A Saving People Thing

At first, she doesn't even notice. She wakes up the way she always does, yawning and stretching with her legs tangled in her bed sheets. Her eyes catch her clothes--an emerald green button down top and white capri pants, the nicest Muggle clothes she owns--folded neatly on the floor next to an old pink hairbrush and a broken plastic sneakoscope. Suddenly there are knots in her stomach and she wonders why she's so warm. Afternoon sunlight is streaming through her crooked window, and sure enough, her bedside clock reads, "You're late!" With speed that would impress a golden snidget, she changes from her old frayed nightdress to the outfit she picked out a week before, and drags the brush through her tangled red hair, wishing she knew that Pretty in a Pinch spell she'd seen on the cover of Teen Witch last month. Taking the stairs two at a time, she runs the two flights down and into the kitchen, where everyone is already finishing breakfast. She stops to breathe, knowing her face must be as red as her hair. It's the day Harry Potter comes to the Burrow, and Ginny can't believe she's overslept.

-- -- --

"There she is." Six faces turn towards Ginny as she approaches the table. There's an empty place next to Harry. She gulps and takes a seat.

"Good mooooorning, Ginny," Fred or George says. She doesn't look up to see which one of them it is. Instead, she reaches for a piece of bread and butters it, looking as intent on her food as she possibly can.

"Early start today, huh, Ginny?"

"Even Ron beat you! We usually have to lure him out with food..."

There's a rustle and a thump as Ron hits one of the twins.

"Honestly, boys! At the breakfast table..." Their mother joins in, and cuts Ginny a larger piece of bread. "There, that's better."

Next to her, Harry is smiling and taking quiet sips of his pumpkin juice. He doesn't speak, just eats his breakfast and laughs at Fred and George so softly that Ginny wonders if he's faking it. She's been wondering about him for months, about how he is and what he thinks. Since Sirius died.

The conversation after Ron's mildy violent outbreak is more subdued, and turns instead to plans for the day. There are chores to be done and things to be unpacked, but Ron promises Harry a game of Quidditch and finally, finally, Harry's eyes seem to light up a little.

They don't make it up the hill until it's almost dark out, which is fine by Ginny. She sits on the ground and pretends to be upset that she can't play because it's already a two-on-two game. High above her head, George and Ron guard plastic yellow Quidditch rings as Harry and Fred fly back and forth across the sky, lobbing apples at each other.

Ginny likes Quidditch, but she's glad she's not playing. She likes feeling weightless on her Cleansweep 7 and being fast and strong. But not too fast. That's something she learned playing Seeker for Gryffindor. Being part of the team but playing beyond it, with everything riding on her catching something smaller than her fist.

She lies back on the grass, noticing how the blades stick to her arms. It's too humid to play Quidditch. She knows she'd feel the air clinging to her and dragging her back to the ground. So she just looks up, shielding her eyes against the fading sunlight. Harry's black hair stands out, compared to her brothers'. He's circling Fred, preventing him from throwing the apple past Ron. She claps, even though they can't hear her, and cheers for Harry and Ron. After all, if whoever becomes captain lets her stay on the team, she'll be their teammate next year. She'll play Chaser and Harry can take his Seeker position back. He's better at it, anyway. Better than Charlie, though she'll never tell her older brother that. And besides, there's something too lonely about playing Seeker. She'd rather work with her teammates and cheer along with them when Harry catches the Snitch.

Harry, on the other hand, she can tell is playing Seeker unconsciously. He dives for the apple whenever it passes through a ring and catches it before it falls to the ground. He grabs it from the air easily, because the apple doesn't have wings.

Ginny can tell that George and Fred have won before they hit the ground.

"Because you cheated!" Like usual, Ron is accusing the twins of various acts of treachery while Harry listens and laughs. Their voices carry, Ron's indignant, Fred's and George's amused. Ginny notices, though, that as much as they claim Ron is only jealous of their skills, the twins never completely deny cheating.

Ron lunges for Fred, then, nearly falling as Fred swerves away. He catches himself before he swings upside down, but Fred's broom keeps spinning, faster and faster, until all Ginny can see is a flash of red hair coming closer to her every second. She means to back away, but then the end of the broomstick catches her stomach and she is vaguely aware of tumbling down the hill before she lands with a splash and everything goes black.

