I have officially outlined the rest of the story in my official story-out-lining notebook! It's set in stone, people! We officially have 21 chapters in store! Maybe an epilogue, but we shall have to wait and see.

But that means we only have 4 more chapters! I'm really happy with how it's worked out so far, and am really excited to see what you guys think about the ending. I'm so glad that you're enjoying it so far, and am so appreciative of all the great support. Thank you so much. Alright, well, enjoy chapter 18!

Harry blinked open his eyes. He felt like his head had been hit repeatedly with one of Ginny's old soccer cleats. He had a mind to close his eyes and go back to sleep until the pain subsided, but when he reached out to pull Ginny closer…

Harry shot up, scrambling for his glasses.

"Ginny!" He yelled, throwing the covers off. "Ginny where-!" He shot into the hallway, almost tripping over a chair. He stopped short when he saw the kitchen and gasped, clutching at his chest.

Ginny eyed him, her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. "Morning." She said wryly, quirking an eyebrow. Severus was shamelessly laughing at him from behind a newspaper.

"Bit jumpy there, Potter?" He asked, watching as Harry slumped into the chair next to Ginny and pulled her into a chaste kiss.

"You just scared the shit out of me." He muttered against her mouth. She pulled back, smiling.

"I saw. I heard! We should go apologize to the neighbors." She told him, pushing her half-eaten plate of pancakes towards him. He scrubbed his hand down his pants, trying to rid his palm of the terrifyingly blank feel of the cotton sheets of his bed. It hadn't been her he'd felt, and his stomach had tightened horribly at the thought of her not being there.

But she is here, stupid. Get a hold of yourself. Harry thought, reaching for a fork as Snape passed him a cup of coffee.

"I like the new look. Keeps your jeans nice and wrinkled." He said sarcastically. Harry glanced down and saw that he was still in his clothes from yesterday. He scowled across the table.

"Sorry that clothes wasn't the first thing on my mind when I came home from being interrogated for over seven hours." Harry snapped.

Ginny hissed and reached out to rub his arm. "Was it horrible?" She asked quietly. Harry dropped his gaze to her and immediately felt like a total asshole. Guilt was written all over her face.

"No. It was completely fine. Nothing happened. Really." He told her, taking her hand in his. Ginny's eyes dropped.

"If we hadn't gotten…in the garage…" She shook her head and Snape subtly raised his paper to give them some privacy. Harry leaned closer.

"Ginny this wasn't your fault. It wasn't even Dawlish's report that got me-"

"He wrote a report?" She blanched, dropping her fork. "I…I'm so sorry! I was trying so hard, and we'd been doing so well-"

"Hey." Harry said, also abandoning his fork and taking her face in his hands. "This was not your fault." He said again, stroking her cheeks. Tears were welling up in her eyes, but Ginny hated to cry. She held them in valiantly. "This wasn't anyone's fault, ok? There was something else. Some other evidence…"

Harry shook his head and dropped his gaze. Ginny didn't need to know all of that. She had enough to worry about without all of the cards stacking up against him in this investigation. He looked back up at her, and smiled reassuringly.

"It doesn't even matter. I'm here now, aren't I? And I'm not going anywhere. You got me out of there. You rescued me." She snorted and he winked at her. "My hero." He said, grinning cheekily, happy to see her roll her eyes and push him away.

"You're ridiculous." She said, her voice stronger than before. He pulled her to him and laid an exaggerated, sloppy kiss on her. She giggled and wriggled out of his grip.

"Ok! Alright, I get it. You're fine! Ah! Let me go so I can shower." She stood, avoiding his grasping hands.

"Do you need some help soaping up? Since you are my personal hero, it's the least I can do." He called after her, watching as she smiled at him saucily before disappearing into the bathroom and locking the door with a click.

The smile on his face dropped.

"I'm not going anywhere, right?" He asked carefully, watching as Snape lowered the paper.

"I don't know." He said, setting the Daily Gazette aside and leaning forward on his elbows. "There was only so much we could do last night. We got you out, but there was a whole new stack of anonymous reports on the police steps this morning. Whoever's doing this, it's gotten personal." Severus shook his head and reached for the coffee again. Harry waited, but he didn't say anything else.

"And?" He asked finally. Snape shrugged at him.

"And what?"

"And what am I supposed to do? Sit here and twiddle my thumbs until I get hauled off to jail again? Or maybe I could just go ahead and escort myself down there so I can get a good bunk. I'm sure I'll be down there long enough-"

"Don't be ridiculous." Snape growled. "You're being overdramatic. We're not going to let them take you again."

"We?" Harry asked, irritated at being put in his place.

Severus grinned at him. "We. Your legal representation."

Harry squinted at him. "Please tell me that you're not my lawyer. You'd probably screw it up and I'd get the death sentence or something."

"Very funny." Snape said dryly. "No, I'm not your lawyer, I've just taken over Ginny's case. Sirius is. And he's paired up with Hermione Weasley."

