AN: The month of July has been mad, mad, mad out here in the real world… hence why I've been so delinquent on posting chapters. I probably won't get another up until sometime in early August, although I will do my darndest to prove myself wrong… Anywhoo. Here's your chapter!

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Chapter 14

Harry was sound asleep, in a way he hadn't been in weeks. Months. Years, really. And as a result, he was more than a little pissed to realize that someone was shaking his shoulder and waking him out of that wonderful dark realm of dreamlessness.

"Fuck off," he muttered, and kept his eyes closed. Although he was a tad uncomfortable, now that he thought of it, which didn't make sense, seeing as the beds at Hogwarts were unbelievably comfortable…

He was shook again. "Dammit, Potter, wake up," a familiar voice muttered.

Harry resisted the urge to hex him, and instead cracked an eyelid to glare at his best friend. "Bugger off, Ron, I'm sleeping," he said, and slammed the eye shut again.

There was a snort. "No, really?" Boy, Ron was a funny person in the morning. "You happen to be sleeping on the common room couch with my sister, you prat. So wake the bloody hell up."

THAT got Harry to open both his eyes. "Wha…" he said, frowning and glancing down. Huh. So he was. That explained why he wasn't in his comfortable bed.

It took a second for it to all actually register in his brain, and as a result, his muttered profanity was preceded by several seconds of confused silence. Gingerly, he started trying to extract himself from the girl curled against him. "Has anyone else been down?" he asked Ron in a low voice, feeling rather grim. Dammit. How could he have forgotten like he did? Of all the bloody things to get soft on…

Ginny was proving rather uncooperative, as well, as she was still sound asleep, and didn't seem all that inclined to give up her 'pillow'. Harry grunted as he finally lifted her bodily off of him and laid her down on the couch, making sure he got a pillow under her head and her blanket tucked over her. He looked up to see Ron watching him with narrowed eyes.

Ron raised an eyebrow when Harry looked up. "Right. Come on, then," he said and headed for the door. Harry looked down at the sweat-stained clothes from last night, and then shrugged. He'd come back and change later. He had a feeling that his friend wasn't really in the mood to wait on a shower.

Harry followed Ron out of the common room and down the hall, the two of them keeping pace silently as they went through the early morning corridors. Ron led him to the owlry, and then shut the door behind them. He turned around and pinned Harry with a look, opening his mouth.

Harry held up a hand, silently asking him to wait, and proceeded to thoroughly check the room, to see if there was anyone else present other than owls. There wasn't, and so he turned back to his grim-faced best friend.

"Ok," he said, feeling a little like he was facing a firing squad, "have at."

Ron crossed his arms over his chest. "You were sleeping on the couch with my sister," he said in what was a surprisingly neutral voice.

Harry managed a nod of agreement. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." And he meant it this time, too.

Ron scowled. "Why the bloody hell not?" Harry was a little hard put not to drop his jaw on the floor. After all, Ron was rather infamous as the most protective of six protective older brothers. "Seems to me, you've give Ginny a certain amount of encouragement. I'd like to know why the devil you'd back away from her now."

Aww, hell, Harry thought, lifting his hands and running them through his hair. He did NOT want to have this conversation. "Ron," he started, feeling like he was picking his way through a minefield, "you know you're my best friend, right?"

"Right," Ron said, glaring.

"And that I'd never to anything to purposefully hurt you, or anybody in your family. Especially Ginny." Harry wasn't sure he should have added that last bit, since a gleam came into those narrowed blue eyes.

"Your point?" his friend asked.

Harry grimaced. "There are probably several hundred Death Eaters, at the very least, not to mention one homicidal Dark Lord, who would give their left arms, legs and any other body part necessary to be able to take me out," he said bluntly. "And that makes anyone close to me a target, something they can use." He stared at his friend, willing him to get it. "ANYONE, Ron," he said.

Ron frowned and studied him. It was a rather long and uncomfortable moment. "So you're saying that you've got to do everything alone because you're too worried someone else is going to get hurt?" Harry groaned, they were back to the same argument. He drove his hand into his hair in frustration as Ron went on. "Yeah, yeah, I know, Potter, same old bloody argument. But you're still wrong. And dammit, you're not going to play with my sister that way."

Ron stepped up and pointed a finger at Harry. "For once, I think the girls have it right about you. You're so damn busy trying to save everyone else that you're not bothering to save yourself." Harry blinked. Whaaaa? "So your friends are stuck trying to make sure you don't kill yourself over something totally stupid."

