Prologue
Virginia Weasley slowly walked down the stone hallways, recalling all her adventures, or rather, misadventures that took place there. The passages had always been so much more comforting then, full of the warmth of years upon years of students walking its floors, scoring its stone with markings that were now lost for all time. Those walls watched students become teachers and teachers become students as the dream that was Hogwarts thrived and became a reality that prepared children for a world that, though they said it was tougher, in reality, was nothing in comparison to the years kids struggled through in school.
Hogwarts was not a school though. It was far more than that. It was home, and though some would disagree, if you asked most former Hogwarts students where they thought their true home was, they would answer Hogwarts. For nearly all children leave home when they come of age. So it is with the school.
Now, though. Now the dream of Hogwarts had ended, the vision was shattered and the pieces didn't quite fit. There had always been house rivalry, now there was hardly enough left of the houses for any rivalry to take place. The halls were deserted and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses were non-existent. You had to be brave or ambitious now in order survive. Yes, things had definitely changed. Though one day, possibly, things would return to the way they were. Yes, there was always the possibility.
Ginny stopped in her tracks, listening to the silence. She had thought she had heard something, but no… wait. There it was again. A faint sound, but a ray of hope was brought by it. There, outside one of the now scarce windows of Hogwarts, was a sparrow, chirping happily. And, along with the ray of hope, was a ray of sunlight, beaming to an end on the path right in front of her, dust motes floating lazily in the undisturbed serenity. Ginny reached out her hand and watched as the motes quickened their dance. And, for the first time in a long, long time, Hogwarts once again gained a little warmth and love into its walls as the passages echoed with bell-chime laughter.
Virginia Weasley laughed, and, in committing that near crime, she brought back many memories. Memories of a time when the halls did not need to echo to spread the laughter for it was everywhere. A time where the dust motes only slow danced in the first light of the sun in the morning and the ethereal glow of the moon at night, for others danced in the halls. Students were there to keep the walls filled. They then watched as teens shared their first kiss, first love, first of nearly everything a teen may experience. They witnessed all that Ginny went through, and they, too, remembered. And, for a short time, human and stone where connected in memory. Connected in warmth, brought back from times long past.