Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Authors Notes: Here is the next chapter… Don't forget to Review!! :)

The song in the last chapter is 'Lost Without You' by the Australian artist Delta Goodrem and the song in this chapter is the theme song from the TV series Cheers

Hope you enjoy this chapter… :) Rhiain & Carolyn…

Chapter 7

The Pub

~*~

"Harry?" she whispered into the microphone, forgetting for a moment that she was still on stage.

Harry's body jolted in shock.  For the first time in three years Ginny's beautiful, deep brown eyes were looking at him.  Wide with shock of course, but her glance clung to him, even though it was only for the merest second.

The crowd moved again, still applauding wildly.  Emily was watching Ginny carefully, and although the crowd hadn't reacted when she'd said Harry's name, she'd heard Ginny and knew that she'd seen Harry.

She hurried to Ginny's side, grabbing her in a hug and clutching her tightly, motioning to Fred to turn the sound off for a second.

"You were fantastic, just brilliant," said Emily excitedly, hoping she could keep Ginny's focus in the here and now, and not on Harry.  She knew that Harry would want time to collect himself after that song, and after being discovered.

"How did you know the words?" began Ginny.  "No, never mind… you and I will talk later."  She lowered her eyelids for a fraction and then looked up again at Emily.  "I just saw him Emily.  I saw Harry, I swear it, he's here!"

She could hardly contain herself.  Ginny was nervous, scared, terrified, anxious, desperate, a million thoughts blew through her mind in an instant, and then she looked at Emily suddenly, "I have to go find him Em."

"Oh no you don't," said Emily, quickly grabbing a hold of Ginny before she could fly off the stage.  "You have to finish the set.  Everyone's waiting."

"I saw him Emily, I did!  I wasn't seeing things," Ginny said breathlessly.

"I believe you, but please… just finish the set.  You don't want to disappoint the crowd now do you?" finished Emily convincingly, eyebrows raised, knowing that if nothing else, Ginny was a professional.

Ginny looked torn; glancing quickly to the crowd, back to the band, who were waiting patiently, and back to Emily.  "That's blackmail you know… but okay."  She took a deep breath.  "Will you stay and sing with me?"

"Sure," said Emily, turning at once to Fred and indicating to turn the volume up on their mics.

The crowd were starting to quieten down now, looking at Ginny expectantly.  Emily moved back to the stand-alone mic.  Ginny faced the audience, smiling tremulously.

"Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!  So now that I've got my best friend on stage with me, we're going to finish off with your favourite song, and ours!"  Incredibly, Ginny was grinning from ear to ear.  She looked as though she hadn't a care in the world, but her body and mind were a mass of conflicting emotions, wanting answers to questions that she hadn't really had a chance to formulate yet.

"Soooo, let's really rock this place okay!!!" she beamed over her shoulder to Shane, who counted in to the song with his drumsticks and off they went.  As the intro started, Ginny spoke again, "I want to see hands in the air, lighters up high, with all the moves and groves.  Where's my dance team?"

There was a regular group of friends that always came up to the front to lead the rest of the pub in the moves and groves that they'd made up to this particular song.

"Okay," said Ginny, "the short version tonight I think guys."

~ * ~

Meanwhile, at the back of the pub, Harry still hadn't moved, even though Ginny had spoken his name out loud.

"Harry, are you okay?" queried Sirius, a smirk crossing his face.

"Yeah, fine. I… I'm…"

"Lost for words?" Sirius slapped him on the back, jolting Harry back to the present.

"What should I do?" Harry turned and looked Sirius right in the eye, fear and nerves showing clearly on his face.  "Emily said I should wait until this set was finished and then apparate backstage and wait for her.  But that was before she saw me!"

He was a bundle of nerves.

Anne reached over and covered Harry's hand with her own, squeezing it gently, shifting his focus to her.  The kind, understanding expression in her eyes instantly calming him.  "I think you should go and see her Harry.  It's time.  I think she's as ready as she's ever going to be."

"Anne's right, Harry.  Don't miss another opportunity, when this one is presenting itself to you.  She's here, right in front of you, she's seen you.  You've waited a long time for this.  You both deserve to be with each other," Sirius finished, his bright, blue eyes boring into Harry's.

Harry turned back to watch Ginny and Emily on stage, nervous knots twisting in his guts, knowing that in a few minutes time he might be able to hold Ginny close once more.

