Here we go, this is it,the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Witch of Destiny. I'm so excited, but this one is going to take a while, I have the first three chapters written, over 25 pages! So please have patience, and Review. Thank you.
It was a very subdued group that returned to Grimmauld Place. The adults thought the children where worried about Mr. Weasley. They were, in fact, worried about Harry and the fact that Moody thought he was being possessed by Voldemort. They all knew from experience that Harry wouldn't deal with that too well; he would bottle up his feelings, pushing away everyone who tried to help him, for fear that he would hurt them in some way. Ginny and Hermione both knew this to be true, and Ron would catch on soon enough. As they entered the house, Harry immediately took off up the stairs, and into the room he shared with Ron. No one went after him; they decided it was best to give him some time alone. They went instead into the library to try to figure out how they would help him.
"Right, I say we just storm in, sit him down, set him straight, and drag him down to dinner if we have to."
Ron naturally wanted to take a blunt force approach, but the two girls thought that a more artful strategy was required.
Ginny may not have known Harry as well as Ron and Hermione, but she knew a lot more about boys then both of them put together, and special as Harry may be, he was still a boy. He needed a woman's touch right now, and Hermione simply wasn't girly enough to handle this. Not that Hermione took that revelation well, Ginny hadn't seen the brunette that angry in years.
Over the next week, Ginny realized just how right she was, as Hermione tried to help Harry, and failed miserably, the more she and Ron tried to reach out to him, the more he withdrew into himself and refused all human contact. Ginny knew that Harry was spending a lot of time locked in with Buckbeak, he seemed to like the Hippogriff, but she didn't tell anyone, Harry needed to be alone right now, and she would give him that. Ginny was worried about spending time alone with an emotionally vulnerable Harry. The problem was that, mush as she hated to admit, she still really liked him, she no longer suffered from the highly embarrassing crush of her younger years, she had matured beyond that. She was happy dating Michal Corner, but deep down, she knew that she would go for Harry in an instant, but she didn't want to be disappointed when he told her he wasn't interested.
Ginny waited for two more days, when Harry showed no sign of improvement, he hardly showed himself at all, she took action. Harry had stuck to a fairly regular schedule over the last week, so it was very easy to sneak into his room just before he went to sleep. Harry walked in, just as predicted, saw Ginny waiting for him, and turned right around to leave.
"Harry James Potter, don't you dare try to leave this room." Her cold tone of voice, and the leveled wand, were incentive enough to keep Harry rooted to the spot.
When Harry finally spoke, his voice shocked Ginny, it was rough and horse, like he hadn't spoken since they had been back.
"I'm not safe to be arou-" He never got to finish the sentence.
"Harry! You are not being possessed by Voldemort. Your not. There's a good reason they call him 'Mad-eye', and it has very little to do with his eyes. If there is one person who could possibly tell you what it's like to possessed by Him, its me. And I'm telling you that your not. "Harry mentally kicked himself; he couldn't believe that he forgot about The Chamber of Secrets, Ginny was right, she would know more about it then anyone else.
"So you don't think I'm being possessed then?" Harry sounded hopeful, which was a step up from the depression of earlier.
"I thought I made that very clear. You. Are. Not. Being. Possessed. Deal with it! Stop being a prat, go get something to eat, and lose to Ron at chess. Now!" Harry looked for a moment like he might argue, but thought better of it; this was Molly Weasley's daughter after all. As he went for the door, he paused and turned to speak for a moment before leaving. "Thank you Ginny." Ginny was beaming as she said, "Your welcome." to the empty room. Even he was too thick to spot it, she still liked him, and she would keep him safe, from afar if need be, until he came around. She just hoped it wouldn't take too long, her brothers were right, she was too popular for her own good.
Harry Hermione and the Weasley's spent the remainder of the Christmas holidays at Grimmauld Place, with a delighted Sirius. They visited Mr. Weasley again on Christmas Day, and ran into Neville Longbottom, who was visiting his parents. The whole story came out, how they had been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange; at least he wouldn't have to keep the secret anymore. Over the next week Harry played chess with Ron, losing badly, doing research for the D.A. with Hermione, and just enjoying being free for a few day.
