meme time is ... all the time?

[veritaphobia]

THE GRAB BAG MEME

I. Post a list of your characters.
II. Ask questions! Anything from "Why'd you pick up character X?", "your most hoped-for canonmates for Y", "how would you describe your canon Z to somebody totally canon-blind?" to total ridiculousness like "your character in a band AU, how does it go". This is a getting-to-know-your-lineup meme

Comments

[7thborn]

THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION.

And the first thing that comes to mind is being possessed by Tom Riddle's diary when she was eleven. I've actually given this some thought before, entertaining the idea of grab bagging her with Road Not Taken and having a Ginny who had never been used by the diary. I haven't quite figured out the specifics yet, but I did brainstorm enough to realise that a Ginny who didn't have that experience in her past was an entirely different - and not exactly pleasant - person.

And I think that if she was ever offered the opportunity to go back and change that, to warn her younger self or destroy the diary before it hurt her and anyone else, I don't think she'd do it. On the one hand, yes, the past is the past so why bother, but also, yes, that sort of magic isn't something you just tamper with. You don't mess with time. Her father had told her about Time-Turners and the laws behind them and it's such a mad, risky thing that even she wouldn't dare it. But also, a person's most developmental years - when they're really figuring out who they are - are from about 11 or so and onwards. And Ginny has lived a great part of her life with the experience of being used by Tom, and I think that's made her a genuinely stronger person because she's had this very real and very awful, traumatising thing to overcome. Without it, yeah, she might have grown up to be that same spunky witch but the drive to act that way would have come from a different place entirely, not this deep-seated need to overcompensate for her moment of weakness as a child, for instance.

I think in some way, Ginny might realise that, and wouldn't go back to alter the diary. Because whether she likes it or not, it's made her who she is today, and the person she is isn't half bad. The experience sucked. Yes. Absolutely. But she learned from it and it gave her her own private, solid reason to fight in the war because it wasn't just something that was happening to everyone - it's personal to her, too.

As for reversing Fred's death, well. That's another complicated thing aaaaaand... yes, let's stick to the diary.