It was almost two weeks after Easter, although time had ceased having any meaning for Harry months ago. They had been at Shell Cottage for ten days and he still couldn't shake the nervousness he felt remaining so long in one place, even though he knew the house was protected by more and better wards than almost anywhere in Britain, save Hogwarts and Gringotts. He grimaced to himself. He'd had enough of thinking about that earlier.

Ron's Aunt Muriel's house was equally well protected he supposed, but Harry tried not to imagine what might be going on there right now. More specifically, he tried not to think about exactly who was there. Thinking about what he couldn't have only made things worse.

He knew that Bill traveled to Muriel's to check on his family every couple of days, looking more grim every time he returned, but Harry had so far refrained from asking about Ginny. He didn't know if the Weasleys even knew that he and Ginny had once been involved and it was better to keep them in the dark as long as possible. Pretending they had never been had kept her safe — kept her well for this long, so obviously it was the right thing to do.

Harry was sitting out by Dobby's grave — having escaped with his thoughts after too many hours of planning with Ron and Hermione — when Bill surprised him by sitting down next to him on the ground.

He braced himself for another lecture about not underestimating Griphook or perhaps an interrogation about the trio's plan. He was totally unprepared when Bill looked at him, pain etched on his face, and said, "It's Ginny."

Harry's insides went cold. Ginny was at her Aunt's. She was safe — Bill had told him that when they arrived. "What about Ginny?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice as casual as possible; nine months on the run had taught him to never give anything away.

"We don't know, exactly," began Bill. Seeing Harry's horrified face, he quickly amended. "No, she's safe, I mean, she's at Muriel's with the rest of the family. It's not that." He paused.

"Then what?" asked Harry.

"Harry . . ." said Bill slowly. "I know there are a lot of things you can't tell me right now. I don't like it, but I understand — mostly." He gave Harry a tight smile. "But I have to know — my family has to know — is there something going on between you and Ginny?"

"No," said Harry firmly. It was an engrained response and he wasn't going to say anymore about it. Except . . . the look on Bill's face made him rethink his decision. It wasn't the face of an overprotective older brother ready to take the mickey out of Ginny's boyfriend. It was the face of a man worried — scared even, about his little sister — and Harry softened almost immediately. If he couldn't trust Bill with this knowledge, then he had no business living at his house right now.

"Not anymore," he said quietly. "We broke up after Professor Dumbledore was killed."

Bill just nodded as if Harry's answer confirmed something he already knew. "But you still care about her," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Of course I do," said Harry immediately. There was no use pretending. "More than anyone," he added quietly. He hadn't meant to admit that, especially not to Ginny's oldest brother, but he was too tired to keep hiding everything, especially from someone he knew had Ginny's best interests as much at heart as he did. He grabbed the other man's arm. "Bill, what is it?"

Bill rubbed his eyes. "We don't know, exactly. She won't tell us. Mum says she looked like hell when she came home for Easter break, but that she was acting okay. Quieter than usual, but that's not a surprise. I don't think Hogwarts is a particularly good time right now."

Harry nodded tersely. He hadn't given much thought to what the school must be like under the Death Eaters' control; in his head it was still safe and warm and familiar. "And now?" he asked.

Bill shrugged. "Ever since I got them all out of the Burrow the night you and Ron and Hermione arrived here, Ginny has been . . . withdrawing, I guess. Although, she pitched a huge fit the day break ended, insisting that she go back to school. Which was completely out of the question, of course."

"Of course," echoed Harry. He was happier than he had realized that Ginny was with her family and had not gone back to school. He focused back on something Bill had said.

"What do you mean, she looked like hell?"

Bill looked pained. "To tell the truth, once Mum and Dad saw her, I doubt they would have let her go back to school anyway, if they had been able to figure out a way to hide her. She was . . . she had been . . ." Bill's voice trailed off and he looked away at the sea crashing below them.

"What?"

"The Death Eaters and the students loyal to them seem to spend a lot of time practicing curses and hexes. On the other students — especially the Gryffindors."

"Including Ginny." Harry said dully, a sick feeling in his stomach.

"She won't tell us the curses they used, or how often," said Bill. "But Mum says she was cut in a bunch of places. And bruised."

"The Cruciatus?" asked Harry sharply. He still remembered vividly Hermione's screams as she lay on the floor under Bellatrix's wand and felt sick.

"Probably," said Bill. "And who knows what else." He took a deep breath. "But as I said, she seemed okay, more or less, until we told her she couldn't go back to school. She kept insisting, for hours, that she was fine and that she needed to be there, that it was more important than anything. She was hysterical. Then she stopped talking."

