Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JkR does. Unfortunately.

Warning: Change in POV, person and perspective! - just wanted to mix things up a bit to get myself back into the rhythm for writing for this fic, plus thought it'd be interesting to see a different perspective! - if you hate it do tell me tho because I was thinking of doing it every so often with random characters just for a different viewpoint but if it doesn't read well just comment below, cheers.

"What's going on?" A voice raspy called, as eyes blinked open, filtering through the light that had been so absent for such a long time. It hadn't felt like a long nap. It had felt like being frozen in time, being a ghost watching everything passing around you, people going on with their lives without you, perhaps absentmindedly thinking about you, or wish you were still there. But you aren't. You weren't. You were gone. You were stuck, whilst everyone else was breathing you were lying still, unmoving. You were dead.

Of course, you weren't dead. You were alive. And breathing. You know that, because now your throat is sore and your eyes hurt from the sudden exposure to light. But you didn't. In those brief moments of consciousness you'd realised you were dead (you'd thought so confidently that you were dead that it was the truth in those moments), you had realised that you had died, that those eyes had burned into yours and that was that.

You had died. You'd thought you'd died. Then you woke up. In a room. Alone.

Alone like you'd always been, like you always are, like you always will be. Because you're smart, it's the one thing you can pride yourself on when you're so lacking in every other department – especially the social department, the department which matter most whether you were in a four-walled classroom at your primary school or the four-walled classrooms at Hogwarts.

People were all the same. They liked to think they were different because they had the gift, but they weren't. They were still bullies, and mean; you were still socially inept. The one who couldn't make friends, who'd always make the wrong comment, or who'd always feel jealous of anyone better than you, even if it was the last emotion you wanted to feel.

But that was life, we are humans, with imperfections, and that is life.

You wake up, and suddenly you're breathing, and feeling, feeling everything, feeling the pain, feeling the yawn rising up through your broken throat, despite having slept for what feels like an eternity. You wake up and you're alive again. You wake up and you're alone again.

Suddenly everything's back to normal. What's the point of feeling, of breathing, of being alive. So you close your eyes again. You let the yawn escape through your throat. You let Morpheus take your hand and guide you back to the heavens. You may have been dead, but at least you weren't in pain.

"-ley, it's going to be okay. She woke up for a minute or so, slowly regaining conscious. This is a pro-" the voice got quieter again and it takes some real concentration to re-enter the conversation. "rmal. She should wake up soon."

"Hermione." A hand tentatively grasps at the other, gently shaking it. "Are you awake?"

"Ron?" It hurts forcing the word out but you do it anyway.

"Hey." His ginger hair sticks out like a beacon, guiding you to it. It's messy, messier than usual, as though a hand has run through it over and over. You wonder why. If you didn't know better you'd say he'd been nervous, anxious, that he cared for you so he worried about you. You know better.

He says he's your friend now, but you still remember the first term of Hogwarts. How lonely that was. Everyday is spent waiting for Ron to realise that you're still that same insufferable know-it-all, and that you always will be. Or Neville. One day he'll get tired of you. He'll wonder why he puts up with you.

Or perhaps they'll continue pretending. Neville struggles in potions, he's probably just using you to get help for the homework, or so that you'll be his partner. Ron… well Ron's always been lazy. He'd copy you in every subject if you let him – sometimes you give in, you let him "just read" your essay. The one which took you the entire lesson. Other times you'll force him to sit down with a textbook and you'll go through it with him.

From an outsider's perspective that might seem like you're being a good friend. You disagree. You like it. You put up a tone of annoyance, an expression of frustration when he comes to you the night before it's due, but secretly, it's fun. It's nice having someone rely on you, it's nice feeling like you're helping – actually helping – someone. It's also, from a practical point of view, quite useful, it helps you consolidate your learning. They make you see things from a different perspective, you look at the facts, they take into account the emotions, the feelings, the human side of everything.

You help them, yes, but they help you more. Whether they realise it or not.

It's not just the work side of things. It's when you're alone in a classroom and they come in, taking a seat either side of you. It's when you're in the corridors, feeling swarmed by everyone and one of them comes and takes your arm as they walk to the next class. It's when you're in the common room late at night reading, and Neville comes down and ushers you away towards the dormitories – or if it's a Saturday, wraps a blanket over your legs and picks up a book as his own.

