A/N: Trigger warning. Mentions of sexual assault in this chapter. I tried to keep it as vague as possible, but I knew that this was happening. War isn't pretty, and often the worst victims are the ones who aren't fighting at all.

Ginny watched as George opened the door with his wand, and Harry stumbled in, clearly not expecting George to open the door with magic, and then heard the tell-tale crack of apparition that Hermione and Malfoy had disapparated. She internally sighed with relief, and then folded her arms over her chest, and smiled at Harry. "Oh, hello Harry."

Harry marched straight up to her. "Where is my cloak?" He growled.

Ginny shrugged. "I don't have it."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. "Bullshit. You left me a note this morning saying that you had taken it."

Ginny nodded her head in mock solemnity. "Correct. I took it this morning, but at this exact moment, I don't have it."

Harry was visibly seething. "Then where the hell is it?" He yelled.

Ginny took a step back. "I honestly don't know. I gave it to Hermione to use. Why don't you ask her?" She asked scathingly. "Of course that would require you to actually care about your one friend who has never left your side, and write her the first fucking letter all year!" Ginny continued, her voice getting louder and louder until she finally shouted the last few words.

Pansy, who was still standing next to George, clucked her tongue at that. "Really Potter? Not a one to little Miss Goody Two Shoes?"

Harry got stiff at that, and turned to look at Pansy. "And what are you doing here Parkinson?"

Pansy smiled smugly. "I was invited. The better question is what are you doing here? I don't recall seeing your name on the invitations."

George chuckled under his breath at that, and Pansy glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I just didn't realize that you were hanging out with that lot, Gin." Harry said in a nasty voice, glaring at Pansy. "Didn't you get enough of them having it easy last year? I thought this was supposed to be your and Mione's 'nice and calm school year.'"

Pansy's smile dropped, and she stood to her full height. "Easy Potter? You really think we had it easy?"

Harry crossed his arms. "Last I saw you, you were fleeing the castle after saying that I should have just been handed over to Voldemort. So yeah, I reckon you had it easy."

If looks could kill, Harry would have been dead. "Right, because having our homes taken over was easy. Because praying that you didn't accidentally make a wrong move would result in someone you loved getting seriously hurt, or worse, killed was easy. Because praying that if you were caught by the other side, that they wouldn't let you go, because if you were returned, you might as well be dead, was easy. Because living in fear of being attacked, and then getting asked what you did to make that happen, was easy." Pansy's eyes narrowed. "You have no idea what it was like last year. By the time you showed up, I didn't care who won the fucking war. But it wouldn't end until one of you was dead. So I'm not sorry for what I said. I'm just glad its done." She strode out the door, and on to the main road, leaving everyone behind.

George looked at Ginny. "Lock the shop back up?" He asked her. Ginny nodded at her brother, and he started to follow after Pansy, stopping when he reached the door, and looked back at his sister. "Oh, and Gin? If you need me to hide his body later, let me know," and then left the shop.

Ginny and Harry stood in the shop in silence for what felt like an eternity. "Why did you come here?" Ginny finally asked.

Harry took a step closer to Ginny, and she took one back, maintaining the distance between them. Harry sighed. "Look, I was pissed. Ron and I saw what Skeeter wrote in the prophet, and we were all set to ignore it, thinking that she must have been wanting to go after Mione, but then your mum showed up at number 12, saying that we shouldn't do anything about the article and we didn't know what to think!" Harry ran his hand through his hair.

"So we just waited. We figured one of you will write us and explain what the hell was going on. But you didn't, so when you just showed up last night, out of the blue, with no warning, I just lost it."

Ginny crossed her arms in front of her. "You haven't written either of us. You missed her birthday. Why the bloody hell would she want to write you about this if she hasn't heard from you?"

Harry had the decency to look ashamed. "We've been busy Gin."

Ginny shook her head. "You think I don't know that? But that isn't an excuse. And don't try to say that we haven't written you, because I know that she wrote you every week in September and never heard anything back. And I wrote you every other day," she paused, and took a breath. "I wrote you so many times, and you never wrote me back."

Suddenly the bell over the door tinkled, and Harry turned to see who had come through. Theo entered slowly, then looked around. "Where did everyone go?" He asked Ginny.

Ginny frowned. "When Harry showed up, Hermione and Malfoy left," noticing Theo's frown, Ginny reassured him. "I told him to take her. Hermione and Harry are not known for level tempers. Pansy left not long after, and George went after her. She seemed upset."

Theo nodded, then looked at Harry, noting the distance between the two. "Are you alright?" He asked, coming in further, clearly satisfied that nothing was going on with Draco and his sister.

"I don't see how any of this is your business, Nott." Harry said, eyeing Theo with severe distrust.

"I don't recall asking you a question Potter." Theo said, not bothering to look at Harry, looking instead at Ginny. "Do you need help in here Ginny?"

Harry spluttered. "What, you two are friends now?"

"Hermione's friends with all of my brothers, I figured I could make nice with her brother." Ginny shrugged.

"So it's true what Skeeter wrote then?" Harry asked quietly.

Satisfied that Ginny was alright, Theo looked over at Harry. "Yes, Potter. Skeeter got one right for once."