"For how long?" asked Harry. He felt like he was going to vomit. Everything he had done —breaking up with Ginny, not telling her his plans, watching her dot and imagining her safe in her bed — it had all been a failure — a lie.

"She hasn't said more than yes or no in over a week," said Bill. "Until today. I was sitting with her — just the two of us, and she begged me again to take her back to school."

"What? But they hurt her there!" said Harry. He couldn't understand why she'd want to go back to the place."

"That's what I said," said Bill. "But she didn't seem to care. She insisted she needed to be back at school. And then she said 'Harry needs my help there. I promised.'"

Harry gaped at Bill. "What? No. I never . . . she didn't . . . Bill, I swear." What was Ginny talking about? He would never have asked her to put herself in danger like that — and she knew it. "Right," said Bill. "So you don't have any idea what she's talking about?"

Harry shook his head. "None. I haven't had any contact with her since . . . your wedding actually. I have no idea what she's been doing at the school."

But then a remembered argument popped into his head, a memory of an overheard conversation one night in the woods. Ginny had tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor. Ron's defection had overshadowed everything else about that night and Harry had never stopped to wonder exactly why Ginny and Neville and Luna were trying to get the sword. Was it for him? How did they think they could get it to him?

Another thought ran through his head — the Silver Doe — could it have been . . . No. Ginny's Patronus was a horse, he'd seen it. But he remembered in the next instant, Tonks' Patronus had changed. Changed when she . . .

Harry shook his head. It was too much to think about right now.

Harry didn't bother telling Bill his suspicion. He was probably completely wrong anyway. Luna must know more, but Harry didn't feel like talking to her about it. She wouldn't be able to tell him what he really needed to know.

"Please, Bill," he began, not sure exactly what he was asking. "I need . . ." He stopped, considering. It went against everything he'd been trying to do for the last months, everything he thought was right. But Bill's words were in his head: She looked like hell. And Harry didn't care anymore what was right.

"I need to see her Bill. I need to see Ginny."

Bill looked at Harry for a long moment. Then he nodded. "Okay."

A feeling of . . . something surged through Harry so quickly it almost took his breath away. He hadn't expected Bill to agree so quickly, to let him have . . . to see. . . Just saying thank you seemed wrong.

"Does she know I'm here? That we're here?"

Bill shook his head. "Not yet — I've been trying to keep as much as possible from everyone, for their own safety. But I'm taking Dean and Luna and Mr. Ollivander to Muriel's tomorrow, so she was going to find out then anyway."

Harry nodded. He was going to see Ginny. Another thought came to him and even though he didn't want to give words to it, he knew he had to.

"But only if she wants to come, Bill. Tell her ahead of time and let her decide, okay?"

Harry could see surprise and a new respect in Bill's eyes. "Of course." He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "And thank you."

Ginny was sitting on the camp bed in her Aunt Muriel's small guest room, staring out the window. She hadn't done much else for over a week, since Bill had arrived at the Burrow and told her parents they all had to leave immediately.

There's been a security breach, was all he'd said. Ginny had followed her family to Aunt Muriel's without question, her mind still back at school and her plans for after break. She hadn't paid much attention to what was going on around her until her mum had found her looking around Muriel's for her Hogwarts trunk the day before break ended.

At first, she hadn't believed them when her parents told her she wasn't going back to school.

"Everyone has to go to school," she'd said calmly, certain in her position. "It's required."

But they had stood firm, and even seemed confused that she wanted to go back.

"It's too dangerous," her mum had said, smoothing Ginny's hair.

"It's more dangerous to defy the Death Eaters," Ginny had retorted. A feeling of panic was welling up inside her. She had to go back. There was no other option.

"Look at what happened to Luna," her father had added, as if that was enough. "It's lucky she wasn't killed by . . ." a strong hush from Bill had stopped him there and by that time Ginny was too worked up over the fact that she wasn't going back to school to think to ask how her father seemed to know what had happened to Luna.

"I MUST go back!" she had insisted, petulantly at first but with growing anger every time her parents and Bill said no.

"You don't understand!" she'd finally roared, and only the fact that she'd left her wand on the kitchen table had kept her from hexing everyone in sight.

Of course they didn't understand. Ginny didn't really understand herself.

Rationally, she knew that Hogwarts was becoming more dangerous every day. She knew that it was worse for her than anyone else, knew that one day it was very possible that one of the Slytherins or a Death Eater would go too far. But that knowledge was clouded by something much stronger — something that had first taken root back in December during that horrible night they'd tried to steal Griffyndor's sword.

