Before you read! Please read this story slowly, take your time! I've read it a bazillion times and slow is better than fast, plus you don't want to miss anything, right? Thanks!

Ginny looked at herself in the mirror. This year won't be so bad, I guess, Ginny thought. Her hair had changed over her years at Hogwarts from the red-orange associated with her brothers to a deep rose red that fell down to the small of her back. She had thinned out a bit due to Quidditch in the back yard, though like her mother, she was still only about five feet and two inches. Ginny realized that she would never be quite as thin as she'd liked, but instead accepted the muscular curves her mother had given her. She still didn't wear make up, for her bright green eyes and pink cheeks never seemed lacking.

Ginny sighed as she brushed her hair. I know I don't look half bad, but I'm still no Cho Chang. Thank the gods I only have to live with her and Harry for one more year. Thank the gods McGonagall moved me up, I don't know what I'd do without Hermione and Colin for nine months by myself. Ginny tossed the brush into her trunk before tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She scanned her room, checking to see if she had missed anything. She wouldn't miss her room or the house - they weren't home to her anymore, not after the fighting over the summer. Once the wounded had been healed and the dead mourned, Ginny, much like the rest of her classmates who fought, found that home was not a place but a feeling. That feeling had yet to return.

Noises from the kitchen told her that her mother and Ron were going at it again. Typical. A glass shattered on the wooden floor. Ron really needs to learn how to control his temper, that's the third one this week. Ginny figured that it was best if she headed downstairs before anything else was broken, so she closed her trunk, performed a shrinking spell, and tucked it into her pocket.

Ginny wasn't halfway down the stairs when her brother called to her, "Isn't that right, Gin? Whenever Bill had a girlfriend, mom never stuck her nose into their relationship! She never asked about sex or told them that they'd been seeing each other for too long!"

"Ronald Weasley I have never asked about your physical relationship with Hermione!" their mother fumed.

"Yeah? Well you might as well! I'm half expecting it with the prodding and the sneaking and asking Harry about whether he's interested in Hermione!"

"You know that I only asked Harry that because he's in need of a girl in his life! Ever since he," she now turned to face Ginny who was planted at the base of the stairs, "and Ginny broke up last fall, you know he's never been the same." Molly then gave Ginny the weirdest look Gin had ever seen – a mixture of oh-why-did-you-break-his-heart and I'd-give-anything-to-make-you-go-back-out-with-him. Ginny chose to roll her eyes. "You should be helping him find someone other than that slut Chang. She's no good for him, Ron! He needs someone…someone like…"

"Like you, mom?" asked Ginny, now bored.

Molly sighed, "If only I had been bon a few years later. But no, someone like Hermione! Someone responsible, caring, and someone who can take care of him. He deserves someone like that Ronald! And you should want it for him! Want him to be happy!"

"Am I not allowed to be happy with a girl?" Ron was now yelling. "Can I not be with someone without you butting in? Can i not have someone to be happy with without you trying to set them up with Harry?"

"No dear! That's not what I'm saying!"

"What are you saying, mum? Just get it the hell bloody over with!"

"Don't use that language with me! You know exactly what I'm talking about!" Molly's face resembled that of a tomato, a flustered tomato. Ginny doubted she was even breathing.

Ron was quiet a moment, and looked as though he were solving a puzzle. He looked at Molly and said, "You know, mother, if I had half a brain, I'd think that you'd prefer Harry's happiness over your own son's!"

Molly's eyes bulged. "Well if that son had done half as much as Harry did in the war-"

"Just because Harry killed Voldemort doesn't mean that I didn't see as much death, that I didn't almost die a hundred times, that I didn't fight just as hard," Ron said, now almost at a whisper, his face pale.

"Ron, I-"

But Ron had already gone through the floo. Ginny looked at her mother blankly and said, "Nice one." Gin then picked herself up from the stairs and grabbed a handful of floo powder from a pot near the fireplace. "Oh, by the way," she said to Molly, who was still standing in the same spot, "I don't know if I've told you or not, but I'm not coming home for Christmas break, so happy holidays."

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Going back to Hogwarts after the war was going to be odd, Ginny knew this. McGonagall was now the headmaster, and many teachers, including Snape, had been killed in the battles over the summer. There were only three quarters of the students from last year who were returning. The Ministry's list of who were actually in the Order spread through the news like wildfire, and surprisingly several names, including Snape's, had been on it, along with Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zambini, and Pansy Parkinson. Draco even managed to have his father sent to Azkaban for the second time.

Harry hadn't been the same after the war, and rightfully so. He spent the last three weeks of the summer in seclusion on a small island close to the Bahamas. He didn't write and no one tried to write to him. There were columns in the Quibbler that Harry had actually killed himself, that's how much people knew of him. When Harry did come back, Cho was the first one to know. They had fought numerous battles together and she was the first one to see him after he killed Voldemort. Up until this point, they have been inseperable, much to Mrs. Weasley's utmost joy… what? you couldn't see the happiness radiating from every pore back in the kitchen? No? Well anyway, no one knew it yet, but Harry had already proposed to Cho three days ago back in Harry's newly bought flat, where they plan to have the wedding reception.

The weirdest thing about going back to school after the war was that nothing looked the same anymore. Ginny was looking out of the window of the train in her usual compartment to herself when she came to this realization. Change had touched every inch of everything. The chocolate frog she was eating didn't taste as good, the smell of her pillow that she was resting her head on didn't smell like it used to, she was bored all of the time now, she and Dean Thomas broke up and she didn't care, the windows didn't fog up quite the was that they used to when the warm breath from your nose hit the cold glass. No, nothing was the same, but somehow, Ginny seemed alright with that.

As Ginny lay across the cushioned bench of her compartment and looked out the window towards the grey, drizzling sky and dreary evergreens, she was very unaware that although things would eventually return to normal, as she fully expected and hoped, normalcy was very far away.