Thanks to all reviewers. I apologize for the rating, it has been modified accordingly.

Chapter 2

From annoying older brothers to infuriating mothers and exasperating housemates, Ginny's next few days would have been truly torturous for her without the support of her new roommate.

"I didn't know you could shut off a Howler," she whispered gratefully one morning, while at breakfast. "Thanks! Dad's warning letter wasn't fast enough. My mum's voice isn't particularly soft… or pleasant, when she is screaming."

"I know," the boy said with a grimace. "Your brothers received several last year. The one after the troll incident was the nastiest."

"What was that all about?" Ginny asked curiously. "I only heard bits and pieces. Never the true story."

"Foolish Gryffindors deciding a troll makes an adequate target practice for their less than adequate skills," Harry muttered, "and getting rewarded for their supposed 'bravery'. Never mind that three students nearly got killed when the Gryffindor name can be further glorified."

"That's awful," Ginny said. "What would have happened if it were Slytherins who did it?"

Grimacing again, he replied seriously, "We don't want to find out."

Lessons were hard for Ginny in the first week. The Transfiguration Professor, Minerva McGonagall, seemed slightly miffed to not have a Weasley in her house, while the Potions Master, Severus Snape, seemed highly affronted to have one in his. As a result, she faced antagonism in both classes, and it didn't help that the students in both houses mirrored the feelings of their Heads. In the middle were the other teachers, who had little opinion regarding Ginny's sorting, and were more concerned with her struggling in class.

"It's your wand," Harry commented one night, after a long session of complaining from the redhead. It had become habitual for them to lay on their backs and talk to each other about their day in detail before sleeping, or at least Ginny would talk while Harry listened and offered his comments from time to time.

"I had the same trouble at first," he elaborated. "I take it your wand isn't new?"

"No," Ginny said in a low voice. "My family couldn't afford it."

"Better a lack of gold than a lack of concern," Harry said cryptically. "I know a secret… place with a box full of wands. I will bring it up tomorrow night. I got mine from there, and though it isn't a perfect match, my current wand is powerful, and with enough practice, it works quite well."

Ginny smiled happily, and yawning, said, "What would I do without you," as she felt her eyes become heavy with sleep.

Seeing her sleep, Harry smiled. The start of his second year was substantially better than the whole of his first year. Sighing in content, he rolled to his side, and with a final eyeful of dark crimson, he closed his eyes, but then Ginny innocently asked a question before drifting to sleep, "How's it like… living with Jerry Potter?"

She should have realized something was amiss when Harry took a sharp intake of breath, but oblivious, she continued, "It used to be my favorite story as a kid, you know. I used to have a crush on him. I even named my teddy after him." She raised the big brown bear that she hugged to sleep every night. "JB is for Jerry Bear. Ron teased me so much… Harry?" she sat up in surprise when Harry quietly left the bed.

She gasped at the expression on his face. It was contorted in pure anguish combined with tremendous rage. "Harry, what did I say?" she asked miserably, as the boy turned his back to her and walked towards the Portrait of the Serpent. Leaping out her bed, she ran to him and grabbed his arm before he could get out of the portrait. "Please tell me."

Taking a deep breath, he said coldly, "Never speak to me about him again." Tearing his arm from her grasp, he left the room, leaving a shocked and dismayed Ginny behind. Slowly, she turned and returned to her bed. Climbing up, she waited silently and unmoving for Harry to return. Her eyes clenched tight, she prayed for Harry to come back.

After what appeared to be an eternity but was about half an hour, Ginny gave up and started crying. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the cuddly bear that she had loved since she was four and flung it across the room, and sobbed on her pillow.

She didn't see Harry the next day, or night. Feeling miserable, she even dared to ask one of his year mates, a boy called Blaise Zabini, who wasn't as mean as Draco Malfoy or Pansy Parkinson. But even Blaise couldn't tell where Harry disappeared after lessons.