"Ginny? Ginny!" The first voice she hears is Ron's, but Harry's face is directly above her when she opens her eyes. She thinks she hears a croak, and then a large green frog jumps from her chest into the pond.

"Ah!" Now she's awake. She struggles to sit up quickly, becoming aware all of a sudden that Harry's arms are around her, supporting her.

"You fell."

"In the frog pond." Fred and George are looking at her wide-eyed, with such identical expressions it takes her a minute to figure out who is who.

"Are you okay, Ginny?" Like usual, Ron is more worried about her than anyone else is. He grabs her hands to help her up and Harry's arms fall away from her back. She goes to stand quickly and then drops back to the floor. Harry catches her again.

"I think I hurt my leg," she says, trying to sound small. "Could you two just help me back to the house?" She glances between Harry and Ron.

Harry shifts as Ron grabs her left side. She decides it's her right leg that hurts, and leans heavily on Harry. Fred and George run up ahead, and by the time they get back to the Burrow, Ginny can already hear her mother yelling at them.

"....how completely reckless! You could have killed your sister, I hope you realize that," she breathes for a moment, then, "thank you, Harry, dear."

Harry helps Ginny onto the couch and she's run out of ways to keep him near. Luckily, he doesn't go far. Mrs. Weasley flips through Miss Quik's 1001 Magical Remedies (for Injuries, Illnesses, and More!)as the boys sit around her, waiting for everything to be normal again. Except Harry. Harry sits next to her, but his eyes are somewhere else.

He looks focused, like a shade of the boy who saved her life three years ago. She watches him while her ankle is bandaged, while her mother decides all she really needs is rest, while Fred and George stand quietly but fidgeting in the corner. She wonders if he'd talk about it, tell her how he feels, but she knows she wouldn't know what to say, about Sirius, about anything, even if he trusted her like that.

By the time she goes up to bed, supported by Ron up the stairs, her left ankle, the ankle she broke months ago at the Department of Mysteries, is a little sore. She settles into bed carefully, trying not to disturb it, and then it occurs to her that if she does disturb it, Harry might have to take care of her again, and she has to stop herself from kicking her leg under the covers. Instead she falls asleep remembering how it felt to have him hold her, and she tries to hold the feeling into her dreams.

It doesn't work.

-- -- --

In her dreams, she's in the Chamber of Secrets, but one more vast and dark and empty than Hogwarts could possibly hold. She can never speak, in these dreams, no matter how she tries. Her tongue is frozen in her mouth, frozen in place like the rest of her body when the basilisk stares her down, and all she can see until he comes for her is yellow eyes, big and soulless as anything can be. And when he comes, the dark boy who is Harry and never Harry, when he touches her she is surprised to find she can think, and she can scream. When he touches her, there is no pain, and she watches from somewhere near the ceiling of the dimly lit hall, watches herself fade away until she is nothing but white bones and red hair. Yet, in her dreams, without her body, she still screams loud enough to tear apart the whole of Hogwarts. In the dark of her room, she bites down on her lip, hard, and when she wakes she can still taste blood.

It takes a moment for her to realize that she's fine, that she's tangled in her bed sheets, at home, with her family. She didn't die three years ago, and Tom Riddle is gone. Tom Riddle is gone because of Harry...she lies in her bed for a long time, reminding herself over and once again that Tom became Voldemort. She's always known it, but it's only truly meant something to her recently, now that Voldemort is back and her dreams have gotten worse. He'd been defeated by Harry before she was born, so the threat of his return hadn't meant much more to her than her mother's stories...which always ended abruptly before anything really happened. Sometimes Bill and Charlie told her things, whispers they'd heard or stories their friends had told them. Until she'd seen the Death Eaters for herself in the Department of Mysteries. Until she'd fought Voldemort's--Tom's--supporters. What really made Voldemort real to her was Tom, and with every dream, she has a better idea of what Harry is facing. It's becoming harder and harder to simply cheer on his accomplishments, to wish that Harry the hero might one day choose her. Whenever she thinks of Tom, she knows that Harry is facing something cold and evil and that what he has done does not compare to what he still has to do.