Singing the blues when the home teams lose

It's a crisis in your life.

On the run 'cause all your girlfriends

Wanna be your wife!

Wouldn't you like to get away?

He couldn't help smiling though.  In all his travels, he had never seen a crowd behave quite like this.  The Australian's certainly were a different breed of social animal.

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name.

And they're always glad you came.

You want to be where you can see,

Our troubles are all the same;

You want to be where everybody knows your name.

He watched as Ginny and Emily totally hammed it up on stage.  The band were having a great time, as were the "dance team" that Ginny had mentioned.  They were all down the front dancing in unison.

You want to go where people know,

People are all the same;

You want to go where everybody knows your name.

The crowd was singing along; they knew all the words.  Harry turned to Sirius who was as transfixed by the crowd, as Harry had previously been by Ginny.  They looked at each other for a moment, then broke out laughing, Anne joining them, giggling uncontrollably.

"I've never seen this side of Ginny before," stated Sirius in amazement.  She was really letting her hair down.

Ginny was having a ball.  She was positive that she'd seen Harry in the audience, but for the moment she was letting that go.  If he really was here, she doubted he would disappear now.  After all this time, she realised that it wasn't coincidental.  He had obviously been looking for her; but she just really wanted to have fun with this last number.

Making your way in the world today

Takes everything you've got.

Taking a break from all your worries

Sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those nights when you've got no lights,

The cheque is in the mail.

And your little angel

Hung the cat up by its tail.

And your third fiancé didn't show.

Emily was revving up the crowd for the next round of the chorus.  It was good to see Ginny smile.  Emily couldn't help but wonder what would happen when they had finished for the night.  She was mentally keeping her fingers crossed, for both Ginny and Harry.

She glanced towards Harry, who still hadn't moved and then almost laughed in the middle of singing when she saw the look on Sirius' face.

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name.

And they're always glad you came.

You want to be where you can see

Our troubles are all the same.

You want to be where everybody knows your name.

You want to go where people know,

People are all the same.

You want to go where everybody knows your name.

As the song came to a close; Ginny thanked everyone, bidding the crowd goodnight; the crowd gave a final round of applause.  Ginny glanced out into the crowd again looking for Harry… and left the stage, before Emily could say another word.

Ginny ran down the steps at the side of the stage.  She knew she'd seen Harry in the crowd, during her solo.  If she really had seen him, she had to find him.  After her hurried conversation with Emily between songs, she'd made the decision that if she saw him again in the crowd, she would go to him.

It was ironic.  Earlier she'd been contemplating sending him an owl after all this time, but now he was here… she knew it was him, she could almost feel his presence in the room.  She moved through the crowd as quickly as possible, everyone stopping to congratulate her on the performance.  Normally she loved talking with the audience, but tonight all she wanted to do was find Harry.  She continued through the crowd to where she thought she had seen him, when she ran into someone.

"Sorry" she said not even looking up.

"That okay Gin," said Sirius.

She had already passed the voice, but something made her stop.  She new that voice.  She looked over her shoulder to find the source.  "Sirius?  Wh…?  What are you doing here?" asked a shocked Ginny turning back to face him.

"I'm here to support Harry, and you too if you need it," said Sirius putting a hand on Ginny's shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.  "Now go and talk to him… he's waiting for you by the stage door.  We'll wait for you here."

"O... Okay…" said Ginny slowly turning around, in somewhat of daze.

As she slowly walked back to the stage door, she saw him waiting for her.  He hadn't seen her yet.  She stopped, terrified all of a sudden, fear and indecision warring inside her head.  She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  She could either run again or she could face him, and her past, once and for all.

She calmed herself, and walked towards him.  Her stomach felt like she had chocolate frogs jumping around inside, which hadn't had the incantation taken off.

"Harry," she said walking over to him and touching his arm to get his attention.  He turned to her, smiling gently.

"Ginny," Harry spoke her name on a breath exhaled.  He felt nervous and excited to see her so close.  To have her touch him again.

He couldn't stop himself; he gathered her up in his arms, holding her close, revelling in being able to touch her again, feeling their hearts beat wildly fast, but instinctively in time with each other.  As he pulled back, his lips brushed her cheek and he reluctantly let her go.  "I know it's been a while, but can we talk?"

"Come with me," she said, capturing his hand in hers without hesitation.

He followed her through the stage door and down the hall to the band's change room.  She opened the door and was horrified by the sight that greeted them.

