Visitation -- 2.06
- Location
- the point is of no return and you have reached it!
"About the other trial," I start. "For Mr. Black. What's his story? Is he really innocent?"
Professor Dumbledore frowns. "I admit, Miss Macmillan, I am hardly the infallible leader that much of the world believes me to be. For a very long time, I believed Mr. Black to be guilty of all charges, but in light of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets. . ." Professor Dumbledore trailed off, turning his head and glancing through some of the portraits gathered throughout the office, before turning his attention back to me. "I will tell you what I had believed to happen, so many years ago, and you may make your own judgement now."
"Growing up, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were apart of one of the school's most notorious cliques. They called themselves 'the Marauders,' and their numbers in full included the esteemed Remus Lupin and the war hero auror, James Potter. All Gryffindors, they made it their duty to terrorize and isolate those young Slytherins and Ravenclaws who were considering lives as Death Eaters. Though I am sure that these Marauders had the best intentions, they may well have driven more into the arms of the Dark Lord by their methods." He sighed. "They were pranksters, like the Weasley twins of today, though even the Weasley twins often failed to stand up to their scale."
"Lupin, Potter and Pettigrew were always on the line, walking that thin edge but very rarely overstepping. It was not the same for Mr. Black. More than once, his pranks or jokes reached the point where they might have seen good men be killed." I shivered at that. I had been imagining their pranks as benevolent things, but if people were at risk of being killed . . . that changed things. "But the Marauders stuck together, and they did not kill anyone in that time. The others had a positive effect on Mr. Black, and always seemed to temper his worst moments."
"When the Wizarding War entered full force, the Marauders came to fight on the side of good, and they joined some close friends of mine in helping to form the Order of the Phoenix." Professor Dumbledore's voice got quiet for a moment after that, before he regained his composure. "Over the course of the war, they fought in many battles together and assisted the aurors in many occasions. But it was becoming clearer and clearer as the war progressed that there was a spy, not just among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix, but among the ranks of the Marauders. It was around this time that Mrs. Potter, James's young wife and another member of the Order, was coming to the last weeks of her pregnancy with Harry."
"James and Lily sought to keep their baby safe from the war. Lily was a master of charms and more exotic magics, and she suggested the fidelius charm. I offered my services, as either caster of the Fidelius or the secret keeper, and on both counts I was refused." Professor Dumbledore's tone now was bitter. "The charm was cast instead by one of Lily's closest friends: Mrs. Alice Longbottom, another member of the Order of the Phoenix and a war hero of her own for the First Battle of Godric's Hollow. To my knowledge, one member of the Marauders was chosen as well, to be their secret keeper."
"Remus Lupin was discounted immediately, for reasons that are not mine to share, and it was a question between Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. Black. For the longest time I, and all of Magical Britain, believed it to be Mr. Black who was their secret keeper; the Potters had declared to the world that Sirius Black was indeed their secret keeper." Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps that should have been a more obvious hint that he was not. Whoever the Potters chose as their secret keeper, they were betrayed, hunt down by Voldemort, and killed. Only by a miracle of love magic was our young hope, Harry, kept alive."
"Our groundskeeper, Mr. Hagrid, found their home in ruins when he arrived, and he found Mr. Black standing in the ruins with Harry in his hands. Hagrid took Harry from Mr. Black under my orders, and then Mr. Black left. Minutes later, Black was across the continent, twelve muggles were dead, and Peter Pettigrew's finger was lying alone in the middle of a city block. When Cornelius Fudge arrived on the scene, back then little more than a secretary to Minister Bagnold, he saw Black standing in the street, laughing and laughing."
"The story was spun that Mr. Black had always been a servant of the Dark Lord, even though he had no Dark Mark, and that he had betrayed the Potters and went to clean up the one loose-end, Mr. Pettigrew. When he found Pettigrew, he used curses and dark magic so strong that all that was left of poor Peter was his finger. And that is not a hard story to believe, when faced with the things that Mr. Black had done throughout his career at Hogwarts and in the years of the war that followed. But if Mr. Pettigrew is alive . . ." Again he trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say.
"Then maybe Pettigrew was their secret keeper, and when Mr. Black arrived to hunt him down for answers, he killed the muggles and. . . cut off his own finger?" I finished for him. Professor Dumbledore gave a nod.
