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Ginny had memorised the path to her father’s ward the way one memorises prayers: step after step, corridor after corridor, until it became something like ritual. The little monitors above Arthur’s bed pulsed and chimed with maddening regularity, and after hours at his side she had slipped out only to find a cup of tea and breathe air that didn’t taste of antiseptic and worry.
There were times, Ginny thought, when things had gotten so bad that you wanted to fight something. Anything. When striking out was the only way to quiet the madness creeping in. Sometimes, in the lonely walks between wards, her mind supplied enemies for her fists and her wand.
She had just closed the door to the Irreparable Damages Ward when a voice, low and deliberate, carried down the corridor.
"Why, isn’t it the littlest blood traitor?"
She turned slowly. Of course it was him. In her mind, it was always him. She didn’t reach for her wand. This wasn’t about a duel. It was about a fight.
The portraits on the walls seemed to stir, or maybe only in her imagination, until her glare silenced them.
"Yes," she said, venom for venom. "It is."
Lucius Malfoy stepped closer, immaculate in the poor light, his expression smooth and cruel.
"I hear your father is not expected to make a quick recovery," he murmured. "Snake bites can be… so unpredictable. And how will the Weasley brood manage without its patriarch? Vulnerable. Exposed."
Ginny’s jaw clenched, but her tone remained flat. "Have you been counting on it?"
She could almost feel his breath near her ear, the brush of fingers against her hair, though she wasn’t sure if he’d truly moved.
"Imagine the headlines, little girl. Your father gone, your mother and siblings scattered. What would you give to prevent it?"
"No," she hissed, a grin like a blade flickering across her face. "The question is what you’d do when I come for you."
Before he could answer she struck, her leg hooking behind his knee, sending him sprawling. She could hear the cane skitter, feel the wand splinter in her grip, taste the word zombie on her tongue.
Ginny’s hand shot out, and the serpent-headed staff flew into her palm.
Lucius’s composure cracked.
She tore his wand free, weighing it briefly before crushing it in her grip, splinters cutting her skin.
"You think I can’t?" she whispered. "Try me. Threaten my family again and I’ll make sure you never stand back up."
The shards hit the floor with a clatter.
"You’re nothing but a puppet," she spat. "Tom Riddle filled your head until you couldn’t see anything else. A zombie in fine robes."
He stirred, and she ripped at his sleeve until pale skin showed and the Mark burned black.
"Zombie," she seethed. With two sharp motions she cast Petrificus Totalus and the emergency alert charm.
But when she reached the stairwell, gripping the banister until her knuckles whitened, the images blurred. His sleeve ripped, the Mark exposed, her own palm bleeding... it all shimmered like smoke. She was fifteen, and at Saint Mungo’s she was just a girl with red eyes and bitten nails, keeping vigil over her father and wishing she were strong enough to do more than imagine.