Echo in My Mind

Chapter 2: Forgotten

"It's easy to forget

As life begins to pass you by

But it's painful to remember

As your memory comes back in a blink of an eye-"

Anonymous

~*~

Blaise took the letter from the owl when it landed in front of her. She eyed the bird suspiciously. It reminded her of the one her parents always got when there was something going on with the Death Eaters. A feeling of unease settled in her stomach.

Draco sat next to Blaise, eating his breakfast and talking with fifth year Terence Paolo about Quidditch. This comforted her slightly. If anything bad happened she would have her boyfriend for support.

Blaise drew in a deep breath and opened the letter.

Dearest Blaise,

Now that you have reached the age of sixteen, and have been this age for a few months, the time has come for you to receive the Dark Mark. As you know, there is a task that must be completed in order to see if you are worthy of the mark. Our Lord now knows that Draco Malfoy is traitor to our side. Any time Narcissa Malfoy is called to our Lord, she does not show up. Mail is given to Narcissa by members of our inner circle to be passed on to Draco. All of these are returned to our Lord unopened.

Your task is to kill Draco Malfoy within the next three weeks and bring him to our Lord over Christmas break. If you can accomplish this, you will be given the Dark Mark.

I know you may have been close to the Malfoy boy but he is a traitor to our cause and I'm sure you will understand. We cannot afford to have him running around. He may tell our secrets to that Headmaster of yours and we can't have that happen.

We, your father and I, wish you luck with this task. If I could offer help, I would. Unfortunately, we have been forbidden to help you in any way. I know you are smart, Blaise, and I know you will do well. Best of luck,

Mum

Blaise's eyes grew wide as she read the letter. She felt an anger rising inside of her that was unlike anything she had ever felt before. They were asking her to kill her own boyfriend and Blaise couldn't take it. Magic was pushing up inside of her, pushing for release.

She didn't know it, but magic really was pouring off her. Her dark brown hair billowed out, being blown by the wind that was swirling in a spiral around her. The letter was burning in her hands. Her vision was becoming hazy. She could barely make out the face of Draco as he shook her and called out her name. Suddenly everything came back to her with painful clarity. Blaise screamed and dropped the parchment. Then, as the wind died down around her, she fainted.

Draco didn't even stop to think as he caught Blaise when she fainted. He scooped her up and ran down the length of the Great Hall and out the door. The teachers that had stood up at the start of the commotion hadn't even gotten down to Blaise before Draco carried her out.

Dumbledore followed the couple out the doors of the Great Hall. When he passed Harry at the Gryffindor table he saw the boy reaching for a knife to butter his bread with. Dumbledore already knew what Harry was planning to do and didn't bother to stick around and watch. He had another student to take care of and was sure he would be seeing Harry again in a matter of minutes.

The aging Headmaster could hear running footsteps echoing through the hallway. He followed them and found himself, not surprisingly, at the door to the hospital wing. He walked through the open door and saw Blaise lying unconscious on a bed with Madam Pomfrey checking over her and asking Draco what happened.

"I'm not quite sure, ma'am," Draco was saying. "She was reading a letter and then suddenly there was this wind that started up around her and the letter began to burn. Her eyes were unfocused-"

"If you may excuse my interruption, Draco, I feel I have a more accurate explanation," Dumbledore cut in as he made his way to Blaise's bed.

Draco looked up at the Headmaster with a hint of relief in his face. "Thank you."

Dumbledore gave a nod in return. "I believe Blaise has suffered a magical outburst. Too much energy was spent in the magic that was released and she fainted. I don't think there is much we can do until she wakes up and we hear how she's doing."

During his explanation, Dumbledore heard two sets of footsteps come and stop at the door of the hospital wing. Already knowing whom it was, he called them in.

"Harry, Ginny, don't be afraid to enter."

The Headmaster turned to watch the two teenagers walk in with nervous looks on their faces. Ginny was holding Harry's hand and wiping away a drop of blood that was about to fall to the floor.

