The Girl with the Scar

Little Harry Weasley had just started his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and it was everything his six older sisters had said it would be. The very air around him crackled with magic, and he saw the strangest things in his classes. Why, in Transfiguration, he already seen the teacher change herself into a cat right in front of their eyes! He knew he had entered a wonderful new world, full to bursting with possibilities.

He remembered his first day, when he took his seat after being sorted – he'd been put in Gryffindor, thank goodness – his sisters, Frieda and Georgette, had both reached out and mussed up his hair, smiling fondly at him. He watched as the last of the new students were sorted into their houses and then he looked up in awe at the great Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore.

The man's beard was so long he could nearly have tucked it in his belt, though of course he didn't. Harry's eyes were wide as the scary-looking witch at the high table clinked her glass, calling for quiet. He knew she was the one they called Professor McGonagall, after all, he had just met her when he was sorted. All eyes joined with his as they watched Dumbledore stand up, listening together for what he was about to say.

“I only have four words for you this year,” he smiled. “They are: boondoggle, oink, tittering, and blurb.” With that, he sat down, looking at them happily as if it all made perfect sense to him.

Harry's forehead creased curiously. His sisters had always said Dumbledore was a bit strange, but to see it in person was something else entirely. He now knew the truth – the man was downright loony.

As the food appeared and he started scooping it into small piles on his plate, he suddenly remembered something. His ears turned a light shade of pink and he ducked his head a little. She was here somewhere. The girl whom his sister, Ronnalee, was friends with. Ginny Potter was here , sitting at this very table. She was the girl with the scar on her forehead, the scar that Voldemort himself had given her when he killed her parents. The girl who had been staying in his own house!

Looking back on his first day, he shrugged his shoulders a little, sighed, and went back to his work. He fought back the blush that had appeared just from the memory of her. He stared intently at the page for some time, only to realize he wasn't going to get anywhere while she was around. He peaked over his tall book, trying to catch a glimpse of her sitting in the far corner with his sister and her other friend, Herman. He knew he certainly didn't have to worry about being seen. Nobody seemed to notice him; he was just too small and shy.

He remembered when he'd first seen Ginny – it was on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters as he and his Mum had helped her get through the barrier. She had seemed so nervous, but kind. He remembered asking his Mum if he could get on the train and say hi to her. She hadn't let him.

His heart sank. She had barely noticed him then, and when she stayed with them this summer, he'd been so nervous and shy that he even put his elbow in the butter dish when she looked at him once at dinner.

Now, though, he sat invisible in the common room, trying to read his book, but secretly stealing glances at Ginny. As he felt his eyes turn to her once again, she happened to look up at the same time. Her eyes met his and they shared a wonderful, beautiful, glorious glance together before she went back to talking with his sister. Perhaps it hadn't been quite what he imagined, but still… she had looked at him!

Harry knew all about Ginny Potter, of course. He knew about how her parents had been attacked by You-Know-Who when she was one year old, and how she had somehow miraculously survived. He had heard his parents talking about how she had been taken to live with relatives somewhere, but nobody knew quite where. And then last year, while he was stuck at home, Ginny and Ronnalee and Herman had fought You-Know-Who again, only to defeat him once more. She really was amazing.

He sighed dramatically. He had fallen in love with her the first time he heard the story. What made it worse was that she was even more beautiful than he had imagined, but also a little more sad. He supposed she had a right to be sad. It must have been very difficult to lose her parents and have to grow up with her aunt and uncle. But then, perhaps they were nice people. Ginny was always so nice, even to him, that he knew they must be nice people.

At last he felt the heat beginning to leave his face. He was so smitten by her that every time she ever looked at him he blushed furiously and lost his ability to speak. He bowed his head in embarrassment and reached into his bag to retrieve his one source of comfort.

His diary.

He wasn't sure where it had come from – it had simply been in his cauldron when they returned from Diagon Alley. So, thinking it must have been a gift, he started to write in it. He was a little surprised when it wrote back, but along with everything else in the magical world, he figured it was supposed to do that.

It was always so nice to him. It complimented him on now neat his writing was and it offered hopeful words to him when he was discouraged. It even tried to tell him that perhaps someday Ginny would notice him and fall deeply in love with him. He always blushed at that.

He wasn't sure why he'd kept his diary a secret, but for once, he just didn't want to bother anybody with it. He had been so excited about going to school with his sisters, although somehow it hadn't turned out like he planned. He had visions of them walking down the hall together, laughing, and going to eat in the Great Hall together. Perhaps Ronnalee would even let him spend some time with her and Ginny… but, it wasn't to be.