I looked down at that for a long moment, before speaking again. "It isn't the most sensible sounding of arguments. But, with what I saw in the Chamber, with Pettigrew actively working with the Dark Lord's shade, then maybe that will be enough to convince people of his innocence." Professor Dumbledore nodded, though the expression on his face wasn't certain.
I didn't know what more to ask about the trial, and as the silence lingered, it was clear Professor Dumbledore wasn't sure what more to say either. He had obviously been hiding some things from me in his description, but it didn't seem like he was actively lying to me, and I didn't feel the need to call him out on any of it. Nor did I see a benefit on calling him out on any of it.
"Was there anything else, Miss Macmillan? I'll confess I do have some other matters to attend to today," Professor Dumbledore spoke, his voice returning to its usual cheer. I cleared my mind and nodded.
"One last thing. When you do clean out the Come-and-Go Room, I was hopeful to be present. My family has a long history of preserving and protecting the magical history of Scotland, and all of Great Britain, really, and it would be a shame to see any of the tomes there lost to time or otherwise discarded after the room is cleared out. Of course, the dark books and artifacts would remain with you to dispose of as you please, but those other books that provide glimpses at the culture and lore of our great island throughout the ages, and of the spells that we used throughout them--preserving those is part of our duty as one of Britain's oldest families," I paused and took a breath, watching Professor Dumbledore's expression. He seemed amused more than anything else by my attempt.
"When I went to thank the Room, for its participation and help those few nights ago, it gave me an application for a position here, too." At those words, Professor Dumbledore seemed even more amused. I smiled. "And access to the room's stocks of knowledge would mean that I could better train and prepare myself for that position as the Defense against the Dark Arts professor, maybe even to the point where I can be ready to take it up as soon as I graduate. But that's beside the main point,"
Finally, Professor Dumbledore chuckled and shook his head.
"Though I do agree with the preservation of knowledge, Miss Macmillan, I disagree with the movement of it into the private library of an old family. Rather I intend to add those non-Dark books found inside to the school's libraries, restricted or unrestricted as each book may require. As a prefect and an esteemed member of the Hogwarts community, I am sure you will have no trouble renting them out from our library and studying them here, and I am sure you can appreciate that they will be open to a far wider audience than your own family library would allow."
I had prepared a line of defense for this in my head earlier. If it was open to the school and the general public, it could be damaged more easily, or students could come to harm each other more easily. But if I brought up concerns for the safety of the books, then Professor Dumbledore would explain his intent to keep the books themselves safe and provide copies of them in the library, and if I brought up students being more capable of harming each other, that would just make him less likely to give me the books either.
"But if you are looking for additional ways to prepare yourself for that position, and seeking to better your personal skills in Defense against the Dark Arts, perhaps I can offer you something else that might suit your fancy--perhaps even two things." I paused my other thoughts, listening intently to what he said. "I know you had been seeking a potential apprenticeship with Professor Flitwick when you graduated, and I know that Professor Flitwick does not currently take apprentices who are enrolled at Hogwarts. But there are other professors at Hogwarts who have less qualms working with students before their graduation."
"As my personal thank you for your services to the school and your aid to us all in protecting Harry Potter, and as a way of helping prepare you for the target that you have put onto your own head . . ." Professor Dumbledore seemed to be having second thoughts, for a moment, before he finally spoke again. "I will offer you private lessons over the course of your last two years at Hogwarts, on dueling, applied charm-work and the defense against the Dark Arts. Should you accept, I warn that it might not always be me teaching the lessons--some will have Professor Flitwick, or Professor McGonagall, at the helm--but I ensure you that the teacher will always be more than capable. And, if that offer suits your fancy . . ."
"I offer you a position as a member of the Order of the Phoenix." Professor Dumbledore smiled at me as he finished that offer. "As a member of an Order of the Phoenix, you would receive a stipend of enough to live on, access to the magical libraries of other members of the Order of the Phoenix, access to the Order safe-houses throughout Magical Britain and France, the personal support of the other members of the Order in any attacks on you or your property and a real opportunity to do good in the world."
That . . . wasn't too bad of an offer. Private lessons from Professor Dumbledore himself, I mean. I was less sure about the offer to join the Order.
[x] Accept both.
[x] Accept the lessons, but not the position in the order.
[x] Try to argue for something else as your reward.
