Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K Rowling, not me. I am merely borrowing them from her.

Author's Note: This takes place at the beginning of Harry's 6th year at Hogwarts. Chiefly a romance fic but also has some angsty stuff thrown in for good measure. Leads on directly from the events of OOTP but more concerned with exploring the characters than advancing the main story. Please r/r, more chapters on the way.

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"I know what you want Harry..."

I look away, my eyes scanning the room, eager to settle on anything but her. Her words take a little time to sink in, but when they do I'm glad she can't see my expression, I'm glad she can't see me give myself away. I try to compose myself, I know I have to look at her eventually. Seconds have passed, I'm not sure how long, but still I've said nothing. I can read nothing in her tone, but I know she'll be able to read everything in mine.

"I know what you want."

So what if you do? So what if I want you so bad it kills me? So what if I want you to scream my name and me yours for the sake of screaming? So what if you know, because I know more than you ever will. So what?

Silence.

Her head shifts slightly, brown eyes focusing on me. I feel them bore into the back of my skull, trying to read my thoughts, but I continue to look away. I'm afraid of what I might see in her eyes. I'm even more afraid of what she might see in mine. I pretend to stare out the window. Maybe if I stay silent long enough then she won't push the matter. Who am I kidding?

She seems to be expecting me to say something, more fool her.

"You don't have to be afraid."

Shows what she knows. I run through the list of reasons to be afraid, it seems pretty thorough to me. I imagine her in my mind, I can see her innocent expression, her curious eyes. God, how she knows what I want... I don't have to look at her to see it. I wonder how she could know, then I start to wonder how she possibly couldn't.

I imagine my eyes roaming over her body, gazing upon her subtle perfection, my fingers tracing her curves, following the lines of her nubile frame, caressing, touching...

I shudder, and I know she sees me, I know she can tell what I'm thinking. She knows that I long to take her, to make her my own. She knows that I want to make her scream, moan, sweat... Feel the ecstasy dripping from us as we make mad love to each other. She knows.

"Look at me Harry."

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It was with a weary expression that Harry Potter boarded the Hogwarts Express on the morning of September 1st. Another summer with the Dursleys had been almost too much for Harry to take, despite his owl Hedwig bringing him almost constant correspondence from his friends in the wizarding world.

Even the thought of seeing his two best friends again, Hermoine Granger and Ron Weasley, did little to lift his spirits. Hermoine and Ron were prefects, they would have to sit with the other prefects on the train. They would have little time for him.

Many things weighed upon Harry's mind as he slung his trunk into the luggage rack and settled down into an empty compartment, and surprisingly enough the return of his arch-enemy, Lord Voldemort, was the least of his worries.

Harry felt the weight of expectation more than anything else, the burden of being the Boy Who Lived, what had he even done to deserve the scar that marked him, what had he done to be special?

Harry longed to be just like Ron and Hermione, he longed to be considered for the person he was, not the title that he had never quite grown into. He longed to have a normal life, normal relationships. Sure he had achieved decent OWL results, better than Ron's and almost as good as Hermione's, but still he felt empty, he felt something that he could not quite understand.

As his thoughts began to drift he was brought back to the present by the sound of the compartment door opening. He looked up to see the slender figure of Ginny Weasley slip through the door. She smiled nervously and he returned the smile, helping her ease her trunk into the luggage rack next to his.

"Thanks Harry," she said, settling down on the seat opposite him. Harry regarded her quizzically.

"No problem. How was your summer?" he asked, unable to keep the tinge of bitterness out of his voice. At least some people got to spend the summer at the Burrow.

"Oh you know, it was ok," Ginny sad nervously, not meeting Harry's eyes. She fiddled around with her hands as she anxiously looked around the carriage. Harry was glad that she didn't have the nerve to ask him about his summer.

"Hermione and Ron in the prefects compartment?" It wasn't really a question, and Ginny merely nodded. She seemed just as bitter as Harry at the fact that Hermione and Ron had been made prefects and she, now entering her 5th year, hadn't.

Harry stared at his feet, not wanting to reveal how he was feeling. He didn't want her pity.

"So... you and Dean Thomas?" he said, trying to bring some life to the conversation. He looked up and was surprised at the expression on Ginny's face.

"Not any more..." she said brusquely, and Harry didn't press the subject. "Ron must be pleased," he added mentally, making a note to ask him and Hermione what had happened.

"You and Cho Chang?" Ginny was grinning a little, it seemed almost like she was mocking him.

"Not for a long time," Harry said wearily. He looked down at his feet again, wishing that he was alone. He would have given anything to be back at Hogwarts at that moment, carefree and having fun with Ron and Hermione. He wondered if any of them were still the same people they had been.

He saw Ginny blush a little, and took a kind of perverse satisfaction at her embarrassment. The subject of Cho didn't really bother him any more, and considering how in love he thought he had been with her, the fact that he got over her so easily showed that it was little more than a teenage crush.

"I guess neither of us has been very lucky in love so far." Harry didn't mean it to imply something between the two of them, but the minute it left his lips he knew that she might take it that way. The fact that she had an infatuation with him when they were younger was common knowledge, but he didn't really want to remind her of it when she was already hurting. He smiled at her a little, trying to convey this with his expression.

Ginny looked at him again, more nervously this time. "You know Harry... it wasn't that I got tired of waiting for you." Now it was her turn to take a sudden interest in her shoes.

Harry was taken by surprise, he had never heard her talk about her feelings for him before, in the past he had always had to get Hermione to fill him in. He shifted a little in his seat, almost squirming. He never liked discussing this sort of thing, he could never understand what girls wanted or what they were thinking. He glanced up at Ginny, trying to gauge her expression. All he could read was her sincerity. It wasn't that she had gotten tired of waiting for him. But if it wasn't that...

"What was it then?" he asked her softly.

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