Chapter 3: Comforting a Friend

Harry rubbed his forehead and looked at the clock. 2:43. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to sleep tonight. "You want a snack or anything?"

Ginny nodded and descended from the desk to follow Harry down the stairs like an orange shadow, carefully jumping the bottom stair when he stepped over it. He found the nonfat milk in the refrigerator and poured a cup for himself and a small bowl for her. Then he tried not to laugh as she figured out how to lap up the milk, cat-wise. Once she got the hang of it, though, she was pretty good with it, Harry had to admit.

He sat at the kitchen table and enjoyed the difference from his usual times there, which involved his uncle glowering and his aunt and cousin ignoring him. Now he had pleasant company, even if she currently couldn't talk.

When they were both finished, and Ginny had cleaned her face and whiskers (another process which made Harry look away so as not to insult her by laughing), they went back upstairs. Ginny curled up at the bottom of Harry's bed again, closed her eyes, and was apparently asleep within moments.

Oddly, Harry felt the same way. He hadn't been interested in sleeping that night, since his first dream had woken him covered in sweat and with tears of frustration running down his face. He'd been hearing the taunting laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange as he chased her through a maze, like the one he had threaded at the Triwizard Tournament – he could run as fast as he liked, but she was always one turning ahead...

He shook his head, trying to clear out the thoughts, and pressed his hands to his eyes to keep from crying again. He had tried reading, but his eyes kept blurring up, and finally he had put Insane Dorm Hall back on the shelf and gone to pace instead. He knew it really wouldn't help anything, though, because the emotions got stronger as he grew more tired. Anger, fear, boredom, and grief...

He couldn't stop it now, he was going to cry; the best he could hope for was to keep from waking the Dursleys, as he had, screaming, his first night of the dreams...

Suddenly there was a box of tissues under his hand, and a warm vibrating weight on his lap, poking one of his legs with small sharp things, and even though he couldn't stop crying, Harry felt better about it. It somehow didn't matter that it was really Ginny Weasley sitting on his lap, his best friend's little sister, who had once had a stupid crush on him... all that mattered was that she was willing to try to comfort him, that she could comfort him...

He knew that if Ron and Hermione had been there, they would have done what they could for him, brought him tissues or sat with him and listened. Probably they wouldn't have sat on his lap, though...

Weakly, Harry chuckled at the thought of Ron sitting on his lap, and the worst of the tears were over. Ginny kept purring, and slowly Harry was able to get himself under control, wipe his glasses and his face, swallow a few times and make his throat feel better.

He looked down at her. "Thanks," he said a bit shakily.

She looked up at him, and though she couldn't speak, Harry felt he knew what she would have said. It's no problem. What else are friends for?

"I have to get up now," Harry said, and Ginny immediately removed herself, returning to the end of the bed. He stood up carefully, picked up the box of tissues (which had teeth marks in one end, he noticed) and returned them to his bedside table, and went across the hall to wash his face and get a drink of water. When he returned, Ginny had moved to the windowsill, and as soon as he shut the door, she beckoned him with a paw.

He crossed the room and looked out the window. "I don't see anything."

She pressed her paw against his lips, then batted his ear. The message was clear. Shut up and listen.

Harry listened, and heard something that made him smile. He hurried out the door, down the stairs, and into the living room, and looked out the window to see exactly what he had thought he would see – two identical silhouettes coming down the street, arguing as they came.

"Are you sure it was number 14?"

"No, I'm not. I thought you were going to write it down."

"I thought you said you were!"

"I never said that. Why would I say that?"

As they drew level with the house, Harry cleared his throat. Both of them jumped (identically) and had their wands pointed at him within seconds.

"Try number 4," he said, grinning. The pair relaxed. "Come on in, I'll unlock the door. Just don't make too much noise."

"Don't bother," said one of the shadowy forms.

"We'll just come in on our own," said the other.

"No, don't do that – you'll wake them up!"

"No, we won't."

"We've improved a lot since you saw us last."

And with small popping sounds that certainly wouldn't wake the Dursleys, Fred and George Weasley Disapparated in the street and Apparated within the Dursleys' living room. Ginny, who had followed Harry down the stairs, gave a quiet yowl of joy and leapt at them. George caught her, rubbed her head with his knuckles, and held her up for Fred to see.

"Hmmmm," said Fred, looking carefully at her. "Whoever did this was good. But I think I can say, without fear of contradiction – "

"We're better," finished George, handing Ginny to Fred. "And this shouldn't be too difficult to reverse."

"Wait a minute," said Harry, a little taken aback by the sudden turns of events. "You can't do magic here. I'll get in trouble."

"Who said we were going to do it here?" George asked. "We're taking Ginny back to headquarters. And we have official orders," he added, fishing a parchment envelope out of his pocket, "to take one Harry Potter with us."

"If he wishes to come," said Fred, sweeping an elegant bow.

Harry opened his Hogwarts letter eagerly. It was much the same as always, except for a short note tucked into it, in Professor McGonagall's handwriting:

Looking forward to seeing you here, Potter. Come to my office when you get back to school.

"Let me get my things," he said.

The twins helped him gather his supplies and clothes and pack his trunk. Harry was careful to slip the Erica Gorelli books into the bottom of his cauldron while George was rummaging in his shirts and Fred was investigating the bathroom. He had a feeling the twins would tease him unabashedly if they caught him reading kids' books.

"No need to take anything downstairs this time," said Fred, coming back into the room. "George, here, has a Portkey in his pocket."

