AN

Well, I'm back. My trip was boring, and I had only ONE FRICKIN HOUR A DAY to do some writing, and that so late at night that I drove myself to exhaustion. Why? Because my father's a bloody lunatic, that's why. Needless to say, I didn't get much done. I did promise you guys lots of chapters though, so I'm gonna write like a madman for the next week to make up for it. Right after I shake off this stupid jetlag of course.

full details of my trip are available if you want to email me for them. In fact, you can all email me for whatever reason. I like emailing my reviewers. You can find my address in my author profile.

thanks once more to JC-S, and to my wonderful beta Yavinbase. Both of them are completely awesome.

disclaimer: see prologue

Chapter 3

Safety

When they arrived, Sirius was sitting at the kitchen table, his face a curious mixture of worry, relief, and anger.

"Where have you been?" he shouted. "I've been waiting here for two hours! I was about to go looking for you!"

Ginny, still shaken from the events of the evening, shrunk back from his furious countenance. Unconsciously, she moved behind Harry for protection.

"She got away," Harry replied shortly. "She managed to get lost in a nasty neighborhood, and was cornered by a bunch of teenagers."

Sirius' angry expression gave way to one of concern. "Are you alright?" he asked Ginny kindly.

She stayed behind Harry, watching him warily, and making no answer. Harry answered for her, "I think she's okay, just a little shaken up. I'm going to take her to her room and let her lie down for a while. I'll be back down to talk to you later."

Sirius nodded, and Harry gently led her from the room by the hand. His godfather's voice stopped them at the door. "So you got away from him, then?"

Ginny turned to look at him, and nodded slowly, apprehensively, perhaps expecting some sort of punishment, or at least some shouting.

Sirius just shook his head ruefully, and laughed. "Unbelievable." He grinned widely at his godson, and joked, "Slacking off? Distracted by our pretty guest no doubt."

Both of the teens blushed furiously and left the room in a hurry. Sirius' gleeful cackles followed them all the way upstairs.

Harry led the way up the stairs, cursing his godfather inwardly. He avoided meeting Ginny's eyes until they reached the room set aside for her.

Entering, he finally looked up at her, to find her watching him with an expression he couldn't quite identify on her face. When she saw him look at her, she blushed and looked away.

"Well," he started, a little flustered. "You can just rest for a while, I'm sure you're tired. It's been a long day, and you walked a long way at a very fast pace."

She did indeed look very tired, her eyes drooping dangerously low. She sat slowly down on the edge of the bed, nodding gratefully. He turned to leave, but her hand on his arm and voice in his ear stopped him. "Wait," she said.

He turned back expectantly. She looked uncertain for some reason. She was biting her lower lip nervously. "He's not angry with me," she said. She sounded confused.

"No," Harry agreed, "He's not."

"And you're not either," it was half a question.

"No, I'm not," he answered. He chuckled lightly, shaking his head again in amazement. "We fully expected you to try to escape. In fact, I daresay we should have been disappointed if you hadn't. We just didn't expect you to actually succeed." His tone turned a little more stern and accusatory. "I did warn you about the muggle world, though. You were lucky tonight."

She hung her head a moment, and then looked back up at him in wonder and a little bit of awe. "That was amazing, I've never seen anything like it. You saved my life, you know."

He blushed a little bit, muttering that it was nothing.

"No, it wasn't," she insisted.

He shrugged embarrassedly, and mumbled, "Perhaps." Before turning to go, he said, "I'll bring some dinner up later if you'd like."

He paused, waiting for an answer. She shrugged and said, "Sure."

Satisfied, he turned to leave, but her voice stopped him once more. "Harry?"

He paused, startled, and faced her. She had never called him by his first name, or any name for that matter, before.

"Thank you," she whispered, blushing.

Thrown slightly by this, he simply said, "Any time," and left.

Walking down the hallway to go talk to Sirius, Harry reflected on the conversation soon to come. There was much to talk about. This could take a while.

Sirius was still in the kitchen, waiting for him. He looked as though he wasn't sure whether to be angry or amused. He apparently settled for finding out the whole story, though, for he asked Harry to tell him what had happened.

Briefly, Harry outlined their day, starting from when they had left the house. Sirius listened carefully, not interrupting once.

When the story was told, Sirius asked, "Why the hell didn't you contact me when she first got away?"

Without batting an eye, Harry replied, "Because I had to keep close to her to ensure the accuracy of the tracking spell, because I wanted to find her as soon as possible, and because it's dangerous for you to leave the house; especially for things I can take care of on my own."

Sirius glared at him, and a silent battle of wills ensued. Glares were traded for some time, before Sirius finally conceded the point and moved on.

"You do realize you messed up the apparition wards on the house by apparating directly inside the kitchen, don't you?" he asked.

