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DREAMS OF CHILDREN

Chapter Five

"So how did you get home?" Harry was lying on his stomach on the bed, staring at his best friend's sister in fascination. She'd had this whole adventure without any of them finding out? And he'd thought that he and Ron were good at keeping secrets? He should've known better…

"Wes got in touch with a warlock who owed him a favour and they sent me back. It was weird, the bloke didn't use a wand or anything, he just chanted and burned some herbs. Oh, and he boiled the blood of this demon, and added it to the herbs in the fire and-"

"How did he get the blood of the demon?"

She actually blushed. "Well, Angel found one and chased it back to the hotel, and everyone was trying to capture it. But it…" she paused, seemingly unsure how to go on. "Well, it had Fred cornered, and it looked like a really big snake, in fact I think it might have been related to the one I saw in the alley..? But anyway, nobody else could stop it, so I … did." Harry hadn't seen her go this deep a shade of puce since the first morning she'd found him sitting in the kitchen at the Burrow, having been broken out of the Dursleys'.

"You… defeated a demon?" Well, he thought, she was a Weaseley, after all…

"Yup. Beat it up with an axe. Angel was dead impressed, said I "obviously had a natural talent for this sort of thing." He kept offering me a job." She smiled unconsciously at the memory, picturing Cordelia rolling her eyes and shaking her head as "El Championissimo," tried to persuade her into commuting to LA for an internship. "He said it would be good therapy for me, beating up nasty things with sticks. Said it would help with my "anger issues," over what had happened with the diary. Americans, eh?"

Harry nodded, unsure how to take the news that little Ginny Weaseley apparently had a natural knack for beating up monsters. Well why not? He had a natural knack for doing that too. But he hadn't had to be stranded with no friends in a foreign country before he found it out. They were more alike than he'd realised, he thought with an uncomfortable twinge of recognition. More alike than anyone knew.

She was staring at him now, wondering probably why he hadn't said anything else. "Are you really appalled?" she asked interestedly. "I mean, do you think I'm a freak or anything like that?" He wondered how much of this calmness was an act, a way of finding out what he really thought without leaving herself open to being embarrassed. Of course, she said she was completely over him now, so maybe she really didn't care…

"I'm not appalled, no. Just…" And he realised what this odd feeling was. He should have recognised it before. "I just feel guilty, that you went through all that on your own, and didn't have anyone to help you with it."

Now her smile was sad. "I did have someone to help me through it: I had Cordelia. She stayed in touch, asked how I was doing. She taught me how to use the Muggle post to keep her up to date. And of course, as she slowly made me realise, I had all of you." The tiny girl smiled again, shyly this time, and reached under her bed. She pulled out a shoe-box, with "Gladrags (Hogsmeade) Ltd." written on it in neon letters. Carefully she pulled off the lid and held it out for Harry to see. Inside there were dozens of letters, all with a postmark from Los Angeles, all bearing Ginny's name. Cordelia had kept in touch, alright.

"So that's how you got over Tom Riddle? You just found someone to talk to?" She nodded absent-mindedly, examining the letters, looking closely at the flowing, loose-lettered script. "And you never told any of us." That hurt a little bit, he realised. He knew that they hadn't talked much until fifth year, but surely she must have known that of all people she could talk to him about the diary.

"Of course I never told you lot!" she answered in annoyance. "Ron would've killed himself with worry thinking every time I went out I was heading back to the US or else running off to the Room of Requirement. Hermione wasn't my friend then. The twins, Percy," at this name she scowled; apparently she still hadn't forgiven her brother for trying to get Ron to drop Harry as a friend "Charlie, they all would've had heart-attacks at the thought. They didn't even know what happened, not really, and the suspicion of what might have gone on was killing them. I'd have talked to Bill, eventually in fact I did, but he was far away and always on the move."

"What about me?

She blinked, surprised. "What?"

"What about me? I went through it with you, well some of it, and I know what Voldemort is capable of. God do I know. Why didn't you talk to me?" He ducked his head. "Didn't you think I'd understand?"

She looked shocked. He'd never seen her looked shocked before. "Harry, of all the people involved, you were the one person I couldn't talk to, don't you see that? Harry, it was my fault you were down there. I nearly got you killed." Suddenly her eyes were bright with tears again. "I may have accepted what happened thanks to Cordy and all my friends, but I know what I did to you. It was one of his favourite things to show me, down in the Chamber after he'd completely gained control, he made me watch your death again and again. All the different ways he would do it. He wanted you to suffer, and he wanted me to know you would. I… Why do you think I fought so hard?"