Finally, after three days of not seeing Harry, she skipped her History lesson, and waited outside the Potions class for Harry to finish his day.

When the raven haired boy emerged, the first person to leave the class, he saw Ginny and instantly turned to the opposite direction. But Ginny ran towards him, and headed him off. "Please Harry. I'm sorry. Please don't avoid me."

Seeing a few people stop and stare at them, Harry grabbed Ginny's hand and led her to the Slytherin Common Room. Seeing it full of people, he sighed, and entered their private room.

Looking at the sorrowful girl, he said sharply, "Finally, I have a friend… and she also wants to talk about Jerry Potter, from his insignificant and useless brother!" Picking up a vase, he crashed it against the wall, shattering it to bits. "I find my wand, but it's got some ruddy phoenix core, and so must be kept safe for him to use in the future…" He picked up a goblet, and threw it next to the broken vase. "Not receiving anything for Christmas, I find an unnamed present underneath the tree… and it's also for Jerry that my godfather forgot to write his name… I come to Hogwarts hoping to be myself, just Harry Potter, and everyone calls me Jerry Potter's brother… I've never had anything! Anything at all, that was just mine, and mine alone… I thought you and I… clearly, I had hoped too much!" His eyes were shut tightly as he yelled at the girl, and finishing, he turned to leave, when:

"Incendio!" a broken voice whispered, and the sound of flames rippled through the room.

Turning around, Harry was shocked. Ginny was shaking with grief, and her teddy bear was in flames. He looked at her aghast, and then ran to her. Pulling her away from the burning bear and to safety, he pointed his wand and said, "Aguamen-"

"No," Ginny pulled his wand hand away. "Let it burn!" Then, she wept against his arm.

Almost automatically, Harry put an arm around the crying girl.

"I d-didn't it mean l-like that… I just wanted t-to talk about y-your family," she sobbed. "Please, Harry. Don't leave me. You're the only friend I have." When he didn't reply, she ran to her bedside, and picking up a book, she started tearing the pages venomously.

Harry's eyes widened as a page flew to his foot. It was titled, The Boy Who Lived. He walked to the girl, and firmly removed the tattered book from her fingers. Flinging it aside, he hugged her.

They remained together like that until dinner, neither talked much, but both were truly content for the first time in Hogwarts. After a quick dinner, Harry got up, and assuring Ginny that he would return at night, he hastily walked away.

True to his word, he did return shortly before curfew. He removed a small cube from his pocket, and magically enlarged it to its original size.

"Harry, what's that?" she asked curiously.

"The box of wands," he replied. "I was going to leave it in the room tomorrow during your flying class." He opened it and shoved it towards Ginny.

"Harry, don't bother so much about me," Ginny said quietly, but picked up a wand, and waved it. After several attempts, she found one that shot red and green sparks. She smiled happily at Harry.

"Sandalwood, Ten Inches, Runespoor Fang," Harry intoned, reading from an inscription on the box, next to where the wand was placed. "Good for charms, and has a nice fragrance. Salazar Slytherin made these wands himself," he added. "Mine has a Basilisk Fang in it."

Hearing the details of her wand, Ginny's eyes widened. "So I am truly a Slytherin?"

"Being a Slytherin is no shame," Harry said, with a wave of his hand. "Slytherin himself did not intend his house to be like it is today." He appeared to be debating with himself, before he walked to the bookshelf and removed a thick tome. "Slytherin's personal journal. In this, he writes his views on magic, some of his own spells and creations, and other stuff. Never once did he claim muggles to be inferior to wizards, his animosity was to the Church's persecution. He only sought a separation to prevent what happened a few centuries later... the burning of witches and wizards."

Ginny listened to him eagerly, until her eyes fell on another book on the shelf that had clearly been used recently, and was displaced.

Harry followed her gaze and said, "Occlumency is the most important thing for us to learn. It will prevent Dumbledore and Snape from reading our minds. They have tried to do so several times. After reading this, I have been able to divert their attention to something unimportant in my mind. You should start reading this too."