-- -- --

That morning at breakfast, she finds herself looking at Harry more than usual, wishing she could see inside his head, know what he's thinking, but more than that, she wishes she could make herself talk to him. Maybe she could help him...after all, she'd made him feel better when she'd told him how it felt to be possessed by You-Know-Who, but this is different. He's staring into his tea, stirring it occasionally, and she knows he isn't worried about possession any more. His godfather had been murdered, just like his parents had been. Ginny can't imagine what she can possibly say to Harry.

She looks up and notices that Ron is staring at Harry, too, biting his lip and looking worried.

"So, er, Hermione's coming tonight. Or tomorrow," he says carefully.

"Tonight," Ginny adds too quickly. "She's booked a ride on the Knight Bus."

"Yeah?" Harry looks up briefly and then back down at his food. "Good. That's good."

"So, er," Ron tries again, "how about Quidditch?"

"Yeah! I'll play too, this time. How about it, Harry?"

"You will do no such thing, Ginevra!" Her mother's voice breaks into the awkward silence. "I want you to stay off that leg for a while."

She's about to argue pointlessly that she'll be flying on a broom, but then Fred and George stand up. "Two on two anyway."

"And be careful!" their mother calls out a bit too loudly. "Remember what you did just yesterday!" She shoots Ginny a look, and Ginny has to look away to avoid blushing.

"Right, Mum, we know. Playing, Harry, right?"

"Right," he finally says, standing up quickly. Too quickly. His hardly touched cup of tea tips just enough for the water, still hot, to pour from its side and on to Ginny's arm.

In a second, there are far too many people crowded around Ginny. Her arm is bright red, but she can hardly see it through Harry and her mother and Ron and the twins. Her mother is fretting again, and she takes off to find a no-burn potion from the cupboard. When she returns, she assures Ginny that it won't hurt and it will be fine, but Ginny thinks that she's not really the one needing assurance.

"Harry, dear, hold her arm so I can get this right," she says, applying the potion to a washcloth. And then Harry is touching her again, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, her elbow. It does sting a little--the burn, or the potion. Ginny hardly knows, but she hardly cares, too, because Harry is touching her again.

-- -- --

Hermione arrives late that night, clutching her trunk so tightly her knuckles are turning white. Mrs. Weasley greets her first, pulling her forward into a tight hug and ordering the boys to take her things. Ron and Harry step forward immediately, leaving Ginny to greet her alone. Before she can say hello, she is nearly smothered by very bushy brown hair.

"Ginny," she hears her name in a muffled way, and hugs Hermione back.

"I'm never taking the Knight Bus again," she says once she's smoothed herself out.

"You said that last time," Ginny replies, her lips spreading into a smile.

"I told myself I'd treat it as learning experience, but after the first turn, my breakfast came up. And then we turned 27 more times!"

"You counted?"

"I counted!"

"That happened to me, once, when my dad decided we should all try Muggle sailing..."

But she doesn't get to finish her story. Hermione's eyes wander away and Ginny looks behind her. Harry and Ron come down, and Hermione throws herself at each one in turn.

"Come on," she hears Harry say softly. "I need to talk to you two."

Ginny sighs and turns away. Not wanting to watch the three of them walk off together, she goes in the opposite direction, where she finds Fred and George playing Exploding Snap. She sinks into the couch next to Fred, noticing that neither of them look at her. So it's a surprise when George addresses her.

"S'matter, Ginny?"

"What?" She looks up, startled.

"What's the matter?" Fred asks, extending the words.

"Oh. Nothing."

"Well, that's not true."

"We know when our little sister's upset."

"Because her friend came over."

"And left her behind."

"Shut up!" she nearly screams. She hates when they do this, speaking in turns as if they're just one incredibly annoying person. "I am not upset."

"Are so."

"No use arguing."

"Don't worry, we know how you feel."

"Never include us either, do they, Fred?" The twins shake their heads in unison.

"That's different." The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. "You, um, you guys are out of school, aren't you? You don't need them." She wants to say, But you weren't with them. Fred and George didn't go to the Department of Mysteries. They didn't fight Death Eaters like she did. How much more does she have to prove before they make her part of the team?

