Cross-posted from AO3.

Please note the timeline for both series in this is very... handwavy. For one thing, this takes place during Half Blood Prince, and post-series for YuGiOh, which doesn't really match up at all. So. HANDWAVE.

It's not that Ginny hates her mother– far from it. She's not even angry with her, really. It's just that Molly Weasley is on the fast track to becoming an empty nester, it's that Bill's getting married and Charlie lives in another country, it's that no one has talked to Percy in months.

It's that Ginny is the youngest and her mother is suffocating her.

"Just for a few days," she tells Fred and George. They both glance at each other and shrug.

"Beats the time you tried to hide in Percy's trunk," Fred says.

"If only you'd come to us," George laments. "We would have smuggled you into Hogwarts, dear sister."

Ginny rolls her eyes and affectionately shoves through them to drag her suitcase up the stairs. "Wasn't that the year you tried to sneak in itching powder and the packet burst?"

"I don't remember anything like that," says George, flicking his wand to levitate Ginny's bag. She lets it go and turns to skip up the stairs. "What do you think, Fred?"

"Me neither," says Fred, gesturing for George to go ahead with an exaggerated bow. "I definitely don't remember it poofing up in a cloud of malicious itchiness when we unpacked."

"No, of course not," says George. "I have absolutely no recollection of Mum sending us a howler about contaminating the entire dorm, either."

The flat over Weasleys Wizard Wheezes has only one bedroom, and the living in room is filled with boxes. Fred picks a box off the couch, drops it on the floor, and makes a big show of fluffing the pillows for Ginny.

"Home sweet home," he says.

/

A week later, Ginny is still crashing on her brothers' couch, and her father has visited twice to try to persuade her to come home.

"I can't even do my homework without Mum hovering over me," Ginny tells him. "Besides, Fred and George need help. Have you seen this place?"

She waves a hand at the mild chaos of the living room. They've got a store room in the back that's even worse.

Not that Ginny has actually been helping them. She's mostly been wandering Diagon Alley– making faces at bird in the Owl Emporium, working through her homework over cups of ice cream, and sitting in the back of Flourish and Blott's and reading through The Scandalous, Scintillating, Sumptuous Life of Gilderoy Lockhart. She doesn't read the last couple of chapters about his year at Hogwarts because it brings up memories that make her stomach twist, but she does look at the pictures.

He was too handsome for his own good, she writes to Luna. Remember Patil offering Creevey a whole galleon for photographs? His photos don't even move!

She hesitates on the next part of her letter, rolling her quill between her fingers.

It's boring here without you. When are you coming to visit?

It is boring, she realizes, now that's she's written it. Fred and George are fun, but they're always working. She finally has the freedom to do whatever she wants, and she wastes it in the same handful of shops every day.

She cooks dinner for Fred and George (which she burns and they tease her relentlessly about, but they eat anyway) and asks if she can help them, with something.

"As long as you promise never to step foot in our kitchen again," George tells her solemnly.

/

There's a large box in the stockroom labeled "ASK BILL," which contains a collection of random junk Fred and George definitely should not have.

Apparently they'd successfully snuck into Knockturn Alley more times than even Ginny had known; a lot of the things are just stuff they thought looked interesting when they were younger. There's also a probably-cursed tea set they'd lifted off a Slytherin classmate "for the good of mankind," two artifacts left over from their trip to Egypt, and a hand mirror that was probably a prank but might also be showing her her death.

Ginny examines the mirror. In it, she sees herself drowning, seaweed wrapped around her and preventing her from swimming.

Boring, she thinks, and that thought is enough to make her think the mirror is probably harmless. She wraps it carefully in parchment to run down to Fleur at Gringotts. Hopefully there's nothing so dangerous she can't just walk it over to be passed on to Bill at the end of the day.

The probably-cursed tea set starts hissing and heats up to glowing temperatures when she pokes a cup with her wand, so she very carefully moves them into a box she charms against burning. The painstaking process of moving the set piece by piece without burning herself is reminiscent of her past summer, cleaning up that horrible house on Grimmauld Place. She remembers feeling controlled and locked away then, too, but at least she had excitement around her.

Ginny sighs heavily and moves on to the two objects the twins pilfered from Egypt. She thinks they probably thought the cursebreakers would catch them. They've ended up with stolen items they didn't want before because they'd assumed they'd be caught. It was a dangerous way to conduct business, and they'd mostly grown out of it.

The first object she's pretty sure is a toy. It's shaped vaguely like a crocodile. She casts a few diagnostic spells on it– she learned a lot of those last summer– and they all come up negative. She wraps it in paper and turns to the other item.

It's a large gold ring, a little smaller than her hand outstretched. Five decorative spikes dangle from it, also gold. In the center is a molded eye, which she dimly recognizes as a symbol of protection. The eye of… someone. She didn't take Ancient Runes.

(Luna did. Ginny should have waited on sending that letter. Luna would know, and if she didn't, she'd have some highly entertaining theories.)

He diagnostic spells all come up negative, so she wraps the ring in paper and puts it with the toy and the mirror.

/

Ginny remembers walking to Gringotts with two boxes piled on top of each other. She remembers an incredibly awkward and passive aggressive conversation with Fleur. She remembers walking out of the bank.

And then, next thing she knows, it's dark and she's in the middle of a muggle park.

Her breath catches and she has a few moments of panic. Her world spins and she hears his voice in her head again, all silky and reasonable and telling her terrible things–

She crashes into a rubbish bin, a metal installment in the park, and bounces off. She blinks down at it. Muggle. Park. Night.

She looks around her. There's no one in sight, but London's skyline produces enough light pollution that she can see perfectly well. There are well manicured pathways and grass someone's obviously been tending.

Her body is weak with its own trembling, and she sits on a bench. She's fine, she tells herself. He can't be back; Harry destroyed the diary. She's fine.

She pats herself down to reassure herself. Legs– still there, if shakey. She still has her wand.

She's wearing the ring.

It's hanging from her neck on a leather cord, which she doesn't remember it having before.

Her hands still.

She is not doing this again. She rips the ring from her neck and slams it into the bin with all the force of a beater batting off a bludger. She draws her wand and sets the entire receptacle on fire.

Her legs are stiff and she lopes away as fast as she can in a random direction. She'll get somewhere eventually.

/

She eventually gets to the fence ringing the park, which she follows to a locked gate. She climbs it easily enough, and a sign on the other side informs her that she has just escaped from Hyde Park.

That is, at least, a famous enough place that she's heard of it. It doesn't do her much good, though, because the only muggle landmark she really knows in London is King's Cross.

The surrounding neighborhood seems fairly posh, all fancy looking white row houses, so she's surprised to find several hostels. She goes into one that still has its office lit up, and a clock on the wall behind the desk informs her it's past three o'clock in the morning.

"Hi," she greets, and the man behind the desk looks up from his magazine. The cover has some glossy photo of a muggle celebrity, staring up at Ginny with her creepy unmoving eyes. "Do you have any rooms free?"

The man squints at her. Ginny knows she is a fifteen year old girl alone in a big city late at night, and that is strange. She smiles encouragingly at him.

"Right," the man finally says with the intonation of someone who's too tired to ask. "We've got a spare bed in the six person dorm, and two in the twelve person…"

He goes on to describe several other types of dorms, each more uncomfortable than the last, and Ginny wonders if she should just go back outside and hail the Knight Bus. But she's also very, very tired, crashing from the rush of panic, and she's rather just fall asleep in the nearest available bed.

"I'll take the cheapest one," she says, reaching into her pocket. She realizes she's never touched muggle currency in her life. She pulls out her coin purse, fully prepared to illegally transfigure up some muggle coins. It's been stuffed full with paper.

"I have…" she says, staring at her coin purse in disbelief, "...money."

The paper is, indeed, muggle bills. She has no idea where they came from. When she gets to her shared room, she slips into the bathroom and strips off her clothes. She has a bruise across one shin. There's a card from the muggle underground in her sock. Her back pocket contains a plastic card with numbers whose purpose she cannot guess.

Ginny sits on the toilet lid. This is not something to cry about. It's not. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. She just has to think of one.

She splashes some cold water on her face and goes to bed.

/

A woman wakes her in the morning, yelling for her to get out so she can clean. Ginny leaves the hostel and wanders around muggle London for a bit– she finds a street market, with all sorts of interesting muggle things. She uses her mysteriously procured money to buy her father a handheld vacuum, then buys herself a pair of gaudy sunglasses.

She gets back in time to pass some muggle fried goods on to her brothers for lunch.

"Where'd you get off to?" Fred asks, shoving chips in his face.

"Got a little lost," Ginny says. She still hasn't taken her sunglasses off. "Stayed in a muggle hostel."

"Mum's gonna have a heart attack," George says approvingly.

She doesn't tell them about the ring because she knows that will get her sent back home immediately. It wasn't really dangerous, she thinks. She gets weird bruises all the time from Quidditch, and her little romp in the park turned into a fun adventure.

Besides, she got rid of it immediately. She'd learned her lesson, the last time.

George teaches her how to run the register in the afternoon, and at dinner time a bat appears with Luna's reply. The twins make a big fuss over it– Luna's Mercutio is a rust-colored flying fox and quite striking.

Luna's letter is three full pages, and Ginny reads them while curled up under her covers on the couch. Two of the pages are just Luna describing the appearance and personalities of the different flobberworms she's found in her garden. She asks Ginny for opinions on names for them all.

Ginny falls asleep with a grin on her face.

/

What are you?

The voice jolts Ginny awake. She gropes for her wand and casts lumos to illuminate the room. No one is there.

Her heart is still pounding. She definitely heard a voice. It had been– it had had a hint of wonder in it, but it had been–

It had been in her head.

Her wand hand is shaking, sending erratic shadows across the room.

It wasn't his voice, though. Too rough. The wrong accent. She takes ten deep breaths, counting on the inhale and exhale.

She glances down at herself. The ring is on her lap.

/

She leaves immediately. Whatever this is, she doesn't want Fred and George in danger. She marches out of the shop, her wand in one hand and the ring in the other.

The sun hasn't even risen properly, and all the shops on Diagon Alley are still closed. Her first instinct is to run to Gringotts and demand Fleur produce Bill, but not even the bank is open, and she's fairly certain Bill is on business in Spain.

