Disclaimer

As much as I wish I owned Harry Potter, I don't. Any original characters in this fic are entirely mine - otherwise, everything belongs to JK and WB. And now...

Author's Note:

I'm not in a habit of having author's notes at the start of chapters, but I felt it would be important to quickly say that this chapter begins the day before Bill and Fleur's wedding. There's some HxG in this chapter; I apologise, but the canon is necessary. All will be explained later...

The Burrow had never been known for its quietness. In fact, the patchwork, quirky home was, as a general rule, the resting place of the most volatile chaos the wizarding world could conjure. The twins' endless experiments, Ginny's teenage moodiness and Molly's tendency for yelling made the humble abode a loud, disorientating place to live – the sheer number of people living there didn't help in the slightest. It was, in short, a noisy home.

Even by the Burrow's standards, this was different.

The screams of one Ginny Weasley filled the atmosphere of the house, reverberating off all of the walls and drowning out every other sound in the vicinity. Ron could've sworn the muggles of Ottery St Catchpole had heard his younger sister's enraged yelling and would have happily chuckled about it with Fred and George. That is, he would, if she weren't standing so near to him and - he shivered at the thought in sympathy - if she weren't yelling at his best friend.

Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the Boy Who Lived - or, as Ginny so eloquently put it, the Boy Who Left - placed a placating arm on the girl's shoulder and calmly addressed her, interrupting her as she stopped for breath. Ron had been so used to her yelling that he could barely hear Harry's words and it took some time for his ears to adjust.

"... and it's not as if I'm going forever," he heard Harry say, as his hearing returned to its usual capacity. "I'll be back, safe and soun-"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY YOU'LL BE SAFE WHEN YOU KNOW BLOODY WELL YOU CAN'T GUARANTEE THAT..."

Damn. He'd been so sure Harry had got her to calm down.

Ron cringed as his humble home was filled once again with the sound of Ginny's screams of defiance and rage - and upset.

Harry was shaking as he packed his bag that night and - though it surprised him even now - it wasn't the thought of fighting Voldemort that made him tremble. No, it was Ginny. Her words still echoed in his mind, telling him how dangerous and stupid this was, how he was going to die and never see her again. How he could never beat Voldemort without that last year of training.

He clamped his teeth together and, blinking away tears of anger before they could come, shoved his shirts angrily into the bag. He knew he shouldn't be angry at Ginny, but... damn it! She'd gone and brought up all the things he hadn't wanted to think about, every last one of his nagging insecurities. He forced himself to sit down on the bed, his muscles stiff with stress and anger. He took a few deep breaths in through clenched teeth and slowly, every so slowly, relaxed, until he was breathing calmly through his open mouth. His breath was still a bit shaky, but it was merely the aftermath of the emotion that left him so. He nodded slightly to himself to firm his resolve and stood again, turning to pack the small pile of boxers in his bag.

There was a knock at the door.

"Yes?" He asked, hoarsely, his throat dry.

"It's me," came the reply. Ginny. She sounded like she'd been crying.

The small edge of pain in her voice, those little stutters and heavier breathing - he heard them and every small ounce of fear and bitter, bitter hate vanished from his body. He was suddenly overcome with a desire to go and hold her close, to comfort her and care for her and make everything alright. He called out.

"Come in."

The door opened, creaking slightly. He looked up to see Ginny standing in the door frame, biting her lip, trails of tears still visible on her cheeks. He walked over to her as she closed the door behind her gently. She simply fell into his arms - there was no other way to describe it - as her tears started flowing again.

"Hey," he said gently, trying not to be awkward. A small part of his mind was filled with warning bells, remembering Cho and how bad he was with crying girls. He ignored the thoughts. "What's the matter?" He asked just as gently, tilting her face up lightly to look her in the eyes. He wiped at her tears with the back of his hand, while his other arm pulled her into a close hug. She sniffed before replying, her voice cracking as she was shaken by the involuntary spasms of crying.

