Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the plot, and most of the words and a tube full of Smarties. I borrowed some quotes from JKR, I take no credit for them.

Green eyes, like emeralds. Messy black hair, the colour of soot, but in a good way. Round, slightly crooked, spectacles set on a nose devoid of freckles.

Merlin he was so handsome... what was that? Beneath his fringe? No, it couldn't be.

"Ginny dear, hurry up you're loitering. People are trying to get places." Ginny snapped out of her reverie and looked up at her mother, blinking her brown eyes innocently.

"Sorry mum, just that boy over there looks lost."

"Well he's probably just a Muggle Ginny, now what's the platform number?"

"Nine and three-quarters!" Ginny piped, forgetting about the boy in an instant. "Mum, can't I go..."

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet..." Ginny sighed and fell silent as her mother wished. Every year she asked the same question, since she'd been old enough to understand. Her attention started to wander as her mother instructed her brothers. Once again, her brown eyes fell on the boy with the glasses and the green eyes. She tugged on her mother's hand but her mother was too busy trying to decide whether Fred was George or whether Fred was actually Fred and the two were pulling her leg.

"Mum," Ginny whined softly, her eyes still on the boy who was now watching George disappear through the barrier. "Mum, I don't think he is a Muggle and I think he needs..." As if he'd been listening, the boy suddenly made his way over. Molly Weasley looked away from her youngest son and finally saw the boy's trunk and owl.

"Excuse me," he said to her mother, his green eyes scared. Molly smiled kindly.

A few moments later, the black-haired, green-eyed boy was out of her mind as she said goodbye to her brothers. Percy immediately strode off in his pompous way but Ron lingered by his mother as the twins hopped about impatiently, teasing Ron and being forced to promise not to blow up any toilets.

"...Guess who we just met on the train?"

"You know the black-haired boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?" Ginny's interest soared and she gazed at her brothers.

"Who?"

"Harry Potter!" Ginny's jaw dropped and for a moment she was silent before something burst and she was bouncing around her mother like a lunatic.

"Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please, please, pleeeease?" Ginny was barely aware of what she was saying and she kept babbling even after her Mum had said no. Then the whistle jolted her out of her trance and her brothers were getting on the train. She didn't realise she was crying until her brothers were telling her not to, promising to send letters and toilet seats.

The train was moving... and then the scene morphed into another.

This time, Ginny was standing in the Room of Requirement. She recognised the DA's practice room, decorated for Christmas. Tinsel wound around the columns and there was a large Christmas tree in the centre of the room. The only light came through the frosted windows, illuminating a large bunch of mistletoe. It also lit up the couple entwined beneath the mistletoe.

Harry and Cho were kissing passionately and Ginny whimpered slightly, feeling sick. She glanced around the room, looking anywhere but them until eventually they broke apart. Harry wrapped his arms around Cho's small form and she rested her head on his shoulder, looking right at Ginny.

"You'll never have him." Her voice was soft, almost a hiss and her eyes glittered malevolently. "Never... How could you think yourself good enough for him? You, the only girl in a family of blood traitors, younger than him, so easily controlled he once had to come to your rescue, due to something that was all your own fault."

"No," Ginny whispered, biting her lip. "He doesn't care about blood status. He doesn't! And he rescued me because he cares..." Cho laughed cruelly and Ginny found herself wondering why Harry wasn't doing anything.

"You aren't good enough... Your Mudblood friend only tells you to get new boyfriends and move on because she wants him, not because she thinks he'll notice you if you do..." Cho's voice faded and suddenly it was Hermione standing in Harry's arms, looking at her evenly.

"I'm sorry for lying to you Ginny, but Harry and I make such a better couple than you do. Besides, Dean is obsessed with you and you two look good together. Hey, in future we could even go on a double date! Just imagine, the four of us in Madam Puddifoot's..." Harry seemed to come to life at the point and started kissing Hermione's neck. Ginny looked away as her best friend's eyes closed in pleasure.

When she looked up again, she was alone.

"Ginny..." Ginny jumped, her eyes wide and her heart hammering. There was still no-one in the room, no obvious source of the sound.

