Ginny

Observations

*A/N: Hi all! This quarantine has me writing like crazy, and I am super excited for where this story is heading. I really appreciated all the comments on the previous chapters. I love hearing what you all are thinking throughout the chapter. Let me know what your predictions are for what is to come. Can't wait to see what you all think. Much love.* 

Ginny flicked the dormitory room open with a quick swish of her wand. Huddled on one bed her three roommates were giggling, hunched over what looked to be a journal sprawled out on Alice's bed. When the door swayed shut behind her all the girls made eye contact with Ginny, a shocked look plastering each of their faces. 

"You're back?" questioned Ruth, in her typical gravely voice. 

Ruth was a short and stocky girl who most people often mistook for a third-year. Come to think of it Ginny was sure she had surpassed Ruth's current height by the spring of their second year. Ruth hailed from a town in Northern Ireland and had one of the deepest accents Ginny had ever heard.

"I reckon" Ginny answered eyes darting to Alice and Bernadette who both still looked too shocked to say anything. 

"We heard you got rather ill, the first day. Wrote you a letter, didn't hear anything." Ruth's eyes were clearly sizing Ginny up and down waiting for her to reveal any sign that something was wrong.

Ginny wasn't certain she knew them enough to say anything about what had actually happened. Throughout their rooming together Ginny had spent hardly any time in their shared room. The first year she was simply too scared to speak to anyone besides her brothers, so she had wasted hour tailing them through corridors. Then she had been possessed by Lord Voldemort, and after that whole ordeal their roommate relationship never truly seemed to recover. Ginny certainly understood why, but regardless of circumstance, she understood she would need to at least up the pleasantries in order to make it through the year.

"I'm sorry, I never received it. Thanks for writing though." Ginny smiled softly, hoping to appear as a nice and normal girl who was very open to making friends with her roommates she now regretted avoiding for the past five years. They had to like her enough to write a letter she thought to herself, that was a good sign at least. 

"Not a shock, my father says that loads of letters are going missing. Things the ministry doesn't want us talking about they are just taking out of circulation. Doesn't surprise me one bit considering what's going on here." Ruth now looked serious her voice getting quieter. 

Ginny knew Ruth's father worked in the Ministry in some high up position, but she wasn't sure Ruth had ever mentioned exactly what he did. Ginny did know though that it paid well enough for Ruth to go on fancy holidays during school breaks, Ruth was constantly packing to go somewhere new. 

"Don't say things like that." Bernadette snapped, recoiling at the intensity of her own voice. 

Bernadette was a quiet girl with elegant shiny blond hair falling just below her shoulders. From what Ginny knew of her, which admittedly was embarrassingly little, she loved to learn. She had never heard Bernadette complain about coursework, which was a popular pass time between the other roommates, though Bernadette rarely spoke at all. This made her most recent outburst all the more unexpected.

"Come on Bernie, not like Ginny's on Snape's team." Alice laughed pushing herself off her bed. 

Ginny noticed Alice had become taller since she had last seen her. Always near the tallest of the class, Alice had dark brown hair and gray-blue eyes. Standing next to Ruth she looked like a mammoth.

"So what's your plan then?" Ruth questioned eyes now locked on Ginny who had set her bags down in the entranceway. 

"You seem to be staying alright. Though you seemed to be staying last time" Alice chuckled, she often found the simplest of observations funny. 

"No real choice. Got to finish the education and all. I assume I really behind and all." The thought of all the course work she must have missed now flooded her mind and Ginny's face paled three shades. 

"Bernie's been doing it for you since you left. A real Ravenclaw." Alice said gesturing at Bernadette who seemed rather stressed as she had now flopped onto her bed eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Ginny was confused by this most recent statement, what sense did it make for Bernadette to be making up the homework she had missed due to her fake and then very real illness.  

"Oh. You don't, you didn't, thanks?" Ginny was too confused to process why her roommate would help her with all her coursework. She knew that Bernadette loved to learn but she was in almost all of the same classes as Ginny so she would have been duplicating the same work. Ginny was also sure everyone was right when they said that sixth-years had exponentially more coursework than any other grade. Bernadette must have spent days making up Ginny's homework for her. 

Bernadette was still staring at the ceiling when she responded, "You know if you ever spent any time with us you would know we really care about you. I was just trying to help out." 

Ginny didn't know what to say until Alice started laughing, observations could be funny.