Ginny went early to her room. She told her family she was tired but, in fact, she could not endure the worried looks they were sending her way. They wanted to tell her something, but not with Voldemort sitting beside her. He was absently looking to the living room, with a frown that barely contained the growing bad mood boiling under the young and human face they were still trying to process.

When she left, he followed her, raising mechanically and walking behind her without even looking at them. Completely ignoring them, as if they were not even there.

There was a mix of disconcert with relief. They did not have much to talk with Lord Voldemort.

He entered the guest room where he had stayed some weeks ago, closing the door behind him with a loud and annoyed bang.

She did not argue that, she was determined to enjoy some hours of sleep by herself until one of them broke and, half asleep went to look for the other. Resigned, she hoped it was him. The mattress on her bed was better then the one on that other room and she was still tired from their wandering in the mountains.

Ginny never heard him enter her room or felt him crawl in bed with her. However, she was not able to ignore the grumpy voice against her hair in the morning. "Why are you here?" She crocked an eye open, assessing her surroundings. "You are in my bedroom," she rolled to the other side, away from his arms and pulling the covers up. "We do this now, remember? If you are not going to sleep more, go away."

Voldemort sat up, looking around her room, confirming that the space, was definitely not the one where he had fallen asleep the night before. He sighed, annoyed.

"I am not joking, go away if you are going to be a nuisance."

"I do not like the way you are speaking to me." Voldemort stated.

Ginny looked over her shoulder, a single eye peering over the covers, "What are you going to do about it?" He did not replay. "Jerk."

A muscle twitched under his right eye and he looked away, counting to ten. Cursing the liberties some other version of himself and given her.

"Pack your things," he told her, putting his feet on the ground and running his fingers through his hair, "We are going to Hogwarts." He told her, putting what was happening to the side for the time being. Night would come again, he could ask her then.

It was all a question of priorities, choosing what was important in between the craziness. He was nurturing quite a long list of questions and he hadn't be back to his full self for even two full days.

Ginny frowned, turning and raising on her elbow. "For what?"

"There are some books in the library I need to see."

"Really?"

Voldemort did not reply. He stood up and walked to the door, putting his shirt back inside his trousers, and when he opened the door Mrs Weasley was there, flustered, looking at him shock.

He had felt her presence before she even started walking down the stairs from the upper floor, thinking about one of her sons, but the timing had been perfect.

"Oh..." Molly let go, expecting her daughter on the door, not him. Not expecting to see him anywhere near the four walls of that bedroom.

"We are going to Hogwarts, Molly." Voldemort stepped around the witch to the hallway. "Help her pack." He ordered before disappearing into his own room.

He sat down on the armchair, tying his boots to the sound of loud voices coming through the wall his room shared with hers.

When did he became so powerful that he forgot how he enjoyed creating these small joys?

He did not let them fight long, he was in a hurry. The sooner he got to Hogwarts the better. He was starting to put together a list of books he wanted to review. There were some titles he was not recalling, but he knew Madam Pince was still around, and she had never failed to help him find the information he was looking for when he was a student.

Even when the information was not exactly something he should be asking her about.

Hopefully, not him or his followers, had never killed anyone she was found off.

They arrived soon after he, fully ready, leaned against her door jamb and glared at both woman. Molly left, avoiding to touch him as she walked out and he smirked at Ginny.

"I wish you had not come back." She told him, closing her suitcase with both their things inside, but he just stared at her.

Her face was red, she looked flustered, she had argued with her mother.

Voldemort did not care about how she felt, so he did not reply.

They arrived at Hogwarts unannounced, making the school fall into a small chaos as Voldemort lead the way to the table in the end of the Great Hall, where Professor Severus Snape stood up to look at him confused.

Voldemort gave him a look of warning when his eyes fell on Ginny, that he was almost dragging by an arm behind him.

Snape, conjuring an extra chair, freed the Director seat to his Master and waited for Ginny to sit down to finally take his place. Fortunately, still to the right. He was always on edge around that wizard, always fearful that he would find out how he felt in regards of the outcome of the war.

He was unpredictable, as he was showing at that very moment.

Lucius was holding the Ministry together, rather well by everyone's he had spoken with on Narcisa's birthday party at their Manor. With their Master gone after Azkaban's being broken in.

None the less, the talks had started to flow by the corridors of the Ministry, spreading to the streets.

Lord Voldemort had disappeared for two weeks after putting a stop to the tumult that Hermione Granger's rescue had caused. He was bleeding and instead of seeking help from his followers in prison, he went to the Leaky Cauldron.

Most people were having trouble believing what the witnesses had said they saw. Voldemort dragging Ginevra Weasley from the stairs that lead to the bedrooms on the upper-floors.

Malfoy had also shared, between a stressed sighed and a glass of firewishky, how he had found Voldemort unconscious in his office. The trouble of trying to move Voldemort unnoticed to St. Mungo's and it not working, tracing down their Master's steps that morning to the Department of Mysteries. Tiberius pleading for them to find Ginevra and take her to him.