Harry couldn't help a cynical laugh. Saving the world was stupid?

"Knock it off, Harry, you think we haven't figured out that this all goes back to the prophecy?" Ron said, and sent Harry's mind staggering. "Fuck, I don't blame you for thinking you had to do it yourself, but damn, you're wrong."

His friend's face was earnest and serious and intent, and Harry was still trying to get past the 'we've figured out the prophecy' part. "Just what do you think the prophecy is?" he asked, rather amazed at the even tone that came out of his mouth.

Ron's lips twisted a bit. "That you're the only one who can kill Voldemort," he said. "No one else can help you, remember?"

Harry snorted. "Yeah, I remember," he muttered. "Too bad that's not just it." He hadn't meant to say that. Dammit, he was doing a lot of things he hadn't meant to do.

Ron frowned. "There's more? Merlin, what the bloody hell was batty old Sybill thinking? Isn't that enough?"

Harry laughed, he couldn't help it. "You'd think," he said. "Nope, the best part is that not only am I the only one who can defeat Voldemort, only one of us is going to come out of it alive."

There was silence in the owlry, nothing but the sound of feathers rustling and the soft murmur of one owl to another. "You kill him or he kills you," Ron finally said.

Harry sighed, rather relieved to have shared it, even though he knew it was the wrong thing to do. "Pretty much," he said wearily, lowering himself to sit in the straw on the floor. Good thing the house elves kept the place so clean, not that a little bird crap wouldn't blend right into these clothes.

Ron followed him down a moment later. "Well, hell," he finally said, face grave. And then Harry wince as one rather large fist plowed into his shoulder. "And you didn't tell us this? You didn't think we'd want to know?!"

"Ron," Harry started.

"I mean bloody hell! My best mate's facing a duel to the death at some point, and he doesn't see fit to tell me? Merlin, I should break every bone in your body!!" Ron was yelling.

"RON," Harry managed to get in. The redhead glared at him. "For fuck's sake, Ron, what good would it have done?"

Wrong thing to say. "Dammit, Harry, you should know better by now. Family doesn't keep secrets!"

There was silence again, the air hanging with those words and the owl feathers shuffling softly. "Well," Harry said finally, throat feeling a little thick. "I'm not really used to the whole family thing. And I figured I'd like to keep you guys around as long as possible, so…"

Ron exhaled loudly, interrupting. "I AM going to beat the crap out of you," he said, but didn't sound angry anymore. Just sad. "Harry, you're family, ok? My brother. Hermione's sister. Mum's already scheming how to get you a hand on the clock, which, by the way, was supposed to be your Christmas gift so if you don't act surprised when she finally gets it figured out, I'll have Bill and Charlie help me pummel you. And I know you've had a bunch of shits for your family up 'till now, but REAL families stick together." Ron gestured in the air. "Even Percy, prat that he still is, hasn't bloody apologized to Mum, and she still cries about it… Even him, we'd all line up to stand up for him. So don't think that we're not going to be there, just because you say so."

Harry was struggling to keep himself under control, he'd never heard Ron talk like this before. Not his fun-loving friend who gloried in immaturity and living in the moment. Sure, Ron had his moments and was the best person to have in a pinch, but sitting here talking about feelings…?

"So I'm going to say it again, Potter, and I really hope you're listening this time," Ron said, sounding stern and Head-Boy-ish. Harry had to swallow the inappropriate laughter. Boy, was he a mess. "Whenever this thing goes down, I'm going to be there. So will Hermione and Ginny and everyone else. Because it's not just you, mate, it's all of us."

There was another silence, then Harry cleared his throat. "Better not let Hermione hear you being this serious, she'll start getting ideas," he muttered, and they shared an uncertain laugh.

"So are you going to start coming clean?" Ron finally asked. "Tell us about the rest of it?"

Harry sighed and rubbed his hands over his head. "You kind of put it so I have to, didn't you?" he said, with a wry grimace. Strangely, it didn't feel so bad, anymore, thinking about it. Sure he was still terrified that other people would suffer in his place, and simply because of him, but like Ron had said… he didn't really have a choice in that matter. They'd be there, whether he wanted them or not.

Ron flashed a grin. "What can I say, I'm persuasive," he said.

Harry grinned back, and then heaved himself up off the floor. "Merlin, I need a shower," he said, wrinkling his nose at himself. He looked at Ron. "And I think we need Hermione," he said quietly.

Ron gave him a stern look. "And Ginny?"

