For Your Love

Chapter 15 - Seeing Clearly

When the rest of the team had left, Ginny moved to the bed beside Ron and Hermione. Hermione's eyes never left Harry, and she clutched his hand as Madam Pomfrey continued to work over him. The blood was gone from his face and hair, but purple bruises remained on his nose and cheeks and he was still unconscious. His glasses lay on the nightstand, broken in half from hitting the stands face first. No one had thought to mend them yet.

"This is bad," Ginny breathed shakily. "He hasn't woken up yet. This is worse than when the dementors knocked him off his broom, isn't it? He should have woken up by now."

Ron put his arm around her, but no one said anything. No one offered her words of comfort. After several excruciatingly long minutes, Madam Pomfrey straightened up and looked at the three of them.

"I've done what I can; his body will need to do the rest, and for that, he needs quiet. I know it's useless to insist that you leave him alone, so I will allow one of you to stay. And no arguments," she added when Ron opened his mouth to protest.

"I could..." Ginny began.

"I'll stay." Hermione said firmly, looking at Ron and Ginny for the first time. "You two should eat, you played a hard match. I'll stay."

They didn't argue with her. Ron let go of Ginny and crouched down to Hermione's ear. "I'll be back later to relieve you. He'll be okay. He's Harry." Hermione nodded, and he kissed her head before leading his sister out.

Exhaustion swept over Ginny. She began to rub her forehead, only to become suddenly alert again as they pushed through the hospital doors to find a girl with long dark hair leaning on the opposite wall, her hands worrying at the blue Ravenclaw scarf still wrapped around her neck. She started forward at the sight of them, but then checked herself and cast an anxious glance at Ron.

"Is he alright?" she asked in a strained voice. "The team said he hadn't woken up yet."

Ron stared at her evenly, confusion creasing his brow before he realized who she was. He shook his head.

Her face paled a bit more, and her eyes darted between him and the hospital doors. "Can I see him?"

"I don't think so," Ron said quietly, "but Hermione's with him. She'll let us know if anything changes."

Ellie nodded. "Right. Of course." She turned away and started down the corridor, but paused after a few steps. "Thanks, Ron."

He nodded and watched her retreat into the shadows.

"Who was that?" Ginny asked, mystified.

Ron's brow creased once again. "Ellie something, I think."

"Who is she?"

"Harry's Potions partner."

Ginny turned a dubious eye on her brother. "A bit keen for a Potions partner, isn't she?"

Ron shrugged tiredly. "I dunno. Let's go, I'm hungry."

* * *

Moonlight shone through the tall hospital windows, casting an eerie glow over the almost empty room. Ron had returned after dinner, but Hermione had shooed him away.

"Won't you even let me sit with you?" he had asked.

"Madam Pomfrey said only one of us, and I can't leave him, Ron. I won't."

Guilt washed over her as she watched him leave, but some things were more important. Her best friend, lying alone and unconscious, was more important. She would have done the same if it had been Ron. At least, she thought she would.

Now, hours later, the door opened again, letting in a thin shaft of light. She did not look up as the heavy footsteps came nearer, nor when the figure stopped some feet away and sat down in an empty chair. But she knew by his gait and his careful manner who it was.

"Come to finish the job?" Hermione asked, tightening her grip on Harry's hand.

"If I had wanted to finish the job, do you think he would have made it to the hospital wing?"

His coldness stung her, but she did not reply. They sat in uneasy silence as the moon moved slowly across the window.

"I only came to see if he was alright. It was an accident, you know."

"What do you care if he's alright?" she hissed. "Hasn't this always been your greatest ambition? To get rid of Harry once and for all?"

"No." Draco stood up and moved closer to the bed. "That is the Dark Lord's greatest ambition. Not mine."

"My apologies," Hermione said evenly. "I hadn't realized those were two different things."

"The sum of what you don't realize would astound even you," he volleyed back. He eyed her with a look of disdain and perhaps a touch of jealousy. "You've been up here since they brought him in I suppose?"

"Why are you here, Malfoy? Shouldn't you be off celebrating somewhere?"

"I've already told you; I came to see how bad off he was. We can't go losing the only Golden Boy we've got. What would become of the rest of us?" he asked sarcastically. He looked at Harry impassively for a long moment before shifting his eyes to his Head Girl. "You're on patrol for breakfast. Don't be late."

"Enjoy your victory while you can," Hermione called to his retreating back. "Because I promise you it won't happen again."