"Isn't it lovely?" said George, dropping the shirts on top of the cauldron, to Harry's great relief, and handing him a folded copy of the Daily Prophet, dated July 12th. "Guaranteed for four and a trunk – I do hate traveling by Portkey with luggage, though, I always seem to be the one who gets knocked over by the trunk when we arrive."

"That's only because you're always the one holding the trunk when we leave," said Fred, dumping an armload of socks into it. "And speaking of leaving..." He checked his watch. "It's set for 4:00, which is in about nine minutes, and that's the last of your stuff, so we've no need to hurry. Why don't you tell us what happened? Mum, as you probably realized, was having kittens – sorry, Ginny – by the time your letter got there, because Ginny wasn't even supposed to leave the house, and here it was three-thirty in the morning and she still wasn't back."

Ginny stuck out her tongue at her older brother.

"Everyone's been worried," George put in. "Dad was enchanting and disenchanting this little statue, making it run around, and Hermione kept making these funny noises, and I think Ron probably paced a hole through the rug before Hedwig flew in. Mum snatched the note off her and read it aloud, and it was wonderful. 'Ginny is all right!'" He imitated his mother's voice. "'She's here with me at number 4! She's a cat... she's a what?'"

"She almost had a fit right there," Fred said in a tone of satisfaction. "It was brilliant, Harry. You ought to send more letters like that."

"But what happened?" asked George. "How did you know who she was?"

"I... didn't, at first," Harry said slowly. The beginning might be hard to explain – could Fred and George, two people who never seemed to have a serious thought, understand the pain that kept him from sleeping at night? "I was... walking around downstairs. I had the window open because it was hot, and all of a sudden, there's a cat in the room, and it seems to understand English. I had no idea what it wanted, and then I heard voices out in the street..."

"That's right, your letter said you heard wizards talking about her," George recalled. "Anyone we know?"

Ginny nodded firmly, and Harry flinched a little. "Yes. Well, one witch I didn't recognize, and two wizards I did. Fudge, and..." He didn't want to say it, but he would have to. "Percy."

Ginny's lips went back and she hissed quietly. Fred scowled. "Should have known," he said, quietly but with a real edge of menace on it.

"It wasn't Percy, though," Harry added quickly. "The witch said she had done... whatever she did... to change Ginny, and Percy actually seemed concerned about Ginny, at least some."

"But not enough to actually find her," George said angrily. "Not enough to see if she was in trouble."

There didn't seem to be anything Harry could say to that.

"Portkey in two minutes," Fred announced, and suddenly Harry saw half a dozen things he hadn't packed, and everything was a mad rush for ninety seconds until he found himself standing between Fred and George (George holding the closed trunk on edge beside him, of course) with Ginny in the crook of his arm, her paws and his hand on the paper.

"Five... four... three... two... one..." Fred counted, and there it was, the feeling of traveling by Portkey – the jerk behind the navel, the flying through the air and mad rush of colors – tinged this time by pain in his arm as Ginny hung on with her back claws – and then the landing, usually accomplished with a thud.

Harry felt himself falling and threw Ginny into the air so she wouldn't get squashed, then just barely managed to get out of the way of his trunk and George, only to be landed on by Fred instead. Ginny flew across the room, yowling, and landed on the sideboard, spitting angrily.

Someone was laughing, and someone else was trying not to. Harry rolled out from under Fred to see, as he had expected, Ron and Hermione; Ron was laughing outright, and Hermione, as usual, looked torn between laughter and concern. He grinned at them; after all, no one was hurt, and it must have looked funny. After a moment, everyone was laughing, even Fred and George as they picked themselves up from the floor.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Mrs. Weasley burst through the door of the kitchen, embraced Harry, and was immediately by the sideboard – Harry thought she might actually have Apparated there – scooping up Ginny. "Oh, my dears, you're all right, everyone's all right – "

Mr. Weasley hurried into the kitchen almost on his wife's heels, and relaxed greatly when he saw the cat in her arms. He shook Harry's hand warmly. "Harry, thank you so much. You've done as much as any of my sons would have for their sister – more, in some cases – " His face hardened, and Harry winced inwardly, knowing he would have to hurt the Weasleys later by telling them that Percy was apparently under the orders of the witch who had enchanted Ginny, and hadn't seemed to care much about her one way or another.

"All right, Mum, all right, now can we get her disenchanted so you can give her a proper hug?" George was saying. "You might strangle her if you keep on like you're doing."

"Oh – of course, of course..." Mrs. Weasley released Ginny, who did look somewhat rumpled, and the cat leapt lightly to the floor, to sit facing her tall identical brothers, tail twitching lightly.

"Now just hold still, Ginny," said Fred, flexing his wand hand once or twice. "I don't think this hurts."

Ginny hissed and sprang the claws of one front paw, and everyone laughed.

Then Fred and George lifted their wands in unison, aimed them at Ginny, and apparently did nothing, but the small cat-figure of Ginny began to twist, writhe, grow, and Harry was irresistibly reminded of the first time he'd seen magic such as this, near the end of his third year at Hogwarts, when Professor Lupin and Sirius had forced Wormtail to appear in his true shape –

He forced that thought down. He had to be happy right now, so he wouldn't spoil everything for everyone else –

"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley flung herself upon her daughter, who now looked somewhat disheveled but otherwise no different than she usually did. Mr. Weasley embraced them both. Ron caught Harry's eye and mouthed, "Chamber of Secrets?" Harry grinned. It did remind him somewhat of that rather eventful night, when he had saved Ginny's life and defeated both a basilisk and a physical memory of Tom Riddle, the boy who would become Lord Voldemort.

For this moment, at least, he was nearly as happy as he had been that night.