Ignoring the voice, Harry sped up his pace. He didn’t want to do this, he wanted to turn around and tell Ginny everything, but he knew this was for the best. He had made up his mind the night he returned to Hogwarts, and he knew he would have to stick to his decision. He was going to spend as little time as possible with her, distance himself from her. It was the only way. Not only did he want to keep her safe, but he didn’t want to string her along or make it even harder to control his feelings. Harry knew about the enormous possibility that he would not make it through the war, particularly with all the Horcruxes he needed to destroy. However, he couldn’t ignore the hurt in her voice any longer and he winced.

"Harry Potter, stop walking away from me right now! I won’t hesitate to curse you and I don’t care who’s watching!"

Harry reluctantly stopped waking and stared at his feet, really not wanting to be cursed by the infamous Ginny Weasley, not only for the sake of his own comfort, but to stop her from causing a huge scene. He’d heard too many stories from her brothers about her wrath. He looked up Ginny approached him. She was furious, her cheeks were flushed and her fiery hair was flying wildly. Before Harry could say anything, Ginny’s hand came into contact with Harry’s cheek. His hand automatically rose to touch his now stinging cheek and he stared at Ginny with astonishment.

"That was for ignoring me for the past week," Ginny said coldly. Harry gaped at her, unable to comprehend that for the first time in his life, Ginny Weasley had slapped him.

"Ginny I-"

"I understand why you broke up with me at all, but you don’t have to treat me like I don’t exist! Even you don’t have the privilege to do that, Potter," Ginny interrupted, glaring at him. In spite of the slap and Ginny’s increasing anger, Harry couldn’t recall a time when she looked so beautiful- snap out of it Potter, do you want to have to go to her funeral too? Harry scolded himself. Blinking, Harry looked determinedly away from Ginny.

"I don’t have time to talk right now. I’m going to be late for class," Harry said loudly, his voice void of all emotion, although his heart was screaming at him to stop. Hating himself, he pushed past a stunned Ginny and virtually ran to his next class. This is for the best, Harry convinced himself as he turned the corner and blocked Ginny from sight, but not from his mind. He was very glad that he had told Ron and Hermione to go on ahead while he finished eating, he didn’t think Ron would take too kindly to how Harry was acting towards his sister, regardless of his reasons. He sighed and opened the door his classroom with a bit too much ferocity than strictly necessary.

"Nice of you to join us, Harry."

Harry turned round from shutting the door and felt his mood improve, but only slightly. For the first time in many years, they had what would be called, a reliable Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. It was also quite ironic that it was the partner of their previous respectable professor, in Harry’s eyes; Remus Lupin. Tonks was standing at the front of the classroom, her bright pink hair the most prominent thing in the room. She grinned nervously at Harry as he shuffled towards his seat, ignoring the sudden whispers in the room. Tonks admitted, after quite a while of questioning from the trio, that her main reason for teaching at Hogwarts was to keep an eye on Harry, (something he wasn’t too pleased about) but also to look after the school as a whole and as a favour to the headmistress who was struggling to find someone to fill the post. Harry hoped he would be able to break the curse on the Defence against the Dark Arts position before the year was up, if not he would have to advise to quit before the curse did anything to her.

When Professor McGonagall introduced Tonks, she had received mixed reactions from the school. Most of the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff’s and Ravenclaws had cheered, however the others were not so kind. All of the Slytherins either refused to clap, or booed. The words ‘Bellatrix’ and ‘werewolf’ floated in the air but Tonks seemed unaffected by the mixed reactions. Evidently, many of the Slytherins knew that Tonks was related to the Blacks and heard about her relationship with Remus, which made her a blood traitor. All of this made Harry’s blood boil. It took quite a few of the Gryffindors to stop him standing up and cursing all the Slytherins he could reach. Hermione had confiscated his wand for the course of the meal and only gave it back to him after a lecture that he didn’t listen one word to.

Harry loved Hogwarts dearly, but he couldn’t stand their vindictive rumours and gossip. He had been on the receiving ends of the school gossip repeatedly and he hated it. Only once had he ever been talked about for a good reason, and that was when he was with Ginny. There you go, thinking about her again. Can’t you keep her out of your mind for more than ten seconds! A voice sneered at him. Harry raised his hand to touch his cheek. Apparently not.