It hardly took a week for him to find out how busy they were. Oh sure, they said hi to him when they passed him in the corridor, and they waved at him while they ate at the far end of the Gryffindor table. At first he was discouraged, but then… he found that he could just disappear. It seemed like nobody noticed him walking down the hall to class by himself. He sat by himself when he ate, and he sat by himself when he did his schoolwork.

He might have been sad if it weren't for his wonderful friend in the diary.

He gathered his things up and disappeared up the stairs to the boys dormitories. He dropped his books on his bed and looked around for his friends. Well, he called them his friends. In truth, he wondered if they even knew his name. He just seemed to be fading into the background, and he didn't have the urge to fight it.

As the days passed, he continued to watch Ginny. He admired her from wherever he could sit with the least chance of her noticing him. Once in a while, his sister would say hi to him as she passed in the Great Hall, but Ginny never looked at him. She was always too busy. She and Ronnalee and Herman were always up to something. They would sit in the corner, away from everyone else, and they would talk so quietly that even if Harry could have gotten close enough, he wouldn't have been able to hear their words.

He continued to write in his diary, taking comfort in it. When he was little he would have spilled his heart out to his Mum or his Dad, but now they were too far away. When he left, they told him to just to send an owl if he ever wanted to talk, but he didn't want to bother them with silly things like being invisible.

Harry had finally met Hagrid, the enormous game keeper, and he'd instantly liked the huge man. Hagrid had taken good care of him and told him kind stories about his older sisters. He even told Harry that Ginny was going around giving out signed photos of herself. Hary knew he was lying, but he turned bright red anyway.

One day, he noticed that he seemed to have forgotten what happened to most of his afternoon. He remembered the end of his classes, but couldn't figure out where he'd gone after that. To make things worse, he discovered that he had dried blood and feathers on his fingers. It was a little scary, but once again he just figured he'd done a little too much magic that day and it had made him tired. Though the feathers still bothered him…

In the middle of October Harry was starting to feel a little peaky and so his sister, Pearl, marched him down to see Madam Pomfrey, who promptly fed him some Pepperup Potion. Even Ginny Potter noticed when he had steam pouring out of his ears and his face was bright red.

A few more weeks went by and again one day he found he had lost track of time. He was a little worried about it, but especially when he found out about the petrified cat. He was even more concerned because he heard that they had tried to blame Ginny for it. As if someone so wonderful could do something so horrible. He smiled at her as she entered the common room, hoping that it would give her some form of comfort. But as always, she didn't notice him. His smile faded and he turned forlornly back to his books.

When he watched her play Quidditch, he was mesmerized by her skill and agility. She appeared to belong in the air. Perhaps someday she would swoop down on her broom, pick him up and carry him off to where they could be alone. What they would do when they got there he had no idea, but he was sure it would be fun.

When that nasty Bludger broke her arm and she fell off her broom, he was terrified. He scrambled to get a better view of her, but he was so short that he couldn't see over anyone. By the time the crowd had parted, she was gone. He couldn't even ask Ronnalee or Herman because they had gone with him to the Hospital Wing. He just sat in the corner by himself, fidgeting until he couldn't stand it anymore.

He raced up the stairs and grabbed his diary, writing as fast as his fingers could go. The diary answered right back, telling him it would be okay, and offering its heartfelt sympathies for Ginny's injury.

That night, in the midst of more lost memories, another boy was petrified. Harry was starting to get quite concerned.

Once again time passed, as it has a way of doing, and more and more often Harry found he was missing part of his day. Then, to make matters worse, a student and a ghost were attacked and petrified. Harry cowered in his dormitory, shaking in fear. He began to worry about the diary. His feelings told him it was somehow related to his worry and to his many missing hours.

He finally broke down one day and decided to do something drastic. He stood next to his bed, looking down at the innocent book and wondering why it scared him so much. He screwed up his courage and did the only thing he could think of.

Picking up the diary and hiding it in his robe, he ran down the stairs and through the common room. Once in the corridor, he ran at full speed through the castle, its halls leading him in every direction. He soon found himself outside an unused girls toilet, and he pushed the door open quietly. An uneasy feeling crept over him as he snuck inside, as if sinister dark magic was filling the room behind him. He threw the diary into the farthest cubicle and ran back out the door, disappearing down the corridor and hoping he would never see it again.

