a/n: thanks to all my reviewers, i appreciate the feedback. i hope you enjoy this chapter as you finally learn more about Harry's summer. as always feel free to let me know what you think.

Chapter 3: Explanations and Concerns for the Young

Despite being forced up to bed straight after dinner Harry knew what the main topic of conversation was down in the kitchen. His pronouncement had gone over as well as a nuclear bomb and more than one adult had looked at him in concern throughout the meal. Even Hermione had watched him carefully while he ate his way steadily through Mrs. Weasley's cooking, occasionally shooting him worried or pitying looks. It was obvious she thought this was some form of lashing out or some sort of destructive behavior bought on by the return of Voldemort and witnessing Cedric's death. Nothing he'd said to her as they left the kitchen could convince her otherwise.

But Hermione wasn't really the problem, sure she would watch him like a hawk over the next few weeks and catalogue any weird behavior but he could work around that. After all he had spent the last five weeks working around the Order members secretly watching over him. No, what was causing Harry some concern was that his "reckless" behavior would bring him under the ever more watchful eye of Dumbledore or his other professors. While he had managed to avoid detection over the summer trying to continue with his plans and his freedom during the term would be a lot harder.

He thought about all of this while he changed into his pajamas and prepared for bed. Ron was already in bed, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling deep in thought. Harry didn't notice the way Ron kept glancing over at him or how his eyes widened as he realized how much Harry had truly changed once his shirt was off. Going back to studying the ceiling Ron spoke, refusing to look at Harry as though embarrassed to even be discussing what he wanted to discuss.

'Harry, mate?'

'Yeah?' Harry replied, absently wondering about Ron's sudden fixation with the word mate.

'Were you…' he trailed off not sure how to put what he wanted to say in words or just really embarrassed to do it. 'Were you serious about that stuff,' he finished vaguely.

Harry looked up from where he was wrestling elbow deep in his trunk for a book for Ginny and raised his eyebrow at his friend. 'I say a lot of stuff, Ron, can you be more specific?'

'About that girl,' Ron said after a very long pause.

'Ah,' Harry breathed with sudden understanding. It amused him that Ron was still so awkward about the topic when he knew he was about to spend a good hour discussing the finer details with Ginny. 'You want to know if I was joking about the virtue sullying, right?'

'Right,' Ron croaked.

Harry sighed heavily, he knew that many of the blokes in sixth and seventh year frequently talked about their exploits with the girls at Hogwarts, it was almost a right of passage to talk about your experiences with your roommates, to brag about your conquests. This was not one of those situations, it was not Harry kissing a girl for the first time (well it was but that was years ago now) and it wasn't about reaching bases and scoring experience, it was bigger than that but Harry knew he would never tell Ron that.

'Look, mate, it's not really any of your business but if you must know, yes I met a girl, yes we dated for a while and yes we shagged. I'm not giving you any details.'

Ron was silent for a very long time and Harry thought he'd actually fallen asleep until he spoke. 'I get it, Harry. Sorry.'

'Don't worry about it.'

Ron went back to staring at the ceiling and contemplating what he had learned and Harry continued to wrestle in his trunk. It was starting to look like he was going to have to get in there to pry the damn thing free and he really didn't want to do that with Ron around, he'd get all curious and then mention it to Hermione who would get all excited and ask him how it worked. He didn't know how it worked, its not like when he bought it he asked for all the finer details. Finally he freed the book and placed it on the night stand, making a show of then getting into bed and turning out the light. Just when he was sure Ron was drifting off he spoke again.

'Harry?'

'Yeah?'

'What's up with you and Ginny?'

Now it was Harry's turn to take a few quiet moments before he answered. 'She's a good friend.'

Satisfied for the moment with that answer Ron drifted off. Twenty minutes after Ron's snores filled the room Harry was out of bed, snagging the book from his night stand and moving quietly out of the room and up to Ginny's. He found her sitting in bed in the dark waiting for him. He locked her door behind him and joined her on the bed. She lit a candle on the night stand to give them a little light but not enough to really draw her mother's attention.

'Did Ron ask you about your girlfriend?'

'Yeah. I fed him the same story I fed everyone else downstairs.'

'That she was visiting family and now she's gone?'

Harry nodded.

'Tell me everything.'

And so he did, starting form the very first day of the holidays when he had returned home from King's Cross to find Ally Martin sitting on his desk stroking Hedwig to the hours before Ginny and the Order came to collect him from the Dursley's. He skipped over one or two details planning to tell her later when she had had time to process everything. He talked for nearly three hours and Ginny let him, holding all her questions until he was done.

'…and then I went down to the kitchen and that was when you arrived.'

For several minutes after Harry finished speaking Ginny just sat and stared at him with her mouth open. She closed it eventually but she continued to stare at him as she arranged her thoughts and began to order some of the questions she had for him. She decided to start, like he had, from the beginning and asked her questions in order of their relevance to his story.

'She was just waiting for you to get home?' Ginny clarified. Harry nodded. 'And she took you into a trunk like yours that was spelled to experience time differently?'

'Yeah,' Harry agreed. 'For you it's only been five weeks since the holidays began but for me it's been just over two years.'

'So you're really seventeen?'

'I guess. It's weird because I feel seventeen, I'm taller and stronger but technically I'm only fifteen even though I've had two more years to learn.'

'How did you get our letters?'

Harry scrunched up his nose in a pained manor. 'Ally had this clock that would show us what time it was outside of the trunk and then we'd send our house elf to check for mail every couple of regular days. I never pretended to know exactly how it worked and she never tried to explain it to me.'

'Did you come out very often?'

'Only once or twice in the first few months, mostly to go shopping, Ally said I needed new clothes. Then after that we came out more and more, spent more time in my room at the Dursley's. For a while it was really hard to keep time straight but the stronger I got and the more stuff I learnt the less time we spent in the trunk. The last two weeks we didn't spend any time in there. I think she actually took the spells down so she could use it again.'

Ginny took her time deciding what to ask next but in the end her choice was a simple one.

'You told me all about how she trained you but you never said much about her. Who is she? I'm assuming she's the owner of the knickers.'

'Ally is unique, and I'm not just saying that because I love her. Her mother was hit with Arvada Kadava right before she was born. It was only the quick thinking of her aunt that saved her; she literally had to be cut out of her mother. Technically that means she survived the Killing curse though not directly like I did. When she was ten her aunt was killed by a Basilisk and it nearly killed her but she was saved by phoenix tears.'

'That's a little weird,' Ginny whispered, not missing the similarity between Ally's story and Harry's. 'How come I've never heard of her?'

'Because when she was healed by the Phoenix some of its blood mixed with hers.'

'I'm not following,' Ginny told him.

'She's nearly three hundred years old, Gin.'