-[x] The Come-and-Go Room's collection . . .
-[x] Something else?
When I left the room, I headed down the hallway and pulled out my time-turner and spun it five ticks back. Around me, the world was covered in a golden sheen.
...
That should give me more time to take care of things before I head down for dinner. There were still people I needed to talk to, after all, and there was no time but the time turned present to do so. It wasn't a long walk from Professor Dumbledore's office over to the Hospital Wing to meet with Harry and Ginny. Though, as I made my way over, Dumbledore's words were flashing through my head again. Some fragment of the Dark Lord has escaped into Ginny when he had been banished in the Chamber.
I decided I should be on my guard when I went to speak with them in the Hospital Wing. After some ten minutes of walking and waiting for pathways to align properly, I made it into the Hospital Wing and found myself at the curtain to Harry and Ginny's ward.
Pulling the curtain aside, I had expected to find them asleep. I was half-right, and half-wrong. Harry looked to be completely asleep, with his eyes closed and his head laying delicately atop Ginny's lap; Ginny, on the other hand, seemed to be wide awake, though the expressions on her face were not happy ones. She didn't seem to have noticed me at first when I entered.
The way they were sitting together was oddly intimate. I didn't realize that the two had been so close before the accident, but from how they were sitting now, they looked almost like they were long-lost loves separated at birth. Ginny's hand was nestled into the top of Harry's hair, resting over his forehead as well, and she seemed to be gently rubbing at his head--which was definitely weird, but she was a Weasley, so I wasn't quite ready to accuse her of being the Dark Lord incarnate from that gesture--while her other hand was interlocked with his, resting at their side.
Ginny's hair had lost much of its color. I knew what the vivid Weasley red was supposed to look like, and this was not it; instead it was pale and strawberry, and where traces of color did bleed through, the hair looked stressed and damaged. So too was Ginny's skin, which had taken on a much paler color than what I believed to be natural. Young as she was, she looked old and harrowed, and her posture screamed of her guilt and regrets. I saw ghosts everyday, and Ginny Weasley was not quite a ghost, but if she had been standing beside a poltergeist it would be a familial resemblance.
Slowly, as I pulled aside the curtain further, Ginny's head turned up to me, and I saw the extent of her misery. Beneath her eyes were rings and rings from sleepless nights, and on those rings sat the stains of lingering tears. Blood had crusted over her lips, and throughout all of her time in the Hospital Wing, nobody had moved close enough to clean them off, nor to wipe away the broken traces of her makeup. But beyond her mortal remnants of pain there was something dark, something about her face that was fundamentally wrong and that I could not look away from.
It was her eyes. I had thought them at first bloodshot, but that was wrong; where there were to be lines of blood and red markings, instead there was black. Ink stained her eyes from the insides out, tarnished her pupils and consumed all but the outer edges of her brown irises. It was the way that the ink moved, different blots forming into different shapes in her eyes, and the way that the inkshot lines were only specs away from resembling words and phrases instead.
The longer I stared at her eyes, the colder I felt. I forced myself to look away. I opened my mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what words to say. Ginny spoke instead.
"Thank you," and after her words came, a ragged sob followed. I turned back to look at her, and I could see traces of ink as well in the tears that were streaming down her face. A chill ran through me again, and another ragged sob came down Ginny's face. Her hand had stopped rubbing at Harry's hair. "Th-They told me what happened down there, in the Chamber, with Tom and, and," her voice caught on the words and she stuttered over and over again as she tried to move on through her sentence. Whether it be absentminded or intentional, I saw how her fingers began to move and rub into Harry's hair again--more specifically, how her index moved around Harry's scar, gently caressing the scar tissue and coaxing in and out across the lightning bolt.
I didn't know what to say to her. If it was a her. There was something so blatantly unnatural about her that I felt goosebumps coming up on my arms and legs.
What should I do? Ginny is obviously possessed by the Dark Lord's shade, and she's doing something with Harry's scar.
[x] Run, and continue with my plan for the day.
[x] Try to get her to let go of Harry, and then call for help.
[x] Remember what Dumbledore said, and try to have a conversation with her.
-[x] About what . . ?
[x] Something else?
Afterwards, should I . . .
[x] Resume earlier plan.
[x] Do something else. I have five hours, give or take, if I ignore Ginny and leave now. I'm not sure how long dealing with Ginny will take.
