A/N~ OK. That was a little bit quicker than the last two chapters I think. I really am sorry, and I know I keep saying it, but the next chapter is going to be super quick to make up for these last three. I hope you like this chapter. There’s a lot going on, but I’m trying to bring it all together. Please review after you’re done reading. The more reviews, the quicker the next chapter comes, seriously. Enjoy!
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All three sat in silence, pondering their own thoughts. Hermione gazed out of the window, not really seeing anything, her eyes glazed looking. Ron stood leaning against the wall with his arms folded, thinking about his sister’s actions. Harry was sitting on Ron’s bed, staring at his feet.
The room had a gloomy feel to it, despite all the good things that had been happening. Sirius was alive and well, Bill and Fleur were getting married in about a week, Hermione had found out about her twin sister, and everyone was gathered together for Harry’s seventeenth birthday. But then again, a lot of bad things were happening too. Neville’s grandmother had gone missing, Ginny was acting so strange lately, and all the time Voldemort was gaining followers, and there was no telling what his next move would be.
Harry thought about what he had to do soon. He was going to Godric’s Hollow, along with Hermione and Ron. But things seemed to be getting in the way of his plans lately. They had to do something about Neville’s grandmother, Hermione probably wouldn’t want to leave Ella anytime soon, and Harry didn’t really want to leave Ginny. There was always the option that she could go with them, but that would put her in so much danger, and Harry couldn’t bear the thought of that.
“Do you reckon she’s sick or something?” Ron asked, breaking the silence.
“No. What would she be sick with?” Hermione replied, turning away from the window to look questioningly at Ron, who shrugged. “I think we should go back downstairs with the others. We’re obviously not getting anything accomplished by being up here by ourselves,” Hermione added, looking at Ron and Harry for approval.
Before they could leave the room, the door opened and Neville and Ella walked in. “Hi,” Ella said brightly. “Didn’t mean to disturb your little meeting thing, but Mrs. Weasley said to tell you that dinner will be ready in about five minutes,” Ella said. Neville nodded.
“Okay, thanks. We were just going downstairs anyway, right?” Hermione asked, not really expecting an answer. She got up, and briskly walked out of the room, followed by Harry, Ron, Ella, and then Neville.
When they got downstairs, all five of them went to sit in the crowded living room once again. Neville sat by Harry this time, looking grave. He leaned in and whispered to Harry, “Harry, I’m worried about my grandmother. I don’t know where she could be. She just- disappeared. When are we going to find her?”
Harry looked at Neville’s face, and knew in an instant that Neville’s grandmother was indeed missing. Neville hadn’t forgotten something or not read a note, she was missing. “Neville, don’t worry. I’m sure she’s fine. We’ll find her.” Harry truly did believe she was fine. After all, what would Death Eaters want with her?
Apparently, the fact that these were words of truth, not just words of comfort, showed on Harry’s face, because Neville relaxed a bit and even smiled in a nervous sort of way. “Thanks Harry,” he muttered, and then he turned to everyone else. It seemed that Tonks had noticed a new face, and was asking Ella who she was. Ella told them her name was Ella Jerrica, and she was Hermione's twin sister. This caused an uproar of conversation, but nobody really got any information out of her, except that she and Hermione were separated at a young age. Then, Ella changed the subject, and asked how things were going at the Ministry, which got Kingsley and Tonks telling everyone about what the Ministry had been up to lately.
Soon, dinner was ready, and they carried the conversation to the table. Mrs. Weasley too joined in. It was only about ten minutes after they had begun eating that two loud cracking noises filled the room, and Bill and Charlie were there too. “Hello everyone. I’m starved,” Charlie said, conjuring up two more chairs. “Me too,” Bill agreed, eyeing the spaghetti hungrily. Both of them heaped large amounts of food onto their plates. “Oh, by the way, happy birthday Harry,” Bill added. Charlie nodded smiling.
The discussion about the Ministry then continued and went on for a surprisingly long time, until finally Bill said, “Where’s Ginny? I’ve just noticed she’s not here.”
“Oh yeah,” Charlie said, scanning the table.
Everyone else glanced around nervously at each other. “She’s outside,” Mrs. Weasley said finally. “She wanted a bit of fresh air.”
