I forgot the disclaimer in the first chapter. (Let's think of it as more of a prologue or introduction, shall we?) Ahem. None of this is mine. I don't pretend that it is. There.

This is dedicated to Julie, without whom, I'd be fanfictionless. And I wouldn't even know I was fanfictionless, because I wouldn't have her to point that out to me. Cocoa.







The next morning, Harry was rather quite at breakfast. Ginny's notebook was still on his mind. He had flipped through it, unable to put it down and staying up practically the whole night reading it. Over and over, the entries replayed themselves in his head. They were all over the place, going through every emotion possible.

Some were normal diary entries he would expect, all about school and her friends, and just… very normal things. But some were so different. She wrote a lot about love, a lot about hope, a lot about her dreams of growing up.

"I had the most wonderful dream last night," She wrote once somewhere around last year. "In it, I was grown up, and married (I don't know if I was married to Harry or not)," Harry was rather unnerved by that little aside, "and had a family. It was lovely. I had two little girls. Can you imagine? That must be heaven, to have a family like that, all your own. I want a beautiful family with a beautiful home." Well, there was one thing she and Harry had in common. He had often thought the same thing himself.

"After the dream," she had continued to write, "I started to think more about my future. What do I want to be when I grow up? I tried to find what I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I couldn't decide. I only ended up in ruling out what I know I don't want to be. They are as follows: Auror. (I'm sorry, but I'd be terrible at it.) That's it, the only thing on my list that I don't want to be. How am I ever going to decide?"



She might not have decided what it was she wanted yet, but she certainly knew what her options were. There were pages and pages of possibilities. It seemed that she took each little detail, every decision, and wrote about what her life might be like if she were to choose that path. Everything was so thought out and envisioned; Harry couldn't imagine how anyone could have the time or the patience to do that. If all else failed, she could be a writer at least. That much was proven.

She had also written about Tom Riddle. Her opinion on the Chamber of Secrets event was not quite what Harry expected it to be… not that he had ever thought about her opinion on it before.

"For a time in my life, Tom was the one person I thought I could connect to," she wrote.

"In all honesty, I think I wanted to help Tom- reach out to him. He reminded me of Harry, so very alone in the world. The difference was, I thought I could help Tom. I knew, even then, that I could never help Harry. So I settled for Tom.

"He was my friend, my confidant. He was great. But, oh yeah, he was evil. Slight problem, he possessed me. That wasn't so great. But I was young; I was foolish.

"Sometimes I still have nightmares where he mocks me. It's terrifying. It took me 2 whole years to get over what happened. I'm just barely better. What scared me the most was the thought that I hurt someone, could have killed a person even. But I'll always remember and learn from it. That's how I get along in life, I learn from every mistake. (Including that Valentine in 1st year. I think I might me more scared form that than Tom.)"

Harry thought she was remarkably calm with the whole situation. Though she did admit that she was scared of what happened, and it had made a definite mark on her, her tone was very matter-of-fact. But that was written not too long ago; her thoughts probably weren't always so clear and cool. He was also amazed that she would ever keep a journal or diary again, after what happened. But she explained:

"I've always written down what I thought. I think not ever writing again, like I first intend to, would have hurt me more in the long run. But you have gotten me through everything, dear notebook. (Not diary- never diary.) Funny how the thing that got me in such trouble was the thing that saved me as well. Writing. Oh well, if it works, it works. Plus, what are the chances of something like what happened happening again, especially in a Muggle notebook? "



It did make sense. It had even made Harry wonder how much it might help if he kept his own record, like hers. It certainly helped her keep her thoughts in order, and Harry's own were starting to scatter everywhere.

There were also a lot of little things, not of much consequence, that stood out to Harry. Things like the fact that Charlie was her favorite brother, though she shared the most with Ron. Or her favorite color was red, and she always resented the fact that she couldn't wear it because of her hair. Or even that her favorite subject was charms and she was top of her year in that class.

