Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I make any claim of ownership. All rights belong to the copyright holders and J.K. Rowling.

A/N

Hello again everyone!

As I've finished chapter four ahead of schedule (I write the chapter after the one I want to release before I release anything, to keep a coherent narrative), I present to you all, chapter three of I'll Keep Coming!

I'd just like to say that I'm overwhelmed by all the support you've been giving me, it's been really great so far.

Remember, feel free to follow, favourite or drop a review, I'll welcome any response from readers. Enjoy!

- JudgeKnox


By August of that year, Ron, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley had joined Harry and Sirius at Grimmauld Place, and Molly, although more drawn and sad than Harry had ever seen her, was glad for the company, and seemed more like her old self when she was cajoling Harry into eating second and third helpings of dinner. Harry continued practicing magic with his two friends, but these fell short of his sessions with Dumbledore and Sirius – the Headmaster had made him promise not to try advanced magic without him there to supervise.

At Harry's request, Dumbledore also contacted the Grangers, and brought a very excited Hermione with him to Grimmauld Place later that month. Overjoyed to see her friends again and eager to learn from the Headmaster, Hermione threw herself into studying as if it were already exam season, seeming particularly driven after learning about the Trace ("Really? But that's so unfair!").

It was around this time that Harry began to realise something: that Ginny was fast becoming as close a friend to him as Hermione or Ron was, and that in some ways she and Harry shared something the other two did not. They'd both fought Voldemort directly, and this common trial seemed to strike a chord between them. And so, one late night at the end of the summer, Harry was reading alone in the drawing room when he heard someone knock on the open door. Expecting to see Sirius or Hermione, he was surprised to see Ginny standing in the doorway instead, dressed in her nightclothes and looking distracted about something.


"Ginny?" Harry looked at her, his surprise still evident on his face. "You okay?" He asked.

Ginny seemed to snap out it for a moment before looking down at Harry on the settee. "I'm okay, Harry, I… wait, no, that's a lie. Can I come in?" She asked hesitantly, trying not to meet Harry's eyes.

Seeing that something was wrong, Harry quickly closed his book and sat up straight, gesturing to the sofa across from his. "Of course you can, come on in – you can close the door if you like." Ginny did so, padding softly over and slumping down into the cushions, staring at her hands.

Harry waited for a minute for Ginny to start talking, and when it seemed like she might not, he spoke instead.

"So, what's on your mind-"

"-I need to talk to you about Tom."

Having both talked over each other at the same time, they each stopped to allow the other to speak, an awkward silence forming between the two. Harry motioned for Ginny to continue, and drawing in a breath, she repeated herself, still not meeting Harry's eyes.

"I said, I need to talk to you about T-Tom." She said, her voice faltering for a moment as she said Voldemort's muggle name. Harry sat silently, wondering why Ginny wanted to talk about Voldemort.

"Ever since what happened with the Chamber of Secrets, I've felt… wrong." Ginny said quietly, as if she was hoping Harry couldn't hear her. "I didn't realise it at first, and I thought after all these years I would have just moved on, but after Dad…" she trailed off at the mention of Mr. Weasley, "I've never thought about what Tom might have left behind, in here." She gestured towards her heart.

"What do you mean, left behind?" Harry asked, a little confused about what she was getting at.

"I mean, I was possessed by Voldemort, Harry!" Ginny's tone rose with desperation as her head shot up. Before she knew it, words began pouring out of her mouth. "What if… what if something's broken inside of me? What if there's some part left of him?" Her eyes clenched shut in anguish. "I have nightmares, Harry. Awful nightmares where he comes back, and locks me away inside my own head, and does terrible things to Mum, Ron… even you." She became quiet again at the mention of Harry, and returned to looking at the floor.

"…I'm scared, Harry," she said in a near-whisper. "Ever since what happened to Dad I've been so sad and unstable. I've been thinking bad things… angry things. I don't want to become him, Harry." She took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself before continuing, "You're the only other one here who's fought him properly. You've stopped Voldemort before, and you fought against the diary as well. I just… I need you to tell me I'm not crazy." The last part was mumbled in a tone of shame and weakness.