In a split second her eyes took in the whole scene; Fred, Shane and Phil were gagged and bound up in chairs with terrified looks on their faces, Emily was lying on the floor, with a terrified look on her face, as if she was trying her hardest not to scream, and standing over her was Draco Malfoy, his wand pointing directly at her chest, and an evil smirk on his face.

"Leave her alone Malfoy" said Harry hotly, drawing his wand the instant he'd seen Draco, ready to duel.

"Or what Potter?" whipped back Malfoy.  Before anyone could react, Draco had removed the curse from Emily and muttered a spell at Harry.   Harry didn't have a chance to duck, it hit him squarely in the chest and he crumpled to the ground like a rag doll, unconscious.

"Look at the hero of the wizarding world now," smirked Draco, smirking evilly before disapparating.

"Harry!," cried out Ginny, turning away from Emily to see if he was okay.

"Mmrf, mmrf" came from the three boys tied up.

Ginny turned back to Emily, who was still lying collapsed on the floor with fatigue, breathing hard, and asked, "Do you have your wand on you?"

A small nod was all Emily could muster.  Ginny leaned over and pulled Emily's wand out of the hidden pocket in her pants.

"Finite Incantatem" she said pointing the wand firstly at Fred, Phil and then Shane in turn.  "Are you three okay?" she said looking at the boys.

"We're okay, what happened?" Fred asked, as the bindings that had held the three of them prisoner, magically fell away.

"I need one of you to do me a HUGE favor, no questions asked, please… I'll explain everything later okay?" she asked looking at her three friends.

"Sure, what can we do?" asked Fred.

"Can you go out and find Emily's mum, Anne, and a man named Sirius?" she said grabbing her bag off the table and fumbling around in her bag.  She handed Fred a photo of Harry, Sirius and herself at her graduation. "You need to find him," she said pointing to Sirius.  "Bring them both back here."

"Okay, I'll be back in a sec," said Fred running out the door.

"Shane, can you help Emily into a comfortable position?  Please be gentle though, she's in a lot of pain," said Ginny moving over to Harry.

"Phil, I need your help here.  I don't know what spell he was hit with, but whatever it was, it's knocked him unconscious,"  Ginny kept listening for signs of Fred returning with the others.

"Come on Sirius, Anne, I need your help," she muttered to herself, sitting next to Harry checking his vital signs the Muggle way, allowing herself the luxury of looking over every inch of his face for the first time in almost three years.  "What am I doing...?" she asked herself, instantly frustrated.  She pulled Emily's wand out and cast a diagnostic charm, swearing quietly to herself.  She walked over to Emily and cast the charm again.  "Oh no, Cruciatus, where's Snape when you need him?" she said to herself.  "We'll get you to a hospital soon Em.. won't be long now," she said soothingly to Emily, gently pushing the fringe out of her eyes.

"Phil," she said sharply, "would you go and help Fred?  Please be quick, we don't have a lot of time."

Before Phil could get to his feet they heard voices in the corridor.  "Ginny?  Ginny where are you?" she heard Sirius and Anne call, from down the hallway.

"Down here, third door on your right," Ginny called out, standing up and moving to the doorway, sounding remarkably calm despite the feeling of hysteria that was bubbling up insider her.  Sirius and Anne ran down the hallway towards Ginny, Fred close behind looking very confused and worried.

"We need to get them to a hospital… Emily has been hit by the Cruciatus Curse, and Harry… oh God Sirius..." her voice catching in her throat, "I don't know what hit him…" said Ginny breaking down in tears.  She walked over to Harry and crouched down beside him onto her knees.  "Harry… oh God Harry… don't leave me!  You can't… I just got you back…" she whispered between sobs.

"Ginny… Ginny dear, you need to take Fred, Phil and Shane back to your dorm.  Get your wand and take this with you," instructed Anne gently, handing Ginny an old quill.  "It's a Portkey," Anne explained at the look on Ginny's face.  "Sirius and I will follow you in just a minute with Harry and Emily.  We'll see you soon.  Okay?"  Anne gave her a swift kiss on the cheek, in comfort.

Ginny nodded numbly, her breath ragged with emotion, tears blinding her, before she left taking the boys with her.  They could hardly take their eyes off the scene as they closed the door behind them, and left the pub from the quieter, rear entrance.

"Sirius, do you know where Harry's invisibility cloak is?"