Harry smiled embarrassedly. "Oops?" he tried hopelessly. A glare was all that he got for his trouble, and he sighed repentantly. "Sorry. I got a little caught up in trying to get her back here safely and forgot to apparate outside."

Sirius shook his head exasperatedly. "I'll never understand how you do that anyway. Any other wizard in the world wouldn't have been able to apparate here, but you just blast right through the wards."

Harry frowned. "That's not exactly how it works," he said. "It would take an exceptionally powerful wizard to just blast through them; something I am not. I have power, but not on the scale of Voldemort or even Dumbledore. It's not so much that I blast right through them as I undermine them and slip through the cracks." He grinned cheekily. "It's a matter of skill."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt that," he said, "But regardless of how it happened, it means we have to recast the wards tonight. She's really making you slip; do you know that? First she gets away, then you forget about the wards in your hurry to get her back here. You gotta pull yourself together!"

Harry blushed; muttering that he had no idea what Sirius was talking about. Sirius shook his head, but gave him no further grief over the matter.

He said, "One more thing before you go about fixing yourself dinner. Tomorrow training gets back on schedule. No more time off."

Harry rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "Yes, mother."

The next morning, Harry was up before the sun, doing what Sirius called 'training.'

Harry's routine consisted of running, weight training, practicing with various weapons, and unarmed combat; among other things. Some of it was daily; some of it was not.

He had not trained for several days, so Sirius took great delight in making him do every single piece of training he knew. By mid-morning, Harry was muttering 'bloody slave driver' over and over under his breath, as a sort of mantra.

An hour or so before lunch, Ginny wandered in to the large training room they'd had built. She quietly sat down near the door to watch, a fact that did not escape Harry's notice. Her presence was extremely distracting, and Sirius was soon berating him for not paying attention to what he was doing.

"Enjoying the view?" he whispered malevolently, then shouted, "WELL GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE CLOUDS, POTTER! GET YOUR RAGING TEENAGE HORMONES IN CHECK AND CONCENTRATE ON YOUR WORK. NOW DROP AND GIVE ME 50. ONE. TWO. THREE."

He continued to count each push-up at the top of his lungs, as Harry - not for the first time - silently cursed himself for ever letting his godfather watch Forrest Gump. Sirius' favorite character had been the drill sergeant from when Forrest joined the army, and he apparently decided to become Harry's own personal drill sergeant.

Around noon, Sirius agreed to let Harry take a break for lunch, though he glowered at him menacingly for it, to which Harry only rolled his eyes in exasperation. Somehow, he had managed to shed his shirt during the workout, so he went to retrieve it.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he whirled around in surprise to find Ginny staring at him, openmouthed. He looked first behind him and then down at himself embarrasedly. "What?" he asked.

She flushed and looked away, and he furrowed his brow in bewilderment. What was that all about?

Mentally shrugging his shoulders in confusion, he pulled his t-shirt on and walked over to her. "Hungry?" he asked, offering his hand to help her to her feet.

She nodded, accepting his hand and then following him out the door.

"Harry?" she asked timidly a short while later.

He looked up from the sandwich he was devouring. "Yes?"

"Where did you learn all that..." she paused, seemingly struggling to find the right word to describe it. "Fighting stuff?"

He laughed quietly and leaned back in his chair. "Fighting stuff?"

She blushed and said, a bit defensively, "Well I don't know what else to call it!"

He chuckled again, shaking his head. The complete ignorance of all things muggle that pureblooded wizards displayed was astounding. "There are a lot of things to call it. Some would call it Martial Arts, but I hesitate to call it that, since there's a lot more involved than just a particular style."

He took another bite out of his sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully for a moment before going on, "As for where I learned it, it's difficult to say. We've actually only lived in this house for a couple of years. Before that, we moved around a lot, and Sirius always ensured that I had the very best hand-to-hand combat instructors possible. I learned bits and pieces of Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Aikido, Judo, Jujitsu, boxing, kickboxing, street fighting, wrestling, and even a little Jeet Kune Do. I basically put it all together into my own unique style of fighting."

He could tell she had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but was utterly fascinated anyway.

"Why do you do it?" she asked curiously.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I can't really tell you that," he said. "It's really dangerous information to hold. Only a few people know."

She was disappointed, he could tell, so he changed the subject quickly. "So tell me about your family," he said. Remembering that he wasn't supposed to know about them at all, he added, "Do you have any siblings?"

This was a subject she could obviously warm up to, she launched straight into stories of all her brothers and their exploits, as well as her own role in the family. He was utterly fascinated, and listened with rapt attention to her every word, interrupting only occasionally with a question.

