Chapter 8 was posted a few minutes ago, don't skip over it. Chapter 7 was posted hours ago.
Chapter 9
Emily had been attempting for days to influence her horcrux, to no avail. Though it had been a long shot, she had been arduously at the task, as it was probably the only shot she had at springing him out of a fidelius charm. The private time she spent with the magical item did allow her to expand her control of it somewhat. She felt reasonably confident she could converse with Harry easily enough, should he allow his Occlumency training to weaken, despite distance. She hadn't stopped at just a single plan however. She had attempted several things, including an attempted kidnapping of several members of the Order. One could always hope for a hostage trade after all.
The closest attempt she had made was one the third day of her return to Britain. After another failed attempt in manipulating her cup, she began reaching for straws. Though she was loathe to admit it, she had attempting summoning the free elf, Dobby, and to her shock, she succeeded. Though she was repulsed to ask the little toe rag for help, she would take any sort of assistance she could get. She was overjoyed to hear that he was capable of going into the Order's headquarters, but then she violently exploded at the elf when it refused to bring Harry back to her.
"Dobby isn't sure that where you are, is where the great Harry Potter should be."
She'd have killed the elf right there had she been able to get to her wand, but the hideous creature actually summoned the wand to him. A horrible crime as there were countless laws against that, but she doubted she'd be going into the ministry to report it. The crazy elf knew that too.
"You know he wants to be with me. Why go against him? Do you not have any loyalty for one you hold in such high esteem?"
"Loyalty is not what's in question here, miss. Dobby has often done things that Harry Potter has disliked to protect him. Dobby is a free elf."
"I am disgustingly aware of your status as a free elf. Harry has informed me of that more than once."
"Harry Potter sir, speaks of Dobby. Harry Potter is a great wizard to remember an elf like Dobby."
"Nonsense. You've been more of an aid to him than a hindrance. I am ashamed to admit it, but somehow, he actually likes you."
Though she hadn't meant to compliment the elf, though Dobby's reaction had rendered him almost hysterical. But once he calmed down, he did agree to keep an eye on him for her. He returned hours later with the news she had been dreading. They had obliviated him. She could only curse herself for starting the whole mess with memory charms. Apparently the circumstances around it were not the intentions of Dumbledore, but she doubted that. The old man had in some way, shape or form, been behind removing her from her lover's mind. When she pressured the elf again that she needed Harry to be returned to her, the elf simply disappeared with a crack. For a moment she thought he had gone to retrieve him for her, but as the minutes passed, she knew he had decided to leave now that his information had been passed along.
So she had resumed her attempts with the horcrux, though the attempts had been getting her no where. If things kept going like they were she would have to make her play at Hogwarts. Though that would be a nightmare, in and of itself. To make a terrible situation even worse, the elf had told her that Harry was, by and large, ostricized by the members of the Order. This she had expected, after all, the Order was an organization built to oppose her. It was only natural that Harry be treated differently after running off with her. He did have three strong bonds remaining, two of which she did not mind. It was the newest addition to his close friends that she loathed.
Little Ginevra Weasley was trying to make a name for herself. Though the house elf had not gone into depth, Emily didn't need it to know what the ginger harlot was doing. Harry was probably feeling terribly lost and confused right now with months missing from his head, and who better to console him than a readily available lass his own age. A pretty one to boot. Dumbledore has lined his pieces up perfectly, she thought. Smug bastard thinks all the pawns are going to do as he wishes, he'd better just wait and see what her plans were for that girl. When she was through with the youngest Weasley, her parents wouldn't even be able to stomach the sight of what was left.
She had several plans in the works for getting him out of Hogwarts. Most involving some of her followers kidnapping him. She had already tasked Draco Malfoy with the task to secure her and her followers an entrance into the castle. A subtle one anyway, God knows she could simply blow a hole in the wall and walk inside.
Of course, all of those plans were for the future. They may all not even be needed, if she managed to snag him off the train platform today.
