"Hey Ginny! How was your summer?" shrieked a voice across the crowded platform.

I turned around, trying to locate the voice in the mass of people, and finally noticed a short, blonde haired girl running wildly towards me. I sighed inwardly, but put on a happy smile.

"Tara! Hi, how brown are you?" I asked, noticing that my fellow Gryffindor's usually pale, typical English skin was deeply tanned, and flaking slightly on her nose.

"I know, isn't it great!" she proclaimed, holding out her arm next to mine. It was really quite extraordinary how pale I could be.

"Was France good then?" I asked unenthusiastically as we heaved our heavy trunks onto the crowded steam train.

"Brilliant. I got sea-sick on the ferry, but that wore off, and Dylan was being a pain in the neck as usual, but apart from that...Brilliant" she babbled.

We found a compartment at the end of the train, full with girls from my year and below, that shared Gryffindor tower. I put on another brave smile and waited for the onslaught.

"Hello Ginny"

"Have a good summer?"

"Good to see you again"

I tried to answer the barrage of questions that was sent my way as best I could, whilst trying to find a spare seat by climbing over all the bags, feet and cats that were all occupying the floor space. I tried to look suitably interested as the compartment of chattering schoolgirls all tried to tell everyone what they had done over the holidays at the same time, and sighed inwardly when the new topic was bought up.

"So, who are you going to ask to the Halloween Ball?" said one curly haired girl, squished against the window looking impossibly excited.

"There's a Ball?"

"How do you know?"

"Have you got dress robes?"

"Who are you going to ask?"

I smiled slightly to myself, as the girls started comparing dresses, and possible dates, and for once I felt like just any other normal teenage girl, slightly excited at the prospect of going to a dance, but I knew the one person I wanted to go with, wouldn't ask me.

Ever since the frankly bizarre and highly embarrassing summer Harry had spent at the Burrow, I'm surprised he can still look at me without laughing out loud. The truth was, I made a complete fool of myself, and although everything had been sorted and I'd even become friends with him, I was still hiding a secret. The end of last year, I got over my crush on Harry, but to my amazement and shock, it had been replaced by something stronger. Love. And I blush every time I think about it, because it sounds just like one of those muggle romance novels, stupid and very cliché. But I've always believed in love at first sight. And the first time I ever saw Harry for real, a year before I started Hogwarts on the Kings Cross platform, I knew.

"Ohhhh" squealed a little mousy haired girl from the middle of the crowd, "Wouldn't it be just amazing if Harry Potter asked me?"

Most of the cabin adopted dreamy expressions, all fantasising about going to the Ball with a certain black haired, green-eyed boy in the year above them. I felt myself adopting the same dreamy expression and instantly dismissed it and became stony faced. It's a mark of how much I've changed from the girls around me. I used to get all dreamy eyes and starstruck every time I'd see Harry, just like they do. But now after the summer holidays, I just couldn't see him as the boy-who-lived, or the Quidditch star. I'd see him as just Harry. I still couldn't help but feel the familiar flutter in my stomach though when I saw him, or be awfully self-conscious when I spoke to him, but mostly I was ok, not the old, stupid and slow Ginny back in my first year.

"Ginny?" came a questioning voice from beside me.

Obviously I had been daydreaming because they whole compartment of girlish faces where turned towards me expecting me to answer some question I hadn't heard.

"Sorry, I was miles away. What did you say?"

At this the girl, Sara I think her name was, gave her characteristic schoolgirl giggle, and raised her eyebrows at me.

"I said, have you got your eye on anyone special for the Ball?" she repeated, rolling her eyes at me.

"No-one special" I lied, and apparently not to well because the compartment echoed in shrill giggles again.

"Aw come on Ginny...everyone knows who you'd like to ask to the Ball" said another girl accompanied by suggestively waggling eyebrows.

"What? You mean she's going to ask Neville...again?" asked Sara with mock horror, much to the delight everyone else.

I felt my face flush as I watched my so-called-friends all having a good laugh at my expense. I wasn't ashamed of going to the ball with Neville last year, well not much anyway. But everyone seemed to find it so hilariously funny, that when gossip was low on the ground, they liked nothing more than to bring it all up.

I waited patiently for the laughter to die down, and soon the conversation was taken up with excited chatter about hair this time. I sighed to myself as I tried to get involved in the normal thing teenagers like to talk about, but my heart wasn't in it. All I could think about was escaping this hell-hole and finding my own quiet compartment, where I could maybe draw a picture or catch a bit of sleep. My nightmares had become less frequent since I managed to win a small battle against my memories this summer, but I still had them once in a while and last night was no exception. I quietly contemplated slipping out, maybe in search of Fred and George, they were always fun to hang around with, and I tried to creep out of the compartment unnoticed in search of some laughter that wasn't at my expense.

"Going to see lover boy Ginny?" shrieked a voice when I was out in the corridor, accompanied by gales of laughter.

I cringed slightly as I marched down the empty corridor, head held high pretending I didn't hear the comments being shouted down the train. I was only a door down from them when a voice startled me from my angry thoughts.

"Hey Gin, you wanna play a game of cards?" I whirled round to see Harry hanging out of a compartment door, grinning slightly at me, and I realised to my horror that's my 'friends' had also stuck their heads out of the door.

Please don't say anything I pleaded to them, and I tried to make my legs move from where they were frozen. To my utmost horror, the girls startled whooping and catcalling, which soon distracted Harry from my furiously blushing face.

"You go girl!"

"Treat her good Harry, she's very innocent"

"Ohhhh Ginny, you sly fox you!"

"Get in there Girl!"

There were more calls followed by wolf whistles, and I prayed to whatever god was up there that the ground beneath me would just swallow me up, right then and there.

"Oh shut up you stupid cows!" I shouted, regaining the use of my legs and pushing past Harry to get into the compartment.

I sat down in a chair opposite Hermione, and looked up to see their shocked faces staring at me. My face was still impossibly red, but I was too angry to notice, this was just another demonstration of how caring my friends were.

"Er Ginny? You feeling alright?" asked Ron slightly nervously, noticing my clenched fists.

"Yes I'm fine" I snapped back, staring moodily at the flashing scenery.

There was a lingering silence in the cabin, and I felt myself calm down a bit. Soon humiliation and frustration replaced the anger. Every time I seemed to get anywhere with Harry, something like this happened. It like living a permanent 'most embarrassing situation'.

"So what about that game of cards then?" asked Harry eventually, after he stopped gaping at me.