Her second instinct is to go the ministry and turn the ring in. That could go wrong for her in a lot of ways, though. She'd have to explain where the ring came from, first of all, and that could get Fred and George in trouble. And she'd have to admit to her mum and dad she'd fallen for the same trick twice, that she was still just a silly child in a dangerous world.

She bites her lip and heads toward Knockturn Alley.

The shops here are just as closed, but there are more people wandering around– weird people, the type she doesn't want to talk to. Or make eye-contact with.

She paces the alley twice before a shop opens, and she goes inside and dumps the ring on the counter.

"I'd like to sell this," she says. She pitches her voice low to hide her fear, and it comes out sounding like she'd been smoking her entire life.

The woman behind the desk– who looks like she's probably at least part hag– eyes Ginny for a beat before peering down at the ring. She takes out her wand and hovers it over it, muttering charms that aren't the Latin-based ones Ginny's learned all her life.

"I need to speak to the proprietor," the woman says, finally. "He'll want to examine it."

She reaches to pick up the ring.

Don't let her, the voice in Ginny's head demands.

Ginny smiles and nods. She doesn't care if the woman steals the ring, as long as she steals it well enough it doesn't reappear on Ginny's person.

Don't let her, the voice repeats, and Ginny blacks out.

/

She comes back, and it's like trying to swim through pudding. Her brain is sluggish and all her senses are dull, but the light outside hasn't changed much, so she's either only lost a few minutes or an entire twenty-four hours.

The ring is around her neck now. The hag-woman and a man are both collapsed on the floor.

You're back, the voice says, surprised.

"Who are you?" Ginny snarls. "Get out of my head!"

I'm a thief, the voice says simply and ignores her command. You should be thanking me. They would have hurt you for my ring.

Ginny scowls the the ring. That's entirely possible in this part of town, but she's also not inclined to take the word of a disembodied spirit.

"I can take care of myself," she says.

I'm sure you can, the thief says in a way that makes her imagine him examining his nails. But I like to repay my landlords.

"What did you do to them?" Ginny asks. They're breathing, at least.

We just played a game, the voice promises in such an innocuous way that it sends chills down Ginny's spine. They lost.

Ginny crosses the room in three long steps. There's three pots of floo powder on the mantle of the fireplace, and one's marked for international deliveries. She tosses a handful in.

"Moscow," she says, and tosses in the ring. It disappears into a roar of blue-green flames.

/

Ginny writes back to Luna with names for her flobberworms, most of which she gets from a book on ancient magics of Northern Africa. She doesn't find anything about the ring in the book, but she does learn the eye is probably either the Eye of Horus or the Eye of Ra, depending if it's the left or the right.

She doesn't think the eye has a right or a left, and she sketches it for Luna.

This thing had an awful lot to say, she writes. It's an innocent enough statement– things talk in the wizarding world all the time. Is there a way to test the intelligence of inanimate objects, I wonder? Do you think I could use it to sing me awake with Weird Witches in the morning?

Luna writes back with updates on all the flobberworms: Thoth has died, and Nekhbet and Bast are in mourning. She also writes a page on the famous work of Darnell Flowers, who adapted the work of a muggle named Alan Turing to test speaking objects for sentience.

When Ginny asks about it at Flourish and Blotts, no one has heard of a Darnell Flowers. Luckily, Luna has recommended an obscure book on the matter, and they order a copy for Ginny.

Summer isn't even half over, and Ginny has already finished her summer homework and ordered a book for extra research. She feels remarkably and disgustingly like Hermione Granger, who, now that she thinks about it, is scheduled to visit the Burrow in a few weeks.

Maybe she'll go visit then. With both Hermione and Harry to distract her mother, the Burrow might be bearable again. Besides, Ron and Harry and Hermione are probably all good candidates for helping her with the ring issue.

Or maybe she won't. She'll see how she feels.

/

She notices it this time when the ring reappears. It's a violent rip through her mind, like hearing a scream from far away.

She's organizing the stock room when she feels it, and sure enough, it's sitting on top of the next box of Peruvian darkness powder she goes to open.

You're back, she thinks dully at it.

That was quite a trip, it says back to her. Its tone has a bizarre combination of anger and amusement in it. You know you could send me to the bottom of the sea and I'd come back. You're my landlord.

And how are you paying rent? Ginny asks. I didn't like my last tenant so much, so I threw him out.

There is a long silence form the ring.

Ah, it says eventually. So that's why you're so strong.

Damn straight, Ginny thinks back. It's silent for the several days.

/

She tries leaving the ring under a couch cushion, but it inevitably reappears in her bag while she's out, or in a kitchen drawer when she's making sandwiches, or in the medicine cabinet while she's in the shower. She gives up and starts wearing it everywhere.

On Friday Fred and George go out with Lee Jordan for some sort of summertime nonsense, so Ginny's alone for the night. She blasts the radio and goes through some standard floor exercises. Most of the boxes have migrated downstairs to give her room, and she will be in peak condition for quidditch.

Then, in the middle of doing crunches, there's a boy staring down at her. Ginny yelps, flips herself over, and shoots a stunning charm at him. It goes right through.

The boy just raises his eyebrows at her, unimpressed. He's darkly tan, with wild white hair and deep scars on his face. He's also transparent, and slightly faded around the edges.

"Oh," says Ginny, pretending to relax. "It's you."

The boy is a few years older than her, but on the short side. He's wearing some type of skirt and a red coat with no shirt underneath.

"Are you really from ancient Egypt?" Ginny asks, incredulous.

He doesn't acknowledge the question, instead looking her up and down critically. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall casually.

"Who was your last tenant?" he asks.

"Landlords keep their tenants' information confidential," Ginny answers smartly. She mimics his casualness by stretching. The boy eyes her suspiciously.

"I'm sure it's no one you know," Ginny says helpfully. "Unless you know a lot of mid-century British wizards."

She doubts this, as Fred and George supposedly found the ring in some tomb. She remembered it, vaguely, once her brothers told her the story– muggle interference had caused the entrance to collapse, and the artefacts to all shift and get lost in the sand. Bill's team had been surveying it for wizarding crafts before the local authorities sealed it all back up.

The boy seems a bit less tense after that, then turns to look out the window.

"No offense," Ginny says, stretching in the opposite direction now, "but if you're an evil spirit, I'd rather you just be upfront about it."

The boy snorts, derisive.

"I'm not going to hurt you or your silly brothers," he says. A mean smile curls at his lips. "I'm a grateful tenant."

He flickers out of existence. Ginny absolutely does not like his tone, but she believes him enough to feel less guilty about keeping him in the house.

True horrors, after all, never lie. They don't need to.

/

Luna finally writes that she's going to visit, and Ginny decides to go into muggle London in order to find her something really bizarre.

She'll also get some batteries for the vacuum she bought her father. She's not really sure what batteries are, exactly, but word on the street is he'll need them to get the vacuum working.

She goes into the first electronics store she sees, and sort of blindly wanders through the narrow aisles. She has absolutely no idea what anything is. The shop is stuffy and the smell of mildew is barely covered by a scent like vapors from a misbrewed potion.

You just passed the batteries, the ring spirit says. She can't decide if he's mocking her or not.

How does an ancient spirit know what a battery is? Ginny asks, backtracking to examine the display. To her dismay, muggles have lots of different types of batteries, and she doesn't know which type she needs.

You think you're my first landlord?

Ginny hums and picks out an array of batteries, hoping at least one works.

That's interesting information, she thinks. So someone must've taken him out of that tomb, and then put him back. Who would do that? Why?

Did the ring stop stalking them once it was returned?

The batteries are more expensive than she expects. She has to put two back and uses up almost all her muggle money. The ring spirit laughs at her.

Was that my money you used? He asks as she leaves the shop, weird crinkly plastic bag in hand. She's sure now he's definitely mocking her.

What's it to you? Ginny asks. It's part of your rent.

She's halfway back to the Leaky Cauldron when the ring spirit asks, Do you want more?

Ginny pauses. Saying yes is a bad idea. It's a trick, and she knows it. But. Well. She does want more money– she'd blown through her muggle money quickly because it felt like toy money to her. She gets pocket change from working at the twins' shop, which is fine for occasionally buying herself new socks or a glass of pumpkin juice, but she doesn't have the minimum to convert to muggle currency.

She had been really looking forward to giving Luna something.

Alright, she agrees. Show me what you've got.

She knows what's coming, and this time she manages to hang on when he wrestles her body away from her mind. It's like clinging to the back of a broomstick as it zooms through a storm, but she can do it. She's done it before.

(Tom Riddle never let her stay awake when he made her do terrible things, never told her what those terrible things were– but she remembers some of the later possessions, the way she remembers childhood nightmares.)

She justifies it to herself: she needs to know what this entity is capable of, and she'd rather have a precedent of him asking to possess her than just taking her over whenever he feels.

The spirit walks her body into the London Underground and casually hops a turnstile. Ginny has been on the tube once, as a sort of family adventure with her parents and Ron to pick her other brothers up from school one year. She remembers it being terrifying and exciting; London has more people than the entirety of Great Britain's wizarding population, and that meant more noise and chaos than Ginny had ever seen in her life.

It's still a little exciting, she thinks, and that excitement she feels deep in her mind clashes with how calm her body is under the ring spirit's control. Either the spirit has nerves of steel, or whoever was this spirit's previous victim must have lived in a big city.

The spirit switches to another car, subtly eyeing its occupants. Ginny suddenly realizes what he's planning to do.

Just make sure it's a rich bastard, she tells him. Or she tries to tell him; her mental voice is weak and he doesn't acknowledge her.

He follows a man in an expensive looking suit off the train, and slips the man's wallet out of his pocket. Ginny is impressed; even though she can see all the same details, she hadn't been able to pick out where the man's billfold was. The spirit removes something from the wallet and then calls for the old man.

"Excuse me, sir," he says, making her voice sound sweeter than she's ever managed. "You dropped this."

The man thanks the spirit, then shoves his wallet back in his pocket and pats her shoulder. The spirit stiffens ever so slightly at his touch but keeps smiling.

People do that when you're a girl, Ginny tells him sarcastically. I hope you got a lot off him.

The spirit just grunts and then her body slips into the crowd exiting to aboveground. It's busy outside, busier than Hogwarts when classes are changing, and the spirit plucks money out of the pockets of a group of American tourists he winds through. Their guide doesn't even notice him.