Harry and his friends arrived at King's Cross at the closest time imaginable. Normally it was the youngsters who had trouble in the morning, but this time it was the parents and guardians. Harry wasn't stupid, he knew he was a security risk, either him running off again or Voldemort aiming to get him. He knew they were just aiming to get him onto to the express and get the express moving before anything could go awry.
A part of him wondered, 'Why take the train at all? Why the risk?' When he brought this up to Dumbledore directly, the man was open with him.
"We had originally planned to get you to Hogwarts in a more secure manner, however, we are hoping Emily gets a bit too eager to get you and we might be able to get our hands on her."
"So... I'm bait?"
"Precisely, but there will be no need to worry. I'll be hexing your clothing for that day, no spatial travel will be possible. So unless Emily swoops from the sky to pick you up on a broom, there will be no way for her to run off with you."
He wasn't certain how he felt about being bait for a dark lord, but then again it didn't really matter. As long as she wanted him, he would always be a bait for her. She would follow him wherever he went. Might as well help out where he could. He had been verbally drilled repeatedly over a number of different procedures for today and he felt confident that he would not be in any danger. Besides, with the number of aurors present, she'd have to be off of her rocker to try and get him here.
"Oof, excuse me miss, didn't see y-"
He lost the ability to speak quite quickly as the blonde woman he bumped into grabbed him around the middle and, with a quick levitation charm on him, ran pell-mell for the platform entrance. The woman in question was covering ground quickly, her red eyes focus on the brick wall that would surely signal the edge of the wards where she could apparate him away. He began flailing about, but the levitation charm had stolen away his control over his mass and power and he was ignored by her. The blonde wig fell off in her haste and the pitch black locks soaked in much of the surrounding light that it was the only thing he could see. There were mere feet away from her destination when Harry felt Emily falter. Harry, in his sense of panic, hadn't realized they'd both been hit with a stunner until they crashed to the floor and he realized he struggled to move. A second stunner followed, slamming into the woman's back as she tried to struggle towards him. Since the stunner was not spread across two bodies, it work properly and the woman slumped to the ground.
Harry jerked his head towards the direction of the spell and was relieved to see the stern face of Albus Dumbledore approaching. "Tonks, Shacklebolt, detain her. Come along, Mr. Potter we must get you to safety. She may have her followers stationed nearby."
Dumbledore helped him up swiftly, suprising Harry with his strength and started to help him towards the platform gate. "Just a bit further, Mr. Potter. Once we are back in the Muggle side of King's Cross, I can apparate us to headquarters. Then we are just a floo away from Hog-"
Harry wrenched himself free of the elderly man, breathing heavily. "Professor Dumbledore has never called me Mr. Potter to my face... Emily."
Harry knew he had hit the nail on the head when his professor's normally kind face twisted into a sneer/ "Damnit all, Harry. Why do you pick the worst time to be so bloody observant?" With that the faux headmaster bolted towards the exit. Harry's head hadn't even settled from the jostling before he felt a cool pair of hands touch his shoulders. He turned to see Ginny Weasley standing behind him, with her family and various Order members closing in fast.
"Are you alright, Harry?"
His answer was interrupted by Emily's spell. "Accio Harry." He once again found himself pulled through the area towards the facsimile of his headmaster as Emily made her way through the barrier and he fumbled through air towards her. It seemed that instead of dragging him along with her physically she was going to use magic. This time, however, he had a tag along. Ginny had managed to leap towards his flying body, grabbing hold of his shoe with a vice like grip. Good lord, he had to convince her to try out for Quidditch if she was that fast. They both tumbled out of the brick wall together and Harry was immediately pulled to his feet, only to see a silent blasting curse send Ginny slamming into the stone wall. The smack turned his stomach, and the blood that remained on the wall when her body limply fell to the ground ignited a rage inside of him.
Pulling back his arm as far as he could, he laid his fist into Emily/Dumbledore's crooked nose with every ounce of force he could muster. He was so livid he couldn't even feel satisfaction from the sound of the bone snapping and the blood rushing from the old face.