"Yep, I'll be right back," Sirius said before disapparating.  Before long he was back, kneeling beside Anne, who was gently holding Emily, so as not to hurt her any further.  Emily had lost consciousness, but apart from that seemed okay, much to Anne's relief.  "I've brought mine too.  There won't be enough room for four grown up people under only one."

"Sirius, you take Harry and I'll take Em" Anne said.  "We've just got to get a few blocks back to the girls' dorm room and we don't want to attract any attention by being seen carrying these two down the street," she finished looking at Sirius worriedly.

~*~

In the meantime, the boys had followed Ginny back to the girls' dorm room, Ginny urging them to hurry the whole way.

Ginny ran up the stairs, panting.  They had run all the way from the pub, using the back streets, until they came around the side, to the front of her dorm building.

"Grace!!  Wait up!!" yelled Fred as he followed Grace up the stairs; she wasn't waiting for the elevator.

"No time... hurry!" she called to them as she opened the door to their room and ran inside.  She went straight to their bedroom and began to dig around in her bedside table where she pulled out a silver box, lined with purple velvet.  The box had been a graduation present from Harry.  Her wand had lived in it ever since she had run away.  She also pulled out what looked like a small ring box.  She waved her wand over it and it expanded to be her Hogwarts trunk.

"What the hell?" she heard Fred, Shane and Phil exclaim as she started digging around in the trunk looking frantically for something.

"Here it is, thank God I still have it," she said to herself as she shrunk her trunk again and put what she'd found in her pocket, and turned to face the boys, who were, quite frankly, looking at her as if she was a complete stranger.

She didn't have time to explain about her trunk, or that she'd been looking for the necklace Harry had given her their first Christmas together.  She'd taken it off and hidden it as soon as she'd been captured by Death Eaters - she hadn't wanted to lose it, or have it taken away from her out of spite.  She'd always worn it.  But after running away, she'd left it off, as it was too constant a reminder of how Harry had felt about her, something that she didn't want to think about, whilst running away from him.

"Do you trust me?" she asked the three boys; they answered by nodding their heads.  She knew they were probably freaked out by what had happened, but she just prayed that they would do what they were told until there was time to answer their questions.

"Okay, you're going to need to put one finger on this," she said pulling the quill out from her pants.  The three boys eyed her cautiously.  "It won't bite" she said holding it out to the boys; they did as she asked.  "We just need to wait for the others to arrive, they won't be long."

Even as she spoke, the door swung open to reveal an empty hallway.  "Ginny, help us please, they're getting heavy," said Anne, panting slightly, from beneath one of the cloaks.

Ginny, felt out into the empty space, gently felt around and then whipped off one invisibility cloak and then the other.  The boys just stood there, jaws dropping in amazement.

"Alright," said Anne, "all we need to do is touch the Portkey.  Ginny, can you activate it for us?  It's already programmed to take us back to my place," explained Anne to the boys.

"Portus," Ginny murmured, touching her wand to the quill and activating the Portkey.  "You'll feel a pulling sensation behind your navel."  Ginny, Fred, Shane, Phil, Anne [holding Emily] and Sirius [holding Harry], all felt a pulling sensation, and then they were gone from the girls room.

~*~

"I just remembered why I hate Portkey's," said Ginny as she landed on top of Fred, Phil and Shane.

"What the hell just happened!" yelled Shane.

"Where are we?" asked Phil.

"Cool!" said Fred.  He couldn't quite wipe the grin off his face, despite the obvious seriousness of the situation, even if he didn't understand what was going on.

"Anne, let's get Emily and Harry upstairs immediately," said Sirius, "we'll figure out what to do up there."

"Okay, let's go, a little help would be great," asked Anne, looking at Ginny.  She was struggling with Emily who was a still unconscious and very heavy.

"Can I trust you three to behave yourselves while I'm upstairs?  I'll be back in a minute" said Ginny to the trio.

"Grace, wait…" Ginny paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned.  "The guy who did this… he gave me this to give to Harry and someone named Ginny," said Fred handing Ginny the envelope.

"Thanks, I'm Ginny.  I'll explain soon, I won't be long…" she said taking the envelope, and stuffing it into the back of her pants and running up the stairs.

"Anne?  Sirius?  Is everyone okay?" asked Ginny as she ran up the stairs and into Emily's room.  "How's Emily?  Harry?"  Sirius had laid Harry down on Emily's bed, and Anne was gently lowering Emily into a chair in the corner of her bedroom.  A chair wasn't really an apt description for it.  It was so huge you could easily curl up and go to sleep in it.

