Racing Time Chapter Two: Seeking Comfort, a harry potter fanfic

===*Racing Time*===

(A/N) Really even despite the fact of how talkative I truly am, I can't think of a damn thing I'd like to say right now…

Oh well I guess I can only say thanks everyone.

Wow that sounds lame… Read on…

(Disclaimer) Yep! I've got the contract right here with me. Say hello to the new owner of Harry Potter and all his friends. Yep! That's right. I hooked up a few connections and I've got it. Ha Ha! You're looking at the new owner of the sweet simple redhead, Ronald Weasley! **sighs** Yeah I wish! Keep dreaming everyone. Maybe one of us will get luck one day and find someone like Ron!

Chapter 2: Seeking Comfort

The next morning after breakfast had been served, Ron and Hermione were to be found in the Library arguing intently, as usual, over their morning chess match. From Ron's point of view, Hermione had just made a very unfair move causing his queen to be taken, and he was fighting with all his strength to prove her wrong.

"No, I'm positively sure that you jumped over one of these pawns. I saw you do it." Ron said for the third time so far.

"I most certainly did not, Ronald Weasley! I know perfectly well that a bishop can not jump over pawns, and I most definitely did not cheat the rules!" Hermione argued back in a high pitched squeak.

"You did too! I just saw you do it! You were right here and in order for you to get to the queen you had to have jumped over this pawn." Ron stated matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms across his chest as though doing this totally finished the matter.

"I think not!" Hermione squealed looking deeply offended at the very though. "Clearly, I was right here because I remember deciding weither or not to take your knight or your queen! I know for a fact that I was right HERE!" She said this all very quickly and once she said the last word, she slammed her finger on the board hard making a few of the pieces topple over. She crossed her arms and legs and huffed in resentment, swinging her leg madly underneath the table.

Ron laughed out loud and placed the pieces back on their squares. "Honestly, Hermione, can't you just admit it and be done with it? I was right and you were wrong. You know that has a really nice ring to it." He smiled slyly and began to sing in a little tune under his breath, "I was right and you were wrong. I was right and you were wrong."

"Admit it? ADMIT IT? I HAVE NOTHING TO ADMIT! I'M THE ONE WHO'S RIGHT AND YOU'RE JUST TOO STUBORN TO ADMIT IT, THAT'S ALL! YOU KNOW WHAT? I'M THROUGH WITH THIS! I QUIT!" With those last two words she threw the entire game board onto the floor along with the chess men who were now shouting in anger. Hermione gave another irritated huff and began to stare intensely at the ceiling with full concentrating, as Ron looked from her to the scattered pieces in shocked disbelief. His mouth hung open and he dropped the piece in his hand onto the table with a 'clunk'. Hermione seemed very proud of herself with his stunned reaction and even grinned stealthily. A small grin played across Ron's mouth surprising her even more. She definitely wasn't expecting him to smile. More so, she was expecting him to be horrified.

"Wicked!" Ron whispered staring at her in awe.

"What?" she asked skeptically. That was all so unexpected. The one thing she would have was for him to blow up, not to say "wicked". It was just... wrong.

"That was wicked hot!" he said wide-eyed with amazement, almost as though he were seeing her in a whole new light.

"RON!" she said blushing red in the face with embarrassment.

"No really it was!" Ron said wiggling his eyebrows up and down. "It was very attractive! You sure know how to turn me on," he said smiling slyly. Hermione looked almost shocked that he would actually admit that out loud.

"Ron!" she said in fake outrage, but by the cute look on his face she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He walked over and picked her up, carrying her over to the couch where he sat her in his lap. He kissed her deeply as she ran her fingers through his soft red hair. Just as things were just getting good, a forced cough from the doorway made them break apart immediately as though they had been shocked.

There stood Harry still in his bed robes, his hair messily matted and his eyes bloodshot like he hadn't slept all night.

"Sorry if I interrupted you." he mumbled running a hand uncertainly through his hair.

"Not at all, Harry. Sit down." Hermione smiled as she felt herself blush. Ron groaned in resentment and she elbowed him hard in the stomach making him cough.

"OW!"

Harry walked over and sat in an orange armchair next to the bookshelf. Ron and Hermione could tell by the look on his face that there was something wrong.

"Harry, is there something the matter?" Hermione asked worriedly. She knew of course that there was something wrong but what it was had never crossed her mind. Sure Harry had discussed it with them, but Hermione wasn't really sure he'd actually do it. She'd never expect Harry to actually break up with Ginny.

Harry was silent for a few seconds and only ran a nervous hand through his hair a couple of times before he actually spoke up. In fact he didn't speak until Ron impatiently interrupted Harry's train of thought.

"Well?" Ron snapped finally after Harry had waited one second to long.