"Thats the third time you've punched me in the face, love." She said wrapping a hand around his arm. "We are leaving." And with a sharp crack, Harry was alone. He immediately ran towards Ginny, rushing past the Weasley family who had been so absorbed in watching him slug what appeared to be the headmaster that they hadn't noticed their youngest member's injuries.
Already there were a handful of muggle bystanders near the young girl. One had even started checking her vitals when Harry slid down next to her on his knees. Paying no heed to the non-magical audience, Harry pulled out his wand and started healing her with the first spell on his mind.
"Parfractum." He turned green as he heard the bones snapping into place and he started gently rolled her body over. He vanished her top, and her modesty was thankfully preserved by her camisole, though Harry cared less for that than the large amount she was bleeding. He started mending the tears in her skin where she had made contact with the wall knowing that the magic would also stop the bleeding. He could only hope the injuries to her skull would be just as simply taken care of. The muggles looked on in amazement as he struggled trying to remember every healing spell he'd ever been taught, which was so very difficult as he couldn't remember learning them in the first place. Thankfully the knowledge was there and he was fairly certain, less than a minute later, that Ginny Weasley wasn't going to die today.
He had been so focused on helping her he didn't realize that Ron, Molly and the twins were standing behind him. Arthur Weasley was with several other ministry officials and aurors, running damage control, odds are he didn't even know his daughter had been caught up in the whole mess. The Weasley matriarch looked at him, openly shedding tears.
"Oh thank heavens you were here, Harry. The most I've ever done healing wise are scrapes and cuts and a bottle of Skelo-Gro." She was blubbering almost incoherently. "I'd have been lost right now, no clue of what to do."
Harry didn't bother mentioning that it was his fault Ginny had been hurt in the first place. Had he put his foot down on the whole 'bait' idea, this could've been avoided. Had Dumbledore told everyone about his jinx, maybe Ginny wouldn't have been so reckless when trying to save him. So many what ifs, he thought. She's fine, everything is fine.
When Emily found herself alone in the dungeons of Malfoy manor she blew a hole through the ceiling. Which, of course, naturally tore through to the ground floor. After a solid minute of vehement screaming and cursing she calmed down enough to think. Clearly he had been jinxed so she couldn't take him anywhere. Her plan had been so flawless, so perfect, only to have been thwarted by Harry himself. Damn it all, she thought, with a smile that held little warmth, he's regressed backwards to ruining all my plans. With a quick flick of her wand, she healed her nose and vanished the blood.
It was at this moment that two of her followers arrived in the dungeons to see what had happened. Upon seeing the pacing Albus Dumbeldore, one of them let out an unmanly shriek and fled while the other drew his wand. The scream caught Emily's attention and she had the second man under the Cruciatus curse before he could start speaking an incantation. Once the man had been reduced to a twitching mess on the cold stone floor, Emily stepped over him and made her way to the rooms Lucius had set aside for her. She saw two more of her followers on the way, both convicted escapees from Azkaban, and they too, panicked and ran away from her. It was only as she was entering her quarters that she felt her body going through the change signaling that the precious batch of polyjuice had worn off.
It was sad that it was the only batch she had. The few drops of Dumbledore's blood she had acquired from their duel in the mountains were barely enough for the potion to work. A shame that the potion could function off of a single strand of hair, but a drop of blood wouldn't suffice. She supposed it had to do with the fact that the key ingredient of the potion was cells that held DNA. Blood had millions of cells, but only 1 in 1000 of those cells had DNA. Hair was primarily made from protein and skin cells, and all skin cells had DNA in them.
It had been a simple plan. Imperius a random witch, change her appearance into her own. Then have her grab the boy and run. All eyes would be on the faux Emily, and the real Emily, disguised as Dumbledore, could save the day and lead the boy to safety. After all, no one questions Albus Dumbledore. Of course her idea of safety was not Hogwarts, but Malfoy manor where she could tie him down and restore his memories of her. And then ravish him for hours. Her body was being wracked with pain, after having been so close to him for too brief a time period. She felt like a heroine addict suffering from withdrawal being teased with the drug that would make the pain stop.