[x] Time-skip to the first trial.
Professor Dumbledore frowns. "I admit, Miss Macmillan, I am hardly the infallible leader that much of the world believes me to be. For a very long time, I believed Mr. Black to be guilty of all charges, but in light of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets. . ." Professor Dumbledore trailed off, turning his head and glancing through some of the portraits gathered throughout the office, before turning his attention back to me. "I will tell you what I had believed to happen, so many years ago, and you may make your own judgement now."
"Growing up, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were apart of one of the school's most notorious cliques. They called themselves 'the Marauders,' and their numbers in full included the esteemed Remus Lupin and the war hero auror, James Potter. All Gryffindors, they made it their duty to terrorize and isolate those young Slytherins and Ravenclaws who were considering lives as Death Eaters. Though I am sure that these Marauders had the best intentions, they may well have driven more into the arms of the Dark Lord by their methods." He sighed. "They were pranksters, like the Weasley twins of today, though even the Weasley twins often failed to stand up to their scale."
"Lupin, Potter and Pettigrew were always on the line, walking that thin edge but very rarely overstepping. It was not the same for Mr. Black. More than once, his pranks or jokes reached the point where they might have seen good men be killed." I shivered at that. I had been imagining their pranks as benevolent things, but if people were at risk of being killed . . . that changed things. "But the Marauders stuck together, and they did not kill anyone in that time. The others had a positive effect on Mr. Black, and always seemed to temper his worst moments."
"When the Wizarding War entered full force, the Marauders came to fight on the side of good, and they joined some close friends of mine in helping to form the Order of the Phoenix." Professor Dumbledore's voice got quiet for a moment after that, before he regained his composure. "Over the course of the war, they fought in many battles together and assisted the aurors in many occasions. But it was becoming clearer and clearer as the war progressed that there was a spy, not just among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix, but among the ranks of the Marauders. It was around this time that Mrs. Potter, James's young wife and another member of the Order, was coming to the last weeks of her pregnancy with Harry."
"James and Lily sought to keep their baby safe from the war. Lily was a master of charms and more exotic magics, and she suggested the fidelius charm. I offered my services, as either caster of the Fidelius or the secret keeper, and on both counts I was refused." Professor Dumbledore's tone now was bitter. "The charm was cast instead by one of Lily's closest friends: Mrs. Alice Longbottom, another member of the Order of the Phoenix and a war hero of her own for the First Battle of Godric's Hollow. To my knowledge, one member of the Marauders was chosen as well, to be their secret keeper."
"Remus Lupin was discounted immediately, for reasons that are not mine to share, and it was a question between Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. Black. For the longest time I, and all of Magical Britain, believed it to be Mr. Black who was their secret keeper; the Potters had declared to the world that Sirius Black was indeed their secret keeper." Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps that should have been a more obvious hint that he was not. Whoever the Potters chose as their secret keeper, they were betrayed, hunt down by Voldemort, and killed. Only by a miracle of love magic was our young hope, Harry, kept alive."
"Our groundskeeper, Mr. Hagrid, found their home in ruins when he arrived, and he found Mr. Black standing in the ruins with Harry in his hands. Hagrid took Harry from Mr. Black under my orders, and then Mr. Black left. Minutes later, Black was across the continent, twelve muggles were dead, and Peter Pettigrew's finger was lying alone in the middle of a city block. When Cornelius Fudge arrived on the scene, back then little more than a secretary to Minister Bagnold, he saw Black standing in the street, laughing and laughing."
"The story was spun that Mr. Black had always been a servant of the Dark Lord, even though he had no Dark Mark, and that he had betrayed the Potters and went to clean up the one loose-end, Mr. Pettigrew. When he found Pettigrew, he used curses and dark magic so strong that all that was left of poor Peter was his finger. And that is not a hard story to believe, when faced with the things that Mr. Black had done throughout his career at Hogwarts and in the years of the war that followed. But if Mr. Pettigrew is alive . . ." Again he trailed off, but I knew what he was going to say.
"Then maybe Pettigrew was their secret keeper, and when Mr. Black arrived to hunt him down for answers, he killed the muggles and. . . cut off his own finger?" I finished for him. Professor Dumbledore gave a nod.