"I- didn't me-mean what I said ear-earlier," she stammered, pulling herself closer into his chest and looking down. "I ju-just..."

She trailed off, resigning herself to the tears and sobbing into his jumper. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head softly, her hair tickling his nose and lips. She sniffed in response. It was some time before her crying had subsided enough for her to talk again but, when it had, she looked up.

"Harry?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"Yes?" He replied? His face was only a few inches from hers and he felt more and more uncertain as to what he should do. Ginny looked thoughtful for a moment, before swallowing.

"Why do you have to go?"

It was the question he had least wanted to be asked, simply because he felt that it was the one Ginny deserved the answer to. To the others, he could lie, saying that Dumbledore had left him key information, always avoiding the prophecy...

He pulled Ginny over to the bed and sat her down, before he explained. He didn't tell her everything - she didn't need to know about the horcruxes - but he told her as much as she could know. The prophecy, why his parents had died, why Voldemort wanted him dead... he was expecting her to look shocked by the end of it all. He was expecting her to leave, to stay away from such a dangerous person. But she didn't. She looked him in the eye and smiled sadly.

"I guess we all knew it would be something like this," she said. She swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment, as if taking it all in. Then she released the breath she had been holding all that time and looked back at Harry. "I know I can't come with you," she said, anticipating his reaction, "but promise me that if you ever need my help, you'll call."

Harry frowned. How was he meant to call her? It wasn't as if he'd have access to the Floo Network wherever he went...

Ginny noticed the look on his face and grinned, chuckling slightly. She shook her head a little.

"Patronuses can be used to send messages, Harry. Hermione showed me yesterday, so we could stay in touch. Get her to show you and we can keep in contact that way."

Ronald Weasley was a fairly typical teenage boy. He liked sport. He liked food. He liked lazing around. And he was also very, very distracted around attractive girls.

For the last year, Ron had become increasingly aware of just how attractive he found Hermione. She had grown from a mousy-haired, bucktoothed bookworm into a stunningly beautiful young woman. Ron had to admit it - she was incredible to look at.

He could hardly help but notice these things when she was talking to him, face to face, like they were now. He had to try very hard to resist the quick glances down that the small voice in the back of his head kept encouraging. He understood the need for the proximity - they were discussing Horcruxes, after all, and needed to do everything they could to prevent the others from hearing them. Even with muffliato, they weren't taking any chances, standing close and whispering in hushed voices.

"What do you suggest we carry our stuff in?" Ron asked. He'd been worried that they would not be able to carry all the provisions they needed, like food, medicine and clothes. In fact, it was his largest worry of all

"Here," Hermione replied, reaching for a string around her neck and pulling up a small bag on a pendant that was hanging round her neck. She didn't hold it up particularly high, forcing Ron's eyes to glance downwards. He flicked his eyes back up to meet hers, trying not to think about (as much as he hated to brag, he couldn't help but admit it) the incredible view his height gave him from that angle.

"It's a bag," he said, before realising quite how stupid he sounded. She sighed.

"Look again, Ron," she whispered impatiently. He looked down again and quickly noticed that the bag seemed much larger on the inside than it first seemed. His first thought was that this was a perfect storage system - his second, that he could probably get away with pretending not to have realised for a few seconds. He let his eyes wander slightly from the small bag's opening, and took in the soft, curved flesh he could see through the rounded neck of her top. Was that the edge of her bra he could see? A hint of bright red fabric, slightly laced edges, curving round the inside hem of her shirt neck... yes, definitely her bra. His eyes took one more customary sweep of her bare skin, once more surprised that his bookworm friend actually had fairly impressively-sized breasts, before flicking back to meet hers again.

"You're incredible, Hermione," he said, a grin spreading across his lips. She frowned slightly, and he thought she might have worked out what he'd been doing. "Enlarging the inside like that? It's genius!" he added, just to be on the safe side. She smiled gently.

