Disclaimer: Despite my best attempts,I have not as yet been able to gain ownership of Harry Potter, althoughI shall inform you all the minute this changes. So until such time asI can proclaim from the mountain tops that I do in fact own Harry Potter I must concede defeat and tell you all that J.K Rowling owns Harry Potter and not I, however temporary this arrangement may be.

Author's Note: I'm back with this new story, butI want lots of reviews or I'll stop posting, because i get so disheartened whenI think that no one is reading my stories. So please review, I'm open to critisism if it's justified, tell me whatI can do better, how can I improve?

Prologue: The River

She ran until her face was numb with cold
She wore a cotton gown that blazed the night untold
She ran until her feet refused hold

Ginny ran as hard as she could, all she cared about was being as far away from her husband, Darren, as was possible. She wore only a thin cotton nightgown but in the late spring air she was only feeling a slight chill. Finally her face was numb, her knees threatened to cave and she felt weaker than she ever had in the past. She was forced to stop when the forest around her cleared and the thick opened out to a mighty river, crashing in her path.

And when she reached to river, her knees began to shiver
Her head with pounding voices from home
Behind her was a vision, a painful apparition
Of a darker world no one should know.

Ginny stopped on the bank, staring at the mighty river before her, while she kept running she had been able to fight off the exhaustion that threatened to engulf her, but now at a stop she could fight it no longer, her knees became weak and she shivered in total exhaustion, now that she had stopped she knew that she would not be able to take another step. A single, lonely tear traced its way down her face and plunged into the river, swallowed up by the rushing currents as though it had never been there at all.

Darren's screams still echoed in her head, his words stinging deep inside, a pain that may never heal. She was living a life many never saw in their worst nightmares, yet it was all she had known for the past ten years. She wished that she could escape it all but she had nowhere to run and so she stayed.

Ginny removed the gold wedding band from her finger and let it fall into the water at her feet, that was it she was free of him.

She dived beneath the water's icy skin
Hoping the cold would kill the smell of angry gin

Acting on impulse, Ginny leant forward, spreading her arms wide as she fell into the river's frigid waters. She allowed herself to plunge down to its very heart, let the current carry her away, far away, far from all her troubles. Who'd miss her anyway? Who really cared for her? 'No one' came the reply from deep in her mind. If anyone really cared they would have taken her, rescued her from Darren's blows and constant abuse.

And her eyes grew wider than they'd ever been
Just wishing the numbness could cut deeper with its pins

Ginny's simple nightgown floated around her like an angels wings, as she slowly rose toward the surface, her eyes turned upwards to catch a glimpse of the faintly twinkling stars so far above her. She felt her body go numb from the cold, welcoming the feeling of nothingness, just wishing the numbness could push deeper, into her soul. She wanted for all her pain to end, for all her troubles to disappear, she saw but one solution.

And as her body lay there she decided to stay there
Till darkness came to pull her away
And beautifully she sank, as up river was a bank
Where some bodiless troubles would stay

Her original plan, after plunging into the river, was to float for a while, then swim back to shore and wander aimlessly in the wood once more. But in the depths, she felt oddly safe, safer than she had for the last ten years. Closing her eyes, she gave herself to the river – she left her destiny in the hands of fate, she would float in the river until she met her end. She glanced up at the bank where she had jumped from, that was where she left all her troubles, from now she was someone else…

Somebody's bed will never be warm again
The river will keep this friend
Yeah somebody's bed will never be warm again
No, never again

The first rays of dawn saw a ragged, wild man walking by the river; he saw a flash of colour bobbing in the water, slowly a body drifted to the shore before him like driftwood to the beach. She landed face down in the rocky water's edge; carefully he turned what was surely a corpse and pushed back the wisps of bright auburn hair from the woman's beautiful face, only to find himself staring straight at…

"Ginny," the word tumbled from his lips uselessly, mingling with the roar of the river.

A/N: now review... please?