"Has is really only been two weeks since I held you last?" she whispered to herself. "It feels like an eternity ago that every night I would take you in my arms." The pain and sudden disappointment hit her all at once and she had to grit and bare her teeth in an angry snarl to fight back the threatening tears. Anger was best for her. Anger was familiar. No matter, she'd just start again. Time was only the enemy of mortals after all, and she was immune to death. She had all the time in the world.
Harry Potter could barely even remember returning to Grimauld Place with the rest of the Weasley family. They then took the floo to Hogwarts where Ginny was carefully taken to the hospital wing. Professor Flitwick, whom they met in the great hall awarded Harry fifty points to Gryffindor thanks to the charm work he used that saved her life. Professor Sinistra, who he had been talking to, had to remind him that he could not award points until later this evening, once the rest of the students arrived.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were asked by the staff to occupy themselves in the castle for the remaining hours until the express arrived. Normally in this case, either Ron or Hermione would dominate the conversation, but today they were silent. Ron slapped Harry lightly on the back.
"Thanks, for saving my sister."
"Don't. Who knows, if she hadn't forced Voldemort to make a scene like that, she may have thought she had time enough to come back for me? Ginny... she really did Gryffindor proud there, you know?"
"Course she did. Ginny's as feisty as it gets. She's got a bit of the best of all her brothers in her, you know. Everyone came back from Hogwarts and shared secrets with her they didn't tell anyone else. Heck, I told her everything that happened first year with the stone."
Ron was silent for a brief moment, "I dunno though, Harry. She was sweet on you before all this mess and now that you literally pieced her back together, it might only get worse." He smiled at Harry, enjoying the thoughts running through his head. "She'll probably get together with the Creevey brothers and start up a Harry Potter fan club."
"Oh lay off, Ronald." Cue Hermione, she only ever used Ron's full name when she was chastising him. Harry preferred the word, discipline, but Ron hated that. "Your only younger sibling was terribly hurt helping your best friend and you make light of the situation."
"Not much else to do. She'll be fine now, Harry saw to that. And one day, I'll pull a Harry and slug his girl friend right in the schnoz."
The conversation had turned into uncomfortable waters and Harry immediately responded.
"Emily isn't my girlfriend. Well, not now. Er, I mean, she won't be my girlfriend in the future either." It was an awkward statement and from the way his two friends looked at him after he said it, they knew it too.
"I know your not very pleased about the idea right now with your memories gone, Harry, but if you ever get them back, I think you'll want to go back to her." Hermione said this gently, even going so far to place a hand on his shoulder to stop him from walking. "But until then, we'll try not to bring her up in conversation."
"Now hold on a tic." Ron overrode Hermione, and Harry and she turned to look at him. "Not like we've got anyone breathing down our necks here. I'd say we got a good six hours til the train gets here. Why not head to the kitchen, grab some food, and talk about everything first?"
"What do you mean by everything?" Harry had to ask.
"What you remember, what we know. Lets throw it all out in the open and see if we can figure any more details out." Ron said all this like it was nothing, despite the fact that the conversation was revolving around the fact that Harry was 'boffing' a seventy year old woman.
"Fine." Despite Harry not wanting to think about the relationship aspect, he did want to find the truth. And he was more than willing to do so if it did not involve allowing a dark lord to mess with his head.
Minutes later the three of them were being fawn over by a group of house elves. Hermione did not seem pleased about the arrangement, and refused to be served a drink or food. Harry and Ron on the other hand, had no such reservations and loaded up on pumpkin juice and sandwiches.
