Chapter 3- Love lives on hope, and dies when hope is dead

The rest of the ride to Hogwarts was, thankfully, uneventful. The train witch locked the door to the compartment Ginny had been using, and the youngest Weasley was forced to move out and past the Prefect's car to the front of the train and sit at the driver's side for the rest of the trip. Like the witch, the driver was clearly distraught that there had been a "serious disturbance" on his shift, and so the trip was spent in a tense silence, broken only by the sounds of Ginny's quiet sobbing. Ginny thought she was prepared for anything. She thought that she could handle anything. But she woke up in what she thought was possibly the safest place in the world, next to Hogwarts itself and the Burrow, and found that someone had murdered someone in her own compartment. She had slept, blissfully unaware of the oldest evil being committed just a couple feet away from her and she reacted with a strength of purpose. Now that the adrenaline was gone, now that her strength failed her, Ginny broke down. Her attempts to keep her tears back and her crying soft had died a few moments ago along with her pride.

For Ginny, it was the longest train ride in her seven years at this school. Once the train finally came to a stop, Ginny put everything away and moved to leave but was stopped by the driver.

"A teacher will be down here shortly to speak with you, Miss Weasley. Just wait here," he said and stepped out. Ginny sighed and sank back down, sitting on her trunk. Pulling the parchment back out of her pocket, Ginny started reading again. She hoped a sixth viewing would reveal a clue that the previous five had not.

"Weasley."

Ginny looked up in surprise when the silver-haired Professor Elphias Doge came up to the compartment and looked in. She remembered her first, irreverent thought from last year at seeing the wizard was that he struck her as an odd choice for a DADA teacher being… old and all. But he hadn't died, been obliviated, retired, gotten carried off by a wild herd of centaurs or turned out to be working with the enemy, something unprecedented during Voldemort's time. But Ginny reflected that maybe now that old Tom was gone, then the luck of the DADA teacher's position would change.

"Professor. Can I go now?"

"In a moment, Miss Weasley," Doge said in a wheezy voice and sat down in the driver's seat with a groan. "Problem with age…" he mumbled and massaged his legs. "… your knees…."

Ginny waited, a little impatiently, as the elderly wizard rubbed his knees. Without really thinking about it, Ginny folded up the scrap of parchment and stuffed it in her robes.

"So… what did you see, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny looked up and, while the Professor was still rubbing his legs, she had the feeling that he had been studying her a moment ago.

"Uh… this boy… I never got his name. He took a room with me and I dozed off. When I woke up, I… found that a silencing charm had been placed on the room and the boy had been struck by the Killing Curse…."

Ginny's finger rested on the parchment in her robe, and she considered mentioning it, but… this seemed personal. It was a prophecy about her… and Harry. Something she wasn't ready to share. Not yet.

"Anything else, Miss Weasley?" Doge asked in a light tone, but in a way that made Ginny feel he knew she was holding something back.

"No, Professor," she answered and pulled the innocent face she was so accustomed to using with her mum. Doge nodded and stood up with another groan.

"Well, Miss Weasley, I suppose you should head on up to the Great Hall. They should be eating about now."

Ginny nodded and performed the levitation charm on her trunk and dragged it up to Hogwarts. She looked towards the Great Hall and heard the sounds of laughter drift towards her. Sighing, Ginny dragged her trunk up the steps to Gryffindor Tower, not really feeling like being around people right now.

"Hesperides," Ginny breathed out the password in a sigh.

"No," the Fat Lady replied, inspecting her nails.

"Oh c'mon!" Ginny scowled, knowing that the password from last year wouldn't work, but trying anyway. "Let me in!"

"Not the right password," the Fat Lady said with a bit too much enjoyment for Ginny's taste.

"Open the bloody door!"

"Nope."

Ginny's face turned bright red, and she whipped out her wand, determined to blow a hole through the portrait.

"Bollocks!" she exclaimed and slammed her trunks down before sitting on them moodily.

"Such language," the Fat Lady sighed and shook her head behind Ginny. "Kids today!"

"Shut up," Ginny snarled and put her wand away. She wasn't going to head back downstairs into the hall. She wasn't all that hungry after finding this poor boy murdered in her own compartment. She wished Hermione was here… or even, heaven forbid, Ron. But most of all, she wished she could see Harry again.