Harry sighed and sat back on the chair looking more and more stressed. "I broke up with, Ginny." he muttered not looking at either one of their shocked faces. Both Ron and Hermione were wearing identical looks of astonishment. They cast each other looks of disbelief as Harry fiddled with a stray thread on his shirt.

"Harry, you didn't really, did you?" Ron laughed in nervousness even though the situation was clearly far from funny.

Harry nodded his head and looked over at them in an almost scary seriousness. "I did." he said mechanically. Ron got up and began to pace the room frantically as Hermione bit at her fingernails not knowing what to do with herself.

"I did it last night after you all went to sleep. I had to do it. I had no other choice, right? She could have died couldn't she, if she had stayed with me? I don't know what to do with myself anymore."

Harry hung his head in defeat and Hermione patted him awkwardly on the back." It's all right, Harry you did the right thing," she said trying to find some way to make it easier for him. Ron however looked more shaken up about the whole thing than even Harry was.

"Would you please stop running your hands through your hair. It's messy enough as it is!" Hermione commanded of Ron, rolling her eyes.

Ron took no notice to her however and continued on pacing, running his hand through his hair as he and Harry always did when they were scared or nervous about something. "B-but she's okay now, right? "She's not still upset, right? Did she cry? Did you explain the whole thing to her? Is she alright now? Where is she now? She's not still crying, is she?" Ron babbled in a frantic over-protective-big-brother-rant.

Harry shook his head unusually. He didn't know where she was right now, and, really, it pleased him not to. If he did, he'd probably run up to her crying his heart out and begging her for forgiveness. He had to keep telling himself that it was best to stay as far away from her as possible, just in case he did.

"I dunno." Harry muttered leaning forward, hiding his face in his hands. "Maybe she's in her room or something."

Ron chewed at his lips and stopped pacing suddenly. A panic-stricken expression showed bluntly on his face, and almost at once he bolted for the door. Hermione realized what had most likely crossed his mind and she took off after him in a mad rush. She caught up to him just as he reached the second hallway that led up to her and Ginny's bedroom.

"Ron! No stop, Ron!" Hermione called out and threw herself in front of him blocking his way.

"Hermione, get out of the way! I have to stop Ginny before she does something stupid!" Ron yelled as he tried to move out of Hermione's path. Hermione kept jumping back in front of him repeatedly getting in his way. If she hadn't known him better than she did, she never would have attempted trying to block Ron's only route to his baby sister. She would have figured he would have knocked her down by now, but she knew Ron would never try to hurt her.

"Ron, stop, and just listen to me! I know what you're thinking and she's not going to do it! She's not like me!" Hermione cried shakily getting nervously worried he might actually get away from her.

"How do you know! Now get out my way!" Ron shouted trying to duck under her arms. He stopped abruptly and almost fell to the floor in shock when Hermione's hand came out of nowhere and rapped him hard across the face. Ron stared at her wide-eyed in disbelief and lightly touched the spot where Hermione had just hit him.

"What was that for?" he asked, his mouth still hanging open in astonishment.

"You wouldn't listen to me." Hermione said matter-of-factly. "I really didn't want to hurt you, but you were being frantic, and there's no other way of getting your attention while you're running in circles around me."

"I know of a few others." Ron commented slyly. Hermione put her hands on her hips and turned on her best impression of Professor McGonagall. Ron began to laugh at the look on her face. "Just kidding. Just kidding!"

"Well I'm not, Ronald Weasley."

"Undoubtedly not if we're on full-name terms." Hermione gave Ron another stern look and his face fell. "Shutting up now!"

"Finally, you're going to listen! Now I know Ginny, and I know for a fact that she would never try to kill herself. She's too strong willed to try that. She knows other ways around bad times; way's that I only found last winter. She knows how to control herself in frantic situations. She's stronger than I was."

"Yeah well I never would have though you would have turned to that either, but look where that got you!"

Hermione looked down at her feet guiltily. She hadn't talked about that night Ron found her in the girls' dormitory since... well, that night. It was painful then and it still was now, to think that she might not be here if it wasn't for Ron's good insight. Ron's face softened when he saw the familiar gloominess he hadn't seen on her for months quite plainly on her face now. He frowned and scooped her up into a tight hug.

"I'm so sorry, 'Mione. I'm sorry, and I promise I'll never talk about it again. Cross my heart."

"I-It's alright, Ron. I-It just... hurts me to think that I might not be here right now if it wasn't for you."

"I know, 'Mione. I thank God every night that I wasn't too late." he held her tight in his arms like he did that night back at Hogwarts. It pained him still to think that she could have died and he never would have gotten to hold her like he was now.

"Ron?"

"Hmm?"

"Promise me that you'll just give Ginny some time. She'll come around sooner or later."

"Alright. I promise."