"When I heard Zabini scream I accidentally sliced my hand with the knife," Harry said, lying through his teeth.

Madam Pomfrey believed every word of it. She directed Harry to the bed next to Blaise's and inspected the cut. Within the next two minutes, she was done with him. Harry barely had a chance to ask Draco, mouthing the words silently, if Blaise was going to be okay. Draco nodded in response.

"All right, Potter, you're free to go. Try not to come back for a week. This is the second time this week and it's only Tuesday!"

Dumbledore chuckled lightly. Draco sneered at Harry as he stood.

"Can't stay out of the infirmary for even twenty-four hours, can you, Potter?"

Harry stood, taking Ginny's hand in his non-injured one, and started towards the door.

"You must be losing your touch, Malfoy, if you can't come up with a better insult than that. May I remind you that I got away with only a cut in yesterday's duel, where as you fared worse? Or are you still too bitter about the loss to talk about it?"

Draco's eyes narrowed. "Low, Potter, real low."

Harry shrugged and pushed Ginny lightly out the door in front of him. "Do I care? What do you want, Malfoy, another duel?"

With that Harry walked out the door and shut it behind him. Dumbledore used a lot of his willpower to stop himself from laughing just then. It was amazing for how close Harry, Draco, Ginny, and Blaise were that they could still pull off the act of being enemies so easily. Dumbledore turned to Draco, who was sitting silently next to him, showing no signs of anger at what Harry had just said.

"Well, Draco, I think you should head off to class. When Blaise wakes up, I will come and get you wherever you may be at the time."

Draco nodded and stood. "Thank you, Professor."

~*~

That night Harry led Ginny up the stairs to his dorm room. The redhead had her pajamas on already and was sleepily walking along. When they reached the top of the stairs Harry was practically carrying Ginny, who was leaning heavily on his side, nearly asleep.

Harry lay Ginny down on the bed gently. Then he moved to the foot of his bed and began rummaging through his trunk. The item he was searching for was his Invisibility Cloak.

"Ginny spending the night again, eh, Harry?" Seamus said from his bed.

Harry's head whipped around. "Why does anyone care if Ginny spends more than one night a week up here? Lavender is up here almost every night."

Both Harry and Seamus turned to look at Seamus's girlfriend. Lavender sat on the bed next to Seamus, hugging her pillow to herself. A blush spread across her face at Harry's words.

The sheets on Harry's bed rustled slightly. "Harry," Ginny murmured as she rolled over.

Harry took the momentary distraction - Seamus and Lavender had looked up at Ginny - to grab the cloak and stuff it under his robe.

"No," Ginny yelled. "Harry, don't go! It's a trap!"

"Help," the little girl screamed. "He won't let go!"

"Danny, don't go over there, stay with me," a mother said to her five-year-old son.

The voices had come back, blocking out Ginny's scream. Harry continued to kneel in front of his trunk. The traps all these innocent people were brought into.

"Are you going to do something or what?" Seamus roared, snapping Harry from his thoughts. "This is your girlfriend screaming about you."

Harry jumped up, suddenly aware of Ginny's cries. He sat on the bed next to her and shook her hard.

"Ginny. Ginny!" She didn't wake. "GINNY!"

Ginny shot up and her eyes flew open. She was breathing heavily. Her wide eyes scanned the room. She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she realized where she was. Then her eyes fell on Harry and she burst into tears. Harry took her in his arms. With a flick of his wrist and a muttered spell the curtains around his bed closed and a silencing charm was put up around the bed.

"It's all right, Ginny. It was just a nightmare," Harry said soothingly.

"I've had this every night. You... you always go straight into the trap. You always d-died. I could never s-s-save you," Ginny sobbed. "The only time I don't have this dream is when I... when I'm sleeping with you."