Harry sat back in his chair. He'd expected Snape to push to get his case and was glad he'd succeeded.

"Hermione?" He asked, not bothering to correct his former teacher about her last name debacle. Snape nodded, standing to rinse off his plate.

"She was invaluable last night." He said. "She was the one that woke up the district judge at eleven o'clock and got him to sign a warrant for the video of you on the night of the Rochester attack. And she's the one that told Sirius what you'd said about the latex traces on the magazine." Snape smiled. "You should be thanking her that you're not still in that interrogation room."

Harry blew out a gust of air. "I will as soon as I see her."

"Should be soon. She and Ron and Sirius went to go get the surveillance tapes from the store the doll was bought from. They should be back soon."

And they were. Just as Ginny was stepping out of the shower, the front door opened and all three of Harry's legal representation walked in. Harry jumped up and hugged Hermione.

"Thank you." He said, blushing a little as he pulled away. She reached up and patted his face, smiling gently.

"It was nothing. Don't worry about it." She said, passing him to throw an overstuffed briefcase onto his couch. Ron put a hand on his shoulder.

"Glad you're out of jail. Keep your hands off my wife." He said, also moving to plop down on the couch next to the briefcase. Which left Sirius.

He gave Harry a fatherly one-armed hug, looking him in the eye and asking if he was ok and when he'd eaten and if he'd slept.

"We got about three weeks worth of surveillance tapes here." He said as Ginny padded out of Harry's room. "Their organization system was non-existent."

"Maybe that's why they were so happy to give 'em to us." Ron chimed in, swallowing an enormous bite of pancake. "Thought we'd straighten up a bit." He suddenly pointed his fork severely at Hermione. "Don't even think about it. You've got enough to do."

She rolled her eyes at the paper she was studying, and Harry heard her mutter sarcastically, "But I just got a new label-maker…" Which made Ron laugh.

Sirius set the large bag of tapes on Harry's coffee table and sighed. He looked around at the group, scattered around on chairs and couches, Ginny was on the floor.

"Well, then. Let's get started."

oOo

Ginny rubbed her eyes and covered her face for a moment, enjoying the darkness. Since Harry's arrest three days ago she hadn't gotten much sleep.

Her time was mostly split between trying to keep up with the mass amounts of work that Colin was piling on her, trying to get to know Snape better and trying to help Harry with all of the legal attacks being hauled against him.

She was failing at all three, but mostly with Harry. She'd all but given up with that one. Harry was adamant about protecting her from the issues of his case, and there was only so much information that Sirius could sneak to her. She'd really begun to like the outspoken lawyer. It was clear that he cared greatly for Harry, and he was the type of man that had never met a stranger. Snape on the other hand…

Ginny peeked up at him through her fingers. Severus Snape was a matter of his own. He was polite, cordial even, but Ginny couldn't get him to open up about anything. He wasn't stand-offish, exactly, but he wasn't friendly either. He was good at his job and fiercely protective of Harry and Sirius, but that's all Ginny could really get from him.

And then there was work. It seemed like every time she turned around someone was shoving more work or revisions into her face. And Romilda was lapping it up like a cat with cream. She absolutely adored watching Ginny struggling because of her husband's assignments, and kept making thinly veiled comments about how she was going to get promoted and take Ginny's job.

There was only so much a girl could take.

The clock in the corner chimed that it was five and she sighed. Lately, it seemed like she was just bouncing back and forth between work and Harry's apartment. Romilda didn't want her at the office, Harry didn't want her help at his place.

Most of the time, he fell just short of ignoring her and barely interacted with her as he, Snape and his "legal team" immersed themselves with the case.

"Miss Weasley." Snape's soft, mildly cultured voice cut through her thoughts. She waved her hand at him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go." She sighed and pushed herself out of her chair. As she walked down the hall to the elevator, she tried not to notice as people stared. Everyone knew that something had happened, but no one had the guts to come ask her about it.

Cowards. She thought bitterly as she and Snape stepped into the elevator. I work with these people for so long! In know their wives, husbands, kids…they can't even pay me the courtesy of asking after my welfare? Where do they get off? When Brenda broke her leg, I went to see her in hospital, for Christ's sake! And Ed? I was the first to send flowers when his mother died…

By the time Severus drove her to Harry's building, she was in a mood.

"Hey." She said when she entered Harry's apartment. As usual, he and his legal team were scattered around the kitchen table. Harry grunted and reached out to pull her into a hug with one arm. He didn't even look at her as she bent to kiss his cheek.

"We have to find Corner." He muttered, letting her go. "He's wrapped up in all this pretty tightly."

"But we're trying!" Hermione threw her hands up. "There's only so much we can do with a man who's been missing for almost a month."

"Vacation, my ass." Sirius said. "He's hiding."

Ginny crossed to the kitchen counter where they'd set bags of take-out. She listened to their talk about her ex while she fixed a plate and wished that she could be listening to anything else. She was tired of not being able to do anything. She was tired of feeling like she was going to be killed any second. She was tired of having to think about Harry getting arrested again. She was tired of being useless at work…She was just tired.

