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Harry woke up with an intense frown. Wasn't he too old to still be having these nightmares? Voldemort was dead, he reminded himself. Even so, he found himself sitting up and racking his brains. There was something… important about the dream... yet he was sure there was nothing new about it… but it felt revolutionary all the same. He furrowed his eyebrows. That made no sense. Was he really sure about that?

Closing his eyes, he willed himself to remember anything - anything - from the dream he had beheld with such dread. Minutes passed and it still seemed no clearer to him than his glasses had been in that Quidditch match 4 years ago, against the fog, the rain, the dementors and… Cedric. He suddenly remembered, with a sinking feeling, the glow of the Triwizard cup against the dismal graveyard setting, and it all came back to him in a sickening rush. Even after all this time, that day still haunted him...

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The following contains mainly direct quotes from JK Rowling's work Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (see footnotes for citation and details)

"You've got to take the rest of your potion, Harry," Mrs Weasley said. Her hand nudged the sack of gold on his bedside cabinet as she reached for the bottle and the goblet. "You have a good long sleep. Try and think of something else for a while … think about what you're going to buy with your winnings!"

"I don't want that gold," said Harry in an expressionless voice. "You have it. Anyone can have it. I shouldn't have won it. It should've been Cedric's."

The thing against which he had been fighting on and off ever since he had come out of the maze was threatening to overpower him. He could feel a burning, prickling feeling in the inner corners of his eyes. He blinked and stared up at the ceiling.

"Did anyone tell you the cup was a Portkey?"

"Nope… is this supposed to be part of the task?"

"I dunno… Wands out, d'you reckon?"

"Yeah…

…Someone's coming!"

"Kill the spare."

"Avada Kedavra!"

Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.

For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, frozen in his final expression of surprise…

"It wasn't your fault, Harry, Mrs Weasley whispered.

"I told him to take the Cup with me," said Harry. Now the burning feeling was in his throat. He wished Ron would look away.

Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother's face, his father's voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground, all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him.

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Ginny tried to convince herself that the intensity of emotions she'd just witnessed was just Harry's natural reaction to having watched someone die - that he felt bad for Cedric or maybe even just his friends and family, nothing more. But Ginny wasn't one to ignore the facts, and this was clearer than Veritaserum. Even as he slept, the expression of unique pain remained on Harry's face… and Ginny had watched his expressions too much to doubt that this one meant what she thought it did. This was more than just shock or trauma. Even if Harry would never admit it...

She sighed, making everyone jump.

"Sorry," she said, "I think I… I'd better - go to bed or something." She cringed internally at her sudden inability to come up with a lie.

And with that, she got up quickly, took one last glance at Harry Potter, who, to her, was way more than the boy who lived, and left to find powdered root of Asphodel, an infusion of wormwood, and the one person crazy enough to take more classes than time would allow since Hermione herself had recommended against it.

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Ron wasn't afraid to risk his life for something that, according to Ginny, Harry so desperately wanted (not that he was quite sure why he was trusting his younger sister on this, but ever since his misjudgement of Harry after his name had been drawn, Ron was desperate to make it up to him, and whether or not Harry knew was less important than his own peace of mind). He'd already decided early in his friendship with Harry Potter that the worst part of it wasn't the risk to his life; it was the way he was brushed to the side 10 times more than he had ever been. Which was saying something considering that he had already had about as much of that as with could take curse of having five accomplished older brothers who stole all your glory while simultaneously expecting more than extraordinary from you always weighing on his back. He pushed that thought down. Compared to what Harry had been through, that was nothing. He needed to stop letting it bother him. He didn't even want to think about the kind of... monster, he had become earlier that year because of his jealousy. Ron shuddered.

No, he admonished himself. He wasn't afraid of that either. He COULDN'T be. Dumbledore always said fear was food for the enemy and though he hadn't been able to undo the hard-dying superstitious habit, passed down by his parents, of nearly giving himself a heart attack every time he heard You-Know-Who's name, he had to at least try to do something.

So here he was, having somehow fought down Ginny's protests, with a timer turner around his neck, a not-exactly-the-wand-originally-meant-for-him wand in his robes, and a live fly in his hands, knowing the plan like the back of his hand, but somehow still not having a clue what the hell he was doing. It'll pay off eventually, he told himself, not exactly sure what he meant by that but knowing he needed to hear it, with all the insecurities floating around in his head...

