If Harry had known what positive results it would bring, he would have blown up one of his relatives a long time ago. During his stay in Diagon Alley, he indulged himself in reading his books about magic out in the open while eating ice cream from Fortescue's, and in memorizing every detail of the new Firebolt broom in its display window.

As September 1st drew nearer, he looked forward to doing magic rather than reading about it, as well as seeing his friends again. He was pleasantly surprised when the latter happened sooner than expected, when he ran into Ron and Hermione doing their school shopping.

He received a hug from Hermione and a handshake from Ron. Ron's parents had sprung the news the day before that everyone would be spending the night at the Leaky Cauldron, with cars from the Ministry taking them to catch the train in the morning.

Harry found this strange, but when he asked about it, Ron merely shrugged.

Ron was more interested in showing off his brand-new wand. He was also preoccupied with his pet Scabbers, who hadn't looked well since the trip to Egypt.

"Probably the heat," Ron said. "Absolute murder. Did us all in by the end of each day. Well, everyone except Ginny."

"How has she been? Sleeping okay and all?"

Ron looked around uneasily at the other shoppers. "She's fine," he answered, then changed the subject back to Scabbers. He led Harry and Hermione to the pet shop to see about getting medicine for him.

At the pet shop, Hermione bought a cat, instead of an owl as planned, changing her mind without even checking with her parents. It wasn't like her to be so impulsive, but Harry figured she couldn't resist standing up for the animal, once she heard the pet shop owner's negative opinion of it. Though he couldn't help wonder if she'd found the cat's clear dislike for Ron's pet to be another point in his favor.

As they were leaving the pet store, a man dressed in a Muggle-style black business suit stepped into their path.

"Oh, excuse us," Hermione said. "We were just…" She trailed off as she noticed the man's features. He had all the usual parts of a human face, but the ratios between them looked wrong somehow.

"You're not going to talk to anyone about anything you've seen," the man said in a flat voice, looming over her. "Doing so would result in a government report, which could lead to extreme negative consequences for you and your family."

"Oh, piss off," Ron said in annoyance. He gave the man a hard shove, which sent him stumbling away from them.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped.

Harry said, "Ron, maybe you shouldn't–"

"It's not a real person," Ron said. "Shoo!" he told the man, flicking his fingers at him.

Harry and Hermione stared as the odd man actually complied, shuffling away with an awkward gait.

"Ron, who was that?" Hermione demanded.

"No one. They're magical things that help enforce the Statute of Secrecy. They're supposed to discourage Muggles who see magic from telling anyone until an Obliviator gets a chance to sort things out. There shouldn't be any in Diagon Alley though."

"We're not Muggles. Why was it bothering us?"

"Dunno. Maybe it sensed the two of you grew up in the Muggle world? Like I said, it shouldn't even be here. That one must have gone wrong somehow. I'll tell dad. He'll know who to report it to at the Ministry."

At the Leaky Cauldron, the rest of the Weasley family greeted Harry with smiles and pats on the back, and a hug from Mrs Weasley.

Harry had picked Ginny out of the cluster of redheads as soon as he walked in the door, and exchanged a quick smile with her. Then he had to look away, as he felt a sudden overwhelming awareness of everything he was doing.

How long was he supposed to maintain eye contact with her? If he didn't look at her, where should he look? He decided to glance casually from one person to the next. Was he doing it casually, though? It was hard to do anything casually when you thought about it too much, and he worried his eyes might be either darting about, or fixing too long on each person.

He tried to remember times when he'd looked at people without feeling self-conscious, but realized he didn't have any clear memories of such occasions. He wouldn't have been paying attention to what he was doing, pretty much by definition. Even so, he felt like his past self had let him down in some obscure way, by not preparing him for this.

Should he go over and hug her? Hermione and Mrs Weasley had hugged him, but the others had shaken his hand or clapped him on the shoulder. Was his relationship with Ginny more like the one he had with Mrs Weasley or Hermione, or more like the one he had with her brothers? None of those options quite seemed to fit.

"Harry?" Ginny asked from right beside him. "Is everything alright? Are you looking for someone?"

She must have come over while he was furiously concentrating on being casual and relaxed and not too focused on her.

"Ginny! Hi! You have more freckles."

She grimaced and tipped her head forward, letting her hair cover her face. "I know. I can't help it. There was just so much sun in Egypt. I asked mum to buy me some De-freckling Potion, but the price…"

"No, I didn't mean–They don't look bad."