That was a loaded question. Harry rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. "I won't deny that Ginny's… special to me," he finally said uncomfortable, wincing as Ron smirked. "But next to me, there's no one else who'd be in greater danger than a lover, Ron. Voldemort would stop at nothing if I showed him that kind of a weakness."

Ron scowled. "Who said anything about a lover? I damn well better not hear anything like that about my sister, Potter. That's just… eugh." Ron shuddered. "That's the kind of thing I'd be obligated to smash your ugly face for."

They shared a smirk, and then Harry turned serious. "Do you get what I'm saying, though? I want to, I just can't…"

Ron heaved a sigh, and tossed an arm around Harry's shoulders, and began towing him toward the doors. "Ye gods, you stink. Don't know how Ginny could sleep next to that. Look, all I'm going to say is that this might be another one of those things you don't get a choice in. Not if I know Gin. I mean, after that little bit in the common room a couple of days ago… pretty much the whole school knows what she's on about." Ron shrugged and gave Harry a shove forward through the now open door. "Seems like a bloke might as well take advantage of the situation."

Then he frowned. "Of the situation, not of the sister," he clarified.

Harry laughed out loud, for no reason that he could possibly comprehend. "You're stark raving nutters, you know that?" he said companionably, and they set out for Gryffindor Tower together.

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Ginny had woken up all by her lonesome on the couch, pillow under her head and blanket over her, and had been thoroughly disgruntled by that fact. Bloody boy had vanished again. She crossed her arms over her chest and mumbled under her breath. He thought he could get away, there was no bloody way she was letting him off the hook, not after last night and the hand-holding and the kiss and the lets-cuddle-and-fall-asleep-together bit. Hah. No way.

Hermione appeared at that point, wrapped up in a dressing gown and looking sleepy and worried. "Ginny?" she said as she came over to the couch. "Where's Harry, and Ron?"

Ginny glared. "I have no idea," she said. "And you can bet that I'm going to make certain people hear about it as a result."

Hermione sat down and got comfortable in one of the chairs, tucking her feet under her. Ginny gave the clock a glance. Bloody hell, it was early. "Did you see Harry last night?" her friend was asking anxiously.

Ginny dragged herself into the real world, not the clock-watching-I-should-still-be-sleeping world. "Yeah," she said, and then promptly blushed, remembering the aforementioned hand-holding and kiss.

Hermione merely raised an eyebrow at the flush on her face, and instead asked, "Is he all right?"

Ginny frowned, her face lightening, thankfully. "You know, he was really tired when he came back, but he was… I don't know, more relaxed than I thought he'd be?"

Hermione ran her hands over her hair, looking frustrated. "Oh, lord, I hope he didn't do anything stupid last night," she muttered. Ginny hadn't considered that part. Perhaps there was a partially decapitated Slytherin corpse on the other side of the castle, that could certainly be responsible for Harry's calm last night.

"I don't know, I think he…" she started when the portrait door opened and who should step in but the boy in question, followed by her far-too-annoying older brother. Of course, Ginny didn't give her sibling a second glance. Nope, her eyes went right to the pair of green ones that were currently studying her with a rather veiled glance that she didn't have a clue to its meaning. Darn boy. And then he looked away and at Hermione, who'd turned around, seen the two boys, and promptly hopped out of her chair and thrown herself at Harry.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so sorry," she was saying, hugging him tightly. Harry was looking a tad uncomfortable, but to his credit, he hugged the Head Girl back, and let her cling as long as she liked. Which, as it turned out, wasn't that long.

Hermione lifted her head and wrinkled her nose. "Eww, you stink," she said.

Harry laughed, actually laughed. Ginny could hardly believe her eyes. She darted a glance at her brother. What was going on?

Harry grinned down at Hermione. "Let me go get cleaned up, ok? Then we can go get some breakfast and… talk, I guess," he finished, casting a droll glance over his shoulder at Ron, who in turn smirked back at him.

Hermione was gaping. "Excuse me, but did I hear you voluntarily offer to talk with us?" she asked, reaching for the back of the chair. Frankly, Ginny was rather glad she was sitting herself. What on earth had happened here?

Harry's eyes locked on Ginny's for a long moment, that couldn't have been more than a second. "Ron and I sorted a few things out," he said, looking at Ginny but speaking to Hermione. "I think there are a few things we need to get settled." For some reason, Ginny was starting to feel very… hot. Itchy. All sorts of warm unsettled feelings. Whoo-boy, this should be an interesting talk.

