Summary: It started with a whisper. It ended with a bang.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Carrie. For starters, they were not by the same person. So, well, I'm all for secret identities, but if I wrote either of them, there's no way I would keep it secret. No way at all.

Written For: The Horror/Halloween Competition

It ended with a bang.

When her world was all smoke and fire, tattered and burning and falling apart at the seams, all she knew was that she should kill her.

Ginny could taste the fear, the tantalizing aroma of death, destruction, power and freedom. The fact that it was her, that finally, she could make a change. She could stand up for herself and make people cower before her, let them recognize that she was not someone to be pushed around as they wished, because she was not weak. She was strong, she was someone to be feared. They were right to be scared.

The events leading up to this was blurry, hazy and weak, flashing past and blurring into one another. A few stood out, in particular, though –

She can't kill her. Her eyes widened as her grip on her throat weakened slightly, a hint of herself, old her, the weak one, coming back.

There it was again – the faint pulse, signaling another life, an unborn child that deserved a second chance, someone who was innocent, not meant to be a casualty. She can't kill her, because no matter how guilty she was, her child was not. And was she truly that guilty in the first place?

Eyes glazed over slightly, trying to hold on to the glimmer of empathy she could not quite remember how to feel, she flung her out. Out of the door, the garden, across the road – she couldn't tell, and she didn't care, as long as she was away from this place, away from her rage, her powers, what she could no longer hold back.

The sky continued crying solid tears of rocks, of brimstone and calling up the hell she had been raised in since that day the voice opened its mouth and was heard. Finally, she caved. With the power rushing through her, giving her strength she had never known she had had, she screamed.

A single note of pure fury, anger, hitting a pitch only she could hear and understand, letting it all out, giving it up, returning it, taking it away –

The house caved with her, finally letting gravity and the meteors do its work.

As Hermione watched, horrified, from the sidewalk, the house let the energy waves run its course and fell down, collapsing onto the girl who had always been a sweetheart, if not a little shy. The girl who had never deserved this, the one who was more of a victim than anything else.

The one who had, for reasons unknown, spared her where she had not spared the rest.

When Hermione approached her, her first emotion was wariness.

She didn't want a repeat of their previous encounter. No matter how apologetic and sorry Hermione looked, it was hard to believe that it was genuine.

"What is it?" she asked, ready to run for it, although the voice muttered to her that she could, in fact, stand up for herself, that she now had the ability to hurt them like they had hurt her, albeit in a different way.

"I'm sorry," Hermione began, looking at her hands. She brought her eyes up to meet Ginny's, and she was surprised to find sincerity in there. Taking a deep breath, she continued.

"I know that nothing could excuse what I did, or, rather, did not do, so I would not try, and I do not ask for your forgiveness because it is up to you who you want to forgive. I have been through it once, too, but my friends had helped me, and I'm sorry that I let them make you feel bad instead of help you out, and, like I said earlier, I cannot excuse it, and I deserve the punishment but I want to make up for it."

Wetting her lips, she glanced at the corridor behind Ginny, relief flashing into her eyes as she spotted someone.

Ginny turned around.

It was a green-eyed boy with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead and forever unruly hair. It was the boy who had starred in her daydreams in the time when she had still wanted to run away with someone. It was her brother's only friend, and why was he here?

"That's my boyfriend, Harry. This is Ginny, Harry," Hermione introduced.

Ginny turned back to Hermione, suspicious now. It must have shown, since Hermione hurried to explain things. "I know that you don't have a date to your prom, so, uh, I asked him if he was alright with taking you out for the night."

The nervousness she felt was transparent in her voice. She wouldn't look at Ginny.

Ginny looked at her for a while, judging the choices.

In the end, it was a fairly easy decision.

She had to ask first, though.

"What happened to Cho?"

Hermione blinked at her, obviously taken by surprise.

"She refused to apologize, or promise to leave you alone, so Professor McGonagall suspended her and banned her from the prom," she answered dutifully.

"Alright. I can't forgive you yet, but I don't hate you in particular," she told Hermione. She remembered, how could she not? And she hated them all, but Hermione was mostly just a spectator. She had not helped, but she had not made things worse.

Turning to Harry, she said, "I will go with you."

The tombstone stood there, alone in the expense, almost completely covered by wild plants. It had been a few months, since the funeral no one except for her and the gravedigger showed up for.

People mourned for Cho and all the victims, but no one showed up for her.

Not even her brothers.

Hermione could feel her eyes tearing up a little at the thought.

Whether it was because of the unfairness, or because she knew that Ginny had never been an aggressive person, for she was the true victim here... she didn't know.

The girl deserved a proper burial, though, not this joke.

At least she was not with her mother at peace.