"Thanks," she said, and Ron realised it was one of the few times she had ever admitted being grateful for anything he'd said. "I still need to try the spell on a larger bag, so we can fit everything we need into it, but this will do for vitals like medicine..."

She trailed off suddenly as they heard a noise at the door - footsteps. Hermione quickly lifted the muffliato charm and stepped away from Ron, sitting down on the sofa just as the door opened and Molly bustled in, smiling happily even with the pressure of the next day's wedding clearly showing in her eyes. She noticed Ron and Hermione chatting and turned to face them both.

"Merlin, what are you two still doing up?" She asked. "I know you're old enough to go to bed when you like, but your father and I do want to sleep Ronald, and since we're sleeping down here..."

Ron sighed. Hermione stood up, smiling brightly.

"Oh, that's fine Mrs Weasley," she said. "I'll see you in the morning. It's going to be a great wedding! Come on, Ron."

And with that, Hermione pulled him out of the room, dragging him by his arm to leave his mother in peace. She closed the door behind them, and started up the stairs. Ron followed her closely. Eventually, they reached the landing of the room she shared with Ginny and Fleur.

"Well... good night, Ron," she said. "I'll speak to you tomorrow, ok?"

"Night," he replied quietly with a nod of the head. She smiled softly and lingered in the doorframe. Ron raised his eyebrows for a moment, shocked. She looked very... alluring, her body leaning gently against the wooden frame.

"Actually, Ron," she asked, nervously, as his heart began to beat faster, "could I have a word now?"

"Sure?" He replied, confused and slightly dazed. He didn't like where his subconscious imagined this conversation would go... well, he did like it, a lot, but he certainly wasn't expecting it in the slightest.

"How much do you think Harry knows about the Horcruxes?"

Ron sighed softly to himself in both relief and in disappointment. The conversation hadn't taken that turn. A small, nagging voice in the back of his head said that he really shouldn't be thinking about this kind of thing when they were about to go out and try to defeat a dark wizard.

"I think he's not telling us some things. I think he knows where some of them are - or at the very least, where they're likely to be."

Ron said all this very slowly. It wasn't as if he didn't trust Harry. It was simply that there was no way Dumbledore would have let them go on this quest without any kind of information whatsoever as to where they should be heading. Hermione nodded and he knew that she understood this too.

"I'm not so certain, but you're right. There are things he hasn't told us before and I'm certain that he would know where Voldemort would put his horcruxes." Ron winced as she said the name and she shot him a scathing look before continuing. "Still, I think he's told us a lot of it."

It was Ron's turn to nod in agreement.

"You're right. It's not like Harry to keep the most important things from us."

"Yes, I suppose," Hermione smiled. She seemed somewhat reassured. "Thanks, Ron. Goodnight."

"Night, 'Mione," he replied, turning back to the stairs as she turned back into the room and the door closed with a quiet thud. He trudged upstairs to the room he and Harry shared, his eyelids heavy as he felt suddenly very tired. He placed his hand on the door handle and turned, pushing the door inwards and fighting hard not to collapse there and then on the floor. Why was he suddenly so tired? It had been a long week, he guessed...

He looked up to see two figures sprawled all over the spare camp bed. Long, red hair flowed down Ginny's back as she lay gently across Harry, his arms holding her close, one around her waist, the other around her shoulders. For a moment, anger filled Ron as he immediately became suspicious. This was replaced by a feeling of betrayal - Harry and his sister, doing that, in his room! But after a few seconds, in which he'd angrily stormed over to their bed, he realised that both were both dressed. He sighed in relief, before heading over to his bed and stretching out on the mattress, pulling the blanket around him tight and shutting his eyes. He knew that they probably didn't want him here - or that they wouldn't want him there when they woke up, at any rate - but it was his room. They had no right to force him out of it, and where would he go? The house was so full that even the sitting room was taken and everywhere else was probably filled with sleeping people he wouldn't want to wake. The only person he knew was awake was Hermione, and he couldn't very well go and join her, could he!