"Neither of us are in love with Harry, either, are we, George?"

"No, Fred?"

"Are we?"

"I could have sworn."

"Stop it." She's amazed how close to screaming at them she is. "I am not in love with Harry. I don't even fancy him anymore."

"Right. She's with Dean now, isn't she, Fred?"

"Only she's not."

"How do you two know that?" She's staring at them, practically gasping.

"We thought we heard voices over there." They both point at the next room.

"Thought it might be Mum and Dad talking about Order stuff."

"Mum really should let us in, now."

"We're out of school."

"You know Mum's still mad about the joke shop," Ginny says impatiently. "Now go on."

"Right, well, it was you telling Dean all about how you couldn't be with someone you couldn't see."

"That rubbish."

"Couldn't tell him you fancied someone else, huh, Ginny?"

"Shut up! Why can't you two ever, ever leave anything alone! Or at least speak one at a time!"

"Right then, Ginny. We just thought maybe you were upset you aren't getting the attention you were before."

"Like when you fell in the swamp."

"Or got that tea spilled on you."

Ginny's staring down at them with her hands on her hips, ready to tell them off, but then Fred looks up at her and something in his expression stops her.

"We just reckon it was good for him."

"For Harry," George says, looking up.

"What?"

"Having someone to rescue."

"Since, you were his most successful rescue."

"We reckon."

"Right." Ginny feels the butterflies in her stomach going mad, and she doesn't want to break into a smile in front of Fred and George. She wants them to think she's mad at them for making fun of her.

So she goes to bed, and lies in the dark, thinking about what they said. Harry's most successful rescue. She thinks of the people he has saved, and the people he couldn't save, and realizes that they're right: when he brought her back from the Chamber, he was hailed a hero for that more than almost anything else he'd done at Hogwarts. But what would it require to remind him of that, how he saved her from a monster that would certainly have killed her?

Sometimes she thinks of the Chamber and can't remember the pillars that stretched into darkness like snakes winding around a black, twisted tree. She does not always remember the green glow that suffocated her, or the statue of the ancient man whose feet she nearly perished under. Only Harry remains, covered in someone's blood, with the diary in his hand and a smile on his face. Behind him, the basilisk is silent, and she wonders how it is that Harry is soaked in blood and basilisk poison for her and yet does not love her.

She's still awake when Hermione finally comes in, tiptoeing quietly through the dark room.

"Ermyyyynee," she whispers, drawing out the name.

There is a soft thump and then "Ouch!" as Hermione crawls into the bed next to her, an old doll's bed Ginny's father engorged last summer. "You should have said you were awake."

"What did Harry want to talk to you two about?" She tries her best not to sound bitter.

"Oh, he's having dreams about Sirius talking to him from behind that archway we saw at the Department of Mysteries."

"What does he say?"

"He can't make it out. I think he's just dreaming because he wants Sirius back so badly. Luna told him something about that veil, but whenever he mentions it he shuts himself down again, so I don't know exactly what it was."

"Did you tell him that?"

"What?"

"What you think?"

"Oh, yes, of course, but he didn't take it so well. You know how he gets about his dreams."

"No, actually, I don't."

"You know, how his dreams aren't regular dreams, and on."

"His dreams aren't regular dreams, Hermione."

"Well, not always, but..."

"He saved my dad because of his dream. D'you think he should have ignored that?"

"No, of course not, but his dreams can be dangerous, like the one about Sirius."

"Oh, yes, of course. Right," she responds, not taking care to hide whatever bitterness she might be feeling.

"What is it, Ginny?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're upset. Does it bother you that you weren't included?" Hermione's eerie like that, Ginny thinks.

"Well, why shouldn't I be included? I was there, right? I fought the Death Eaters as much as you and Ron. I was in the Chamber of Secrets! Why do you get to be involved and not me?"

"You sound like Harry, Ginny."

She wants to keep arguing, but Hermione's voice makes her stop.

"I'm really worried about him."

"Because of Sirius?"

"Well, yes, and because, I just don't know what's going to happen to him now. He's always been able to save people."

"He saved me," she says quietly, more to herself than Hermione.