"I need to go and make a Post Cruciatus potion, and we're not sure what curse hit Harry," explained Sirius, making his way out of the room and down into the kitchen.

Sirius had been down there about twenty minutes, when Ginny, who had been kneeling on the floor by Harry, looking numb and shocked, smacked herself in the head with the palm of her hand and said, "Oh for goodness sake, I have a Post Cruciatus potion in my trunk, one of Snape's…" Ginny said urgently, standing up and pulling her trunk out of her pocket and enlarging it.

After searching for a few seconds she found what she was looking for.  "Here it is,"  Ginny pointed her wand at the phial, muttered a charm, smiling.   She walked over to Emily and helped her drink it.  "I'll go tell Sirius to come back up" said Ginny.

~*~

"Oh bollocks…!" growled Sirius, irritably, looking frustrated at the ingredients spread out around him, and throwing filthy looks at the cauldron.

"Sirius?" asked Ginny.

"Ginny!"  Sirius jumped, turning to face her, not realising she was in the room.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to swear," said Sirius.

"It's okay, you should hear me sometimes, I've heard much worse…" she said smiling weakly.  "I came to tell you that you can stop making the potion.  I remembered that I had a Post Cruciatus potion in my trunk.  I gave Emily what I had left over from my NEWT in Potions," Sirius was about to speak, so Ginny continued, "Snape taught us to put everlasting charms on them."

"Thank goodness for that.  I can't believe I mucked it up…" he said, looking at the mess on the kitchen table.  He banished them to the rubbish bin with a flick of his wand, and continued "but then, Potions was never my best subject.  How are you holding up?" he asked after a few seconds.

"I think I'm still in shock" she said sitting at the kitchen table.  "I mean I can't imagine what he's been through trying to track me down all these years, but he did, and then he finds me after all this time and he... he will be okay won't he?" she asked, her voice breaking as tears welled up in her eyes, her hands clenched tightly together in her lap.  "I don't want to lose him again, Sirius."

"You won't Ginny.  He'll be fine, Harry's a fighter," said Sirius walking around the table and pulling her into a hug, "he always has been."  They didn't break apart until they heard Anne call frantically from upstairs.

"Ginny!  Sirius!  Come quickly!"

Ginny and Sirius ran up the stairs followed by Fred, Phil and Shane, who had been waiting in the lounge room, wondering what on earth was going on.

"What happened?"

"Is he okay? asked Sirius and Ginny at the same time.

"I think I've worked it out," said Anne.

"What is it?" asked Sirius.

"From what I can tell, the curse is supposed to replicate the symptoms of what happens to the body when it shuts down in the final minutes before death, but… Harry has been like this for over an hour now… if the spell was done correctly he'd be dead by now.  But whatever magic was performed, I don't think it was done properly.  I just can't think of what to do to reverse it," said Anne shaking her head.

"Could… could the person who did this… could they have told us how to fix it in the letter I gave you Grace?" said Fred rather nervously, looking at Ginny, knowing this was probably a long shot, given that he didn't know what the hell was going on.

"Oh yeah, I forgot," said Emily who was now conscious and alert.  "I saw him give the letter to Fred.  Where is it?"

"Here," Ginny said handing the envelope to Emily, "I… can't…"

"It's okay…" said Emily, taking the note from Ginny.

Potter & Weasley,

Don't think I couldn't have killed all of you today.  This was just a warning of what is to come.  You will pay for destroying Voldemort, I will see to it personally.

I'm closer than you realise.

DM

"Who's DM?" asked Emily.

"Draco Malfoy, Harry's arch enemy.  His father was a Death Eater," replied Sirius.

"It doesn't say anything about what he did to Harry," said Emily.

"Can I have a look Em?" said Sirius taking the letter from Emily.  "Hang on, there's something else…," he said pulling out a scrap of parchment.  It read 'Finite Incantatem''. "It couldn't be that easy.  Could it?" he asked out loud, looking at Anne.

"Well we won't know if we don't try," she said.  "Finite Incantatem" she said pointing her wand at Harry.

Harry's eyelids fluttered open.  The first thing he saw was Ginny by his side.  He groaned, trying to sit up, but fell back weakly.

"What the hell happened?" asked Harry groggily, reaching for Ginny's hand.