The Ministry Records were organised to the T.

Anna did not find it hard to find the record that she was looking for.

Trembling fingers searched through the cabinet; she slowly pulled out the "GW" section and scanned through it with wide eyes.

There it was, as clear as day. The one "Ginny Weasley".

First daughter and seventh child of Molly and Arthur Weasley. Born 11 August 1981, died 2 May 1998 at Battle of Hogwarts, age 16.

Simple. But not what she needed.

Anna felt water dripping down her face again.

Dammit.

/

Hermione Granger was very good at distracting herself from things that she probably shouldn't.

Her primary method of doing so was her work.

For example, right now it was a Sunday. She had gone to work the day before, but Anna hadn't been there. Nor had she been there on the Friday, or the Thursday.

Hermione felt awake for the first time in days.

She also realised, as she woke up on that particular Sunday morning, that she was incredibly sad.

She missed her boyfriend, and she missed the comfort of Harry's friendship, and she missed Luna's odd yet comforting conversations. She missed Anna, too – Anna and her tea, and her whispered remarks over Ministry sandwiches. She felt as if she had woken up from a long dream, and had come face to face with a huge pile of work that she had neglected. It was quite awful. Her mind was very busy.

After Hermione had cleaned the house three times and made five burnt batches of cookies, she could bare it no longer. She decided to head into work. The fact that it was four o'clock on a Sunday afternoon was clearly irrelevant. Hermione packed her bag anyway, and apparated out the door.

The Ministry was quiet. There were a few workers about, but the usual hustle and bustle was absent from the large halls that Hermione entered into. She made her way to her office, and stood in the empty room, trying hard not to remember when Ron and Harry had come barging in … it was so vivid in her memory, unlike the last few days when she had struggled to remember a thing about the incident.

It was so unlike Harry, so unlike Ron …

There. She was thinking about it again. Hermione shook her head rapidly, and jumped up and down, and turned around in a circle. She laughed, exhilarated with the feeling of being alone in her office. No one was watching her. No one cared what she did, or said, or wrote, or thought.

But they would care if she forgot to file the papers that were sitting on her desk.

She picked them up, cursing her forgetfulness of the day before. She couldn't really remember a thing about that Saturday – or the whole week, actually – but she had obviously forgotten to take those files down to Records.

Hermione scooped them up and straightened her blouse. "Right," she said to herself, inspecting herself in the reflections in her newly-mended window. "Let's be off then."

And off she went, out of her office, down the lift and into the records halls.

The halls were large and spacious. She hurried to the front desk to sign in. "Nice to see you, Miss Granger," said the woman at the desk – a Violet, Hermione understood.

Hermione nodded. "Glad to have the place to myself!"

The woman shook her head. "Another lady just went in – Miss Hendraya, I understand."

"Anna?" said Hermione, so stunned that the lady raised her eyebrows slightly. "I mean – it's fine. Do you know where she went? I'd like to say hi."

"She asked where the death records were, so I'd say down there …"

"Thanks," said Hermione, and rushed off to the dark section of the records. Lines and lines of shelves filled the hall; Hermione glanced down either side as she strode through the room.

At last she spotted a wisp of blonde; stopping in her tracks, she headed down through the gap in the shelves. Anna was leaning over a drawer, a document in her hands.

"Anna?"

The girl looked up in a hurry. Hermione saw with a shock that she was crying; tears were literally falling out of her eyes.

"Anna! Are you okay?" Hermione pulled handkerchief after handkerchief out of her bag, and handed them to Anna, giving her a hug. "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," said Anna, muffled. "I can't stop it. Something's wrong."

"What do you mean? What are you …" Hermione glanced down at the document in Anna's hands. "Why are you looking at that?"

Anna looked down at the document. Ginny Weasley's meagre description only filled a tenth of the page; the rest was blank.

Hermione looked at Anna, and saw that the girls face, although still a river of tears, was going extremely pale. "Are you okay? Anna, what's wrong?"

It was a moment before Anna said anything; clearly struggling to know what to say. "I'm not well, Hermione," she said at last. Tears dripped onto the floor. "Something is wrong. I need to know who this girl was, and why she was important."

Hermione sat with a huff on the floor, and leant her back against the wall of drawers. She patted the spot next to her.

It took a moment, but after a while the sobbing Anna sat down next to her. Their shoulders touched, and Hermione put an arm around her friend.

"Anna," she whispered, "It's all right."

"No it's not," sobbed Anna. Hermione's heart broke, and she rested her head on Anna's shoulder. "I need to know who she is and it won't tell me!"

"It's okay." Hermione looked down at her little brown hands, and gave a big sigh. "I knew her."

"You did?"

"I knew her well," said Hermione. "Very well. Or at least, I thought I did."

"What did she do?"

"I think it's more about who she was then what she did," said Hermione. She smiled a little. "She was Ron's sister, in the year below us. A proud Gryffindor. She was brave, and loyal –" her breath caught.

Anna was looking at her, her eyes wide, urging her to go on.

Tears streamed down her face.

Hermione took a deep breath, and went on.

"She was a good girl," she said. "But life wasn't always easy for her. Although her home was loving, it was small, and cramped, and she couldn't afford everything she needed or wanted. She was the youngest of six brothers, and was always getting into wars with them. Her first year at Hogwarts, she was taken over by Tom Riddle – he got into her head using a Diary, and she couldn't – Oh Anna, are you okay?"