A smile played on Draco's lips as he stopped and turned. "I'm counting on it."

As his footsteps died away, Hermione felt a stirring under her hand. Harry's eyes opened in slits and looked cautiously around. "Where am I?"

"Harry?" Tears of relief sprang to her eyes. "It's alright. You're in hospital."

"Hermione? Where's Ron? I heard voices."

"No," she said, stroking his hand. "It's only me. It's late, you've been out for a while."

He groaned and shut his eyes again. "My head hurts."

She reached for the vial that Madam Pomfrey had left on the nightstand with instructions that Harry should drink it as soon as he awoke, to ease any pain he might have.

"Here," she said, cradling his head in her hand. "Drink this."

He gulped the blue liquid and lay back again. "Malfoy knocked me off."

"Yes."

"Did he get the Snitch?"

"Yes. Madam Hooch called it a fair catch," she said regretfully, pausing to run a hand over his forehead. "I should go tell Madam Pomfrey you're awake."

"No, don't," he said, wincing. "She'll only want to poke and prod me for the rest of the night. I'll be fine."

She gave him a reproachful look. "Alright," she said reluctantly. "Well, I suppose I should go. Ron and Ginny will want to know that you're awake, and I need some sleep; I've been in this chair for hours. If you don't need me, that is."

"When have I ever not needed you?" Harry asked. She smiled. "Thanks for being here when I woke up," he said.

Hermione leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

* * *

Once Harry awoke, the rest of his recovery followed quickly. The last of his bruises remained just long enough to earn him some sympathy and reinforce everyone's opinion that Slytherin's win was unjustified. But Quidditch matches and house rivalries were forgotten on one gray morning with the arrival of the Daily Prophet at breakfast. Hermione took the paper from the delivery owl as usual, but gasped when she opened it to the front page.

"Oh, Ron!" she exclaimed, putting her hand over her mouth.

"What?" he asked, startled as he bit into his toast.

She pushed the paper in front of him and pointed to the article. "Ministry Employee Found Dead, Dark Mark Seen Over Brixton."

"It's Sherlock Perkins, look!" A sadness came over Hermione's face. "How awful for your dad!" she said as Ron scanned the article, his own face becoming increasingly downcast.

"Blimey," he said. "He was just coming home from the office when they attacked him, poor bloke. He was so old, probably didn't stand a chance." Hermione clutched Ron's arm as they read the article together, oblivious to Harry's confused stare from across the table.

"Who's Sherlock Perkins?" he asked when it became obvious they weren't going to offer any further details.

"He was dad's partner at the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office," Ron said absently. He looked up at Harry, furrowing his brow. "Didn't you meet him once? At dad's office? I haven't seen him since I was small, and he was old even then. But dad always liked him."

Harry searched his memory and finally recalled the old warlock, sitting in the cramped office that he had shared with Arthur at the Ministry, surrounded by mounds of paper.

"But why target him?" Harry asked. "He couldn't have been a threat to Voldemort, could he?" He didn't want to say it out loud, but privately thought that Arthur Weasley would have made a more likely candidate if Voldemort was looking to target Ministry employees who were sympathetic to Muggles. Though admittedly, he had already tried to kill Arthur once and failed.

"Since when does You-Know-Who need a reason to kill someone?" Ron asked grimly. "Besides, with all the raids they've been doing lately, maybe he found out something he shouldn't have." He looked down the table to where Ginny and Colin were sitting. "I should go see if Ginny knows. I'll be right back."

He rose from the table and Hermione took the paper back, scanning the rest of the front page.

"There's a bit about you in here, too," she said to Harry without looking up.

"What now?" he asked, gritting his teeth.

"With a new murder on the Ministry's hands, the Wizarding public is forced to ask once again, is there any hope?" she read. "There is only one who has managed to elude He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named time and again. But while Harry Potter is sequestered at Hogwarts under the watchful eye of Albus Dumbledore, what hope is there for the rest of us? Are we to rely on the Ministry and Aurors who have so far failed to protect us from this newest onslaught of terror? Must we sit and wait until The Boy Who Lived sees fit to rid us of this darkness once and for all?

Harry's face turned red and his eyes grew wide. "What hope is there? Sees fit?! What do they think I'm doing up here? Hiding behind Dumbledore?"

"Harry!" Hermione whispered loudly, attempting to stem the flow of eyes that were beginning to turn toward them.