"Ginny..." Her name was hissed and Ginny bit her lip, looking around frantically. She wanted to escape but there was no door. She also wanted to stay, to find out who was taunting her, to fight her tormentor. There was silence for a long time as Ginny's eyes skittered around the room then flashed back to a single wall where red lettering was appearing rapidly. The smell of blood filled her nostrils and Ginny immediately felt dizzy, the smell reminding her of her first year at Hogwarts, the parts she couldn't remember just long blank stretches in her mind. His white, featureless face appeared directly in front of her, red eyes narrowed and thin lips stretched into a smirk.

"You're not good enough..." Tom Riddle hissed the words on the wall into her ear and Ginny screamed.

"Ginny! Ginny! Wake up, it's only a dream!" Ginny's eyes snapped open and she bolted upright, twisted in her sheets and gasping for breath as she looked around. Her mother was standing beside her bed, looking down at her in alarm, her motherly features twisted with worry.

Once Ginny's breathing had evened she leaned back against her pillows and sorted out her sheets so she wasn't tangled up in them. As soon as she was sorted, Molly Weasley sat down on the edge of her bed and smoothed the strands of hair away from her daughter's pale face. A sigh left Ginny's mouth and she leaned against her mother's comforting shoulder.

"Oh Ginny dear, I thought you'd stopped having these nightmares. You haven't screamed like that since the end of your first year summer. Has something happened? Something I should know about? You haven't been writing in strange books again have you? I'd've hoped you'd know better than that, especially after all that happened and now that you're spending more time around Harry I'd hope you'd be more suspicious of objects. Surely your father and I raised you better than to just start writing in a book and not now anything about it, I mean your father works for the ministry for crying out loud! And if someone were to find out one of our family members had possession of a dark object..."

"Mum, Mum, calm down! I'm not writing in strange books, nor do I have the intention to do so ever again. It was a different dream." Ginny sighed softly as she felt her mother relax. "It was about Harry."

"Sweetheart, I thought you didn't care for him in that way anymore? You told me it's going so well with Dean just yesterday. Has something changed? Tell me the boy didn't break up with you by owl? When I get my hands on him... Oh Ginny dear..." Molly enveloped her daughter in her comforting arms and sighed sadly, oblivious to her daughter's eye rolls.

"Mum, he hasn't broken up with me, we're still going out and nothing's changed between me and Harry, that I've noticed anyway. It was just one of those random dreams we all get."

"If you're sure dear. Sleep well." Molly kissed her daughter's forehead and bustled out of the room fairly cheerfully, making her way back to her own room.

The next morning, well later the same morning, Ginny made her way sleepily downstairs to find Charlie bustling about the kitchen, frowning at various pots and then at his wand as they refused to do what he wanted of them.

"This is why the cooking is usually left to Mum," Ginny commented, peering into one of the pots and then recoiling quickly in order to avoid the black fumes that started pouring from it. Sighing she pulled out her wand and set the pots flying to the sink where they began to wash themselves. Pulling out some fresh ones, she eyed her elder brother shrewdly.

"What were you making? You're not one to suck up, especially not by cooking considering your... skill in that department." Charlie chuckled and hopped up onto the counter beside the hob, grinning down at his favourite sibling.

"I was trying to make a strawberry tart for Luna, she has a sweet tooth, especially for strawberry tart. But it went a little bit wrong..." He bit his lip and stared at her pleadingly. "Gin, I know you're upset we didn't tell you earlier but you understand why we needed to keep us secret."

"Yeah, I understand. Now why are you giving me that look? I'm not gonna make your strawberry tart for you. There's a recipe book right there. You just have to gather the ingredients, measure them and then say the incantation. It'll assemble and cook itself. How long?"

"Huh?" Charlie grunted, looking into various cupboards.

"Ever think of a Summoning charm? How long?"

"Oh right. Accio flour! How long what?"

"Are you being deliberately annoying? How long since you and Luna started being Luna and Charlie?"

"Where are the eggs? Wait, how can I need two eggs and two yolks? Aren't the yolks included in the rest of the egg?"