His mind began to wander off on a very different train of thought after that. He soon decided that, as much as he'd like to join Hermione, he most certainly couldn't. But the thoughts of it... he wondered what Hermione wore to sleep in. The little voice in the back of his mind questioned whether she wore anything, but an uncomfortable tugging against the material of his boxers warned him off that course of thought. He considered briefly whether she slept in her underwear and the mental images were just as arousing, but he felt less worried about ignoring these. In fact, he let them come, relaxing as he pictured Hermione in the same red material he'd glimpsed just a few minutes earlier, his eyes mentally scanning over her soft, bare skin. He was fairly certain that he could think of nothing more attractive than Hermione in underwear. He let himself imagine it, all the while a small voice in his head screaming that this was wrong, that this was Hermione, all the while the rest of his mind yelling back, so what? It wasn't as if being Hermione didn't make her any less attractive... He let his thoughts wander around this imaginary beauty, until the tension in he boxers was not just uncomfortable, but unbearable. He sighed, knowing that there was no way he'd get to sleep with that kind of distraction, and his hand slipped down, further under the blanket, as he rolled over, his back to Harry and Ginny.

He really needed to stop doing this before they started camping.

Ginny opened her eyes, slowly.

Her face was pressed against fabric, but beneath it was a very solid human chest. Specifically, a slightly underweight and very definitely male human chest. She lifted her head, bleary-eyed, to check that she was lying on the right person.

Yes. It was Harry. She breathed a mental sigh of relief and shifted slightly in his embrace, noticing the pins and needles in her side. She wasn't exactly comfortable, but she was certainly very happy, lying spread across Harry. She could feel his breathing underneath her, his chest rising up and down in time with the soft, gentle sound.

Then she heard a snore. And it didn't come from Harry's direction.

She lifted her head higher, as high as it could go with Harry's arm keeping her shoulder's held close to him - a feeling that she absolutely loved, though she would probably never admit it - and saw her youngest brother, lying on his bed, his back to them. Her initial reaction was anger - anger that he'd seen them lying there together, anger that he'd slept there anyway, anger that he hadn't left them alone. But after a short while, she decided that she probably shouldn't be angry. After all, it was his room that they were in and, technically, it was she who was intruding. Still, she felt a vague twinge of annoyance that her brother had not seen fit to leave them in peace.

She relaxed back down into Harry's embrace, snuggling closer to him than she would dare if he was awake. She suddenly became very much aware of her legs - specifically, her left leg, which had, in her sleep, somehow hooked itself slightly around Harry's own legs as she lay spread-eagled over him. She felt a slight blush colour her cheeks as she realised she quite liked the feeling, although her foot was somewhat uncomfortable, hooked slightly as it was around Harry's thigh. She shifted slightly, hooking her leg just a tiny bit more around Harry's and pulling herself closer into him. Harry reacted, in his sleep, pulling the arm curled around her waist tighter. She smiled for a moment, enjoying the feeling of proximity, before becoming uncomfortable aware of a slight bulge pressing against her midriff. She blushed heavily, before realising that she couldn't exactly manoeuvre out of this position now. She froze, suddenly very tense and not quite sure what to do. Harry, smiling gently to himself, arched his back, before coming to an abrupt halt and opening his eyes in shock. He looked up at Ginny and opened his mouth, as if to say something. Ginny urgently shushed him, gesturing towards Ron's bed in response to his look of confusion. Ron snored with impeccable timing, and Harry nodded in understanding. He pulled away slightly, and the pressure against her midriff was gone.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I hope you weren't uncomfortable."

"No," she replied, slightly breathless. She mentally scolded herself for sounding like an infatuated schoolgirl and decided to try and fix that. She smirked slightly. "How about you?"