His voice dropped to a hiss as he leaned across the table. "I've been training with Dumbledore every month, but we're still no closer to finding him! How much longer am I supposed to sit around here and do nothing? I should be out there, looking for him. I should be hunting him down."

A chill swept over Hermione at his words. "I don't think you need to hunt him down," she countered quietly. "When he's ready, he'll come for you. He always does."

They stared at each other as the weight of their words sunk in, their jaws set in grim acceptance. Ron returned and their eye contact was broken. The three of them resumed their breakfast silently, the weights on their shoulders betraying their desire to maintain an air of normalcy.

Harry looked down the table, seeking out Ginny's coppery hair. He found it, bent low with either exhaustion or sadness, he couldn't tell which, and saw Colin next to her, trying to offer some words of comfort but apparently not doing a stellar job of it. What was he doing anyway? Ginny didn't need some blathering idiot trying to be funny at a time like this. She needed someone who understood, someone who would help her do something about the pain she felt, who would let her get angry. And if there was one thing Harry knew about Ginny, it was that she had righteous anger down to an art form. His legs itched to walk down there and pull her away from him, to see the spark in her eyes as she contemplated this latest loss. But his head argued that he had given up that right; she would only view it as an intrusion.

Harry felt a need for release, a need which, he realized almost immediately, he knew how to fill. Glancing behind him to the Ravenclaw table, he was not surprised to find Ellie already looking at him. They had not been alone together since his accident, but she looked anxious and he saw that she was also holding a Daily Prophet in her hands. She gave him a strained smile, but dropped her eyes quickly before anyone could notice. He resolved not to let the day pass before seeking her out.

Hermione, scanning the rest of the paper as she finished her porridge, paused at a small item on the bottom of page four. She didn't say anything, but glanced up at the Slytherin table in time to see Draco Malfoy striding away and out the door, the paper clutched in his hands. Turning her attention back to the news, she continued to read the Magical Law Enforcement Bulletin.

"When questioned about the break-in, Mrs. Malfoy insisted that nothing of importance was taken and that her injuries were minor. No further investigation is planned at this time..."

* * *

The portrait hole to the Ravenclaw storage room swung shut, and Harry shrugged off his invisibility cloak, sitting down on a dusty blue couch to wait. He had slipped Ellie a note at the end of lunch, asking her to meet him here after classes. She hadn't even known about the room when he'd first brought her here, but it had since become one of their favorite spots: secluded, comfortable, and theirs.

He waited with a nervous energy, leaning forward on his knees, clasping and unclasping his hands, until he heard the familiar tap, tap of a wand on the portrait frame. Ellie came through, slightly out of breath, and sealed the hole behind her.

"I'm sorry," she said distractedly, stowing her wand in her robes. "Professor Flitwick kept us late, and then I had to run up to my room and my roommate wanted to chat, and then I..."

"It's okay," Harry said, already on his feet and striding toward her. Her agitated manner threw him off balance for a moment until he reached out to touch her arm. She suddenly stopped rambling and looked up at him.

"Hi," he said into the silence.

"Hi," she said breathlessly as though seeing him for the first time. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. Bemused, he hugged her back, savoring the feel of her body against his. But there was a kind of desperation in the way she clung to him that he couldn't place.

"Are you okay?" she whispered into his neck.

"Of course, why?"

She pulled back and scanned his face, caressing his cheek and running her fingers over the faint yellowish bruises that remained. "I was sitting in the Ravenclaw stands when you hit. You hit so hard, I couldn't... I didn't know if..." Her breath hitched. "I was so worried..."

"Hey," he whispered soothingly, searching out her eyes. "I'm fine." He leaned down and kissed her, taking her hands and placing them on his chest, pressing them into him. "See?" he murmured against her lips. "I'm fine."

She dipped her head and buried her face in his neck, feeling the reassuring pulse of his heart as his arms surrounded her. Outside, they heard footsteps approach and pass by the portrait, their owners chatting animatedly. They stood still, wrapped in each other, letting the sounds of the castle envelop them.

"Are you really all that they say you are?" she asked finally. "The hope of the wizarding world? The only one who can defeat... him?"

She looked up into his eyes, and he saw fear and pity and all the things he had come to this room to avoid reflected in her face.

"Are you?" she whispered.

He gave her a penetrating look. "I don't want to be any of those things."

"But you are, aren't you? You're Harry Potter."

