Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. After Harry kills Tom and the basilisk, Ginny faces her complete failure to either solve her own problems or keep Harry safe. She does not cope well, but at least not everyone blames her for helping Tom. That's a good thing, right?

This chapter was a bitch and a half to write, partly because internal conflict (moral and emotional) is less obviously dramatic than external conflict, but mostly because I was, of necessity, drawing very, very heavily on my own experience with depression, guilt spirals, and in-the-box thought patterns. That is not a time of my life I enjoy revisiting for any reason. :-/

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Not a fun chapter in any sense of the word, but a very, very necessary one. As is chapter 14, which is more of the same though with flashes of sunshine through the enveloping murk.

This stuff is, in some ways, the real point of the story. It's my way of saying, not all battles are grand external clashes of magic. Some of the most important ones are fought inside a single person's mind and heart, and in small interpersonal interactions. It's not enough just to save a life. You have to make that life worth living.

Bechdel Test = PASS

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. Life doesn't stop and people don't leave Ginny alone just because she wants to escape. In an effort to fight back against Tom, she investigates Percy and possession, with varying degrees of success.

Aka, the other half of my answer to the "But if Ginny discovered that Harry had the diary on Valentine's Day, why did it take her three months to DO anything about that knowledge?" conundrum. (The real-world answer is, because Rowling didn't care about giving Ginny a coherent story arc and moved her around like a cardboard plot token, but I prefer to put a bit more thought into these things. *wry*) If part one of the answer is, "Because she doesn't trust herself to face Tom again and hopes that Harry will somehow miraculously fix things through some inherent heroic aura," part two is... well, OotP had been published by the time I wrote this chapter, Occlumency is very shiny, and I am an inveterate magpie when it comes to neat ideas.

Tangentially, Ron's birthday ought to happen in this chapter -- in fact, the opening scene with Ginny and the twins falls on March 1st (which was a Monday in 1993) -- but nobody so much as mentions it. That is entirely my fault and terribly sloppy story construction. :-( I am thinking very seriously of going back and fixing that, particularly since it would make a good set piece for Weasley family drama. Also, Ginny specifically says in this chapter that Ron is her favorite brother. She NEEDS to do something for his birthday.

But anyway, onward!

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The gimmick with the mental room and the open/shut door imagery is, to be perfectly honest, somewhat cribbed from Yu-Gi-Oh! Like I said, I pick up and reuse shiny ideas. (In fact, if you compare this scene to some of the stuff with Sakura and Tom in "An Ounce of Prevention," well... I steal from myself just as readily as I steal from others. *wry*)

Hmm. You know, I think the story aspect that suffered most from the ridiculously attenuated pace at which I've been writing "Secrets" is Ginny's apparent age. She's pretty obviously eleven-ish in the first two or three chapters, but as time goes on, she skews noticeably older. Part of this is that she's facing bigger problems, but it's also because I don't have a real-life corrective for pre-teen behavior the way I do for 5-year-old to 8-year-old behavior. So I am trying to remember back to when I was Ginny's age, and memory is a fickle guide.

Ah well, so it goes.

Bechdel Test = PASS, multiple times

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. Things settle down over Christmas holidays, until Xanthe tells Ginny a bit of family history and casts the previous months in a new, and unwelcome, light.

This is not the climactic chapter -- that would be the end of ch. 12 and the start of ch. 13 -- but it is the keystone chapter, where the story pivots on a hinge. Up until now "Secrets" has been Ginny-and-Tom against the world; after this, it becomes Ginny versus Tom.

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Bechdel Test = PASS

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. In this chapter, Ginny performs an incantation to help free Tom from the diary, the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch game is a spectacular disaster, and Colin takes an exasperated suggestion far too seriously. Is anyone safe from the Heir?

This chapter builds toward the second attack -- the one on Colin Creevey -- via a bunch of "life at Hogwarts" and "friends with Tom" scenes.

