REVISED!

Chapter 1

Harry opened his eyes to find a forest before him. Silence enveloped him as he looked around. No sound emitted from the shadows of the trees. It was too quiet to be a forest. Where were the creatures that lived in the night? Where were the sounds of life?

Harry shivered, gripping his wand tighter in his hand. For a slip second he regretted not asking his friends for help, but then he remembered what he was here to do and quickly decided that what he did was for the best. He wasn't going to put his friends in danger when there was no need for them to be. He wasn't going to risk their lives when they didn't have to do. He did regret, though, not saying a proper goodbye to them.

Harry took one last look around the forest that bared his path to safety and slowly took a step on the beaten path he knew he had to choose.

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I sat on my bed, Indian style, flipping through the Witch Weekly magazine. My eyes skimmed the pages but I wasn't really reading them. My mind was focused on the fact that in two days I will be seated on the Hogwarts Express. I will finally have to face all of Ron's friends. I avoided talking to Hermione Granger all though break, but that won't work at Hogwarts. And I'll finally see Harry Potter face-to-face since Ron's funeral. Of course there will be all the other people that will try to comfort me. When will people learn that I don't want their comfort? I just want to be left alone.

People want to relive their memories about him, I don't. I can't. It's too painful. Mum doesn't find it too painful. She's put up every picture of Ron she can find all around the house. I often find her staring at them with tears in her eyes. When I pass a picture, I advert my eyes. I can't stand the sight of Harry with my brother.

Charlie and Bill are coping with their pain by throwing themselves into their work; Percy has done the same. Fred and George have started to create everything they make in honor of Ron. Ron's Red Rage, a type of fiery bubblegum, among others. I refuse to buy their products now. I really don't understand how Mum copes with it all. One minute she's fine but then someone mentions Ron or something similar and she breaks down. After awhile, it becomes annoying.

Dad, well, we don't see him much. He's at work almost twenty hours a day and the rest of the time in the garage investigating some Muggle product. No one has even dared to talk to him or step in the garage.

The end of my fifth year. That's when all of this started. The last day of school. That's when Harry decided to go alone. Why did he have to do that? He knew we'd come, we were his friends! I haven't seen anyone since that day. I don't want to see anyone.

I excluded myself from a social life in order to cope with the pain inside me. I had spent the whole summer inside my room, excluding Diagon Alley and outings my parents made me go to. During this time in my room I ripped up pictures of Harry, tore out every page I had written about him in my notebooks and diaries. I attempted to permanently erase him from my memory. Naturally that didn't go too well with mum when she found me in my room with my wand to my head. Three weeks without a wand and two months of counseling was my punishment. Obviously, those two months were hell. Having a person dig into my life where they had no business to be did not make me very happy.

Those three wandless weeks were spent experimenting with Muggle beauty supplies I bought along time ago but never got around to using them. Along with the beauty supplies, I played with my hair. I was going to change. I wasn't going to dress like a girl that needed comforting. I was going to dress like a girl that was strong and could get past this bump alone. Of course, the bump I imagined was in reality an impassable mountain.

One outing I was forced to go on was a three day mini-vacation with Charlie to Spain. There were sightings of a dragon in Madrid and Charlie was told to go settle it. Mum asked him to take me along to get me out of the house. I wasn't happy at all about it, but when we got to Madrid, I was slightly happier. Charlie was nice and he didn't pressure me into talking. That's what I enjoyed about it. Mum was always saying that I can tell her anything and that if I needed to talk she was there for me. I never wanted to talk.

In Madrid, Charlie spent two days dealing with the dragon and spent the third with me. We didn't shop, but spent the whole day sightseeing and enjoying each others company. It was nice to be away from home and just be able to think about everything else besides him.

So here I was, sitting on my bed, flipping through a magazine when I should be packing my trunk. Clothes were strewn all over the floor, the trunk was open with random things thrown in it, and two bundles of letters lay on the floor, waiting to meet their fate. The fire or the trunk.