And Ron, he's lazy, and annoying, and unhygienic, and slightly disgusting at times, but he's smart, and funny, and caring, and surprisingly empathetic. He can beat you at chess every time without blinking – he could probably beat you in your sleep. He seems to understand when you're being dramatic about how much work you've got, and should just be relaxing, and when you're genuinely stressed about something important, and then he helps you (as much as he can at least).

You hate yourself for liking it – the feeling of having friends, of not being alone. You hate yourself from liking them – it will only hurt so much more when they inevitably leave you.

"How do you feel?" He asked, inclining his head towards you. There's some dirt on his face – there almost always is – but you can only concentrate on the gentle smile. He looks… relieved?

"Tired."

He laughs. "You've been asleep for a while 'Mione, you should be well rested." He senses it. The stress which grows. How long? How long? How much classwork have you missed? How much catch-up will you have to do? Will you have to retake a year? His hand clasps yours, stronger this time than before.

You cling on to it – it's embarrassing really, but you do it anyway. He tethers you to reality. Sometimes without him, without them, it feels like you're a balloon, and you'd just float away into the abyss. He – they – rooted you.

"It's June." He tells you, his hand gripping onto yours tighter. Or maybe it was you that clutched onto his, like a lifeline. That was almost four months. Four months of your life in a… a coma, you can probably call it a coma, because four months of your life – in muggle terms at least – is a coma. In the wizarding world? Who knows. Ron probably. Neville's even more likely.

"It's okay." He pipes up from your left. He was so quiet before you didn't even realise he was there. That's Neville though. While Ron jumps to fill a silence – you presume it's because he's been raised in a home with up to nine people, silence must be strange, scary even – Neville stops and thinks. His upbringing likely contributes to that too.

Almost the antithesis of Ron, he grew up with only his grandmother. You don't know the details, you're too scared to press – you're not good at that kind of thing anyway, being delicate and not blunt. Ron's not good at it either. Neither of you know his pain, his burden. But it's there.

You can see it when you're together reading in the common room, he zones out from his book like he's in a trance. It's always herbology – the book – but you've started making note of the particular titles. Herbology in Healing and Magical Properties in Mundane Medicine. Healing. It's nearly always healing. Herbology and healing, for Neville the two seem to go hand in hand.

You know by now, well, you've deduced by now, that his parents aren't dead. You also know that, for Neville, it'd probably be better off if they were. But you don't know the details, and you refuse to let your thirst for knowledge breakdown the necessary barriers. Sometimes being smart is knowing when to hold your tongue. That's something you're still learning. Practicing.

"Everything's okay now." Neville continues, a quirk of a relieved smile playing at his lips. His brow is furrowed though. He looks stressed, but relieved, and another feeling flickers behind his eyes too. You don't really know what it is.

"Wha- What happened?" Each breath feels like a relief now. You feel the cool air travelling in your mouth, down your throat to your lungs. It feels like life. And life is good.

"You want the short story or the long story?" You take in another deep breath. There's no longer a yawn playing at your throat, and your eyes don't feel like collapsing. You just want to know. You want to know everything.

Ron and Neville exchanged a look, as if they had no idea where to start, before Neville nodded slowly, drawing in another deep breath. When it's over and you think back on it you realise it's the most he's said since that time he ripped into you and Ron at the end of first year. You don't like yelling, you know Neville doesn't either, but it's honestly the best thing that's ever happened to you. They're the best thing that has ever happened to you.

"There was a basilisk." You take in a deep breath. Those eyes, huge, musty yellow burning into yours. You couldn't shake that image. "You were petrified. But everything is okay now, the basilisk is no longer a threat, the heir is gone."

"The heir?" The question causes Ron to flinch, but he takes up the responsibility to answer nonetheless.

"My sister." He tells you, and you force yourself to refrain from gasping at the serious, and hurt, look that washes over his normally jovial features. "Well, kind of." He adds. "It's complicated. It's also quite confidential." So he's not going to tell you, you realise, because why would you be in the loop for something like this. "So you can't tell anyone." He adds, and you refrain yourself from smiling – it's certainly not the time – but it feels so good to finally be trusted.

"Promise." You reply, squeezing his hand. He blushes, and you do too, realising that you are both still holding hands. You quickly rip yours out of his, and out of the corner of your eye you think you see Neville laughing. You refuse to look though, you don't need anyone to see how red you are.

"She was possessed, by a diary, but the diary was actually You-Know-Who, from when he was a student here." Ron, never the most eloquent speaker, but he got the message across. He equally didn't seem to want to say anymore, so Neville took over the mantle of speaking.

