Chapter One:

Ginny had a good life, right? She was smart enough, she had a boyfriend, she had a big family with lots of older brothers and kind parents. Yet, now she sat in the window of the library, thinking over her summer, she realized that things really weren't going the way she wanted them to. Maybe life wasn't always good.

It was her fifth year, she was only fifteen. Life couldn't be that hard for a fifteen year old, could it? Ron, Fred, George, Percy, Charlie, and Bill got through it fine. So why couldn't she?

Her boyfriend's words lingered in her mind, You are mine. MINE! Do you understand?

The words weren't warm and tender and gentle; they were cold and harsh.

"Ginny!"

She jumped and hit the window. With a soft groan, she touched her forehead where she had hit it.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione said, putting on arm on her shoulder. "Ron just wanted to make sure you weren't..."

"With your boyfriend," Ron said, his tone careless. "Since you aren't, we can go to the feast!"

Ginny tried to pull herself together long enough to convince them she was alright. "Ronan is at the feast with his Ravenclaw friends." She tried to keep the fear out of her voice and the pain minimal.

Hermione saw past it, but with the boys around, she didn't comment. "Come on, we'll miss the feast."

That's what Gin had been hoping, but it didn't look like she'd be getting around it. With a succumbing sigh, she stood up and followed. That's all she ever did now. Succumb. Submit. Surrender. The words hurt her, more than his convincing words had.

"You know," Harry said cautiously. "I had a good summer. Spent it at your house. You seemed like you had a good summer too. Do you want to go back home or something?"

Ginny thought, I did a good job tricking him if I had a good summer. She looked up at his green eyes, and then away, flushing. "Well, it was alright. I don't, it's just..."

"Is something wrong, Ginny?" Harry asked.

Ginny shook her head as convincingly as she could. "No, no, of course not! Let's go eat; I'm hungry." She sat down, but it had been another lie. She picked at her food, staring at it as if the staring would make it disappear.

After dinner, Ginny had barely managed four bites. She rushed up to her dorms and hid in her four poster bed.

Hermione came up and sat on Ginny's mattress near her. "Gin, something is wrong."

Ginny nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess something is wrong."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hermione asked gently.

Ginny shook her head.

"How's Ronan?"

Ginny tried to stay relaxed, answering with a false smile, "Good. We saw each other a lot over the summer."

"Yes, I know." Hermione's caramel brown eyes bore in to Ginny's green ones. "Is something wrong with him?"

"No! Of course not. He loves me." Ginny was a horrible liar, and she knew it. She could lie about anything except things that caused her pain. "I'm fine, Hermione."

Hermione smiled sadly. "Okay. I just thought I'd let you know, Fred thinks Ronan is..."

"I know," snapped Ginny. "Fred thinks Ronan is cheating on me. We've been through this before."

"No, that's not what Fred said to me," Hermione said coolly. "Fred thinks he is forcing you to do something you don't want to."

"If that's what you think, then you are wrong!" shouted Ginny angrily. How did they know? Panic started to set in. If Fred and Hermione had noticed, then who else? Ronan would punish her for this; she knew it.

"Hush, I didn't mean for you to get angry," Hermione said gently. "Just let me know if something goes wrong. Plus, Fred's probably wrong. He's probably just worried about your boyfriend because he doesn't want you to have one."

Ginny nodded weakly, lying down in to her bed.

"Let me know if you need help with homework," Hermione said, lying down in the bed across the room. "And Luna wants to talk to you tomorrow morning."

Ginny smiled, almost sadly. "Thanks. Goodnight, Hermione."

Ginny's sleep was disturbed with dreams. Strange dreams, real dreams. Ronan appearing in and out, a dark masked figure saving her, and when she saw the dark gray eyes, she had never been so surprised in her life when she thought they were familiar. She knew she had seen those eyes before. The masked figure disappeared like everything else.

She was shaken awake by Hermione.

"Gosh, hush, it's okay," Hermione said. "You were talking...you sounded scared."

Ginny nodded meekly, standing up shakily. "I'm...I'm fine. I'm just hungry." She dressed in to her robes, tied her red and gold tie, and rushed downstairs, making sure to go straight for the Gryffindor table.

Harry and Ron were surprisingly already there.

"In a hurry, Gin?" asked Harry.

Ginny shrugged, digging in to her food. "I have Transfiguration, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and Potions today."

"You took hard classes," Harry said. It was somewhere between a statement and a question.

"Yeah, I did."

She finished, took her bag, and rushed out, running in to someone on accident. She hadn't expected to run in to anybody, even though she was in a hurry to get to a class with another person there to be safe. "Oh, forgive me, I'm sorry."

She took the warm hand offered her and stood up to see...dark gray eyes. Now, where had she seen those before?