Harry didn't know how to respond to what Ginny just said. He'd been having nightmares recently too. They were always battle scenes with people screaming. Green flashes of light would fill his head. Some of the Muggles would actually attempt to fight the Death Eaters with their fists. Harry watched them fall again and again to their deaths. There were nights when his current Occlumency training wasn't enough to block the visions. The following nights the visions would become the nightmares.

However, these were only the nights when Harry actually slept. Most nights he lay awake until dawn, sometimes pulling all-nighters. The words of the attackers taunting the victims and the victims' screams would fill his head. It all kept echoing and echoing and echoing until Harry wanted to scream himself. Even then it didn't stop, and just got pushed to the back of his mind until he was alone the next night. Being with Ginny seemed to be the only thing to stop the reoccurring echoes. Being with Ginny allowed him to get a peaceful night's sleep.

Yet Harry didn't think it was a great idea to have Ginny spend every single night with him. Ron would be furious. He'd think other things were going on behind the closed curtain. Harry knew Ron was genuinely happy for Ginny to be with him but he also knew that Ron was still overly protective of his sister. Harry was pretty sure Ron didn't trust the two of them completely yet. It sometimes seemed as if he was waiting for the two of them to admit they had had sex in the middle of the night.

Mentally, Harry was laughing at the thought. Sex with Ginny, with Ron in the same room only a few paces away, yeah right.

Harry was brought back to reality by a hard slap on the cheek.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" he asked, his hand coming up to feel his stinging cheek.

Ginny stared at him. "For laughing about the idea of having sex with me."

Harry looked taken aback. "I said that aloud?"

"Yes, Harry, you did," Ginny said with anger lacing her voice.

Harry eyed her, trying to word his next sentence carefully. The last thing he wanted was for Ginny to become mad at him for something she misunderstood.

"The entire sentence was 'Sex with Ginny, with Ron in the same room only a few paces away, yeah right'. I'd like to live to be able to have real sex with you, not sex where we'd have to stop every five seconds to make sure Ron didn't find out."

Ginny had gone very red during this little speech. "So you do want to have sex with me?"

Harry rolled his eyes and lay down on the bed. "Of course."

"Right now?" Ginny asked, lying down next to him.

"Ginny!"

"I know, I know. I don't want to do it spur of the moment either. But what did you have planned tonight? I know you didn't bring me up here only because I was already asleep."

Harry didn't answer immediately. He had sat up again; reaching for the small containers he put his contacts in and for his glasses.

"I want to go see Blaise. I need to make sure she's okay," Harry said quietly.

He lay back down, his glasses on his nose. Ginny slid on top of him, propping herself up on her elbows.

"You feel guilty."

Harry sighed. "I can't help feeling like something in that letter had to do with me, or Voldemort, which in the end means it deals with me too."

Ginny knew that it would take a while to get Harry out of the guilt episode he was having right now. She was too tired to spend another two hours awake trying to talk Harry out of it. She barely had enough energy to get out of bed, let alone go down to the hospital wing.

"All right, we'll go. But if I run out of energy, you're carrying me."

~*~

Harry pushed the door to the hospital wing open as quietly as he could. He had been in here enough times to know that Madam Pomfrey sometimes came to check up on her patients at night.

Since Harry and Ginny were no longer little kids it made it harder for them to stay completely covered by the Invisibility Cloak. They had to walk with Ginny in the front, pressed tightly against Harry. Neither of them was complaining. The only tricky part was for Harry to stop himself from kissing her out of fear of being caught.

The couple walked quickly and quietly across the room to where Blaise slept on a bed. Her hair, such a dark brown it looked black, rayed out on her pillow. The sheets rustled as Blaise shifted in her sleep. Harry kept to the background as Ginny moved to Blaise's bedside. She took Blaise's hand and began to speak in an almost whisper.

"You scared us all today, Blaise. I was so worried. You should have seen Harry's reaction. He was so shocked. Did you know he purposely dropped a knife on his hand just so we could get in here to see if you were all right? No, you probably didn't. Oh, I haven't even started on Draco yet. He picked you up as soon as you fell and ran you all the way here. He stayed all day and..."