Tangentially, one reason my story is so much longer than the book it's retelling is that I spent time on detailed magic lessons, which Rowling tended to skim over in the first two books. I think I also spent more page time on dialogue, much of which is very rambling and not immediately plot-relevant. This is because "Secrets" is a much more internally focused story than CoS. CoS is a mystery adventure; its plot centers around the Trio finding and defeating Tom Riddle. The main plot arc of "Secrets" is about friendship and betrayal, and Ginny's emotional and ethical development under extreme pressure. This is also the reason it has a MUCH longer denouement than CoS. I have to deal with the emotional fallout, whereas Rowling could and did skip right over it with a single blithe paragraph. :-/

Anyway, details and stuff.

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Bechdel Test = PASS

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. In this chapter Tom reveals pieces of his past, Ginny sleepwalks again, an Herbology class presents unforeseen challenges, Sprout is unexpectedly kind, and Halloween arrives.

The grand point of this chapter is, of course, Halloween and all that implies. Before that, it's sort of a two-track deal. On the overt level, Ginny settles in to her life at Hogwarts. She continues to be socially isolated in her own House, but gets to know Xanthe's Hufflepuff friends and also receives an invitation to join Professor Sprout's extracurricular Herbology club. On the covert level (at least from Ginny's perspective), she falls more and more under Tom's control, both when awake (because she trusts his advice and interpretations of troubling events) and when asleep (because of possession).

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Bechdel Test = PASS! (Let me count the ways: Susan and Jia-li talk about the Halloween banquet [very brief]; Sprout, Ginny, Xanthe, Caroline, and Anne talk in various combinations about various things all through the Herbology lesson; Ginny asks how long Apple will stay in their dorm room [very brief]; Susan tries to persuade Ginny to come to the Halloween banquet; the Gryffindor first year girls talk about the Heir's attack [somewhat questionable, since they discuss Harry in the process, but the description of Mrs. Norris and the painted message should count].)

Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. In this chapter, we follow Ginny through her first week of classes, during which much goes right but more goes wrong.

The chapter title is a stealth pun. The obvious reference is the start of Ginny's year-long fight with Daphne. The other reference is that the aforementioned clash occurs in a Potions lesson, and Ginny's ruined potion explodes. (Hey, I never claimed I had a good sense of humor.)

Anyway, this is the intro-to-classes chapter. That stuff I said about Ginny working hard at lessons comes into play a little here. Note that she has read every one of the free set of Lockhart's books that Harry gave her after the mess in Flourish and Blotts -- mostly because Mrs. Weasley likes him, but Ginny could easily have skimmed them and simply said she'd read them. Instead, she actually paid attention. And because she's read them, she thinks Lockhart is a fraud. That is a combination of pre-existing dislike (both because he embarrassed her and Harry, and because of her mother's crush) and basic logic. That ability to put two and two together, and find the holes in somebody's self-serving lies, will come back later in a more significant moment.

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Bechdel Test = PASS, multiple times

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Okay, that's enough for tonight.

Story Summary: CoS according to Ginny. Nobody noticed anything wrong for an entire year -- how did she slip so far from her family and friends? Angst and betrayal, but also mysteries, jokes, an enchanted suit of armor, and a guaranteed happy ending. WIP. (Content warnings: clinical depression, hints of suicidal ideation, possession, emotionally abusive relationship)

Chapter Summary: "Chamber of Secrets" from Ginny's point of view. In this chapter, Ginny writes in her new diary, Harry and Ron miss the Hogwarts Express, Hermione frets, and Ginny meets two girls on the train.

Wow. This chapter is brick-to-the-face unsubtle, in the way I banged on about secrets, privacy, "personal" things, mortification, and Ginny's awkwardness at dealing with people who aren't members of her family. Also, given how bad I am at remembering Ginny's crush on Harry in later chapters, it is amazing how frequently she thinks about him here.

I hadn't started repunctuating Rowling's dialogue to make it fit my own style, and in fact was actively bending MY dialogue toward hers a bit. Awkward!

There are way too many semi-colons. The semi-colon is a noble and useful punctuation mark, but ten years ago I was in the habit of writing academic essays and tended to get carried away with producing carefully balanced multi-clause sentences. That works just fine for nonfiction literary analysis (or chemistry lab reports, pick your poison), but not so well in narrative fiction written from the POV of an eleven-year-old girl.

I like the bits with Tom and the diary, though. Those are good.