For a while things went back to normal. He went to his classes. He ate, he slept. He was invisible, just as he had always been. Until Valentines day, that is.

When Harry wrote the words for his singing Valentine for Ginny, he couldn’t have known what would come of its delivery. Watching from within the crowd, he felt nothing but embarrassment and shame as Ginny tried to escape the ill-tempered dwarf. And then he saw her diary, or rather his diary. How had she gotten it? Had she read what he wrote about her? Harry panicked, and was fortunate that everyone thought his red face was from embarrassment about the Valentine rather than… other words he might have used.

A short time later, when he was sure Ginny was gone, he snuck into her room. He was terrified beyond comprehension and didn’t even notice he was digging through her… personal things. He was intent only on finding the diary and making sure she couldn’t find out what he’d written about her in it.

He never really knew what she thought about the diary going missing, as he was too scared to go near her anymore. He hid it under his bed and tried not to think of it anymore. Things didn't get any better, but they also didn't get any worse.

And then Dumbledore was removed from the school. That was when everything started to go haywire. He couldn't concentrate at all for more than a few seconds. He began to skip meals and he was having more trouble than ever sleeping. He wished beyond all things that he could just talk to Ronnalee. It used to be that she was his best friend, before Hogwarts came along and she had better things to do.

And then the worst happened. Harry woke up dizzy, his thoughts fogged like a crystal ball. He couldn't remember where he'd been or what he'd been doing. When the news reached him that Herman had been attached and petrified along with a student from another house, Harry ran upstairs and cried his heart out on his bed. It was becoming too much, and he was starting to wonder if it was somehow his fault. He got out the diary, as he had been sneaking to do every night, and he began to write in it.

As the year wound down, Harry decided he had to try to talk to someone. He had nearly convinced himself he was to blame, and finally he knew he needed help. One morning, at breakfast, he found Ronnalee sitting with Ginny in the Great Hall. It took all of his Gryffindor bravery to sit down with them, especially with the strange looks they were giving him. Ginny looked mildly concerned, but Ronnalee just looked annoyed.

Just as he had worked up enough courage to say a few words in a whisper, his sister, Pearl, came walking in and gave him a look. Harry disappeared, or rather, evaporated from the room and ran until his feet couldn't carry him anymore. He seemed to be trying to get somewhere, but he was so confused, he wasn't even sure where.

He found himself in the abandoned girls toilet again, but strangely he didn't feel alone. He let his mind slip away, and the last thing he remembered was raising his hand and speaking in some very strange language while watching a faucet come to life.

He was cold. He was so cold. His fingers burned and tingled as if his blood had suddenly been allowed to rush back into them. He was exhausted, but managed to raise his head a few inches.

What he saw was beyond belief. Ginny Potter, the Ginny Potter, was sitting down beside him, gasping in pain as blood dripped slowly from her arm. Beside her, a bloody sword lay on the stone floor and next to it, a tooth… and the diary.

Ginny turned to face him, looking right into his eyes. Her beautiful eyes were full of pain, and yet her words were kind and gentle. She seemed to be fading away.

“Harry, you have to get yourself out. Ronalee is waiting for you at the end of the tunnel. You… have to… get yourself out.”

Harry felt his eyes grow wide as she swayed back and forth, nearly falling over. His head jerked up suddenly as a bird bigger than any he'd ever seen swooped down upon them. It seemed to sense Ginny's pain and it leaned over her arm, letting its hot tears fall into her mortal wound.

As the magic worked its way through her body, Harry felt his heart lift. She was alive! And she was going to be safe now.

And then he realized that she, Ginny Potter, had risked her life to save him. The great Ginny Potter had nearly died, because Harry had been a stupid little boy.

He looked at the ground, feeling his tears trying to escape, but when he looked up again, he couldn't believe what he saw. Ginny was smiling at him, she was actually smiling at him!

Perhaps there was still a chance she could love him after all.

***

A sixteen year old Harry Potter woke with a jerk, his neck muscles sore and his arm tingling from sleeping on it. He grabbed his glasses off his bedside table and put them on, trying to focus on the room around him.

He smiled. He couldn't help it. He just had to smile. The whole thing was absurdly funny, in a weird sort of way.

Putting on his robe, he swept down the stairs, only to find just the person he was seeking sitting in a chair, warming herself by the fire.

“Ginny,” he said, “You'll never believe the dream I just had…”