Disclaimer: I do not own JK Rowling's characters nor do I own Franz Ferdinand's song, although it would be cool if I were able to write such a song.

Author's Note: This is my first attempt at a songfic, with the story of Tom and Ginny's bond. The song is Darts of Pleasure by Franz Ferdinand. If you have not listened to it yet, then I recommend you do!

Ginny Weasley was in her sixth year, sixteen years old. She was no longer vulnerable little Ginny, small and quiet. She had become mature, elegant Ginny, to the surprise of many . She was much taller now, and she actually looked grown up. She did not only change physically but psychologically and emotionally as well. After her first year, she seemed to be little affected and disturbed by the incident with Tom Riddle, but little did people know that she truly was. She hid her inner turmoil very easily from others, hoping that noone would come to realize that she greatly suffered. But to her luck, it no longer bothered her, nor did it torment her anywhere as much as it used to. And of course, she was grateful for not having to be under such a strong but possibly pleasing curse.

One day, on an early day of school, Ginny realized that Harry himself was growing into a man, and she was pleased with that. She remembered her first year, when she had an embarrassingly huge crush on him. Back then, she found him cute, but she now decided he was good looking. She regained her feelings for him after spending most of the day with him, and couldn't stop thinking about him since.

When she could not fall asleep, she would be in bed, thinking about him.

'Oh Harry, my first love. Probably my last as well,' she thought.

But a voice creeped inside her, a smooth voice, as chilling as ice.

"I think not, my dear," it said.

Shivers slid down her spine. She turned around to see if someone had intruded her room but there was noone. She was certain she had only imagined the voice, and nothing more. She did not have to think hard to figure out whose voice it belonged to. It was Tom Riddle's, of course. There were days when she remembered him very well, and many days when she forgot him completely. Sometimes, it took time to remember him. Sometimes, she had to dig deep. She remembered when she was twelve years old. She thought of him as a crush, as a friend who completely understood, nothing more. When it turned out he deceived her, she did not know what to think. She felt sharp pains of betrayal. She felt stupid. She felt ridiculous. She felt broken inside. Her only friend turned out to be Lord Voldemort, an evil wizard who was using her, manipulating her… She told herself she hated him and that she hated nothing more but it was actually a lot more complicated than that. Her thoughts about him would always be confusing, blended with both love and hate together.

A week passed by. There was to be a school masquerade dance around Halloween time, which was coming soon, and Ginny realized she was thinking of Tom more than she had done so in the past year or two. She could not escape the thought of his handsome face and his elegant figure. Besides, what was wrong with liking bad guys? Well, a lot was wrong with it of course, but if it meant she had to decide…she would probably give up all the good in the world just to be with him.
She remembered when she wrote to him in his diary. She constantly reminded him of how great a companion he was and that what he did made her happy. He promised to come back but he never did. Not yet anyway.

It was a day in very early October at lunch when Harry had asked her something, something that confused her even more. The two of them were outside, alone together, on the Hogwarts school grounds. It was somewhat cold, and the wind was strong enough to whip someone's hair. The sky was of a strange kind of light blue, with a hint of scarlet, and the surrounding enormous trees were of various blazing colours, from red to orange, from yellow to a mixture of all colours. The entire atmosphere was beautiful, as the multicoloured leaves were blown in the wind, and to the ground. Harry and Ginny were taking a promenade. They stopped at a nearby bench and sat down.

"Ginny?"

"Yes?"

Harry glanced around nervously, trying to come up with the right words to say. "You know, this year, for seventh years, there's this um…masquerade ball at Halloween…"

Ginny tried to conceal her smile, but could not. She knew he was going to ask her to be his date.

"Well…do you um…think you can…well…you know…"

"Finish what you have to say, Harry."

"You think you can go with me? As er…um…a date?"

Ginny's grin grew even bigger. It was confirmed.

"Of course I'll go with you," she replied without a moment's hesitation. She looked deeply into his vivid green eyes.

"Thanks, Gin. It means a lot, you know that."

She wanted to sit by his side for a moment longer and be alone with him, but they heard a shout. It was obvious that the voice belonged to Ron.

"Harry! Ginny!"

She clenched her teeth, substantially aggravated, as Ron ran up to them.

"Hey Ron, what's up?" Harry asked as Ginny continued to glower.

"I've been looking for you all over the place! Hermione's too busy studying." Ron made an annoyed look and rolled his eyes at the fact that Hermione studied all the time.

Harry laughed calmly. "Alright. Let's head back inside then."

Harry stood up from his seat. Ginny sat, planted, unwilling to move, unwilling to escape the moment they just had, the moment that could go further.

"What's wrong with you, Gin? C'mon, let's go!" Ron said impatiently.

She got up, realizing that they would never notice her frustration, and slowly followed them back to the building as Harry and Ron did their usual small talk, ignoring everything else around them.

