A/N: Ok so I know this chapter is a bit shorter and I apologize for that! But I just had this chapter kind of sitting around and I thought it'd be better to post it than to have it just go unread, especially since I think I'm ready to pick this story back up and take it 'off hiatus' I guess. As always, if you like this story please feel free to tell me what you think, I love to hear from you guys. Enjoy.

DISCLAMER: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter franchise including the characters used in this story, for those all belong to JK Rowling. I own only the development of my mediocre ideas.

GINNY:

She worked hastily through her potions class, grabbing various ingredients, adding, waiting, preparing, stirring, shaking, and shimmying to make a Draught of Living Death. It was one of the hardest potions she had ever had to make, even with Harry across the desk giving her hints from his special potions book. She continued to work as Professor Slughorn walked around, nodding precariously at everyone's work. He rubbed his fat stomach, and Harry made a joke about 'looks like Winnie the Pooh'. Ginny didn't understand his muggle reference. But she laughed anyway, because Hermione did and because Harry just had that effect on her.

Every time he spoke to her, she felt butterflies and hated it. Godric Gin, he doesn't want you. They never want you. They had potions with the Slytherins normally, but this time they shared it with the Ravenclaws. And she'd be damned if she didn't notice Harry sharing glances with Cho at least once every five minutes. They made her sick, to be quite frank, and Cho had waved Cedric in front of Harry's face for most of his fourth year. How messed up was that? Then she used Harry as her rebound! Just the thought of it made Ginny squeeze her enderberries until its orange juice ran down her arm.

"Alright there, Gin?" Harry asked, looking concerned. "You seem a bit on edge."

Ginny gritted her teeth before forcing smile. "Everything's fine, this potion is just stressing me out a bit."

He looked at her with the sympathetic smile that she hated herself for loving, and then took her ladle and stirred it clockwise seven times then counter clockwise once. The brownish liquid changed to a clear black and the pot simmered. "Thanks," she mumbled.

"It's just in the book."

Hermione turned her head toward the two, obviously flustered. "Harry," she hissed. "I told you to give the book back. Who knows what kind of illegal magic could be in there?!" her hysteria was matched by the redness of her face.

"I mean, Godric Harry, you could get yourself into a lot of trouble!"

Ginny, a bit tired of Hermione being her usual anal self, decided to ask her the magic used to create an Infiri. "It's for my History of Magic OWL," she explained, though it wasn't and she didn't care about the answer. Ginny had to bring up the matter of horcruxes in a roundabout way, so Hermione wouldn't be suspicious.

As the older witch started to spout off different facts about the Infiri, Ginny turned back to her cauldron and flicked a gaze at Harry. He nodded gratefully, then went back to his work. She did the same.

Her cauldron then started to fizz and pop, and the smoke made Ginny's eyes burn. The liquid started to bubble rapidly out of the side of her cauldron, eroding and eating away at the table. Trying to keep her eyes from watering, she cleaned up the mess and excused herself into the hallway, going through the potions book and trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. Harry would be able to fix it, she thought, but he was busy with his own potion, and with Cho. After all, she didn't want to interrupt their eye-fucking. While outside the room, Ginny felt around her robes, looking for her wand, thinking she could maybe reverse whatever had started the smoke without being away from her station for too long.

Rather than pulling out her wand, though, she found the note Draco had given to her the day before. She read it over as fast as she could, deciphering the uncharacteristically messy scrawl.

"Astronomy Tower for answers. 12:45.

Bring no one but the book.

No protective spells or enchantments,

Or they will know."

The message itself sent a shudder through her spine, and she shoved it far down into one of her pockets. As she hurried back into her class, Ginny noticed Harry's book was by her desk, and her cauldron was lightly steaming, free of smoke. He caught her eye and smiled. "You were really close, honestly. It just needed a little more monks' wood. I hope you don't mind, I uh, added some for you."

He gave her an encouraging smile and went back on with his work. Ginny was amazed at how calm and sweet he was. She only knew some of what the Trio was going through with the horcruxes, but from what she heard, it was dangerous and grueling. Harry Potter was truly remarkable. The thought of him alone was enough to calm her jumped nerves, and she tried to forget about Malfoy's note. Ginny sighed and turned back to her almost perfect potion.

After class, she and Hermione made their way back to the common room, chatting more about Infiri and villa, and the darker aspects of magic. I should ask now, while we're on the subject. Thought Ginny. "I have a question then, about the Infiri." Hermione waited for the question. "Well, they've got to be complex to control, haven't they?"