"You were petrified, along with a few other people, all muggleborns like you, and things got chaotic. Dumbledore was suspended as headmaster pending investigations for his shortcomings, and then the Daily Prophet – Rita Skeeter – got involved. They started blaming Harry, Harry Reynolds," Neville corrected, remembering that you and Ron aren't as close with Harry as he is.

"It was intense. Everyone started blaming him, because he was a parselmouth, and he didn't have alibis – or his alibis were just that he was with his friends. You were already petrified, but it was him that found Kenneth and Nick, and then it was discovered that the Slytherin vault had been accessed at the start of our first year, everyone thought it was him. To be honest we still don't know who did do that.

"Then things escalated even further." Neville hesitated, glancing at Ron cautiously. He seemed concerned. Really concerned. You're still struggling to fathom how things could have escalated when you remember your readings – it was ironic that you could remember (now… too late) the extracurricular reading you had done, about magical beasts, in first year you had had a lot of free time... Basilisks' eyes were deadly, one glimpse meant you'd be put six feet under – or however wizards dealt with their dead.

Then you remember about Ginny, and you think back to how nervous Ron had looked, how messy his hair looked, how dirty and unkept his robes were, and my mind leapt to its conclusion. Ginny was- "Ginny got taken, into the Chamber."- dead.

You reach back for Ron's hand. Now was not the time for juvenile crushes – not that you had a crush on Ron. You definitely did not. You did not just think that. You blush again, before you remember the situation, and instead just squeeze his hand.

"This part of the story is a bit hazier. Everyone has their own ideas, but the only people who really know are Ginny, and Harry." Are. Present tense. As in, she's alive. You let out a sigh of relief.

"Harry?" You remember with confusion, and Neville nods his head gravely.

"Him and his friends figured out that it was a basilisk," you nod, cursing your rising jealousy, your simultaneous inferiority and superiority complec, those Ravenclaw boys were smart (the girls presumably were too, but you struggle to distance Padma with Parvati – they are identical after all – and Parvati… well, she's not the brightest), it's no surprise that they figured it out. Half-heartedly you remind yourself that they had the advantage of team-work, more time, more evidence, and, well, not being petrified.

"So they went to try and tell McGonagall, and then split up or something on the way, and when they did that they stumbled across the wall outside Myrtle's bathroom. The one which had the message on before, when it first opened.

"It had a message on it again, a new one. About Ginny. Saying that her body had been taken into the Chamber, and that it would never be seen again."

"You can still see the message written on the wall. Filch spends every day scrubbing away at it. Everyone avoids that corridor." Ron added, his expression indescribable. You can't help but wonder how traumatic it must have been for him. His sister was possessed and then kidnapped. Presumed dead. You wonder how she survived; Neville quickly fills in the blanks.

"Well, Harry and Terry saw the message, and – well no, Harry saw the message, Terry was blindfolded or something to stop himself from being petrified, Harry was wearing glasses, presumably thinking they'd work – but Harry didn't tell Terry about the message. He just sent him to go find McGonagall and went to find the Chamber himself." You gasp despite yourself. It seemed like a stupidly rash and reckless move on Reynolds' behalf, perhaps there was no reason for that aforementioned inferiority complex.

"Yeah. I know." Neville raised an eyebrow, a grim expression on his face as he retold the story. "Not his brightest moment. He knows it, trust me." He raised his eyebrow at you, showing that he probably had some inside information you – and Ron based on the expression on his face – aren't privy to.

"He went into the Chamber of Secrets, it was somewhere in Myrtle's bathroom, I don't really know how he found it, but he did. He went in, to try and save Ginny. Three hours later, he came out, with her. Apparently, they both looked like they fought a war."

"Anyway, based on the information Ron got from Ginny, and the information I got from Harry, this is what we think happened – to be honest, no one really knows the truth except those two, and well, maybe Terry, he is like Harry's best-friend or whatever – anyway.

"So Ginny was possessed by You-Know-Who, so she was the one who ordered the basilisk to petrify all of you, but-"

"It wasn't her fault." Ron protested immediately, quick to stand up for his sister as if he'd forgotten the company he was in.

"I know, we know." Neville quickly reassured him and you nod, squeezing his hand once more. "So she was in the chamber, and You-Know-Who was trying to steal her lifeforce or something," You frown, this sounded like something out of a 1970s sci-fi movie. "I don't really understand it to be honest with you, but she was dying." Ron flinched. You squeeze his hand.