Hermione sniffed, looking a bit teary eyed. "You go shower. We'll get dressed and do that." She turned to Ron, and reaching up, planted one hell of a kiss on her fellow Head. "You are such a good friend," she said tearfully, before darting for the staircase, sniffling loudly.

Ginny had to choke on the giggle at Ron's bewildered and definitely pleased face. "She keeps doing that," he said.

Ginny did laugh now, and stood up, dragging the blanket with her. "Maybe you'd better start thinking about why, Ronniekins," she teased. "And you might want to think about that goofy look on your face at the same time." Ron's head whipped frantically around to see a mirror and she laughed again. "I'll be right back down," she said, this time looking at Harry. Who was looking at her, standing there in her pajamas and suddenly feeling a whole lot less clothed than she did before.

She shivered. "I'll… be right back," she said again, and made for the stairs, feeling a certain green gaze on her back the entire way there. As she headed for her dormroom, Ginny couldn't help but think that this was going to be quite a talk.

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AN: And there it is!! I leave you with the promise of a talk between friends… an encounter between two different sets of lovers-to-be… and the intrusion of our favorite evil villain.

Mary-v – Nope, sorry, Snape's not really into the whole "let's play guidance counselor" He'd rather make Harry clean cauldrons. (evil grin) But I hope this satisfies your desire for Harry to open up…

Crookshankx – Our boy's a bit of a masochist, isn't he? Lol.

Cherryblossom08 – Harry's still got his issues, but I think he's about to turn a corner. Maybe with the help of a good woman?

MrsSakuraPotter – Old Lucius was a right nasty sort, wasn't he? (handing over tissues)

Liquidfyre – (backing away cautiously) Put the penguin down…

Moonglaze – Ron's got a little romantic buried deeeeep inside him. Hee hee.

Barbelibou – Lucius wasn't actually at their wedding, he just stole the picture and the rings after everybody else was dead. Lousy bastard… And yes, Dumbledore's going to get into the mix, now that Harry's secret is more or less 'out'. But I'm afraid Ron and Hermione are going to have to do a little more dancing before they get it right.

Sugarbaby – I make no promises as to length… (grinning madly) And my apologies for it taking so long. I just like to torture people.

Shahrezad1 – Oh, not to worry. Something bad will happen… doesn't it always? And knowing our girl Ginny, she'll be MORE than happy to 'comfort' Harry… And I wasn't too fond of that line, either, but I couldn't think of a better way to say it. I wanted Dumbledore to let Harry know that he was aware of why he was down there burning up dummies, and that he agreed with him. Eh. Such are the pitfalls of fan fiction.

ArianaEvans – Thank you! I'm always pleased to hear that the characters are staying true to form. And I'm rather fond of 'empty classrooms' myself… heh heh heh…

FemmeDraconis – Yep, Ginny was a little freaked at the advice. But what good advice it was…

Caitlin Cat – Ah, my name! Well, the first part is a French word which (I believe) translates to something like 'boredom'. That was my mood the day I created the name, lol. And the last is my initials.

Child-of-scorpio – No cookies for you! (giving sweet smile) Unless I get that long review…

Hello (Anonymous) – Actually, I don't see Harry as MORE powerful than Dumbledore, just… different. He's got to have something unique about him, according to the prophecy, that will let him battle Voldemort and win. So never fear, the Headmaster is still holding his own.

Merit Somnia – You can find Cara and Draco in "Undercurrents", the second story in the series. Look under my author profile.

CarissaLynn – See, this is what reviewers are for. (grinning) I will note the spelling of Quidditch from now on, and I thought it was Seamus' father who was a muggle? Oh, well, let's just pretend…

Ferggirl99 – About time you got off your butt and reviewed, little sister! And if you don't know how to write Harry and Ginny's little scene, then Josh was a way bigger looser than I thought. Hee hee… As for Lucius, you don't think Voldy would have gone alone, do you? I think he and probably more were there, and when the house got flattened, he grabbed his little souvenirs before hitting the road.

Liz, hawkeye, hplovah, lluvatar, A Harry and Ginny Dreamer, Maddie, Amanda, GinnyWeasley713, Moonglaze, Ravenmom, The Vampire In The Shadows, Lozzie, carrie, obsessed87, Maddie, Christophe, Ariana15, MusicMonkey88, foxyginny, Godsgirl2480 – Bless you all! My fingers are tired, but yours aren't, so review and enjoy! Thanks…