"-now I want you to all divide up into groups and practise your shield charms. I will come round and check that everyone’s completely confident with it because it is a very handy spell, got me out of some tough spots in the past," Tonks instructed with a nod of her head. It felt very strange hearing Tonks talk with such a stern tone. He had grown so used to hearing her joke about and make her nose change into funny shapes. Automatically, he stood up and walked over to Ron and Hermione- but regretted it. Hermione was staring at him inquisitively and Ron was looking amused.

"Harry, why do you have a bright red hand print on your cheek?" Hermione demanded, her eyebrows raised.

"What this? It’s nothing!" Harry said in a tone he hoped was dismissive as he raised a hand and touched his cheek, involuntarily wincing in the process. Ginny really knew how to give painful slaps.

"Don’t lie to me. You’ve got a very bright red hand print imbedded on your cheek!" Hermione said sharply. Harry looked pleadingly at Ron, hoping he would either change the subject or say it wasn’t as bad as Hermione was making it out to be. Unfortunately he had no such luck.

"That marks redder than those Muggle fellytone boxes, mate," Ron said, laughing.

"Telephone, Ronald, telephone! Honestly, its not that hard to say," Hermione scolded him. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Fine, telephone. Happy now?" Ron snapped. Hermione glared at him for a second before returning her attention to Harry. She didn’t need to say anything, but her penetrating stare was enough to make him spill the beans.

"Ginny slapped me," Harry muttered, staring at his feet. He didn’t need to look at his best friends face to know what their reactions would be. Ron would be silently gaping and Hermione would be looking surprised.

"Well, you know you deserve it, from the way you’ve been treating her!" Hermione said coolly.

"You’ve been what? What have you done to my little sister? If you’ve hurt her I swear I’ll-"

"I haven’t done anything to her!" Harry replied quickly as Ron started to advance on him, looking furious.

"And you call completely ignoring her nothing?" Hermione said sharply.

"But-"

"There’s no buts about it Harry, it’s hard enough on her that you’re not her boyfriend anymore, but she at least deserves to get a conversation or two out of you! She cares about you and I know you do too!" Hermione said, lowering her voice so that they wouldn’t attract attention.

"We can’t talk about this right now," Harry replied angrily. "Because if you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a lesson surrounded by other students!"

"I’m not going to let this go Harry, we’ll talk about this later," Hermione hissed.

"Hey, you three stop chatting and start working!"

The trio jumped and glanced over at Tonks, who was staring directly at them. Hastily, Hermione pulled out her wand.

"What’s the point? We’ve known this spell for years," Ron muttered.

"Of course there’s a point Ron, there’s always room for improvement and how do you know that everyone else knows the spell?" Hermione asked impatiently. Ron shrugged.

"Look guys, lets just practise the damn spells. Once we leave to get the Hor- the things, I think we’ll need all the help we can get," Harry said irritably, also pulling out his wand. The mention of the mission seemed to bring the other two back to their senses.

"Fine," Ron huffed, finally digging his hand into the pocket of his robe for his wand. Harry smiled and the practice began.

_________________________________________

When the three if them arrived back at the empty common room, both Ron and Hermione immediately demanded to know what happened. Reluctantly, Harry told them the whole story and quickly tried to explain his reasons before Ron killed him. However, even after his explanation, Ron still looked murderous.

"Harry, you really can be so stupid sometimes! I can’t believe you! How will ignoring her protect her?" Hermione exclaimed, looking as though she’d very much like to shake him. Ron nodded in agreement.

"But I don’t want her to get hurt! She deserves better than me, she deserves someone who’s free and unburdened and won’t endanger her life and-" The words sent daggers into Harry’s heart, but it was what he believed.

"But she doesn’t want anyone else, she only wants you," Hermione said quietly, biting her lip. Harry coughed and looked at Hermione disbelievingly.

"It’s true."

Harry whirled round and froze. Ginny Weasley was standing at the closed portrait door, a fierce and determined looking her face.

"Ginny…" Harry started weakly, only to be stopped by Ginny.

"I understand why you broke up with me, I really do, but if we’re gonna be in the same school and see each other everyday you should at least be civil! I won’t accept this type of treatment from you, even if you do think its for the best, and even if you’re not going to be at school for very long," Ginny said coolly, pausing to take a breath of air and to look at Hermione briefly. "And I know you Harry, I want to be with you because of who you are, because you’re caring and funny and loyal, do you honestly think I want anyone else when I’ve liked you since I was ten!"