But those two weeks…

Snape did not know all the details. He was trusted enough to manage Hogwarts, mostly for his experience there then anything else, but he was no longer part of the main circle of Death Eaters.

His luck was to be friends with Lucius, otherwise, he would be very confused for seeing Voldemort entering the main hall of his school with his old student behind him. Now, he was just worried for her.

If Voldemort choose to be there, at that time of the day, like that, showing all the students – that would, doubtless, write to their parents about what they saw – that he had something going on with Ginny, then he was loosing his control over the situation.

He was showing weakness and it would only contrast with what Lucius was doing as he sat on the Ministry, managing things while Voldemort run around with a woman, ignoring his followers, his work and his future in power.

The students rose in the end of the meal, swearing their oat to Voldemort, this time with him present, and started to leave for classes, mumbling with each other, looking over their shoulders at Voldemort, that they did not recognize and at Ginny, who they knew very well. The other professors did not wait around, they had classes to give, this was something for Snape to deal with.

"See to the accommodations, Weasley." Voldemort told Ginny as he rose from the table, ignoring Snape, and walked away.

Snape raised his eyebrowns at Ginny and helped her to stand, then he took her to a side door that lead to a small room and closed the door behind him.

"Mis-" He was not able to say her name because she had put her arms around him and started to cry.

"You have to help me, Professor," she said between sobs, "I can't handle this much longer."

Awkwardly, he put one arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him.

It was not Voldemort the only one losing control.

"Miss Weasley, let me take you to your quarters first." Snape said. They crossed the castle in quiet steps, up the stairs that came around to help the master of the school go where he needed to go.

The room he picked was the last one down the corridor, next to a window with a view to the lake.

There were no paintings in the room, Snape hoped this could give them some privacy.

They sat in front of the fireplace, the small house-elfs working around the room and getting it ready. Once they left, Snape finally asked her what was going on.

She told him everything she could, told him what had happened to Voldemort in the past couple of weeks and where they had been. Ginny showed him her bracelet, asked if he knew anything about, if he new of a potion that could withhold the curse.

Snape could not do much but listen and offer her comfort.

He, honestly, knew nothing that could help her, but he now knew something that could help the world.

He knew what Voldemort's weakness was.

Snape left the room soon after, leaving Ginny to her thoughts.

Voldemort came to her at lunch time, right when her head was starting to hurt from them being apart for so many hours. He puller her to his arms, a hand finding its way under the hem of her shirt, his fingers touching the bare skin on the small of her back.

They had lunch and he went away again, to his library and his books. They did not spoke, when he found something he would let her know. He was only there because he had to.

He went to see her in the middle of the afternoon and before dinner, first to calm the curse down and then to tell her would be joining Snape for dinner. Maybe he could use is help in his research.

She did not wait for him, no reason for doing it.

Ginny knew he would be by her side the next morning.

A couple more days went the same way, there was when he stretched the afternoon, only getting to their quarters after dinner time. She was outside in the balcony, hoping the fresh air would calm her nerves down. Watching through the opening of the curtains to inside the room, she could see him arrive, undressing from his robes and letting them fall to the floor, looking around the room, his cheeks with a smudge of red on them as he tried to spot her.

She grabbed on to the stone under her fingers when his razor blue eyes fell on her. He walked to her, folding the sleeves of his shirt up his arms and sighed in relief from finally seeing her.

He put his arms around her, pulling her close to him. Ginny put his arms around his shoulders, her hand running through his hair.

"That was a bit to much time," she told him, trying to hold his face to look at him, but he did not move from the curve of her neck and she let him stay, just for a moment, just until she felt his lips press against her skin and made her quiver against him. "Don't do that, Tom." She asked, lifting her shoulder to make him move away.

He looked down at her, his lips a thin line.

"What?" She asked, "are you feeling well?"

"I can't find anything." He told her, looking away to the landscape behind her, light by the moonlight and stars.

"You said you knew how to stop this," he walked inside, shaking his head to her words.

"I got rid of those memories long ago."

"What do you mean?"

"I guess I thought knowing about these bracelets was useless." He stopped at the foot of the bed, turning to her with a frown. "I remember most of the things I have lived, sometimes I have to get rid of some."

She stared at him in silence.

"There must have been something else attached to that memory I did not which to remember." He told her. "Tomorrow I am going to Slytherin's library in his Chamber," he pulled her to him again and turned to push her down against the mattress in such a smooth movement she did not react. "Maybe the information we need is there."

He had a knee between her legs and he lowered his weight on her, his hand holding her leg under her skirt, pulling on her tights as he rested his head on her shoulder, his face buried in her neck again.

She holds her breath, her fingers relaxing their grip on his sleeve and the tension lifted from her muscles, just a little, when he did not move more.

"I will come see you more times tomorrow," Voldemort said, breathing heavily, inhaling her scent and feeling himself slipping away to sleep, feeling his redden eyes from reading all day, relax under the shadows of her hair.