A/N - Well, it's been a very long time since I've written a new HP fanfic, but I hope people who have read this story before come back to read this new and improved version. The plot is essentially the same, with several new scenes added and chapters made slightly longer. I've corrected all the errors pointed out to me, and a few that no one caught. I really hope that this version is enjoyed better than the last one, and I look forward to hearing some feedback!

Chapter 1

Memories

The rain beat down on Ginny Weasley's window, and the lightning flashed in the blackness outside, but she paid it no mind. She pulled her wooly purple bedspread up to her chin, trying desperately to block the images flooding her mind. It was already a month since it had happened, shouldn't she be over it by now? But she wasn't, and somewhere deep down, she knew she would never get over it. She closed her eyes finally, and fell into a restless sleep, full of nightmares.

"Michael, don't . . . not yet . . . " Ginny protested, as Michael Corner's hands roamed ever downward until they reached the clasp of her jeans, and began to undo it.

"Come on, Gin, it's about damn time we do something more than snog for half an hour, don't you think?" he asked cruelly, pushing her back against the wall.

She shoved him backwards, and he stumbled a bit. Sometimes Ginny found that having six brothers was an advantage. At least she was a little stronger than the average 'girly girl'.

"Michael, I don't want to," she answered, a bit more forcefully now.

He came toward her, slowly this time. To Ginny, he looked like a tiger stalking his prey.

"I'm not kidding, I don't want to do anything with you," she growled, wishing she'd stayed broken up with him after fourth year. How had she ever been so stupid as to fall for his act of 'Oh, Ginny, I love you, I'm sorry, blah blah blah'. Well, she wasn't going to fall for his act anymore! She was a mature 17 year old, just ending her sixth year at Hogwarts, and there was no way she was going to let this git force her to do something she didn't want to do.

"I don't care what you want, you little bitch. I'll get what I want from you no matter what I have to do," he whispered fiercely, suddenly coming at her and pinning her wrists above her head against the wall.

She let herself feel fear now. She had left her wand behind when Michael had convinced her to join him in the Room of Requirement, and Michael was way stronger than she was. To add to that, they'd put a Silencing Charm on the room. She changed tactics, hoping he would relent.

"Michael, please don't . . . " she pleaded, letting a single tear stray down her cheek, hoping it would evoke some kind of feeling in him.

" 'Michael please don't' Just shut the hell up already!" he mimicked, roughly yanking her shirt up over her head.

He forced his mouth over hers in a bruising kiss, and after that, all the pleading, crying and yelling was of no concern to him.

Ginny bolted upright from her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Damn it," she muttered, hating that the slimeball could still make her feel this way with only the mere memory of that night. Of course, she had told nobody about it, not even Hermione, who she'd grown much closer to over the course of their time at Hogwarts. After Michael had left her alone in the Room of Requirementthat night, she'd stumbled to the girls' dorms, and thankfully, everyone else had been sleeping. She thanked Merlin that it was the day before the end of term, and she'd be able to go home and get away from Michael tomorrow.

God, I can't believe I let that happen to me, Ginny thought for what seemed to be the millionth time. She had always despised those weak women who couldn't prevent something like that from happening to them, and now, lo and behold, Ginny Weasley had become one of them.

She lay back down, her chest on fire, staring out the window at the early morning light filtering into her room. At least she'd slept for a while for once. She hadn't been able to sleep much at all over the past month. Suddenly, she heard a knock on her door, but she didn't answer. She hadn't spoken to any member of her family at all since the rape, for fear that they'd get something out of her. The only words she'd spoken consisted of 'go away' and 'piss off.'

Her door opened, but before she could say either of those things, the person said, "Ginny, please don't tell me to go away. I'm so worried about you, can't you at least tell me what's wrong? I promise I won't tell anyone."

Ginny turned enough to see Hermione standing in the doorway, still dressed in pajamas. She had come the day school let out, to stay at the Burrow until she found a place to live in the Wizarding world, seeing as how she'd already graduated. Ginny didn't reply, just pulled the covers over her head and ignored her.

