The First Year

To Not Rest On Laurels

Ginny yawned and reached out with one hand to pull the curtain aside that surrounded her bed in the seventh year girls' dormitory. It was just her, Demelza, and Shannon, a somewhat quiet girl who mostly kept to herself. Sunlight streamed through the window, and Ginny swung her feet to the floor, gasping as her bare feet hit the cold stone. Coming up to Scotland was always something of a shock to her system, after two months in Devon. She scrabbled for the slippers she'd found in her trunk the first night back. They were adorned with a pair of long ears, button eyes, whiskers, and even a soft, embroidered pink nose. The note Harry had tucked into the package said they were bunny slippers. And they did resemble a stuffed bunny she'd had as a child. They were slightly foolish, but Ginny grinned when she slid her feet into them.

She wrapped her dressing gown around her body, and shuffled quietly across the floor to the window, careful not to wake either Demelza or Shannon. In Devon, Ginny could sleep until noon, if Molly had let her. But here, she woke at sunrise. There was something about the few moments of absolute quiet that she treasured in all the bustle of school. It was something she'd started to do her second year. She hoisted herself into the deep windowsill and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Ginny's eyes drifted shut as she took several deep breaths.

After many cups of tea, Remus had coaxed a heavily-redacted version of the events of the previous year from her when he'd noticed some of the others in her Defense class gave her a wide berth. He'd seen the way her shoulders tensed when he put them into groups to practice some of the jinxes and hexes they would need to learn and how her face had tightened when the rest of her group deliberately excluded her. He had suggested she try something like this. To take the time to put that day, and any other day behind her.

Ever since she'd gotten back Tuesday night, she'd found herself doing this much more than she'd even done last year. Ginny's eyes opened, and she looked out over the mountains, shrouded in early-morning mist, highlighted by the rising sun. Slowly exhaling one last time, Ginny slid off the windowsill and headed into the bathroom. She had a long day ahead of her. Transfiguration, Herbology, double Potions, and double Defense at the end of a seemingly endless, exhausting day.

Ron watched Harry tie the laces of his trainers. 'What's it like?'

'What?' Harry glanced at Ron over the rims of his glasses.

Ron slowly tied the lace of his own trainer. 'Going in there...' he clarified. 'After...' Ron cleared his throat.

Harry straightened up and slid off the camp bed. He turned around and began to make it with the rigid precision he'd learned at the Dursleys'. By the time he was done, he could have bounced a Sickle off the blanket if he'd wanted. He bent and tightly tucked the sheet under the mattress. 'Weird.' He moved around the foot to the other side and repeated the procedure. 'I walk into the Atrium, and I keep looking over my shoulder. Even though I know they've pretty much cleaned it out, you find a random piece of paper or parchment in a file somewhere, with his signature on it. But it's not in ink. He's burned it there. Or someone is just going along their day, and all of a sudden, they remember it's someone else's birthday or anniversary, and they start to run up to their cubicle and halfway there, they realize that person's gone. And they start crying. Or if they're not crying, they're biting their lips trying not to cry.' He carefully tugged the blanket into meticulous lines. 'Sometimes, you find one of their bloody leaflets tucked in a drawer somewhere. And the past few days, I get to sit in one meeting after another, discussing trial dates and trying to locate enough members of the Wizangamot in order to have the damn things in the first place.' Harry snatched up his pillow and began to fluff it with unnecessary force. 'And then, there's Snape...' He dropped the pillow back on the bed, and smoothed the creases from the pillowcase. 'They want to try him posthumously.'