Ginny hit the ground and fell over. She was in the dingy kitchen of Number Twelve, Grimmauld place; a dull, flickering light told her a fire was lit in the fireplace.

"Back again, the blood traitor brats," croaked the house-elf Kreacher from nearby, "is it true their father's dying?"

"OUT!" Sirius roared at him, hurrying into the dark room. Ginny caught a whiff of stale drink as Sirius walked over and helped her to her feet. "What's going on? Phineas Nigellus said Arthur's been badly injured —"

"Ask Harry," said Fred.

"Yeah, I want to hear this for myself," said George.

Harry looked at the twins, then at Ginny; she gave him a small, encouraging smile, or at least tried to. Smiling was hard right now.

"It was — I had a — a kind of — vision. I was asleep, dreaming about something silly, then suddenly the dream changed, but it wasn't like a dream anymore, I was — fully aware and conscious." He hesitated. He looked a bit uncomfortable as Ginny and the twins stared at him. "It was dark, and I couldn't tell where this happened, but I — I saw a huge snake slithering across the floor, and Mr. Weas — your dad — was sitting nearby, dozing; he woke up when the snake got near him, but he didn't react in time, and the snake — attacked him —"

His voice cracked slightly; he looked pale and ill. Ginny was sure the look was mirrored on her face. She felt nauseous. It seemed incredible that only a few hours ago, everything was relatively normal: they were discussing their holiday plans and doing homework. It already felt like a lifetime ago.

"Is Mum here?" said Fred, turning to Sirius.

"She probably doesn't even know what's happened yet," said Sirius. "The important thing was to get you away before Umbridge could interfere. I expect Dumbledore's letting Molly know now."

"We've got to go to St. Mungo's," said Ginny urgently, looking at her brothers. "Sirius, can you lend us cloaks or anything — ?"

"Hang on, you can't go tearing off to St. Mungo's!" said Sirius.

" 'Course we can go to St. Mungo's if we want," said Fred hotly, before Ginny could speak, "he's our dad!"

"And how are you going to explain how you knew Arthur was attacked before the hospital even let his wife know?" said Sirius.

"What does that matter?" said George angrily.

"It matters because we don't want to draw attention to the fact that Harry is having visions of things that are happening hundreds of miles away!" Sirius retorted. "Have you any idea what the Ministry would make of that information?"

Ginny understood Sirius' concerns, but at the same time, he was being a pretty big prat about it, all things considered. This didn't seem to be the appropriate time to be worried about explanations.

"Somebody else could have told us," she said. "We could have heard it somewhere other than Harry…"

"Like who?" said Sirius impatiently. "Listen, your dad's been hurt while on duty for the Order and the circumstances are fishy enough without his children knowing about it seconds after it happened, you could seriously damage the Order's —"

"We don't care about the dumb Order!" shouted Fred.

"It's our dad dying we're talking about!" yelled George.

"Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won't thank you for messing things up for the Order!" said Sirius angrily in his turn. "This is how it is — this is why you're not in the Order — you don't understand — there are things worth dying for!"

"Easy for you to say, stuck here!" bellowed Fred. "I don't see you risking your neck!"

Sirius looked as though Fred had slapped him.

"I know it's hard," he said, trying to stay calm, "but we've all got to act as though we don't know anything yet. We've got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?"

Ginny turned away from him to prevent herself from doing something she would regret. She sank into a chair at the kitchen table with Harry and Ron taking seats across from her. Fred and George sat on either side of Ginny a moment later.

"That's right," said Sirius encouragingly, "come on, let's all… let's all have a drink while we're waiting. Accio Butterbeer!"

He raised his wand as he spoke and half a dozen bottles came flying toward them out of the pantry, skidded along the table, scattering the debris of Sirius's meal, and stopped neatly in front of the six of them. They all drank, and for a while the only sounds were those of the crackling of the kitchen fire and the soft thud of their bottles on the table.