Harry's eyes flickered to the portrait hole, the only thing separating them from the world outside. "Not in here," he said, fixing his gaze back on her. "Not when I'm with you."

He could feel her trembling as he leaned in and brushed her lips, but she pulled away. "I can't. I have to go."

"Don't," he breathed as she slipped out of his grasp.

"I can't do this." She moved a few feet away, but then stopped and turned around, her voice becoming frantic. "How can I be with you knowing that at any moment you might be whisked away or battling with Death Eaters or who knows what! I almost died when I saw you hit that pillar; I've never been so scared in my life. But that was nothing, was it? Nothing compared to what you've gone through. You watched Cedric Diggory die, you've fought against You-Know-Who. What was I thinking? You're Harry Potter!"

Harry stood dumbfounded and angry. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She didn't understand, didn't understand what it meant to be him. Hermione understood, Ginny understood, why couldn't she?

"You knew who I was when you started this," he said, more calmly than he felt.

"No," she said helplessly. "I didn't."

She turned away and was almost to the portrait hole before he felt his feet move. He caught her and spun her around to face him.

"So that whole 'shutting out the world' thing was just for you then?" he said, his voice rising. "I'm just a convenience to help you forget an old boyfriend? Don't you see? This is exactly why I need this too. Why I need you."

Ellie was speechless and stared at him with wide eyes. It was then that he became aware of the tight grasp he had on her arms and that in his anger, he was frightening her. He loosened his grip and stepped back, gathering himself together. "I'm sorry," he fumbled. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

But instead of fleeing like he expected her to, she stood silent, numbed by his words, the frenzy drained out of her.

"This is all my fault," she said. "I asked you for this, but I had no idea what I was asking, did I? I was only thinking of myself; I didn't think about what this would mean for you." She paused, hugging her arms around her chest. "You must hate me."

Harry clenched his jaw and looked at the floor. He wasn't sure how he felt about her at the moment. He didn't hate her, but it seemed too trite to say so.

"You can go," he said quietly. "I won't ask you to stay if you don't want to."

It was a moment before he heard the rustle of her robes, but he was startled to realize she was moving toward him rather than away, and when she lifted his chin and met his eyes, it was with a new understanding.

"I just want to feel close to someone, to have some relief from real life for a while," she whispered, echoing her words from the forest. "I think you need that, too. Could we do that for each other? For a little while?"

His head filled with doubt and he dropped his eyes. "Ellie..."

"You say you need me just as much as I need you. What kind of person would I be if I left now?"

Harry looked at her and his heart ached with relief. He rubbed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, memorizing her feel, her smell, her kiss. How much longer he could ask for her comfort like this, he didn't know. He knew it was not ideal, not perfect. But for a little while, it would be all right.

* * *

The days ticked by, but for Ginny, time seemed to be going backward. The strain of her renewed connection to Tom was eating away at her sanity; the days became one long struggle against succumbing to his constant prodding. Most times, she could hold him at bay. Her gullible, eleven-year-old self was gone, and she would not allow herself to confide in him, even though he was there in her innermost thoughts. But she feared that without constant vigilance, she would once again be trapped in his swirl of darkness and hunger for power.

In the pale light of the winter days, she hung on to any shred of normality that she could find, filling her thoughts with classes and homework and Quidditch. But at night, there were none of those things to distract her, and when Colin whispered words of love to her, in darkened classrooms or before going to bed, she thought the struggle to maintain her composure must surely be screaming to the world. But he never noticed. Or if he did, he didn't say anything.

As the weeks passed, her excuses cropped up more and more steadily until Colin stopped asking for her time in the evenings and settled for a hurried kiss at the end of the day. She had taken to wandering the castle in the evening hours, begging him to let her be alone for a while, saying she just had some research to do in the library and not to wait up for her. His heart wrenched whenever she walked away from him, but he had been shut out, and he loved her too much to force his company on her when she clearly didn't want it.

Grey clouds raced across the sky one evening as Harry and Ron locked the door to the Quidditch shed and hoisted their brooms over their shoulders, the last ones to leave from their regular weekly practice.

"Where could she be?" Harry asked, not a little hacked off that Ginny had missed practice entirely without so much as a note. "It's not like her."

"No, it's not, and she'd better have a damned good explanation when I find her," Ron said vigorously. "Something's off about her lately. Have you noticed?"