"Well, yes, that's just it. He saved you, and Sirius before and your father, and he got so used to it he fell into a trap and couldn't save Sirius this time. You see? I'm scared he won't trust himself anymore."

"What if he saved someone again?" She thinks of how he helped her walk on her ankle.

"I don't know, Ginny. Maybe he'd feel better, but - I don't know."

-- -- --

The next day Ginny makes sure she can play Quidditch . She binds up her ankle and convinces Hermione to play with her against Ron and Harry.

In the air, things seem different. Harry is smiling as he lobs the apples past Hermione again and again. Ginny tries hard to play and plan at the same time.

Every time she misses the hoops due to distraction, she pretends that she just needs more practice. Every time she hits Ron with a wild, uncalculated throw, she calls him slow and laughs. She and Hermione lose miserably anyway, but Ginny can't honestly say she cares.

As they fly towards the ground, Harry sidles up next to her. "Next time I'll take Hermione, okay?" he says, grinning. "You can have Ron."

She smiles back even though there's a little twinge in her chest. It makes sense, she tells herself. Hermione's awful and you're not. She should play with Harry. But it preoccupies her all the same.

She's close to the ground before she remembers her plan, so she has to shoot back up and hope no one notices. She forces the broom up vertically, and tilts off so that's she's dangling from it with one hand. She's near the top of a tree.

"Oh, bloody..." she starts and then Harry's there on his broom.

"Come sit on mine," he says. He grabs her hand and she lets her broom drift downward until she's sitting behind Harry, one arm wrapped around him, one still clutching her broomstick.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine," she answers. "Just slipped off. Thanks."

"No problem. Ready?"

"For what?"

And then they zoom off toward the ground, stopping and pulling off just before they would be driven into the dirt.

"Brilliant, Ginny!" Ron says, holding back a laugh. "You're lucky Fred and George aren't here."

They walk back to the Burrow, joking and laughing about Ginny's tumble from her broom. She notices Hermione looking at her suspiciously, but then Harry laughs, and he seems happier than he has in days, and that's more important to Ginny than whatever Hermione thinks of what she's doing.

-- -- --

Now it's time for planning. Ginny wakes up early the next day, with a quill and a piece of paper set in an area she's cleared on her desk. There's no more time for little coincidences, for tumbles or slips to recover from. If she's going to make Harry save her, she'll have to do it in a way that matters. And I might need some help, Ginny thinks reluctantly, glancing over to where Hermione sleeps, her mouth open and her bushy hair covering her pillow. She wonders what she'll have to put up with before Hermione agrees to help her.

"It has to be big, but not too big," she says, trying not to ramble. "Because if Harry wanted a damsel in distress, he probably would have done something by now, right?" She sighs. "But then I fight in the Department of Mysteries, and nothing's changed."

Hermione fidgets uncomfortably in her chair. "Well, he's been distracted, hasn't he? Since Sirius died."

Ginny can tell that Hermione's not entirely convinced by her plan, but she's hardly protesting. She even seems willing to help, which is far better than what Ginny thought would come from Hermione's suspicions.

"Yeah, that's true."

"I'll try to think of something. But don't do anything until you talk to me, all right?"

"Yeah, whatever," she answers, grudgingly.

They make their way downstairs. It's raining outside, so all day Ginny plays Exploding Snap and everyone takes turns losing to Ron at chess. Hermione spends most of the day talking to Mr. Weasley about housekeeping, magical and Muggle, and by the time she comes up to bed, she has an idea.

"Your father was telling me that he thinks some of the Unspeakables are experimenting with boggarts and all sorts of other creatures and spells, probably to work on fear. Fascinating, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Ginny replies. She doesn't want to say she doesn't care, because she needs Hermione's help.

Luckily, Hermione just laughs at her false interest. "He also says there is a boggart in Charlie's room," Hermione says, pulling her blanket over her shoulder. "You probably can't get into too much trouble with that."

She couldn't get into too much trouble? Who was the one who stole from Professor Snape to make a Polyjuice Potion? Who marched into the Forbidden Forest and offended the centaurs? Ginny find it almost amusing that Hermione would try to help her out of trouble.

She does hope, though, that by tomorrow Hermione will have another idea. She remembers boggarts, from Moody's class in third year. Hers had immediately materialized, a tall handsome boy with dark hair who spoke Parseltongue. Moody had vanished it for her immediately.

