Part 1

The cold winter wind whistled through the glassless windows in the long echoing hallways of Hogwarts. Ginny walked down it slowly, gazing out of each window she passed, the view of the lake and the Whomping Willow growing more and more beautiful in her mind. Drifts of snow lay around, and in the early morning sunrise, the blanket of white which covered the hard frozen ground that lay beneath it was unbroken and undamaged. The excitement of the students hadn't trampled the absolute perfectness of it yet.

She was growing tired of Harry. They had been a couple, and everything had been going absolutely fine until he had defeated Voldemort. He hadn't got over the sadness and grief at losing all his parental figures, and now, now girls were just throwing himself at him. The one who saved the Wizarding World. Everybody wanted a piece of him, and he didn't seem to have the time for Ginny any longer. She didn't think that he had cheated on her, that would be unforgivable, but he did certainly meet up with a lot of them. And she wasn't happy with it.

The castle was starting to stir, people would be up and migrating down to the Great Hall for breakfast soon. As her tummy rumbled, surprisingly loud in the moderate silence that surrounded her, she decided to go for an early breakfast without waiting for Harry, as he usually insisted every morning. She took a turn and hopped onto a moving stairway. Luckily, this year, someone had actually thought to put signs on each staircase showing their arrival destination. It had caused a lot of confusion in the past, especially for those such as Neville, and generally everyone was getting to their classes on time. Unless they forgot to jump the invisible step.

Arriving at the Great Hall, she passed the hourglasses that held the points so far this year. Slytherin was still in the lead unfortunately, but at least it wasn't much of a lead. Hopefully Gryffindor would be able to regain some lead after the next quidditch match in two weeks time. Passing the large notice board, where any information was available to students, she glanced upon a quidditch notice. It was stamped with Madam Hooch's stamp, a broomstick and the four 3 quidditch balls combined, which made it official. Stopping to read the notice properly, she learned that Professor Snape would be refereeing the next quidditch match. "Drat," she cursed to herself under her breath. Now there would be no chance of gaining a lead over Slytherin. Professor Snape was known to be the most unfair judge of quidditch ever, and he was exceptionally cruel when Gryffindor happened to be playing.

"A problem, Miss Weasley?" The greasy voice startled her out of her shock. Once again, Ginny felt that Snape had a peculiar habit of being able to turn up at the most irritating times, and also somehow possess the ability to read minds.

"No problem professor, I just happened to…uhh…glance…and see that…my….herbology class has been cancelled today," blurted Ginny, relieved that she had finally found a valid excuse. The cancellation of her herbology class was situated right next to the quidditch notice, so it wasn't as if Snape could accuse her of lying.

"I see, Miss Weasley. I am sure that is a great disadvantage to you, of course you shall be using your free time to catch up on your potions work, I assume? Your marks have been so dreadful recently that I will have to fail you in your mid years unless your work dramatically improves."

"Uh, yes Professor Snape." Ginny cursed again as Snape walked off into the Great Hall. He had failed her last assignment on purpose, she knew it. Hermione had checked the work over for her, and she couldn't find a fault with it, so she had no idea where she had actually supposedly gone wrong. As soon as Snape seemed to be situated at the head of the hall, and far enough away from her to not hear her cursing under her breath, she walked into the hall herself.

She glanced around at the early risers, hoping to see a familiar face. However, there was none. She assumed that everyone either had a late start, or was just running late after the visit to Hogsmeade yesterday. Ginny looked up and down the long, wooden Gryffindor table, and decided that the most normal looking person to sit next to was a girl she had never seen before today. Everyone else seemed to be young and immature, demonstrated by the first years picking their noses and flicking their bogeys at each other, helped along by a spell to enlarge the pickings as they zoomed towards their opponents. Yes, the girl was slightly worried looking; however seemed to be normal in comparison to them all.