Harry didn't reply, but he had noticed. The way she avoided not just him, but all her friends. Her sullen attitude and the way she held her head in her hands when she thought no one was looking. He didn't like seeing her that way. There was a time when she might have sought him out if she had a problem, and he would have been glad of it. But those days seemed to be gone. In any case, she certainly hadn't confided anything to him. But no matter what her problems, she had never missed a Quidditch practice before. That he could do something about.

They braced themselves against the brisk wind and trudged up the hill together when a flash of red caught Harry's eye. Just around the corner of the castle, a lone figure could be seen sitting at the edge of the cliffs, her hair whipping around her. He nudged Ron and pointed in her direction.

"What the...?" Ron exclaimed as the two set off toward her. "Oi, Ginny!" he called when they reached the top of the hill.

She turned around, startled out of her reverie, but her surprise quickly turned to a frown.

"What do you want?" she asked tersely.

"I want to know where you've been for the past two hours, that's what!" Ron bellowed.

"None of your business. Sod off," she said, turning her back to them once more and looking out across the lake.

"Gin, you missed practice," Harry added firmly.

He saw her back stiffen, and she looked around as if only just aware of her surroundings. "What? What time is it?" A panic-stricken look washed over her face as she scrambled to her feet. "Oh, no!" She brushed past them and started down the hill but only went a few paces before she stopped, her eyes roaming over the empty Quidditch pitch in the distance.

"Two hours?" she whispered to herself. "I've been out here for two bloody hours?" Her hands grasped her head and she clutched her hair in frustration. Ron exchanged a worried glance with Harry before following her down the hill, leaving Harry to wonder whether he should follow as well or let Ron handle it. He decided on the later.

"Hey," Ron said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "What's up? Why did you miss practice?" She spun around out of his reach, her cheeks flushed from the cold and a wild look in her eye.

"Are you okay?" he asked with a note of concern.

"Do I look okay to you?" she hissed.

"No, but you won't tell anyone what's wrong! Do you think people don't notice when you disappear for hours at a time? Or how you barely say a word to anyone when you are around?"

Ginny crossed her arms and clamped her lips shut. The fire in her eyes might have scared off someone who hadn't grown up with it, but Ron would not be swayed.

"Does this have something to do with Creevey? Because you've been acting strangely ever since the night I found you in that classroom. What was that all about?"

"This has nothing to do with Colin," she said, which was a lie, she knew. But the last thing she needed was for Ron to go haring off after her boyfriend. She had already hurt Colin enough as it was. "This is just something I have to work through on my own. You have to let me handle it."

"Well, you're not handling it, and if you don't start handling it I'm going to have no choice but to force you to talk to someone."

She shot him a warning glance, and he lowered his voice further.

"If you won't talk to me, at least tell Harry or Hermione; maybe they can help you!"

Ginny snorted. "Right. You can't even get Hermione to spend time with you, but I'm sure she'd drop everything to help me. As for Harry..." She looked past Ron to where Harry had been listening to their argument from a few feet away. "He doesn't care."

Ron threw his hands in the air. "I give up."

Harry met Ginny's eyes, but she looked at him with such bitterness that an anger rose up inside him. He wanted nothing more than to go down there and shake some sense into her, to force her to tell him what was wrong. What right did she have to be angry at him for anything? He had wanted to be her friend, but she couldn't deal with it. So he'd done what he thought was right; he'd pushed aside whatever feelings he had to make things easier for her. Did she think that had been easy for him, to just leave behind what they'd had together? He didn't want to make her life difficult, so he had gone out of his way to avoid upsetting her. Wasn't that what she wanted? This was too much.

He strode toward her, the fire in his eyes matching her own. "Of course I care!" he yelled. "If you would just let us help you instead of shutting everyone out..."

"Don't you dare come over here now after weeks of not speaking to me and pretend that you care!" she yelled back, pouring out all of her hurt and frustration on him. "You avoid me, you brush me off, you can hardly stand to be in the same room with me!"

"Gin, that's not true..." Ron started, but was quickly interrupted.

Harry stared at her incredulously. "I did that for you! You didn't want me around, remember?"

"You did what?" asked Ron, now thoroughly bewildered.

"Oh yes, that's exactly what I needed. For my best friend to desert me! Brilliant!" Ginny spat.

"Oh, I see," Harry nodded, narrowing his eyes. "Now who wants it both ways, huh?"

"Look, I think..." Ron began.

"Shut up!" they yelled at him in unison.

