Chapter 2: Together

Harry and Ginny landed on the front step of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place rather more unceremoniously than Harry would've preferred, but one quick look at himself and Ginny told himWill that his apparition had at least been adequate enough to avoid splinching. He took Ginny's hand and helped her to her feet, looking around to make sure they were alone.

"Let's get inside," Harry's voiced had gained a certain gruffness to it as he tried to mask the panic threatening to slip into it with every moment that the gravity of what had just happened sunk in, "It should be safe if the spells Mad-Eye put up are working." Still holding her hand, he shifted the beaded bag Hermione had given him onto his wrist and opened the door with his free hand, leading Ginny into the house which, as it always had, contained such a level of eerie darkness that it seemed unlikely that something as simple as light could chase it away.

"Lumos," Harry murmured as he held his wand out ahead of him. There was a moment of suffocating silence as they both somewhat reluctantly stepped further into the haunted-looking house, both holding their breath and waiting until...

"Severus Snape?" The voice of Mad-Eye Moody had always been the textbook definition of jarring, but it had never been more so than it was in that moment, in that crushing darkness and when it's owner had died just under two weeks before...

"No! No, we aren't Snape!" Harry protectively pulled Ginny closer and stepped in front of her just as he felt something whoosh over him and his tongue curled unnaturally in his mouth, making it impossible to speak and making him gag slightly at the unpleasant feeling. He looked back at Ginny and could see by the way her face had paled slightly that she had just experienced the same thing, though she simply squeezed his somewhat sweaty hand and stepped up next to him as they continued further into the house. A couple steps later, just as they were both starting to feel a bit more at-ease, their eyes both widened in alarm at the sight of a sudden movement in the shadows at the end of the hall.

A tall, ominous, horribly familiar figure emerged into view, waistlength hair flying behind it, seemingly by way of some wind that neither Harry nor Ginny could feel. Ginny's grip on Harry's hand tightened painfully, but he didn't seem to notice as his eyes were firmly fixed on the dust-colored figure of Albus Dumbledore which was rapidly floating towards them.

He raised the hand holding his wand but it was shaking as Dumbledore drew closer and closer. "It wasn't us, we didn't kill you!"

The figure seemed to have been waiting for the word kill, as the moment the word left Harry's mouth, the figure evaporated and send waves of dust over everything in the vicinity. This general disturbance in the hallway also seemed to have roused the ever-vocal portrait of Mrs. Black.

"BLOOD TRAITORS AND SCUM, WRETCHED FILTH, SHAME BROUGHT UPON MY ANCESTORS, DISGRACE ME WITH YOUR PRESENCE NO LONGER!"

"SHUT UP!" Harry roared, and the curtains banged shut with a sharp point of his wand, "Come on," he added to Ginny, pulling her with him past the fallen troll's leg and up the stairs and into the drawing room.

The moment he reached it, he sunk down onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands, trying not to lean into her touch as she sat down next to him and wrapped him in her warm arms, rubbing his back soothingly. He knew he didn't deserve her touch, not after what he'd done. He had broken up with her to keep her safe, to keep her out of this war that it was his destiny to fight, and now he'd brought her along with him right into the thick of it... he'd wanted to protect her and he'd done the one thing that felt further from that goal than anything else...

"We'll be okay, you know," she whispered as she hugged him tighter, her breath tickling his skin in a way that he'd come to love so much when they'd been together. The fact that she could almost make him believe what she was saying made him feel warm inside, made him almost glad she could be there to reassure him, and that feeling somehow made the whole thing worse. How could he sit there and let her be such a comfort when he didn't deserve anything of the sort? When his own impulsive behavior had taken her away from her own family without any way to get her back to them?

"You don't understand what I have to do!" His voice came out raw and harsher than he'd intended, "You don't understand how dangerous it is! We're not just going on some grand adventure, it's not going to be a bloody holiday!"

"Oh yeah of course, because I've been thinking this was going to be some fairytale story, especially after you told me you were running off to kill bloody Voldemort," She said sarcastically, sounding irritable now, "And don't start with this stuff about what YOU have to do, you don't have to do every single thing by yourself!"

"You're fifteen, you've still got the trace on you! What in the hell are you going to do?" His voice was rising rapidly as his emotions boiled over, "How can you sit there and act like everything's fine? NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS FINE!" His voice broke on the last word and he buried his face in his hands again.

"I know it's not fine! I know this wasn't what you wanted! I get it, you wanted me safe in a bubble back home, but I'm not! I'm with you and there's nothing either of us can do about it so at least let me try to help!" She clung to him now as the exhaustion of the day suddenly crashed over her in waves.

Harry looked into her eyes that filled him with a warmth like that of hot chocolate, the comforting brown color of which they so beautifully resembled. at last, he felt the slightest sliver of composure slip back into his mind. "Yeah, we'll... be okay. You're right, I'll tell you everything, Gin, and we'll... we'll get through this. Together. Can we just... wait until morning?"

"Definitely," said Ginny, nuzzling into his shoulder, "This seems like enough stress for today."

As they sat peacefully for a few more minutes, a flash of silver zoomed in through the window. In materialized into a Weasel and opened it's mouth, speaking the same message which, unbeknownst to Harry and Ginny, it had just delivered to Ron and Hermione not all that far away.

"Family safe, don't reply. Don't contact anyone by patronus, you will be caught. And we've just received word, you mustn't say the name, it will alert them. I'm running out of time, good luck." The weasel dissolved and left returned the room to its previous silence.

"I said the name," said Ginny miserably, looking horrified at her mistake.

"Well, noone's showed up to kill us, have they?" Harry stood up and walked over to thewindow and looked down into the square. "There are people there though, they look like death eaters, but they're just staring around. We must be safe with the fidelius charm, but we still shouldn't say it, just to be safe." He walked back to the couch and looked down at the beaded bag still around his wrist, seeming almost surprised to see it there. "What do you reckon's in here?"

"Probably something lifesaving, knowing Hermione," Ginny replied, "Let's find out."

Harry reached into the bag and his hand immediately found a piece of paper. He pulled it out and began to read aloud.

"Dear Harry,

I hope you'll never have to read this, but just in case we somehow get separated, I divided our things into three different copies of this bag. Yours has your clothes, your cloak, and a third of the muggle money and polyjuice potion that I had packed. It's not a ton, but it's more than nothing I suppose, and it shouldn't matter as long as we don't get separated.

Sorry, I'm rambling. anyway, if we are separated... I don't even want to think about it.

Your friend,

Hermione." Harry looked up at Ginny, whose eyes were wide.

"She's brilliant, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is."

Author's note:

I'm back after a rather long absence. I hope you all like this chapter, we're still largely in the setup of the story, but I hope you still enjoy, I really had fun finally writing this one. Anyway, hopefully you'll hear from me sooner next time, thank you so much to the people who've reviewed, it means so much, and it's that more than anything that motivated me to come back to this. Thank you for your support!