Ginny's voice trailed on. Harry, sensing his presence wasn't required, moved silently towards the window behind Blaise's bed. He raised his right hand to it, shivering when he felt the window's icy coldness shoot through him. He also shivered with regret. Harry was sure that the letter had something to do with him. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass, trying to clear his head. Cold shot through him and he shivered violently.

The voices had come back in full force now, drowning out all other sound. The entire battle scene was playing out in his head. The screams from small children being tortured in broad daylight echoed endlessly through his mind. It continued until Harry thought he was going to die. It consumed every piece of him and washed over his very soul, making his shivers become uncontrollable.

His vision was becoming laced with black as the images of the snowy night outside the window turned into the battle scene of Diagon Alley. Harry saw the continuous volley of curses, hexes, and jinxes. He watched, wanting to scream but unable to make a sound, as the front window of Flourish and Blotts exploded, showering three innocent children in glass. Harry had found out later that there was so much glass cutting into the children's bodies that the blood loss killed them. He had cried for fifteen minutes after that.

"Let me go, you bastard!" he heard a young woman scream.

Harry felt a hand on his arm but he couldn't draw himself out of the memory that had trapped him. He could never stop himself from reliving this. It was in his head every second of his day. The voices were overpowering, drawing him away from the real world and into the past. They showed him all he could have saved if he could only defeat Voldemort.

"Harry?" a voice said.

Harry barely recognized the voice as it overpowered the others in his head. As it echoed through, just like all the others, the mist in his mind began to clear, the battle scene stopping and fading. The snowy night was once more visible. Harry whipped around, his hand pointing out, right at someone's chest.

~*~

Another image slowly began to fill Ginny's head. She was being thrown through a tunnel and pulled towards the image on the other end. She gasped in recognition. It was a vision, something that she hadn't had in so long.

As Ginny began to watch, she nearly screamed in horror. Vision-Ginny was once more in the hospital wing, but this time sitting by the bed of someone else.

The mop of black hair was barely recognizable under all the blood that matted it down. A huge gash ran up the boy's side, from his hip to his stomach. His body was covered in blood, some of it dried and dark, the rest oozing out of his cuts at and alarmingly fast rate.

Ginny watched herself clasp her boyfriend's bloodied hand. His only response was to cough, and with the coughing came more blood dribbling out of his mouth. Madam Pomfrey bustled over, holding many cups and potions. She glanced at Ginny, a look of pure sorrow on her face.

A sudden whooshing sound filled Ginny's ears as she was thrown back into reality. She stared at Blaise and found that she could no longer look at her friend without seeing Harry in her place. Ginny's eyes began to fill with tears.

"Harry," she whispered as she looked up for him.

Ginny's eyes fell on Harry at the window. He seemed in a trance as he stared out blankly while shivering uncontrollably. He didn't seem to have heard her.

Scared now, Ginny stood and crept quietly over to her boyfriend. She laid a hand on his arm and was startled at what happened. The spark that she and Harry had felt when they touched those few nights ago was felt again. This time, she could hear something.

"Let me go, you bastard!"

"Run, Julie, run!"

Ginny stood still and very confused. She couldn't figure out what she was hearing. Somehow she knew that Harry heard it too. The voices scared her, the way they echoed and tried to consume her. Once again she wanted to scream but couldn't.

"Harry?" she gasped out in place of the scream.

The voices seemed to fade and she saw Harry whirl around with his arm pointed straight at her chest.

"Harry!" Ginny whispered. "It's me, it's only Ginny."

She watched as he blinked a few times and the haziness from his eyes seemed to disappear. The green orbs focused on her and Harry dropped his hand. A look of shame washed over his face.

"I'm sorry, Ginny. I should have known it was you."

Ginny patted his arm gently. "It's fine. You're just jumpy after what you just experienced."

Harry stared at her. "What I just experienced?"