By the time she's sat down at breakfast table, she's decided not to do it. She'll think of something else, something better. Or maybe she'll just drop the whole thing. Is she even helping Harry?

"Ah!" A yell breaks her concentration. Ron is standing up looking horrified, with a toast shaped butter stain on his shirt.

"What happened?"

"Is ickle Ronnykins afraid of the weensy spider?"

Ron wipes his shirt and sits back down, and Ginny has to swallow her laugh. Her brother is clearly trying to regain his dignity. "I'm fine," he says, clearly.

"Now that the spider's gone, you mean," Fred jokes and George scoops the spider into his hands and heads for the door.

"I'm fine," Ron repeats. Ginny notices that he does not let his eyes stray to where the spider was only moments before.

"Remember that spider last summer?" George says, upon returning.

"The giant one?"

"With all the fuzz. Made Ron nearly wet his trousers."

"I do remember that. At Sirius Black's house--" He stops halfway through the sentence and glances at Harry. The table has gone silent and Harry looks as though he's been hit with a Stunning Spell.

The conversation picks up again quickly enough, but Ginny notices that the look in Harry's eyes never does go away. He still needs to be distracted, she decides, but how?

-- -- --

There are butterflies jumping in Ginny's stomach when she sits down to play Exploding Snap with Fred and George. Harry and Ron are sitting on the floor with their broomsticks in their laps, and Hermione is lying on her back next to them, reading one of last year's text books.

Ginny is only half listening to her brothers discuss their latest ideas for new pranks and gags. She nods and smiles and plays her turn, and then waits until she's in a particularly perilous turn before letting her pumpkin juice spill into her lap.

"Ah! Bloody juice!" she cries. "Ron, please, will you please get the Magical Mess Remover? I think Mom left it in Charlie's room." Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny sees Hermione shoot her a look but she ignores it. Ron grumbles, but he gets up. Ginny gives him five minutes and then runs up the stairs herself, muttering loudly about how long he's taking.

Sure enough, Ron is crouched in the doorway, trembling and looking up at a giant spider. Ginny makes sure to scream and then stutters, "Ridi-Ridi-kul-" But then the spider turns away from Ron, and she can see its shape shifting , the legs shrinking and combining, the dark colors becoming lighter, robes materializing, until...

"Riddikulus!" A dementor hovers for a moment and its cape blows off to reveal a fat blond boy, who scurries away.

"Harry, thank you!" Ginny says, turning. Harry stands in the doorway.

"Yeah, mate," Ron says with a suspicious glance at Ginny. "I didn't even know it was a boggart."

-- -- --

The ideas just come faster after that. There is a day they go into town, and Harry pulls Ginny back before a car hits her. She'd run after Crookshanks, who had darted safely in front. Hermione spent the rest of the day with Crookshanks clutched tightly to her chest. Even Ron was uncommonly kind to the cat. But Harry, whose mood seemed elevated, didn't seem to notice.

Another day, she's halfway through casting a Bat Bogey Hex on herself before she realizes how bad it might look to be practicing illegal underage magic when her father works for the Ministry, so she goes to set her wand down. Instead, Harry and Ron burst through the door, and her wand falls to the ground, shooting out a swarm of bats when it hits. In the midst of the chaos that breaks out as the bats clutter around Ron's head and Harry and Ginny swat them together, an owl drops what must be the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery letter on the floor.

"I think we can get this straightened out," Ginny's father says when she tells him, without being completely honest. "You three will need to come along with me, in case the Improper Use of Magic folks have any questions about it, but everyone makes mistakes. They know that. Afterwards, maybe we'll go by Diagon Alley, too. Wands aren't supposed to backfire when you drop them, so it might be good to have Ollivander take a look at it."

-- -- --

At the Ministry the next day, Ginny walks along slowly, trying hard to stay behind Hermione. She's not worried. Fred and George had done this years before, and it was simple enough for Arthur to straighten things out for them. She hadn't even actually done it on purpose, whether she'd meant to at one point or not. Instead, she's focused on the fact that Harry saved Ron instead of her again. She needs a new strategy, a new rescue for him, for her, but there's nothing in the hall to trip her, catch her, otherwise ensnare her, and she's falling behind. Her dad points to a room on the fifth floor.

