Ethan Frome

It was early in the morning and he was the first one awake, but Harry stretched easily as he sat up in his nearly too small bed in the seventh year Gryffindor's boy's dorm. He couldn't help but smile as he gazed out the window upon the dawning of a new day that promised great beauty in its fiery birth, despite the overhanging threat of Voldermort. He slipped out of his bed, slid his feet into his soft flannel slippers and padded softly over to the high-arched stone window that looked out of the top of the Gryffindor tower overlooking the pond where the great squid lived.

He breathed deeply of the sharp, fresh air of the morning as he leaned against the window sill. His ever wild hair sprouted about more wildly than ever due to his skipping the application of a brush to his untamed locks. His emerald eyes squinted slightly as he gazed out of the glass pane as he had left his glasses on the nightstand.

Turning away from the window, he padded over to his trunk and pulled out a new set of robes to wear for the day. Getting dressed, he snatched his glasses off the nightstand and his Firebolt out from under his bed. Pausing just long enough to tug his shoes on over his orange socks, he dashed out the door and down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room.

In the brilliantly gold and scarlet room he spotted a red-headed waif reading in a scarlet leather armchair over by the dimly burning fireplace. Another early riser in the form of the sixth year sister of his best friend Ron Weasley. With a mischievous grin, he darted over to her and laid a strong hand on her thin arm. When she looked up, he smiled and jerked his head towards the portrait hole.

"Come on, Gin! Let's go!" He whispered, his emerald eyes dancing with roguishness behind his black framed glasses.

"Go? Go where?" her reply was startled, but she stood and headed out with him anyways. After all, she was Ginny Weasley and she had only had the biggest crush on the messy headed rouge that was tugging her out of the portrait hole since she had first laid eyes upon him. Unlike most school-girl crushes though, this one hadn't faded away with time. It had grown stronger.

Something's at the edge of your mind

You don't know what it is

Something you were hoping to find

And you're not sure what it is

Then you hear the music

And it all comes crystal clear

The music does the talking

Says the things you want to hear

'I'm young

I'm wild

And I'm free

Got the magic power of the music in me'

'I'm young

I'm wild

And I'm free

Got the magic power of the music in me'

She followed him down twisting corridors and through doors until finally they emerged outside of the great Hogwarts Castle. Almost as soon as his feet hit the grass, he grabbed her other hand and spun her about with a wild burst of laughter. Then almost as quickly, he released her hands in order to spin about on his own with his precious Firebolt in his hands over his head. Slowly, he came to a stop and looked out over the slight slope of the land as it ran down to the lake.

"I don't know where, Gin." He said, his deep voice sending thrills down her spine as he looked back over one muscular shoulder to grin that roguish smirk of his at her. "Anywhere! I just want to hop on this broom and soar off to somewhere I've never been before!"

Then he was spinning again. But suddenly he stopped and rushed in front of her. Grasping her tiny hands between his own great paws he looked down at her and smiled, his verdant eyes dancing with laughter and joy instead of the sorrow and weariness that she was so used to seeing there. That alone made her smile in reply though the conversation so far was proving rather disheartening.

"And you'd come with me, wouldn't you?" he asked, looking at her so pleadingly that she would have said yes even if the thought of following him to far off places had never crossed her mind before.

"Harry, of course I would." She replied, smiling up and him with her endearing little smile that caused his stomach to flip-flop. His enthusiasm was contagious at worst, totally taking over her body, heart and soul at best.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, in the depths of his soul, he knew that she would never refuse him. But, he felt that he just had to ask. Had to know. And her answer made him about the happiest man on the whole wide earth at that moment.

"Well, let's go!" he crowed, climbing on the Firebolt and pulling her up behind him. She wrapped her arms about his waist and hugged tight to his black robed body, never wanting to let go. Maybe he didn't love her like she loved him, but he needed her, and for now, for that moment, it was enough.

She lies in her bed

She pulls her covers over head

And she turns her little radio on

She's had a rotten day

So she hopes the DJ's

Gonna play her favorite song

Makes her feel much better

Brings her closer to her dreams

A little magic power makes it better than it seems

She's young now

She's wild now

She wants to be free

She gets the magic power of the music from me

She's young now

She's wild now

She wants to be free

She gets the magic power of the music from me

Harry and Ginny darted up into the sky like a bolt of lightning. As they rose they could see Ron's groggy face peering out of the seventh year Gryffindor's boy's dorm window and Herminone's eyes widen in shock from the window of the Gryffindor common room. Harry laughed with a wild joy as he sent his Firebolt spinning through a complicated series of loop-the-loops, barrel rolls, and Celtic knots painted in the sky.

Ginny had never been happier, or perhaps more than slightly frightened in her short sixteen years of life. She was with Harry on his broom and he was happy, and for now, for that moment, it was all that mattered to her. She giggled with sudden joy and tightened her arms around his waist for a moment in a brief hug.

He glanced back at her over his shoulder and smiled, even as he sent the Firebolt dipping and weaving through the many towers and battlements of Hogwarts Castle. He dipped under the curtain wall and spiraled up through the pastern gate. Never once did he miss a split-second turn or lose his passenger. Not that she could be lost with her grip about his waist.