Ginny knew she hadn't been the same since that night, that whatever the Carrows had done after she and Neville and Luna returned from their "punishment" in the Forest had changed her somehow. At first she was merely confused, and that terrified her. When she couldn't find the notes she should have taken in Potions, she spent four hours painstakingly reconstructing her day on a piece of parchment. Only after she had accounted for every minute did she allow herself to believe that no one was possessing her.

She snapped at her friends when they asked about Harry, lest one of the Death Eaters overhear and think she knew something. Although she refused to speak about Harry out loud, she couldn't hide from her thoughts, no matter how hard she tried to teach herself Occlumency at night. He invaded her dreams nightly, usually screaming in pain or crying for her help and she woke up sweating and frantic, certain he was trying to tell her something.

In this way the months between Christmas and Easter passed in a blur. She had attended classes, eaten meals in the Great Hall, even talked to her roommates, she supposed. All the while the "incidents", as she thought of them, became more frequent and painful during the day and her nightmares more vivid and desperate every night. And now she was safe, apparently, but for what purpose?

Ginny huffed to herself and wished she had her wand. Her parents had taken it away when she'd gotten hysterical and so far, no amount of hinting that it might be dangerous for her to be without it in the middle of a war had induced them to return it to her. Which was stupid, anyway — Hogwarts hadn't offered Apparition lessons this year and even with her wand, Ginny had no way of getting back to the castle. Even the Knight Bus wasn't running these days.

Somewhere behind her in the house Ginny heard the crack of Apparition but the noise didn't even make her flinch. Given the wards on the place, it could only be one of her family members or possibly Professor Lupin arriving and Ginny had no desire to see any of them. They didn't do anything besides give her furtive, worried glances and refuse to give her any news. Even when the bedroom door opened and Bill's voice hesitantly said, "Ginny?" she didn't turn around.

The bed sunk slightly as Bill sat down next to her. When he didn't immediately speak, Ginny decided to get the discussion over with as quickly as possible.

"Did you change your mind?" she asked.

"About taking you back to school? No." said Bill.

"Bill," she began, then stopped, wondering if she should even bother. For some reason she'd expected Bill to be on her side, even when everyone else wasn't. That he sided with them made her even angrier than she was at her parents.

"Have you looked at yourself Ginny?" Bill was speaking so quietly she almost didn't bother straining to hear him. "You're in no shape to go back to Hogwarts, even if it was safe."

Ginny ignored him and picked at a corner of the quilt. He tried again.

"You're skin and bones and covered in bruises but . . . it's more than that. And I think you know it."

It was harder to ignore Bill now, but Ginny did her best. There was a small spider crawling across the window sill and Ginny focused on that, watching as it began climbing up the wall. Bill's voice droned on behind her.

". . . safer now . . . reason to worry . . . have to be careful . . ." It was all the same to Ginny. She'd handled herself around dangerous situations for the entire school year and now they were insisting on treating her like a child.

She turned towards Bill, ready to tell him to leave. He was rubbing his hands across his eyes and not looking at her scowling face. "Hell," he said. "Harry will be able to figure it out, I guess."

Ginny shivered at the sound of his name. "Harry?"

Bill looked at her, his eyes unsmiling. "Yes. I'm taking you to see him — against the better judgment of pretty much everyone here."

"Where is he?"

Bill shook his head. "I won't tell you until we're there. It's safer that way." He put his hand on her arm. "You do want to see him, right? Harry doesn't want you to come if you don't want to."

Ginny was confused. "Of course I want to." She frowned. "Doesn't he?"

Bill nodded. "He does."

A million more questions swirled in Ginny's brain. Was he okay? Had he finished his task? Why did he want her — now?

The last she said out loud. "Why?"

Bill shrugged. "You need to talk to him about it. He's worried about you like we all are."

All at once Ginny's anger flared up again. "What did you tell him to make him worry?" she practically yelled. "He doesn't need to worry — he's dealing with enough already."

Now Bill looked angry too. "We didn't know what else to do, Ginny. You haven't spoken to any of us since you got here, you keep insisting that we take you back to school even though it seems they practically killed you there, and you seem convinced that you need to be doing something for Harry — something other than keeping yourself alive, of course."

"I can take care of myself," Ginny muttered. Whether it was pride or something else, she couldn't bring herself to let Bill see how much she actually wanted to see Harry.

"I don't doubt that," said Bill. "If you'd actually try. But your personal safety has apparently become inconsequential. Maybe Harry can talk some sense into you."

"Well then, let's go," said Ginny. She stood up and looked at her brother. "And I'm taking my wand," she added.

Bill nodded shortly and got up too. Ginny followed him as he left the room, pausing in the living room only long enough to retrieve Ginny's wand from her father. Then they were outside and Bill was holding tightly onto her arm and turning on the spot, into crushing darkness.