"I'll be right there," he explains. "Stay close in the lobby in case I need you. Ron already went that way."

When she reaches the small lobby, it is immediately obvious that she has missed something big. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sit close together on a white bench. When Hermione looks up, her face is white and her eyes are tearing. Ron is doing his best to look away from everyone, Ginny can tell, but his face looks like it is set in stone. Harry looks up last, and his face is full of something poison. She has seen him look this angry before, but never at her.

"I had to tell him, Ginny, I'm so sorry," Hermione says softly. "It was getting dangerous, you know, and I couldn't..." Her voice drifts off and she wipes her face. Ginny looks at Ron, but he won't meet her gaze. She wants to say something to her brother and to Hermione about how they're treating her and what they've done, but suddenly she can't, because Harry is walking toward her, staring at her with a shocked look on his face.

"Ginny." His voice is quiet, but it rings with anger and Ginny feels her insides squeeze together. "Did you really think that the best thing you could do for me was put yourself, and Ron, and Hermione in danger?" She flinches, but he isn't done. "D'you think losing someone gets easier the more you do it? It's not like flying. You don't get better at it. " There is a flash in his green eyes that makes Ginny think immediately of the Chamber, and she is crying before she can stop herself. "I don't even want to look at you," he says, and then takes off. Ginny has her eyes closed, but she feels something knock into her shoulder, hard.

"Harry!" Hermione calls. "We need to go after him!"

Ginny wordlessly follows them, silently asking them why, why they told him, why they hadn't just told her to stop it. She doesn't notice that Hermione has dropped back to walk with her, and together they follow Ron down a series of empty hallways. "Ginny, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," Hermione is saying. "I know you didn't mean it that way, or that Harry would think that...I just thought someone would get hurt."

"Why didn't you tell me to stop, then?" She notices that Ron is walking further ahead. It isn't surprising. She remembers how he left the job of handling Fred and George's experiments to Hermione last year.

"I tried, but you're more stubborn than you seem, Ginny," Hermione says and smiles a little. "You're like Harry that way, you know. He won't listen when he's got his mind set on something."

Ginny smiles back, in spite of herself.

"He'll forgive you soon enough," Hermione continues. "He just needs time to deal with it. We just need to find him now."

Before Hermione's done talking, Ginny knows where Harry's gone.

"The Department of Mysteries," she gasps. She weaves between Ron and Hermione, walking backwards, as she explains. "What I--what you guys told him -he was talking about losing people, and he lost Sirius--I think he went to the Veil."

The Department of Mysteries is just as Ginny remembers it--dark, plain, and very unhelpful. There are so many doors, and she has no idea how to determine which one Harry might have gone through.

"Now where?" Ron seems to be having the same problem.

"Does anyone remember which way we went?"

They shake their heads. "I wouldn't remember the way to the arch even if I did," Ron adds.

"We'll split up then," Ginny decides. She walks through the door directly ahead of her. Ron and Hermione branch left and right.

She wanders through corridor after corridor, pushing through series of doors and curtains, trying to believe that they look familiar. Finally, she catches a glimpse of untidy black hair as it disappears behind yet another black door.

"Harry!" she calls and starts after him.

Behind the door is the heaviest fog she has ever seen. She can almost feel it as she walks carefully holding her hands out in front to guide her. After what seems like hours, Ginny's starting to panic. She doesn't remember this room from her last trip, and the feeling in the pit of her stomach tells her it's not a place she wants to be. The fog is condensing, pressing on her arms and legs and face--or is that sweat, or tears? She can't be sure. For a second, she wants more than anything for Harry to appear, to show up like it wasn't impossible like he did in the Chamber, but then she remembers that he is in trouble now, that he is heading for the arch, the Veil, and she needs to save him.

She knows she has to push forward and she does.