Harry reached out over the small table, and gently grasped her hands in his, squeezing the palms reassuringly. "Ginny, look at me," he implored. "Voldemort is evil, and powerful, yes, but you're stronger than he ever will be. You're a good person," Harry said, echoing the Headmaster's own words to him, "and the only evil you've got in you is a mean Bat-Bogey Hex." Ginny sniffled, chuckling weakly at Harry's poor attempt at humour.

"What defines us are our choices, Gin, not what we think we are on the inside." Harry said with more seriousness in his tone. Ginny paused, surprised to hear Harry's new use of her name, and feeling a strange flutter in her chest for a moment. "If you don't want him to, Tom – with all his hatred and fear – cannot destroy you. You're better than he ever can be, and you don't have to let him change who you are, or who you want to be." Harry gazed intently into her eyes, relieved to see some strength return to them. "I've fought Voldemort, and as I said to Tom back in the Chamber, he's a wreck of a man. I can't imagine how you felt, coping with that diary, but I know that Voldemort on his best day doesn't stand a chance against you."

Ginny gazed into Harry's eyes, the corners of her mouth quirked ever so slightly into a tentative smile. Harry smiled back warmly, his expression kind.

Ginny looked away and took a few deep breaths, before once more looking into Harry's eyes, her smile wider and stronger now. "I… thank you, Harry." She said softly. "I didn't know how much I needed to hear that."

Harry grinned a little as he slowly released his grip on her hands. "Well, I do have occasional moments of brilliance," he quipped, his eyes crinkling slightly with humour. "I'm glad I could help, and if you ever want to speak to me, Gin, you only need to ask."

Ginny's smile widened further. "I might just take you up on that. Goodnight, Harry." She stood up, reaching out and squeezing Harry's hand gently before walking through the door and back to bed.


Harry's eyes snapped open, his scar prickling uncomfortably. He swore he could feel something gently squeezing his hand. He looked down, only to realise something.

He'd felt the sensation in his right hand. Sighing, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the cushions for a minute or two. Ever since he'd been wounded, Harry would sometimes wake up and panic when he couldn't feel his arm, only to remember that it was gone.

Gone, like nearly everything else.

Shit, Harry thought, when did I drop off? How long have I been out?

Standing up, he walked out of his rooms, and up to the surface. Emerging to the cold highland air, he saw that the sun was already moving lazily towards the horizon. Muttering a few choice swear words under his breath, Harry returned to his dungeon, summoning a bright ball of light with a flick of his wand, which sat in the centre of the ceiling and doused the room in a cold, white glow. He couldn't afford to fall asleep again. Picking his notebook up from where it had fallen and putting it on the couch, he grabbed some parchment from a nearby shelf and unrolled it over the table, laying it out flat. Pointing his wand at it, he muttered "Parius Tabula Britannia!"

A jet of blue light shot from the wand into the parchment, and before Harry's eyes, ink began to blossom on the page, weaving and clouding like blood in water. Droplets ran this way and that, zooming along the page in seemingly random directions. After about thirty seconds, however, the outline of a country began to take shape. After a minute, the last of the details were quickly forming, leaving Harry with a fresh map of the British Isles. Already noted on the map were unprotected magical locations, such as the site of Hogwarts, Hogsmeade Village, Diagon Alley and the Ministry of Magic. The spell was a favourite of Harry's in creating resources for strategic planning, but it had its limitations – individual or well-warded wizarding properties never appeared on any created map, unless the spell was performed inside the boundaries of the property in question. Nevertheless, a map of the country would be useful in organising Harry's intelligence on Voldemort.

His activities the previous night had borne unexpected fruit. Spending the better part of three weeks staying at a disreputable pub in Knockturn Alley called The Hydra's Den – on a tip that came through a Goblin Harry had occasionally used as an informant – initially looked to be a dead-end, but last night he'd been nursing an overly-full tumbler of Firewhisky in a secluded booth when he overheard a very interesting conversation.