As soon as they got inside, Ginny fled straight to her dormitory room without a word, confusing the two boys. She plopped on her bed, infuriated and sad. She only shared her room with one other girl, but that girl had gone on vacation to a wide range of Asian countries from Cambodia to Thailand, from Japan to China, and did not plan to come back for another two months or so.Because of this, Ginny was alone, and had noone to talk to, nor did she have anyone to comfort her. Did she really feel for Harry, or was it just another simple crush that would easily go away? She was hoping that he'd profess his love for her, his feelings for her…but he did not. Perhaps if her idiot of an older brother Ron had not rudely interrupted, Harry might have done so. He might have even given her a kiss, her first kiss ever! She was sixteen, it was about time! She's thought about it before, several times even, in bed when she could not fall asleep. She had nothing else to think about. It was either Harry or it was him. Yes, him.

She shook her head, as if trying to shake the memories and thoughts away. No. Thinking about him was crazy! She was over him, for sure! She was definitely over him. He was something old, something back then…something nobody cared about anymore. In the past. She lay down on her bed, trying to relaxe herself, but it did not work. Bouts of memories and fantasies buzzed around her, speedily navigating her mind. It was all a blur. She shook her head once more and sat up. She wanted to continue to lie down and think about everything more clearly, putting all the pieces back together, but she had no choice but to attend class. She knew that she would spend hours trying to re-piece everything together, to reminisce the past haunting memories, and to imagine all the despicable fantasies, so she stood up and got her books prepared.

It was the last class of that day, and the minutes went by slowly. She was seated in her Potions class, where the lessons took part in a dank dungeon. The dungeon seemed to be a very forbidding room where the sounds of waterdrops pitter and patter would be head once in a short while because of a broken water pipe. It was obviously annoying, but the students have been so used to it that they couldn't hear anything anymore unless they would listen very carefully.
Severus Snape, the Potions teacher, was repeating the instructions for the potions people were brewing. Despite his effort to get everyone's attention and to make them listen, students were loud and rude. There were the frequent insults that were thrown back and forth between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, and the occasional noises of people screaming and explosions. There was a very rusty clock that hung on the side of the room, but amazingly, it still worked. Ginny glanced at it practically every minute or two, so desperately anxious for class to end, hardly aware of the chaos that surrounded her. All she had on her mind was Tom and Harry. There was nothing else. She daydreamed a bit during that day while teachers would be giving lessons, but she was ready for full fantasizing. She wanted to go straight to bed, fantasize, and fall asleep with strangely sweet dreams. There were twenty minutes left until class would end. For the potion, she was partners with a girl named Macy Debroskov, a kind girl who worked hard at school and usually kept to herself. As she had been working on the potion by herself for almost fifteen minutes, she was curious as to why Ginny did so little work.

"Ginny, why do you keep watching that clock?"

"Hm?"

"Why do you keep staring at that clock?"

Ginny turned around, not realizing that she had been so attached to it. "Oh." She blushed as a small embarrassed smile crept up her lips. "I'm sorry. I was just hoping for class to finish…you know?"

Macy smiled. "You've got a date or something?"

The red headed girl smiled even harder. "Not quite. I'm sorry. Let me help you with that potion."

They worked together on the potion. She tried hard to avoid gazing at that clock. She focused on the work that had to be done and the potion was well done. Snape had been pacing around, supervising people and critizing their work. He stopped his steps at the table the girls occupied. He looked down their cauldron and gave the potion a sniff.

"Very good…" he admitted, a bit of a frown on his face. He was disappointed about their good work, having something against Gryffindors.

He then went to the next table. Macy drew a breath of relief as Ginny watched clock. Five minutes left. Only five minutes. Who knew that five minutes could seem like such a long time?

"Who is it? Henry Stapleton?" Macy asked.

Ginny turned to face her and gave a disgusted face. Her friend laughed. "No, not Henry Stapleton. That's kind of disgusting."

"What about…Harry Potter?"

Ginny froze. It was sort of Harry Potter, but it was really something much more. Macy realized the truth by taking note of her silence.

"Oh I know you've had a crush on him for years. What? Like six years?"

"I did not. Only in the first year, but not anymore." She shook her head vigorously, not sure whether she was trying to convince Macy or herself. "I've gone over him. He was just a silly crush. Something meaningless, that's all."

"Ouch. I thought he meant more to you than that. If not a crush, then at least a very good friend."

"I can't say 'very good', but he's somewhat of a friend." 'At least not good enough of a friend to talk to without having Ron around.' Ginny thought silently. She always meant something different to him when Ron was around. Always.

Suddenly, the bell rang. Ginny looked up at the clock. School was over. Now she had all the hours to use for fantasizing. She could put off work to the next day. Students madly rushed out of the classroom-or dungeon, for that matter. Ginny took her belongings and walked out quickly herself. She wanted to get to her dormitory room as fast as she could without having any disturbances in the way. As she hurriedly tried to make her way to her destination, she bumped into somebody. None other than Harry Potter himself.

A/N: Please review, I'd very much appreciate it. Please tell me what you think! But, of course, I plan to continue this story because I'm only getting started. This is just the beginning. The lyrics will soon come, don't worry.