Great. Smooth. Since he hadn't hugged her when she first came over, was it too late now? Probably, after making her uncomfortable by blurting out the first thing he noticed once he got a good look at her. He wasn't too familiar with hugs in general, let alone the rules for initiating them. He sure would have liked to though.

Then he remembered something she always appreciated, and put his hand on her shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze and left his hand there, rather than giving a quick pat like guys did with each other.

This seemed to be the right thing to do, as she looked up at him with a shy smile, and gave him a quick hug. She pulled away and went over to talk to Hermione.

He didn't get a chance to talk to Ginny alone before Mrs Weasley declared it time for the children to head off to bed, as they didn't want to get a late start and make the Ministry cars have to wait. Harry's attempts to uncover the reason for the cars got no better answers from the Weasley parents than he'd gotten from Ron.

Back in his room, Harry sat on his bed debating whether he should walk down the hall and knock on the door to the room Ginny and Hermione were sharing. He didn't think talking to Ginny in front of Hermione would be much easier than doing it in front of everyone, as nervous as he was, though it depended on where Hermione was focusing her attention. When absorbed in a book, she was oblivious to the world around her. But if she were in sorting out Harry mode…

Before he could either summon his inner Godric and go over there, or convince himself to leave it until the next day, a soft knock sounded at his door. He eased it open a crack to find Ginny looking back and forth down the hall.

"Let me in before mum sees," she whispered.

Harry stepped back and opened the door. Ginny darted in, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it, exhaled in relief, and grinned at him. "Miss me?"

"I did, but are you sure you should be here?"

"If you're worried I'm a threat to your virtue, I'm sure Hedwig will be happy to serve as chaperon."

They both looked at Hedwig. Upon hearing her name, she briefly opened one eye to survey the situation, then closed it and nodded off back to sleep.

"Funny," he said. "I did want to talk to you. Sorry about earlier. I was looking forward to seeing you, honest, but then I didn't know how to act around you with everyone there."

Her grin faded. "Why? I thought everything was good when we left Hogwarts. And in our letters–"

"It was! It is. I just–" He stopped to run his fingers through his hair, trying to think how to explain.

He said, "I don't think we ever said more than two words at a time to each other before the Chamber, but then we had those long talks in the hospital wing. I'm not used to talking like that with anyone. The rest of the term was simple, just having fun with Ron and Hermione. Over the summer, we only had letters, which were fine, but different. Then all of a sudden you're here in person, with your whole family. It's all just a lot."

"Oh. That. Yeah, that was super weird and kind of scary," she admitted, her smile returning.

"You don't seem scared. I mean you're here."

"Well, of course. If something scares you, you're supposed to run towards it. It's the Gryffindor way. Didn't you get the pamphlet?"

"Right, the pamphlet. It probably got stolen by a renegade house-elf. I've heard things like that can happen."

She laughed. "Hmmm. Sounds far-fetched, but this is you we're talking about."

"It's good to see you. Really. You look different somehow."

"Are we back on the freckles again?"

"Freckles aren't bad!" he protested. "I think they look cute."

She rolled her eyes. "Cute. Great. That's all I've heard lately."

"Cute is bad now?"

"It's fine if you're a little kid."

He considered telling her she looked beautiful, but the word felt too far in the other direction; too important and adult. What if she laughed? He couldn't stop looking at the pattern the freckles formed across her nose and cheeks though, and if he kept staring in silence, it would make her uncomfortable again. He needed to say something.

"Are they mostly on your face, or do you have more in other places?" he asked, then immediately wanted to slap himself when he saw her startled look. What was it about the damn freckles which kept making him say the first thing that popped into his head?

"Mr Potter! Are you asking permission to go searching for more? Cheeky."

"No! I just didn't know what else to say about them."

She smirked. "Likely story."

"When I said you look different, I wasn't even talking about the freckles. You look… I don't know, more mature."

She stared at him for a second, then blushed and looked away as she crossed her arms over her chest. "We're definitely not talking about those."

He glanced down. "What? Oh! Did your–Um. I wasn't looking at–"

She looked back at him, and keeping one arm across her chest, she put her other hand over his mouth. She hooked her thumb under his chin, and used it to tilt his head up to make eye contact. "Consider your next words carefully, and how embarrassing the wrong ones could be. Okay?"

