A/N: Well my friends and my parents both really liked the first chapter. My best friend, David, said I had to write more. I believe the word he used was "NOW". I'm in Illinois at the moment, six hundred miles from home, because my dad has a class reunion and we're visiting for the weekend. I promised David two more chapters by the time I return. Here's one of those.

DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned Harry Potter. But you can wish in one hand…. It's only my creation in my dreams. JK is the genius, I am just a fangirl.

Chapter One

Rude Awakening

"Beautiful service… Not a dry eye… pity he couldn't see…."

"Shh! You'll wake him!"

"Mum. He's been sleeping for three days. Someone ought to wake him up."

"Hush now, Charlie. He'll come out when he's ready."

"Charlie is right, Molly. It isn't healthy."

Harry sat up, watching the door in silence. Before the final battle a few weeks ago, he might have felt guilty for taking up Percy's old room and refusing human contact of any kind. Perhaps it was cruel of him not to attend Snape or Angelina's funerals, or even George's memorial service. He found it strange, however, that when he searched inside himself for a scrap of guilt or a hint of shame, he found only emptiness.

"Will the three of you shut up already? I'd bet my broomstick that he's listening to you bicker right now."

Any other time, Ginny's frank interruption with the startling truth might have drawn a snort of laughter from Harry, or at least a smile. Instead, he vaguely registered the humor of her statement in the back of his mind. No one else laughed either. Or perhaps they had… the moment was already lost. He lay back again, slipping into yet another unnecessary sleep for a few hours' time.

"Ginny, no. Let him alone. Mum said—"

"I know what Mum said, Ron. Now step aside or I'll hex you."

The door to Percy's bedroom swung open and Harry lifted a hand involuntarily against the sudden intrusion of daylight. His haven of warmth and darkness, of loneliness and silence, was ripped away. The thick lump of quilts and blankets under which he had burrowed had been unceremoniously thrown off of him. Harry opened his eyes again, squinting up at the blur of red hair over him.

"Get out of that bed, Harry Potter, before I spray it down with so much water you'll never want to sleep in it again—and don't you think I won't do it!" The figure over him reminded him sharply of a younger, thinner, and (if possible) stricter Mrs. Weasley. Her fists were curled tightly on her waist rather than her hips and she looked as though she would drown him if he didn't get up. He fumbled for his glasses and shoved them onto the bridge of his nose.

"What's going on?" he asked stupidly. His voice was hoarse, and he winced at the sound. It was as though he had dined on gravel and crushed glass for the past year.

"You're going to get your lazy arse out of that bed or you'll be sneezing up bat guano for the rest of your miserable life. Get up!" As if to punctuate her statement, Ginny stabbed her wand at him and he was hit square in the face with a jet of water. He spluttered and shook his head, raising his arms to fend off any further attacks from the girl before him.

"Okay! Okay, just… Don't do that again." He scrambled out of the bed, wiping his face on a blanket and catching himself on the night table before him. Ginny covered a laugh (badly) and held out a hand to steady him.

"I'd help out a bit more, but nobody cast a Jelly-Legs on you. Maybe your legs have atrophied. Maybe your brain did, too," she added as an afterthought, her eyes twinkling in the afternoon sun.

"Shut it, you," Harry retorted. He ran a hand back through his hair, expecting another witticism from the girl next to him. He was surprised when it didn't come. He realized with a sinking feeling that he wouldn't have laughed if she had come up with the greatest riposte of the decade. He ruffled his hair again.

"What's today?" he muttered, shuffling through the trunk at the end of the bed. He heard a rustle behind him and suppressed a sigh. He wouldn't have been surprised if she'd walked off.

"The twenty-sixth. I'm giving you five minutes to get dressed, and then you're coming with Fred and me to lunch in London. Besides, we need your help with these Muggle clothes." Ginny swept out and closed the door behind her. Harry shook his head and almost smiled. The last time Fred had gone out to lunch in London, he, Harry, had had to explain to quite a few people that his friends were 'disabled'. That was the only reasonable explanation for a grown man wearing short shorts and a bright pink belly shirt and his twin dressed in a tennis outfit with hiking boots.

Harry's lighthearted mood vanished at the thought of George, and he dressed with a frown. Undoubtedly Fred would be thinking of that same incident.

Minutes later he emerged from the small room wearing jeans and a slightly wrinkled polo shirt that had once fit perfectly. It now made him look like a starved child. Ginny glanced up from the bag she'd been looking through and nodded in approval.

"Oh, good, you're ready. I thought we might Apparate to the Ministry car lot and pick up the car. Dad managed to convince them to enchant the cars to drive themselves so we can just look like we know what we're doing. So, do you want to drive or shall I? I'm afraid to let Fred for obvious reasons." She grinned at Fred and tossed her hair. Fred forced a smile back.

Well, this will be a lovely afternoon, Harry thought. He didn't know how Ginny would manage to keep her sanity about her with only himself and Fred for company. She'd started talking again, and Harry shook himself mentally out of whatever trance he'd fallen into.

"…of course, but the Lignum Vitae presentation was absolutely beautiful. McGonagall cried, and I think everyone was shocked. I know I was. She even had her hair down and curled and oh, Harry, she looked so pretty."

It wasn't until recently that Harry really began to appreciate what Ron meant when he said they had difficulty getting his sister to shut up. Harry became dimly aware that his mouth was open and closed it quickly.

"Yeah. Erm. What's the Lignim Veetay?" he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. It was not the first time in his life that Harry had felt stupid for being oblivious to things that were common in the Wizarding world.

"It's an award. Lignum Vitae is a really rare wood. Most wand makers only make about one every century or so out of Lignum Vitae. It was the wood in Merlin's wand. That's why it's really famous. Everyone that gets the award gets a display wand crafted from Lignum Vitae. It obviously doesn't work as well as the wizard's regular wand, but it's not bad to have around. Sort of the way that Muggles get swords or knives for awards in the military. They do get swords, right? Not to use, but just to hang above the mantle?"

Harry nodded, his head feeling as if it weren't getting enough oxygen.

"Right. Anyway, our reservations are for one o'clock, and we've got to choose these clothes. So… you choose and we'll go change and we can leave." Ginny flashed him a grin, and Harry's stomach sank. He never had been very good at picking clothes out. The Dursleys never gave him a chance. He peered into the bags and pulled out a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt for some Muggle band he'd never heard of, holding them out to Fred. Fred took them wordlessly and moved off to change.

"I wish he would laugh again. It's so depressing. It's… It's like we've lost both of the twins," Ginny murmured. Harry glanced up in surprise. He'd never expected her to talk about the deaths in her family.

"He just needs time to come around, you know? He may not be the same, but he'll be a lot better after he's had… time." Harry kicked himself mentally. How would he know? He'd barely had time to come around after Sirius's 'death' when his godfather had suddenly shown back up again with a fascinating tale about the Himalayas.

"I hope so. We've all suffered, but dwelling on it just makes it hurt more." Ginny spoke softly, and it sounded as though she was afraid to say something wrong. Harry muttered his agreement and pulled out a black skirt and light blue top, holding them out to her without looking at her. She took them and thanked him quietly before moving off to change.

Harry leaned against the wall, sighing and closing his eyes. A tiny smile lightened his face. Perhaps it wasn't even a smile. He just felt his face soften, as if he had been wearing a scowl and only just stopped frowning. He had just unearthed a memory of the twins, each of them clapping a hand on one of his shoulder while they persuaded and coerced him to be the guinea pig for their trick brooms. He never had agreed. Now one of them was gone and the other seemed to have lost that perpetual happiness. Harry could only imagine what he was like. Ginny was definitely a brave girl.