The spirit then wanders through the streets a bit, pausing once to examine the window of a game shop, and Ginny considers demanding her body back. Then he enters a fancy restaurant and asks for a table for one.

The host looks critical– Ginny is wearing one of her nicer dresses, but it's secondhand and threadbare– but the spirit flashes a plastic card he took off the man on the tube.

"Daddy's paying," he says nicely with Ginny's voice.

Ginny has no idea what any of that means. Are those plastic cards some type of muggle money she doesn't know about? She asks the spirit.

It's a credit card, he tells her. Don't you know basic things?

Ginny doesn't really see why she should bother with muggle things like that, but she badgers the spirit for an explanation anyway while he skims the menu.

It's basically unlimited money until that man cancels it, he says cagily. Ginny thinks he probably doesn't understand how it works either. She says as much, and he proves her right by changing the conversation all together. I don't like the way he treated us. Don't you want revenge?

She does, a little bit, but she doesn't admit it. Instead she tells him to get the most expensive item on the menu, then.

He orders his steak extra rare, which gets a raised eyebrow from the waiter and is not at all what Ginny would have picked. Then again, the spirit also convinces them to bring a full bottle of wine, which she appreciates.

The spirit gives her her body back after he pays, and she walks out of the restaurant feeling very full and kind of drunk.

Hurry up and buy what you want with that card, the spirit tells her, then he goes silent.

Ginny blunders into a clothing store and buys two sparkling vests, one covered in gold sequins and one in silver. They're hideous and too heavy to be comfortable and expensive for no reason. Luna is going to love hers.

Ginny uses cash to buy herself a bag of candies in a muggle grocery store which she wastes almost half an hour in because it is fascinating, and her inebriated brain suddenly and briefly understands something about her father.

A handful of "gummy bears" later, Ginny is sober enough to realize she should get a head start on Christmas shopping while she can. She tries to by her mother a new pan set and the store clerk informs her the card has been rejected.

"So it doesn't work anymore?" Ginny asks, squinting.

"You should call your card provider," the clerk says dully. "Have you got another method of payment?"

Ginny just leaves then, and goes back to Diagon Alley. She's two hours late for the shift she promised she'd work.

/

"Father's got some business at Gringotts," Luna says breezily, "so we've got all day."

Ginny grins and leads her back to Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, where Fred and George spot them through the window and both fight to open the door for them. Ginny gets to it first.

Luna laughs at the silver vest and puts it on immediately. Ginny slips her own gold one on, and they go back out into Diagon Alley looking like queens.

"The light will probably confuse wrackspurts," Luna says as they head for the Magical Menagerie. "Which is good for us now, but I'll have to remember to take it off to help father test his new Spectrespecs."

Ginny listens attentively as Luna explains the dreaded wrackspurt and the new spectacles her father has developed to see them. The Lovegoods are going to test them later in the summer, instead of their usual quest to find crumple-horned snorkacks.

"I think it will be a good change of pace," Luna concludes. "What about you? Is your change of pace a good one?"

Ginny shrugs. "I got all my homework done already, and I'm keeping busy, so that's good."

"You don't sound like it's good," Luna observes in her sort of neutral, dreamy voice. "Oh look, they've got pidwiddles."

Ginny is not hugely fond of animals, but Luna is and the collection at the Menagerie reminds Ginny of when Charlie used to bring all sorts of strange things home. Luna rattles off interesting facts about them, which Ginny doesn't have the attention span to absorb fully, but it's still soothing. She nods along.

When they've wasted a couple hours wandering the alley, Ginny admits she's spent some time exploring muggle London and asks Luna if she'd like to go to lunch there.

"I think that would make my father quite nervous," Luna says, blinking at the Leaky Cauldron in the distance. "Let's go."

Ginny doesn't have much affection for London, but she does have a wad of muggle cash and a voice in her head that can advice her on how to spend it. It helps endear the idea of socializing with muggles to her.

(She suspects the twins keep Mum updated, even if she doesn't. She hopes they write all about her disappearing into a huge city crawling with muggles.)

The muggles don't give their clothes weird looks like she'd been hoping. She wonders if muggles are really that unobservant or if it's the byproduct of living in a city with millions of people. She's seen weirder people than her on London's streets.

"Did you ever test your Ring?" Luna asks after they eat. Ginny orders them fancy muggle coffees as dessert.

"I had to special order the book," Ginny says. "It hasn't come yet."

"That's a shame," Luna says. "If you want, I can help you test it today."

The spirit in the ring, who'd been silent all day, stirs in the back of her mind. Ginny's not sure she likes the idea of Luna talking to him.

Do you still doubt I'm real, Landlord? He asks.

Shut up, Ginny replies.

On the way back to the Leaky Cauldron, someone grabs Ginny and pulls her into a sidestreet. She tries to scream, but a rough hand covers her mouth. Whoever it is, he's a lot bigger than her, and struggling against him is useless.

The spirit shoves her mind aside, and her legs move on their own, stomping on his foot–

No! Ginny screams back, fighting for control. My wand, my wand–

Her body jerks as she briefly regains control– the man's been hurt and his grip loosens– and the spirit drives Ginny's elbow into the man's stomach. Ginny wrestles for control of her arm and only her arm, even as the man drops her, and the spirit fights her back. She stumbles and drops, dodging the red sparks of a hex by sheer accident.

The owner of that shop on Knockturn Alley is standing with the huge man, and he raises his wand at her again, and Ginny can't control her body but she won't let the spirit do it–

The owner takes a burst of sparks to the chest and drops, stunned. The giant man quickly follows. Luna is at her shoulder, wand raised.

Ginny relaxes. The spirit uses her moment of weakness to roll her mind away from her body and stomps forward to examine their attackers, making sure they were truly down for the count.

"Are you the spirit Ginny's been talking to?" Luna asks, and Ginny screams at the spirit not to even think of speaking to her.

"Your friend is annoying," the spirit says. "She nearly got us killed."

"I think we should leave them," Luna says lazily as the spirit rolls over the shop owner. The spirit shrugs Ginny's shoulders and follows Luna.

"If you don't mind," Luna says conversationally, "I'd like to confirm you're not just a very complex curse."

The spirit laughs. His laughter is mean in Ginny's mouth. "And what if I am?"

"Ginny's brother is a cursebreaker," Luna says mildly, "and her father works de-cursing muggle objects. I'd have to tell them." She pauses. "But if you're a real spirit, that's a different story. Ghosts have rights, you know."

The spirit snorts and shoves his hands in Ginny's pockets. "I'm not a ghost," he says.

"Then what are you?" Luna asks.

"I'm a thief," the spirit says. "And a temporary renter of your friend's body."

Luna tilts her head. Ginny thinks she's regained enough focus to fight the spirit again, but Luna has gotten more information out of him in five minutes than Ginny has in weeks.

"Temporary?" Luna asks.

"She'll die eventually," the spirit says, and sounds slightly bitter about it. "I seem to have lost that luxury."

"Oh," says Luna. They continue down the street, looking like a pair of completely normal muggle girls in silly vests from the outside. "Do you have a name?" she asks.

The spirit eyes her. "Bakura."

He gives Ginny back her body. Ginny blinks at Luna, dumbfounded.

"Well," she says, "he was chattier than usual."

When they get back to the Leaky Cauldron, Luna comments, "Opinions about existential concepts like death usually indicate sapience."

"Wonderful," Ginny mutters.

/

Ginny and Luna find Xenophilius buying potions ingredients, and Luna suggests Ginny come with them to hunt wrackspurts.

"She needs some time off, I think," Luna says, brushing one hand down Ginny's arm. Ginny feels her cheeks go hot.

Xenophilius assents and asks Ginny if she wouldn't mind taking care of aerial observation. Ginny agrees immediately.

Luna smiles and kisses her on the cheek as they say good-bye. Ginny's insides turn to liquid.

You've got it bad, Bakura jeers at her.

Bakura becomes more active after that, experimenting with selectively taking control of Ginny's limbs. He does mostly innocent things– jumping over random obstacles on the street, making her fingers snap at random moments, saving her from burning toast. Then he starts stealing. He pickpockets, mostly, but he also nabs seemingly useless items: wiseacre's has to replace the king to their display chess set almost daily, and Ginny's pockets fill with bits and pieces of dry potions ingredients from the apothecary.

Could you not? Ginny asks more than once. When he ignores her, she tries a qualifier: Could you not with the Wheezes customers, at least?

I told you I'm a thief, Bakura says, but he starts targeting rich-looking wizards. Ginny rolls her eyes and lets him have his fun, as long as he doesn't do anything too awful.

(She hints to him that he if he has to steal, he should at least be stealing things they need, but he ignores her.)

The Darnell Flowers book comes in, and Ginny reads a lot about how to tell an actual soul from an object or creature that happens to be able to talk. The entire subject has a lot of history in the wizarding community, where things like boggarts can mimic human speech and people charm their mirrors to give them compliments. Flowers claims his work has been used in cases where species try to file for "beingship" with the ministry, although Ginny's never heard of anything like that before.

The entire thing is confusing and there are gray areas, but she concludes Bakura's barely hidden glee at nicking galleons from dragon-hide coin purses is probably not something someone could charm into a piece of jewelry.

I think he just wants to explore, Ginny writes to Luna between ironing out the details of their great wrackspurt adventure. I don't think his last host was a wizard, or even in Europe.

"You're making a lot of assumptions," Bakura snaps. He takes his semi-translucent form now, whenever Fred and George are out and Ginny's alone in the flat.

It frightens her, a little bit. When Tom Riddle had gained enough power to do that, she'd been on the brink of death. When she'd accused Bakura of zapping her strength, though, he'd only laughed at her. What, Landlord? You think I need what little strength you have?

Ginny sticks her tongue out at him and goes back to her letter.

The thing that helps her battle back the panic every time he takes control is how different he is from Riddle's fragment of a soul. He makes a show of being a mysterious otherworldly entity, but he also complains about how she cooks and badgers her into looking at wizarding games in shops and gets indignant when she calls him childish for walking her through a puddle. He steals money that he doesn't seem interested in spending, but nicks three sets of gobstones and demands she explain how to play with them.

He's very obviously a whole person.

She's also confident she could beat him if she needed to. That's important.

"Hey," she says when she finishes the letter. "You never said why you picked me."