Ginny threw a look of disgust at Harry before turning on her heel and almost running down the hill. In response, Harry mounted his broom, which he had been gripping tightly, and soared in the opposite direction, around the castle and out of sight.

Ron stood in stunned silence, his face creasing in confusion. "Has the whole world gone mental?" he asked loudly to no one in particular. But getting no answer, he shook his head and made his way back to the castle.

* * *

Ginny crawled into bed and shut the curtains tight around her. She had skipped dinner, and now the uncomfortable rumbling in her stomach, mixed with the wretched feeling that she'd just alienated the only person who might have been able to help her, was making her feel nauseous.

She burrowed deep into her pillow. She was angry and ashamed; angry that he had had the nerve to lash out at her, and ashamed because he was right. She had brought this on herself. How could she have believed that pushing him away would make things easier? She longed for him desperately; she missed him. He was the only one who could possibly understand what she was going through. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she was afraid to think that the damage she had done to their friendship might be irreparable.

"Well, well, what have we here?" The now familiar voice slithered into her consciousness, taking advantage of her vulnerability and exhaustion. "Harry Potter has rejected you again? What a pity, although I can't say I'm surprised. He never did understand the power that he holds over you. And not to understand one's own power, well, it is such a waste. I would have never treated you this way. Didn't I always listen to you? Wasn't I always here when you needed a shoulder to cry on?"

A new wave of nausea swept over her. "What do you want from me, Tom? You can't think that I would be taken in by you again. You're vile and evil and if I could forcibly rip you out of myself, I would."

"Now, now, Ginevra, no need to be impertinent. But then, you always were an obstinate little girl. Always fighting against me, forcing me to bend you until you broke when it would have been so much easier if you had given in. Given in to your hatred of Harry. Because you did hate him, didn't you? Hated him for rejecting you and your silly notions of love. Just like you hate him now."

Ginny buried her face in her pillow to muffle her anguished cry. She would not give in to his lies; she would not give in without a fight.

"Oh, dear, and now I've made you cry. And you are so very tiresome when you cry, Ginevra. It's weak and I won't stand for it. I will come again when you are... of a more sound mind." He laughed at the irony of his own words, and Ginny felt him retreat once again into the recesses of her subconscious.

She lay still, listening to the sound of her own breathing. Her face grew hot from her breath against the pillow, and she turned her head toward the cool air, brushing her hair out of her eyes. The door opened and Maura, Anna, and Abby came in, their voices dropping to a whisper when they noticed Ginny's bed hangings were already closed. They dressed for bed quickly and the room was quiet once again.

Ginny closed her eyes and tried to conjure pleasant images in her head. She wanted to feel...something. Something other than this sickness and darkness. The Burrow swam into view. Home. A warm kitchen and her comfortable bedroom. The garden and the lake with the oak tree just beyond. The field of flowers where she had lain as a little girl, soaking in the sun, calling out to Tom, to her friend who had hurt her, who had nearly killed her. Tom. No. Harry. She had taken Harry to the field of flowers. They had talked and laughed, and she had reached out to him to feel what he felt. He had let her see inside him, to his core, and his loneliness had made her hopeful and sad all at once.

"Harry," she whispered. If only she could reach out to him now, to feel him again. Could she? She had never deliberately sought out another's feelings, apart from that day in the field, and had always understood Legilicor connections to require eye contact. But she could try.

Her eyes moved beneath their lids, and she tried to picture Harry clearly in her mind. What would he be doing just now? Her mind moved through the castle walls, through the stone and air and into the seventh year boys' room. She had never seen Harry's room, but imagined it must look similar to her own. From her bird's-eye view she looked past the beds where her brother, Neville, Seamus and Dean would all be passed out in their pajamas, their long arms and legs peeking out from their blankets, to the last one where Harry lay, his glasses on the nightstand, one arm hidden under his pillow in sleep. She focused on his tousled hair, on his slackened face, his lips parted slightly. She pushed out to him. What did he feel? Was he peaceful? Restless? Dreaming? But try as she might, she could feel nothing. She could only picture him as if through a glass.

"Harry," her mind sighed once more before she drifted off to sleep.

In the seventh year boys' room, past the beds where his roommates lay snoring and fidgeting in their sleep, Harry opened his eyes with a start.

* * *

A/N: Thanks so much for your reviews! You guys make my day. For those of you who have asked for more H/G interaction, the next chapter is for you. It is completely, 100% Harry and Ginny.