Harry looked as though someone had slapped him. "Why didn't she tell me?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I already told you-"

But Theo cut her off. "Neither of us were planning on saying anything for a while. We wanted time and space to figure things out. I imagine she was going to tell you when she saw you in person next. The only people we had said anything to, were the ones we could tell in person."

"And Malfoy?" Harry asked in a barely controlled voice.

Theo frowned. "An idiotic decision my father made before we were actually born. Her fate was sealed before we were born. Draco and I have done what we could to make it better for her."

Harry's face contorted in rage. "They hate each other!" He exploded. "He'll do nothing but try to use her!"

"Bullshit!" Theo said, raising his voice, though not quite reaching Harry's volume. "He knows better than that. Even if he weren't already bloody terrified of having her as his wife with their history, he still wouldn't dare use her for a multitude of reasons, least of which is, he knows that I would kill him for her! And on top of that, I hardly think you're in a position to complain about people using Hermione for their own personal gain. How many times would you and Weasley have died without Hermione? How many classes would you have failed?"

Harry felt himself turning red in the face.

"Knock it off!" Ginny shouted, facing Harry. "You both care about Hermione. Harry, you know that Hermione would have filled you in on this eventually. She genuinely does care about Theo. He's been nothing but decent to her since they found out, and he wasn't one of the shitty Slytherins to her." She turned to look at Theo. "And you! Blood or not, Harry has been Hermione's de facto brother since they were 11. They were alone for five months last year, and if that doesn't mean that you are stuck with each other for life I'd love to know what does. Like it or not, you want Hermione in your life, Harry is a part of that deal, even when he is acting like an arse."

The two boys looked at each other, and Ginny sighed. "Look, I'm not saying you have to be best friends. I'm not even saying you have to like each other. And I won't force you to be anything more than stiffly polite to Ron, but for Hermione's sake, make nice, and learn to tolerate each other for Hermione's sake. Because she's already lost enough, she doesn't need to lose either of you."

They stood stock still for a moment, each waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, Theo begrudgingly stuck out his hand. "Only for Hermione," he said.

Harry put his hand out and shook Theo's quickly, then dropped it again. "For Hermione."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Now was that so hard?" She glanced at her watch. "Shit. We've got to get back to the castle."

Harry looked at Ginny. "Can we talk?" He asked her quietly. "Before you go back."

Ginny shook her head. "I really don't have the cloak, and we have to be back before curfew. I really don't feel like getting a howler from Mum." Both Harry and Ginny shuddered at the memory of Mrs. Weasley's last howler.

"When's your next Hogsmeade weekend?" He asked her.

Ginny looked down at her feet. "If I tell you will you actually show up, or will you say that you will and then leave me alone?"

Harry grimaced. "I can't make any promises right now, I might have training. But if I send an owl the day before saying I can be there, will you see me?"

Ginny thought for a moment. "It's in two weeks. Now you have to go so I can lock up the store for George."

Harry nodded his head, and then turned and left.

"Do you think he'll show?" Theo asked her.

"I don't know." Ginny said truthfully. "I want to be hopeful, but I know Harry too well."

Theo walked out on to the street with Ginny, and watched as she waved her wand, locking the shop back up for George. "If you ask me, Potter's an idiot."

Ginny laughed. "Of course you'd say that, you 're a Slytherin, locked in eternal war with us Gryffindors."

Theo smiled, and the pair started walking up the street, to a safe spot to apparate from. "It's not that. I just mean that he's an idiot for not seeing what he has. If you were my girlfriend, I'd do everything in my power to make you happy."

Ginny blushed. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were hitting on me."

Theo laughed. "Trust me, I'm not. You really aren't my type."

"So what is?" Ginny asked, glancing up at him. "Zabini?"

Theo looked at her with a bemused look. "Do you really think I swing that way?"

Ginny shrugged. "I've learned you never can tell. And I wouldn't care if you did. Neither would Hermione."

Theo shook his head. "Good to know, but no, Zabini is not my type."

"You going to tell me?" Ginny asked, poking him in the side.

Theo looked away. "Why don't you see if you can figure it out."

And with that, he grabbed her arm, and disapparated them away.

George walked down the cobblestone path, peering in every window to see if he could, not seeing Pansy anywhere. Finally, he ducked into the Leaky Cauldron, and saw her slender frame, and long blonde hair sitting in a stool at the bar. He made his way over to her slowly, and sat on the seat next to her.

Her head was bent, and she was swirling a glass of firewhiskey. Tom came over, and George pointed at Pansy's glass, and held a finger up to signal that he wanted the same thing. Tom poured the drink, and brought it over, and George nodded his thanks. The odd duo sat there in silence for a few minutes.

"You didn't have to follow me you know." Pansy finally said, starting into her glass, face expressionless.

George took a sip of his drink. "I know."

Pansy, looked over at him, and narrowed her eyes. "So why did you?"

George shrugged and set down his drink. "Because I thought you might want to talk. Also, I learned a long time ago that Ginny is a bit like my mum. You don't want to be in her path when she's pissed."

Pansy looked back at her drink and snorted. "She's something else."