Bakura, who has been hovering around Luna's bat Mercutio, glances at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Ginny says, folding the letter and sealing it. "You were in my brothers' room for years. Why not them?"

Bakura turns back to Mercutio. "Very few souls are worthy of the ring," he says. "Usually people go mad from its power. But those people are all... muggles."

He says the last word like he's not sure it's an actual term.

"So I'm worthy," Ginny says flatly. "But others aren't?"

Bakura just shrugs. Ginny picks up a couch pillow and throws it at him. It passes right through, and both Bakura and Mercutio glare at her in annoyance.

"My last tenant told me the same thing, trying to make me feel special," she says, eyes narrowed and tone dangerous. "It didn't end so well."

Bakura rolls his whole head in dismissal. "Your last tenant sounds like he was full of bullshit," he says. "I don't give a shit which wizard happens to pick me up, as long as I can do what I want."

Ginny's mouth thins. That's troubling in a different way. She attaches her letter to Mercutio's leg wordlessly.

"Don't worry," Bakura says, eyeing her with a certain meanness. "I always take good care of my landlord."

/

Ginny goes home for a week before joining the Lovegoods. She'll pack for the semester, then travel to Hogwarts with Luna.

Harry and Hermione are there, and her mother is in a fantastic mood. Ron got decent OWLs, she's been able to fatten Harry up as much as possible, and Ginny is finally back.

"You look good," her mother says and pulls her into a bear hug. "I was afraid you'd come back with blue hair."

"Ginny has unfortunately gotten," Fred starts and George finishes, "too clever for our tricks."

"Did you feed her well?" Molly asks, her arms still around Ginny. "She's so skinny."

Save me, Ginny mouths at Ron and Harry. They both turn to hide their snickering.

Ginny helps her mother with dinner, which means she taste-tests things while her mother charms the kitchen to cook for her.

"I've been starting to take beef extra rare," she says conversationally.

"What?" Molly says. "What have Fred and George done to you?"

She's joking, Ginny thinks. But it's hard to tell when Mum jokes about things like this, and that's one reason she had to get out for the summer.

"You'll come home for Christmas, right?" her mother continues. "If Hogwarts doesn't fix your tastebuds, I will."

"Sure," Ginny agrees, because Christmas is months away and she thinks she might finally start missing people by then.

/

Bill and Fleur come for dinner one night, and Ron has the pleasure of destroying both of them in chess. Fleur giggles like a schoolgirl watching Bill lose, and it might have been endearing if Ginny hadn't already decided she didn't like the woman.

He's good, Bakura observes of Ron. He says it neutrally, but it's the first real compliment he's given anyone in her presence. Ginny remembers him hovering over fancy chess sets on display in both muggle and wizarding stores. She wonders if he just likes the intricate little pieces or if he enjoys the game itself.

Do you want to have a go? She asks.

She means to let him tell her how to move the pieces, but he sort of shuffles out of her own mind and informs Ron she's feeling lucky.

Well, she decides, it'll be alright as long as he's doing a decent enough job of being her no one notices.

Ron sort of teases her for a while– she's never been much good at chess– but Bakura just rolls her eyes exactly as she would and starts setting up the board.

Bakura makes his first moves reluctantly, like someone who only barely knows the rules. It's very in character for Ginny, and not very interesting, and she starts to get bored in her own mind. Even Bill, who'd been wiggling his eyebrows at them as Bakura lined up the pawns, turns to try and intervene in Fleur going to the kitchen to show their mother "ze much better cleaning spells we use in France."

Then Ron frowns, leans forward in seat, and stares the chess board down for over a minute.

"Should we get a timer?" Bakura suggests.

"Blimey, Ginny," Ron mutters and moves a bishop. It looks like a retreat to Ginny, but she's never been great at strategy games. The game gets more intense after that, so much so that Hermione starts peering over her book at them and Bill and Harry come back over.

(In the kitchen, they can hear Fleur insisting, "No, no, let me do ze washing up.")

Ginny doesn't know how long the game continues because Bakura won't glance at a clock for her, but eventually Ron gives a weird twitch and glares her suspiciously, and Ginny knows the ring spirit has won.

Twelve moves, he tells her. His voice is smug and confident even as he makes her face bite its lip in concentration. I'll let you finish him off.

Ginny's suddenly back in control of her body. She stares at the chessboard. She has no idea how to beat Ron in twelve moves.

She tentatively moves a knight into check. Ron relaxes.

Bakura's mental voice is dripping with mock disappointment when he says, And I set that up so well for you, dear landlord.

Ginny loses in ten moves. Ron claps her on the back and says, "You had me there for a second. Have you been practicing?"

"I guess I just had divine inspiration," Ginny replies with a dramatic sigh. "It didn't last very long, did it?"

Divine inspiration, Bakura repeats in her head like it's a brilliant joke.

Hush, you.

Harry suggests they play a game Ginny could kick Ron's arse in, and Bill laughs at Ron's reddened face as he blusters about how he's a fine quidditch player.

"We're all on the same team," Ron whines.

"Not tomorrow we're not," Ginny says. "The twins are coming over."

/

Hermione plays quidditch with them to make even teams, and she mostly just hovers in one place while her teammates Ginny and Harry try to keep the ball away from her. The twins and Ron, of course, do everything in their power to send it towards her.

This isn't as great as you made it out to be, Bakura comments dully.

Ginny ignores him. Quidditch is her favorite pastime and she's good at it. She doesn't care what he thinks of it.

His point that three-on-three with an unwilling player is rather dull, however, is correct. Maybe she should suggest they rotate out players and switch to two-on-two.

"Why don't we play Lottery instead?" Bakura asks with her voice, and she swears at him.

"What's that?" Harry asks. Ron explains it: one person throws the ball and announces a point-value while it's midair, and the other players try to catch it to gain those points. The thrower can also label the ball things like "bludger," which makes the catcher lose points, or "snitch," which is an automatic win.

The thing was: Ginny has no idea how Bakura came by this information.

I pay attention, is his answer.

Had she talked about it with one of her brothers? They had played it a lot when she was a kid. It wouldn't be weird to mention it.

The twins are excited to play a favorite childhood game, and Hermione is more than satisfied to stay on the ground and read through her new textbooks for the second time.

Ron throws first, and the twins nearly crash into each other diving for "fifty points." Ginny nearly breaks a finger veering back from a "bludger" she mistakenly grabs for. Harry almost nabs the first "snitch" called, but it abruptly does a ninety degree turn and shoots away from him. Fred catches it, only to be bowled over by George.

"Hermione!" Ron yells. Hermione blinks innocently up at them, her wand still in her hand. Ginny nearly falls off her broom laughing.

It's a good day. Her mother and father come out with sandwiches and they picnic on the field. Ginny can't decide if being away long enough to find family moments like this warming rather than smothering and repressive is a good thing or a bad thing.

Distance does make the heart grow fonder, she supposes.

That was more fun than your quidditch, Bakura tells her after dinner as she's drying dishes for her mum.

You haven't seen real quidditch yet, she answers. She still can't do the drying charm reliably without cracking the dishware, so she's drying by hand. The rush of flight, the wind in your robes, everyone cheering for you. It's the best feeling in the world.

I don't really care about spectators, Bakura says. But I do like winning.

Ginny thinks he must like more than just winning, or else he wouldn't have thrown the chess game. It's what Darnell Flowers calls an "internal inconsistency of motivation" and it's indicative of a sapient mind. It's what makes centaurs and goblins beings but magical paintings just objects capable of speech.

It's why, she realizes, she still has the ring. She knows it's dangerous and could hurt her, but she also wants to solve the mystery and brave the danger and have an adventure on her own. She knows the adult and responsible thing to do is report it, but she doesn't want to admit to making such a huge mistake the moment she tried independence.

He mother walks and sets the kettle on the stove. She pats Ginny's upper back affectionately as she passes.

"Do you want me to fix your hair tomorrow?" her mum asks tentatively. "Since we're going shopping and all."

Ginny really doesn't like the tight plaits her mum is always pulling her hair back into, but she smiles anyway. "Why not?"

/

At the end of the week, Ginny travels by floo to an old witch's bed and breakfast to meet with the Lovegoods, and they spend the morning there before heading on to their field site by side-along apparition. Xenophilius pitches the tent and Ginny and Luna unpack their lunch.

Her visit with her family had been good, Ginny tells Luna. Her father loved the vacuum, and her mum was too distracted by Ron's friends to do too much motherly smothering, even if Ginny's scalp ended up sore more mornings than not.

Xenophilius lets her and Luna do whatever they want most days, which generally means donning the "spectrespecs" he's invented and then wandering into the woods. They don't see any wrackspurts, but Luna tells Ginny about all sorts of unrelated things.

Ginny brought her broom, and she spends most afternoons practicing Quidditch moves. Luna watches her from the ground, chin in hands.

"I might try out for the new Quidditch commentator, now that Jordan's graduated," Luna says. "It's very important I practice watching."

On the second to last night, they still haven't seen any wrackspurts, and Xenophilius sighs a lot over dinner.

"Well, ladies," he says sadly, "we'll just have to do our best tomorrow."

Ginny feels bad for him. She feels worse for Luna, who's pushing her food around on her plate without eating much.

In the morning, Ginny offers, "Do you want to try aerial observation?"

Her quidditch practice was supposed to be that, but she didn't even bother to wear the spectrespecs half the time.

Luna beams at her and climbs on the back of her broom, wrapping her arms around Ginny's waist. Ginny dutifully puts on her spectrespecs and takes off.

She takes them across field and forest at a lazy pace, dropping low over a lake so Luna can drag her bare feet in the water.

How romantic, Bakura mocks. He hasn't said anything in days and it takes Ginny by surprise; her broom drops half a foot in the air. Water floods her boots as her legs splash through the water and Luna lets out a soft oh.

Jealous? Ginny thinks back, righting her broom. Or are you just afraid of heights and want me to land?

Hardly, Bakura answers. Then he says, Why don't you give the lady what she wants?

Ginny doesn't know what to make of that statement, so she doesn't say anything. She keeps flying over the lake, and Luna leans forward and points toward the shore.

"What's that?" she asks, a strand of Ginny's hair caught in her mouth and pulling at Ginny's scalp.

Ginny frowns at the shore, where a piece of the ground directly in front of them is bubbling up, forming a large mound. Luna urges her to check it out, and Ginny doesn't change direction, heading straight forward.