I looked down at that for a long moment, before speaking again. "It isn't the most sensible sounding of arguments. But, with what I saw in the Chamber, with Pettigrew actively working with the Dark Lord's shade, then maybe that will be enough to convince people of his innocence." Professor Dumbledore nodded, though the expression on his face wasn't certain.
I didn't know what more to ask about the trial, and as the silence lingered, it was clear Professor Dumbledore wasn't sure what more to say either. He had obviously been hiding some things from me in his description, but it didn't seem like he was actively lying to me, and I didn't feel the need to call him out on any of it. Nor did I see a benefit on calling him out on any of it.
"Was there anything else, Miss Macmillan? I'll confess I do have some other matters to attend to today," Professor Dumbledore spoke, his voice returning to its usual cheer. I cleared my mind and nodded.
"One last thing. When you do clean out the Come-and-Go Room, I was hopeful to be present. My family has a long history of preserving and protecting the magical history of Scotland, and all of Great Britain, really, and it would be a shame to see any of the tomes there lost to time or otherwise discarded after the room is cleared out. Of course, the dark books and artifacts would remain with you to dispose of as you please, but those other books that provide glimpses at the culture and lore of our great island throughout the ages, and of the spells that we used throughout them--preserving those is part of our duty as one of Britain's oldest families," I paused and took a breath, watching Professor Dumbledore's expression. He seemed amused more than anything else by my attempt.
"When I went to thank the Room, for its participation and help those few nights ago, it gave me an application for a position here, too." At those words, Professor Dumbledore seemed even more amused. I smiled. "And access to the room's stocks of knowledge would mean that I could better train and prepare myself for that position as the Defense against the Dark Arts professor, maybe even to the point where I can be ready to take it up as soon as I graduate. But that's beside the main point,"
Finally, Professor Dumbledore chuckled and shook his head.
"Though I do agree with the preservation of knowledge, Miss Macmillan, I disagree with the movement of it into the private library of an old family. Rather I intend to add those non-Dark books found inside to the school's libraries, restricted or unrestricted as each book may require. As a prefect and an esteemed member of the Hogwarts community, I am sure you will have no trouble renting them out from our library and studying them here, and I am sure you can appreciate that they will be open to a far wider audience than your own family library would allow."
I had prepared a line of defense for this in my head earlier. If it was open to the school and the general public, it could be damaged more easily, or students could come to harm each other more easily. But if I brought up concerns for the safety of the books, then Professor Dumbledore would explain his intent to keep the books themselves safe and provide copies of them in the library, and if I brought up students being more capable of harming each other, that would just make him less likely to give me the books either.
"But if you are looking for additional ways to prepare yourself for that position, and seeking to better your personal skills in Defense against the Dark Arts, perhaps I can offer you something else that might suit your fancy--perhaps even two things." I paused my other thoughts, listening intently to what he said. "I know you had been seeking a potential apprenticeship with Professor Flitwick when you graduated, and I know that Professor Flitwick does not currently take apprentices who are enrolled at Hogwarts. But there are other professors at Hogwarts who have less qualms working with students before their graduation."
"As my personal thank you for your services to the school and your aid to us all in protecting Harry Potter, and as a way of helping prepare you for the target that you have put onto your own head . . ." Professor Dumbledore seemed to be having second thoughts, for a moment, before he finally spoke again. "I will offer you private lessons over the course of your last two years at Hogwarts, on dueling, applied charm-work and the defense against the Dark Arts. Should you accept, I warn that it might not always be me teaching the lessons--some will have Professor Flitwick, or Professor McGonagall, at the helm--but I ensure you that the teacher will always be more than capable. And, if that offer suits your fancy . . ."
"I offer you a position as a member of the Order of the Phoenix." Professor Dumbledore smiled at me as he finished that offer. "As a member of an Order of the Phoenix, you would receive a stipend of enough to live on, access to the magical libraries of other members of the Order of the Phoenix, access to the Order safe-houses throughout Magical Britain and France, the personal support of the other members of the Order in any attacks on you or your property and a real opportunity to do good in the world."
That . . . wasn't too bad of an offer. Private lessons from Professor Dumbledore himself, I mean. I was less sure about the offer to join the Order.
[x] Accept both.
[x] Accept the lessons, but not the position in the order.
[x] Try to argue for something else as your reward.
-[x] The Come-and-Go Room's collection . . .
-[x] Something else?