"Who? My mum or Ginny?" George asked, cracking a small smile.

"Both I suppose." Pansy replied.

"So before Fred and I went into hiding, we heard that things were getting really bad at Hogwarts, so we started smuggling students out when we could, getting them to safehouses, or out of the country if we could manage it." George said after another short moment of silence. He looked over at Pansy again, and then continued. "Some of those kids we got out told us what was going on up at the school and I don't think we would have believed it if they hadn't had the injuries, and the fear still. There was one kid, a little third year from Ravenclaw, who told us that one of the Carrow's had given her detention for being five minutes late to class. We couldn't get her to open up much more to us about what had happened, but she also wouldn't let us look at her to try to heal her. Eventually we gave in and brought Mum in, and she found out what had happened."

Pansy's jaw tightened, and her grip clenched on the glass. "Amycus."

"He'd given her detention, then used it to rape her. She was thirteen, and the poor kid kept beating herself up saying that it was her fault since she was late. That she should have known that she would get a detention if she was late."

"It wasn't her fault." Pansy muttered. "Amycus was a putrid, disgusting pig."

George nodded. "That's what everyone kept telling her."

"What happened to her?" Pansy asked, looking up at George finally.

George looked down at his glass. "We got her to France. Fleur, my brother Bill's wife, her family took her and a few other kids in. About a month before the battle we got a letter that she'd killed herself. She couldn't take it anymore."

Pansy looked down at her glass again, hatred evident on her face. "Most of them were no good, but Amycus was one of the worst."

George moved his hand closer to her's and linked a pinky with her pinky. "Whatever happened wasn't your fault you know."

Pansy glanced at their fingers. "First week of school he ordered me to use the cruciartis curse on Longbottom in Dark Arts. I hadn't been in Defense since fifth year. Didn't score high enough. Don't know why the hell I got put in there. But I refused to do it because I knew I wouldn't be able to cast it. As pathetic and annoying as Longbottom was, I didn't hate him enough to do that to him. He gave me a week of detention for it. To be served with him."

George shuddered. "Did he?"

"Every fucking night." Pansy said bitterly. "I wrote home thinking my dad would do something, but my mother wrote back asking me what I'd done that could bring such shame on our family. That I was essentially 'damaged goods' at that point. A week later, I got another letter saying that I was now engaged to Adrian Pucey, and I better not do anything else to bring shame onto our family name."

"I'm so sorry." George said sincerely.

Pansy shook her head, and looked at him. "Don't be. I'm not special. Theo held me every night for a month after that, and if I couldn't do something, he did it for me when the Carrow's weren't looking. Theo's a good one that way. And I learned that my mother was a fucking cunt. I'm worth more than what she thought. Than what most people think."

George sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if there were any real winners in this whole shitshow. Everyone seems to have lost something."

Pansy took her hand off her glass, and wrapped it fully around George's. "Why haven't you opened your shop back up?"

George looked at the back of the bar, eyes not really focusing. "It was mine and Fred's dream. Going back without him, it just feels wrong." He looked down. "I couldn't even look in a mirror for the first month without breaking down. I kept thinking I was seeing him."

Pansy looked down at their entwined hands. "From what I remember of him, and what you've said, he was a good guy who would have been proud to go down the way he did."

George laughed wetly. "He was laughing. Percy, our brother who was always a prat, made a joke for the first time in his life, and Fred couldn't believe it. He was laughing when the wall blew in on him. When we finally cleared the rubble away, he was smiling. Even when we buried him, he had a smile on his face. An eternal laugh, according to Dad. I haven't been able to laugh since."

Pansy looked up at him. "That's not true."

George met her gaze. "Yeah it is."

Pansy shook her head, and put her other hand over his. "You've laughed with me."

George looked taken aback, and then shock registered on his face. "I hadn't even realized it." He whispered.

"It isn't a bad thing. If your brother would have wanted anything, it would be for you to keep laughing, and making others laugh." Pansy said quickly, reassuringly. "To make us feel safe," she said quietly, looking down again.

George took his free hand, and lifted up her chin. "You feel safe with me?" He asked quietly.

"Do you think I'm funny?" She asked, in a low but challenging voice.

George grabbed a handful of galleons out of his pocket and threw them on the counter. "Let's get out of here," he said, pulling her by the hand off the stool.

"Where are we going?" Pansy asked, smiling in spite of herself.

"Want to blow some things up back at the store?" George asked, with a genuine smile as they headed out the back door into the alley behind it.

Pansy pulled George against her, and leaned back against a wall, pulling him with her by his shirt. "Is that really the only thing you can think of to do in that whole empty store?" She asked seductively.

George looked down at the lack of space between them. "I don't want to-"

Pansy put a finger up against his lips, and shushed him. Standing on her tip-toes, she pressed a kiss against his neck, and then bit his earlobe gently, causing George to groan, and rotate his hips into her involuntarily. "Trust me. I want you." She said, pulling back slightly, eyes hooded.

George pushed her up against the wall fully, and lifted her up, and her legs wrapped around his waist automatically. He met her mouth in a bruising kiss, and in the next moment, they were gone with a crack.