First You Have to Get There

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Chapter 3

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Of Ways to Stall Conversations:

Deciding to be friends was all well and good, thought Ginny, but it didn't provide much by way of instructions. Harry seemed to be even more hopeless around girls than she was around him -- hard to believe, but there it was -- so she felt she ought to take the lead.

"We're nearly done with our drinks. Let's go to Honeydukes next and then look around the other shops," she said.

"Okay," agreed Harry.

They took their bottles and glasses back to the counter -- the table was immediately claimed behind them -- and walked out into the street, Ginny leading. She quickly fell back to walk beside Harry, who was squinting against the late morning sun.

The day wasn't turning out as badly as she'd thought it would, but it was still very awkward. In some ways, Ginny wished she didn't like Harry so much. It had been much easier going around casually with boys in her year, mostly because she didn't expect much out of it. She'd never bothered asking Susan how to kiss them.

Liking people was more trouble than it was worth, she decided, at least right now. Maybe she'd get over her butterflies by the time she left Hogwarts. For the moment, though, Harry wanted to be friends and she'd do her best to squash down any other feelings.

Ginny reminded herself not to look into his eyes; squeaking or babbling wouldn't help anything.

They wandered in and out of Honeydukes, where Harry bought a bag of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans, and stopped for a while at the local broom shop. Ginny wasn't nearly as wild about Quidditch and flying as her brothers, but she could at least talk brooms. Harry, for his part, seemed relieved to have a safe topic of conversation

"I wonder what the Nimbus company is doing to compete with the Firebolt," he said as they left the broom shop.

"They're working on a new model," said Ginny. "It's called the Cirrus, I think, but it won't be ready for another year or so. The Firebolt caught them by surprise, Charlie says."

Harry looked interested. "Charlie keeps track of racing brooms?"

"Yeah. He was a Seeker, and you need good brooms for chasing after dragons," said Ginny. "They always need good flyers on the reservation; you'd be good at that, actually."

"Hmmm," said Harry. "How did he end up there?"

Ginny grinned, happy to tell family stories that Ron obviously didn't think were worth mentioning. "He's always been mad about dragons -- like Hagrid and his nasty beasts -- and he finagled a probationary job using Dad's connections at the Ministry. Usually you need a special training course to qualify as a dragon-handler, but he got them to count his flying skills and his Care of Magical Creatures NEWTs as equivalent to passing the course. Dad was all for it; he's as mad about travel as he is about Muggles, and he's just tickled pink that his sons work in foreign countries. Mum went mental, though. She wanted Charlie to be an Auror -- that way he could still have adventures but he'd be close to home."

"She thinks being an Auror is safer than watching dragons?" asked Harry incredulously. "After... after last year?"

Ginny flinched. "Well, probably not anymore. But back then he -- er, You-Know-Who, I mean -- was supposed to be dead. We were putting things back together and Mum's big on getting things set up the way she wants. She thought sons in the Ministry would be helpful."

"Mmm," said Harry, looking aside. "I suppose Percy's changed her mind about that."

Oh, toad guts, thought Ginny, why did she always bring up awkward topics by accident? How to change the subject... "Do you want to look at the other shops, or just walk around for a bit?" she asked. "There's a sort of junk shop toward the edge of town, and there are also some interesting charm shops."

Harry shook his head. "Let's go to the lake," he said. "I don't..." He trailed off.

"Don't what?"

Harry looked around and leaned closer to Ginny, making sure no one could overhear him. Ginny suppressed a twitch at the way his breath ghosted against her ear and tried to pay attention to what he was saying. Friends, she reminded herself. Only friends.

"Everyone always looks at me," said Harry, "like I'm mad, or I'm a hero, or something like that. I hate it. I never asked for this! And it's worse since this summer, since the Daily Prophet kept denying anything's happened and Fudge said I was mad, and Hermione says they kept working me into stories as sort of a nasty joke. They all stare at me like..." He trailed off uncomfortably.

"Oh," said Ginny. "Er, sorry."

Harry shrugged and turned half away.

"I know what you mean, though," she added. "I remember how everyone looked at me after the Chamber of Secrets. But nobody talked about it. They just wanted to see the silly little girl who was stupid enough to be friends with a soul-sucking diary and almost got herself killed."

Harry glanced at her in surprise. "Oh."

"The worst part," said Ginny, looking vaguely toward the lake, "was having to put up with Mum and Dad and my brothers when all I wanted was to be alone sometimes. And I felt horrible about wanting them to go away, and I yelled at them and felt awful about yelling, but it got better. Eventually. I bet they'll stop staring at you so much in a few weeks."

She forced a grin. "Unless you stab someone with a fork."

Harry snorted. "Malfoy would deserve it."

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Of Certain Points of View:

They walked in mildly uncomfortable silence to the lakeshore, not exactly avoiding each other's eyes, but not trying to restart the conversation either. The lake was tinted with blue under the bright, cloudless sky, but the water was still mostly grey. Small ripples ran aground on the narrow shore, making shushing, slapping noises.

