There's nowhere left to hide,
In no-one to confide,
The truth runs deep inside
And will never die…

"Ginny -"

"Harry."

"Ginny -"

"Harry."

"Ginny, we need to talk."

"Harry. I'm doing my homework. We can talk later."

"No Ginny, we talk now."

"No Harry. I'm going to do my homework, and you're going to wait till I'm done. Then I'm going up to bed and staying there, and -"

"No Ginny. We need to talk."

"We need, or you need?"

"Ginny, we're going to talk now."

"About what, Harry?" She looked up at him from her essay with innocent eyes. The temptation to hit her was strong, really strong, but easily suppressed. The notion of laying a hand on her when she was awake, kind or not, was pushed firmly to the back of his head and chained to the wall of his skull.

"About your problem."

"What problem?"

"This problem!" He pulled her arm away from her torso where she had been resting against it and roughly jerked it up to meet her eyes. "That problem Ginny!" He shook the wrist he was holding to emphasize his point.

She looked at him with dagger-sharp eyes and whispered "Release me." deadly quiet in the loud chatter of the Common Room.

He dropped her arm. She immediately went back to writing on her parchment; the title scrawled across the top read 'Elfwood and Gingerroot: Properties of Their Combination and Common Uses in Everyday Life.'

He sat down in the chair opposite her and continued to watch her write, occasionally making disapproving sounds in the back of his throat each time she got a fact wrong.

The fifth time he did this, half an hour into watching her work, she slammed her fist down on the table and glared at him.

"Would you stop doing that?" she hissed at him.

He leaned forward and pointed to the sentence she had just written. "They don't make an antiseptic paste; they make the antidote for any antiseptic that hasn't been properly brewed. The Elfwood holds the healing properties, but it burns something terrible when it's healing, so the gingerroot acts to mask the pain because of the numbing agent in its leaves. Snape's going to kill you if you get that wrong."

She glared at him for a moment but nonetheless ground out a curt "Thank you" before correcting her mistake and continuing on.

The rest of the night passed in polite but strained sentences as the young redhead completed every inch of homework set for her. Harry watched on intently as she bent over each parchment, trying as hard as she could to ignore his presence lingering just a few inches in front of her, watching her every move.

You know, she is quite beautiful.

I know.

And she's the kindest girl you've ever met.

I know.

And she is quite lonely.

I know.

And you love her.

I know.

So, remind me again why you go out with Hermione? She doesn't love you.

He sighed in submission.

I know.

Ginny looked up. He smiled warmly and she went back to her work. As she bent her head, he watched as the folds of her hair cascaded down her neck to cover her eyes again, though the frown that was evidence to her concentration and dedication to her work was still visible. The light glimmered and caught on the fine strands of her hair, like jewels.

Harry had begun to doze when Ginny closed her Arithmancy book with a loud, resounding SNAP, making his head jerk up to stare at her through blurry eyes.

She was packing her books and quills away with practiced grace, her hands moving in quick, efficient strokes as she filed away her parchment and books in her bag.

His hand shot out to catch her wrist as she got up to leave. He straightened in his chair and got up rigidly, his back cracking as he uncoiled it.

"We still need to talk."

"Later."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

He sighed. "Ginny, this isn't going to go away."

"I know that," she said flatly

He decided to bring out the big guns. He fixed her with the most innocent, pleading look he could muster under her intense gaze. "Please, Ginny?"

She jerked her arm out of his grasp and went for her dormitory stairs. He ran after her and blocked her path.

"Harry, get. Out. Of. My. Way." She ground out, pushing against him with all the force she could gather.

"Why do you do it?" he asked instead, not removing himself from he path, though it was likely that soon she would hit him.

"Just get out of my way, I want to go to bed," she said rather weakly, placing her hand on his shoulder and pushing against it, while digging her nails into his shoulder blades.

He let out a hiss as he felt her nails tunnel into his skin through his school shirt. He roughly jerked his shoulder away from her and craned his neck around to look at the spot where she had just damaged. There were four small dots of blood where her nails had sunk in and they were getting darker and wider by the second.

He turned around to face her again.

"That wasn't very nice," he chided her gently, though her face remained a cold mask. "Fine then… So, are you going to answer my question?"

"Probably not."

"Ginny, please. You're not making this any easier!"

"Not making what any easier?"

"Ginny," he sighed in exasperation. "I'm only trying to help you. And it's kind of hard when you won't cooperate!" She laughed bitterly at him. "Why do you do it?"

She reached out with one of her delicate hands and forcefully pulled his hand from the wall. With one hand she held his arm out straight in front of him and with the other she rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. On his bare skin were his own wounds, red and silver lines of truth.

"Why do you do it Harry?" she asked softly before releasing his arm and running through the gap he had left.

As she disappeared up the stairwell he whispered, "Because I love you."

A/N: This took a bit longer to get up than I expected, and I'm sorry for making anyone wait. School was ending and we were watching all these videos in class and… Well, what can I say? I love movies! But I'm on holidays now so I'm going to do the next five chapters today and upload them with this one! Enjoy!

Shadow Silverwolf: I'm so sorry that your fifth chapter has taken me so long! I'll snail mail you the edited version hopefully in the next week! If I don't you're going to have to hunt me down and kill me for my indolence!

Snake Bites,
Jinn.

xxXXxx