"I remember when there used to be polite kids here."

"Shut up."

"They never used such foul language," the Fat Lady continued, ignoring Ginny's tone.

"Shut. Up."

"I miss the polite ones. Never banged my doors. Never used such language. Always nice to me."

Ginny stood up and turned on the portrait, drawing her wand again.

"Like that Harry Potter," she sighed. "I miss him."

Ginny deflated immediately and marveled for a moment at the fact that a portrait could miss students.

"Yeah," she whispered, her hand dropping to her side and a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Me too."

"Do you think he might come back this year? Like he did last year?"

Ginny looked up at the portrait and smiled slightly.

"I hope so," she whispered and sat back down with her head in her hands, drowning out the portrait's constant chatter.

After an interminable amount of time, during which the Fat Lady began commenting about the beautiful weather in Violet's painting, Ginny was relieved to see finally the first years being led by the Gryffindor Prefect up to the tower.

"Right this way," the sixth-year student said and then stopped when she saw Ginny sitting at the top of the stairs outside the portrait.

"Oh, hi Ginny. Need in?"

"Yeah, uh…," Ginny paused, trying to remember the girl's name and failing. "Thanks."

"No problem," she said with a smile and looked at the Fat Lady. "Acacia."

The Fat Lady nodded, and the portrait swung open, revealing the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower. Ginny sighed, cast the spell on her trunks again and pulled them up the steps into the girl's dormitory. Pushing open the door into her room, Ginny saw one of her dorm mates, Heather Maxell, unpacking a trunk full of dress clothes.

"Ginny," she called out cheerfully and gave her dorm mate a hug. "How are you? Have you been crying?"

Ginny smiled softly at the concerned look on Heather's face. Heather wasn't a close friend, but after seven years of sharing a room they had grown pretty close. Heather had come running to find Ginny in their fifth year when she heard that Harry had kissed Ginny in the common room after the Ravenclaw game. Then last year when Harry was spending time at the castle, Heather had been the first one Ginny had talked to about her developing relationship. Normally, Ginny would have talked to Hermione or one of her friends about this, but Hermione was secluded in the library most of the time she was at school last year, and most of her friends hadn't returned after Dumbledore's death. Not to mention the fact that Hermione was practically Harry's sister. It would have been like talking to Ron about her sex life. That just wasn't happening.

"I'm fine," she said gently and pushed her locker down at the foot of her bed. "Tired."

"I didn't see you in the Hall."

Ginny sat down on the bed and looked at her dormie, wondering how much she should disclose. The absence of Hermione and her friends was a sudden pang in Ginny's heart, and she knew that she needed someone to confide in.

"I was held back on the train. A boy was killed in my compartment."

"What!"

Ginny nodded, and Heather sat down on the bed next to her, laying a comforting hand on her knee.

"What happened? Who was it? Who did it? What…?"

"I… I don't know. I, uh, I think he was a first year student. I saw him at King's Cross and he didn't know how to get onto the platform. Then he came to my compartment, not finding any other place that was empty…," Ginny trailed off, looking thoughtful. When Ginny went to get the witch, and later when she was taken to the front of the train, she saw that there had actually been a number of compartments that weren't being used. After the school had been attacked a couple years ago, fewer students returned to Hogwarts, so the train wasn't as full as it had been in her first five years. So the boy had lied when he said there was no room. He had wanted to share a room with her.

"What happened then?"

Ginny buried that train of thought to dwell on later and all the questions to which she had an answer. At the end of the recounting, Heather just sat, stunned.

"Wow. I just… wow," Heather stared at her dormmate and finally recovered her senses. "This isn't good, Gin. Do you know who killed him? Or why?"

"Don't know about the who," Ginny replied and pulled out the parchment. "But… the why might have something to do with this."

Heather unfolded it and read the prophecy and the notes.

"Oh, Ginny. Gin… do you think…? Do you know what this is?"

"No. But I aim to find out," Ginny glanced over as the door opened and her other dormmates started to come in. "Don't tell anyone," Ginny whispered as she grabbed the prophecy and stuffed it in her robes. Heather frowned but nodded her head. Ginny smiled slightly and started unpacking her things while listening to her dormmates gossiping about summer developments and tried to get absorbed into a more normal life. At least for a little while.