Author's Note: Nyctophobia is the fear of dark and/or night. The idea for this story came as I was trying to get to sleep one night after getting back from a friend's house very late. I'm a little scared of the dark so I lay awake for ages waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark... and this story came to me. I haven't really written a fic about Ginny yet so yeah... I hope you enjoy reading!

Nyctophobia.

Ginny Weasley was brave and strong, she didn’t show fear. The majority of people would say that she wasn’t afraid of anything, that she relished any chance to face danger in order to prove her over-protective brothers wrong. Even her brothers would agree with that.

Except Ron. He alone knew her one major fear. When they were younger they had made a pact: that she would not make fun of his fear of spiders if he kept her fear of the dark a secret. That was how she had described it back then. Fear of the dark.

And that was what it had been back then. A simple fear of not being able to see even what was right in front of her, which meant she was paralysed with terror.

It struck her now that, all these years later, her fear had evolved into something slightly different. As the lights in the dorm went off she determinedly distracted herself with reflections on her fear.

It had intensified during her first year at Hogwarts. Or maybe not during it… maybe it was just after. Most of that year was a blur anyway, memories that she wanted to forget. And in many ways that was where all this came from. Once the dark had enclosed her, she had nothing to distract herself from the night. The night that brought with it dark dreams and memories of that time.

She shivered slightly under her covers, keeping her eyes fixed on the window. She knew from experience that when her eyes got used to the dark the window would be the first thing to fade into focus. She turned her back on the nearby corner. The blind spot. The area that would remain dark, no matter how much her eyes got used to the lack of light.

The last few weeks, months even, she had been sleeping well. Up until Dumbledore died. After his death, she had stayed awake most of the night with Hermione, or the girls in her dorm, or Ron and Harry in the common room, sometimes even Neville. With a sad smile she remembered how she had kept herself distracted from the dark with thoughts of Harry. It was no surprise really that today, Dumbledore’s funeral, the day that Harry had broken up with her, was the night that all her fears came tumbling back into her subconscious.

The window was still a mass of black. She wished, more than anything, that she was once again her childhood self, that she could just slip into her brother’s bed and hear him say, half asleep, that everything would be alright. That she had nothing to fear. That the dark couldn’t hurt her. A wave of nostalgia hit her. That had all stopped when Ron started thinking about Hogwarts. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact time, but it was about when he was 10 and she was 9. His dignity would no longer allow his baby sister to crawl into his bed.

Unbidden and sudden, an image of a small diary came into her mind, and it brought with it that feeling of confusion, of lack of control. She shook it from her mind and looked back at the window. It was looking a little lighter. She could vaguely work out where the window frame was.

Sometimes she hated the way that she acted around Ron nowadays. When she was younger she had needed to cling to him, but now she had learnt to take care of herself. She knew he missed those days too, and that he just wanted to protect her, but she would often just lose her temper completely with him. Maybe it was guilt. She thought about it for a second. Could it be possible that she was feeling guilty for no longer needing him? Or was it just that she knew on some level that she did still need him and that made her angry?

She sighed, too much had happened today to go too deep into self analysis tonight. It would have to wait for some other time. She thought about something else.

An image of Harry came into her mind. She smiled. It was the Harry from their walk, after the Quidditch Final. The Harry that had made her so happy for such a brief period of time. Another image of Harry replaced it. The resolved Harry who broke up with her in order to protect her.

A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. There was only one tear, a small amount compared to the vast oceans she wanted to let loose. But she was too exhausted to cry any more than she had already.

She looked up, and realised that her eyes were already adjusting to the dark. The window was now a source of light for the rest of the room. Almost ironically, a smile came to her face.

Her fear, of dark and the night, had taught her one thing: patience. And, heaven knows, she was going to need that when she was dealing with a certain Harry Potter.