Harry was at loss for what to say, it was taking all of his self control not to take Ginny in his arms and kiss her again. But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t give in, even if his reasons for breaking up with her were rapidly dissolving. He vaguely knew he should have been angry at Hermione, he knew that she was the one to tell Ginny they would be leaving, but at that point, he just couldn’t. He lowered his head and stared at the floor.

"Ginny, I don’t know what, I can’t…." Harry’s mind was reeling; all thoughts about Ginny were consuming him.

"You don’t have to say anything Harry, just look at me," Ginny said softly. Harry couldn’t lift his head. It was as if some unseen force was acting on the back of his head, preventing it from moving. Suddenly, a small, warm hand touched his chin and gently lifted it. Harry’s eyes locked with Ginny’s beautiful chocolate ones, and Harry could see the pain and the glint of determination within them. Even though she shed no tears, Harry knew that she was hurting. After a moment, the bright brown eyes blinked and looked away.

"Thank you," she whispered, squeezing his arm before leaving to her dormitory. His jaw and arm burnt from her touch and his stomach was knotted painfully.

"What the bloody hell was that all about?"

Harry turned to see Ron looking confused. Hermione was watching Ron with an annoyed expression. She rolled her eyes at Ron before turning back to Harry.

"I hope you know what you’re doing," Hermione said quietly before walking away from the boys and after Ginny. Ron was still looking bewildered and a minute later, he too walked away from Harry to collapse on the sofa. Harry was still frozen on the spot.

He knew what he was doing…right?

_____________________________________________________ 

Harry barely slept that night.

Thoughts of Ginny constantly attacked him and every time he did manage to drift off, he

kept having the most bizarre dreams.

"Need to sleep, got school tomorrow," Harry muttered to himself, fluffing up his pillow and then lying back down on it. I’ve already tried counting Hippogriffs but all that did was remind me of my third year and Buckbeak… Harry thought to himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his mind, but like back when he was learning Occlumency, but like then, it proved impossible. I know, I’ll try and repeat some stuff from History of Magic, Harry thought, quite pleased that he came up with an idea. Sure enough, he was one line into the goblins conspiracy in his head, and he was already feeling drowsy. It wasn’t long before all conscious thoughts slipped away and he finally fell asleep.

…Ginny was writing a horrible rap song about how she didn’t love him anymore and performed it in front of the whole school…Voldemort was dressed in a pink tutu, baking cookies for his Death Eaters while singing, out of tune, ‘a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.’ Then he realised that the cookies were actually Horcruxes, but by then it was too late, the Death Eaters had already eaten them and he would never get them… Lucius Malfoy was laughing at him screaming ‘MY COOKIE HAD CHOCOLATE IN THEM!’ while Bellatrix’s was winding an arm around Voldemort’s waist and was about to kiss him…

Harry woke up in a cold sweat, screaming for all he was worth. Ron’s snores abruptly turned into a snort as he jumped awake and instantly leapt over to his best mates bed.

"Are you okay? Did you see inside his head again?" Ron whispered anxiously. His heart was beating wildly and he turned to a very sleepy Ron, suddenly feeling very annoyed.

"Unless Voldemort has started to wear a pink tutu and is having a secret affair with Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry snapped, making a face, "No."

Ron gave Harry a very odd look.

"You’ve lost it, mate," Ron croaked, shaking his head.

"Thanks for pointing that out," Harry replied coolly, turning away from Ron and pulling the quilt over his head. After Ron returned to bed, Harry regretted snapping, but couldn’t be bothered to apologise. That dream was a much bigger problem. What had possessed him to have such a bizarre dream? For some reason, that dream had disturbed him more than anything in his entire life had.

"Whazzermatter Harry?"

Harry heard the very muffled tone of one of his only other remaining dorm mate, Neville. Both Dean and Seamus hadn’t returned to school. He suddenly felt very embarrassed to have woken him.