It's our dad dying we're talking about! There are things worth dying for! The words from George and Sirius echoed in Ginny's head as she sat staring down at the table with her head in her hands. Nobody said a word. It was not fair: the horrific situation was so sudden, so out of the blue; she just couldn't believe this was happening. Ginny wished she had something stronger than butterbeer…

She restrained herself from gasping with difficulty: she remembered the firewhisky that she stole was still in the bottom of her trunk in her dormitory. She quickly decided she didn't care; if it was found and she got in huge trouble, so be it. All she wanted was to know her dad would be okay. The minutes ticked by in silence; they felt like hours. Then, quite suddenly, a burst of light illuminated the room and everyone gave an audible exclamation. A piece of parchment, accompanied by a single golden phoenix tail, fell onto the table.

"Fawkes!" said Sirius at once, snatching up the parchment. "That's not Dumbledore's writing — it must be a message from your mother — here —"

He thrust the letter into George's hand, who ripped it open and read aloud, "Dad is still alive. I am setting out for St. Mungo's now. Stay where you are. I will send news as soon as I can. Mum."

A brief silence followed. Then George spoke.

"Still alive… But that makes it sound…"

Nobody needed him to finish the sentence. Ginny thought of the unique clock at home, where the hand for Dad surely pointed to "mortal peril". She saw Harry's hand shaking slightly on his butterbeer glass, and his face was as white as if he, too, had been savaged by the great snake and was bleeding out on the floor. It took another half hour for the shock to wear off and for Ginny to begin contemplating a future without Dad. Tears started pouring silently down her face as she wondered what her family would do with no source of income, how Mum would even begin to cope with the loss, and how they could survive the next Wizarding war if they were already losing family before the Ministry even acknowledged there was a war at all. She looked at the normal clock hanging on the wall. Two-thirty. She felt wide awake and tired at the same time. The excruciating minutes passed in silence. She started thinking about all the memories she had with Dad: their time in Egypt… comforting her when she was crying about Ron going to Hogwarts, leaving her the only child stuck at home, too young to go… singing lullabies to her when she was four years old… his obsession with all sorts of Muggle gadgets and contraptions…

It was three o'clock. Sirius made a half-hearted attempt to get them to go to bed; he got glares in response. Three-fifteen, Ginny and a few others got another butterbeer. Three-thirty. Ginny poured herself a glass of water.

"N-no news is probably good," Ron said, his voice shaking slightly. "Mum surely got to St. Mungo's a long time ago, if… if Dad was, you know…" He hiccupped. "I think she'd let us know right away…"

Ginny almost felt angry at Ron for daring to get her hopes up. She had become so accustomed to expecting the worst, to accepting the worst, that the idea of hope was simply unconscionable. Hope was a weakness. Cho had taught her that. Hope was for normal people, not for people like her who were dead inside. She had spent the last few months suppressing any kind of optimism in her life to keep herself sane and functional. Allowing such emotions now would cause a panic attack; it was simply unthinkable. Ginny hugged her knees and slouched in her chair, staring at the fire. The flames danced uncaringly, mocking her humanity. She stopped checking the clock and fell into a stupor. Surely the sun had burned out. There was simply no way it could still be nighttime, even though it was the shortest day of the year. Vague images started forming on the back of her eyelids as her body fought her efforts to stay awake. She heard somebody cough. She wrenched her head up; perhaps the sound had come from her mind, she couldn't tell. Fred was half-asleep with his head on his shoulder. Ron had his face buried in his hands, and Sirius was staring into his empty glass.

The kitchen door opened. Everyone jerked awake; Mum was standing in the doorway. She looked tired and pale, but she smiled faintly.

"He's going to be all right," she said, her voice weak with tiredness. "He's sleeping. We can all go and see him later. Bill's sitting with him now, he's going to take the morning off work."