Harry perched on a convenient rock, leaving Ginny to either perch edgewise beside him or drag over a log. She chose the log, after wandering around a bit and finding one without too much moss or rotting bark. "So," she said, sitting as gracefully as possible under the circumstances, and resting her arms on her knees.

"Yeah," said Harry unhelpfully.

Ginny had a moment of extreme frustration, a red wave of irritation splashing over her the way the tiny ripples drowned the muddy sand of the lakeshore. Was Harry like this all the time, or was he just not talking because she was the wrong girl or the wrong Weasley? And after he'd told her how he felt about people looking and she'd told him a secret in return.

Boys. Amazing green eyes and longstanding crush notwithstanding, they were a bunch of useless toad-lickers. All of them!

She cast her mind back to The Three Broomsticks, trying to remember what he said he talked about with Ron and Hermione. School... they'd done that. Something mysterious that was usually going on... maybe she ought to try that. If that didn't work she'd have to try Quidditch again, or give up and throw something at him.

"Er, you said you talk to Ron and Hermione about mysterious things that go on. Is anything happening so far this year? With You-Know-Who, I mean?" She grimaced. "Ron says nobody told you anything during the summer, but it isn't as if we knew much either -- just spent weeks trying to clear out Sirius's house -- er, you did know about his house, right?"

Harry frowned fiercely. "Yeah, he wrote to me; he hates it. But Voldemort's not doing anything, at least not like before. That's the problem. He's waiting until everyone stops worrying, and then he's going to attack. I know it." He glanced at her. "I... sometimes I see things -- what he does, what he sees -- because of my scar." His hand drifted up to rub at his forehead.

"Pretending to be harmless?" said Ginny, skipping over the scar revelation for now. "That sounds like Tom -- he always was a sneaky, scum-sucking, lying, treacherous bastard."

Harry blinked. "Tom?"

Ginny blinked back. "What about him?"

Harry shook his head, staring at her. "You called Voldemort 'Tom.' Why did you call him Tom?"

Ginny blinked again. "I didn't. I called Tom 'Tom.'"

Harry stared harder and said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot, "He's the same person. Tom Riddle is Voldemort. Voldemort is Tom Riddle."

"Oh. Well, yes, of course," said Ginny, flapping her hand helplessly. "I know that. I just... it's hard to think of You-Know-Who as an actual person. And Tom was my friend, in a way. I can sort of see how he could have got worse from where he was in the diary, but it's hard to connect him to, well, you know. I only meant that I could see Tom being sneaky, the way You-Know-Who is now."

"Oh," said Harry, leaning back on his rock. "What was he like in the diary? Er, if you don't mind talking about it."

Ginny shrugged. "It's all right -- I've had a few years to think about it. He was... nice. He listened to me, told me I was special and a good friend, helped me with my classwork, and told me how to get back at some people I didn't like. Except it was all pretending -- he slanted everything he said until I only trusted him and I didn't have any other friends, nobody to notice when... when things started going wrong.

"Then I figured out he was doing it, and he told me it was all my fault." She frowned and hurled a pebble into the lake. "And I believed him. Because Mrs. Norris used to chase me, and I didn't like Colin, and I didn't like the way Justin Finch-Fletchley was talking about you. So I thought, what if I was doing it and he was only helping?" She threw another stone and watched the ripples intently.

"But you're not like that!" said Harry.

Ginny looked at him. "I really was happy that Colin wasn't around to bother me anymore."

Harry blinked.

Ginny waved her hand. "Oh, I didn't want him Petrified, and I was upset because I was the one who suggested he visit you in the infirmary at night, but I was happy he was out of the way. And Tom knew it. He used things like that, things he knew because I'd told him."

She paused, struck by a sudden thought. "You said you can see him... can he see you?"

Harry twitched as if suppressing some reaction.

"He can, can't he?" said Ginny, leaning forward and catching his shadowed eyes. "If he shows you anything, don't trust it! He always knows how to get to you, to make you do what he wants and think it's your own idea."

"In the diary," said Harry slowly, "Riddle showed me the night he accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber. I thought he was like me, that his orphanage was like the... I liked him. But Voldemort isn't like that anymore. He isn't human anymore! And he's stupid -- he could've killed me anytime in the graveyard, but he let me go so we could duel.

"Riddle was like that too!" he continued fiercely. "I was dying, and he kept on bragging, explaining his plans -- he gave Fawkes time to heal me. He's not as clever as you think he is."

"Oh," said Ginny softly. "I never knew what happened down there -- nobody told me, just that you killed the Basilisk and killed Tom by destroying the diary. I didn't know you were hurt. Thank you."

"But you were there when I told Dumbledore," said Harry.

"I was falling to pieces, not listening to you!" snapped Ginny. "I'd been possessed off and on for months, and I'd just almost died. I was eleven."

"I was twelve," snapped Harry, meeting Ginny's glare head-on. "I almost died too."