“Yeah,” Fred, George, and Ron said at the same time.
Bill and Charlie looked around at the others curiously, and then at each other. “Okay,” Charlie said. “Whatever.”
The rest of the meal went smoothly, and Ginny and Sirius stayed outside the entire time…
* * *
“But Sirius, I’m just so afraid,” Ginny said through tears. “They’re never going to let me go, and I can’t stand the thought of any of them getting hurt.”
Sirius’s brow furrowed in thought, and he patted Ginny on the back comfortingly. “Why don’t we sneak away then?” he asked finally. Ginny looked up at him in surprise. “The problem was really the fact that you couldn’t Apparate. So if they didn’t let you come, you couldn’t do Side-Along Apparition. Therefore, you’d have no way of getting there in the first place, correct? Except of course via broom, but that would take ages.” Ginny nodded curiously. Sirius went on, “Well, I’ll go with you. You can do Side-Along with me, and they’ll never even know until we're there. They can’t stop us once we’re there, right? So we just won’t tell them. That’ll be a right nasty shock,” he added with a grin.
“But Sirius, something is bound to go wrong,” Ginny said with a sniffle. “It just seems so- reckless.” She sat cross-legged on the ground, leaning her head on her hands, which were supported by her knees.
Sirius looked down at Ginny pitifully, as if she were a kid without money in front of a candy shop window. “You really do worry too much-"
“Don’t say that!” Ginny cut Sirius off suddenly, looking horrorstricken. “It makes it seem like I’m turning into my mother.” Ginny shuddered, which made Sirius laugh. “It’s not funny!” she snapped at him. “How would you like it if I compared you to your mother?” Sirius immediately stopped laughing, and Ginny smirked triumphantly. “Okay then,” she said, sounding satisfied with herself.
Sirius shook his head. “Well anyways, nothing is going to go wrong. Take a little risk.”
“I’ve taken plenty of risks thank you very much, but this seems like it’s just asking for trouble,” Ginny said, looking doubtful.
Sirius beamed. “That’s the fun part.”
Ginny closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “Look Sirius, I know you’re really happy to finally be able to go out in the open and stuff, and I’m really happy for you, but…” Ginny’s voice trailed off for a moment, and she opened her eyes. “But, you still shouldn’t be reckless. Yeah, people know you’re innocent now, but they still think you’re dead! They think you’re dead, Sirius,” Ginny said exasperatedly. “Close your eyes and think about that for a second.”
Sirius frowned, but closed his eyes anyways. He was silent for a few moments, but then he burst out laughing. He opened his eyes again, and smiled. “Ginny, you are taking this way too seriously. It will be alright. If I can handle hiding from the entire wizarding world, manage to stay cooped up in one of my least favorite places for an entire year, and still manage to think that the fact that people think I’m dead funny, then I think we can handle this. Trust me, I’ve heard of-and done- worse.” Sirius smirked. “Much worse.”
Ginny looked at Sirius skeptically, and then suddenly wondered why she did think this was such a reckless thing to do. This really wasn’t that bad, considering some of the things Sirius could have suggested. Ginny sighed. “Alright. But we have to talk it through first. It can’t just be a spur-of-the-moment type thing, okay? It has to be planned out perfectly.”
Sirius nodded. “Okay.”
“One problem,” Ginny said frowning. “We can’t talk in private too much because then it’ll make it look like we’re up to something. It can’t seem suspicious.”
Sirius’s brow furrowed as he entered the world of thought. “Hmmm… well, we could use some kind of code message instead of actually talking. And it shouldn't use magic because that would be too obvious.”
Ginny waited, thinking Sirius would say something more, but when he didn’t, she prompted, “Like what?”
“Well, there was one me and James used at Hogwarts one time. It was where we had a book, and we’d underline the letter before the letter that we wanted to say. Like if we were saying ‘hat’, and the word ‘the’ was in the book, we’d underline the‘t’ to signify that we meant ‘h’. And we’d do the same for the ‘a’ and the ‘t’, so we’d have the word ‘hat’. Then, if someone found the book, they’d just see a bunch of randomly underlined letters.” Sirius beamed, and then laughed at the extremely confused look on Ginny’s face. “Okay, I’ll show you,” he said, conjuring up a book out of thin air. Sirius opened the book randomly, and said, “Okay. Here’s the word ‘the’, and I would underline the‘t’, and here’s the word ‘sat’, so I’d underline the‘s’. And so on.”