"Harry, he went into the chamber, and he fought with You-Know-Who a bit – as Ginny was dying, You-Know-Who was getting more human – but obviously a second year was no match for him. He still has a scar from where You-Know-Who cursed him. From how he describes it, he was lucky, really lucky.

"Then You-Know-Who set the basilisk on Harry, but Harry's a parselmouth of course, so he argued with the basilisk and, again, I don't really understand it, but somehow the basilisk was convinced into helping him, so then the basilisk attacked You-Know-Who, and as he bit him, he just disappeared, leaving only the diary which he'd used to possess Ginny."

"So, You-Know-Who's still at large?" Perhaps you've woken from a coma in the middle of a battlefield. That would be less than ideal.

"No. Dumbledore assured Ginny and Harry that everything was okay." That calmed you down. You trust Dumbledore. Why wouldn't you. He was a great man, a great leader, and an excellent headmaster. "He's gone."

"Ginny's okay?" You address the question to Ron, who nods.

"She's… traumatised of course, and no-one here knows that You-Know-Who possessed her, they just think she was kidnapped, and Harry saved her. That's the official story – there's theories of course, it is Hogwarts after all - but other than that no one knows the truth."

"So she's fine? They're both fine?"

"Yeah. She's fine, Percy got really protective for a bit, we all did, but she's kind of shrugged us off recently, made friends and all that." Ron hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more but didn't quite know how.

"Are you okay?" You ask, and his head dips.

"It's my fault." He proclaims after a pause. "I should've looked after her, she's my little sister." You sigh. It's typical Ron, protective of everyone, blaming himself for something he had no control over.

"From what you've told me, it was You-Know-Who. You're twelve Ronald, you had no chance of defeating somebody even Dumbledore couldn't defeat." He looks at you, as if you're important, as if you matter, as if you saved him, his eyes widening in some sort of epiphany.

"Thank you." He mutters, his cheeks flaming the same colour as his hair.

"So everyone's okay now?"

"You were the last to wake up." Neville replies, "We-" he looks poignantly at Ron "-were worried. But in terms of Hogwarts, Dumbledore's been reinstated, the basilisk isn't a threat, Ginny is okay, as is Harry."

"He didn't get in trouble did he?" You recall Neville mentioning the media.

"Not in terms of school, or with the government or anything. It became pretty clear that he had no involvement with opening the chamber – though there are some conspiracy theories due to him knowing where it was, codswallop if you ask me – anyway, there were some issues with him and his friends. I think that they were angry at him – and I know he's grounded too, his dad."

"Why were his friends angry at him?"

"Terry especially, in those three hours in the Chamber, everyone thought they were both dead, and that they'd never even find their bodies. We had a whole assembly on it. I think Terry was angry that Harry tricked him, that he made sure he found McGonagall whilst Harry risked his life in the Chamber. It was mainly how stressed he was during those three hours, I think… He was just really scared… and that transformed into anger once everything was okay again, once Harry was safe.

"They're okay now though." He added. "Everything's okay now. Well… until next week." He added ominously, leaving you to stress and wonder what he was on about.

"Next week?" You quickly start your interrogation – not that it is too necessary, he answers immediately.

"Exam week." He replied, with a groan quickly echoed by Ron.

"Exam week?" You half-screech. How on earth were you supposed to work through that, you'd missed a third of the year, that's a third of the syllabus and only a few days to revise instead of the extensive five week plan you'd formulated.

This was going to be hell.

You saw them later in the dining hall. You'd talked to Ginny earlier, made sure she was truly okay (whilst Ronald was a loving and protective brother, sometimes he wasn't the most emotionally tactful, and it didn't help to double-check that she was indeed recovering well).

Harry Reynolds and his small posse of friends were sat to the edge of the Ravenclaw table, and everything seemed exactly the same as it had been before she'd been petrified. There was no sight of any of the lingering tension that Neville had mentioned earlier between Terry and Ron. Nor did Harry - physically at least - seem to be holding any psychological baggage from the ideal.

He was sitting next to Anthony, laughing at something one of the other boys had said while he ate his food. The division was funny if you looked at it closely. Two blondes colluded on one side of the bench whilst the two brunettes sat opposite - Terry and Michael.

Those two had always had the more interesting dynamic amongst the Ravenclaw boys. Terry and Harry were the cliché best friends, whilst Anthony was the type of figure everyone loved, due to his genuinely nice character - though he was quieter than the others. Quieter in a different way to Harry, who seemed to dissolve into the silence, whilst Anthony seemed to thrive in it, enjoying everyone being in a conversation, without some egotistical need to make it him being the centre of attention.

