From: Fan ()

-------------------

More people will read your stories if you bother to make sure your title is

spelled correctly.

-------------------

Thanks for the review, I totally agree and I changed the title as soon as I opened yours and found out I had misspelled it.

From: sweet pea ()

-------------------

i liked the last one so you need to keep writing because this is to small to

judge by

Thanks for the review. I'm not really sure how long this one is going to be. Its either going to be a lot longer than the last one, or it could be much much shorter, it just depends on which of the two possible ideas I have that I end up using!

Chapter Two

Surprised?

NO LONGER THE BOY WHO LIVED, the headline proclaimed, but those were not the words that affected Ginny Potter. She, in fact, barely glanced at them. Ginny spent most of the day that the article appeared hidden in her room, with her best friend, Hermione Granger, sobbing over the other words that had been following her. It was those words, the ones that followed her around in whispers that really pierced the numb wall of Ginny's grief.

"Widowed before her eighteenth birthday! That's what comes of marrying too young and in these uncertain times."

"I heard that she and her brother's girlfriend cooked the whole thing up! Arranged for the two poor young men to be done away with, and they plan to split the money from the estates!"

"Poor Harry. The dear boy had such a hard life and that wife of his just made things harder. She split up him and his best friend, and took away the only real family the child ever had."

"That girl was always a wild one! Think what she got herself involved in first year of school!"

"She hasn't even shed a tear for her dead husband! She goes about as if nothing's happened with the poor by hardly gone a week!"

"They weren't even married three months! And now that young Mrs Potter is an awfully rich young women, if you get my meaning."

"Poor, woman! She must be awfully lonely now. Though I suppose the Potter name and fortune she made sure to grab keep her company."

The words followed Ginny everywhere she went, especially when her back was turned. They would have forced her to stay at home, except her house was filled with Harry and she was desperately trying to stop forgetting that he was gone, which she couldn't do with his memory so close. The situation just about everywhere else was worse, what with people either pitying her and reminding her of Harry or blaming her or mourning the others who had disappeared at the same time. The list wasn't long, just four people, but the number of people left behind that felt their loss was much longer.

Harry was gone, maybe forever.

With that thought, Ginny's stomach rebelled as it often had in the last weeks. She barely made it to the loo in time. When she was finished, Ginny just sat listlessly at the kitchen table at the Burrow. Hermione came to sit next across from her best friend, carrying a plate of buttered toast, and lighting a fire in the cold fireplace. Her eyes travelled across the dusty kitchen, noticing how sad and abandoned the house looked, despite the books and knickknacks that still filled the shelves. It simply wasn't the same with only Ginny and Hermione hiding out from the rest of the world there.

With a sigh, Hermione pushed the toast towards her pale friend. "You should eat something before you starve yourself to death."

"I eat." Replied Ginny dully.

"You don't really," chided Hermione.

"Neither do you," replied Ginny, looking at her pale and drawn best friend. Hermione was the only one who had kept Ginny from going completely insane with grief right after Harry disappeared, even though Hermione herself had been trying to deal with Ron going missing as well.

"I suppose. I just don't want you to starve." Hermione sighed again.

"I won't. If anything, I've been gaining weight." Ginny reassured Hermione.

"How can that be? Gin, you don't eat hardly at all, and when you do, you vomit it all up again." Hermione wondered though neither girl really cared.

Ginny only shrugged in response as she looked down at the plate. It was a moment before either girl realized that there might possibly be some significance attached to what Ginny was experiencing. When it hit them, it hit hard, causing Hermione to leap to her feet and knock a bench over.

"Surely not now, not with Harry… gone." Hermione said aloud what Ginny was thinking.

"Think how happy he'd be to hear…" said Ginny, not really believing it could possibly be true.

"Did you two ever talk about it?" asked Hermione gently.

"Kind of. In a long way down the line sort of way. Not now, not when we're still two teenagers barely out of school. Not when he's fighting a war and I'm not at his side only because I don't want to be a fatal distraction to him." Ginny's mind wandered between the past and present, remembering all the happy little moments when she and Harry had sat together planning their future. For a moment she let herself forget the painful truth that Harry was not likely to ever come back.

"There's a way to test, you know, a spell…" Hermione suggested tentatively.

Moments later, Ginny Potter and Hermione Granger knew conclusively that in about eight months time, there would be a new Potter. And Ginny was nearly the only person left that still believed that there was the slightest chance her husband was still alive.

There were only four people who knew for certain what had happened to the boy who lived after he arrived in Egypt. All four of whom had gone missing.

Angel De Vita was one of those four. She was making a long trek by muggle airplane back to England, on a journey to bring more shocking news to the widow Potter. Though at the moment, Angel really wasn't thinking of the trials to come or the ones of the recent past. She had laid her newly shaggy and blonde locks down on the plane's headrest and was sleeping away the exhaustion of the last weeks. More than two weeks had passed with her in constant travel mode. Her nap on the plane was likely to be the last sleep Angel would see for a while after she landed. Everyone would be wanting explanation and reassurances and there was still so much to be done.

Still, some would say she was better off than those she had just left behind. At least Angel wasn't hiding in a damp cave somewhere, waiting for the broken leg of a companion to heal without the benefit of magic before once again taking up a long and painful battle to seek out and destroy a Dark Lord and all the bits of his soul.

That was the situation that Nate Deneenan and Ron Weasley found themselves in. after the battle that had taken place between a small number of Death Eaters and their even smaller group, Nate had dispatched Angel to England to report the goings on. They knew that those at home would worry over the lack of contact, but there was little choice. The Death Eaters had found them the first time by tracing their magic.

Owls were not safe to carry mail, even if it was coded and muggle methods where available, were little better. Angel's message would have to do. The residents of the cave could only hope that she could soothe the fears of those they loved.

Everyone would be so worried, even Hermione, who had been steaming mad when Ron had left. She hadn't wanted to stay behind, and neither had a number of others. Still, they had mostly understood that Harry and a very small group of others had things to do just as they had things to do back home.

The one left behind that both Nate and Ron worried most over was Ginny. She had not been happy when told that her young husband was going off to fight in unknown places. She had been mad when told that he would prefer that she stay safely behind and Ginny had been absolutely furious when she found out that a select group of people had been chosen to act as her bodyguards. Ginny knew that a kidnap attempt against her a month after their wedding had seriously terrified Harry, but she still found it difficult to accept that he felt the need to surround her with six constant guards plus any Order members who had a bit of time to spare. She had fought horribly against the imposition of a personal guard for herself. She thought that Harry should have taken the six would-be guards and herself along with him for protection.

After Harry had been so horribly wounded in battle, Nate, Angel and Ron had agreed with Ginny.

Nate and Ron were particularly glad not to have to break the news to the young Mrs Potter. Ron knew his sister was likely to react badly. Her six guards were more than enough to keep her safe, but Nate and Ron felt that no number of warriors would be equal to protecting those who had harmed her husband from Ginny.

Little did Ron and Nate know that Ginny would be thrilled to hear of her husband was living in a cave with a broken leg.

At least that meant he was alive.

A/N I'm sorry it's been so long! I'll try to update this again soon!

-QK