Chapter Twenty-One
It was close to midnight, and the common room was totally empty. Harry and Ron were engulfed in their fourth game of Wizard Chess. Without warning, the portrait flew open and Hermione bounded in.
“And where have you two been? It’s nearly midnight, and I was beginning to think you’d gotten caught by Filch,” asked Ron coolly. He hated feeling left out.
Ginny plopped onto the floor beside Harry. She seemed utterly normal again. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. He had his friend back again. His brow furrowed upon that thought. Wait. Does she only want to be friends now? he wondered.
“Honestly, Ron,” she said, irritated.
“Hermione landed on her knees next to Ron. She enveloped him in a hug before pulling back and saying excitedly, “We were in the Room of Requirement.”
“So?” asked Harry.
“So! Ginny, do me again!”
“Ooooo,” said the boys.
“No. Not that. Boys are such idiots. Go ahead, Gin.”
Ginny bit her lip, looking around. “We need it to be darker. How about that corner over there?” she offered, pointing.
“Ok. Ron, Harry? Would you go over there with us?”
“What, that dark corner? With you? Whatever you want, Hermione,” Ron said suggestively.
“Oh stop! I’m serious! You have to see this.”
They made it to the dimly-lot corner and sat in a circle. Ginny sat across from Hermione cross-legged, rested her hands on her knees, and closed her eyes. Hermione did also, excepting the closing of her eyes, and said, “Pay attention, but stay completely silent.”
They sat in what looked like a trance for some time. Then, slowly, Ginny opened her eyes and stared into Hermione’s. The pretty girl with long, red hair didn’t blink. Just when Harry was about to interrupt, Ginny spoke. “Turquoise. Organized. Influential, but restless. You have to have a project to focus on, else you will not know what to do, and become scatterbrained.”
“I could have told you that, Gin,” said Ron, disbelievingly.
Hermione squinted at him. “Hold on then.” She tapped her wand on her head and put the
Disillusionment Charm on herself. She seemed to melt into thin air; taking on the color and texture of the floor and walls behind her. The undiscerning viewer might have thought she’d become invisible, but Harry knew better. He recognized it as the very charm Moody used when he was whisked away from Privet Drive before fifth year.
“Hermione?”
“Yes?” said her voice.
“Go to somewhere else in the room, and then do it again. I will look for you,” said Ginny.
“What is this all about? So Hermione’s turquoise. So?”
But Harry had an inkling of what was about to happen. His stomach was somewhere around his ankles. Ginny stood, closed her eyes- thinking, it seemed. This time, it was only seconds before she opened them and visually scanned the room. The boys stood up and followed her when she purposefully strode toward a chair near a table. She reached out with her wand, and tapped Hermione with it, taking off the Disillusionment charm. Hermione appeared once more. “You were trying not to laugh,” Ginny smiled. “I could see it.”
Harry just stood with his eyes wide open, not speaking. Oh no . . . he thought.
Ron was a different story. “What are you going on about? Everyone knows that if you look hard enough, you can see where the air bends. That’s how she found you.”
“Red crackles,” said Ginny simply, still looking at her friend.
“Huh?” asked Ron, confused.
“Fine!” shouted Hermione. “Harry, can we use your invisibility cloak?”
He was shaking inside. She saw me. She saw me, kept running through his mind. Depressed and preoccupied, he turned on his heel and dragged himself upstairs to grab his cloak. Only once did he wonder if it was the big ordeal he was making of it. He still felt miserable the whole way back down. With what felt like sealing his doom, he reluctantly handed his cloak to Hermione.
With a frenzy, she threw it on, and seemed to once more disappear. “Ok. Go Hermione.”
A pause for Ginny to focus, and she opened her eyes. With a grin, she all but skipped toward the notice board and tapped the invisible Hermione on the shoulder. Hermione was obviously feeling triumphant. “Explain that!”
Ron’s mouth was agape. “I can’t.”
“I can see auras.”
“I see that,” said Ron, “But how? Just looking at people?”
“Well, yes and no. There are a lot of technicalities involved. For one, the person has to be looking at me. Second, I have to empty my mind. It helps if that person is in deep concentration, and in a darker area. I can read them more clearly then.”
“What happens if they’re not concentrating?”
“Well, the things they are feeling just flitter in and out, and they’re all mixed up with other emotions; so it looks like they feel everything all at once.”
“You probably can’t read Ron, then,” said Hermione vindictively.
“Hey!”
Ginny stuck her nose into the air. “Red. Rays of pink. Sparkles of white.”
“Pink? Pink? What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Ron, feeling ganged up on.
“That’s for you to decide, Ron. But I’ve seen it a lot in your aura when you look at Hermione.”
The couple blushed intensely.
“Of course, you weren’t concentrating. You were angry, and your aura reflected that. You’d probably be a different color if we really tried.”
Harry knew then what was coming. She hadn’t looked at him this entire time. He was mortified. She’d seen him the night before, all of two feet away, and he’d nearly touched her. Did she see him leave? Did she follow?”