He nodded, and she took her hand away from his mouth. He kept his eyes on hers.

After a pause, he asked, "So… how was Egypt?"

She looked at him skeptically, before relaxing and lowering her arms to her sides. "Good choice. It was great to see Bill again. I think I wrote to you about most of what he took us to see. Not sure what else there is to tell, really."

"You didn't say anything about how you were sleeping and everything."

"You don't need to hear all that."

"More nightmares?"

"No. I mean, a couple, but not like before. When I woke up, everything was real. I wasn't still down there, with him."

"When I asked Ron about you, he acted a bit dodgy."

"Sounds like the Ron I know, alright. Gormless-looking fellow? Red hair, but somehow doesn't make it work the way I do?"

"Ginny, come on. This is me."

"It was stupid. I had a bit of accidental magic. It's embarrassing because I should be too old for that by now, but whatever."

"You can tell me. When I blew up Marge, I told you."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I didn't understand that potion as well as I thought."

"Don't be. It worked brilliantly on everyone else. Anyway, we were talking about you."

She shrugged. "Not much to tell. When I got back to my room in the hotel the first night, there was a mint on my pillow. I thought the hotel left it, until eating it turned my hair green."

"Fred and George?"

"Who else? I ran over to their room to yell at them to fix it, and they started in with their usual snicker-denying. I might have set them on fire a little."

"A little?"

"Only the edges of their robes. They weren't hurt or anything. Mum and dad came running in when they heard the shouting. They put the fires out right away, and everything was fine, except the way everyone looked at me. It's one thing to make Death Eaters afraid of me someday. But not family."

"I'm sure they were just concerned."

"Maybe."

"How's your temperature been?"

She took his hand and pressed it against her cheek for a moment, before letting it drop. She was warm, but not the worst he'd felt from her.

"No higher than normal," she said. "Or what's normal for me now. Bill gave me something that's supposed to help."

She pulled the necklace she was wearing out from under her shirt, to reveal a round amulet suspended from it. The amulet showed a woman with the head of a lion, in the flattened profile style Harry thought of as 'Egyptian'.

After a quick glance at the amulet, he brought his eyes back up to meet hers, so she wouldn't think his gaze was lingering anywhere.

"Sekhmet," she explained. "She's an Egyptian solar goddess and a fierce warrior, who protected the pharaohs in battle. It has a Fire-Eating enchantment. Curse-Breakers in Egypt wear these to protect them from fire-based traps. If I feel too… fiery, I'm supposed to direct it into this."

"Does it work?"

"I don't know. The twins didn't mess with me again."

"Oh."

"Don't feel bad for me. Whatever side effects there are, it's worth it. Pomfrey was right. I'm going to have absolutely savage fire magic someday. I can feel it. Bill taught me a fire spell when no one else was around. He needed to test me to see what we were dealing with before selecting an amulet. It came out so easy, like the fire was just waiting for the chance. It wasn't supposed to be an easy spell either. I cast the Maxima-modifier version of the Fire-Making Spell on my first try. I shouldn't be able to do that version at all yet."

"That's amazing. What about the Trace though?"

"Bill said I could, and I wasn't about to question it, in case he changed his mind. I guess the rules are different there. Or maybe different for visitors?"

"I guess. If you're happy with how you are now, I'm happy for you."

"Thanks." She looked at him for a long moment. "It's good to see you. Don't be uncomfortable around me. We got into some intense stuff those nights in the hospital wing, but we had fun during the day, when we kept things lighter. And then after Pomfrey released us both."

"Yeah, we did."

"Maybe we should focus on being lighter like that. I'll never forget how you helped me through everything, and I'm there for you in the same way, anytime you ever need me. But that level of intensity all the time could get exhausting quick. Okay?"

He let out a breath. "Okay, I think I can do that. I want to. I want to be around you, and not have it be awkward."

"Good. I should get back to my room, in case mum goes around to check."

"I'm glad you came over."

"Me too. I'm still dealing with stuff, but I wanted you to know I'm…" She paused, then finished all in a rush. "I'm not as broken as I was right afterwards. Thank you." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek with warm lips, then darted out of the room before he could respond.

Harry stepped into the hall, in time to see her disappearing into her room. He went back into his room and closed the door. He lay down on the bed, and after a while, drifted off to sleep.