“Oh, I get it now,” Ginny said smiling. “But how would you signify a space between words?”
“Easy,” Sirius said. “You would just underline the last letter in a word. And to signify a period, you’d underline the last letter of a word at the end of a sentence. It’s really a very simple code.”
“Okay. Let’s use it then,” Ginny said. Sirius vanished the book with a wave of his wand. “Should we go inside now? I’m pretty hungry,” Ginny added.
“You can go,” Sirius said, glancing down at the small desk with his blank piece of paper, quill, and ink bottle on it. Then he looked back up at Ginny. “You probably weren’t in the room when I said it, but the reason I’m out here in the first place is because I’m writing down the story of what has happened to me in the last year or so.”
Ginny raised her eyebrows. “That’ll be interesting.” Then she paused, and cocked her head to the side. She sat in silence for a moment, and her eyes got a distant look in them. “I’ll be right back. I gotta get something,” she mumbled, and she dashed off around the corner of the house. Whether Ginny was going inside or not, Sirius couldn’t tell.
* * *
The group had now been moved back into the living room, with the exception of Bill, Charlie, and Mrs. Weasley, who wouldn’t have been able to fit in the already overly-crowded living room. The three sat in kitchen chairs that were turned towards the living room. Everyone was relaxing, their stomachs fit to bursting with all of the delicious food they had just consumed. Harry was beginning to wish he hadn’t had that second helping of treacle tart.
Charlie was telling everyone about how a dragon burned down the area he had been working in, and that’s why he was home earlier than expected. Then Ron had posed the question that since they were wizards and were fully capable of repairing things via magic, why hadn’t they just repaired it right then and there? Charlie’s face turned a slightly deeper shade of red, and he answered briskly, “Because it was a very large area, and it would take a good deal of time to repair.” Harry, though, sensed that Charlie could have indeed repaired it rather quickly, and he had just used it as an excuse to come home. He didn’t, however, voice his opinion out loud.
Then, coincidentally, Charlie decided to change the subject, and he began talking about a new kind of dragon that the experimentalists in Romania were trying to breed. Even though Harry really was interested in dragons, his mind began to wander. It could naturally be expected that Harry would have been thinking about one of three things: Ginny, Sirius, or where in the world Neville’s grandmother could be. However, Harry was thinking about Dumbledore, and what he owed to him. Harry thought about the night Dumbledore had died, the night that Harry had been trying not to think about for over two months now. And, he thought about the Horcruxes that were still to find and destroy, along with everything else Harry had to do.
Harry recalled the image of Dumbledore’s face as he pleaded with Snape. He had looked so sad and betrayed, and Harry tried to get the image out of his mind. He couldn’t though, and it loomed there, sad and distressed.
Soon though, the image was shaken from Harry’s mind, literally. “Harry,” Hermione said, her face serious. She had grabbed onto his shoulders and was shaking them violently. Hermione stopped when she had his attention. “Bill just said your name about five times,” she hissed. Harry looked around at the many eyes on him.
“Oh. Right. Sorry,” he mumbled. Everyone still eyed him curiously. He shook his head. “Blimey,” he muttered to himself. Hermione looked at Harry concernedly. “I’m okay,” he said. “I was just… my mind just wandered off a bit,” he explained to the room. They seemed to accept this. After all, it was the truth.
* * *
Ginny snuck into the house unnoticed. She could be very quiet when she wanted to be, and no one was looking her way. Once in her room, she grabbed the thing she had come for, but her eyes then rested on something else. She smiled, grabbed it too, and ran out of her room. Soon, she was back out with Sirius, holding the things behind her back. “What is it?” Sirius asked curiously. Ginny smiled.
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A/N~ Was it good? I rather liked it I think actually. It took me an awfully long time, I know. Much longer than I meant. But I should have some free time in the next few weeks, so I’ll try to get a few chapters up then. Please, please, please review. It means a lot to me to know if my chapters are liked or not. Thank you to all those who have reviewed in previous chapters by the way! ~