"I suppose so, what are you getting at Ginny?"

"I was just wondering what they're good for, you know, since you-know-who's been using horcruxes for a long time –

"Ginny," Hermione warned. "Creating a horcrux is an extremely complex and dangerous incantation. And horcruxes are a lot harder to achieve than an Infiri spell. I mean you-know-who had to split his soul just to make one!"

She paused. "Why are you asking anyway?"

Shit. "I'm just wondering I suppose. I've been really worried about you guys lately, I just want you to know what you're getting into. I'm your friend Hermione," Ginny sighed. "I want you guys to be safe." She shrugged her shoulders and tried to look genuinely concerned for her friend. After all, it wasn't that Ginny wasn't concerned for her friends and her brother, but she needed answers badly.

"So, why are you asking?"

"It's just that, well, would it be possible for the horcruxes to talk?"

Hermione stopped walking, her eyes cutting straight into Ginny's; "What?"

"Say, if there were a way of communicating with it, and he was able to talk through them."

"Ginny, if this is about what happened in the Chamber –

"It's not," she started defensively. "I mean…it's not. I just, worry. Please Hermione."

"Well…" Hermione started. "I suppose it would be possible." She sighed and made a pained face. "Look, I don't know Gin, let's not talk about it anymore. It's getting late, and I've got to get to the Astronomy Tower. I'll see you later though, for dinner?"

Ginny barely got 'goodbye' out of her mouth before Hermione disappeared out of the porthole, leaving her to her thoughts. She tried to go over incantations for her Defense against the Dark Arts class, (not that she could practice much at all, for Snape had them working on wordless spells,) but finally shut her textbook out of boredom. She decided to head to the Quidditch pitch early before practice to blow off steam, and was out there long before any of her other teammates showed up.

Dinner went by quickly, and Ginny sat with Collin and his little brother Dennis, talking about nothing in particular. She glanced periodically at the Golden Trio, watching them talk in voices too low to hear. They all looked on edge about something, but about what specifically, Ginny could only guess. She excused herself after eating and made her way up to Gryffindor tower, waiting for the right time.

She waited by the fireplace for a while, halfheartedly entertaining a few of her friends. It wasn't much longer until students started going up to their dorms. Ginny continued to sit, pretending to study her transfiguration until most of the people had cleared the common room.

Seamus and Dean sat in one corner, huddled close and giggling quietly. Dean laughed and brushed some soot from Seamus' hair, no doubt left there from potions class. She and Dean had been on awkward terms since they dated earlier that year, but their mutual friendship with Seamus made everything a bit more bearable between the two of them. She smiled. Shay and Dean were great friends. By the window sat a tired and brooding Nigel Wolpert, and at a desk Cormac McLaggen was struggling to fill out a long roll of parchment. She would help him, but he was a tosser on the Quidditch field. Not to mention he'd called her Cherry since her 2nd year.

Ginny Weasley made her way up to her dormitory. No one took notice of her when she went up the stairs, nor when she slipped into her bed, nor when she turned out the light. Not even later, when she pulled a little black book out of the bottom of her trunk and slipped again out of the porthole.

And she ran through the castle, taking special care to be silent and inconspicuous. She couldn't risk anyone finding her with the journal. As she turned down a hall, she stopped dead in her tracks, seeing Ernie MacMillen and Justin Finch-Fletchley snogging aggressively in an abandoned corridor. They stopped abruptly when they saw her, both looking stunned and embarrassed to be caught in such a vulnerable position. Justin opened his mouth to speak, but Ginny cut him off. "None of us were ever here." They nodded, and she continued on.

She had to run up many flights of stairs to get to the Astronomy tower, and before long she was sweating and panting, going slower and slower. Shit shitshitshit. I'm going to be so late, she thought. In fact, she was so distracted with the time that she forgot to jump over the disappearing step in the 4th staircase, and ended up catching her leg in it. She pulled herself out quickly and managed to keep going, but a large scrape in her leg caused her to go even slower.

Ginny Weasley ran up the last set of stairs, stopping at the door for just an instant to catch her breath and push the door open, to where he would surely be waiting.

The rest of the night, she sat in front of the fire and thought about the note. She thought about the diary that looked so much like her own, and she thought about Draco. He'd changed in the last year, and only then had she realized how much. And Ginny did not sleep.