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the visitors that had already visited Saffron, Lavender and Parvati were amongst the next to arrive. Both girls were positively flustered but eager to get to see how Saffron was doing. The pair of them professed how angry they were at themselves for not acting further on their suspicions that Saffron was up to something.

"Looking back on it, it feels so obvious that something like this ended up happening," Parvati told Saffron matter-of-factly. She was sat next to Saffron whereas Lavender was adjusting the flowers and cards on the window sill and on Saffron's bedside table. "You've been acting sneaky ever since Hermione was petrified, then, of course, there was the night you didn't come back until who knows what time,"

"You don't have to beat yourself up about it," Saffron assured her, but Parvati wasn't having it.

"Saffron you could have died, the whole school won't stop talking about it. Apparently, it's a miracle that you're still here, as hard as that is for you to hear. We, as your friends, should have picked up on the fact that something was up,"

"It wasn't that something was up, though," countered Saffron.

"Oh, something was up," retorted Lavender. "Something very big was up, Saffron, you went into the Chamber of Secrets and almost didn't come back. That's the biggest something possible. Why didn't you tell us?"

Saffron didn't answer at first. Simply because she wasn't quite sure as to how to answer. She wasn't exactly sure that there was an answer to the question. It wasn't the first time she had been asked it, no, all her siblings and Amanda all asked why they hadn't been told of what was going on. All Saffron did was assure them that she would tell them the next time if something was up, but she had done that last year to no avail. All in all, it made her feel like a liar and that was a horrible feeling to have, as it might have been true.

"There wasn't really a lot of time," Saffron tried to sound as sincere as possible. "Honest, everything sort of just snowballed, if I had of stopped to tell you, maybe Harry wouldn't have gotten to Ginny on time. But I'll tell you next time, I promise,"

Lavender and Parvati seemed at least slightly content with that. Saffron felt even more disgusting in herself though, as she had made similar promises to all three of her siblings as individuals and as a collective group. But, at the very least, it appeased them and allowed the direction of the conversation to change into their usual girlish gossip and giggles, which was precisely what Saffron needed at that moment to feel better about herself.

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As a result of having tests done on her for several hours and the consequential sleep after that, Saffron only had one more new visitor until she was permitted to leave the hospital wing the next morning. It was also perhaps the most important one, in the form of Ginny Weasley.

"I wasn't sure if you'd wanted to see me or not," said Ginny stiffly, tentatively taking a seat beside Saffron's bed.

"Of course I want to see you," replied Saffron firmly, offering the girl a grin. She wasn't lying. Saffron harboured absolutely no ill will towards the girl."We were all so worried when we heard what happened to you, so I'm glad you're okay,"

"Well," said Ginny, before taking a deep breath. "I---" Her voice cut off and she shut her eyes for a moment when she opened them she continued but each word seemed to hurt her. "I just needed to apologise. You could have been really hurt, and it was my fault,"

"Don't even think for a second that it's your fault," Saffron insisted soothingly. "The person who did this, it wasn't you, it wasn't you at all,"

"I know," trembled Ginny. "But I should have stopped writing in the diary, I should have told someone, but I didn't,"

"Because you couldn't," Saffron chided her softly. "There was nothing you could do, nothing at all. Besides, you weren't the person that made me go into that Chamber. I did, and honestly, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I mean---" She paused and gestured to her body. "I'm okay, I'm out of here tomorrow, so you have no reason to worry about what happened to me. It hardly compares to what you've had to go through this year. I mean, you've been in hospital too because of it,"

Ginny had been transported to St Mungo's, the national hospital, in the past two days, just for a few days to get some specialist help, as there was a fear that she suffering under some form Stockholm Syndrome. However, that proved to not be the case as Riddle's hold over Ginny came to a complete end when Harry stabbed the diary with the Basilisk's fang.

"Yeah, well . . ." Ginny was at a loss for words.

"No one blames you, Ginny," Saffron told her soothingly. "We all know that you couldn't help what was happening. I'm just glad Harry got to you on time,"

"Me too," mumbled Ginny stiffly.

"I just hope we can talk more," Saffron said to her brightly. "I can only imagine that it must be tough some times being the only girl in a house full of boys, I reckon my brother finds it hard in our house, being the only boy. So if you ever need a girl to talk to, about anything, you can talk to me,"

"Thank you," whispered Ginny, her eyes welling up with tears, as Saffron took her hand in hers and held it consolingly. Ginny sniffled and had a look of realisation on her face. "Before I forget,"

The younger girl pulled out something from her jumper pocket and Saffron let out a gasp upon seeing that it was her red hair ribbon. It looked worn and as though it shouldn't be worn again, but those scars were nothing that magic couldn't fix.

"I saw it under a stone when we were getting ready to leave with Fawkes," Ginny let Saffron know. "I always see you wearing it, so I thought you might want to have it back,"

This time, Saffron felt like crying. The other girl had no idea how much it meant to her, so Saffron pulled her into a loose, one-armed embrace in an attempt to let her know the extent of her thanks for bringing it to her.

"Thank you, Ginny,"