"I'll start things off, and you two can add in any details as I go along. If you can manage to speak with all that food near your mouths." Hermione made her disdain for house elf labor known. "Early last school year, it was pretty evident that something was different about you, Harry. You were taking 'remedial' lessons in defense class, the only class you outshine me in, and aside from that you simply weren't around the two of us like the previous years. I bugged Ron several times to question you about it with me, but he said, and I quote, 'Leave the bloke alone Hermione, give him some space if he wants it.'"
She took a pause to sip Harry's pumpkin juice, foregoing her stance on house elf servitude for the moment. "Then you started excelling fast. In all of your classes. In your practical classes anyway. You just started taking off. You came to me about making an inter house study group, and started making friends outside Gryffindor. Went around to all sorts of different clubs. Thats' when Ron finally wanted to talk to you, we both thought you might be growing apart from us. But no matter how much time you did spend around the other students, you always did make time to spend with only us two."
Harry nodded his head. All of those memories were definitely in his head. "I wanted to start making connections throughout Hogwarts. I wanted to start making inroads with other people who might be influential in the future."
"Blimey, mate, thats a bit too Slytherin of you. Betcha V-, er, Emily put him up to that."
Hermione answered the statement, "We can't be sure of that. While Dumbledore has kept us mostly in the dark, he was firm on the fact that you wanted to stop Emily from doing bad things. Its possible Harry was trying to make alliances with others in the future should Emily go... too far."
Harry was both annoyed and happy that Hermione refered to him in the third person here. Annoyed because he was right there, and happy because though he remembered doing these things, he couldn't recall the why. It still felt foreign to him.
"Maybe," Ron said, "But Emily would benefit more. With her connection to the pureblood bigots, and Harry's connection to, well, everyone, that's a lot of sway with most of us. Control the masses through Harry, and she could control the government through the purebloods. Easy world domination."
Harry realized that this three way conversation had devolved to a two way debate. While Hermione may have incredible amounts of intelligence and logic, Ron was, at his core, a strategist. A planner and an executor. While he may have been a slacker when it involved school work, no one would ever call Ron thick. Well, he did struggle understanding people, sometimes, especially women. He held his own in the argument.
"True, but if thats the case, then we may as well chalk up Harry being a turncoat. If he would help Emily to that extent, then I doubt he's trying to keep her morals straight. What do you think, Harry?"
The metaphorical ball had been passed to him too fast. He wasn't ready. "I, er, well I obviously don't think I'd just bend to her will like that. I reckon that if I were doing one or the other, I'd probably do what Hermione is thinking."
Ron looked thoughtful for a minute. "What if she made you a deal or something. Bought you off. Something you really wanted. Do you think you would bend?"
"Not much she could offer me, though, really. Nothing that could... Sirius." Harry suddenly had a moment of clarity. "Sirius was freed because of some unknown evidence right?" At their tentative nods, he continued. "Well if anyone could procure evidence of his innocence it would've been Emily. Seeing as the man he 'murdered' was alive and with her often."
"Obviously she couldn't just go to the ministry and testify, but if there was anything that she could give me that might make me turn to her like that, it would be Sirius."
"Yeah, to be fair, I can't really see you getting too chummy with her if Peter was still in the picture, but then again, I can't really wrap my head around the whole dating Voldemort thing in general." Ron voiced his opinion and Harry couldn't help silently agree. Though he hated the term dating. From what Dumbledore had told him days before, their relationship had been mostly consensual, but no one likes hearing the term 'mostly consensual'. It meant that a part of their relationship did exist that he was not agreeing to.
"So, she somehow hands Peter over to the ministry-" Hermione was once again cut off by Ron.
"Nah, she definitely killed him and handed over the corpse. If they found him alive they'd have put it in the paper."
"Not if they wanted to keep it quiet. Especially since Peter would tell each and every one of Voldemort's secrets to keep himself out of Azkaban."
Harry, however, sided with Ron. "No, Emily would have made certain Peter couldn't say anything. If she did hand him over, it was just the corpse, like Ron said."
"Hmph, fine. After murdering Pettigrew and securing Sirius' freedom, the two of you move forward in your relationship. And Harry potentially joins her side."