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The timing had to be perfect if they were to keep the timeline running the way it was, and Ron would rather not think about the alternative at the moment. All he could think about was the task ahead of him. And not bursting out and asking why it couldn't have been a more friendly place where You-Know-Who decided he wanted to be born (because apparently nothing said "happy birthday" like the place where you could sense your dad's dead body lying under your feet). And how unbearably uncomfortable it was to hide behind a freaking bush. And the fly buzzing in his hand. Incessantly. Seriously, Pigwidgen did a better job holding still. But of course, he couldn't risk letting it go to early and losing track of it. Ginny had been very clear. Well, okay she had been completely unclear on the details, but the important thing was that she didn't know how long... whatever she was doing to the fly... was going to last, so she needed him to hold onto it until she indicated otherwise. Ron had two jobs, and he intended to follow them. He had to, if he wanted to make it up to Harry.

He shuddered. Ginny looked at him significantly. He tried to look confident in case she thought he was nervous. He had already told her as many times as he could manage that levitation was one of the only spells he could be 100% sure about doing correctly. Hermione had made sure of that in their first year. Seriously, why was everyone so hard to impress?

He shivered again because that sort of thought was dangerously close to the thing he had been avoiding thinking since he had made up with Harry. Again, being appreciated wasn't the big idea. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here risking his life for something he wouldn't be able to brag about for years to come - or quite possibly never.

This time, Ginny seemed to interpret his tics as an indication of uncomfortability with the fly (he didn't blame her, it was way too reminiscent of the way a spider felt) because she mentioned for him to let her get to the fly with her wand. As he did so she muttered something under her breath, a somehow intimidating fiery glow in her eyes that Ron had never seen before. He was so memorized that he almost jumped at the loud crack that suddenly split the air as what he could only assume to be Harry and Cedric tumbled out of it. He overheard the confusion and fear in their voices and suddenly, Ron's anxiety skipped from a 9/10 to a 100. This was all the danger of dying suddenly alone that Harry had barely escaped times the danger of splitting the fabric of time itself and never seeing his best friend or his old life ever again. He wasn't sure which was worse.

But he didn't have time to wonder that because he had to "wingardium leviosa" the invisible potion sitting in front of him towards Cedric by the time he was supposed to "die," or one or both of those fates was bound to find him sooner or later. Most likely sooner. Definitely sooner. He shuddered again. He needed to get that checked out.

He had barely had time to get the potion into position, over Cedric's mouth, when an insane voice, a voice of pure evil, distaste, and, for that matter, ugliness, which Ron wished he could un-hear, boomed "kill the spare."

Ron flicked his wrist to force the potion down Cedric's throat, as he choked down the guilt that came to his own throat for doing so. Immediately, Ron was blinded by a flash of green and Cedric hit the floor. Moments afterwards, Harry was at Cedric's side, an unmistakable expression on his face. He looked as though he were lost, not even pausing to figure out how to escape the murderer - or anything sensible. If he'd told this story to anyone else, he would have been laughed at; gaging from the fact that he was still alive, everyone knew the boy who lived never lost concentration in the heat of battle, not even when Ron had sacrificed himself in a chess game during their first year. Ginny was right. He WAS emotionally involved.

But he wasn't stupid either. Ron watched the expression of desperation soften into cold, hard reckless abandonment. Harry had realize there was nothing he could do because, as far as he knew, Cedric was dead.

In fact, for all Ron knew, he could be. Either the plan had worked, or they had failed miserably. But they didn't have time to wait around and find out. Peter Pettigrew was already dragging Harry towards an unfortunate looking cauldron that Ron was not keen to witness in action. He turned towards Ginny who looked ready to pass out from the stress. He nudged her

"What's done is done" he mouthed. She nodded, slowly. She took the time turned chain in her hand, ready to loop it back around Ron's neck, but then she froze. What now? They needed to get out of there! Ron gave her an urgent sort of look, wondering if maybe she had forgotten they were still in danger.