"Nothings wrong, just a nightmare," Harry replied. This seemed to satisfy him because it wasn’t long before the room was filled with slow breathing and Ron’s snores. For once, he was grateful for his friends’ loud snores, they would either keep him awake or wake him up if he did drift off. He didn’t want to fall into another disturbing dream. He also vowed never to so much as sit in the same room as any of the sweets Fred and George gave him for his birthday, ever again. But he knew one thing; he definitely wasn’t even going to attempt to sleep. Instead, Harry got up and pulled out the locket form his trunk, as though it would help. It was the closet he had managed to get to any of the Horcruxes, and even Hermione’s brilliant mind hadn’t been able to solve the riddle. (no pun intended) If only Dumbledore was here, Harry thought miserably. He’d know what to do.

_____________________________________________________________ 

When the morning finally made an appearance, Harry came to a decision. He would apologise to Ginny, but would still keep her at arms length. Any closer and Harry knew he wouldn’t be able to control his body. Though he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye after the previous night’s dream. Ron also kept giving Harry some very odd looks, which caused Hermione to demand what was going on.

"Harry had a bit of a……. nightmare last night," Ron said, not looking at Harry.

Hermione instantly drew herself closer to Harry.

"What did you see? Were you in Voldemort’s head again? You know you need to close that connection, it’s dangerous! Who knows what he could do to you if he starts using that connection again, he might do what he did before with Sirius!" Hermione whispered sharply.

"You don’t need to remind me, and it wasn’t anything like that," Harry said irritably.

"Then what?"

"Oh nothing much," Ron said causally. "He just dreamt of You-Know-Who in a tutu…"

Hermione chocked on her pumpkin juice. Her wide eyes watering, she started at Harry incredulously.

"W-what?"

"You wouldn’t think that Harry would be able to make Luna Lovegood look sane, would you," Ron said dryly. Hermione gave him a sharp look at he fell silent.

Harry sighed and explained the whole dream (excluding the part about Ginny) in hushed tones. He didn’t think that anyone else would be very pleased to hear that their ‘chosen one’ and fellow student was have such disturbing dreams. Out of no-where, Ron snorted with laughter. Hermione glared at him.

"Is this really the time to be laughing Ronald? This is serious!" Hermione hissed. Ron shrugged.

"What else is there to do," Ron replied. "Plus, think of the bright side, we’ll never take old Voldemort seriously anymore now that image is in our heads. How can we be truly scared of a man in a pink tutu? Also, from what you’ve told us, he has this really high pitched voice. Do you think its because he never hit puberty or he got kicked really hard in the-"

"Ronald don’t you dare finish that sentence!" Hermione scolded him. Ron grinned.

"You gotta admit Hermione, the puberty thing could explain a lot, I mean, do you think the guy ever had any hormones?"

After a moment, Harry couldn’t help but smile. Ron was right, how could he be, in any way, terrified of Voldemort now? Hermione rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.

"I can see it now," Ron started, grabbing a piece of toast and tearing a piece out of it with his teeth. "Voldemort-the action figure. Comes with two outfits, the classic evil dark lord style robes, or a pink tutu!"

Harry chuckled.

"Who’s wearing a pink tutu?"

Harry stopped laughing at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Oh its nothing Ginny," Ron said, trying to sound casual.

"Oh come on, tell me what’s going on," Ginny said, abruptly sitting down in the space next to Harry. Harry’s breath caught in his throat as he realised how close they were sitting. She was acting completely different to yesterday, Hermione must have been right, there was some other meaning behind what happened yesterday.

"Oh…it’s just, Harry had a nightmare last night-"

"Was it like the dream you had when Riddle’s snake attacked Dad? Did anyone get hurt?"

By now, Harry was getting very annoyed with everyone’s presumptions. Why, whenever he said he had a nightmare, did they automatically assume it was because he was seeing in to Voldemort’s head!

"No I bloody well didn’t. It was just a dream. Why do you always think I’m picking up Voldemort? I’m not a bloody radio!" Harry snapped.

"Well, sorry," Ginny replied, exaggerating the second word and rolling her eyes, quite unaffected by his outburst. Suddenly, she grabbed a piece of toast off Harry’s plate and bit into it. As Harry turned to the red head sitting next to him, he wanted to be angry. He wanted to glare at her, he wanted to get annoyed over her lack of sympathy, but he just couldn’t. Teasing and taking no nonsense from him was just the way Ginny was. She wasn’t the type to let him wallow in self pity, or even let him stay in a bad mood for long.

He sighed.

"Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped, its just, I barely slept last night, that image of Voldemort in a tutu kept haunting me-"

Harry stopped when he noticed the small red head sitting next to him cough and start to choke on her toast.

