"Now," Professor McGonagall said, "when you change, it might not feel quite natural yet. It can take awhile for everything to go smoothly."

Ginny nodded, and took a deep breath. She was nervous, and excited, and she concentrated hard, remembering hours studying, memorizing the theory behind Animagi, and she slowly tried to redefine her image of herself.

"Try closing your eyes."

She obeyed, and as soon as the darkness embraced her, she felt it. Her skin pulsed, changing, reforming. Her limbs melted away, and her hair, and the scent of Professor McGonagall, of an older woman and a bit of cat, suddenly grew sharper, and there was something else there, too. Something tangy, and bitter, and Ginny recognized it as fear, and opened her eyes.

The colors were different, now, and less important. There was the sound of footsteps outside the door, of water rushing through the pipes, and the incessant dripping from the leaky roof onto the stone beneath her. She shifted, restless. The stone was cold, underneath, but there was warmth there too -- heating spells, a part of her remembered. The warmth and the cold enveloped her, and the smells wrapped around her, cat and woman and food, and dimly, she realized she was hungry. And the sound of footsteps far away grew louder, but there was nothing in the room, no words of advice or praise from McGonagall, nothing but the shifting of her skin as she breathed, and she closed her eyes and reformed, and was Ginny.

Professor McGonagall sat at her desk, eyes trained on a puddle on the floor.

"Professor?"

Silence.

"Professor McGonagall? Ma'am?" She leaned forward, pressed a hand to McGonagall's, but there was no response. She was frozen. No, Ginny realized, not frozen. Petrified.

Inside, a part of her she hadn't realized was there sang out in sickening triumph. Outside, she know, the footsteps were drawing closer, so close that soon even Ginny could hear them, and she whirled around, and ran.

Out the door, out, quick, away from the footsteps, from whoever was coming, out and up and her brain shut down and took her along familiar pathways and she ground to a halt outside the bathroom.

Safety.

She didn't need to close her eyes this time, she just changed, melted away again, and let herself click back together, and hiss at the faucet, and slide in.

The tunnels were damp, and cold, and metal echoed around her, the stone, but she remembered it, dimly. She had been here before.

She moved through the bones, past skin many times larger than she was, though maybe in a thousand years she too would be huge. A spider scuttled across her path and she devoured it without thinking, swallowed it whole and slid on, on, on to the statue, the face.

She knew this man, she'd been brought here by his blood, and behind him, there was an alcove, and she curled inside, let the cold of the stones seep through her, and slow her blood.

Above her, around her, the castle went on, searching for a missing 7th-year girl, stewing Mandrakes, but Harry Potter had died killing You-Know-Who, and even had Dumbledore known where the entrance was, he could never have spoken the words to open it.

Someday, perhaps, a man would come, or a woman -- she wasn't particular -- who would ease her fear and loneliness, and make her not only safe, but wanted. Someday, perhaps. Perhaps in a hundred years, or more. She would live a long time now, it didn't matter.

Perhaps by the time he came she would be desperate, perhaps he would ask of her dreadful things. But perhaps he would be kind, and soothing, and his blood would smell of Tom, and perhaps she would listen.

Perhaps.

The basilisk slept, and waited.