The first important thing Harry did when he came back to Hogwarts, was to take a shower. He unpacked his things, enjoyed the emptiness of the common room, and made sure that all his assignments were ready, clear, and that the ink hadn't been smudged. Dumbledore invited him to his office, greeted him, checked his progress, and then asked him all kinds of questions.
When they had finished, Harry went to Snape's quarters, knocked on the door, then banged at the door, and eventually left.
He met his friends a day after, and told them some awkward lies about his summer holidays. He listened to their family adventures and ate with them at the Great Hall. They endured Dumbledore's regular speech together, clapped their hands at the announcement of the new Potions professor named Horace Slughorn, commented on Snape's satisfied expression as he eventually became the Dark Arts Professor, and watched as the Sorting Hat decided for the destiny of excited small children who couldn't wait to be sorted.
It was when both of his friends were busy eating a delicious chocolate cake that Harry took a better look of Snape, who was eating something similar next to Dumbledore on the large wooden table. Harry suddenly remembered who Snape was, and what he, along with all his friends and classmates, used to think about him. Hermione dragged him and Ron to the Tower early, and they stayed awake until morning, small chatting and giggling over nothing in particular.
The second important thing Harry did, when he woke up in the middle of his third night back, drenched in sweat and panting his strange terror away, was to open up his trunk and take out the silk dark scarf from the bottom of it. He felt regret, regret for everything he had thought about over the summer, everything he had dared talk about, and more than anything, he felt stupid for believing that he felt the unspeakable things he had thought that he felt.
Unable to take it back, unable to make Snape forget Harry's humiliation over what he had done, he decided to do the only thing he could do to make this up to himself. So he wore his Invisible Cloak and walked to the Fat Lady's portrait, determined to throw the scarf away or even burn it. He met Ginny just behind the portrait. He stared at her stupidly, and she smiled at him softly, and Harry was well aware of her feelings towards him and even more aware of that terror growing stronger and stronger inside him with every day that passed.
So the third important thing Harry did, was to kiss Ginny. She was trembling and willing to lean into the kiss as though she was expecting it her whole life, and she kissed back with a passion that Harry didn't have. She told him that she felt surprised about it, afterwards, and Harry felt terrible, but instead he told her that she shouldn't be surprised, because she was a beautiful, wonderful girl. It made it easier that on that he didn't have to lie.
A week later, the whole school knew that they were dating. Behind a dark corner of the South Tower, where no one could see them, she rubbed her body against him, and thankfully, as she was rubbing, Harry had managed a moan and had hugged her tighter.
He tried to not think of how much he hated it, and how much he was beginning to blame her too inside his mind for hating it.
Ginny began to sit next to him during lunch after that night. As they couldn't keep it a secret forever, as Ginny had put it, she had told Ron herself the day right after their first kiss. Ginny was pulling happily on Harry's sleeve as she was hugging his arm, and she announced that they were now in a relationship, and although Harry hadn't noticed how matters turned to something serious, he had nodded dully in agreement.
Ron wasn't happy about it, but then he had a talk with Hermione, and then he was.
With the weight of guilt haunting his chest, he forbade his mind to think of how he had dragged himself into this and he kept going.
Harry's grades were as stable as they'd always been, and he was almost glad that he was back to his friends and classmates. Back in the safety that Hogwarts offered, along with the familiar sense of being home, being happy and being okay. Almost glad that he was back to his life.
Back to the empty coldness that wouldn't leave him alone and back to the tensed atmosphere he had to keep up at all times to avoid the disaster he had bound himself to create. He found that giggling and laughing for the best part of the day wasn't what he wanted; he also found that worrying sick about Voldemort wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest part of the day either.
Hogwarts didn't feel home anymore. The rooms were too big and chaotic, and no matter how many people where in them they always felt cold, unbearably cold and echoing.
Lying was new for him. He had never lied to his friends before, and he had never imagined that he would do it to save his own arse. Until now he was sure that he was not that kind of person. When he looked in the mirror, he didn't see a bad friend, a traitor, he didn't see a bad person at all, but nonetheless he knew he was, because he had never taken advantage of a friend for his own benefit as long as he lived and now he was doing just that.
And whenever Ginny was stroking his arm and kissing his cheek he would bite down heaves of shame and nausea and something else, aching, unidentified.