When the fog lifts, she sees Harry on his knees with his face buried in his hands, as Sirius falls beyond the veil over and over again. Before she can stop it, she sees Ron follow, and then Hermione. Their faces are not peaceful as they pass from life to death. They cry and writhe in agony, and Harry lives. Dumbledore falls from heights Ginny cannot imagine, and with him tumbles everyone she has ever known, fading under Voldemort's red stare. Harry tries to catch them, as they slip away, but he is not quick enough, and every loss makes him weaker. Ginny closes her eyes and hears Tom laugh at her in the dark. She wonders what Harry hears.

"Harry," she calls quietly, trying not to whimper. "Harry, please." But he is still grabbing at the air and there are tears on his face. She starts to walk toward him, but her feet feel heavy, and Tom's laughter is getting louder.

He's getting stronger, she thinks, and I'm going to die, unless, unless, but Harry is crumpled on the floor, barely breathing. She can't see what he sees anymore, but she knows he can't save her this time.

-- -- --

She sinks to the floor, holding her head. She doesn't know how it's happened, but she's back in the Chamber. She's getting dizzier now, and Tom is walking towards her. It's too familiar, but this time she can see Harry and he's lying still on the stone floor.

"No!" she screams. She closes her eyes and runs. As she passes through Tom she's colder than she's ever been and for a second she feels like she might freeze and die anyway, but then it's over. She flings herself at Harry, crying, and as soon as she reaches him there's a jolt in her stomach and the Chamber is gone. Harry sits with his head buried between his knees, shaking slightly. The room they're in is white and empty. No pillars. No stairs. No Veil.

"Harry," she says gently at first, then, "Harry!"

He looks up at her like he's seeing her for the first time. "Ginny?" He reaches out to touch her hair. "Ginny, you're okay? Then Ron, Hermione?"

"Fine," she says. "Everybody's fine. It wasn't real. I saw something, too." She tells him about Tom. Things are starting to come together in her mind. She remembers Hermione's preface to her boggart idea--the Unspeakables might be experimenting, trying to figure out fear. Ginny is almost sure she and Harry walked right into fear unguarded. But that doesn't seem quite so important now, not as important as how Harry is.

He looks down then. "Sometimes I forget."

"What?"

"That you were possessed by him. That you were hurt by him. Sometimes I forget that anyone's got anything to do with him but me."

"Me too," she admits. She's sitting with her knees pressing to her chest, and she wants to look away, but it's important that she doesn't.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not him, the way you mean, but Tom. That he grew up to be, to kill--I don't know, that he grew up at all, I guess. That's he's not just a ghost who haunted me...I don't know. I'm sure that makes no sense."

"No, it does," he says slowly, and she knows he isn't just reassuring her. "It is strange to have such a personal thing with someone who's hurt so many people. I mean, I'm sure loads of other people saw their parents die, or their godfather, but I'm--we're--different, too."

His words remind her suddenly why they're where they are, sitting alone in the still room. "You were looking for the Veil."

He just nods.

"I think I can find it now," she says, brushing off her robes as she stands. "If you still want to see it."

-- -- --

"Through the brain room, and down the stairs, and...yeah."

"I remember," Harry says, and then they are on the dais, before the ancient stone archway with its ragged veil. Ginny can hear faint whispers somewhere.

Harry reaches out but Ginny knows somehow that he doesn't mean to touch it. And when he sinks down to his knees, she knows the best thing to do is just to sit with him.

"You can hear it, too, right? The whispers from the veil?"

"Yes."

"Luna said they're in there, people who died. She said about her mother, 'It's not like I'll never see her again' because of this veil." He stares at it. "So I'll see him again."

Ginny's worried for a moment, but then he adds, "Someday."

"Of course you will."

"And I know I can't dwell on it," he says. She's not even sure if he's talking to her. "Sirius wouldn't want that. He'd want me to be out and fighting like he wanted to. I'm going to remember that this time. And I'm not going to be reckless anymore."

He looks at her and then back at the veil. "I've known this for a while, but I think I needed to see it again anyway. Thanks, Ginny."

She wants to ask what for, and have him tell her exactly what she did right and how he feels about her, but knows it's not time for that. It may never be time for that, but that's okay.

So she sits quietly until Ron and Hermione show up. Hermione is about to say something, but Ginny sees Ron shake his head and she's silent. They sit down, Ron next to Harry and Hermione next to Ginny, until Harry's ready to go.