Long after the gravedigger had left that day, Hermione had remained. Then, she walked away, like he did.

She came back, this time, and for a while, she stood there, reading the words on the grave and wishing that they had been carved on by someone who had believed in it, had thought it was the truth.

Finally, she gathered the courage to step forward, placing the bouquet of purple hyacinths and pink carnations she had picked, the silent apology and promise to never forget her like the rest of the world, and her brothers, had. She had wordlessly hoping to convey the fact that she had never meant for this to happen, bowing her head in respect for a while, a final thing she could do, for this girl left behind by the rest of the world.

As she left, she never looked back, not once.

She had paid her respects, and she was going to move on, from Harry, from Ginny.

She never noticed the cracks forming on the tombstone, or the way the flowers had shriveled.

When they named her and Harry Prom King and Queen, she was ecstatic.

The night was already going great, it was the best night of her life and she was sure she would never forget it. Being noticed, finally, for something that was not shameful, was a wonderful experience.

The floating-in-the-sky feeling lasted until it was drenched in blood. As she stood there, dripping, the video of her the first time she discovered the blood on her skirt, standing there, petrified and shocked started showing in the multiple screens around the room.

She froze there, her emotions, the ones that had remained dormant for such a long time, starting to bubble to the surface.

Minutes before that, she had seen Hermione in the audience, alarmed and looking at something above her. The teacher, the one who had helped her, she hustled Hermione out.

Harry had not seen her.

Harry would never see her again.

When the bucket hit him, killing him instantly, her defenses failed. She let everything out, unleashing her wrath onto everyone there, everyone except the teacher, the only one other than Harry who had been kind to her.

Except the two people who had caused her this too, apparently.

She could see them running out of the room towards the parking lot, towards the car parked next to the one Harry had driven her here in.

The anger blinded her for a moment as she went out there after them.

Her senses all fired up, she could feel the air and she could hear the leaves.

She could also hear them talking.

More specifically, Cho.

Telling her boyfriend to run her over, to just end her like they did the useless, spineless idiot who bend over when his girlfriend tells him to go out with the useless prissy girl who was a whiny thing…

In her fury, she let lose a wave, a pulse, the bitter satisfaction roused only when the car hit the gas station next to the house and went up in a ball of heat, casting shades of orange and red and yellow and fire in the air around it, painting a beautiful picture.

Not beautiful enough to fill the hole in her heart left behind by Harry's passing.

It filled her with a new energy, though, giving her the passion and the drive to avenge, to get revenge for herself and for Harry.

It also allowed the voice full reign over her ability, letting her loose on the unsuspecting town, determined to paint the streets red and let the world see her grieve.

She was locked in the closet when she finally snapped, giving in, giving up.

The day had started normally, and it proceeded smoothly, with the usual interruptions. Until, that was, when she discovered that there was blood on her skirt.

For a while, she had thought that she was going to bleed to death. The girls who had surrounded her, teasing her and laughing at her, pretending to be reassuring as they told her that she will, indeed, bleed to death, did not help in the least bit. They scattered when the teacher came by, but their leader, Cho Chang, filmed the whole thing from the start till the end.

By the time the teacher arrived, she was scared senseless.

As the teacher took her hand gently and guided her to the office, she was a little shocked, numb and halfway out of reality, mostly detached.

As they called her mother, telling her to take her daughter home, she had wanted to tell them that she was fine. She wanted to tell them that it was alright, she wanted to stay in school as it was not that serious.

She found out that she couldn't speak, that she had lost her voice in that short period of time.

Her mother was not helpful at all. She did the exact opposite.

She told Ginny that this was a sign from god, marking her out as unholy and wrong, telling her to abstain from going to school and staining the rest of the girls. She told Ginny that this was the only way to protect the world from her sins, to keep them pure.

Ginny refused.

For the first time in her life, she gave in to the voice in her head, the one telling her that she should stop being such a pushover. She wanted to go to school, to learn, and use this knowledge to someday get out of this hellhole. Perhaps it was a sin, to want to leave the person who raised you, but Ginny could not care less. She wanted to be free, to be gone from this place.

Whether because she thought that Ginny being disobedient was a sign that she was going to hell, or because she wanted to prevent her from disobeying, her mother locked her in her prayer closet.

Ginny meant to yell, shout, generally disagree and demand to be let out.

She really did.

She just couldn't find her voice. Even the voice, the one that was rarely silent, kept quiet.

She never heard the vase shatter and the door crack from the force of her silent scream, her rage, her desperation for something nameless that she had always yearned for.

She was too lost in her own world, the one where the voice spoke up, and had drowned out everything else.

"You can be better than this," it told her. "Let me help you. Together, we can end this."