The mound bursts when they're right on top of it, and a creature leaps forward and bites at Ginny's broom with sharp teeth.

Ginny yelps and rolls the broom out of the way. Luna slips behind her and tightens her grip but doesn't fall. Ginny shoots ten feet straight up and hovers over the creature. It's dark green and insectoid, as large as a human man. It's got two terrible horns on its head and rows and rows of terrifying teeth.

More mounds start swelling below them, and Ginny rises several more feet.

"What are they?" Ginny asks, bewildered. She's taken two years of Care of Magical Creatures and she's never heard of anything like that, and her class was taught by Rubeus Hagrid.

"Oh," says Luna, leaning dangerously off the broom. "Ginny, what if they're wrackspurts?"

No one has ever seen a wrackspurt because they're invisible, but if Ginny understands them correctly, they're supposed to be small enough to crawl in your ears. These things are huge.

Luna sounds elated, though. Ginny wants to just leave, but she lowers the broom at Luna's request. There's a dozen or so of the strange insect-things now, and they're crawling around below and biting at each other. One of them angles its head upwards and screams inhumanly at them.

They watch them for a long a time, Ginny feeling restless and nervous while Luna mutters theories in her ear. The things start eating each other, which Ginny finds disgusting, but Luna doesn't seem bothered.

Bakura is laughing at her.

"Father did think only the young would prey on the mind," Luna says, nodding to herself. "They get all their nutrients before reaching sexual maturity. They must have to; look at how big they get."

There's one bug left, and it prowls in circles below them, screaming up at the broom occasionally. Then it shivers, and lacy wings grow from its back.

"You have to be kidding me," Ginny mutters, and Luna gasps in delight.

"It can fly!" she says. "It is a wrackspurt!"

Ginny grits her teeth and dodges as the thing flies at them. It's not very fast, and she dodges around it easily and zooms into the trees. It gets a few of the sticks of her broom, but not enough to throw off her balance, and she zig-zags through the trees expertly.

They lose the wrackspurt or whatever it is easily in the forest. Luna laughs happily.

Luna tells the whole story in full detail to Xenophilius, once Ginny has made sure the thing is gone for good and they haven't led it back to their camp.

Ginny doesn't mention the thing was from the spirit of the ring. He's right in that it was exactly what Luna wanted.

I didn't know you could summon monsters, Ginny thinks at him warily.

It's one of my many talents. He's smug. Ginny wonders what his other talents are. It makes her stomach churn with nerves.

They leave camp in the morning, and Ginny stays at the Lovegood house for three days while Xenophilius runs around and prints the finalized issue of the Quibbler, complete with free samples of his spectrespecs and a hastily written addendum about the wrackspurt's lifestyle, based on observation.

Ginny shares Luna's bed. On the last night, Luna curls up to her, her nightgown's sleeves tickling Ginny's bare arms.

"I hope we have lots of classes together," Luna whispers. "I'll miss you if we don't."

"We definitely will," Ginny promises.

/

Ginny's plan for the semester is to dedicate a lot of time researching ancient magic. Bakura is not a wizard in the way she understands magic, but he is without a doubt a magical being. His magic is… basic in its form, but strong, and frightening. She's still not sure what he did to the Knockturn Alley shop owner and his employee.

Bakura is older than Hogwarts. He's older than most European magical traditions. She's not sure what that means for her, except that it'll probably be difficult to research.

She chats with Ron and his friends a bit on the platform, but he and Hermione have to go to the prefects' car. Harry grins sheepishly at her and Luna and suggests they all find a car together. Neville joins them, and they entertain each other with stories from their holiday.

All in all, Ginny is having a great start to the semester, until Zacharias Smith corners her coming out of the bathroom after changing into her school robes.

"Ginny!" he says, grabbing her arm. Ginny yanks it away from him immediately. "Heard Potter convinced you all to do something stupid."

"I don't know what you mean," Ginny snaps. She's never liked him.

"You know," Smith presses, leaning into her personal space. "His normal theatrics. Is it true your brother is still recovering from a department of mysteries experiment?"

"You better watch your mouth, Smith," Ginny seethes. Bakura twitches at the controls to Ginny's arm. She considers letting him punch Smith.

Smith backs off, hands in the air like she was the one being creepy and aggressive. "I just think," he says, "you should all come clean before the rumor mill starts, you know? You and Granger and Loony–"

Ginny hexes him. Bats explode out of his nose. Bakura bursts into raucous laughter, his form flickering into existence at her side. He's holding his stomach.

Smith flounders out of the car, on the verge of tears and leaving a cloud of dissipating bats behind him.

"I'll admit," Bakura says, wiping tears from his face, "most of your magic is shit, but that's hilarious."

Ginny smirks at him and turns to find a professor gaping at her.

"Um," Ginny says. The professor is a wide man, and his face quickly clears into a welcoming smile.

"That might be some of the finest hex work I've ever seen," he says. "Miss Weasley, is it?"

He invites her to a "get-together" lunch in his car, promising her other students will be there too. He doesn't seem to be able to see Bakura, who yawns at the man's blustering.

"I wouldn't bother going," Bakura tells her before disappearing again. "That man's the worst type of collector."

Ginny doesn't care for Bakura's opinions. She accepts the invitation.

/

Bakura yanks at Ginny's neck four times to make her look around Hogwarts where he wants to see. He seems irritated about it every time.

The ceiling gets very boring very quickly, she says the last time he does it. Especially since it's overcast here more times than not.

Ginny catches Luna's eyes over at the Ravenclaw table a few times and smiles awkwardly at her. No one at her own table seems notice her being jerky, probably distracted by Harry showing up to the banquet fashionably late with a purple nose.

It figures. No one noticed her being possessed by an evil diary either.

The new professor lineup is interesting. Ginny doesn't particularly like Snape, but he doesn't single her out in class like he does some other students, and he's a more competent teacher than some of their previous ones. If they can make it through this year, she whispers to Neville, maybe the curse on the Defense class will take him out.

Neville giggles nervously.

The first years are herded away and the Hall starts to empty. Ginny moves over to the Ravenclaw table and sits down next to Luna.

"Professor Slughorn seems interesting," Luna says mildly. "Do you think he'll have many opinions on the use of wimplesnore mucus in medicinal potions?"

Ginny makes a face. "I don't want any sort of mucus in my potions."

"That's too bad," Luna says, yawning. "The preliminary tests seem very promising."

Ginny excuses herself when she sees the last of the Gryffindor fifth years leaving, and heads with them up to the tower. Bakura has stopped pulling at her neck, and she brushes her teeth and changes into her pyjamas without giving him much thought.

/

"Oi, Ginny, you're going to miss breakfast!"

Ginny wakes with a start. The dorm room is flooded with light and empty except for one other girl, fully dressed and shoving supplies into her book bag.

Ginny feels much more tired than she should, given she went to sleep directly after dinner. She gets dressed in a rush and hurries down to the Great Hall just in time to get her schedule and shove a piece of toast in her mouth before running off to class.

Her first class, thankfully, is History of Magic, and Professor Binns doesn't even acknowledge her sitting in the back of class and summoning her school supplies one by one as she thinks of them. She tried the same thing with McGonagall, once, and had gotten detention.

She has three classes with Luna: Transfiguration, Potions, and Care of Magical Creatures. The last two are good classes to have with friends, as they allow lots of talking time.

"Are you doing alright?" Luna asks when Ginny nearly slices her finger off while chopping roots for potions. It's their second Potions class since the start of term, and they've both decided they like Slughorn much more than Snape.

(Snape, on the other hand, is an alright Defense teacher, even if he started his first class with a speech about how they were all incompetent from having incompetent teachers.)

"'M fine," Ginny says. "I've just been really tired lately, is all."

Luna makes a sympathetic sound in the back of her throat and suggests they go to Madam Pomfrey and ask if she has any suggestions.

"It's probably just school changing my sleep schedule," Ginny says. "I'll adjust soon."

/

I don't think I like this man, Bakura comments in the middle of a Defense class. Ginny nearly jumps out of her seat. He had been very quiet since the start of classes.

I don't either, Ginny replies. He's a huge bully. Have you heard any of Harry's stories about him yet?

Bakura's quiet for a while, and Ginny scribbles notes on nonverbal defensive spells. She doesn't think those are supposed to be standard until sixth year, but the concept is useful despite the difficulty.

What happened to your other professors?

Hmm? Ginny asks.

You said there was a curse.

Oh yeah. Ginny puts down her quill and pretends to leaf through her textbook. She's in a good mood and open to conversation. No one has been able to last more than a year. Last year we had this awful woman, she got chased off by centaurs– and then before that, Professor Moody was a good teacher, but it turned out he was an escaped prisoner in disguise.

Bakura doesn't interrupt her with any sarcastic comments like she expects, and she gets to talk all about how Professor Lupin is actually a great person, and how discrimination against werewolves is unfair.

It occurs to Ginny, as she starts on about how hilariously incompetent Lockhart was, that from an outsider's point of view, all of her stories sound like complete madness. No wonder she's captured Bakura's attention.

Anyway, she finishes, he accidentally erased all his own memories when he came to save me.

She picks her quill up and goes back to her notes, expecting the conversation to stop there. Bakura doesn't usually ask a lot of questions, unless they're designed to tease her. He prefers to observe and make his own conclusions.

She doesn't anticipate him prompting: Save you?

She diligently writes what Snape is saying, verbatim.

Save you from what? Bakura presses. When she continues ignoring him, he reaches out and stops her hand from writing. Ginny lets out an annoyed hiss between her teeth.

The more she refuses him, the more annoying he'll get, and the more likely he'll try to use it against her somehow.

From my old tenant, she says.

Ah, says Bakura, and drops it.

/

It's two days before Quidditch tryouts and Ginny is still exhausted.

Are you talking my body on midnight strolls? Ginny demands of Bakura. She'd ignored the possibility at first because she didn't want to face the possibility that she didn't have as much control over Bakura as she'd thought.

It's not like you're using it when you sleep, Bakura says.

Ginny resists the urge to bang her head against the table. She's blatantly skipping History of Magic to sit alone in the Great Hall, surrounded by a handful of upperclassmen with free periods.

It makes sense, given what she knows of Bakura. He'd rather just go off exploring on his own than ask her for information outright.

I don't like it, she warns him. I don't like not being aware that someone else is controlling me.