One bundle was tied up neatly with hearts and little drawings on the envelopes. This bundle was larger than the second. The second bundle was only slightly smaller but the envelopes were plain and bore few markings. The first bundle was letters from Harry when I had that infatuation with him. The second were all the letters I could find from Ron. Before I went to Hogwarts, we were close and he would send me letters personally. Then when I went to Hogwarts, we grew apart, but whenever he went away for the summer he would still send me letters. These letters I was defiantly taking with me to Hogwarts. What should I do with the first bundle?

Though I hated Harry now and no longer liked him, I was still bound by all the memories we shared together. I couldn't help it. Those experiences made me who I am. I was bound to them.

So with my decision in my mind, I took the two bundles and threw them into the bottom of my trunk along with pictures of Ron I couldn't look at right now but I knew I would be glad to have later on.

I sat on the edge of my bed staring at my trunk as unwanted tears started to form in my eyes. I hadn't cried in over a month. I wasn't going to start now. I heard a knock on my door and the hinges creak as it started to open. I quickly wiped away the tears.

"Ginny?"

I recognized the voice and wasn't too happy in hearing it.

"What do you want?" I asked, wiping away the last of the unwanted tears. I got up off my bed and walked to my closet, not even glancing at the wavy-haired girl.

"Why didn't you respond to any of my owl posts?" the girl asked, standing in the doorway, not daring to take a step closer.

"Because I didn't want to," I stated, rummaging through my closet and throwing clothes in the general direction of my trunk. Yes, I had grown to be slightly mean and withdrawn, but death will do that to you sometimes.

"Ginny, I want to talk," Hermione said, venturing in the room. She kneeled down and started to pick up the clothes.

"My mom's right downstairs, she's always willing to talk," I said, turning away from my closet and moving to my drawers. I still didn't look at her.

"I want to talk to you," Hermione said as she started to fold the clothes and place them in neat piles on my bed.

"Well I don't want to talk to you," I said, knowing that that statement was going to hurt her.

"Why don't you talk to anyone? You need to talk to someone," Hermione said.

"No, I don't. I'm perfectly fine without talking," I said coldly. Why was I so mean? Isn't Hermione my friend?

I heard Hermione rummaging through my trunk and knew that she found all the pictures and letters. I blinked away tears that started to form. Silence filled the room for a few moments.

"You've been in this room for the whole summer. You've grown pale because you haven't had any sun," Hermione said quietly.

"That's not true, I was in Diagon Alley just last week," I retorted.

"One day in the sun does not count, Ginny," Hermione said. She grabbed my shoulders and turned me around to face her. I was shocked. She'd never acted this way around me. She used to be nice to me.

"You've changed Ginny. Your mum's told me about the way you act. You've grown angry and more distant. You won't look at the pictures of Ron," Hermione said. I shivered when she said his name. In my mind I can't speak his name; if it's out-loud then it's more real, more final. She continued with her rant, "You snap at people when they say his name, you won't even say his name."

"Stop! Just stop!" I yelled, covering my ears, trying to prevent myself from hearing what she's saying.

Hermione didn't pay any head to my yelling though, she continued, but on a different subject. "What about Harry?" I froze when I heard his name. "This isn't his fault, Ginny, and you need to stop blaming him." She gestured to all the ripped up pieced of paper that littered my room. Corners of moving pictures of Harry filled my mind.

"Shut up! Shut up, Hermione!" I yelled, inwardly shocked at my yelling. I closed my eyes and turned away from her.

"No! I won't shut up! Ron's death isn't Harry's fault!" Hermione yelled back. I covered my ears again in vain to block her yelling. "Get over you little fantasy of blaming someone else. This was no ones fault except the Dark Lord's. Ron was the type of person that would follow his friends to the ends of the earth. Harry isn't to blame. Accept that," Hermione said more quietly.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," I moaned, sinking to my knees. No one has talked to me so much about Ron and Harry. I couldn't help it, I cried. I couldn't believe Hermione, I wouldn't. In my heart, I knew Harry was still the source of all my pain. In my heart, Harry took the only person that truly understood me.