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The changing room was off limits, but Snape’s bloody office had been off limits, too. Ginny’s movements were careful and stiff, but she wasn’t sneaking. Early morning light shot gold through the dust motes that drifted in the air.
Two long benches in the center, curtained spaces on both sides. Lockers stacked on the back wall. She’d always liked the one two rows over from his favorite. Exactly at his level—not above, not below.
Something wadded on the ground, in the corner near the wall. Hidden, or forgotten? Impossible to tell. Maybe it hadn’t been there before. Maybe, like the sword, it only came if it was needed.
Ginny ignored her body’s protests as she bent to pick it up.
Soft scarlet stitches and a ribbon of gold. On the back, the number seven—one strong slant, one straight line.
It didn’t smell like him anymore.
Ginny rose, clutching the jumper to her chest. She’d need to hide it, when she walked out of the changing room. She’d have to be careful, if she wore it, herself.
A quick path towards the tower, where she stashed her new treasure at the bottom of her trunk. No time for breakfast: not safe to be late.
In Alecto Carrow’s classroom, Ginny sat, shifting her weight and blushing through her tremors. Living, in her head, the night that would come—when she could finally pull the curtains around herself in bed. She’d put it on then, and feel the warmth of it around her. With her body beneath it, the jumper itself might warm a little bit.