"He-he, what?"

"Yea, Harry dreamt of Voldemort in a pink tutu last night," Ron said cheerfully. Ginny’s eyes darted from her brother to Harry; then she cracked up with laughter.

"That-is-the-craziest-thing-I’ve-ever-heard-" Ginny gasped. A few students glanced over to see what was going on, but hastily turned away when Ron and Harry glared at them.

"Tell me all about it!" Ginny ordered after the giggles had subsided. Once again, Harry explained the contents of his dream to an amused Ginny.

"He’s gone off his rocker hasn’t he?" Ron commented after he gulped down half his goblet of Pumpkin juice.

"I think you’ve fallen off you’re broomstick one too many times," Ginny added. Hermione seemed reasonably quiet during the whole affair, she looked deep in thought. Harry suspected that she was trying to work out what the dreams would mean. Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what they meant. They were all distracted when the morning post arrived and Hermione gasped loudly as she unravelled hers and caught sight of the front page.

"What, what’s happened? Is what happened in Harry’s dream true?" Ron said jokingly. Hermione reappeared from behind her newspaper, all the colour gone from her cheeks. Ron peered over her shoulder and he too looked shocked. Silently, Hermione passed the paper over to Harry. The headline was blaring.

DEATH EATERS LAUCHED ATTACK ON MUGGLE TOWN. NONE LEFT ALIVE.

Harry felt sick. While he was sitting in the comfort of Hogwarts, Voldemort was building up his armies and slaughtering innocent people. Sometimes he could almost forget that there was a war going on when he was with his friends. But this just reminded him that the war was still going on, getting more terrible by the day. And only he could stop it. He swore and started to read the articles. That was the least he could do for the poor Muggles. But then his eyes fell on the name of the town.

Little Whinging

"Oh no…" Harry muttered, swearing. His hands started to shake. Voldemort had attacked the town he had grown up in, the town he had lived in all his life. Harry knew that Voldemort meant for Harry to see this, it was a personal attack at him. They hadn’t just attacked any random town, but the one he had been brought up in. It was his entire fault that they were all dead. Like Cedric, they were just there, they just knew him.

"What are we going to do?" Hermione whispered. Harry swallowed before answering.

"First, I’m gonna talk to Tonks, then I’m going to the talk to Dumbledore," Harry said quietly.

"What about classes?" Hermione asked.

"Stuff the classes, this is more important. Tell the teachers I needed to talk to Tonks about my family," Harry said, finding it hard to control his emotions. As he looked at Hermione, he could see her lips move, but no sound came out. A split second later, his scar erupted in agony and everything started to lurch and spin.

"You have failed me again, Draco," Harry hissed in a high pitched voice. He was angry, furious.

"I’m sorry, my Lord…please…" Draco whimpered, falling to his knees and pleading, his white blond hair was greasy, filthy and in a mess of knots. His face was covered in bruises and cuts, and his icy grey eyes were filled with fear and despair. He was also very thin, as if he hadn’t eaten for a very long time.

"You tried to escape from me. No-one escapes from Lord Voldemort," Harry said angrily, his white fingers curled around his wand.

"No…please have mercy! I…I can still help! Now that Dumbledore’s dead-"

"Only because Severus was able to complete the task you were too weak to fulfil," Harry interjected softly.

"-He’s weaker now…and…" Draco’s voice was rapidly becoming hysterical.

"You may still be of some use," Harry said quietly. "But Lord Voldemort doesn’t abide cowards. You need to be taught a lesson. Crucio!"

Draco’s eyes widened with fear and before he was able to move or speak, he was throw to the floor, writhing in agony. As Draco cried out and convulsed on the dirty, stone floor, Harry laughed.

"HARRY!"

Suddenly, his eyes were his own again and three people were watching him fearfully.

"What happened?" Harry asked groggily, fighting the urge to vomit. His scar was still burning and the sound of Voldemort’s laughter as still ringing through his ears.

"Your eyes just rolled back in your head, we thought you were unconscious," Ginny said, her chocolate brown eyes filled with concern. Now that his senses had returned he could feel Ginny holding his hand, but he didn’t pay much attention. His head was still spinning.

"Malfoy," Harry muttered. After seeing the confused looks on his friends’ faces, he added, "We need to go back to the common room. I just saw something I don’t think you’re going to like."