(Author's Notes: Good lord, how time flies! Forgive the immense delay between updates, but for some reason, isn't liking the way I format my chapters... not certain why, but it deletes punctuation once I load it, despite my best efforts to edit beforehand. I hope you will understand if there are a few typos here and there, and if anyone would like to Beta for me, let me know... my e-mail is thanks, and enjoy!)

Chapter Five... Calm

"Why are you here by yourself, the real reason?" I repeated as Cho's gaze faltered. Her eyes, so firm just a second before brittled before me, and she nervously bit her bottom lip.

She was only like this for a moment when she regained her composure, "Well, I suppose I could ask you the same question, couldn't I?"

Her pointed remark was so reminiscent of Hermione that I choked on my words, "I'm not alone, there are those little kids in the Tower as well... "

"You know what I mean." I slumped backwards onto a large cushion and rubbed my temples - I noticed that the room behind us was fading from blue into a hazy gray. The slick, cold perspiration that had run onto my hands from the goblet was like a cooling balm on my brow.

"I know." I said quietly. Cho came up next to me and lay on the other side of the cushion, "They had other things. To do, you know?"

"You expect me to believe that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger are not joined at the hip if they could be," She mused, but the look in her eyes was deadly serious.

"No," I whispered as I closed my eyes.

Ginny lazily thumbed through a thick, leather-bound book by wandlight in the Orchard. School had been horrific this past year, but she spent most of it in a haze. Afterwards, though, she could remember every detail. She could feel the roosters necks snap in her small, lithe grip, guided by a then-unknown strength. Her tongue still had the vague memory of hissing a foreign language to that... beast. She could remember sending the beast after the evil-eyed cat, after the boy who had been insolent to Harry, and after that pathetic little boy who took the pictures. Ginny smiled - that had been a close one. She was thankful that the film had disintegrated within the camera... it might have given them away too soon. She savored the day that It had happened upon the vile little mudblood who Harry seemed to hold so dearly...

Vile little mudblood?

"Thats not me!" Ginny screamed at the top of her lungs, and not until she heard her voice crack was she was satisfied. She hated having those thoughts, but they had thankfully started to dissipate, along with everything else that was Tom Riddle. She couldn't imagine that somebody could have had such an absolute power over her, alive or dead.

But at least here, in the Orchard, Ginny could relax. She clutched the book to her frail body. It was a muggle story book, old and withered, but her father had enchanted it to hold together. Such funny names the Muggles called them, Fairy Tales. With stories about troublesome elves and wicked witches, they delighted her as nothing else could. Her favorites were about a darkling who aids a miller's daughter by spinning straw into gold and another about a sleeping princess trapped high in a tower and guarded by a powerful dragon. Even the one the witch and the stepdaughter, although they were all equally fanciful and terrifying. At twelve years old, she knew that she was quickly outgrowing them, but she couldn't help but to hold onto it.

The sun was beginning to set, so Ginny gathered up her book and started back toward the Burrow. She hated being alone in the dark...

I opened my eyes to find Cho leaning over, her lips hovering cautiously over mine. I tried to speak, but something inside me told me not to. Without warning, she kissed me, and I melted. My eyes closed, and I felt her guide my arms around her waist. I silently collapsed... every awful moment, every pain and ache slid away as her arms wrapped around my shoulders. Everything was gone...

Ron... Hermione... Ginny...

I jerked back, out of Cho's arms and onto the cushions behind me. Cho herself sat back, a look of astonishment on her face. God, why now, I thought as thoughts of my friends flooded back in. I looked at Cho, her hair disheveled and her eyes pleading indignantly.

"Look," I said too quickly, "I can't do this."

"Why not!" Cho half-cried half-screamed, "Don't you think I want to forget too!"

"You dont forget, you never forget! It stays and it haunts you until you either make it a part of you or let it eat you up from the inside. I would give anything to have Ginny, to have Cedric back, but it won't ever happen because there is something out there stronger than us that decides that, and so far they haven't bothered with it."

There were tears streaking down my face, and now the gates were open and everything wanted to come out, "Do you want to know why I can't kiss you, Cho? A girl that I had true feelings for died just after she had decided to live. I could barely get over my guilt from Cedric to get up here, and now I can still feel her inside. And as much as I want to just give in, I can't because I feel like it will hurt her, wherever she is."

"When you kissed me, I felt everything go away. All my friends, all my enemies, and beneath it all, Ginny. I can't have her leave me, because that keeps her alive to me. If I forget, she's gone forever, and there's nothing that I can do to get her back."

I fell to the ground, the soft cushions like air beneath me. Cho sat there, her mouth slightly open, but no words came out. I couldn't believe what I had just said, even though the tears were still fresh on my face. It was too much to process, and I could feel my scar throb sickeningly. I reached for the goblet and drank the remainder of it in one long gulp.

