Chapter 3

Ginny claimed the chair by the fire the moment she came in the common room. It was deliciously familiar, and if she just closed her eyes, she could imagine Harry walking towards it, Ron and Hermione arguing next to him. He'd lift her off her spot, settle in it and promptly put her on his lap. He'd start doing that thing with her hair – playing with it, absentmindedly, while talking with his friends, but turning to her and smiling every so often, to let her know that he had not, in fact, forgotten she was there, and she was his girlfriend.

She smiled as she recollected moments by the lake when he had his hand in much more than her hair. The memories of these events, which would most likely give her brothers heart attacks if they knew about them, almost caused her to run upstairs in her dormitory and try to reminisce under the shower.

If she closed her eyes just a bit stronger, she believed she could actually remember the exact feel of his lips on hers, especially that one last kiss they had in her bedroom on hiss birthday. If her idiot of a brother hadn't interrupted, she was quite certain she'd have been able to finish her plan and feel Harry's hands on even newer places on her body.

The day he came back – because he would come back, she could not for a second think that he wouldn't come back from whatever his mission was – she'd drag him to this very chair by the fire and claim her spot on his lap. Ginny was certain that she could go through anything that would be thrown at her for the rest of the war, whether it lasted a month or ten years, as long as she could sit on Harry's lap and have him play with her hair just once again.

She was pulled out of her daydream when someone loudly cleared their throat next to her.

She tried not to groan as her roommate Heather Smethley stood in front of her. She'd never really got along with the other two girls in her dormitory. There were only three of them in there, mostly due to the fact that they had been born at the peak of the war, and making babies was the farthest thing from everyone's mind back then – unless you were Molly Weasley, in which case war was just cause for having more children. The other girl from her dormitory, Sandra, was missing this year – another Muggleborn who, Ginny hoped, had made a run for it. Heather was a particularly nasty girl who had never shown any interest in talking with Ginny until she became Harry Potter's girlfriend. Hermione used to complain a lot about Parvati and Lavender – Lavender a lot more the past year, actually – but at least they weren't downright nasty, and had their hearts in the right place. Ginny was fairly sure if Heather had been in the DA, they would have been betrayed by someone else than Marietta Edgecombe, and much earlier.

"What can I do for you, Heather?" she asked with the fakest smile she could come up with.

Heather smiled back, looking absolutely genuine.

"So, what's new? What have you been up to this summer? Anything exciting?"

Ginny starred at her. Either the girl was even stupider, or this was the most obvious ploy in history too get gossip out of her. She decided not to take the bait.

"Oh well, you know, this and that. My brother got married, but that's not really interesting. It was a really quiet event, not much happened."

"Of course," she answered with a finality that made it clear she didn't believe that for a second. "You'd have to say that," she continued in a whisper, and then winked.

Ginny was getting more dumbfounded by the second. Was this girl – the same person who'd made fun of her for a full month in first year after she sent that dreadful Valentine to Harry – actually trying to bond with her?

"Yes, I would have to say that, because it's the truth," she answered, lying through her teeth. The cover story had been repeated by the entire family since the disastrous end of the wedding, and Ginny was nothing if not an excellent liar.

Heather smiled again and looked around the common room.

"Right. You never know who could be listening here. We can talk more quietly in our dorm!" She then walked off, going up the girls' stairs. Ginny had never wanted so little to go to bed.

Looking around the common room, she saw several people quickly looking away. From across the room, she saw the two remaining seventh year boys starring at her. Seamus winked and Neville smiled, before both making their way upstairs.

"Oh well, might as well go and hide behind the curtains," she thought. She'd have to put some privacy spells around her part of the dorm, she realised. Heather's sudden interest was entirely too suspicious. She knew Gryffindors weren't known for subtlety, but this was downright stupid. She waved to Parvati and Lavender as she passed the open door of their dorm. The two girls were obviously in denial, as they were looking everywhere but at Hermione's empty bed.

As she lay down on her bed, having firmly shut the curtains around her right in Heather's face, she thought she hadn't felt this lonely since her first year. She was terrified, though she wouldn't admit that to anyone. Fear usually only made her stronger, and made her fight harder. But in the quiet evening of her first night at Hogwarts, there was nothing to fight – nothing yet, at least. Tonks and Bill had prepared her, behind her mother's back, and had warned her that with Death Eaters in the school, she should expect the worse. The anticipation of just what "the worse" was made everything much harder and scarier. She felt a pang of jealousy for Lavender and Parvati – even for Seamus and Neville who probably were feeling horrible, looking at a total of three empty beds – at least they had someone to confide him. Her closest friend was in her Ravenclaw dormitory, locked with people who didn't appreciate her nearly as much as they should. She would have loved to be able to talk with Bill or Tonks, but there was no way she could be open enough in letters about all that she had on her mind. She had to assume mail would be watched, especially hers.