She raised an eyebrow as he blushed slightly and moved his waist slightly further from her. She couldn't help pushing further, his discomfort strangely amusing. She leaned down so that their faces were close together, and began to play with the buttons on his shirt.

"I take it you had a good sleep? It certainly felt as if you'd had an interesting dream..."

Harry blushed deeply and she grinned in satisfaction. Boys. So easy to manipulate.

"Gi-ginny..." he began, before she leaned down and kissed him, full on the mouth. His eyes widened in shock, but she was insistent, her lips brushing softly yet intently against his. After a very short amount of time, she pulled away, moving her head to press against his cheek.

"Was it like this?" she whispered softly, eliciting a small, involuntary shudder from Harry as she very deliberately pressed her chest closer to his. "Or was it more like... this?"

Using the leg she had already hooked around his, she pulled herself up so that she was sitting - she couldn't bring herself to see it as "straddling," although it very clearly was - on top of him. Her hands once more returned to playing idly with his shirt buttons, a mischievous grin on her face as she realised once again just how much fun toying with teenage boys could be. Harry looked mortified for a second, before reaching up with his own hands and placing one on either side of her face. Holding her still, he leaned up to speak with her.

"Yes," he said, quietly but firmly, "it was more like this. I'd rather not act out my dream with your brother sleeping just over there, though."

Ginny glanced over at her brother, lying on his bed only a short distance away. Harry was right - there was a time and a place for these things, and in your brother's room, on another brother's wedding day was simply not one of them. She tried to hide her disappointment as she untangled her legs from Harry's and got out of bed. She adjusted her top and skirt, noting that Harry was staring quite avidly as she did so, and kissed him lightly on the cheek, whispering a quiet goodbye before sneaking out of the room.

Oh, this was going to be an amazing wedding.

This was the worst wedding, ever.

There was utter pandemonium as death eaters poured into the tent by the dozen, their distinctive masks causing Ginny to shiver in fear and terror. She didn't have any time to react, as one sent a killing curse flying at her; she dropped to the floor on instinct as the green jet flew over her head, missing her by inches. She rolled under a table, Quidditch training serving her well, and stood up, sending a stunner at the death eater who had tried to kill her. He fell to his knees, unconscious.

She turned to the fleeing crowd, scanning for Harry, but it was so much harder to find him now he was under polyjuice - just another red-haired head in a crowd of dozens. She caught sight of Hermione, with two redheads on her arms - recognising one as Ron and realising, with a jolt, that the other was Harry. She saw Hermione begin to turn on the spot.

"HARRY!" she yelled, fighting through the crowd in their direction. Death eaters turned to face her, looking for clues as to where their enemy was, but the trio had already disapparated without her. She stopped for a moment; her breath caught in her throat. They were gone.

She was conscious of being dragged back by strong arms, and of a sudden sensation like being squeezed through a tube, and then... a sudden calm. She was no longer in the panic of the wedding party, which meant...

She looked up. She was in Aunt Muriel's house, her mother, father and aunt stood in the centre of the room, casting spells frantically. She was surprised to see Muriel acting with such energy and urgency. Looking around, she saw her family, hunched quietly around the room, pale-faced and cold. She turned to face her father, who had just finished casting wards.

"What-"

Arthur shushed her, before casting a patronus and sending it with a message. 'Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched.'

When she realised the message was for Ron, she knew things had gone very, very wrong.

The gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts was not used to working in the summer holidays. Usually, Headmasters would go out to their summer retreats during this precious holiday, although Dumbledore had preferred to stay in his office over the break. Either way, the gargoyle was not used to people trying to use the staircase it guarded - certainly not people young enough to be students.

The stone figure gazed at the young man uncertainly.

"What're you doin' 'ere?" It asked. Succinct and to the point. How very gryffindor.

"I'm here to see my office?" the young man replied. He spoke as if it were a question, but something in his smooth, baritone voice told the gargoyle that it was much more of an order.