Hermione was thrilled for her best friend, she wasn't sure what Ginny had done, but she had been exactly right about Harry. He and Ginny had been smiling at each other rather a lot lately, and Hermione was starting to wonder if something might be going on there. She also had not missed the look on Harry's face when Ginny had kissed Neville on the cheek at St. Mungo's. She sincerely hoped that there was something going on between the two, for Ginny's sake, and Harry's. He needed someone in his life who could handle the emotional turmoil that so often came with him. And Cho could absolutely not, but Ginny had already proven that she could, and very well at that. Ron didn't seem to have noticed anything, but then again, he wasn't famous for picking up on things, especially when it came to girls.
Whether it was too soon or not soon enough, it was time to return to school. This evoked mixed feelings in Harry, he loved the castle, and couldn't wait to get back to the D.A., but that would also mean being back under Umbridge's thumb, something that Harry was really not looking forward too. The five children, plus two owls, a cat, and five trunks, all somehow squeezed into a car with Lupin and Mrs. Weasley for the trip to King's Cross Station, fortunately it was a short trip.
Platform Nine and Three Quarters looked the same as it always did, and so did the Hogwarts Express, but something was different, there was a subdued nature on the platform, not the excited, jovial atmosphere they were used to. There were also people missing, by the time everyone had Hugged Mrs. Weasley goodbye, and gotten on the train, it was obvious that at least fifty people weren't on the train. Most of their friends were there, and no one from the D.A. seemed to be absent, but there were definitely people missing. Harry was wondering why they had decided not to come back, he put it down to Umbridge's tyranny, the Ministry's slander against Dumbledore, or they had murdered by Voldemort. He hoped there weren't too many of the second and third, not that the first was any better.
Harry was distracted from his comtemplation on other students whereabouts when his eyes fell on one particular student, a certain redhead, who managed to catch his eye for the first time.
Ginny was sitting against the window, her feet were tucked under her, and she was uncharacteristically buried in a book, that was usually Hermione. He momentarily mused that she looked almost like a cat sunning herself, but that wasn't why she held his gaze. It was the way the sun coming through the window caught in her mane of fiery hair, reflecting of the lighter highlights, he'd never really appreciated just how vibrant and beautiful her hair was before today, or how warm and soft her chocolate brown eyes seemed to be. Every so often she would unconsciously wet her lips, and Harry felt the very strong, very unusual urge to kiss her, a lot. He fought this urge, though he didn't know why, and contented himself to sit and watch her, occasionally getting lost in her gorgeous eyes.
Hermione had never had a harder time waiting to do something, almost four hours after they arrived back at the castle she entered the fourth-year girl's dormitory to talk to Ginny. Considering what she had seen on the train, she was amazed that Ginny had not come to her straight away, and expected to see the redhead excited and unable to sit still, or anxious and nervous, anything but the calm, collected girl that sat reading on her bed.
"Oh hello Hermione, something going on?" Ginny asked, noticing the unusual expression on the older girls face.
Hermione was completely dumbfounded for the first time in her life. "Ginny are you kidding me? Why aren't you bouncing off the walls in excitement?"
"What are you on about? Have I missed something?" Ginny was very confused, and wondering what she was supposed to be excited about.
"YES YOU MISSED SOMETHING! Or are you telling me that you didn't notice that Harry was practically drooling over you the whole ride back?" Hermione was flittering between amusement, excitement, and exasperation, as a result she was extremely flushed and hyper.
"Um… no. What?" Ginny was fairly certain that the only time Harry had even looked at her had been in The Chamber of Secrets, and just before Christmas. He had definitely never "drooled over her". Perhaps Hermione had finally lost it, all that studying and obsessing made her snap.