Ginny held Harry's eyes for several more seconds before the intensity of their green color broke through her irritation. She was arguing with Harry! Oh God, he'd never like her now... but he was being such an idiot!

"Sorry," she said, although she didn't manage to sound particularly upset.

"Fine," said Harry. He turned back to the lake and pulled his knees to his chest. Ginny stared out over the water, wondering exactly where they'd gone off-track.

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Of Muggle Psychology:

Ginny blinked at the hand that had just shoved itself in front of her face and blocked her contemplation of the lake. "What?"

"I said we ought to get back to Hogsmeade," said Harry, lowering his hand slightly. "It's almost noon, and I thought we should get lunch."

"Oh. Right." Ginny shoved herself upright, ignoring the tacit offer of Harry's hand, and began walking back to the village. Harry fell in beside her.

It had been... not peaceful, exactly, but not bad to just sit next to Harry. Even though she'd been annoyed at him. At the least, she finally knew what he'd done in the Chamber -- the Basilisk must have bitten or crushed him while he was killing it. He'd almost died. For her.

Mind you, he probably would have done that for almost anyone -- Harry was like that, whether he admitted it or not -- but still, Ginny thought, it was nice to know that her life counted for at least that much.

It was nice to know that Harry had liked Tom at first, too. So she hadn't been as stupid as she sometimes felt, to not notice how something was off about him.

"You really should be careful about You-Know-Who," she blurted suddenly. "I know his plans make no sense sometimes, but he really is good at finding your weak spots and pushing. He can make you think you're doing something because you want to, but really it's because he wants you to do it."

Harry looked at her sidelong. "When Riddle showed me Hagrid, there was a monster," he said slowly. "It wasn't the Basilisk, but it was a monster, and it was dangerous. And I knew Hagrid doesn't understand about dangerous animals. So I believed him."

Ginny winced. "I told him about Hagrid," she admitted. "Sorry."

Harry shrugged. "You didn't know. But I see what you mean about Riddle knowing where to push people."

"He's doing it to you again," said Ginny, suddenly sure of herself. "He is, isn't he."

Harry was silent for a while; Ginny waited. "I have dreams," he said suddenly, turning off the path to Hogsmeade and standing still. "There's a long corridor with a door at the end -- I want to go through -- there's something on the other side that I need to find. But I don't know what it is." He looked expectantly at Ginny.

Ginny thought for a moment. "Ron says you're rubbish at Divination," she said carefully. "Is that true?"

Harry offered her a wry grin. "I'm good at making up painful ways to die -- that's about it."

Ginny smiled back, then continued. "So it probably isn't a real prophetic dream. In that case, either you're worried about something or somebody's sending the dream to you." She grimaced. "Before Tom really starting possessing me -- I completely blanked out then -- he made me do things in my sleep. I had the oddest dreams for months. He used to analyze them with Muggle psychology, and it seemed to make sense when he explained it.

"I looked it up, after, to see if he'd been lying. And the worst thing was that mostly he hadn't been -- dreams really can be all about things that are bothering you, just mixed up and making no sense. So maybe that's all that your dreams are.

"But," said Ginny, holding up her hands to stop Harry from interrupting, "sometimes dreams really are magical. And you can't trust psychology around Tom. So what do you think?"

Harry frowned. "It has to be magic," he said eventually.

"You're sure?"

He nodded firmly. "Yeah."

"Then it's probably You-Know-Who," said Ginny. "He must want something behind a door, and either it's leaking or he wants you to get it for him. Or," -- a terrible idea struck her -- "maybe there's something behind the door that'll kill you!"

But Harry was shaking his head. "No, he wants to kill me himself. He's got to prove he's better -- that's why he untied me."

"Stupid," muttered Ginny. "It'd be a lot simpler to just curse you from behind."

"Yeah, but then I'd be dead."

Ginny bit back a laugh. "I guess it's a good thing he's always been full of himself."

Harry grinned weakly. "Yeah. He's still dangerous, though." He rubbed his scar absently and Ginny winced, remembering why You-Know-Who hated Harry so much. Harry was, after all, the first person to ever survive him.

"Maybe he just goes to pieces around you," she suggested. "You saved me."

"But not Cedric."

The words fell like lead weights on the conversation, and both Ginny and Harry shifted their feet awkwardly.

You stupid toad-licker! Ginny scolded herself. Now look what she'd done. Every time she thought she might be getting somewhere -- might be learning how to actually talk with Harry, or how to be his friend -- she had to put her foot in it. First she'd as much as called him an idiot over Quidditch, then she'd yelled at him for saving her, and now she'd reminded him of Cedric.

How to fix this? She couldn't think of anything to say -- what could anyone say about dueling You-Know-Who and watching someone be murdered? Well, they'd been going for lunch, and food never hurt anyone.

"Come on," she said, reaching over and grabbing Harry's hand before she could properly think about what she was doing. "Let's get something to eat."

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End of Chapter 03