The morning that Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were all to leave for Hogwarts dawned bright and cold. All the occupants of number twelve, Grimmauld Place gathered to eat one last meal together, before they were to catch the Night Bus. Time together was precious. After having lost two sons, Mrs. Weasley was determined to spend as much time with all her children as possible. Percy had died mysteriously at the beginning of Harry's sixth year never having resolved his family quarrel, his murder was never solved and Charlie had died only four months ago, murdered by McNair, when he refused to join Voldemort. That was only the second time Harry had seen Ginny cry, when they received the news that Charlie was dead. The first had been after the Chamber of Secrets. This Christmas had been hard, but Harry knew that if he did not end things soon, next Christmas would be much harder.

The Weasley's now lived with Harry and Remus. Sirius had left the house to them upon his death and during the summer after his fifth year, the Burrow had been destroyed when Death Eaters had gone there looking for Harry. Fortunately no one was hurt, as they were all at Grimmauld Place, but everything had been ruined. Harry had argued with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley for several hours before they agreed to live with him. They were all at the table, Remus, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill and his wife, Fleur who was almost eight months pregnant, Fred and George, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Harry. While Mrs. Weasley had expressed her joy at becoming a grandmother, it was obvious that she thought it dangerous to bring a child into this climate. She was constantly worried about Fleur, and in the end, Bill and Fleur had taken up permanent residence at head quarters, while she was on maternity leave. Harry and Remus had both agreed that this was better, that way Molly had company during the day, and could watch over Fleur as she neared the end of her pregnancy.

Harry had been surprised at how Fleur looked when they had gotten home for Christmas two weeks previous. They had wandered into the kitchen upon their arrival to find Fleur sitting at the kitchen. She had smiled and tried to stand up when they walked in, but due to a large belly, she was struggling to get out of the chair. Fred and George, who had been sitting next to her, stood up and each took an arm to lift her up.

"Sister dear," Fred started looking at his sister-in-law.

"You really should just let us levitate you." George finished.

Fleur glared at them, but Ginny had been the one to speak. "Nonsense, you prats, you can't levitate her, what if you hurt her or my nephew?"

"Hey, he's our nephew too!" The twins retorted in unison.

Ginny ignored them and hugged her sister-in-law. "How are you feeling?" She asked as she helped Fleur to sit down again.

"Oh, I am feeling fine, just very large!" She smiled brilliantly at her. Ginny smiled and plopped down on the floor in front of her to talk to her nephew.

"Hello in there, my nephew. This is your Aunt Ginny." She then proceeded to have an entire one-sided conversation with Fleur's protruding stomach. Fleur just smiled at her while the men in the room stared dumbly at them. Hermione, however, was looking at them with suspiciously misty eyes. After a few minutes, Ron seemed to regain his voice.

"Barking mad! Ginny, what do you think you are doing?" But before Ginny could answer, Hermione had smacked his arm.

"The baby can hear everything she is saying, it's supposed to be good to talk to the baby."

"Yeah, but…" Fred started to say something but was interrupted by Ginny.

"Do NOT make me hex you in front of my nephew!" All of the men got a startled look on their faces.

"How come he's just your nephew?" George asked Ginny but Harry noticed that his tone was guarded. George obviously remembered Ginny's legendary Bat-Bogey Hex and was not looking forward to a repeat performance.

"That's simple, out of all of us, I'm the best looking, and therefore he gets to be mine first."

"Brothers, I do believe that she has us on that one." Fred lamented solemnly.

"Is everyone packed?" Mrs. Weasley asked startling Harry out of his reminiscence. The four heads nodded sedately. It was still quite early. Hermione seemed to be the only one who was even semi-cognizant of her surroundings as she read the paper.

A small gasp escaped her lips. "Oh my."

"What?" Asked Ron, trying to peer over her shoulder.

"This is low, even for them. I just can't believe it."

"Well, that explains everything, I'm glad we've cleared that up." George muttered.

Hermione gave him a scathing look, which soften slightly as she started to speak. "It seems that a group of Death Eaters entered a home, murdered the husband and two children and then raped the wife, leaving her alive. They wrote on the wall, 'Blood Traitors will not be tolerated, We will have Purify the race, by force if necessary.'" Ron put a comforting arm around her, as no one moved at the table. Hermione looked up, her eyes clouded with tears. "They have killed and tortured before but now…" her voice seemed to falter "I guess this is just one step lower that they have sunk. I'm… excuse me." And she left the table with tears streaming down her face and Ron followed her out. No one seemed to want to eat after that, and everyone quickly left to finish with his or her morning routine.

Harry and Ginny walked up to the girl's room to find Ron comforting Hermione, much in the same way that Ginny had showed Harry, just a few days before. What might have been funny before and under different circumstances now was not. They sat quietly on Ginny's bed, facing the other two as the sat on Hermione's.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" Ginny asked quietly.

Hermione looked up, her eyes red and puffy. She wiped her tears from her cheeks and took a shaky breath. "This one just hits too close to home, I'm afraid. See," she paused, trying to calm herself, "my mother was raped when she was in college and she said it was the worst thing that she ever had to go through. She lost all faith in men, and had no self-esteem and she stopped eating, stopped going to class. Her attacker was some guy from one of her classes and she never told anyone but my dad. They were dating at the time, and she said she was sure he was going to break up with her." A fresh wave of tears cascaded down her face. "He… he didn't know how to help her, and it took her years of therapy to get past it." Ginny handed her a tissue, and after Hermione wiped her eyes, she continued. "Rape is horrible. It's degrading and violent. You end up feeling always out of control of your life, because you don't even have control over your own body. I just… I saw what it did to my mother, and how it still affected her, even twenty years later and now, this is just one more worry that we have to heap on to our already full plate and I just have this bad feeling that we are going to be affecting us at school." Harry knew how hard it was for Hermione to even speak about her parents and to talk about something that had hurt her mother so badly must be hurting her even worse.

Ginny looked like she was going to refute Hermione's supposition about rapes at Hogwarts but obviously changed her mind. "We're sorry about your mum, I can't even imagine how hard that must have been."

"Hermione, if you are worried about being raped, then we'll just walk you to all of your classes and the library and such. We'll look after you." Ron reassured her.

"Ron, you don't understand, the message that they left on the wall is key and we have too many stupid little Death Eaters at Hogwarts not to take this seriously!" At his questioning look, she went on. "It said 'Purify the race'." When he still looked confused, she turned her head and looked straight at Ginny. "The witch who was raped was a Pure-Blood who married a muggle born. It's not me that I am worried about being raped." Ginny's eyes widened as the meaning of what Hermione said, hit home.

"I… I…" but no coherent words left her mouth and for the third time in his life, Harry Potter saw Ginny Weasley cry.