She was certain Ron and Hermione liked each other (not that Harry didn't also) and had forced Ron to owl Hermione at the beginning of the summer, telling her how he felt. Hermione had even responded confirming that she did, indeed, feel the same way. That little detail was something neither one had told Harry. He should have been angry, but honestly, he was more amused than anything else, as was Ginny.

"I'm so glad they finally 'fessed up. Everyone knows they like each other, so I don't see why it was so difficult for them to admit it. (Not that I should talk.) But you should have seen Ron's face when he got her owl. I've never seen it that red, even that time when Fred and George… ok, I won't tell which time, because I swore I would never even think of it again, so I suppose writing it down is right out. (I'm laughing so hard I can barely write.)" It was true that the words were slightly smudged and uneven here.

"But the point is, that Hermione also owled me and told me everything she told Ron (and some things she didn't) and thanked me for getting him to write her. I don't know how she knew it was me, but she did and I wrote back to her and, next thing you know, we're corresponding. She's really sweet; I never knew her very well before, but now I'm getting to."

So Ginny and Hermione were friends, now. That was good. Maybe Harry would be able to get to know Ginny better, too; she didn't seem all that bad. In fact, if he forgot everything she wrote about him, she was pretty cool. If he just ignored it, it was sure to go away, and then they could become friends. So that was what he decided to do; he would ignore it.

"Hi Ginny." Harry looked up upon hearing Ron's voice to see Ginny enter the kitchen, yawning and nodding her head. Looking back down at his plate, he realized that the whole while he had been thinking, he had reduced his food to mush with his fork, and had hardly eaten a bite. Giving up, he stood and took his plate to the sink. He was about to leave and go back up to Ron's room, when Ginny spoke and made him stop in his tracks.

"By the way, I can't find my notebook," she said. "If anyone sees it, can you let me know?"

"Yeah, sure," Ron answered not paying much attention. Harry could only turn around slightly and nod, not quite able to meet Ginny's eyes. His stomach was doing the most awful thing- it felt like it was made of lead and squeezing convulsively. She smiled at him and turned away to get a glass of pumpkin juice; he took the opportunity to bolt out of the kitchen and up the many stairs, not stopping until he stood outside Ron's door. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming in short gasps.

In the kitchen, Harry had realized something. He hadn't thought about giving Ginny back her notebook. It had of course been his original intention to just give her the book, without peeking inside, but it hadn't quite worked out that way. The fact was he had looked inside and he hadn't given it back.

Harry sighed and opened the door, stepping inside. It closed behind him as he made his way over to the bed that was his, between Ron's and the window. He lifted the pillow and pulled out the notebook. For a moment, he just held it, only looking at it.

Ginny had decorated the light green cover in stickers (on the first page she wrote about getting them from a Muggle store in town) and charmed it to have words and phrases flash on it. In the very middle "Ginny" was written in large, cursive letters with blue ink. She had little sayings on it, too; he had no idea what they meant or where they were from, but they must have held some meaning for her. "Just a lucky so-and-so?" "Dream a little dream of me?" "Moon River?" "One for my baby?" What were these things? The only thing that made any sense was "Precocious." That she certainly was.

His fingers ran along the spine of the book; it was creased from being open and written in so much. How was he ever going to get this back to her? He couldn't just hand it over and say, "I read some of it, hope you don't mind. Interesting stuff actually. Everything about me- beautiful, that. A little off, but beautiful." Harry sighed.

After much deliberation, Harry had decided that he would find a time during the day to sneak it into her room. She'd never know he had ever had it- perfect.



I wasn't sure if I should stop there or not, but I'm impatient, so I will.

Infinite thanks to everyone who reviewed. They are as follows (so far):

MoonBunni, Howler the H/G shipper, Genesis (I'm sorry hun, but I don't understand what you mean about chapter 13. Could you explain what that was all about?), KnightMaria, ShellyK (Most people have felt that way, it's easy to relate to. That's why Gin's my favorite.), bucky, Beccy (All your fics were in German so I could read any. I'm so sorry.), Trunks Admirer, and Julie (bestest person ever!)

One more thing- the British have some different spellings than we do (duh), and as HP is British, I decide to just stick with American spellings. I'd feel so pretentious otherwise.