Ginny got up and walked as fast as her exhausted legs would carry her and hugged her mother tightly. George was hugging her too, and the tension in the room evaporated instantly. The relief Ginny felt surpassed that which she experienced when she learned Harry was not going to be expelled over the summer. As she and George hugged Mum, she felt a renewed sense of guilt from screaming at her over the summer, and saying the awful things that she did, even though she apologized the next morning. It all felt so shallow and callous in the grand scheme of things.

"Breakfast!" said Sirius loudly and joyfully, jumping to his feet. "Where's that accursed house-elf? Kreacher! KREACHER!"

But Kreacher did not answer the summons.

"Oh, forget it, then," muttered Sirius, counting the people in front of him. "So it's breakfast for — let's see — seven… Bacon and eggs, I think, and some tea, and toast —"

Harry went to help Sirius at the stove. Mum rushed over and hugged each of them in turn, thanking them, then went to help with preparing the food. Harry, who had been just as relieved as the rest of them upon hearing the good news about dad, now looked extremely troubled. Ginny couldn't understand why — he had saved Dad's life. Something was bothering him, and Ginny heard him say, "Can I have a quick word?" to Sirius and the two of them disappeared into the pantry. They re-emerged a couple of minutes later with Harry not looking much better, if at all.

After breakfast they all went to bed, and Ginny fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched her pillow.

Ginny awoke shortly before lunch. Everyone but Harry was in a boisterous mood. Ginny noticed bags under his eyes, and she thought she understood what was going on: the vision had traumatized him, and he was afraid to go back to sleep. This realization dampened her mood slightly, but everyone else was so upbeat that Ginny found it impossible not to be happy too. McGonagall brought their school trunks by during lunch, and Ginny took the fact that she did not give her detention every week for the rest of term to indicate that she did not find the firewhisky. Following lunch they changed into Muggle clothes before setting off to St. Mungo's. Ginny spent a good five minutes putting her jeans on.

"I don't know how Muggles wear these things!" she grumbled, though she was smiling. "They're so uncomfortable!"

"Well, we can ask Dad when we get there," said Ron, whose eyes were watery but was also smiling broadly. Emotions were running high at the moment.

Tonks and Mad-Eye joined them on their trip to St. Mungo's. Dad was in a small ward on the first floor for creature-induced bites in a bed by the window, next to another patient who sustained a bite from a werewolf; fortunately, the full moon was two weeks away, so none of them were in any danger. They decided to let family and Harry visit first, so Tonks and Mad-Eye waited outside. Dad was sitting half-upright, propped up by several pillows. Ginny gave him a one-armed hug as his other arm was still bandaged, which apparently started bleeding profusely when they attempted to remove it. Dad conjured six chairs for them all to sit in.

"So, you going to tell us what happened, Dad?" asked Fred, pulling his chair closer to the bed.

"Well, you already know, don't you?" said Dad, with a significant smile at Harry. "It's very simple — I'd had a very long day, dozed off, got sneaked up on, and bitten."

"Is it in the Prophet, you being attacked?" asked Fred, indicating the newspaper Dad had cast aside.

"No, of course not," said Dad, with a slightly bitter smile, "the Ministry wouldn't want everyone to know a dirty great serpent got —"

"Arthur!" said Mum warningly.

"— got — er — me," Dad said hastily. Ginny knew he was about to let slip where he was when he was attacked. It sounded like it may have been somewhere within the Ministry of Magic itself.

Fred and George badgered Mum and Dad about what he was doing when he was attacked while Mum kept trying to steer the conversation toward regurgitating toilets instead. Mum quickly got fed up and forced them all to leave the room.

"Fine," muttered Fred, as Tonks and Mad-Eye joined their parents in the ward and closed the door behind them. "Be like that. Don't tell us anything."

"Looking for these?" said George, holding out what looked like a tangle of flesh-colored string.

"You read my mind," said Fred, grinning. "Let's see if St. Mungo's puts Imperturbable Charms on its ward doors, shall we?"

