(A/N): Hey everyone. I know this is seriously overdue, but I did what I could. I've been having some serious issues at home for the past three months, but they seem to be getting better now, or at least I've gotten used to it. One or the other. Anyway, sorry the chapter isn't longer, it just seemed like the natural stopping point in the chapter. I know you guys want to see Harry's reaction, and you will, but not until next chapter. I just couldn't get it to flow well in this chapter. I actually finished this chapter a little over a week ago, but I kept trying to get Luna into the house and to tell him, and it just wasn't working right, not in this chapter at least. Go figure.

Anyway, thank you so much everyone who reviewed! If it hadn't been for you I very well might have given up and walked away when the going got rough. So. How about we open with a nice tramatic dream sequence?

Everything was black, so black. The bed, the walls, her mouth; all black. He kissed her deeply, tongue probing, carnivorous. She bit his bottom lip and he tasted blood; tasted love and war.

He looked down at her, her breath shaking with every thrust, crimson hair sprawling against the black satin pillow, freckles sprinkling across her angelic face. He was so close, so close. He closed his eyes to the darkness to find dark. He opened them to blank eyes and flaxen hair. He tried to sit back and stop but she pulled him back down. She kissed him and he forgot all about Ginny, he was with her now. She would finish him.

She smiled sweetly and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him in deeper. She arched her back and coyly tucked away a lock of his hair. He just kept through the motions; kept going through the dance that so was his life. He knows he can not stop. He doesn't care. It always feels good in the end, victory or death, it always feels good.

He moans deeply; he knows he's about to come. It will end soon, he will end it. But now Luna is gone, replaced by death with red eyes. The site revolts him but he plunges in nonetheless. He wonders vaguely why this man would be bottoming, but the thought is not important. He has a job to finish. A slim forked tongue reaches for him; he opens his mouth to receive it. He shudders and pushes deeply one last time, to find that he is now alone. Voldemort is gone.

He looks up to find strings, tiny black threads tied to each of arms, his legs, his head. Like a marionette, like Pinocchio. To his right is an audience, on one side the Order, on the other the Death Eaters. The Ministry stands in the background, and he dances for them. They laugh at him, make crude jokes. It is all he is to them, a harlequin for their amusement.

He wants to be real; he wants to be in the audience, to cut the stings. He bites at the cords and they laugh harder, more fervently. He pulls at the stings, looks up to see the man holding them. The man is crying but he doesn't care. The man could drop him if he wished.

Behind the bed a fairy appears, he turns away from Dumbledore to look at her. She isn't right though, her dress is not blue but black. Her skin is blue, yellow, green. She looks like a bruise. She walks over to him and raises her wand into the air. He looks up hopefully; she has the power to free him. She hits him on the head once. Twice. Three times. He begins shaking though he doesn't know why. The audience becomes blurry, the stage just a fragment of his imagination. All that remains is the bed.

oOoOoOo

"Harry, Harry wake up!" Hermione said, grasping his shoulders, shaking him gently.

"Hmm?" Harry groaned groggily, glad to be awake but not willing to open his eyes. Reality wasn't much better than fantasy.

"Harry! You have got to get up! She's going to be here in just under an hour!"

"Who?" He asked dumbly. He knew who. She had owled just yesterday, two days after Hermione had returned.

"You know who. Now get up! I didn't agree to live with you for the summer to be you're personal maid. I am here strictly for…"

"The Order, yeah I know Hermione. Look, I'm sorry. I'm getting up, see? And I appreciate what you're doing, I do, I just, I don't know." How could he explain to her this feeling he felt? Like his life was fleeing from his control, dancing just outside his grasp, mocking him, and much as he tried, he would never get it back.

"It's okay Harry, I know what you mean. It's stressful, everything you're undertaking. And now, with Luna coming over- I thought you two left it off on bad terms?"

"We did, I don't know why she's coming over; I kind of just ditched her at the end of the wedding. It should be me going to her to apologize, if anything."

"Well that's the truth. Anyway, I have to leave. Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, and I are going into Diagon Alley to pick up Ginny's school supplies. And possibly to pick up some potion ingredients for Lupin. It's been hard on him, not being able to rely on Professor Snape to brew Wolfsbane. I'll probably stay the night at the Burrow, okay?"

