Ginny walked round the grounds, scuffing her feet through the leaves that covered the floor like a blanket, shuffling them into a small pile at her feet. She walked to the Quidditch pitch, where Madame Hooch was over looking the house elves repainting the pitch before the match began. She carried on walking the grounds, watching the sun rising in a cloudy sky. Making her way back up to the castle steps, she saw Dobby walk out of the front door. He still looked frantic, like a pressured juvenile who had stolen something unwillingly. His large, green eyes stared around the court yard, and he shivered violently under his ragged potato sack. He wasn't tugging the Quidditch chest anymore, but still he carried tension, impatience and stress on his shoulders. He jumped about, constantly wide-eyed and nervous, gradually making his way toward the path that led out of Hogwarts, then, as a silhouette on the sunrise, he clicked his fingers and disappeared.

Ginny stared at where the small creature had moments ago stood, trance like, then blinked and made her way back to the school's oak doors. Watching them open magically to a loud creak, she slipped through as soon as the doors were ajar enough that she could get through. She was about to climb the marble staircase and go back to Gryffindor tower when she heard noise from the banquet hall. She turned, waited for the doors and stepped into the room. At the very end of Gryffindor table, a group of seven people sat in silence. Ginny walked over and sat opposite Harry, avoiding his eyes as she sat down. Her twin brothers sat at her right, looking deadly serious. There's a first, she thought. Oliver Wood, Quidditch team captain and keeper, sat next to Harry, frowning at his cereal and using a spoon to shift it in what looked like tactical movements. Occasionally he would drop is spoon to lift a pencil in replacement and scribble down some Quidditch drawing.

"Tactics won't help us today Oliver." said Angelina Johnson, who was sat with Katie and Alicia, the three of them watching his sketches move, repeating the tactic over and over. Many sketches moved in different ways, spread across the table. Oliver glared at her, then returned to mumbling into his cereal. Angelina went back to picking at a muffin, creating a pile of crumbs in an empty mug. Alicia and Katie were drinking coffee and talking quietly at the end of the table when Katie noticed Ginny was sitting with them.

"Why you up so early, Ginny?"

"I dunno. Just couldn't sleep. Team meeting?"

"Not really. We thought about having some early practice, but no-one's got the energy and Wood's too busy with tactics."

"Oh, right. So you haven't used the Quidditch kit recently?"

"Well, not since a couple of nights ago. Why?"

"No reason."

"It wouldn't matter how many times we practised," Fred said, his face so low it was almost in his breakfast, "Slytherin are going to win and we all know it. We may as well forfeit now." Sighing, George and Fred pushed forward their breakfasts simultaneously and sat back, arms folded, in unison. It was scary they could move from two different people to a pair. Ginny could still only tell them apart for certain when they wore their lettered Christmas jumpers. Even then they switched and confused everyone.

As breakfast tables gradually got busier, louder and magically fuller, Ginny sat and listened to the conversations flying around the table.

"I heard Myrtle wrote it. She was one of the only ones there, so why not?"

"Because ghosts can't hold pens. Potter and his friends were there too, but why would they do it? I know they drew attention to themselves last year but…"

"Who's the heir?"

"I dunno, but I bet it's a Slytherin."

"Well of course it's a Slytherin," Hermione butted in with a "know-it-all" tone, "anyone who's read Hogwarts A History will know that."

"So, basically, you, Hermione?" said Ron.

"Well, if you don't want to-" she began heatedly, only to be interrupted by Ron.

"Go on then, Hermione, what do you know?" he said at an understandable but extremely quick pace, tugging at her sleeve. Ginny almost saw a touch of electricity between them. Hermione certainly would have pulled away, had it been anyone else. She thought Hermione would have pulled away from Ron until she saw Hermione turn back, eyes softening suddenly as a smile spread across her face and she sat back down flicking her hair and opening a book all at the same time.

"Well," she said, "Slytherin, along with the other founders, built the school collectively, as friends. But Slytherin had other ideas. He wanted a pure-blood school, where the others didn't. Then Slytherin, supposedly, built a chamber secretly for his own devices. That's all I've remembered from it, and found in other books, but I'm sure the updated versions of Hogwarts a History said something about an opening…anyway, I have to tell Harry this first, and find out a bit more. But we'd better go to the Quidditch match. Harry's nervous as it is, and I think we should be there for the game of the season, right?"

"Definitely," Ron said, getting up from his breakfast, and then turning to Ginny. "Coming?"

"Nah. I'll wait for some of my year."

"Ok."

Ron and Hermione walked off, Ron with his hands in his pockets and watch Hermione intently as she spoke animatedly, gesturing with the hand that wasn't cradling the ancient library books.

Ginny made her own way up to the stadium five minutes before the match was due to start. She was alone, but a few people who passed her she spoke to briefly. Finding a seat in the middle row of the stands, in the Gryffindor section, Ginny sat, waiting for the match to start. She watched as the figure of Mme. Hooch, carrying the trunk and her broomstick, followed by 14 players, made her way out onto the middle of the pitch. Wood was followed by Harry, the chasers and her brothers in the back, and Flint, Malfoy, Slytherin's chasers and Crabbe and Goyle alongside them. Roars echoed round the stadium, suddenly haltering as Mme. Hooch reached for the Quidditch chest. The whole stadium watched intently as Hooch spoke inaudibly to the players. She unlatched the case and 3 balls flew into the air. Ginny watched as the players pushed off the ground and flooded across the length of the pitch.

Lee was commentating quickly, attempting to keep up with the fast passing between chasers. The Slytherin beaters were concentrating on tailing the chasers, but the Gryffindors were having a hard time with one of the Bludgers. Fred and George were flying either side of Harry, like security guards. Eyes that wandered from the main match were soon drawn higher up, where a Bludger continued to aim itself at the three boys overhead. No, not all three. Just Harry. Fred or George would beat it off, try to leave the formation and be drawn back by the rebellious Bludger. But Bludgers weren't meant to track a player like that. It just turned, curving back toward Harry again and again, no matter how many times it was hit away.

The match couldn't continue for much longer the way it was, with other Gryffindors struggling to avoid the other Bludger as it came round every once in a while. Wood called a time out, and Ginny suddenly felt cold. Ginny pulled her coat around her, and then drew her knees to her chest.

"Ginny? You OK?" asked Neville from behind her.

"Yeah, just a bit cold."

"You want my scarf?"

"No thanks. I'm going to see what's going on."

"OK."

Ginny climbed up the steps and out of the stands. She knew why she was cold, and it wasn't the weather. She wasn't leaving because she needed to know about the Quidditch, either. She walked out of the stadium, away from the roar of the match and up to the deserted castle. But she knew she wouldn't be alone for long.