Fear

About an hour later, Ron reappeared looking pale and scared. Hermione rushed over to him and hugged him when he entered the room, and he looked a little relieved for it. The expression on his face softened from the obvious expression of stress and anguish it had worn as he entered. Ginny stood also, and went to relieve Hermione. Over Ginny's shoulder Harry met Ron's eyes, but as Harry began to smile Ron diverted his eyes quickly, his expression tensing slightly once again.

Out of consideration for Ron, as he had obviously not enjoyed reliving everything he had seen for Dumbledore, none of the other three asked Ron anything about what he had said. Harry knew completely how he felt, though he wasn't aware of deliberately having cooled towards Ron after any conversation with Dumbledore, at least not specifically Ron. Ron however had, it seemed, actively sought not to meet Harry's eyes again for the rest of the day. Ron answered Harry whilst looking elsewhere, or concentrating solely on the game of Wizards' Chess they shared when Hermione and Ginny went downstairs to get hot chocolate. Harry did not mention his irritation at this to anyway, figuring that they would feel he was being insensitive, and the Ron might be back to normal tomorrow.

Once Hermione and Ginny returned with the drinks to find Harry and Ron in the middle of a fierce battle between a knight and a bishop, Hermione insisted that they all go to bed. They had indeed eaten late enough, and Dumbledore's interrogation of Ron had taken a while. Nobody resisted Hermione's will, and Harry went upstairs to his room opposite Ginny's. The two parted on the landing, and Ginny peered around her door as she shut it.

"Goodnight, Harry," she said quietly, and the door snapped shut.

Harry went into his room, shut the door and launched himself onto the bed, bouncing slightly on the mattress, staring at the ceiling, wondering what Ron had told Dumbledore. He wanted Dumbledore to tell him what had been said, but at the same time would have preferred to hear it straight from Ron. Either way, if it did indeed concern him, and it seemed from Ron's attitude as if it did, Harry knew he needed to know. He eventually slid into restless sleep.

He was in the entrance hall to the Ministry of Magic. There were all the fireplaces lining either side of the long room, the Apparation areas, the security office where Harry and his friends had all had their wands weighed a short time ago. There was the Fountain of Magical Brethren, restored to its usual splendour - the centaur's head evidently having been returned from Hogwarts.

The hall was completely silent, but for the distant splashing of water in the fountain. He started to walk slowly down the hall. The security desk was empty! One of the fireplaces whistled, as if a wind outside was blowing over the top of the chimney. Harry stopped and turned. Suddenly the room was blazing with light, and Dumbledore stood before him, his blue eyes bright and his face etched in anger.

"Kill me now, Dumbledore," Harry screamed, while a searing pain shot through his scar. His nerves were screaming in pain as Voldemort's spirit once again tore out of his body, as viciously as it had entered. Harry was lying on the floor in the entrance hall to the Ministry, with the centaur's smashed head lying on the polished wood in front of him. Dumbledore crossed to him again, but as he approached, Harry's body seared again, and his scar felt as if it was melting through his skull. Harry screamed in pain, but stood up to Dumbledore, wand raised, his eyes burning with hatred. He took several bold, but painful steps towards the old man, who now looked frightened and angry. Harry opened his mouth.

"Avada Kedavra," whispered Dumbledore.

Someone else screamed this time, crying "No", then in a blast of green light, Harry awoke and found himself back in his dark room in Grimmauld Place, tangled in his sheets - sheets which were soaking with sweat. He reached up and touched his scar, which was aching. As his fingers came into contact with his scar, a pain shot through it once again, and he withdrew his hand sharply. There was a knock at his door, and Ginny entered. Harry looked quickly towards the door, raising his head from the pillow and staring towards the door, down the length of his bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked timidly. "I couldn't sleep, and I heard you thrashing and then you screamed."

"I did?" said Harry, embarrassed more than alarmed. Ginny nodded in the dark, while Harry felt tension clench around his stomach.

Harry didn't want to go back to sleep. He kept thinking about the previous year, and how Voldemort had controlled and entered Harry's mind while he was sleeping. He had no desire to repeat the experience, to give away important information, about the Order of the Phoenix or about other - things that he didn't want out. He shuddered slightly and involuntarily.

"Do you fancy a game of chess or something?" he asked Ginny, "it's nearly morning anyway."

"Yeah," she said, "let's play in my room," she added. Harry was relieved; he didn't want her to have to sit on his damp bed.