She thought about telling Harry that she was going to go work in the guest room, but knew that he probably wouldn't hear her anyways.

She took her plate and her work bag and closed herself in the guest room, shutting it with a click right in Snape's face. She wasn't really up for company, even if it was silent.

By ten, she was much calmer. She'd finished most of the revisions on a few of her stories, and she'd talked herself down from her anger. Of course everyone's tense. It's a tense situation.

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head. It was time for bed. Maybe she was even tired enough to sleep through the night.

She gathered all her work and shoved it in her bag. Snape was leaning against the wall outside her door.

"Sorry." She told him. He merely tilted his head and followed her into the living room. Hermione had gone, but Harry and Sirius were in the same place. Ginny slung her bag on the chair next to the door and padded over to Harry where he was studying a huge book. She reached out and smoothed his hair back. He looked exhausted.

"Hey." She said. He didn't look up, but grunted. "I'm going to bed." She said, tugging a lock of his hair and wishing he'd look up at her. He didn't. She paused. "Are you coming anytime soon?"

"Probably not." He said softly, but he finally lifted his head to look at her with blood-shot eyes. "Sleep well." He said, tilting his head up for a kiss. She bent down reluctantly.

She didn't get a full night's sleep after all.

In the morning, she had to stop herself from screaming. Logically, she'd known that Harry had come to bed last night. She'd woken up around four am from a fitful sleep when he'd slid between the covers. He hadn't touched her, but had begun to snore immediately.

But when she woke up, he was already up and in the shower. In the kitchen, she had to squeeze past Ron and Snape on her way to the coffee machine, but there was no coffee left. She ate her stale toast standing because there wasn't room at the table.

At work, Colin sent back every single revision she'd made last night, Romilda stood outside her office and gossiped loudly about a potential "personnel cutback" that seemed to consist solely of Ginny, and people had stopped staring at her, instead ignoring her altogether. She had to bite her lip from crying when Sharon, her favorite mail-lady, plopped down several letters and practically ran out of Ginny's office without speaking.

Ginny felt deeply tired and upset by the time she trudged up the steps to Harry's apartment. Her heart lightened when she opened the door and saw Harry smiling. He jumped up when he saw her and she walked straight into his open arms.

She felt tears gather when she felt him hold her tightly. Finally. She knew she'd needed this. She felt the tension drain from her sore muscles when he pressed a kiss into her hair.

"I missed you." She sighed. He pulled back to peck her lips and looked at her oddly.

"Missed me? Gin I've been right here. But guess what? We found out that the store, payphone, and magazine address are all within a four block radius of each other!" Ginny felt disappointment wash over her when he pulled away to sit back down, pulling a large map towards him.

"Now we just have to cross-reference the phone calls with the dates and times of the-"

Ginny tuned him out just as he'd tuned her out. She glanced in the kitchen, and saw only a few bagels and last night's take-out. Her mood worsened when Hermione caught her eye and gave her a sad, sympathetic look. She trudged into the guest bedroom and snapped the door shut.

As she laid in bed that night, she bit her lip to hold in tears. She felt like everything was on edge. All the people around her had better things to do. She couldn't help. She was the one who'd caused all this mess. She was the one who'd brought this mess into Harry's life. He didn't need the hassle any more than he needed her.

She felt the bed dip as he rolled in next to her. She couldn't stand it anymore.

"Harry?" She whispered. He rolled onto his side and wrapped a careless arm around her.

"Night Gin." He muttered, and she felt his breathing even out on her neck.

Where was the man she knew? The man who knew exactly how to cheer her up. The man that, not even five days ago, had sat in her kitchen and kissed her and made her feel like everything was ok.

Harry rolled over in his sleep and his arm slipped off of her. She finally gave into the tears that had been building for days.

The next day when she came home from work, she had to pause and take a breath before she entered Harry's apartment. When she swung the door open, she bit her tongue to keep the tears in.

Ever since her cry last night, it seemed like she couldn't stop. She gingerly stepped over stacks of files and books, trying to find a place to put her bag. Today, Harry didn't even look up at her. She gave up looking for free space and carried her bag to the kitchen. The only thing she saw was an empty pizza box.

"Sorry. There's none left." Sirius muttered, barely flicking his eyes at her. She breathed slowly and made her way to the guest room. She halted just inside the door. She could sense Snape directly behind her. She didn't shut the door on him.

Instead she looked over her shoulder at him. For a man that hadn't spoken to her for days, he had an oddly sad, empathetic look on his face. It made her want to cry.

She didn't. Instead she asked, "Will you take me home?" He nodded and reached out to take her heavy, over-full bag from her shoulder. She let him have it and tried not to crumple as they walked past the kitchen and out of the apartment.

Harry hadn't said a word to her, and she wondered if he'd even noticed she was there. Or if she'd left.

Ah! Not a huge cliffhanger there, but a tiny bit of tension. I hope you guys like it! Let me know! I live off reviews.