~*~

Ginny sat on her bed scribbling like mad in the small pink journal on her bed. Writing things down always seemed to relieve some of her built up stress and help her sort things out in her head. Right now though, things were so hard to straighten out she wasn't sure she ever would. Tears were falling on the pages as her hand trembled while writing down her all the things that had been building up in her stomach for the past nine hours. It seemed like eternity since Harry had talked with her but it hadn't really been all that long ago. She, of course, hadn't slept all night and her eyes were burning from their lack of rest.

How could he have done this to me? she wrote furiously. I never would have though that Harry would ever hurt me this way, and he did; even more so than I ever could have imagined. I never would have expected anything to hurt so badly as he did to me last night. It was more painful than I can explain. It was worse than torture and worse than death. It was the most horrible thing imaginable. It feels like there is some kind of huge gaping hole in the pit of my stomach. It feels so empty knowing that I can't have him anymore. He'll never hold me again. He'll never kiss me again. I'll always be alone because I'll never be able to love again; I'll never want to love again. Not after this, not after the pain this has caused me. I don't think I'll ever let myself fall as hard in love as I did with Harry. I don't want to hit the bottom again. It hurts too much when there isn't anyone to help you up, and there isn't anymore. I have no one. I used to turn to Harry when I felt lost, and Ron when no one else was around. But now Harry's gone and he isn't coming back, and Ron has someone else to love and comfort; he doesn't need me to break into his life, and I don't want to. Hermione already has her own problems to deal with right now and she doesn't need me to add on to her own stress. I don't want to burst into anyone's happiness anymore. I've already done that enough. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I guess only time can tell.

Ginny snapped the little book shut with a quick snap and whipped away the tears in her eyes. She had been holding them in all night and now that she was alone she let them flow freely onto her cheeks. She held the pink tablet tightly in her arms and buried her face into her pillow as her chest shook with cries. Her sobs came out as waves onto her soft white pillow cover. She lay there shaking all over until she could cry no longer. Looking at the clock again she could see that it was almost time for lunch. She sat up and once more ran the back of her hand over her eyes. She got up from the bed and grabbed a tissue blowing her nose hard on it. She threw it into a wastepaper basket next to her dresser and went to put her journal back into the second drawer, but it was already cracked open. Someone had been digging in it. A flesh colored string shrunk back into the ceiling and her mind turned to the most probable culprit, or should she say culprits. Fred and George were staying with them again this summer and it was most likely, that one of them, if not both, had been snooping into her private life. I mean, what else did they have better to do? It's not like they had their own life to tend to. That is, unless you count ordering people around at a growing shop an actual life.

Ginny sighed irritably and looked around the room for a new hiding place. The bookshelf in the opposite corner caught her eye. She shoved the book onto a shelf towards the top. The hardest hiding places are always the most obvious, she assured herself not really wanting to concentrate on finding the perfect hiding place for her journal. She turned around and began to walk out her room for a bite of lunch and soothe her hunger, until another thought came into her mind. The only thing that was building up in her mind was the image of Fred and George sitting on the couch rolling in laughter as they recited the following lines.

"I'll always be alone because I'll never be able to love again, I'll never want to love again. Not after this, not after the pain this has caused me." Fred would say in mockery. George would laugh out loud and continue reading.

"I don't want to hit the bottom again. It hurts too much when there isn't anyone to help you up, and there isn't anymore," he would say in a fake whimper.

"Aw. Look Harry you made her cry." Fred or George would say and hang his lip. The other twin would hit the floor rolling in laughter.

Both of them would give mocking sad pouts and then burst out laughing again. Harry, who would be sitting on the armchair next to them, would hide his blushing face in his hands and she would overhear and run out the room crying.

Ginny shook the image out of her head and realized she was still standing in her room. For a second she had almost believed it had actually happened. That is what exactly might happen if they actually did find it. She turned back around and saw quite plainly the bright pink among the mass of black on her bookshelf. How easily Fred and George would have seen it, she now knew. Maybe the most obvious isn't always the safest. She grabbed the book of the shelf and began to spin around in place thinking of another hiding place for it. Every time her eyes fell upon the bookcase a longing took over her. There was something about that bookcase that she couldn't quite get. It was almost calling her to put her journal there. She walked over to it once more and observed it fully. She noticed for the first time that there was a space behind it that would fit her tablet quite snuggly. She smiled in her luck and tried to jam it into the small space. It slid right in for a couple of inches and then it hit something hard. She pulled it out curiously and glanced into the crack. Sure enough she could see a circular shaped object sticking out of the wall a short way in.

"Hmm." she sighed putting her hands on her hips. She thought for a second then pushed with all her might on the tall shelf. She could hear the loud screeching of the wood on the floor and grimaced at the irritating sound. She stepped back to find she could quite clearly see what the object was.