He and George disentangled the string and separated five Extendable Ears from each other. Fred and George handed them around. Harry hesitated to take one.

"Go on, Harry, take it! You saved Dad's life, if anyone's got the right to eavesdrop on him it's you…"

Harry grinned rather guiltily, taking the end of the string and inserting it into his ear as the twins had done.

"Okay, go!" Fred whispered.

There was no Imperturbable Charm on the door; the Extendable Ears slid under easily and wormed their way towards Dad's bed. Then, Ginny heard Tonks' voice.

"…they searched the whole area but they couldn't find the snake anywhere, it just seems to have vanished after it attacked you, Arthur… But You-Know-Who can't have expected a snake to get in, can he?"

"I reckon he sent it as a lookout," growled Moody, " 'cause he's not had any luck so far, has he? No, I reckon he's trying to get a clearer picture of what he's facing and if Arthur hadn't been there the beast would've had much more time to look around. So Potter says he saw it all happen?"

"Yes," said Mum. She sounded rather uneasy. "You know, Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this…"

"Yeah, well," said Moody, "there's something funny about the Potter kid, we all know that."

"Dumbledore seemed worried about Harry when I spoke to him this morning," whispered Mum.

" 'Course he's worried," growled Moody. "The boy's seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake… Obviously, Potter doesn't realize what that means, but if You-Know-Who's possessing him —"

Harry pulled the Extendable Ear out and looked around at the rest of them, horrified. Ginny did not hear the rest of the conversation, and only when Fred spoke did she register that the adults in the ward had also stopped talking.

"Er — reckon we ought to pull these back now, I suppose."

They reeled in the Extendable Ears quickly. Harry didn't talk for the rest of the time at the hospital or on the train ride home, nor would he even look at anyone, and when they got back to Grimmauld Place, he went straight upstairs to his room and shut the door, telling them he hadn't gotten much sleep earlier and was going to take a nap.

Ginny and her brothers, who had been boisterous and cheerful on the way to St. Mungo's, were now also subdued. This didn't go unnoticed by Mum, but as they couldn't admit to using the Extendable Ears, they had to use the excuse that they were just tired. Mum fixed chicken for dinner, and Ginny ate in silence, lost in thought. Harry couldn't actually be getting possessed by Voldemort, could he? Just because he had this vision doesn't mean he was being possessed. It couldn't. She thought about how she had periods where she couldn't remember where she was or what she was doing when she had been possessed by the diary…

Ginny thought this was a perfect opportunity for Harry to talk to her, considering she was the only one who could relate, but then figured he probably thought she was too delicate and would go to pieces if she was reminded of it. The thought made her furious. Would he be right though? She looked at snakes differently now than she had before her first year, and she remembered cringing at the mention of a basilisk over the summer. Harry had been the one to save her, though, and he had suffered at the hands of Voldemort more than she had. She thought she could talk to him about it and be just fine.

"Ron," said Mum, "can you go tell Harry dinner's ready? I'll save him something if he's not hungry."

"Sure."

Ron got up and left the kitchen and returned a couple of moments later to tell them Harry wasn't hungry. Ginny wolfed down her dessert and drank a glass of pumpkin juice. She waited for an hour at the table with her brothers but Harry never came down, so she returned to her room and pulled out a book to read, but after only a few minutes there was a knock on the door and Ron entered.

"Harry pretended to be asleep when I checked on him before dinner," he said. "He's in one of his moods."

"Maybe," said Ginny, "if he actually talked to us instead of avoiding everyone…"

"Yeah, well, you know how he gets."

"He can't avoid us, forever," said Ginny. "He's got to eat eventually."

But Harry didn't show up for breakfast or lunch the next day, even after Mum had called him several times. Ginny helped a lively Sirius put up Christmas decorations to keep herself distracted, but shortly after noon she joined Ron in searching the house for him.

"I saw him in the drawing room earlier, but that was around breakfast," said Ron. "He must be upstairs somewhere."