The three of them fell silent. This was a lot to ponder. What made it worse was that the pieces all fit together. Harry remember when Emily had first made him an offer to join her, almost five years previously.
'Better to join me now and save yourself by giving me the Stone, Potter. Otherwise you'll die like your parents did.'
He had resisted her then, at the age of eleven. Even in the face of certain death, he had fought her. "Even if I did tell her I would join her, I would still fight. It can't have ended that way."
Ron's head cocked to the side, and while making a peculiar face, he said, "Maybe we're not looking at this the right way. Maybe instead of Harry joining Voldemort, Voldemort joined Harry."
Hermione let out a scoff, "Join him in what? Winning the house cup? Be serious Ron."
"No, no, no, just... just think about it. She loves him, that's something we all know, right. She somehow finds out where the Dursleys are, and tries to get in, but fails. Then we know she lures him out, and Dumbledore interferes. And she turns tail and runs. Then she goes ahead and puts herself right under the one person she fear's nose. All to be with Harry. What if Harry somehow made an agenda of his own last year, and Voldemort joined him."
"So your saying that I'm... what? A Dark Lord now?"
"Not really. Just cuz you have plans doesn't mean they're dark."
Harry was torn. All these ideas they had come up with were nothing more than hypothetical. Nothing concrete, nothing to put his mind at ease.
"So freeing Sirius..." Hermione prompts.
"Just her trying to get into Harry's good graces. She killed his parents, obviously she had a lot of work ahead of her to make up for that. Harry already said that was the one thing he'd do practically anything for, maybe it was the price for his forgiveness."
Harry had had enough. "Okay, lets stop. We've got no real information. We are just tossing around ideas. Wasting time."
"Kinda the point, mate. Rest of the school is still a couple hours off."
"Ron, he means he's tired of the conversation."
"Well I'm not. We need to figure this out. We need to know if Harry really wants to go back to her. We nee-"
"STOP!" Harry slammed his hands into the table. He had reached the breaking point. "Just stop. I'm never going back to that psychopath. Even if my memories return. Stop talking about what I might want, when I'm right here and can tell you myself."
Ron clamped his mouth shut, and just nodded. Hermione, after looking unsure for a few seconds, placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "We didn't mean to upset you, Harry. We're sorry. Please understand that though the thought seems ludicrous to you, we've seen you there, spoken to you about your relationship with her. We've seen the love you had for her. We're trying to be supportive, but its just hard I suppose. Forcing ourselves to accept that you loved a Dark Lord and now we sit here trying to convince you of it too."
Harry just listened. "She's going to do everything in her power to get to you, but don't worry. We'll make sure it never happens." Hermione's words did little to raise his spirits. In truth, it was just another reminder that Emily would chase him forever. If he could not escape her, what was he going to do? It all just felt so hopeless.
Conversation turned to lighter things, Hermione asking him about his summer homework. Ron had apparently completed his well enough with Hermione's presence at headquarters, but Harry told her he highly doubted the first thing on Emily's checklist was his school assignments. Their topics remained light as the hours whittled down until the rest of the students arrived, upon which the three made their way to the Great Hall.
They were some of the last to enter, with many people throwing Harry curious looks as they made their way to the Gryffindor table. Harry ignored them. He'd had lots of practice. Professor McGonagall entered shortly after leading the years group of first years. The Sorting Hat's song that year was some trifle that Harry couldn't make heads or tails of and soon all of the new students were placed in their houses.
"Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another year here at Hogwarts." Albus Dumbledore had risen from his seat and addressed them kindly. "There are a handful of announcements I need to make to all of you. First, is the introduction of our new defense against the dark arts professor. Would you all please extend a warm welcome to Professor Diggle."
An excitable wizard with a rather beaming smile nodded to all of them as the headmaster spoke, his bright purple top hat nearly flying off onto the table. Harry immediately recognized the man, from his childhood and his first visit to the Leaky Cauldron, as well as the occasional order meeting.