“All right,” said Hermione, “We’ll do Ron first, then Harry.”
He saw Ginny’s eyes flicker at him, then look down. She knew more than she was letting on. He sighed. Someday, they would have to talk.
They returned to the corner, and sat in a circle. This time, Ginny faced Ron. “Now, I need you to concentrate on yourself. Think of your past, who you are, and who you want to be. Keep your eyes open, and stare directly into my eyes.” Ron took a breath, and seemed to fall asleep with his eyes open. He only blinked once. When Ginny opened her eyes, she stared at him. “Red-orange. I feel like you are sometimes care-free, materialistic and passionate. You have dark thoughts that streak through all the time. Sorrowful. You have pink streaks. You are thinking of someone you care deeply for.”
When she finished, Ron looked down at the floor and nodded. Ginny bit her lip, holding back something, it would seem. She went over and hugged her brother. “Don’t listen to them. No. It won’t happen.”
They remained there for a moment. Ron looked shaken, and Ginny held him, willing him to fight against whatever personal demon he was battling. Eventually, he’d calmed, saying “Ok. Ok.”
Harry and Hermione felt like intruders in a family’s domain. They’d never fully comprehended how close the Weasley’s were, despite their quarrels. They’d never before fully thought about how much they had at stake. Although, Harry could remember another time, when Mrs. Weasley was attempting to get rid of a boggart, and kept seeing images of a dead Ron, a dead George, a dead Mr. Weasley...
After a long moment, Hermione tactfully cleared her throat. “Can we try Harry now?”
The boy with the lightening scar took his place in front of Ginny. Attempting to give him the opportunity to escape, she asked, “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s just do it.”
“Concentrate on all that you are.”
Harry could tell she was using all of her strength to clear her head. She felt as if she had to do it; to prove she could be in Harry’s presence without falling to pieces, as she had that morning. It was something she had to prove to herself.
She took the customary moment to collect herself and empty her mind. It took longer than with the other two. Harry focused as best he could, but so much of his thoughts were things he didn’t care to think about. He did it anyway. Images of all that he was flashed through his mind: Sirius, the Mirror of Erised, Quidditch, the Dursley’s, Cho, Cedric, Voldemort, Lupin, and the Weasley’s, among many more. Then, without warning, Ginny was staring hard into his soul. He felt as if he was laid bare to her. When he looked into those flashing eyes, he realized he only saw that power in two other people: Dumbledore and Voldemort.
A seemingly misdirected tear found its way down the path of her cheek. The others saw this, and made to interrupt, afraid she was being hurt. She threw her hands out to stop them. It was something she had to do. “There is darkness. Sorrow. Browns and Grays. Misfortune. You feel trapped with no way of escape. Defenseless.” She squinted her eyes. “I see white. You have a strong connection to something . . . otherworldly. There is an ancient quality. But more to it. You are close to them . . . so close,” she whispered.
“Oh! You’ve changed,” she said, taken unexpectedly. “Gold. So much gold. Strength. Determination. There is something you must do, can do, will do. You’ll not stop. It’s beautiful; it’s kind. There is much pink. It is strong, filtering, weaving in and out. It radiates. So powerful! Ow!”
Ginny’s hand went to her forehead as blinding pain overtook her. Hermione rushed to her side. “What is it? Are you ill? Shall I fetch Madam Pomphrey?”
Harry knew what had happened. It was the same feeling when he was taking Occlumency. She’d gone too deep. Inadvertently, he’d sent some kind of hex at her without his wand.
“No,” she whispered in answer to Hermione. A minute had passed before she slowly used great effort to look at Harry. Her face looked as if she had dunked her face underwater. Wet, with a red nose and red-rimmed eyes, she looked at Harry with the most compassionate visage he’d ever seen. Her breath caught momentarily when their eyes connected. She smiled at him. “It will be all right. I promise, Harry. It’ll be ok.”
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Her headache was still searing twenty minutes later, so Hermione helped walk her up to the girls’ dormitories. Ron wanted to help, but knew the stairs would turn into a slide. He’d learned that from a previous experience. Soon after the girls turned in, Ron and Harry trudged up to their own beds. Ron looked uncertain. “Do you think she’s right?”
“I think so . . .” was all he could manage.
They moved in silence; changing into their bed clothes. In the darkness, Harry could see the whites of his friend’s eyes. “Tomorrow?” he whispered.
Harry nodded. Ron couldn’t have seen it, but seemed to understand anyway. He pulled his curtains closed and just sat. Thoughts were racing through his head with blinding fury, but one person kept standing out: Ginny. He couldn’t explain why, but he was apprehensive about her, and couldn’t stop thinking it, even as he drifted off to sleep.
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Flashes of brilliantly colored pictures. Electric blue. Mountainous landscape. Orange, leaping fire. A lake of blood. Wide, brown eyes; unblinking. Teeth with unnatural points to them. A creaky wooden door. A crying, dark-haired baby; its screaming mother holding it to her breast. A loud thumping. Louder. Louder. Blood.
Silence.