They looked around thoroughly but didn't find him in any of the bedrooms, and they figured he must be hiding under his Invisibility Cloak somewhere.

Mum brought up some sandwiches to Ginny and Ron around six o'clock, who were sitting on the floor in Ron's room playing Exploding Snap.

"I brought some for Harry, too," said Mum, "he must be starving. Do you know where he is?"

"No," said Ron. "We haven't seen him lately."

"I hope he's okay, he seemed ill on the train yesterday. He must still be sick about seeing the attack on Dad, the poor boy, that must have really been traumatic…"

Neither of them said anything, but a few seconds later the doorbell rang and Mum headed downstairs to take care of Mrs. Black's portrait, which began screaming. Hermione walked into the room a moment later, her bushy hair riddled with snow.

"Hi!" she said brightly, hugging both of them.

"I thought you went skiing with your parents?" said Ron, as he and Ginny sat down on Ron's bed.

"Oh yeah, well, we were going to, but Mum broke her ankle and we had to cancel, so I figured I'd come back here instead. They were disappointed, of course, but I told them I needed to stay at Hogwarts to prepare for O.W.L.s, so they understood. Anyway, Dumbledore told me what happened — how's Harry holding up?"

"Not good," said Ron. "We went to visit Dad in St. Mungo's, and we all overheard Mad-Eye talking on the Extendable Ears that Harry might be getting possessed by You-Know-Who, and now he won't talk to anyone."

"We haven't even seen him today at all, we've looked everywhere, and I don't think he's eaten anything," said Ginny anxiously.

"But that's so stupid," said Hermione exasperatedly. "There's no way — Harry's had these types of visions before — I'm going to go find him."

"He's probably under his Cloak," said Ron.

"I'll find him, I know a spell," she said simply, and without another word she left the room and headed up the stairs. A few moments later she returned with a disgruntled-looking Harry.

"I came on the Knight Bus," she was saying, pulling off her jacket before Harry had time to speak. "Dumbledore told me what had happened first thing this morning, but I had to wait for term to end officially before setting off. Umbridge is already livid that you lot disappeared right under her nose, even though Dumbledore told her Mr. Weasley was in St. Mungo's, and he'd given you all permission to visit. So…"

Hermione took a seat next to Ginny and Ron on the bed and looked at Harry.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," said Harry unconvincingly.

"Oh, don't lie, Harry," she said impatiently. "Ron and Ginny say you've been hiding from everyone since you got back from St. Mungo's."

"They do, do they?" said Harry, glaring at them.

"Well, you have!" said Ginny, unfazed. "And you won't look at any of us!"

"It's you lot who won't look at me!" said Harry angrily.

"Maybe you're taking it in turns to look and keep missing each other," said Hermione with a slight smile.

"Very funny," snapped Harry, turning away from them. Ginny looked at Hermione suspiciously. What did that mean?

"Oh, stop feeling all misunderstood," said Hermione sharply, ignoring Ginny. "Look, the others have told me what you overheard last night on the Extendable Ears —"

"Yeah?" growled Harry, his hands deep in his pockets as he watched the snow now falling thickly outside. "All been talking about me, have you? Well, I'm getting used to it…"

"We wanted to talk to you, Harry," said Ginny, "but as you've been hiding ever since we got back —"

"I didn't want anyone to talk to me."

The moment had arrived. Ginny was done with this nonsense.

"Well, that was a bit stupid of you, seeing as you don't know anyone but me who's been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels."

Silence. Harry turned to stare at her. Ginny held his gaze.

"I forgot."

"Lucky you."

"I'm sorry," said Harry with such evident sincerity that Ginny was taken slightly aback at the sudden mood change. "So… so do you think I'm being possessed, then?"

"Well, can you remember everything you've been doing?" Ginny asked. "Are there big blank periods where you don't know what you've been up to?"

Harry thought for a moment.

"No."