She tossed and turned in her bed for almost two hours, unable to find sleep, before she made her decision. She put on a robe, and quietly slipped out of bed, making sure not to wake Heather up.

The common room was empty, so no one saw her go up the stairs to the boys' dormitories. She thought she'd have to be very quiet not to wake up the two boys, but the lights were still on, and Neville and Seamus turned straight to her as she came in.

"Sorry, I couldn't sleep," she apologised. "Can I stay here tonight?"

"Of course you can," Neville said sweetly. She walked straight to what used to be Harry's bed. "I was telling Seamus about that plan of yours to protect the first years. He reckons it's a good idea."

"But I think we should do more," the Irish boy continued. "I mean, we're not going to let a bunch of Death Eaters boss us around without reacting, are we?"

"We first need to see what the bossing around entails, Seamus," she replied. "I don't mind taking risks to accomplish things, but we're not going to risk our skins just for the pleasure of just once telling a Death Eater what we think."

"That's exactly what Harry would do, though," Seamus answered.

"Actually, that's exactly the opposite of what Harry is doing right now," Neville contradicted. "Whatever he's doing with Ron and Hermione, he's clearly not advertising it. If he was telling Death Eaters what he thinks to their faces, we'd be hearing about it in the Daily Prophet, if only because they'd announce they're closer to catching him."

Seamus looked at Ginny, an eyebrow raised.

"No, I don't know what they're doing," she answered his silent question, slightly exasperated. "And I also wish everyone would stop asking me this. I'm starting to realise why they wouldn't tell me anything, I'm expecting Veritaserum in my pumpkin juice any morning now."

"But do you know if there's anything we can do to help them? Did they leave any hints?" Neville asked.

"Neville, have you met Harry? If he doesn't want anyone to know something, he won't let anything through," Seamus pointed out. "I still think we need to do more than just helping firsties," he added, getting back on topic.

"Shay, for all we know, helping firsties is already going to be more than we can handle. I'm rather sure these Carrows will make Umbridge look like a teddy bear – not because she was less evil, but because they won't care if students complain to parents. I mean, what will the parents be able to do anyway?" Neville wondered. "They can't take us out of school, they won't be able to get the Carrows or Snape kicked out. If they've been put in charge of discipline, it's to make everyone even more afraid of them. We'll be sticking it to You-Know-Who by making sure the firsties know not to be afraid, and by showing the others that we can stand up to them."

Seamus looked impressed.

"You know, Neville, you just sounded a lot like Harry," he said with a sad smile. Neville blushed. "Anyway. If that's what we're going to do, we need to organise." He went to his trunk and started digging. "Are these still going to work?" he asked.

He was holding his D.A. coin.

"Well, they were still working just a few months ago," Neville answered. "No reason they shouldn't anymore."

"But how do they work? Harry and Hermione are the only ones that ever activated them..."

"No idea," Ginny answered truthfully. "But we should be able to find someone else in this place who has brains besides Hermione. If you have classes with the Ravenclaws tomorrow, can you put them on the case?"

"Can we trust them?"

"I'm sure we can trust Michael and Terry," Neville said. "They might have joined the D.A. for Ginny's pretty eyes, but they stayed for the right reasons."

Ginny stuck her tongue out at him. "You're right. Michael might be a sore loser at Quidditch, but he's on the right side in this war. If you don't have classes with them tomorrow, though, I'll ask Luna."

"And what happens once we make the Protean charm work?" Seamus asked.

"We keep our fingers crossed that we don't actually need it. But if we do, we know how to contact anyone else from the D.A. in a heart beat. You never know when we might need someone from another house," Ginny answered sombrely.

She looked at the two boys. Seamus was probably the one boy in this class she knew the least, but the other four had always trusted him implicitly, with a small exception at the beginning of her fourth year. Neville she'd never wondered about – he'd been the only one of the five boys who had always been here for her, even more than Ron or Harry. She suddenly felt a bit less lost – and a lot sleepier.

As one, they close the curtains around their beds. Ginny wasn't sure if it was just wishful thinking, but she could smell Harry's lingering smell around her –grass on the Quidditch pitch, the dust of the invisibility cloak he never went anywhere without, and the lemon of his shampoo. She wondered once again if he was thinking of her at all, and then finally found sleep.

AN: Many, many thanks to all my reviewers. It's been very nice to read them all – except for a certain Vicus, but at least the trolling was so ridiculous that it made me laugh.