I originally wrote this for a challenge. Because... Well, it looked like fun. So I decided to put it up here so that I could get a little bit of feedback on it. It was fun to write, and it only took me two days to write. (Be proud of me. Be very, very proud of me.) And, yes, it's short. And, yes, it is a one-shot. Call for a sequel all you want, but there isn't going to be one. At least I don't think so. Anyway, here it is.

There are HBP spoilers in here, fyi. Oh, and if you were wondering about the premise of the challenge, it was that it had to begin and end on September 1st of Harry's seventh year. It had to be about a person on a journey. Other than that, it was pretty open ended (other than the technical stuff, but you don't care about that). It's reasonably short, but who cares. You'll get over it I'm sure. And now I'm going to stop talking and let you get to the story.

Disclaimer: I own everything you don't recongize. Like... Ginny's thoughts. But that's about it. Everything else belongs to the lovely J. K. Rowling.

A Promise Made is a Promise Kept

September 1st, 1997
11:53 A.M.
Hogwarts Express

Ginerva Weasley was normally not one to give in easily. It came with the territory when you had six brothers. If it was a battle worth fighting, she would fight it. If it was argument worth winning, she would win it. Size, height, and age didn't matter. She just did.

Which is why one might wonder why sixteen-year-old Ginny stared out the window of the Hogwarts Express gloomily, watching the landscape flash by but not concentrating on it, instead of being somewhere else. One could be reminded that she only bothered to fight in fights that there was a chance she could win. How slim the chance was didn't matter as long as there was some kind of possibility. But the reason she was sitting alone in a compartment on a train heading to school that, for the first time in her life, she wished she didn't have to go to… Well, that was a losing battle from the beginning. So, to save her pride, she let it go.

Unhappily? Yes. Regretfully? Most definitely. Almost mournfully? Well, if you really stretched it perhaps.

Ginny reflected on the fact that she was the only one in her family, related to her by blood or adoption, that was on the train. She shouldn't have been. She should have been one of four. But the other three were off on a mission. A mission to destroy Lord Voldemort. Would they succeed? She wasn't sure. For the effort they were going to put into, for what they were leaving behind, for what they were giving up, she certainly hoped so.

Ginny couldn't help but form an imaginary compartment in her head. How it should have been. Ron and Hermione would sit on one side of the compartment, their arms around each other and making lovey-dovey faces at each other. Harry would shoot her exasperated looks every so often, but she would know that he didn't really mean it. He would be - No, he was happy for his best friends. He -- and his best friends, for that matter -- simply weren't there. And while she was creating a situation in her head, maybe his arm would be-

She shook the last part of her fantasy away. They had agreed during the summer. Together. They had agreed it was for the best. It was safer for her if he wasn't any more connected to her than was avoidable, and it would be safer for him if he didn't have any distraction. But maybe after the war… Ah, she was being ridiculous.

Before she could fully sink into her fantasy again, she heard the door to the compartment open. She turned, expecting it to be one of her friends looking for her. Instead, Neville Longbottom smiled at her. "Hullo," he said cheerfully.

"'Lo," she replied dully. He didn't seem to notice.

"Have you seen Harry? I've been looking for him all over…" He trailed off when he saw her face. "What? What is it?"

"Harry…" Ginny swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. Get a grip, Gin, she reprimanded herself silently. "Harry isn't on the train."

"Why not?" Neville asked, looking more than a little bewildered. "Where is he?"

Ginny shrugged, not really sure. "The Burrow or Godric's Hollow, I would guess. My house or his," she added in response to his questioning look.

"What about… What about Ron and Hermione?" Neville asked. "Are they- " Ginny shook her head.

"No. They are with Harry. As they should be." As I should be, she added to herself, but she quickly shook it away. She was being a baby, pouting because she could play on the swings with the big kids.

"But…" Neville seemed to have trouble comprehending that Harry, Ron, and Hermione -- his teachers, his protectors, his friends -- weren't coming back to Hogwarts that year. Ginny had struggled inwardly with the idea at first, but now… Well, as she kept telling herself, it was just something she had to accept.

"But Harry's Quidditch captain!" Neville finally managed. "And Hermione would have been Head Girl. And Ron could have been Head Boy."

Ginny couldn't help a slight smile at the fact that Neville wasn't quite sure Ron could get the most coveted position in the school. Oh, the irony. "Ron was Head Boy. Until he wrote back to McGongall that he wasn't back. Same for Hermione." She wasn't going to add that she was the new Quidditch captain. Just the memory of the look on Harry's face -- the forced cheerfulness as he congratulated her -- made her keep her mouth shut.

It almost seemed odd, to think Harry would have traded almost anything to be able to have his position on the Quidditch team. Anything that seemed regular, normal. To have the same worries as any normal seventeen-year-old boy. Had he been a regular seventeen-year-old boy, maybe…

She shook the thought away again, angry with herself. She knew why he did it. She accepted why he did it. But she didn't like the fact that he had to do it. But she would be selfish if she made a big deal about it. She had to let this one go, however unhappy she was about it. If she could wait five years, she could wait two or three more.

"So… That's it?" Neville asked, still not wanting to believe it. "They aren't coming back? Not at all?"

Ginny sighed, wondering the same thing herself. She was suddenly reminded of a conversation she had had with Harry at the beginning of the summer. She had been in a mood where she felt like arguing with him again, just for the sake of arguing. She knew it was childish, but she needed to fall back on immature habits every so often. They had all grown up too fast, and a break wouldn't kill any of them.

"I can't, Ginny!" he had exclaimed, defensive. "I feel guilty enough taking Ron and Hermione along with me. I would only feel worse if you came along too."

"Hogwarts isn't safe anymore," she had retorted stubbornly. "You know it as well as I do. Don't pretend you don't."

He had just sighed and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses as he turned partially away from her. "Gin…" She hadn't answered him, forcing him to turn back to face her. "Look. I know you want to help, but…" He seemed to be trying to figure out a way to tell her they knew more than she did without offending her. He was trying to win an argument, and he still worried about offending her.

"Just promise me," she had said softly, "that you will come home next summer all in one piece and you'll take me with you if you have to leave again next fall. And if you finish before then, you'll come back to Hogwarts. Promise me."

"I promise," he had replied without hesitating.

So much meaning could be packed into those two words. She knew he wasn't just promising to come back, that there was more packed into that promise, but she wasn't sure what it was. She would just have to wait it out and see.

"They might be back," Ginny finally answered Neville. "They might not. It all depends on how lucky they are."

"First Dumbledore, now Harry," Neville muttered. "Who will be next?" When Ginny didn't respond, he walked out of the compartment, shutting the door behind him and leaving her by herself again.

She looked back out the window. The landscape had changed from the cities of the last time she look to the pastures that meant the lady with the food cart would be coming around soon. This year she had the money to buy something from the cart if she wanted something ("Buy yourself some chocolate frogs," Fred had said with a wink, shoving a handful of coins towards her), but she wasn't hungry.

Neville was right. Who was next? Although it wasn't as if Harry could truly be grouped with Dumbledore. Harry wasn't dead. Harry would be back. He had promised, hadn't he? And a promise made was a promise kept. And people like Harry… Well…

They always kept their promises.

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You like? Good. You don't like? I don't care. Review anyway. Come on, people, I need some kind of feedback here. Any kind of feedback is appreciated.