The Newbie (Gistoria)(Completed)

Chapter Nine - Guilt and its Hold

Ginny sat in her dormitory praying that whatever caused the incident wasn't too bad, and that her friends would make a quick recovery. It was unfortunate enough in itself, but they were given veritaserum because they refused to reveal why they had so many scars and scrapes. Turns out each and every single one of them were given the injuries by their own parents for reasons unknown. Still, there was no explanation for what caused them to reopen.

"Um, Ginny?" Hermione said, "I understand you must be feeling guilty -"

"No Hermione," she replied bitterly, "you don't understand. Their parents had been hitting them the whole time while we blamed them for everything. Even after becoming friends they didn't trust me."

"But, surely you knew they were facing problems at home. I mean, it's more obvious when you know, but they were put under a lot of pressure."

"Well, maybe you should've spoken to them, maybe they wouldn't've been so mean if we had listened."

"Gin," Ron started, "I understand you're upset with us, but we didn't know. And they had been total gits to us."

"Ron's right," Harry chimed in, "we aren't proud of what we did, but if they weren't abused you wouldn't be taking their side."

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Ginny exclaimed.

"It just means that you used to think like we did."

"Well, I'm going to go visit them. Don't bother following me."

And with that Ginny left the Gryffindor common room with a heavy heart knowing her friends were right but not wanting to admit it. She went up to the hospital wing instead of going to breakfast because she was too worried to eat and young students might bombard her with questions since she was there. A few students glanced at her in the corridors, but other than that there was no congregating with anyone else. When she arrived, she saw that Draco and the few seventh years came out without Astoria.

They explained that she was in worse shape than them and she would have to stay another few hours. Apparently she had almost bled to death. At this news Ginny felt something twist her heart as she realised that Astoria could've died. It couldn't be, had the red head really fallen for the younger brunette? Sure, she had formed a friendship with the girl, and maybe the Slytherins joked about it, but that couldn't possibly be true could it. Was her heart aching from the news Astoria could've died? The answer; yes.

Meanwhile inside the hospital wing Astoria was having a very different thought, not at all about possibly returning the Gryffindors feelings, but about possibly dying. The potion sped up the process of her blood curse and now, she would die at the age of eighteen. She would never admit it, but she secretly hoped that the potion would kill her, she had hoped that the burden of living would be lifted. But, she didn't want to hurt her friends, she had always thought it selfish to wish such a thing and now, she wasn't so sure what was right or wrong.

She also found out that cutting herself would not only relieve the pain, but it also sped up the process painlessly. Did Astoria care? Not as much as she probably should. Of course she cared that she would end up meeting her demise a lot sooner than expected, but she didn't care in the sense of not wanting this. she cared because it meant she might not have to face the horrid curse for too long. She cared because she had always felt like a burden, she had started distancing herself from others, but only because they would end up losing someone and she didn't want that for anyone.

"We found what caused it," Madam Pomfrey began, "and unfortunately, it caused not only previous scars to open, but created new ones."

"That's not good," Astoria replied not really knowing what to say.

"Your friends didn't get the same affect, but they also could've died. There is a reason the potion is illegal."

"Potion?"

"Someone poured Vetes Ostenderum on you." (I'm explaining this because why not. I put 'old' and 'scars' in google translate and found what it was in Latin. That's where the name comes from.)

"What does it do?"

"It reopens old wounds and in your case, also creates new ones."

"Who would use a potion like that? and why did they use it on us?"

"They probably didn't think you would have any scars to open, nonetheless the culprit will be expelled."

Ginny soon burst in and ran up to Astoria with her arms open, wrapping the Slytherin with her warm embrace. Astoria was stunned by the action, and also felt a little guilty because in the end Ginny would only lose her. Astoria knew she would have to distance herself from everyone, and she would always refuse the help she so desperately needed because not only did she hate having to live with a curse, she hated having to live. So, she ought to start pushing people away now, before its too late and someone ends up loving her...

-~-

Ginny went to quidditch practice later that day as their first game would be against Slytherin and Harry still didn't know who their new seeker was. Ginny explained to him that Astoria was in fact their new seeker and he thought of how she was currently in the hospital wing. He would never let someone win, but he wasn't sure as to whether they would end up playing against Slytherin because of that. Of course, Ginny wasn't sure either, and if they didn't go against Slytherin they'd be against Hufflepuff. 

It was for that reason that they practised to verse either house and trained for their play style. Once practise was over Ginny was covered in mud. She went to the prefects bathroom instead of the normal ones because their would most likely be less people and she didn't want to deal with big crowds at that moment. She entered the bathroom to find Slytherin prefect Theodore Nott sitting on the floor huddled in a corner shaking.

"Stupid howlers!!" he screamed, "Why do they even exist!?"

Ginny was confused but decided comforting the poor boy was more important than having a shower. She sat next to him and saw a bruised and tear stained face belonging to Theodore. She thought maybe students had beat him up, but they wouldn't do that and he said something about a howler. She gave up on thinking up a theory and decided to ask what happened.

"A stupid howler happened!" he exclaimed, "And I can't work this bloody concealment charm!"

"Wait," she started, "is that why we never knew? Because you used concealment charms?"

"Yes. We all hoped Hogwarts could be an escape, a safe place, but no, bloody parents have to send howlers every other week. And now they know how to hex through them so it's twice as bad as it was -"

"Wait, a howler can beat someone up?"

"Not normal ones no. But the ones our parents have got, yes. It's what happened on the Hogwarts Express. Draco had gotten a howler and Blaise copped a little bit of it. Astoria was called over because she's good with healing magic."

"Wait, so while Harry and Ron assumed you had hurt someone, they were helping Draco and Blaise with a howler?"

"Yep. It's why we got so upset."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not like you knew. If I was in their place I probably would've done the same thing. Knowing that helps me stay sane."

Ginny talked with Theodore until she finally had to shower and clean all of the mud off herself. She stepped into a shower and cleaned the filth off herself and just as she turned the water off she heard someone come in. quickly drying and getting dressed she heard the tap start running and winces of pain. Once Ginny was ready she stepped out to look at who it was but they had disappeared and didn't appear to be in the bathroom anymore.

There was a dripping tap and Ginny noticed the sink itself was stained pink and had droplets of a crimson liquid looking to be blood. Ginny had hoped whoever it was, was okay because she could only guess at what happened. Maybe they tripped over, maybe they got into a fight, maybe they even got bullied. But Ginny had not even considered the sinister truth. she never thought of it, but Astoria was the student, and I think we both know why she was bleeding.

      -Turtlefreakakw2 <3