Ginny's brows knitted in confusion. "The voices?"

Harry paled. He didn't know how Ginny could have possibly heard them. He wasn't ready to talk to anyone about them because he was too scared. He could still remember Ron saying when they were twelve that hearing voices was bad even in the wizarding world.

"You recognize it, Harry," Ginny said, pushing for answers. "You know what those voices are. What's going on?"

Just the thought of those voices triggered them to push to the front of his mind. A young child's screams and yells of "Stop... please... stop" echoed around his head as if they were bouncing off the walls of an empty room. Harry shook his head wildly but this time he couldn't shake the voices. He suddenly felt as if he were standing in the middle of all those voices, and they were coming at him, surrounding him, pushing him down into nothingness...

He wasn't aware that he was tugging at his hair, biting his lip so hard that it was bleeding, and that Ginny stood before him with no clue what to do.

"Harry?"

Harry looked up at her, his eyes wide and unseeing. Ginny could see the endless pain behind them. He looked dazed, as if he was trying to figure out if he was dreaming or not.

"C-can we go?" he said shakily. "I can't think straight and I feel like I'm going to pass out."

Inside, Harry was crying. The voices weren't going away and he was drowning in them. Trying to block them out just made them grow louder.

Ginny grabbed Harry's hand and began to lead him out of the hospital wing, throwing the Invisibility Cloak over them.

"I'm so sorry," Harry whispered back to Blaise.

~*~

Ginny contemplated telling Harry about her vision as she climbed up the stairs with him to his bed. The vision had to do with him and she always told Harry everything. This one had looked particularly life threatening. Never before could Ginny imagine Harry so hurt. Now she knew it was going to happen because her visions never lied.

She just couldn't do that to Harry though. The dazed look was still in his eyes and Ginny knew that if she hadn't been leading him he would have gotten lost in the castle. Whatever was going on inside his head was haunting him and only Harry could save himself. Ginny had a strong feeling that Harry couldn't talk to anyone about this except for the people he wouldn't dare turn to.

Dumbledore was the person they both had to talk to. Ginny couldn't dump the vision on Harry because she knew that he would ask her to put it in his Pensieve and look at it himself. Seeing himself a bloody mess mere seconds from death was something that was sure to shatter him more than he already was. Harry knew that all Ginny's visions came true and that there was no stopping them. Ginny couldn't help but feel that telling Harry was a huge mistake even though he had the right to know.

Harry, she was positive, wouldn't go to Dumbledore. Right now Harry and Dumbledore were at odds. The headmaster was hiding things from Harry again and the teenager was letting his anger get the best of him whenever they had a special lesson with Dumbledore. He'd already run out of training twice when he couldn't control his anger anymore. Harry had been so sure they had moved past the stage where Dumbledore hid things from him but now his hope had been like a mirror shattered into a thousand pieces once more.

Also, Dumbledore wanted to take up Occlumency lessons with Harry where Snape had left off. Since Harry no longer trusted Dumbledore any more than he trusted Snape they reached another impasse. There was no one else to teach Harry.

It was like losing another father figure. Ginny knew how much Harry had admired Dumbledore and thought of him as a father or grandfather. He'd already lost so much and now it seemed as if he was losing Dumbledore too.

A whimper knocked Ginny roughly from her thoughts. She looked around at her surroundings and saw she was in Harry's dorm room. Ginny frowned. She couldn't remember walking through the door.

The whimper had come from Harry, Ginny concluded as she looked at him clutching his forehead in his hands on the bed. He rubbed his scar furiously. It looked like he was trying to scrub it off. Ginny rushed over to him and flicked her hand so the curtains closed. She was grateful the silencing charm was still up as she caught Harry's wrists.

"Trying to scratch it off will not stop the pain," Ginny said. "Lay down."