"Okay. Er, would you mind picking up some stuff for me? Mundungus seems to have made off with some necessary items. Hold on a minute, I'll write a list." Harry said, standing up and walking over to his trunk, rummaging to find some parchment and a quill. He'd been living at Grimmauld Place just over a week and he hadn't yet seen the need to unpack. It hadn't fully hit yet that this situation was permanent; at least for however long Voldemort was still alive and well, with horcruxes to spare.

Harry finished off his list and handed it to Hermione along with some gold. She smiled, and told him to get ready, then left for the Burrow. Harry looked down at himself and then at his watch (Hermione had given him a new one for his birthday). He had thirty minutes to get ready. He sighed, and then headed for the bathroom. A shower never hurt.

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Luna sat in a chair at the kitchen, toying with her charm bracelet. She had searched for hours in her trunk for the strawberry charm, but it was in vain. She could not find it. Its loss saddened her.

On her first birthday her father gave her the bracelet, shrunk to fit her tiny wrist. It had two charms on it; one of a moon, also from her father, representing her namesake. The other charm was the strawberry, from her mother. Her mother used to say it reminded her of Luna, of how tiny, pink, and sweet she was they day she was born. It was her favorite.

Her father walked into the room, looked over to where she sat. His eyes were heavy, sad. He sat beside her and lifted her chin to look at him.

"Are you alright Luna? Don't worry, you can do this. You're a strong girl. Just, be careful how you tell him, okay love? Don't spring it onto him right when you walk through the fireplace, give him some time. You haven't seen this boy since the Weasley wedding, and it didn't sound to me like that was a really good encounter. I'm still not sure I want you to do this alone, I think it would be better if I came along with you." Luna held back tears as she turned her face away from her father's hand.

"I have to do this alone." She had originally planned to go with her father, she needed him for the support, but Bill had advised against it. Luna had written to him after the Swedish Healer her father took her to confirmed her suspicions.

Luna hadn't wanted to tell Harry, but the Wizarding world was small, and in just a few months she would show. She didn't want Harry to find out by way of rumor. Bill told her that Harry would be moving just before she returned to England, and that posed a problem; his home was under the Fidelious charm, and if he left it, a team from the Order would follow him. She didn't want to tell him she was having his child in front of half a dozen ministry officials; it was an awkward enough situation without them. And she couldn't tell him at the Weasley's house, as Bill suggested, because getting all of them out of the house would be a feat in itself, especially since Charley was still visiting from Romania, causing Fred and George to be around more often as well.

This left Harry's house the last feasible option, but she would have to be given the address, and the Order wasn't giving that up lightly, or at all. It was difficult, writing to Harry, trying to convey the importance of meeting privately without sounding suspicious or actually telling him why she wanted to speak to him. Some things just couldn't be written on parchment.

Bill had arranged it for her; the meeting. He was to arrive at her house at approximately nine fifty, and would side-along apparate her outside Harry's house.

Luna was nervous. She hadn't seen Harry since the wedding, and had no idea how to bring it up. It wasn't the sort of thing that one just blurted out, but there was no way to back into the conversation either. There was no point in stressing now though, what would happen would happen, and there was nothing she could do about it now. Bill was about to arrive anyway.

-------

Harry waited in the foyer; sitting on the stairs for the knock he knew was coming on the front door. Bill said he would tell her to knock, to avoid waking the portrait of Mrs. Black. His watch read nine fifty-nine am. She should be arriving any minute now.

Harry ran his hands through his hair nervously; he had no idea why she was coming, and was still too humiliated to face her, but when he too the letter to the Weasley's to ask them about it, Bill had been oddly persistent about him meeting with her, and even had volunteered to take her to Grimmauld Place himself. If Harry didn't trust the Weasleys as much as he did, he would have been suspicious. In all honesty he was suspicious, but of what he didn't know.

At exactly ten am the door bell rang. The portrait of Mrs. Black roared into an angry rage, and Harry quickly got up to pull the curtain over her, then straightened his shirt, took a deep breath, and opened the front door.

(A/N): Cliffs at every turn, I know. Sorry.