Having grown up with only Sirius for company, Harry had had a very lonely childhood. Sure, he'd had his instructors for company. He'd been highly trained in virtually every aspect of magic since he was five, but they were just his teachers. They weren't his friends. Often he had wished he had a brother or sister (or a whole load of them) to keep him company.

Ginny had six brothers, but she seemed to regard all of them with a little bit of contempt, because they tended to treat her like she was 10 years old all the time. Of course, he could also tell she loved all of them very much, despite that.

His initial impression of her older twin brothers, Fred and George, was how well they and Sirius would get along. He thought that he would get along best with Charlie and Ron, the quidditch fanatics, and he could see that Ginny seemed to get along best with Bill, the oldest. Her description of Percy left him wondering. He didn't sound at all like he even came from the same family as the rest of them.

When she told him about how she always snuck into her brother's broom shed to steal their brooms and fly, he nearly collapsed onto the floor he laughed so hard.

"Show them to consider you a little girl, eh?" he choked out. Her face was red with embarrassment, but she giggled a little and nodded. He wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself. "You and I will have to go flying some time," he said excitedly. "Sirius bought me a Firebolt for my birthday a few years ago." He paused and shook his head exasperatedly. "He bought one for himself too, though I have no idea why he did it. He never uses. Good thing now, though, since you can use it."

Her eyes bugged out and positively glowed with anticipation and excitement at the prospect. "Really? A Firebolt? I could actually get to ride a Firebolt?!"

"Of course!" he said heartily. "As soon as possible. For now, though, what about your parents? You haven't told me anything about them."

Still seeming ready to burst with excitement, she told him first of her father. Harry had to laugh inwardly at her description of him. It seemed that there were a few purebloods at least that held an interest in the muggle world. In the case of Arthur Weasley, it was to the extreme.

Molly Weasley, on the other hand, considered her husband a little crazy for his obsession. She was a wonderful mother, with strong instincts and a fiery temper when angered. She kept her red-headed brood in line with both loving words and a firm hand. For all this, she had a tendency to smother her children under a thick blanket of protection, pretending that they were all still little ones that needed to be sheltered.

Though she smiled and laughed while she told her story, tears fell down her cheeks. Harry started to panic. What should he do?

Gingerly, he reached across the table and put his hand and top of hers. "Don't cry, Gin. Everything will be alright. You have my word."

She stared at him for a moment, then mumbled, "I'm going to lay down for a while."

Well, it was an improvement anyway. At least she hadn't yelled at him like last time. Maybe she was starting to get used to the situation a little.

"I'll send Frost up in a little bit if you'd like to write some letters," he said as she rose to leave. She nodded and headed for her room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Some time later, he transformed into phoenix form and flew to her door. He considered just flashing into her room, but decided against it, wanting to respect her privacy. Instead, he landed on the floor and rapped his beak on the door.

She opened it within moments, and welcomed him with a happy cry of, "Frost!"

Inwardly, Harry wished that she could greet him in his human form as happily as she did when she thought he was a phoenix.

He leapt from the floor and alighted on her shoulder, giving a trill of joy. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but her heart lifted at the sound of his phoenix song.

"Are you here to collect my letters?" she asked rhetorically. He trilled an affirmative, so she said, "Alright, but I'm not done with them yet. Will you wait?"

He trilled another postive response, and she giggled, walking over to the bed to finish her writing.

After several minutes, she looked up from her parchment to where he was still perched on her shoulder. She stroked the feathers on his head softly. "I just don't understand your master, Frost," she said. "He's so strange. In some ways, he's exactly the way I would picture the famous Harry Potter to be. He's strong, and handsome, and brave. He faced down those men in that alley all by himself! But he's also different somehow; more human maybe, I don't know."

She lowered her voice and whispered conspiratorily, "Can you keep a secret?"

He leaned closer and nodded excitedly (or as nearly so as a bird can manage), so she said, "Before I ever met him, I've always had this crush on him."

He nearly fell off her shoulder in shock.

She giggled. "I know, it's silly. Most people thought Sirius Black had kidnapped him and killed him, and I didn't even know him anyway. Yet, somehow I didn't think he was dead. He couldn't just be killed like that; not Harry Potter. He was a hero, and heroes didn't lose in my book."

She sighed. "Now I don't know what to think anymore. He's just as handsome as I always pictured him to be; I could just get lost in those green eyes . . . Oh gods, Frost, am I falling for him? He's my kidnapper for Merlin's sake! Yet, he's been so kind, and he says it was only for my own protection. And he saved my life. What should I do?"

Harry was at a total loss for what to do at this point, so he just trilled a note of encouragement, wondering what she would do.

"I must be crazy," said Ginny, "Now I'm talking to a bird, too."

Harry ruffled his feathers and trilled indignantly at her, making her giggle.