Ginny left to find the chess set, which she had to steal from Ron and Hermione's room. Harry waited for her on the landing, and waited for her to lead him into her room. Ginny sat at the head of the bed, and Harry sat back against the footboard of the bed. When Harry looked at Ginny he saw that she was giggling slightly. Thinking it might be him she was laughing at, he looked around himself quickly.

"It seems that at least two people in this house are getting some sleep tonight," she said finally.

"Who?" said Harry, dumbly.

"Ron and Hermione. The Chess was still in Ron's room, so obviously I had a quick listen from the other side of the door to make sure they weren't up to anything. Well, they weren't but it looked like they had been. Umm, Ron is still in Hermione's bed."

Harry wondered for a moment if Ginny was trying to drop hints to him by mentioning it, but if she was she didn't press the issue.

Harry forced a little giggle. It was an odd feeling, but Harry for once didn't feel as though he was missing out on anything. Ron and Hermione had been here all last summer while he had been stuck in Privet Drive for his longest stay since he had discovered the Wizarding world, and at that time Harry had felt left out and shunned by Ron and Hermione, feeling that by obeying Dumbledore and keeping him in the dark as long as he was with the Muggles, that it was their fault he hadn't been kept informed.

Now though, he felt as though it was fine. Ron and Hermione had had a lot of time for each other since Harry had arrived this summer, and he hadn't really missed the company of either of them. Ron had never been this distant from him since they had met each other on the Hogwarts Express, on Harry's first ever day at Hogwarts, or so it felt.

Harry felt that now Ron felt further away from him than he had when he and Ron had not been on speaking terms, during the autumn of their fourth year, when Ron had been convinced that Harry had gotten his own name into the Goblet of Fire. This time around they were still friends, but Ron suddenly had a lot more time for Hermione than for Harry.

Yet for some reason he still didn't mind. It wasn't as though he hadn't seen it coming - Ron had evidently been smitten with Hermione for a long time, and that had manifested itself on Christmas night of that infamous fourth year, when Ron had gone ballistic about Hermione dating the Bulgarian Viktor Krum, international Quidditch star, and Triwizard Champion of Durmstrang Institute.

Harry didn't know why he felt this way, he wasn't going out with anyone else; he didn't have any particular crush on anyone else any more, Cho Chang had put paid to his little crush on her the previous year by bursting into tears every time they went on a date, and insisting on talking about Cedric Diggory, her boyfriend whom Harry had witnessed murdered in that fourth year, two years ago now.

He did feel as though he was waiting for someone though. He had no clear picture in his head of who it was though. Maybe its Ginny, he thought as he watched her set out the Chess pieces. No, he thought, she's Ron' sister, that's a bit wrong. Then a more sinister voice in his head put in its two cents worth, maybe its Lord Voldemort inside your head again, Harry. He shuddered at the thought, but agreed with himself that that was kind of unlikely.

His thoughts returned to the room as Ginny finished laying out the chess pieces and, being white, made the first move.

It was a close game. Harry, for some reason, had never thought that Ginny would be particularly good at Chess, though she did display quite a flair for it. Harry realised that he had never really played anyone at Chess apart from Ron, who was practically unbeatable, so he relished the close victory he claimed over Ginny, involving an exciting climax between one of Harry's knights and Ginny's queen, who did not wish to be removed from the board, and put up one hell of a fight.

When their game was finally over, both Harry and Ginny were getting a bit bored with chess. Harry offered to go fetch his Exploding Snap cards in an effort to make things a little more interesting. Ginny laughed a little at the idea, but suggested that perhaps Exploding Snap was a little too loud for the hour of the morning.

They both sat back, Ginny against the headboard and Harry against one of the posts at the bottom of the bed. Harry gazed in Ginny's direction, his eyes unfocused. The room came back into as much focus as his eyes could manage without the aid of his glasses when he became aware that Ginny was staring intently at him. He slid his glasses back up his nose and fixed her with his own eyes.

"What were you dreaming about?" asked Ginny, as soon as she said it looking scared at her own daring. "You don't have to tell me, it's really none of my business," she added quickly, averting her eyes for the first time in several minutes.

"It's OK," Harry told her, thinking. Ron and Hermione, it seemed, liked to spend a lot of time together nowadays. He needed someone to talk to, someone who could understand. Ginny had been in the Department of Mysteries with him, and had also been possessed by Lord Voldemort. If anyone could understand what was going on at the moment it was her. Ginny waited in silence, patiently waiting for Harry.