Anna was sobbing; full on heart wrenching sobs. "I can't stop it," she cried. "Keep going."

"Oh-kay," faltered Hermione. She patted a heaving Anna on the back. "It was hard for her, but she got out of her first year with Harry rescuing her in the chamber. She lived a carefree, terrifying yet courageous life at Hogwarts up till her fifth year, when she and Harry started dating. He broke up with her just before the War really ramped up, though. She struggled a lot over that, I think."

"She did," Anna said, through her tears. "She did."

"Um, Anna…"

"Keep going," said Anna fiercely.

Hermione frowned, her heart weeping, but she tried to finish. "She was at Hogwarts all that awful year during the resistance – and then came the Battle of Hogwarts. She died in the battle, a worthy death. She was a wonderful girl, and I loved her."

There was silence. Anna had stopped sobbing; her face was in her arms.

Water flowed under the cabinet. Pain grew.

"No she didn't," said Anna.

"What?"

"She didn't die." Anna rose her face, and Hermione saw with a jolt that there were still tears streaming out of her eyes, although her face was grim and set. "Not at the battle."

"How do you – I mean…"

"What happened?"

Hermione shook her head, and pulled Anna into a hug. "I don't know," she said. "The Weasleys think that she had been Voldemort's right from the beginning, right from the moment he used his diary on her. I don't think that. I think that she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time … but there was some good in her all through school, and there is still some good in her now, wherever she is."

Anna grew limp in Hermione's arms, and she gave her a small kiss on the head, then pulled her closer. She could feel Anna's tears flowing into her arm, but she only held on tighter.

"I don't know what's happening," Anna muttered into Hermione's chest.

"It's okay," said Hermione. And it was.

Anna nodded into Hermione's chest.

Hermione pulled away, and looked Anna in the eye. "I'll keep you safe, okay?"

"Okay."

And the two sat there in silence for a very long time. Too many things were unsaid to say, but it was okay, because Hermione was going to look after Anna.

And that was what mattered, right then, in that moment.

It was after some time that Hermione shifted, and looked over at Anna. She was sitting next to her, her knees drawn up to her chest. Silent tears slipped down her cheeks.

She was fingering a necklace.

"What's that?" whispered Hermione.

Anna slowly took it off and handed it to Hermione.

The pendant … Hermione felt it in trembling fingers. It was cold and smooth as silk, and black – as black as the deepest night sky.

She knew what it was.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, her voice quivering.

"I found it."

"Where?"

"Why?" returned Anna. Hermione realised, with a jolt, that the tears had stopped.

Anna wiped her face with her sleeve.

"You don't understand," said Hermione, turning the stone over in her hands. "This – this is a Hallow."

Anna was silent.

"We went back for it," whispered Hermione, remembering the days after the Battle. Those awful, heart-wrenching days that rolled into each other. "We searched for it for weeks. It became Harry's obsession to find it. He only let go when he realised that Ginny wasn't going to come back." Hermione glanced at Anna. Her face held an expression that Hermione couldn't place…

"It's a Hallow," Anna whispered.

"Yes."

Anna looked at Hermione – and her expression was rigid with determination.

Hermione shivered despite herself.

"I know what we have to do to fix this," she said.

Hermione blinked. "You sure?"

Anna was on her feet now.

"What an idiot! How could I forget!" Anger and determination flashed in her eyes. "We'll have to hurry."

"And do what?"

Anna's eyes were pained and resolved all at once.

"We have to go and find Harry."

. . . . . . . .

Hermione had decided that they were both too exhausted and out of it to apparate, so they were taking the Bus to 12 Grimmauld Place.

The bus was bumping up and down the road; Anna glanced at Hermione. She was holding onto the side of her seat for dear life, her lips tightly set.

Thoughts swirled at the edges of Anna's mind.

Scraps of memories…

Back at the Ministry, she had remembered something.

She had remembered her third memory, her third memory from Before:

A smooth, dark stone. It holds meaning that she does not understand.

A figure, cloaked in black. A promise made, a promise she'll keep.

A deep dark hole; colour swirling in the air.

A great big clearing, in the middle of the forest. Slow chanting in the sky.

A fallen boy.

She kneels beside him. He is dead …

But then he opens his eyes.

And all is well again.

But there was more.

There was more to her memory than just that. She had always known it; it had haunted her dreams, it had scarred her waking moments.

And in the dimly lit Ministry corridors, surrounded by records of people long dead, she had remembered it.

She closed her eyes …

A dark cloak. A cold breath.

A soul that wasn't hers. It was dark and terrifying and very very scared.

She hadn't expected it to be scared.

"I will visit you once more. Return the Hallows where we met in the Forest. I will await you there when you have them."

A deep deep feeling in her chest.

A whispered promise.

A promise that she must keep.

"Return the Hallows or I will take your soul instead."

A promise made Before … she did not know why. She did not know when or where or how.

But she was quite, quite sure that this promise was something that needed to be kept.

That it was at the root of everything that was wrong – her uncontrollable tears, the Dark Lord's cold cruelty, Harry Potter's intense power.

It demanded to be kept –

And she would keep it.