When I left the room, I headed down the hallway and pulled out my time-turner and spun it five ticks back. Around me, the world was covered in a golden sheen.
...
That should give me more time to take care of things before I head down for dinner. There were still people I needed to talk to, after all, and there was no time but the time turned present to do so. It wasn't a long walk from Professor Dumbledore's office over to the Hospital Wing to meet with Harry and Ginny. Though, as I made my way over, Dumbledore's words were flashing through my head again. Some fragment of the Dark Lord has escaped into Ginny when he had been banished in the Chamber.
I decided I should be on my guard when I went to speak with them in the Hospital Wing. After some ten minutes of walking and waiting for pathways to align properly, I made it into the Hospital Wing and found myself at the curtain to Harry and Ginny's ward.
Pulling the curtain aside, I had expected to find them asleep. I was half-right, and half-wrong. Harry looked to be completely asleep, with his eyes closed and his head laying delicately atop Ginny's lap; Ginny, on the other hand, seemed to be wide awake, though the expressions on her face were not happy ones. She didn't seem to have noticed me at first when I entered.
The way they were sitting together was oddly intimate. I didn't realize that the two had been so close before the accident, but from how they were sitting now, they looked almost like they were long-lost loves separated at birth. Ginny's hand was nestled into the top of Harry's hair, resting over his forehead as well, and she seemed to be gently rubbing at his head--which was definitely weird, but she was a Weasley, so I wasn't quite ready to accuse her of being the Dark Lord incarnate from that gesture--while her other hand was interlocked with his, resting at their side.
Ginny's hair had lost much of its color. I knew what the vivid Weasley red was supposed to look like, and this was not it; instead it was pale and strawberry, and where traces of color did bleed through, the hair looked stressed and damaged. So too was Ginny's skin, which had taken on a much paler color than what I believed to be natural. Young as she was, she looked old and harrowed, and her posture screamed of her guilt and regrets. I saw ghosts everyday, and Ginny Weasley was not quite a ghost, but if she had been standing beside a poltergeist it would be a familial resemblance.
Slowly, as I pulled aside the curtain further, Ginny's head turned up to me, and I saw the extent of her misery. Beneath her eyes were rings and rings from sleepless nights, and on those rings sat the stains of lingering tears. Blood had crusted over her lips, and throughout all of her time in the Hospital Wing, nobody had moved close enough to clean them off, nor to wipe away the broken traces of her makeup. But beyond her mortal remnants of pain there was something dark, something about her face that was fundamentally wrong and that I could not look away from.
It was her eyes. I had thought them at first bloodshot, but that was wrong; where there were to be lines of blood and red markings, instead there was black. Ink stained her eyes from the insides out, tarnished her pupils and consumed all but the outer edges of her brown irises. It was the way that the ink moved, different blots forming into different shapes in her eyes, and the way that the inkshot lines were only specs away from resembling words and phrases instead.
The longer I stared at her eyes, the colder I felt. I forced myself to look away. I opened my mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what words to say. Ginny spoke instead.
"Thank you," and after her words came, a ragged sob followed. I turned back to look at her, and I could see traces of ink as well in the tears that were streaming down her face. A chill ran through me again, and another ragged sob came down Ginny's face. Her hand had stopped rubbing at Harry's hair. "Th-They told me what happened down there, in the Chamber, with Tom and, and," her voice caught on the words and she stuttered over and over again as she tried to move on through her sentence. Whether it be absentminded or intentional, I saw how her fingers began to move and rub into Harry's hair again--more specifically, how her index moved around Harry's scar, gently caressing the scar tissue and coaxing in and out across the lightning bolt.
I didn't know what to say to her. If it was a her. There was something so blatantly unnatural about her that I felt goosebumps coming up on my arms and legs.
What should I do? Ginny is obviously possessed by the Dark Lord's shade, and she's doing something with Harry's scar.
[x] Run, and continue with my plan for the day.
[x] Try to get her to let go of Harry, and then call for help.
[x] Remember what Dumbledore said, and try to have a conversation with her.
-[x] About what . . ?
[x] Something else?
Afterwards, should I . . .
[x] Resume earlier plan.
[x] Do something else. I have five hours, give or take, if I ignore Ginny and leave now. I'm not sure how long dealing with Ginny will take.
[x] Time-skip to the first trial.