That's fair, Bakura says eventually, and she doesn't actually get the impression that he cares what's fair and what isn't. I'll wake you up next time.

Thanks, Ginny answers sarcastically. And don't do it until after Quidditch tryouts.

I won't, Bakura says, if you tell me what happened with your last tenant.

Ginny stares at her empty plate for a few moments, then gets up and trudges up to the library.

I think it's only fair, Bakura says, that I know the history of the place I'm renting–

It's really none of your business, Ginny fumes. She ignores Madam Pince snapping something about staying quiet and heads directly for the pre-Hogwarts history section. She's had to research Hellenistic magic before, and she knows there's a shelf of books on Egypt in specific.

She'd been putting off starting research because the idea wasn't as exciting as anything she really wanted to be doing, but if Bakura was going to start being annoying again–

I think it's related to why you're my new Landlord, Bakura says. Since my other one was my reincarnation.

Ginny pauses in front of the shelf, glaring at book titles. This is the first piece information Bakura has shared about himself with her– excluding what he told Luna. She knows he's dangling bait in front of her. But she also knows this is important to learn if she wants to get rid of him.

I'll tell you what, she says. We can make a trade.

/

Ginny makes Bakura go first, because she doesn't trust him to keep his end of the deal otherwise.

My soul and the pharaoh's soul were stuck in a reincarnation cycle, but not, Bakura says. I resided in the Ring, but occasionally a related soul was born that was linked to mine. Eventually the Ring made its way into the hands of my previous Landlord, who was one of those souls.

He stops talking then, as if that were all there was to the story.

Well? says Ginny. Surely that can't be it. Was he a wizard?

No, says Bakura.

Ginny just stares at the book she's chosen at random. He doesn't elaborate.

Well, she says, reshelving the book and picking another. I don't think that's enough for a trade. You haven't quite made rent this month.

Bakura snorts. He had magical potential, Bakura clarifies. But he wasn't a wizard.

Okay, Ginny says and puts the book away. What happened to him?

He's alive, if that's what you're getting at, Bakura says. I imagine he graduated school and went on to whatever boring life he wanted.

Ginny bites her lip. And how did you get separated?

Bakura snickers at her. So we get to what you really wanted to know. Landlord, this is a very roundabout way of asking how to evict me.

You said you'd tell me his story, Ginny reminds him. This is part of it.

It's not something you're going to be able to duplicate, Bakura says. He sounds bitter, suddenly. The pharaoh broke my bond with my former sweet landlord. I think he thought he killed me.

Ginny continues to chew at her lip. Could she replicate the magic of an ancient pharaoh? Maybe not, but surely someone had figured out something similar. It seems like the wizards of olden times were constantly casting out evil spirits.

Obviously he was wrong, Bakura continues, and he's dead anyway. Your turn.

Ginny sighs. The only other person to whom she's talked about this in length since her disastrous first year is her mother, who she suddenly misses and regrets cutting out of her life this summer.

She tells Bakura about Tom Riddle slowly, running her finger across the spines of books as she does so. She tells him about finding the diary and being surprised when it wrote back to her. She tells him about how she, a lonely eleven-year-old, grew to trust the voice. She tells him how she started having lapses in her memories, and how Tom had been so thoughtful and soothing as she panicked about it. She tells him about waking up covered in blood and chicken feathers, about her classmates turning up frozen and lifeless, about trying to throw the diary away when she realized what was happening.

She tells him about realizing Harry had gotten the diary, and how she was terrified she'd be caught and expelled.

So I stole it back, like a coward, she says. I wasn't worried about Tom hurting Harry; I was worried about myself. And then when Tom came out of the diary, I thought maybe I deserved it. And then he took me down into his Chamber of Secrets, and I knew I was going to die. Harry saved me, though– he and Ron came down to save me. And here I am.

But who was Tom Riddle? Bakura asks. How did his soul end up in a book?

Ginny steps back form the books shelves, trying to look at all the titles at once. Not that she can read them while talking about this.

He grew up to be the Dark Lord, she says. You've heard people talk about You-Know-Who, right? He put a piece of himself in his old diary.

Why? Bakura sounds unimpressed with the entire notion.

I don't know. He's supposedly obsessed with immortality. That must have been the start of it.

Ginny picks a book at random and takes it over to Madam Pince to check out. Her next class is Charms, which she really shouldn't skip. Bakura doesn't bother her at all until after Quidditch tryouts.

/

Quidditch tryouts go fine if a little chaotic, and she makes the team as Chaser. Luna congratulates her at the beginning of Transfiguration and passes her a slightly mushed cupcake she must have stolen from the kitchens.

Ginny eats it in class. McGonagall doesn't say anything even though she undoubtedly sees it. McGonagall always goes soft on her students after she gets good news on Quidditch.

"I didn't make commentator," Luna says sadly after class. "That Zacharias Smith got it."

Giny frowns. "You were robbed then," she says. "Only terrible things come out of Smith's mouth."

They make plans to meet up after class, and that afternoon Luna helps her research Bakura.

Ginny has barely cracked the book she took out of the library, and she's not even sure why she picked that one in particular. Luna shows up to the empty classroom they met in with a pile of eccentric books that have titles like The Conspiracy Behind the Library of Alexandria and Nefertiti: Vampire?!

Ginny shares what Bakura told her, and nothing in any of the books seems to be at all related to it. They inevitably end up making out.

"That was quite nice," Luna says when they break to go to dinner. "We should do it again sometime."

"Y–yeah," Ginny says, her cheeks pink.

/

Classes continue as usual. Bakura stops exploring every night, and she manages to stay awake for History of Magic. Slughorn spends a lot of time praising Ginny's potions, even though half the time she's partnered with Luna for them.

When she's not studying or practicing quidditch, Ginny spends time with Luna. A lot of that time is supposed to be dedicated to researching ancient amulets and pharaohs, but they frequently end up… distracted.

On their first Hogsmeade weekend, Luna takes Ginny by the hand and leads her to a squat building at the edge of town, which houses a shop that claims to sell over a thousand types of tea. It also has a handful of rickety tables and an assortment of sandwiches that contain things like pickled newt and frogs' legs. Ginny orders something called "imitation dragon egg salad" and hopes that it's just regular egg salad dyed strange colors. It's very spicy.

Luna picks their tea. It tastes like berries and pine needles.

"My mother used to order from here," Luna says. "She wanted to try all one thousand and eight types." She picks up the kettle to top off both their cups. "This is tea number four hundred and seventeen."

Ginny feels her heart break a little, and she leans over to take Luna's hand.

Afterwards, they walk aimlessly through the village, despite the blistering cold. Bakura decides to be obnoxious and appear next to her.

"I want to go there," he says, pointing towards a hill.

Ginny rolls her eyes and turns to Luna. "Bakura wants to go to the Shrieking Shack."

She had meant it as a "Can you believe what I have to put up with?" sense. Luna blinks at the shack a few times, then shrugs and walks in that direction.

The Shrieking Shack, at least, provides them with some cover from the harsh wind, which rattles the boards of the walls. The wind also makes strange noises come from the fireplace, perhaps giving the shack its name.

Once they're inside and confident the creaking floorboards aren't going to collapse beneath them, Luna bends over and says to where the ring is hidden under Ginny's coat, "Supposedly the shack is haunted, but I think it's much more likely invested with Silver-Banded Scream Bees–"

"Scream Bees?" Ginny repeats, amused. Beside her, Bakura frowns in distaste at Luna hovering over his ring.

The Shrieking Shack is indeed creepy, and Bakura seems to like that about it, his ghostly figure leading them through the rooms.

"There's supposed to be a secret passage to get here from Hogwarts," Ginny says. "My brother was dragged through it by convicted murderer Sirius Black."

Luna, who's heard this story and knows at least vaguely of Sirius Black and Harry's relationship, just smiles sweetly back at her. Bakura turns to her with interest in his eyes.

"Secret tunnel?" he asks. "Where?"

Ginny shrugs at him. "Don't know."

Bakura disappears and he takes control of her arms, pulling out the Ring. The decorative spikes dangling from it twitch, and then all point in the same direction.

"Oh good," Ginny says as Bakura starts moving her feet in that direction. "He can do whatever this is."

The ring leads them to the entrance to the tunnel easily enough, and once Luna's uncovered it, Bakura takes full control of Ginny.

"I'm going in," he says with her mouth, sounding more excited than she's ever heard him. Luna, who seems to recognize her girlfriend has been replaced, smiles at him and agrees to follow.

The tunnel is actually fairly boring, if not a little uneven, right until they find the exit, which is guarded by the whomping willow.

No! Ginny yells as Bakura makes to casually step out of the tunnel. She manages to wrestle her legs from his control and stop him. Luna similarly grabs the back of her coat.

"It fights back," Luna says mildly. Bakura looks at her for a few moments, clearly amused.

Then her smacks Ginny's control away like a naughty child and hops out of the tunnels. The tree groans and flails its branches at them, and Bakura dodges and side-steps with ease.

What about Luna? Ginny demands when they're out of the tree's range.

I don't particularly care, Bakura responds. He makes to go back to the castle.

Ginny fights him. She'd been confident once that she could win, but as he growls at her and pushes her consciousness away, she's less sure.

What about your rent? Ginny fumes at him. You'll lose your deposit if you don't fix things you mess up.

Bakura does an exaggerated eye-roll and dives back into the whomping willow's branches, zigzagging through them like they're a simple obstacle course. He picks Luna up and throws her over his shoulders with a strength that Ginny didn't know her body had.

"Oh my," says Luna.

As soon as they're clear of the willow, Bakura retreats from Ginny's mind, muttering about how she'd better be grateful.

"Sorry about that," says Ginny sheepishly. "He's, um, not really a people person."

"We're safe," says Luna, "so I don't really mind."

Once they're back in the castle, McGonagall descends upon them, sternly lecturing them about the parameters of Hogsmeade visits. She seems slightly panicked. The trip had been called off early and all the students made to come back.

Apparently, Katie Bell had been attacked.

/

Bakura takes her body on a stroll early one Monday morning. The sun hasn't quite risen yet, and the sky is a dismal grey. He wakes Ginny up for it, as promised.

I hate this weather, he says. He's paused at a window to watch the grounds, which are frosted over.

Is it the cold? Ginny asks. He was from a very warm part of the world; she remembered getting heat exhaustion on their trip to Egypt. Or the rain?