"It means you need to put in two whole eggs and then separate the other two so you have the yolk and the white separate. There's a spell to do that in the back if you don't want to get messy. The white can be used to make meringue and other things. Stop avoiding my question." Ginny was sitting at the kitchen table by now, eating some cereal and wondering where the other members of her family were. Her father was at work, she could see that from the clock, but her mother, usually up by seven at the latest, was nowhere in sight.

"What question? Ova Separata. Ginny it didn't work." Ginny stood and inspected the mess her brother had made in the small bowl. Sighing she vanished it and did it for him.

"How long have you and Luna been 'Luna and Charlie'?"

"Well I've been Charlie since December 12th 1972 and Luna has been Luna since November 9th 1981. Surely you know that though? You send me birthday letters every year and you've been playing with Luna since you could walk, if not before then. Honestly Gin, it's worrying you had to even ask that question. Crustum Convenire. Whoa!" Charlie stepped back hastily as the dough started coming together of it's own accord, then rolled itself out and settled into the pie tin. "Sweet!"

"Aren't you funny? And strawberry tart dough does tend to be sweet," Ginny replied dryly. "When did you two become an item?"

"An item? What century are you from?" Charlie teased.

"Just answer the question, Charlie." Ginny's fingers twitched teasingly towards her wand and she smirked at him playfully. He laughed and ruffled her hair, much to her annoyance.

"If you must know we'd been writing to each other for a while after Luna thought she saw a dragon circling above the lake at Hogwarts but it was actually just a Thestral, she saw it in first year. Poor thing was scared out of her wits but I managed to calm her down and had Dumbledore explain why she could see them when nobody else could."

"Okay so you've been writing to each other for four full years? That still doesn't answer my question. Charlie, you know you can tell me."

"We'd been talking for a while and on learning that I was coming to Hogwarts to help with the Tournament, back in your third year..."

"Wait, you told her but you didn't tell anyone else?"

"Sorry Ginny, I didn't tell her outright, I'd just hinted at it and she's intuitive."

"Whatever, lover boy. Carry on."

"So on learning this she asked to meet up after the first task. I agreed and we went to the Three Broomsticks for a drink. Nothing alcoholic mind, I didn't want to get in even more trouble, considering that I had to sneak her out of the grounds. We talked for ages, until the room was almost empty, and somehow we got onto the topic of ex-partners. I told her how Tonks and I had broken up and she revealed to me how her first boyfriend had broken up with her and how he'd been cruel to her ever since."

"Wait, Luna had a boyfriend? Why wasn't I aware of this? Who was it? He's been cruel to her? I'll make him regret that, or make him apologise if he wants children..."

"Slow down, little sis! Yes she had a boyfriend, a secret boyfriend which'll be why you don't know about him. She and Theodore dated for about two weeks, in your second year, and then he broke up with her when she started telling him about the Thestrals. He didn't believe her, he was scared of her and so started to tease her in mean ways. Fear makes people cruel Ginny."

"I know. So you talked about that..."

"And Luna was upset, and seeing her upset made me upset and before either of us knew what was happening, we were kissing. I pulled away and told her it couldn't work, that the age difference was too much at this age, especially for her, and that the distance was just too great. She, ever the reasonable one, made me see that because of the distance, the age thing was less of a problem. She said to me..."

"So what if the distance is over a thousand miles? You can Apparate that distance in a second if you need to. Maybe this distance is a good thing? People will never suspect anything is going on, just because we write to each other. If we were together, people would talk. A lot. It's a hard thing to ignore, a nine year age difference." Her eyes were round, her breathing quite fast. He found himself wondering if she'd felt this way for a while. She sure did have a good argument.

"It's not quite nine years..." A smile had formed on her face and the two had left the inn, thanking Rosmerta for her patience.

"Charlie? Charlie... Charlie... Chaaaaaarlie..." Ginny prodded her brother in the side in an attempt to get him out of the daydream that had made him sit frozen with quite a creepy grin on his face. "Charlie! Snap out of it, you're burning holes in the wall!" His eyes came suddenly into focus.

"Sorry, just remembering..."

"Really? Are you going to tell me what she actually said or are you just going to sit there, grinning like a clown?"

"Umm, right sorry." Charlie relayed his memory to her and she smiled sweetly before her eyes widened.

"The tart! Quick or it'll burn!"