And, finally, she listened.

It was prom night, and her mother had refused to let her go. She had no rights, Ginny seethed silently. No rights at all. This was one thing, just one, the only one I could have. She would not take it away.

Her mother told her that she would be beyond help, beyond even the salvation of god if she were to go to this dance for the devils.

The first wave of ire sweeping across her shattered all breakable objects in the house.

The horrification in her mother's expressions was satisfying, up until the point she picked up the bottle of holy water and splashing it onto her, holding out her crucifix and muttering prayers, telling her that she was insane and that she had already been lost to the devil himself.

It served to no purpose other than encouraging her temper, doubling up all her feelings and causing her to lose a little more of her defense against the voice telling her to go for it.

The emotions continued siphoning away her emotions, weakening her defenses. She yielded, allowing the abilities, her instincts, to take over. Slamming her mother into the closet with the crucifix on it, she let herself laugh semi-maniacally, hysterically as it began to bleed, before shutting the door on her with the resounding bang, cutting off her objections and scolding, locking her out of her world.

Ginny's world.

It was hers, not her mother's, she would live it and control it and her mother would never again be the reason she could not find her voice.

Then, she went out, to where Harry had been waiting for her in his suit.

He took in her appearance without comment, before telling her that her dress was still at his place.

It was simple, blue-grey to match his tie with a single forget-me-not pinned on. It was beautiful, elegant and bold.

It was everything she had never had, and she loved it.

When she tried it on, he told her that she was absolutely stunning in it. He had offered to pay the full cost and let her keep the dress, but she had denied it.

Her mother would never let her keep it.

She smiled at him, regardless, the first true one ever since the day the woman in blue arrived and their father was out of her life.

For the first time, she had something that was truly hers, something from someone who saw her as her, and not as her brothers' sister or the girl who was only good at studying, the weak one in the corner no one really knew, or liked. It was someone who saw her flaws and accepted them, while cherishing her good qualities and let her know when she had done something right, giving out praise as if it was natural

The life sparkling in her eyes were not tears, they were not, and it was just adoration gleaming in her eyes as she enveloped him in a giant hug, thanking him profusely.

He had stiffened up when she first threw herself at him, but soon his arms encircled her, patting her on the back as he whispered into her ears that he was honored to have her as a prom date.

The voice, the one that had grown too much too fast and was way too strong and loud now, told her that this was not real, that this would come to a messy end. It told her that Harry doesn't care at all, that Hermione had done this to get back at her for the detentions and demerits, that she would let her have a taste of what it was like to be with Harry and be cared about, just to rip it away from her and rub it into her face by revealing that it was all just another joke in the endless string of pranks.

She told it to shut up as she basked in the affection.

It started with a whisper. She could vaguely recall the hazy days from when she was kid, when her father was still around, that her family was a happy one. She could not quite remember the details, but she knew that she used to believe her father was a superhero, and that he was invincible when he battled the bad guys.

Until that one day he never came back.

Instead, a woman dressed in a nice blue uniform, holding a letter, turned up. She passed it to her mother and apologized in a crisp tone, detached. Ginny could not quite understand what she had meant, but her brothers and her mother did.

Her eldest brothers got into a huge argument with her mother that day, after the woman left. She stood to the side, watching, wide-eyed.

It ended with them walking out, without anything. They never came back, either.

It was just her, Ron, Fred and George left.

Molly had packed up all of their father's belongings, as well as his pictures, everything that he had ever handled, and put it in the backyard.

And she lit it all on fire.

As it burnt, she remembered her saying something about asking god to help her cleanse the family and save them from a one-way trip to hell.

Everything was just silent.

When they burnt her eldest brother's things, though, the voice first spoke to her. It was soft, gently telling her that maybe they deserved to have been given a chance to come back. It told her to tell her mother to stop, to put out the fire.

Her mother's glare when she stepped forward quelled it.

She could no longer remember what her father was like, except for the flicker of familiarity she sometimes got when she ran into another man in the shopping mall and got a whiff of his cologne, and she sometimes could hear the words in the back of her head, telling her to take it and move on when she opened her locker to find everything ruined, again.

She kept quiet about that.

It was an unspoken rule in the house that no one is to talk about Arthur, Charlie or Bill.

Fred and George were added to the list when they, too, left when they turned 16, stating that they have had enough. Ron took off after them two years later, when he was 15 and Ginny was 13.

It continued whispering to her, telling her that she would be worth something more, if she would just stop listening to her mother and forgiving her for things she should never have done in the first place. If she were to just follow her brothers and have the courage to walk away.

This project is 3,261 words long. (Sorry, I'm just a little obsessed with word counts right now, thanks to NaNoWriMo.)