No, Bakura says. It's like… the sky is too close. It makes you feel trapped.

Ginny supposed that was the general feel of an overcast sky. Since Bakura's in an agreeable mood, she asks him if he wants to see her favorite room in Hogwarts. He lets her lead him to the Room of Requirement.

Think about what you want, Ginny says, and then pace in front of this wall three times.

That sounds stupid, Bakura says, his tone saying that he loved it.

When they enter, the room is vast and filled with random junk arranged in towering piles. At their feet, Ginny recognizes a muggle radio, an expensive looking necklace, and several damaged textbooks.

Bakura wolf whistles and pulls out the Ring. The spikes glow and point off to their left.

What are you looking for? Ginny asks.

I wanted to find the most valuable thing in Hogwarts, Bakura says. He seems incredibly pleased and takes his time to pick up and examine things as they head deeper into the room. He pockets several items, including a jewel-encrusted pocket watch that was missing a hand, and a single diamond earring.

They pass a mountain of various types of alcohol, some of which are hundreds of years old, and Bakura stops to sort through them and eventually open a bottle of whiskey and take a swig. He carries it with them.

The Ring eventually leads them to a… tiara. It's silver and a bit underwhelming compared to some of the other things the room has to offer. Bakura picks it up and examines it.

That's Luna's favorite saying, Ginny says, recognizing the engraving.

Bakura doesn't respond, turning the tiara over and over in his hands.

What a nice find, his says eventually. His thoughts have an oddly dangerous edge to them, which makes Ginny uneasy.

What do you mean? She asks. What makes it so valuable?

Instead of a real answer, Bakura says, Come along, Landlord. You'll be late to breakfast.

/

At that, Ginny finds her relationship with Bakura gets easier. He listens to her suggestions on places to explore, and together they going poking through things Ginny's always wanted to but never has for various reason.

Bakura breaks into Filch's office and they find the entire drawer dedicated to the twins, which gives them all sorts of ideas of places to sneak into.

Bakura even breaks her into the Ravenclaw dorms one night– he loves the concept of riddles as passwords– and they collect Luna to go find the secret tunnel into Honeydukes. Ginny gives herself a stomach ache from gorging on candies, and Bakura complains about it for days.

On her first Quidditch match of the season, after she scores for the second time and the Slytherin keeper mouths swears at her, Bakura comments, I see why you like this now.

Zacharias Smith's commentary, however, fills her with rage that makes her passes too violent. Smith spends too much time wondering if Ron made the team fairly and too little time describing the actual game. When they win, she crashes into the commentator's booth, and Bakura howls with laughter.

After they shake the losers' hands and pretend to be civil, Ginny triumphantly kisses Luna full on the mouth and then drags her back to the afterparty in the Gryffindor common room. She brings down the whiskey Bakura stole– hidden under her mattress with the tiara and pocket watch. It's a good night.

She wakes up to Bakura pouring them both a glass of water in the bathroom. She momentarily thinks that's a sweet gesture– she'd had a lot of that whiskey, after all– but then she realizes her shoes are on.

Are we really doing this tonight? She whines. She doesn't want to wake-up hungover and tired.

You don't have class tomorrow, Bakura says and walks her out of the dormitory.

Bakura stops at the gargoyle that guards Dumbledore's office. He leans forward and whispers different brands of candies until it moves.

Ginny has no idea how he knew to do that. She asks.

This was one of the first places I came, Bakura says.

Ginny has only been in the Headmaster's office when awful things have happened to her and her family, and it's sort of nice to be able to look around while relaxed. Bakura is silent on her feet, and the phoenix that sleeps in the corner doesn't stir.

Bakura hovers over the bird for a few moments, then moves on, brushing his hands over the strange instruments whirring at Dumbledore's desk. Then he moves to a bookshelf.

I thought I'd give you a victory present, Bakura drawls in her mind, running her hands over the books. I'll give you the only book in this building that mentions me.

Ginny perks, not recognizing the danger in Bakura's words. She'd read through all the books on Egypt, specifically– and she thinks Bakura would be self-important enough to snap at her if she missed mentions of him.

Bakura pulls out a thick book bound in black leather. It's titled Secrets of the Darkest Arts.

He leafs through the pages slowly, and some of the illustrations make Ginny's stomach tighten. There's all sorts of evil things in this book.

Bakura finally stops turning and Ginny reads the passage.

The first known precursor to the Horcrux is the massacre of the village of Kul Elna, in which the sacrifice of ninety-nine souls birthed a power so great as to reverse death itself.

The passage went on the describe the bodies being melted into gold, their souls and flesh melded into seven 'Thousand-Year Items' to feed the greed of the Pharaoh. Its tone is loving, gentle and detailed. Ginny feels sick.

It is said, the passage continued, the pharaoh's successor sealed a piece of his soul into the Puzzle, thus gaining immortality. It is also said another soul was sealed into the Ring, and either of these souls will grant the wielder immense power. Some sought the Items for this power, but other, more clever men, looked to this story as an inspiration.

This author posits that these two beings, whose bodies perished but whose complete souls remained, are the first dabble in the art of using the death of another to bless one's soul with immortality…

There was more about murdering people to bind your soul to an object, but Ginny didn't care to read on.

So this, Ginny says. Her hands would be shaking if she had control of her own body. This is you? You killed all these people–

I did not, Bakura snarls at her, suddenly furious. Those souls were my people. I saw them desecrated. And your people– your people took their sacrifice and turned it into this– this atrocity–

Oh, Ginny thinks back in a tiny voice. Her body is trembling with Bakura's rage as he raves at her. Oh.

I have more for you, Bakura says, his anger dissipating and something mean and sadistic entering his voice. He moves on to a stone basin that's filled with swirls of silver. Ginny vaguely recognizes it as pensieve. He's been collecting memories on Tom Riddle.

Ginny tenses, and then suddenly she's toppling into a memory with full control of her body back.

/

Ginny has only the vaguest notion of how pensieve works, but she's not expecting to find herself on the second floor. A few of the paintings are different, but otherwise, Hogwarts looks exactly the same.

She spends couple moments looking around her in bewilderment before a man turns the corner, looking very troubled. He doesn't acknowledge her at all.

I didn't know Dumbledore was a redhead, Ginny remarks to Bakura. The spirit stays silent, and Ginny follows the younger Dumbledore. They head down a stairwell into the Great Hall, and then–

"Tom," Dumbledore calls.

Ginny freezes. He looks exactly as he did, all those years ago when he'd come out of the diary and dragged her down into the belly of the school. Her hands curl into fists and she doesn't even hear the conversation between the two.

Tom Riddle looks handsome. Cleancut. Nice. She would trust him if she didn't already know him. It's not fair.

Dumblr walks away, and Ginny doesn't want to follow him. She doesn't like this memory. But the confines of the pensieve are tied to Dumbledore's memories and nothing else, and a strong force pulls her after him.

There's a loud bang, suddenly, and Ginny catches a blast of light from the corner of her eyes. Dumbledore spins on his heels and runs toward the direction of the chaos. He barely dodges something black and huge and hairy bolting past, and stops to follow the thing's path with wide eyes.

The thing passes through Ginny's legs, as if she were a ghost. It's a spider.

There's wailing, and Dumbledore seems to decide the cries of a student are more important than whatever monster just ran by them. They keep going down the corridor and find a young Rubeus Hagrid kneeling on the floor and bawling, Tom Riddle towering over him.

"I caught him, Professor," Tom says. "I caught the one who's responsible for the attacks."

Dumbledore says something back and Tom responds, but Ginny's too distracted by the one rush in her head and the tears on Hagrid's baby face.

The room fades a bit then, and Ginny briefly worries she's having some sort of an attack before it all comes back into focus as the headmaster's office. She staggers like she's made a harsh landing, even though she hasn't been jolted or moved at all.

There's three other adults there, besides Dumbledore and the wizard sitting behind the headmaster's desk. Ginny vaguely recognizes the only witch in the room– she must have gone on to be someone important.

"You must admit, Albus," the headmaster is saying in clipped tones, "Tom makes a very compelling case."

"As it is," Dumbledore says, "I truly do not believe Rubeus is responsible for any of the attacks in this school."

"But didn't you say yourself," the witch says, "you saw the monster fleeing?"

"I did see a monster running from the boys, yes," Dumble agrees.

"And doesn't this Hagrid have a history of keeping dangerous pets?" a wizard asks.

"Young Mr. Hagrid has a fondness for creatures others shy away from," Dumble says. "But a juvenile acromantula–"

"–is as capable of killing as an adult," the headmaster finishes. "No, Albus, I'm sorry– all evidence points to Mr. Hagrid. He'll have to be punished."

The others present all murmur in agreement, and the room fades into a sunny hallway. Tom is in the distance, haloed by the light as he looks out a window. Two girls pass, giggling, and Dumbledore waits for them to turn before approaching Tom.

"How was your summer holiday?" he asks.

"Good," says Tom. "I got to spend a lot of time in the library, and I discovered some new rooms here."

"Aah," says Dumbledore, "Hogwarts is a wonderful place to explore."

They both stare out the window a bit, and Ginny's eyes dart back and forth between them with suspicion. Surely Dumbledore knows. Surely he knows he's chatting with a monster in the shape of a boy.

Through the window, they watch an old man showing Hagrid the shed behind the greenhouses where the lawncare equipment is kept. Hagrid is as tall as a man, but his face is childish and nervous and humiliated.

"Tom," Dumbledore says softly. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Tom inclines his head in askance. "I'm not sure what you mean, Professor?"

"There's no shame to admitting a mistake, Tom," Dumbledore says.

A mistake? Ginny clenches her fists so hard she can feel the tension up through her shoulders. All that Tom Riddle has done– all he will do– a mistake?

"I can't think of any mistakes," Tom says idly, eyeing Hagrid as he sorts through rusty tools. "Was there something wrong with my homework? I'm sure I got everything right…"

Dumbledore sighs. "Your essay was impeccable," he says. "But, Tom," Dumbledore leans in and waits for Tom to turn to him fully. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, Tom."

Tom smiles. "Whatever for?"

/

When Ginny comes back up, she's shaking. She doesn't know if it's fear or rage.