"Then You-Know-Who hasn't ever possessed you," she said simply. "When he did it to me, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time. I'd find myself somewhere and not know how I got there."

Something like relief flitted across his face, but he still didn't look fully convinced.

"That dream I had about your dad and the snake, though —"

"Harry, you've had these dreams before," Hermione said. "You had flashes of what Voldemort was up to last year."

"This was different," said Harry, shaking his head. "I was inside that snake. It was like I was the snake… What if Voldemort somehow transported me to London — ?"

"One day," said Hermione, sounding thoroughly exasperated now, "you'll read Hogwarts, A History, and perhaps that will remind you that you can't Apparate or Disapparate inside Hogwarts. Even Voldemort couldn't just make you fly out of your dormitory, Harry."

"You didn't leave your bed, mate," said Ron. "I saw you thrashing around in your sleep about a minute before we could wake you up…"

It looked like they had finally gotten through to him. Harry began pacing the room and then grabbed a sandwich and shoved it into his mouth hungrily.

"I've been an idiot, haven't I?" he said after he swallowed about half the sandwich in one bite.

"Yes" was the honest answer to that question in Ginny's opinion, but she did not say it. It looked like he gathered as much from the looks on their faces, though.

"Right, well… thanks," he said, rather sheepishly. He grabbed another sandwich and stuffed it eagerly into his mouth again.

"What are friends for?" said Ron with a smile. Harry grinned back in spite of himself.

"Well, reckon I'll head down to the kitchen, I'm sure your Mum made more food…"

And with that, he set off down the stairs. Ginny looked at the pair of them. Hermione rolled her eyes, but Ron looked at her apprehensively.

"I've never heard you talk about — what happened — in your first year," he said.

"Yeah, well, f — had to knock some sense into him somehow, didn't I?"

Ginny had almost said "for Harry, I'll do it" but stopped herself. Ron smiled awkwardly.

"If he makes me do it again I'll hex him, though," she added for good measure. As she suspected earlier, however, talking about it wasn't actually traumatizing at all, and in many ways it was therapeutic. She wasn't sure if that would have been the case had she talked about it with anyone else, though. At any rate, cheering Harry up made it well worth it regardless.

And indeed, Harry's mood changed as if a switch had been flipped. The rest of the evening he was the happiest person in the house apart from Sirius, who was so ecstatic about having company during the holidays he was actually singing carols as he cleaned and decorated the house, determined to rid it of its depressing appearance.

The next day, Harry approached Ginny as she was putting up a garland in the drawing room, now looking somber. She had a feeling an apology was coming. Sure enough —

"Ginny," he said. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I know what happened to you is not something I should ever forget…"

"Harry, relax. It's okay."

"But —"

"It's okay. Really. You've been through so much this year. I understand; really, I do. I confess, sometimes I forget stuff about you that I shouldn't too, like just how horrible those Muggles are you have to go home to every summer…"

Harry smiled weakly.

"It's nothing compared to what you went through. I promise I haven't forgotten… it's just… sometimes it's hard… I mean, you're so different now…"

Harry went slightly pink, looking like he regretted saying the last bit. Ginny went pink too and looked away. Hermione was right: he had absolutely taken notice of her now. It may not have been romantic, but he was now seeing her in a way he never had before. He looked down at his feet; Ginny knew he was remembering her obsessive crush on him but was much too polite to mention it. His eyes were as green as a fresh pickled toad… she almost visibly cringed at the memory. But that was in the past and Harry realized it: it was like she was an entirely different person to him now. This was what she had always wanted, but now it was too late.

"It's not like I've spent much time talking about it," Ginny said. "Believe me, Harry, I wish I could forget…"

Harry smiled warmly. For a fleeting instant, Ginny thought he was going to hug her, but the moment quickly passed, leaving her with a slight feeling of disappointment.

"There's always memory charms," he joked. "Anyway, your mum made some double-chocolate brownies, you want some? They're in the kitchen."

Ginny couldn't say yes fast enough.