Ginny Weasley and the Heir of Slytherin

Secrets

It turned out that Harry wasn't expelled after all. In fact, through some miracle, Dumbledore had let him go without taking a single point from Gryffindor.

In the meantime, Ginny had fallen back into writing in the diary. She knew it was wrong and that she was only hurting herself as well as everyone else, but she just couldn't stop herself. She had vowed to herself more times than she could count that she would never write to Tom Riddle ever again, but she could never resist it for very long. He provided the very little joy left in her life — and that wasn't really so much joy as it was slightly eased pain.

As long as the attacks continued, Ginny simply couldn't get by without Tom Riddle's kind words assuring her that she wasn't going through this all alone. But the attacks would only continue so long as she wrote to him. And thus she was trapped in a vicious cycle. She knew she must be a bad person for continuing to write to him, but Tom Riddle was the only friend she had in the scary, confusing life she now led. Writing to him was wrong — so wrong its wrongness made her head spin — but the alternative was to embrace absolute misery and loneliness.

What would become of her? Not too long ago, Ginny had dreamed excitedly about what her future might hold, but now she couldn't see beyond the mess she had fallen into. She didn't know if or perhaps when she would be expelled. What if someone died in the next attack? Would they send her straight to Azkaban? She was only eleven, but if someone died and she'd known writing in the diary could potentially cause deaths, wouldn't that make her a murderer? And surely anyone who committed murder would be sent to Azkaban. Her father had once visited the wizarding prison on Ministry business and said it was the most awful place he had ever been.

As horrible as she knew Azkaban must be, Ginny would rather go there than just be expelled if it meant she would have to move back to the Burrow forever — and look at her parents' faces every day knowing that she had shamed them beyond belief. There was no way whatever torture existed within Azkaban could be worse than that. Ginny considered that she might even commit suicide if that happened. After all, what would she have to live for at that point? Tom Riddle told her there was nothing worse than death, but Ginny quite disagreed.

With most of the students understandably impatient to leave school for the Christmas holidays, it was the fear of that kind of shame which made Ginny decide to remain at Hogwarts with her brothers, Harry, and Hermione. Even with her parents not knowing what she'd done, there was just no way she could bring herself to face them. Maybe if none of this had happened, Ginny would have stayed at Hogwarts anyway for the fun of it, but now she couldn't even imagine herself being happy. Any recollection she had of feeling an emotion other than despair, guilt, fear, or loneliness felt like it was from a really, really long time ago.

Fleeta Fleece and Kimmy Seong were returning home, but Lorelei's father was apparently "too busy" to have her. This meant it fell to Ginny to "take care of" Lorelei while Kimmy was away. The day the rest of the students left, Ginny had to take back everything she had ever thought about Kimmy treating Lorelei too much like a baby. Lorelei truly acted like a baby, first refusing to let go of Kimmy when they hugged goodbye and then throwing a temper-tantrum quite inappropriate for someone who was eleven years old.

"Please, let me come with you!" she begged tearfully. "I'll be very quiet — you won't even know I'm there — I won't even talk — I'll do anything!"

"Bye," said Kimmy, appearing oblivious to Lorelei's stare-generating outburst, as she waved and boarded the Hogwarts Express.

"NO!" Lorelei shouted desperately as Ginny held her back to prevent her from running onto the train. "Please, stay! Or let me go with you! I'll be very, very good! You won't even know I'm there! I won't even make a sound at all! Just let me come!"