It was a doorknob. It looked just like all the other knobs on all the other doors except it was smaller. It was a perfect circle with a small snake in the middle. Now with all doorknobs, there's always one thing that comes with it, a door. There on the wall was a small circular door about the size of a football (also know as a soccer ball) She gazed at it curiously until temptation got the best of her and she opened it. The hinges squeaked madly as she pulled on the rusted old door, and dust littered the bottom. She blew into it and the dust flew up loosely into the air causing her to cough as it filled her lungs. When she could see properly again she saw something at the bottom of the opening that made her almost scream in fright. Resting at the back of the small pantry was a brown leather book and the thing that really shook her nerves, a silver serpent.

Ginny caught her breath again and realized that it wasn't alive. She breathed out deeply and laughed in nervousness. She slowly and skeptically picked up the snake and fiddled with it between her fingers.

It was ice cold and hard as stone. By the looks of it, it actually was made of pure silver. She had no idea how it could have gotten there and felt sneaky at having found it. She was almost expecting the owner to come barging in at any second and yelling at her for having found it. But by the looks of it the owner of this emblem was long gone and the serpent eternally forgotten. A small rough spot on the back of it made her jump with fright. She clutched her heart and turned it over in her hand. Writing was engraved in the stone and she could only just make it out.

Watch over us my fateful serpent. Protect us all from the painful fate that you withhold. Should this power befallen wrong hands our doom will surely prevail. This evil fate lies in your very grasp, for nothing but pure love can diminish pure evil.

Ginny reread it multiple times and couldn't make out anything it was trying to say. She wasn't the one who was good at these types of puzzles.

She gazed at it entranced for a couple of seconds until a rapping knock sounded from the door. There stood Hermione looking very awkward indeed. Ginny hastily shoved the snake back into the hole along with her journal and slammed it shut.

"Hey." Hermione whispered from the doorway.

"Hey." Ginny whispered in return, looking very flustered.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked nodding towards the cabinet behind Ginny's back.

Ginny looked nervously from the cabinet back to Hermione and began to search her mind frantically. The first thing that slipped into it was her journal. Of course her journal! Why hadn't she thought of it before?

"Oh well, Fred and George found my hiding place for my journal again so I had to find a new place to hide it. I found one alright. I think it's my best yet." Ginny smiled trying to assure her. I guess growing up with boys did have it benefits. You learn how to lie and get away with things alot easier.

"I have to agree. That is a very nice spot. Was there anything in it?"

"Oh nah, just a few cobwebs and a couple dead bugs, nothing special really." Ginny shrugged and pulled the bookshelf back to where it was before.

"Okay, well, your mum wants you to go eat lunch. She says she can't have you starving yourself so she's insisting you go down before she pulls you downstairs by your hair." Hermione and Ginny both started laughing and they walked out of the door. Even though the nice smells kept filling Ginny's nose making her mouth water and her stomach growl and Hermione kept rattling on about some dumb story concerning her and Ron, Ginny's mind kept drifting back to the silver serpent locked away in the cupboard upstairs. What kind of mysteries did it hold, if any at all and who did it belong to before? As these thoughts rattled her brain, the words began to twist their way back into her mind.

~*~

(A/N) So what do you think of this post? A little freaky? Well whatever you think of it review and tell me about it. I don't want the whole "oh it was great keep going" crap. Tell me what you like and disliked. I want to know! I have to know! I didn't finish writing the entire thing so you can give me ideas and suggestions about my story also. Come on guys help me out. Thanks everyone. Luv yas! Bye!

(Thankies!) I didn't get very many reviews.**frowns** Help me out you guys!

~VoicezWithin- Thanks for the review. I'm not getting as many reviews as I hoped. Can you help me out? I don't get why no ones reviewing. I guess no one really likes adventure stories right? Give e some advice please or I might go into depression.

~RussellGrl15- Hey I'm so glad you're back! And you enjoyed my fic. I hope it turns out as well as Lean on Me did. So far I'm not getting as many reviews as I hoped. I'm feeling a little discouraged. I hope it gets better sooner or later.

~SarcasmSage- You think its alright? I'm a little skeptical. No one's reviewing…

~Mist Emoun Tains- I know poor Harry. Ginny's just trying to pretend like it isn't true and that they could still be together, but she's just making it harder on herself and Harry. Poor things, they're so over dramatic. LOL

~cristen- ACTUALLY things don't get better until the end. You know what it seems like my fics are always really sad… I wonder why…

Oh well they'll get happier. Things are just getting bad because I mean bad times are coming around, am I not right? Voldemort's killing people and Harry had no other way to protect her. Don't worry though it will be a happy ending.

~xzaire- Hey! I no how you feel for Harry and Ginny. I feel the same way and I'm writing the f-ing fic! LOL! Thing are going to get worse though. Did you like the sweet R/H in this chappie. I know it wasn't much but its there. Aw they're so sweet. Keep reviewing!