"Y-your office? 'Ere, what's a kid like you doin' with an office..." the gargoyle bravely continued, though his voice seemed uncertain and fearful. The young man made a mental note to enforce some more... slytherin tendencies in his door guard. In fact, he'd start now. He pulled out his wand, and pointed it at the gargoyle, who consequently gulped and froze solid - or relatively solid, bearing in mind this was a guardian of solid stone.

"Would you like me to blast your face off?" the young man questioned, his voice filled with command - and the slightest hint of a German accent beneath the heavily upper-class British tone. "Or can I see my office without fuss? I don't particularly care one way or the other, you see..."

The threateningly soft voice trailed off, leaving the consequences of the gargoyle's answer hanging almost tangibly in mid-air. The gargoyle gulped once more, and slid aside.

"Y-your office, sir..." Trembling, the gargoyle watched the young man walk into the stairwell, before closing the route behind him. The young man smirked slightly as he ascended the stairs briskly, opening the door at the top and entering the bare, empty office. He closed the door behind him with a thud, and surveyed the room.

Behind the desk were a series of portraits - these, he'd expected. The largest, most prominent was that of his predecessor who, like all the other previous headmasters present, was sleeping. The young man suppressed a smirk and pulled out his wand, summoning his trunk. It appeared noisily on the ground in front of him and he was once again glad that he hadn't needed to use accio any more. He flicked his wand again; the latches clicked and the lid swung open. He flicked his wand once more, lazily, and his things began to fly around the room, organising themselves. He was normally more sentimental about unpacking, taking his time with each and every last possession - he didn't have many - and putting them in just the right place for his new home. He valued his possessions. Eventually, there was only one thing left in the trunk. He walked over and picked it up.

It was a photograph of a younger version of himself in France, his arm around the shoulders of a smiling girl. He looked peaceful and happy, nothing like the gaunt, dark face he saw in the mirror these days. His eyes flicked to the mirror on his desk, noting the dark rings under his eyes, the lack of sleep. He felt almost like he would collapse, but he first sat down in his chair and placed the photo ever so delicately on the table-top, facing towards him. He ran his thumb across the cheek of the girl in the photograph and smiled, sadly.

Then Tom Riddle laid his head against his desk and, like the many headmasters behind him, fell into a deep, relaxed sleep.

Author's Note:

Phew! It has taken a while to write this, but it is good to know I am back in the writing game!

It has been far too long since I wrote fanfiction and, since I hate to leave a project unfinished, felt I ought to restart an old fic of mine from . I was rather disappointed with the previous attempt's outcome, so I hope that this is much improved.

This was, for me, the first time I have attempted to write anything vaguely erotic and as such I am very, very worried about the response. Don't worry - there won't be so much eroticism in the coming chapters. As far as I'm aware, there won't be any for a good length of time. I put it in here because I felt that I should portray the lives of the golden trio (and Ginny) as realistically as possible, and anyone who argues that Ron wouldn't have been sexually attracted to Hermione at this stage of Deathly Hallows is frankly either insane or asexual. I know this has painted Ron as a sex-driven idiot and, while I agree entirely with the "idiot," "sex-driven" is something he simply isn't. I have simply chosen to narrate him at a particular moment when this is what he is thinking about. That kind of thing is perfectly natural.

Another issue I have with this chapter is the necessary HarryxGinny. While I know this encounter isn't strictly canon, as the two aren't a couple at this point, there is no denying they still both have feelings for each other. We all know Ginny wanted something for Harry to remember her by, in case he came across some veela in his travels... Still, I do not ship HarryxGinny and never will, so I'm sure many of you will be glad to hear that this is the very last interaction of it's kind in the foreseeable future of this fic.

Anyway, thank you all for reading! This has taken me far too long and I can't wait to get started on Riddle's characterisation. He's going to be fun to write, I am sure...