her alone.
“Ginny, my dear,” he says. He is the same as he was three years previously, and she cannot comprehend how he has come for her. Her eyes drink him in – her Tom – his black hair and tall frame, the robes of velvet night that drape around him, the small smile on his lips that tells her just how much he feels for her. His hand is outstretched for her, and she reaches out, placing her small hand delicately in his… and all hell breaks loose.
She pays no attention to the screams of her classmates as Death Eaters pour in the doors. The crackle of curses and thud of bodies falling passes her by as Tom – her Tom! here! – enfolds her in his arms. Her name, cried in the voice of the boy she loved in her other life, does not touch her as they start a slow waltz step, dancing on the air in truth. They are wrapped up in each other, she and Tom. They are true soulmates. She cannot help but love him when he did so much to – for – her, and he cannot help but love her when she has given him so very much. They dance, in such a dream, and he is her and she is him and they are one and there is nowhere on this earth that she would rather be.
But then she looks down, and she sees Ron sprawled on the floor, blood matting his hair yet another shade of red. And she screams.
Tom steps away from her, looking her in the eye. “What is it, my lovely?” he asks her, sincerely concerned. She looks back at him. She sees him. “I thought…” she falters. “Hold me,” she requests. He smiles gently, and pulls her lovingly against his chest. She pulls his wand out of his pocket, and pushes him away. “Ginny?” he asks, love and worry for her radiating from his eyes, “what are you doing?” She smiles sadly. “What are you doing, Tom? Why are you hurting all these people?” He frowns. “I thought you understood.” He reaches out, softly touching her cheek. “Don’t you see it, Ginny?” he asks. “I see,” she replies. And she points his wand at his heart. And she kills him.
Later, when the remnants of the Death Eaters are no longer a threat, Harry comes to her where she is huddled on the floor in the centre of the Hall. “You loved him,” he says. She nods. “You killed him,” he says. She nods again. “Hermione’s with Ron in the Hospital Wing. He’ll recover,” he says. She nods again. “Thank you,” he says. She looks up at him. She shakes her head. He kneels down with her, and holds her as she cries.
In time, she knows, they will all recover. But right now, her heart is breaking. She cries.