"I'm telling you that Harry didn't take his eyes off you once, the whole way back, and the look on his face, I don't think I've ever seen him look that happy for that long, then, at dinner, you should have seen his face when you left, like Christmas had been canceled." Hermione said all of this very fast, amazed that Ginny hadn't noticed herself.
"Hermione, are you serious? You're not just having me on?" She didn't think Hermione would do that, unless one of her brothers put her up to it.
"No I am not having you on, I'm not one of your brothers, I'm serious, he spent a whole seven hours just staring at you, completely dead to the rest of the world, like nothing else mattered." Harry had spent the better part of four years not noticing Ginny, it looked like he might have finally caught on, and Hermione said as much.
"Bout time too," muttered Ginny "but what do I do now? I don't want to go back to being an immature child with a crush." Ginny was very popular with the male population of the school, but she knew Harry was different then any other boy she knew, very different.
"Well you could always take off your clothes and wait on his bed, I'm sure that would get his atten-" Hermione was cut off by a pillow thrown by the furiously blushing redhead.
"Hermione! I'm being serious, and that wouldn't work with Harry anyway, although you could always try that with R-" Now it was Ginny's turn to be cut off by a pillow from a very red Hermione.
"Yes, yes, point taken, just be yourself, and maybe wear a low-cut top or something if you know you'll be around him a lot." Hermione had given Ginny this advice before, minus the low-cut top part, of course.
"Hmm, but I don't want to spend another four years waiting for him to work it out. Maybe a love potion?" Ginny was kidding, and Hermione knew, but that didn't spare Ginny a lecture.
"Ginny! Love potions are banned at Hogwarts. Besides you don't want to force him into it, and I wouldn't help you brew it anyway." Ginny was not one to take a lecture lightly, especially not one that insulted her intelligence.
"What makes you think I need your help? My grades are just as good as yours ever were, plus I'm better looking." Hermione raised an eyebrow at this, she knew she wasn't the best looking girl around, but hadn't expected Ginny to say something like that in anger.
"Oh come on 'Mione, when's the last time someone spent seven hours staring at you?" Hermione managed to keep a straight face for all of ten seconds before bursting out laughing, quickly joined by Ginny.
Ron Weasley was not as totally ignorant of the world around him as most people thought. He actually noticed rather a lot, even if he didn't let on. In fact it was only when he wasn't paying attention that he did something particularly stupid. The behavior of his best friend on the train had not escaped his notice; he had simply been waiting for the right time to ask about it.
"So Harry, why were you staring at my little sister all day?"
Harry looked up from his potions essay, thankfully able to keep a look of alarm off of his face, amazed that Ron, Ron of all people, had not only noticed, but was asking him calmly about it, and not flipping out.
"I was what?" asked Harry in a futile attempt to play dumb.
"Oh you know, you only spent about seven or eight hours staring at my little sister, drooling slightly."
"I was not drooling!" said Harry a little too quickly and a little too forcefully. Had he really been drooling?
"So you were staring at her then?" asked Ron with his eyebrows raised. Harry though for a moment, and came up with a decidedly Slytherin scheme, for which Ron would hate him when he found out about it.
"You want Ginny single, and away from unwanted attention right?" Ron was utterly shocked by Harry's question, and it never occurred to him that Harry had completely avoided answering him.
"Well I think its time I took a more active part in looking out for our little sister." This shocked Ron even more, if that was possible.
"Our little sister?" he asked tentatively.
"Well I've always thought of you, and to a lesser extent Fred and George, as my brothers, and that makes Ginny my little sister as well." Harry even managed to blush right on queue; Ron was going to buy this one easy. Harry watched Ron's face cycle from shock, to wonderment, to embarrassment, and finally settled on glee.
"This is going to be great Harry, with the two of us working together, we can't fail, at least we haven't yet." Harry didn't think he'd ever seen Ron this happy, even at the World Cup. He mentally flinched at the thought of what Ron would do when he found out Harry's true intentions. But that was far in the future, and for now, Harry was content to sit back and lose yet another game of chess to his adopted brother.