--

Two things occurred during the following few days that caused much worry to both Harry and Ginny.

Her twin brothers somehow knew of their new sleeping arrangement, which was strange, as not even Professor Snape had been intimated about it by the students. A standing agreement had quickly been reached within the Slytherin House. If the Slytherins left the two Parselmouths alone, then they wouldn't make the Serpent Statues and Portraits in the Common Room and dormitories make their lives miserable. Even Draco Malfoy had finally agreed to it after his boxers were found decorating the Common Room one morning.

But the twins, Fred and George Weasleys, had discovered, and had confronted the two of them. In their words, "We know you sleep on the same bed, or at least, very close together. But you haven't yet done anything… more intimate."

"We also know of the little encounter with the Malfoy brat on the first night," the second twin resumed. "And we can only assume what might have transpired.

"But somehow, someway, you, Harry Potter, are keeping our sister safe."

"We don't like you, never have, and perhaps, never will, but we are thankful to you."

"But we will be keeping an eye on you, and believe us, we will know." Turning to Ginny, he added, "If he ever hurts you, Ginny, you tell us, and we will make him regret it."

"So now I'm your sister again," Ginny commented sharply. "What happened to, 'no sister of ours would be sorted to the house of snakes'?"

Fidgeting uneasily, one of the twins ventured an apology. "We're sorry, Ginny. We shouldn't have said that."

"The Sorting took us by shock," the second one added. "We are not very happy about this, but we shouldn't have said those things to you."

"Will you forgive us?" the first twin finished.

Thinking quietly, Ginny finally said, "Only if you promise never to annoy, threaten, prank or irritate Harry again. Without him, I wouldn't have survived a single night." When the twins nodded grimly, she asked sharply, "So Bill wrote back, did he?"

Wincing, one of the twins said, "Yes he did."

"And he promised to box our ears until we lost our hearing, and then break our noses, and then break our limbs one after the other," the other added.

"Before letting you cast the worst Bat Bogey Hex of our lives," the first one finished, shuddering. "But, mum and Ron are still upset," he added as they departed. "And Charlie." But that was it with that.

The other issue was more troubling. The diary of Tom Riddle had somehow ended up in Ginny's possession. When she first discovered it among her books, she hadn't decided whether she wanted to maintain a diary. On the train journey, she had finally decided to write her experiences every night. But with the Sorting, everything changed. And with Harry, the need to write in a diary had become even less, as she would talk to him every night until they fell asleep.

But when she finally did scribble some notes on it one day, to her surprise, the words disappeared and the diary wrote back to her. Amazed, she waited for Harry that night to show this new thing to him.

Harry, however, saw the name on the front page, and instantly snatched the diary from her hand, breathing heavily.

"Harry, what are you doing?" she asked.

Instead of responding, he pointed to the window sill. Curiously, Ginny walked there and gasped. Scratched onto the stone were the words - I am Lord Voldemort, and below it, Tom Marvolo Riddle. In horror, Ginny turned to Harry, who was attempting to destroy the diary, but to no avail. Flames wouldn't consume it, and not even a cutting curse could tear it.

Sighing, he held it gingerly and hid it behind a portrait that was far from their bed. "That diary is foul. We should keep it hidden until we discover a way to destroy it."

Acquiescing without hesitation, Ginny suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of relief that Harry was with her. There was no saying what could have happened to her if she had continued writing on the diary.

"Should we take it to a professor?" she asked, though knowing full well what the answer would be.

"Which professor?"

Ginny sighed. "Stupid idea. Does Slytherin's manuscript have any spells that can be used?"

Shrugging, Harry said, "It probably does. But the tome is so thick, and it could be written anywhere. We should just continue the way we are doing, five pages a day. We'll find it eventually."

Grinning, Ginny nodded happily. The new wand and Slytherin's Tome had already had much of an impact on Ginny's schoolwork. No longer was she struggling in class.