"I miss them," I held the empty glass still full of ice to my forehead, "but they needed, we needed this time apart. Since it happened, everything has just been... wrong. Thats the only way I can put it."

But Cho only heard the goblet fall out of my hand and shatter on the ground.

The jagged, lightning scar that I bear on my forehead exploded.

The snow was deep, but she tore through it like a whirlwind. Wet bits of it clung to her body, further shielding her from the elements. The wind sent shards of ice like knives at her. They pierced her earthen, icy armor, and it stung. Blood didn't flow, but it didn't need to. She held her left hand up to the gale, and the ice melted in the air. A small, dark rod was in her palm.

Taki." She muttered under her breath.

A blast of flame erupted from the end of the wand, an eruption that blazed through stone and tree and ice alike, straight through the brush. It rushed forward, searing the earth into green glass before dying on the opposite side of the forest. The scent of burning underbrush scorched her nostrils, and she was aware of something she hadn't felt in a long time. She stopped for a second, letting the embers coil beneath her, as she tried to place the odd sensation. It writhed and twisted inside her nose, and the feeling came to her in a glaring moment of clarity:

It burned.

She would have laughed if she could have. The sensation was so... petty - she didn't know why she had bothered to stop for it. It only diverted her from her true course. With a twisted grin, she stepped forward... and stopped. There was a better way.

She held the dark wand in the air, and a maelstrom whirled around her. Faster than before, without the obstruction of trees and wildlife, she blazed down her path toward a dark castle on the horizon.

"Good lord," I heard a voice from far away, "this is the second time today. I don't care what Dumbledore thinks, that scar of his is more of a curse than a blessing."

"Do you think that the hallucinari effect did this to him?" another voice, this one younger, said in a hurried tone.

"I doubt it. Something's been off with him ever since this morning... I hope it isn't what Dumbledore thinks it is."

My eyes felt swollen, as if I had gotten into a bad fight, and I could hear something sizzling on my forehead. My stomach turned as the scent of burning flesh reached my nose. The sizzling was the scar.

"Does this happen often!" the other voice grew a bit more frantic.

"As much as it pains me to say it, it does." a much different, older voice answered. I could hear soft footsteps and a light gasp. Through the pain I opened my eyes and I could make out a hazy vision of Dumbledore approaching my bedside. He seemed as casual as ever, but his voice sounded worried. I saw Cho at my left and Madam Pomfrey to my right, closest to Dumbledore.

"Headmaster," Cho looked amazed at the sight of him. It took a moment for me to realize that she may not see him as often as I have.

"How long has he been here?" Dumbledore directed his question toward Madam Pomfrey.

"About twenty minutes, sir."

She took the icepack off of my head and almost immediately, the pain returned. I couldn't help but cry out loud, and both Cho and Madam Pomfrey jumped with surprise. Madam Pomfrey waved her wand and the bag of water froze over again. She placed it on my scar, and relief spread through me. I could hear the hiss of steam coming from the ice.

"Harry," Dumbledore whispered just loud enough for me to hear, "what did you see?"

The sense of dread began to fill me again... and I felt the cold of the outdoor snow. I looked around and saw something that only opened the gates in my mind. There was a hole in the forest.

I ran through the falling snow, and I felt it melt against my bare arms and freeze again. The closer I got, the stronger the smell became. The smell of burning leaves and stone. I was there, and I could still see the wood burning. When I stepped, I could feel something crunching beneath my feet. I crouched down and examined the earth... the dirt had been melted into a pale, yellow glass. The heat emanated in waves from the burned trees, from stone molten into slag. Whatever had been here, it had cut a swath straight through the entire forest. A path from-

No.

I started running, following the path through. Before long, I reached the gorge... there were marks in the stones just off the side, marks that reached up and over the sheer rock. Marks like nails would make. I looked at my hands.

The fingernails were bloody.

"Harry!" I felt hands shaking me, "Harry, wake up!"

I opened my eyes to find Dumbledore standing above me, "I'm here."

He audibly sighed, and walked back as I sat up in the bed. There were wet, red stains from where I had gripped the sheets.

"Harry," Dumbledore whispered, "Is it Tom?"

Before I could answer, a loud, percussive boom echoed from outside. The castle itself shuddered and groaned, and I could see Dumbledore's eyes widen in alarm.

I laughed, a hideous, ironic cackle as I lay back into my bed. Dumbledore turned to face me as Cho tried to steady herself.

"No." I laughed as tears streamed down my face.

"What is it!"

I looked around at all of them, a group that I never thought would have been here at the beginning of this year. The only thing I could tell them was the truth.

"She's here."