They paused a moment before the Sytherin common room window to wave at a foaming at the mouth platinum blonde knave. Then skirted a low-hanging arch in order to swoop around the Gryffindor tower a couple more times. Finally, Harry brought them to a safe landing almost on top of the spot that they had took off from only half of an hour before.

"Thanks, Gin." He replied, even as he looked away from her out over the landscape. His shoulders swelled and drooped with the great breaths of air he was taking in. "I needed that."

She walked up behind him and laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder. When he turned back to look at her in puzzlement, she smiled.

"Anytime, Harry. I'll always be here for you when you need me." Then he smiled back and reached up with his free hand to clasp the hand she had laid upon his shoulder.

You're thinking it over

But you just can't sort it out

Do you want someone to tell you

What they think it's all about

Are you're the one and only

Who's sad and lonely

You're reaching for the top

Well the music keeps you going

And its never gonna stop

It's never gonna stop

It's never gonna

Never gonna

Never gonna

Never gonna

Never gonna

Never gonna stop

Ginny watched as Harry raced off to class in the company of her older brother and Hermione. She sighed as she remembered that wild flight throughout Hogwarts Castle with Harry earlier that morning. The other sixth year girls and a couple of the seventh year girls smirked knowingly as they overheard her sigh.

Then a dark, evil looking black owl soared into the room, dropped a letter almost contemptuously on the ground in front of her and soared off again. Even as she wondered why the owl had carried the letter in its beak instead of tied to its foot where it would be easier to carry, she leaned down and picked up the fallen message. As she picked it up and read the dark reddish brown writing on the front, she dropped it again in horror. Blood inscribed the words To Harry Potter on the front of the letter.

She gasped in shock, then grabbed the letter from where it had fallen when it had fell from her suddenly nerveless hand and vaulted out of the Gryffindor common room. She raced hell-bent-for-leather down the hall after the rapidly diminishing figures of the trio of friends. When she reached them, they looked at her in confusion as she stood there panting from her exertion. Wordlessly, she handed the letter to Harry, gazing up at him through her auburn bangs and forestalling any questions as to her madcap dash.

Harry quickly pulled the letter open and scanned through it. His eyes flashed dangerously behind his glasses when he looked up again.

"I need to go and talk to Dumbledore. Thank you, Ginny" Harry offered distractedly as an answer to the many questions directed at him from Ron and Hermione. Ginny just stood there in shock, her eyes filled with horror. It was bad. It had to be. He hadn't called her anything but just Gin for years now.

She trailed after Harry even after Ron and Hermione had gone off to their mutual class to make excuses for Harry's absence. Up stairs. Down halls. Through arches. Until finally, they stopped before a gargoyle statue. After a muttered password that Ginny missed, they slipped up another long flight of stairs until they came to an ornate door.

Harry rapped once upon the door then pushed it open after a muffled call from inside. Ginny lurked outside until Dumbledore called her in. Harry stared at her in horror as she slipped meekly into the room.

"Gin, what?!" he began, though Dumbledore cut him off with a wave of his hand.

"I said I'd be here for you." She mumbled, before slipping off to gently stroke the long, fine feathers of Fawkes in the corner.

"It will be alright, Harry. She'll be fine." Dumbledore reassured him.

"But Voldemort..."

"Harry, listen to me. I'll keep her safe from harm, if that's what reassurance you need." Dumbledore interrupted, breaking through Harry's line of thought. "Voldemort will not be allowed to have her."

The world is full of compromise

A midful in red tape

But the music's got the magic

It's you're one chance for escape

Turn me on

Turn me up

It's your time to dream

A little magic power

Makes it better than it seems

I'm young now

I'm wild now

I want to be free

I've got the magic power of the music in me

I'm young now

I'm wild

And I'm free

I've got the magic power of the music

I got the music

In me

I got the power

I got the magic

She's got the power

She's got the magic

You got the power

You got the magic

Harry allowed himself to be reassured, though he didn't want to. He was afraid for Ginny. He wanted her to be safe, even if he couldn't be. He saw her as someone to be protected, and he wanted to be the one to protect her. Maybe she didn't love him like he loved her, but he felt that she needed him. And for him, that was enough.

And in a way, he needed her too. He needed to fell needed, wanted. He so desperately needed to be useful. To have a purpose. He had to know that if he died, there would be some good left behind that people would be able to look at and say 'Look there, that Harry Potter boy did good. He died a good man.' And that meant the world to him.

Ginny just gazed at him, a strange look in her eyes that he had seen there before. He just didn't know what it meant. She looked sad, yet at the same time, infinitely happy.

She was terrified, thrilled, overjoyed and filled with sorrow all at once as she looked upon him. She had heard Dumbledore and him talking before Dumbledore called her in. She knew Voldemort had declared war upon Hogwarts. She knew what that meant. She just hoped that something would happen that would keep him away from Harry.

Even as she thought that, she knew that it was impossible. Harry would go after him if nothing else. There was no way she could keep him safe. She knew that he wouldn't let him follow her if he chased after Voldemort.

She knew that her defensive spells were much stronger than Harry's. But just from his tirade earlier, she knew he wouldn't let her come either. She hid a tiny sigh as she realized that they would never be truly equal, no matter how much they might have needed each other.

All of a sudden, her thoughts were interrupted by a piercing wail that echoed through the room. Dimly she became aware of words within the wail.

"Hogsmeade is under attack!"

And there was no more time for thought.