He knew. Dumbledore knew what Tom was doing, and he just let him. He let him close the chamber back up, to peacefully graduate, to murder poor Myrtle and leave behind that evil diary even though Dumbledore knew–

The passage about Horcruxes Bakura had made her read comes back into her mind, and Ginny nearly vomits.

Do you like your gift? Bakura asks. Isn't this all you wanted to know?

"Shut up," Ginny seethes. "Shut up."

She rips the ring off her neck and banishes it. The spell does nothing and she casts it again and again. She tries reducto. The ring stays in tact. She picks it up and throws it out the window, watching in fall into the darkness of the grounds outside with satisfaction.

/

The ring is back on her neck in the morning, and she shoves it under her mattress with the spirit's stupid precious tiara. She goes to breakfast in a foul mood and it is not improved by receiving an invitation to Professor Slughorn's Christmas Party in the mail.

When she goes to the library to work on her homework, she finds the Ring sitting on her usual table. She ignores it and settles down somewhere else.

Luna finds her and asks what's wrong.

"I'm mad at Bakura," Ginny says, simplifying the situation because she does not feel like explaining the details right now.

"Oh, that's a shame," Luna says. "What do you think of this for an essay topic…"

Ginny zones out listening to Luna babble about Defense essay topics, and it calms her down. She given bursts into giggles at one point, imagining Snape reading about wrackspurts attacking them.

Eventually Ginny remembers the invitation, shoved into her pocket and wrinkled. She smoothes it out on the table.

"Do you want to go to this?" she asks.

"Harry asked me to go as friends," Luna says lightly. "I told him yes. I think some girls want to poison him. Hermione's very worried about him, you know."

Luna asks if Ginny would rather her tell Harry no afterall and go with her, but Ginny tells her to just go with him, if Hermione's worried. Luna gives more details: Hermione's mad at Ron because apparently she likes him (ew), and Hermione's worried about Harry for a myriad of reasons, including that girls are gossiping about love potions. The reason Ginny focuses on is "obsessed with a book that keeps teaching him strange spells."

"I have to go," Ginny says, gathering up her things. The Ring is in her bag now, because of course it is. She pulls it out, because if she's going to be stalked by it, she might as well use it.

"Take me to Harry," she whispers to it, and it does.

/

She corners Harry coming down from Gryffindor Tower and shoves him into a classroom.

"What's up with this book you've got?" she demands.

"Er," Harry says.

"You're just trusting a mysterious book?" Ginny continues. "You never stopped to think, 'Gee, a weird book, where have I seen this before–'"

"Ginny," Harry interrupts, "It's just a book with some notes in it. It's not– it's not talking to me or anything."

Ginny glowers at him. "Just," she says, voice tight. "Just. Be careful."

Harry agrees, and she goes back to her room feeling oddly hypocritical. The ring is heavy around her neck.

/

Bakura doesn't talk to her for weeks, which Ginny considers a positive.

She eventually tells Luna what Bakura showed her, and Luna strokes her hair and tells her it's okay. Ginny wants to believe her.

Slughorn's party happens and nothing of note occurs at it. Luna shows up dressed in all silver with Ginny's sequin vest on top, and Ginny spends most of the party giggling into her girlfriend's ear. Harry doesn't seem to mind at all.

When they're leaving, hand-in-hand, they run into Zacharias Smith, who oggles at them. Or at least, he oggles Luna.

"You got invited?" he asks her. "Dressed like that?"

Ginny scowls and reaches for her wand.

Allow me, Bakura purrs into her ear and Ginny's so mad she lets him.

She regrets it almost immediately, when all the lights in the corridor go out and everything turns cold. It feels like being in a room full of Dementors, and Luna steps closer to Ginny's body.

"Let's play a game," Bakura says, and Zacharias turns to run. He doesn't get very far. The corridor has been replaced by darkness, and no matter how much he runs, he stays in one place.

"How about…" Bakura pretends to think about it for a while. "Exploding Snap?"

He raises Ginny's wand and summons the cards. Smith has tears in his eyes. Luna has gone very still. Bakura keeps Ginny's fingers laced with hers, and Ginny doesn't know what that means, but it keeps her from fighting him. She watches in fascinated horror.

He drops Luna's hand to deal the cards, and Smith is shaking too much to hold any. Luna casts the patronus charm, and a silver hare circles them. Everything gets a bit warmer.

It only helps Smith a bit. He fumbles everything and loses pathetically.

"That wasn't very fun," Bakura says mockingly. "I almost feel bad for you. What should his punishment be, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna is taken aback. The hare flickers but keeps circling them.

"That's fine," Bakura assures her. "I always have ideas."

He summons "Harry Potter's potions book" and then something happens with Smith– he screams, horrifically, and Ginny screams as well and shoves Bakura out of her body.

It's too late, though. Smith goes limp before them. The book in her hands is vibrating with something awful.

There, says Bakura. Now the book is exactly what you warned Potter about.

What do you mean? Ginny asks. Luna is kneeling over Smith, checking his pulse.

I put his soul in it, Bakura says, sounding bored. It's not so hard– I don't know why your Dark Lord had to murder people for it.

What do you mean? Ginny demands. She clutches the book to her body. This is just like before, and she let him do it, just like let she let Tom into her mind.

Bakura gives an impression of yawning. It's not as uncommon as that book made it seem, he says. I know people who do it all the time. Hell, I've found two of these so-called 'horcuxes' here–

Ginny thinks Luna is telling her something, but she can't hear. What do you mean?

What did you think the tiara was? Bakura asks. And that boy, Potter–

Ginny collapses.

/

She wakes with her mother stroking her hand. Molly Weasley has tears in her eyes.

"Oh, Ginny, my sweet Ginny," she cries when Ginny opens her eyes. She hugs her.

Ginny hugs back, weakly. She's in the Hospital Wing. Her father is hovering over both of them, and Smith is in the bed next to hers.

When her mother lets her go, she sees Ron seated on the empty bed to her other side, and the ring on her bedside table.

"Mum brought your Christmas present early," Ron says after everyone's given her hugs. He's got one of the twin's pygmy puffs clutched in his hands.

"Oh," says Ginny softly, "I love those."

"I thought you would," her mother says, squeezing her hand.

She's only been out for a little over a day, but since it's so close to the holidays, she has permission to go home early.

"No," she says. "I want to keep up my classwork. I've got OWLs this year, remember?"

"Well," says her mother, melting a little. "If you insist…"

"Mum," says Ginny, "I'll see you in a couple weeks. I've gotta be there to get my gift, right?"

She presses the pygmy puff into her mother's hands.

"Right," her mother replies, accepting the puff as tenderly as if it were Ginny's hand when she was a little kid. Molly starts crying again.

"Oh, mum," Ginny and Ron say in unison. "You're so embarrassing."

Her family stays the rest of the day, and eventually Luna shows up and talks to her father for a very a long time about… some type of muggle conspiracy about the moon. It's made of cheese or something.

She's cleared to go back to class the next day, as Madam Pomfrey declares her ailment to be "nothing but simple stress." This is, perhaps, accurate.

Her mother covers her in kisses before leaving. Ginny doesn't even have the energy to be offended and hugs her back.

"Mum," she says after Ron's made plenty of faces at them and been pinched lightly for it. "Over holiday, I have, um–"

Ginny means to say "I have something to tell you," but her mother interrupts.

"Oh, you can have Luna over, of course," Molly says, waving her hand. "She's a very sweet girl."

Ginny just grins.

Smith shows no sign of waking anytime soon. Luna told everyone they found him like that, and Ginny plays along. It's a cold weight in the back of her mind as she hides the book– which Luna recovered– in the Room of Requirement. She puts it where the tiara was and checks that it's okay everyday.

/

On the last Sunday before winter holidays, Ginny pulls the tiara out from under her mattress and takes Luna up to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She asks her if she could try to speak snake to the sink.

Luna, being Luna, doesn't even question this request, and leans over the sink to the tap that Ginny indicates. Her dirty blonde hair falls into the basin as she makes all sorts of strange noises.

Ginny feels bad asking Luna for help in this, but she's not sure who else could convincingly make realistic snake hisses.

(Well, Harry can, obviously, but then she'd have to look him in the eye after stealing his now possessed potions book.)

After several minutes of trying, the sink lets out a mechanical moan and moves to the side. Bakura stirs in the back of her mind, interest piqued by the revealed passageway. He wisely stays silent, though, as she and Luna climb down it.

The main hallway is filled with bones that crunch underfoot. They both illuminate their wands.

"Is this–" Luna starts, and Ginny nods. Luna is quiet for a few minutes as they walk down the corridor. Then she asks, "Are you okay with this?"

"I'll be fine," Ginny promises, even as her heart races.

They have to climb over rumble where the tunnel caved in. Ginny helps Luna scramble over it. The corridor continues for another ten minutes, and then opens up into a huge chamber, just as she remembers. The remains of Salazar Slytherin's statue are still there, along with the skeleton of a massive snake. Pieces of its shed skin litter the room around them.

Luna gasps. Ginny can feel Bakura practically vibrating with excitement.

She approaches the snake's head cautiously, as if its decayed form might still be able to hurt her. She pulls the tiara out from under her robes.

"Ginny," Luna says. "Ginny, what–"

Ginny impales the tiara on the basilisk's fang. The tiara shrieks, and Luna yanks Ginny away. The tiara falls to the ground, screaming, its voice echoing through the chamber.

What did you do? Bakura asks. His form solidifies before her, staring at the wailing tiara in horror. Luna's grip is steel on her arm.

"I destroyed it," Ginny says. She stands tall before him. "I want you to know, Bakura, that I can destroy whatever you are."

Luna's grip tightens even more. Bakura narrows his eyes at her.

"I can and will destroy you and your ring," Ginny says, her voice hard and even. "And you will pay rent."

She and Bakura stare into each others eyes for a very long time. The tiara stops screaming and leaves the chamber quiet and still.

"Will the rent be high?" Bakura asks.

Ginny sneers. "Of course."

"I thought so," Bakura says. Then he smirks at her. "Such a demanding landlord. How would you like this month paid?"

Ginny has a lot of ideas. She wants Smith back to his regular terrible self, obviously, and she wants more information about Harry being a horcrux or whatever. She wants selfish things, too, like money to shower Luna in gifts, and something really nice for her mother for Christmas.

"First," she says, "you can start by getting Luna and me out of here. Unharmed."

Bakura laughs. "As you wish, Landlord."