"I'm sorry," she soothed. "You're right. You're not just an ordinary bird. You're a phoenix." Her face underwent a rapid change of emotion and she said, panicked, "Oh! You must have a way of communicating with Harry, don't you? You won't tell him anything I said will you, Frost? That would be so embarrassing."

He trilled her a reassuring negative, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't a lie, he knew. He wouldn't exactly tell himself about this conversation, since he was the one who heard it.

"Oh, thank you, Frost, I knew I could trust you," she cried happily.

A short while later, she finished writing the letters to each of her family members, and laid them out for him to read. He did so quickly, noticing that they each seemed to be along the same lines. She said she was safe and unharmed, and being treated just fine. She hoped to be home soon, and so on.

As she tied the letters to his leg, she said, "I'm sorry you have to fly all the way to my house. It must be an awfully long way."

He tilted his head at her and blinked, then disappeared in a flash of orange and red flames, only to reappear in another ball of fire on top of her bed post.

She shrieked in surprise and fell off the side of her bed.

Recovering, she said in amazement, "Well I guess that takes care of that. Why did it take so long to deliver the last letter though if you can just reappear at my house?"

Unsure of how to answer, he simply tilted his head to the other side, watching her.

She sighed. "I wish you could talk, Frost. I bet I could learn a lot about Harry from you. He's so mysterious. And he doesn't tell me a lot because he says it's dangerous."

He trilled a sad sort of trill, letting her know that he wished he could talk to her, too.

She stroked his icy blue plumage one more time. "Thanks for listening, Frost, and thanks for taking my letters for me."

He leaned into the softness of her hand, enjoying the sensation of her touching him. She pulled her hand away after a moment, and allowed him to leave.

He did so, and in only a moment, he was at the Burrow once more.

AN

Well there it is. PLEASE REVIEW! I love your reviews, they give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside when I read them. HAH.

Not sure when chapter four will be up, since last night while I was asleep an idea for a new story came and beat me over the head with a blunt instrument. I'm trying desperately to resist the urge to write it, at least for a couple weeks while I get you guys some more chapters. It's only a one-shot idea, but it's still frickin annoying to have it throbbing inside my temple.

Thanks to all of my reviewers, I can't tell you how much all your praise and advice means to me. Review responses below

Esper: Yeah, he hasn't gone to Hogwarts, and I don't think I'll make him go now, either. Not sure of the timeline yet, somewhere between 6 months and a year; probably closer to 6 months.

peregine: Indeed, that would seem to be the case, wouldn't it? Explanation later for that; I did think of it I can assure you.

Disco Jesus: HA HA HA. Awesome. Hermione will be in it later, as there's the slightest amount of R/H in this. Nothing from their POV, but they are together.

caillion: He doesn't trust Dumbledore to believe him, so he didn't even try to contact him. Harry is 16, and Ginny is about to turn 15 in this story. Voldemort is not in control, since he was defeated by Harry when Harry was a baby. He's risen now, but hasn't revealed himself to the world at large.

littlewhitehorse: They most certainly will. Who do you think he will win over first? After Ginny of course.

smidge: thanks. I think Ginny is often written wrongly too. I try, however, to keep an open mind and write her different ways for a little variety. The title was thought up by my brother, JC-S. He's ecstatic that you like it.

csferosha: Things are heating up, as you can see. It'll take a while, but it will be ever-present. Don't worry; I'm a romantic at heart as well. Something my guy friends tease me about, but my girl friends (I hope) think is cool...

Paige2310: of course she will. Wouldn't be called that if that wasn't going to happen. ;) hope you enjoy it!

Marcus Lazarus: He's to the point where he is in the books, but he hasn't revealed himself yet. We'll get an explanation for that in a future chapter. And Ron and Hermione know each other, and they'll probably end up together as well.

Tanydwr: mmmmm. Me love Chinese. And Tai (sp?), Tai is good too, cause it's spicy. We have cyber-cafes (thought they aren't as common, since most Americans tend tohave internet at home and at work), but I didn't get a chance to use one. Too busy, andI can't drive without a licensed driver in the front seat.

everpresent: Sirius and Harry have been on the run for ten years, so he's not so restless atm. That won't last long, of course, but for now they're enjoying some peaceful preperation for war. . . . that sounds hilarious. As for Scabbers...you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?

EJC: maybe, maybe not. Maybe I should kill him off like JKR did...I'M JUST KIDDING, DON'T KILL ME! I hate that he died, I promise I won't kill him off.

gallandro-83: they dislike and distrust (not hate) him because he was the man who sent Order members to hunt down Sirius and 'rescue' Harry. Sirius also dislikes him because he just let Crouch put him in prison without a trial, instead of even trying to figure anything out. Sorry for not explaining that earlier. As for the window, it just snaps shut and locks when she approaches that. I guess I should've explaned that as well...oops.