Harry sat in the darkened corner, the already dismal lighting of the pub doing little to reveal his heavily-transfigured features, gently sipping his Firewhisky. It was already quite late in the evening, and the pub's patrons were beginning to thin out for the night. Sighing quietly to himself, Harry stared at a particularly dark stain on the wood of the table, trying desperately not to give up and return to the fairly inviting comforts of his room on the top floor. Just as he thought he might turn in for the night, the front door of the pub opened noisily before two black-clad strangers walked in. Going to the bar and ordering some spirit Harry didn't recognise, the two moved through the room and sat in the booth next to Harry, their whispered conversation just slightly too quiet for him to make out.

Deciding that he might learn something useful tonight after all, Harry waved his wand under the table, casting a quick Supersensory Charm on himself. The effect was immediate, and Harry felt the strange sensation of nearly having eyes in the back of his head, the previously quiet pub suddenly sounding like a crowded room full of loudly talking people. Tilting his head slightly, Harry began to listen to the conversation taking place next to him, trying to ignore the relative crashing sound the bartender made when he clinked some glasses together.

"...no bloody way Malfoy would give you have something of his, no matter how many 'favours' you think you might have done for him!" The first man hissed in anger at his friend.

"I dunno about that, Cassius," the second man sneered back. "There was that incident a few months back with those Parkinson girls-"

The first man cut across him, sounding both exasperated and furious at the same time, as if they'd had this conversation before. "The only reason you work as the Ponce's fixer at all is because your family has been in their debt for generations!"

"I've never gotten anything in return though, have I?" The second whined indignantly. "It's always just 'drop everything and come to the manor', and after sorting everything out all nice-like, he just sneers at me and sends me on my merry fucking way!"

"Why do you even want that stupid locket anyway?" The first asked, his tone dripping with derision.

Harry's heart nearly skipped a beat.

"I dunno, I just like the way it looks, okay? All that green and gold… the wife would love it." The second replied defensively.

Harry had a sudden, insane impulse to jump to his feet and start doing a jig, and ruthlessly repressed it. As the two men's conversation shifted to inanities and eventually died altogether, Harry realised he needed to cover his tracks. If the locket they talked about really was what he thought it was, then he had to make sure there was no trace of how he found out. Quickly drinking the rest of his Firewhisky and feeling it burn on its way down, Harry sat in the dark, and waited.

Before long, the two men had finished their drinks and got up, ready to leave. Casting a quick Disillusionment Charm on himself, and feeling the all-to-familiar sensation of an egg being broken over his head, Harry quietly got up from his seat and followed them out into Knockturn Alley. With an uncanny stroke of luck, the two only walked for a few minutes before they ducked into a deserted side street. Acting quickly, Harry blasted the both of them with a Stupefy each.

One crumpled to the floor as soon as the jet of red light hit him, but his friend was quicker on the draw. Throwing himself to the side, he waved his wand in a panic in Harry's direction, and the window next to Harry's face exploded outwards, glass shards lacerating his skin. Grunting in pain, Harry banished the man into the alley wall, knocking him out cold. Rolling them over so he could check their faces, he didn't recognise them as anyone important in Voldemort's ranks, and so could erase their memories of the last few hours with little risk of it being discovered. Levelling his wand at the one on his left, he whispered "Obliviate."

Repeating the process with the other man, he swiftly laid them up against a nearby wall, and conjured a few glasses of alcohol, before pouring them over the two. When they woke up with a pounding headache (from the stunner and wall-banishing accordingly), they'd simply assume they'd gotten blind drunk that night, and passed out at some point. Nervous about them being discovered too soon – and their 'drunken unconsciousness' being recognised as the effects of a stunning spell – Harry cast a Notice-Me-Not Charm on the two that would wear off in a few hours. With a quick Reparo for the window, Harry was on his way.

Returning to the pub, Harry went up to his room and quickly wrote everything down in his notebook. After collecting his things and paying his tab with the bartender, he walked back to Diagon Alley and Disapparated for Hogwarts, appearing on a sodden hillside in the middle of a storm.