Harry winced as another bout of pain shot through his head. Voldemort is too happy right now, he thought. Still, he listened to Ginny and lay down. He closed his eyes tightly against the pain but not before he was Ginny climb on top of him and sit on his stomach. He could feel her pressing butterfly kisses to his forehead, close to his scar but not on it. Harry knew how hot his scar could get when Voldemort was up to something and Ginny could feel the heat.

Soon the kisses stopped and Harry moaned in protest as his scar was still aching. He felt hands on his forehead and welcomed the cool touch. The massage they gave started to take away some of the pain.

The pain receded far enough that Harry could open his eyes and sit up. All that was left was a dull throb that he knew wouldn't go away for a while. As he sat up, he realized that it wasn't such a good idea to do so as a wave of nausea washed over him. He put a hand to his mouth to stop anything from coming out and waited for the feeling to pass. Ginny slid off him and sat next to him in silence.

Ginny used the next five minutes as Harry stopped himself from vomiting to think about who he could tell about his problems. She determined first off that it needed to be an adult who understood. She needed an adult that had gone through the stage Harry was going through now. She needed an adult that knew exactly what it was like to have something haunting you constantly.

At first she couldn't think of anyone who would possibly understand. Then a few ideas came to mind but she got rid of them quickly. Her mother would talk in such a sweet manner and wouldn't hit the topic exactly. Ginny knew that if Harry talked to her mum that he'd be worse off afterwards than he was before. That meant her dad was off the list too. Ginny had listened to her father enough times to know he was horrible at giving these kinds of talks. Halfway through the conversation he'd start badgering Harry about Muggle devices and that would just ruin everything.

The professors at school were definitely a no since they really had no clue about Harry's life at all except for when they had him in class. However, the idea of professors was actually a good one because it made Ginny consider another possibility.

Remus Lupin would be the perfect candidate to talk to Harry. He'd had horrors haunting him a lot during his life. He could relate to Harry well.

Unfortunately for Ginny and what she thought was a great idea; another thought crossed her mind.

Remus is still grieving for Sirius.

Everyone knew that Remus was still having a little trouble getting over the fact his last remaining best friend was gone. Peter didn't count. This left Lupin alone to his suffering. Harry had barely gotten in touch with the werewolf since Sirius's death because it was still a touchy subject for Harry as well. Then Ginny paused in her line of thought.

Harry hadn't said anything about Sirius for months. As a matter of fact, no one had mentioned Sirius since the summer. Even Ginny had forgotten about him and she didn't think she could have ever forgotten.

The words 'Sirius' and 'over the summer' triggered another memory that was long ago pushed to the back of her mind. Harry could talk to Sirius in his head. Ginny couldn't believe she had forgotten that fact. The more she thought about it the more she began to believe that Harry had forgotten about it too in all the commotion that had come up once they had returned to school.

"Ginny?"

Ginny snapped out of her thoughts instantly and blinked. Harry's face was right in front of hers, staring at her intently.

"Are you all right? You looked a little out of it," he asked.

Ginny nodded. Harry took his eyes off her and sat back down next to her. He was apparently satisfied with her answer.

"Harry?"

Harry began to reach for his glasses because he had taken his contacts out and couldn't see otherwise.

"Yes?"

Ginny gulped. It's now or never, she thought.

"Do you still talk to Sirius in your head?"

Harry froze. His arm stopped moving, his fingers barely brushing the rim of his glasses. He slowly turned around to face Ginny and could barely see all the details of her face because his vision was so bad.

"Do you?" Ginny asked gently after not getting an answer.

Inside Harry a huge wall was breaking. He couldn't believe he had forgotten about the mental link that bound him to his late godfather. Tears gathered in his eyes, threatening to fall.

"Sirius, are you there?" Harry said in his mind, reaching out into the blackness as if looking for Sirius.

"Harry?" he heard after a moment's pause. "Is that you? I haven't heard from you in so long I was afraid you'd forgotten me."

More tears gathered on the edge of Harry's eyelids.

"Harry, are you there?"

Harry began to sob.

~~**~~