"Fine, Ginny, don't talk, but I'll guarantee that you'd feel better if you did. But I guess I'm not good enough to talk to," Hermione said in a hurt voice, turning to go back to Ron's room, where she was staying. Usually, she'd share with Ginny, but the situation just didn't call for a roommate. She turned back around and said quietly, "Harry's coming today. Maybe you can talk to him."

Great, Ginny thought. Bad enough I've got to deal with this, and now Hermione's mad at me. And Harry's coming. Just another person to get me to talk. Can't they see I don't want to talk? Michael would kill me if he ever found out I told anyone.

"Whatever," she mumbled, turning onto her back. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep, but found it impossible. She was afraid of another nightmare, so she sat up, staring blankly ahead at her door. After what seemed like hours to her, she finally felt her eyelids growing heavy, and she laid her head back on the pillow, allowing herself a petty sleep.

She woke a few hours later to a loud thump downstairs. She turned and looked out her window, a habit she'd recently formed. Grey clouds scuttled across the darker grey sky, an atmosphere that perfectly matched her mood.She heard footsteps clambering up the stairs, and remembered what Hermione had told her. Harry was here.

After a while she heard voices outside her door. " . . . she's been like that since the end of the school year," she heard Ron say to someone.

"Well, have any of you tried talking to her?" asked a deep voice, which she recognized as Harry's.

"No, we just let her rot in there," answered Ron sarcastically. "Go ahead, you have a go at it and see how easy it is. I'm going to get something to eat before she hexes me for bringing you here."

Again, she heard a knock on her door, and again she didn't answer it. The door was pushed open, and she glanced toward it to see Harry. He hadn't changed too much over the past seven years she'd known him. He was considerably taller, and he was fairly built from years of Quidditch, and his voice was much deeper. He still had the most beautiful sparkling green eyes, and the mess of black hair that fell into them.

"Hey, Gin, what's up?" he asked warily, not sure what her reaction would be. Ron and Hermione had told him, or rather warned him, of her violent mood swings.

However, she didn't scream at him, but simply ignored him. After a few minutes of standing there, Harry came and sat on the edge of her bed.

"Ginny?" he asked hesitantly once again. Her back was facing him and he didn't know if she was sleeping or awake.

"What?" she muttered. She didn't know why, but for some reason, some part of her desperately wanted to open up to Harry and tell him what had happened.

"Ginny, everyone is so worried about you. What happened the night before graduation . . . where were you?"

Suddenly, without warning, Ginny sat up quickly and burst into tears. Not knowing what to do, Harry pulled her into his arms, threading his fingers through her thick auburn hair. She buried her face in his chest, finally letting out all the emotion she'd been bottling up.

"Ginny, come on, you know you can tell me anything," he whispered into her ear.

"Michael, h — he tricked me into the Room of Requirement, and — and raped me," she confided. God, it felt so good to let the words just spill from her mouth after keeping them in for so long.

Harry held her tighter, wanting to make all of her pain go away, but not knowing how it was possible. The news was the furthest thing from what he had expected. Maybe something about how she was so upset that she was going into her last year of Hogwarts now, or some other emotional thing. Nothing as important as this. But nevertheless, Harry quickly became furious at that bastard, and the minute he saw him, he was going to throttle him until he couldn't so much as lift his head to look at Ginny, let alone touch her.

"Harry, please . . . please make it stop. I can't live with this pain anymore, it's turning me into someone I don't want to be, and I don't know how to stop it," Ginny begged, and it broke Harry's heart to hear this girl, no, this woman in so much pain.

"It's all right, Gin, I'm herenow. I promise I won't let anyone hurt you anymore. I'll take care of you, please don't cry."

She didn't answer, only broke down in sobs once more. Harry just held her, knowing in his heart that this was where she belonged, in his arms. And also having no clue how to go about helping her.