You respect that more than you'd liked to admit. He was the opposite of your bad qualities whilst maintaining all of the better ones. He was relaxed, liked, sociable, able to respect people's boundaries, know how to help when people were upset, and seemed to always know exactly what to do in any given situation, all this whilst still smart and clever.

It seemed unfair that one person could have both intellectual intelligence, as well as superior emotional intelligence.

Michael on the other hand reminds you more of yourself. He is smart, clearly, and from the little you've overheard, appears to be quite witty, but he's headstrong - you can see that from how he on occasion butts heads with somebody else - and stubborn; like you, he wants to be the smartest one in the room. And like with you, that automatically means he is not.

He seemed to thrive in his friendship group, and didn't undergo the same issues you had in your first year, which, frankly, was unfair in your opinion at least. He seemed to enjoy the quieter characters of Anthony and Harry, whilst Terry was necessary to keep him in check, make sure he never got too arrogant or too superior. Perhaps that was the one thing that was lacking from your own friendship group. Sometimes four is better than three.

It means no one is left out, there is no third-wheel - as you've definitely found yourself third-wheeling Neville and Ron sometimes, and you equally get jealous whenever you're forced to separate into a shared dormitory with the girls, your anxiety and insecurities continuously telling you that they'll be gossiping about you.

Not that they ever would, especially Neville. Neville was definitely the Anthony of your own friendship group. Impossible to hate. You were Michael. Which made Ron Terry.

That definitely wasn't as accurate a match-up, but there was no way on earth that Ron was Harry's equivalent. He was far too confident and boisterous - and, well, dumb - to be Harry.

Though Terry didn't quite match up with him either. He had some of the same arrogance as Michael, though more restrained and hidden. He was, frankly, an enigma to you. Perhaps you just didn't know him well enough, but you feel, to an extent that you can figure out the characters of the other three.

Even Harry who seemed to perpetually be hiding something, was surprisingly open - or at least easy to read. A Ravenclaw with Gryffindor tendencies - the Chamber incident proved that. A quiet, unassuming intelligence. Harry certainly wasn't the first to put his hand up in class, though he would still get some of the highest marks in the tests.

He matched more similarly to the character of Blaise Zabini, the Slytherin whom no-one knew anything about, he didn't have the arrogance and outspokenness of Malfoy, nor was he casually cold like Daphne, and of course it would be comical to compare him to the loons Crabbe and Goyle - and Theodore Nott, to be honest, just seemed like the worst of Michael (and hence, you) and Malfoy combined into one bully.

Blaise, on the other hand, seemed calculating, confident but not talkative, intelligent but not showy. He equally seemed to dissolve into the silence, and into the background. Unlike Harry, he wasn't forced into the light this year, he wasn't labelled as Slytherin's Heir in the national papers. Perhaps that was one of the only differences. Though, in all honesty, your skills of observations haven't actually earned much success, or credibility in the past.

The hall was full of Harrys, Michaels, Anthonys and Terrys. No one had time to focus on the individuals themselves anymore. It had been months after all, and Hogwarts gossip was more of a volcano. Simmering and simmering until an eruption, the lava streaking down the sides, the ash clouds raining in the sky. Then it slowly dies out, and its effects are still there, but no one talks about it anymore. No one offers aid anymore. It is forgotten about, or perhaps, at the very least, cast to the side.

You tear away your eyes as you accidentally make eye-contact with the monochrome blue of Harry's. His face was unusually unemotive. It always was. His eyes seemed to convey nothing, his face a mask, and his hair so common a shade that it drew no attention. It seemed like his very identity was created to fade into the background. There was a blip in first year - his show of nonverbal magic, unprecedented and powerful. Somehow after that he'd managed to reclaim his place in the shadows.

Then there was the parseltongue incident, then the prophet labelling him evil, and finally his heroics saving Ginny.

It was like his face, his body, was made to be so unremarkable that he faded into the background, but his character was made to be so striking, so impressive and interesting, a swirling array of personalities, of houses, that despite his John Doe-esq mask, he was unable to just be no-one.

He was Harry Reynolds. His name equally unremarkable, the forename an echo of the boy-who-was-missing, the boy who was probably dead... but his surname a muggle nobody's.

Yet somehow, you can't help but know - because there is such a certainty to it that you know, not think - that his name is going to go down in the history books.