"Dumbledore's really scraping the bottom of the barrel if he's resorting to hiring Order members." Ron whispered lowly into Harry's ear. Harry wasn't surprised, however. Not considering that the last two professor's they had were an Azkaban escapee and a dark lord. It was only logical that the headmaster would look closer to home.
"Mr. Diggle is quite the accomplished wizard and I suspect you will find his classes... entertaining. Now please remember everyone that the Forbidden Forest..." Harry Potter recognized the beginning of the same part of Dumbledore's repeated speech and tuned the elderly man out, gently placing his head on the table. It was in this brief moment of unguarded weariness that his head was filled with words and an acute painful panging.
'Harry. Harry please, listen to me. You must come back to me. I know I've screwed some things up, but please, we can overcome them.'
'Emily? Get out of my head. You're hurting me.'
'I know baby, I'm sorry. But I had to speak to you. I'm sorry I couldn't get you today. I tried, but-'
'I didn't want to go with you.'
'You're only saying that because you can't remember us. What we were. I can fix that, if you let me. I can fix everything.'
'No, just do us both a favor and leave me alone.' The panging in his head had grown to a belligerent pulsing sensation, but he kept his eyes closed, determined to finish the conversation.
'We both know that I can't. I need you. You've done so well, blocking me out completely. I was starting to think I would have to force my way through your scar to speak with you.'
'Stay out of my head. I don't want to have-' Suddenly Harry was being shaken violently and the tenuous connection for their conversation broke. The pain was already receding quickly, though his body still shook with slight tremors. His eyes locked on to the face in front of him, meeting the brown gaze.
"Nice of you to join us. Are you alright?" Ginny Weasley had shoved her brother over and placed herself beside Harry. Throwing her arm around him in a way that could only be consider chummy, she whispered in his ear, "I noticed she had a hold on you. Everything okay?"
"Fine, but how could you tell?"
"Couldn't really. You're eyes were closed for a couple seconds and you started fidgeting a bit. Figured it was her since Ron says you only do that when your scar hurts."
"Yeah, well, surprise of all surprises, apparently we can talk through it." Harry kept his voice low to keep the conversation as private as possible. Easy enough to do as on either side of him were his two best friends.
"Wow, that's... weird. She say anything worthwhile?"
"Not a damn thing actually. Just wanted me to go back to her. Which seems is something half of everyone expects me to be jumping to do first."
"Emily's a tosser. I figure if you're right where you want to be, then you should stay here."
Harry smiled at her. It was about time someone came along whom he didn't have to convince that he was fine where he was. Ginny just understood him like that though. It was intuitive and he was grateful.
"Thanks, Ginny." Their privacy vanished when Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking and the tables were magically filled with food. The two remained side by side for the meal and Harry was once again struck by how well he thought of Ron's sister. She was pretty and loved Quidditch. It was at that thought that he violently remembered someone's seething voice spitting at him.
'Hah, so that's all it takes for the great Harry Potter. A pretty face who enjoys having a thick piece of wood between her legs.'
The words turned his stomach, but made him realize something. He literally knew absolutely nothing about the young woman next to him. Sure he knew the basics, her name, her family, et cetera. But anything of actual substance, anything that made Ginny who she was, was all missing information, excluding what he knew of her first year at Hogwarts.
Harry finished his meal in quiet contemplation of his newest close friend, and was suddenly seized by the desire to know more about Ginny Weasley. Before he had even opened his mouth, the head master once again rose from his chair.
"We are about to once again enter another year. I do hope you will all enjoy yourselves as much as you are able and do your best to remain out of trouble." Usually a pointed look would be leveled at Fred and George Weasley, but as they had graduated the year before, Dumbledore's face remained passive as he finished telling them all to head to their common rooms.
As Harry Potter rested his head against his pillow, his final thoughts were not on the dark lord who hunted him. Nor were they on school or his assignments. Instead his last thoughts were on how pretty he thought Ginny Weasley was.