"It wasn't your fault I was down there. You just made a bad decision, like your friend the American said, and then you had to try to live with the consequences."

"Isn't that advice you should be taking yourself?" she asked quietly.

"What?" He'd looked up so quickly he'd almost fallen off the bed.

Ginny looked him square in the eye; he could tell she was forcing herself not to wince or look away. She had her chin pushed high in the air, just like Ron did before he was about to get particularly stubborn. "Harry, we all know that you blame yourself for Sirius' death. You've been living like a hermit since you came here. You don't eat, you barely sleep, you won't talk to any of us." She dropped her voice. "We're worried about you."

Harry felt like he'd stepped back in time a year. "Talking about me, were you? Whispering in corners about what the nutter's going to do?"

"Oh stop being so melodramatic!" she snapped sharply. "you know we've been doing it. In fact, I bet deep down you want us to do it. When I was going through all that stuff about the diary, deep down I wanted someone, anyone to pull me up and give me a stern talking to. It's one of the things Cordy made me understand: I wanted to be caught 'cause deep down I wanted to talk about what had happened. I just didn't know how to begin. You want to talk about this Harry. And I think that maybe I'm better placed than the others to help you. I know what real guilt feels like."

"You never killed anyone!" he shouted. It seemed bizarre, like it was some sort of achievement.

"I nearly killed you! I thought I'd killed you!" she yelled back. She stood up, glowering up at him, and suddenly he realised that she wasn't that much shorter than he was anymore. "One wrong decision, one rash action, that's all it takes! At least you were only rash once: I went through a whole process of screwing up with that bloody diary!" She was out of breath now, her face scarlet with rage. "It's bloody terrible that you should have been in that position! It's bloody terrible that they didn't trust you enough to tell you all the stuff you should've known! It's bloody terrible that the only person you consider family was killed! It's bloody terrible that you should have to take the blame on your shoulders! But sometimes LIFE'S BLOODY TERRIBLE!" They were glaring at each other, very nearly nose to nose, like enemies.

"But it'll be even more bloody terrible if you keep this bottled up inside till it starts to hurt you. 'Cause Sirius wouldn't want that, Harry. You know he wouldn't."

She sat down wearily on the bed, all the energy seeming to go out of her. Unthinkingly, he did the same. "Cordy said it best: "you made a mistake, it happens." You've got to get on with your life. You've got to live, or Sirius died for nothing." Her voice dropped till it was just a whisper. "Either you try to get over this, or Voldemort killed you in The Department of Mysteries, he just let you take your time dying."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. There was nothing he could say to her. She, of all his friends, understood what it was like to be face to face with Voldemort. Harry knew that he could be self-righteous sometimes, that he thought himself tougher than the others and therefore stronger because of what he'd been through, but she'd been through something very like it. Voldemort had been in her head. He couldn't really claim to have had a worse time than Ginny. And he couldn't really claim that she wouldn't understand what he'd been through. But how the hell was he to begin talking about this stuff to her? She was little Ginny Weaseley for crying out loud! Except…

Except, she wasn't little Ginny Weaseley anymore. She hadn't been little Ginny Weaseley for quite some time. She might still look it, but that was all. And hadn't she been in the Department of Mysteries too? Hadn't she hurt herself trying to get over an encounter with Tom Riddle? Of all the people in the world besides Sirius, she would understand. And she wanted to help.

He cleared his throat. "So you're going to do a Cordelia on me?" he said, trying to sound jolly and light-hearted. She nodded. "Why?"

Ginny paused for along time, her head cocked to one side. "Because someone once did a Cordelia on me. Because I always said I wanted to be Cordelia when I grew up. Because…" A sad smile split her face. "Because it's the best way to honour her memory. Oh, and because if I don't your head'll explode and then I'll have to clean up the almighty mess that used to be The Boy Who Lived." She felt under her pillow for something, producing a chocolate frog with a flourish. "Here, chocolate helps get the vocal chords loose."

He hesitated for a moment then took it. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay. Where do I begin?"

"Wherever you want to, Harry. I'm not going anywhere."

That night Harry Potter remembered how to laugh.

A/N That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and hope it didn't disappoint: cheers!