"OK," he said. She sat up, paying him her entire attentions. He began to explain to her all about the dream he had just had, voicing also his concerns about why he was seeing it all over again. She listened patiently. When Harry used Voldemort's name, she didn't flinch. She didn't react at all to any detail of his story, but listened calmly. Harry really appreciated it; normally when he related stories like this people peppered him with questions, even Dumbledore had taken to doing that. Harry loved Ginny for letting him finish uninterrupted, she became easy for him to talk to, and when he was done, remained silent for several minutes, considering what Harry had said.

"Well," she said finally, "I dream at least once or twice a week about how Riddle possessed me, and everything he could have done with me." She paused, then added, "and some stuff he did." Now it was Harry's turn to remain silent. He had never heard Ginny talk about this, and Ron never mentioned anything about it to him.

"It was different to yours though, because I can't remember what I did while I was under his control. Maybe it's something to do with you scar."

Hearing someone else say what he had been dreading seemed to lend the genuine possibility that it may actually be the case, even though Harry had known deep down, all along, that it probably was.

"I would kind of wake up in the middle of corridors, and not know how I got there," Ginny continued. "You say you were lying on the floor when Voldemort possessed you?"

"Yeah, looking up at Dumbledore. That part all happened in the Ministry, up to the part where I say 'Kill me now, Dumbledore'. Last time, Voldemort left when Fudge and the Aurors turned up. But in the dream nobody else came, and Dumbledore killed me."

"You know he wouldn't do that for real, Harry," said Ginny gravely.

"I didn't think he would, but I'm not sure," said Harry, aware that he was beginning to sound tragic.

"Of course he wouldn't," Ginny said, then she smiled, "Mum would kill Dumbledore if he did!" They both chuckled for a moment, before Harry continued in the same vein as before.

"I know the prophecy says either must die at the hand of the other, but it doesn't say what happens if someone else kills the pair of us, and it doesn't say that that can't happen."

"It doesn't fulfill the prophecy, Harry," replied Ginny, still patiently, " 'either must die at the hand of the other,' that means that he has to kill you or, hopefully, the other way round." Ginny allowed herself a quick smile to Harry, even though she looked quite scared at the reality of Harry's situation.

"There's something else that's different too," Harry said, but before he told Ginny what it was, she told him.

"The voice at the end?" she asked.

"Yeah, how did you..."

"Well you said that everything up to that point actually happened, and the dream ends when you get killed, so I figured that was all that was left," she said, simply.

"Well, you're right," said Harry, "I have no idea who it is, or where they've come from."

"The curse doesn't touch you before you wake up, does it," Ginny asked.

"No," Harry replied.

"Then whoever it is must be in the foyer level at the Ministry somewhere," she said.

"I suppose, but it was a dream, it could have been my parents or something."

At that point there was a quick knock on Ginny's bedroom door, and Hermione came into the room. She paused for a moment when she saw Harry on Ginny's bed.

"Morning Ginny, Harry," she said.

"Morning," they replied in unison.

"We, neither of us, could sleep," Ginny explained, then looked at Harry, who nodded, before continuing, "we played chess then Harry was telling be about a dream he had."

"Another dream?" Hermione asked, "I thought I heard something like you talking seriously, Harry," she joked briefly, "what was it this time, the Department of Mysteries again?"

"No, just the Ministry," Harry replied, not really wanting to explain everything all over again, even though he knew he would have to tell Ron and Hermione about it at some point.

"I'll be right back," said Ginny, "I have to go to the bathroom." She left the room.

"You know that Ron and I are still here for you," said Hermione at once, "you can still tell us things, you know."

"I know," said Harry, a little hurt, "I just needed to tell someone while it was still fresh in my mind."

"So you came to see Ginny?"

"No, she came into my room as I woke from the dream, said she heard me thrashing and talking. So we played chess."

"Harry," asked Hermione shrewdly, "do you have a thing for..."

"No!" Harry said, indignant now that Hermione had voiced what he had touched upton on his thoughts earlier.

"Really? Because you know she..."

"No," he repeated firmly. "She's going out with Dean anyway," he added.

"Pfffffff," said Hermione, "he asked her out on the last day of term, and she hasn't even written him since."

"She hasn't said anything about it."

"Of course she hasn't," said Hermione, bordering on her irritatingly patient tone of voice. "Be careful, Harry, don't lead her on."

"I'm not leading her on," said Harry, indignant again.

"I know," she stressed, "just be careful." She left the room.