But Ginny seemed to be thinking. Those same fiery eyes that had flared up earlier were now locked on something over Ron's shoulder. He glanced back, anxious. It's just the port key, he thought, turning back just in time to see her mutter something else. He turned his head back again, feeling like his head was about to fall off his neck from all this back and forth movement, but finally deciding it was worth it when he noticed the subtle extra glow of the Triwizard cup because it made the whole thing make sense. In recounting the events, Harry had never mentioned how the cup had suddenly turned into a port key that would take him back. (Technically it was against the law to set up port keys without specifically registering it with the Ministry, but Dad, who worked for the Ministry, had somehow decided it was more important that he taught them that spell in case of an emergency. And they had much more on the line right now than the criminal offense of an unauthorized portkey.) What Harry had mentioned was a whole priori incantatum sort of business that Ron didn't quite understand but suddenly realized was all too relevant if they wanted to get out of this timeline safely. He quickly threw the chain off of himself, and, at Ginny's questioning look, mouthed "trust me" as he pointed to the emerging figure of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named rising again, the sight of which sent shivers down the Weasleys' spines. It was in that moment that Ron realized the trauma they were about to experience, powerless to do anything about it, which they would have to keep to themselves for maybe the rest of their lives if Ginny's prediction about Harry turned out to be wrong. He tried not to care, but as he watched You-Know-Who punish a death eater just for saying what the rest no doubt wanted to, he knew he would need to make an unbreakable vow or something to keep his mouth shut. Looking at the way he manipulated Malfoy's father almost made him feel sorry for their classmate, if only he hadn't been such an arse to Hermione for NO REASON. He got so lost in these thoughts of horror, he almost missed the moment, but he was shaken back into the present (or the past?? The confusion was making Ron glad Harry and Hermione had taken on last year's big quest without him) by the bright lights of Harry and You-Know-Who's wand strands connecting. It was so strange, even knowing it was going to happen, even for someone like Ron who grew up with magic, to actually witness something as rare as this, and he wondered how Harry had known what to do. It was no wonder he excelled at defense against the dark arts. When the ghost of Wormtail's (Ron had been surprised at You-Know-Who using his childhood nickname instead of his real one, but apparently that was the name they were going with now. Serves him right for betraying his friends like that) new hand appeared and disintegrated, Ron stood ready. He honestly wasn't sure what made it possible; he didn't even know the spell and had always been rubbish at transfigurations more than any of his other subjects; maybe the transfiguration of an echo was easier than of real objects, but the second the fly started to form, it became the form Cedric. He remembered why they were there and tried to gauge from Harry's reaction something whether Ginny had been right, but even if the lights had been dimmer, Harry probably would've just looked shocked anyways. His last thought before Ginny pulled him backwards and spun them back to the present time, was of how much trouble they would be in if anyone ever found out about Ron's - and Ginny's - biggest hero moment of their lives. Not the point! he tried to reprimand himself, but it was no good. Maybe he was just a selfish jerk. But if he had just put himself in double jeopardy (according to Dad, that had a different meaning to muggles, but he was much to frustrated to care at the moment), he couldnt be that bad of a person, right?

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There was something exhilarating about having Ginny Weasley press something into your hands in a secretive way. Even if it was just to return the thing you'd given her. Because there was that unspoken understanding of intimacy that Luna hadn't felt with any person since L's mom had died. It was almost as though L and Ginny were friends. But L knew it wasn't really like that. It was more like a mutual form of respect, which was something L could live with.

Generally speaking, Luna tried not to let it bother L that everyone whispered not-so-subtly about L not belonging in Ravenclaw. No matter how well L did in class, the chatter always persisted. It was fine, really. Luna knew that was only part of believing the kinds of things L did, even though L knew they were real. But no one could brew a draught of living death as a third year in under two hours and be considered dumb. Potions were L's favorite, sure, but even highly accomplished, textbook-following witches like Hermione couldn't pull that kind of difficulty level off. And though Luna would never brag about this out loud, after all that work, L felt L could rightfully hope that L had earned Gin's respect, even if she could never tell another soul exactly how it is that that had happened. Mutual trust (combined with Gun's general kindness) was more than enough for L.

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Luna's father had always said there were different kinds of smart. Hermione was book smart. Neville was plant smart. Harry was improv smart. Ron was strategy smart. Luna was spiritually smart.

Of course, sometimes L wished they could have had a different kind of smartness. Spiritual smartness didn't get you far when no one believed or listened to you, and when people were always telling you you were crazy, you tended to be a little more doubtful about your own intelligence. Take Professor Moody for instance. L had had a feeling he wasn't who he said he was, that he had an aura of evil about him somehow. There was even something strange about the story of his harsh treatment of Draco Malfoy, the bouncing ferret. But Luna had never met Mad-Eye, and it felt silly to say "I feel like this perfectly capable teacher who has taught us more about defense against the dark arts than anyone else is actually secretly conspiring against us." Of course, when Ginny told L about everything that she'd learned, L felt even sillier for not having said anything before.

So much had happened that L realized L could have prevented. So L decided it didn't matter what other people thought. L wanted to do the right thing. L practiced affirming L's self in the mirror, reminding L's self that L didn't need validation from others to know L was a cool and valuable person. Of course, it meant that L stood out a lot more - that people noticed L more than ever before (and not necessarily in a way that L had ever wanted to be noticed), but, somehow, it still made L happier overall.

For one thing, it allowed L to more confidently stand up for the underdogs.

"My father's the lead editor!"
"I believe ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’ is back. And I believe you fought him and escaped from him."
"You can laugh! But people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger, or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!"

But it also allowed L to do things in secret, without need of a reasonable alibi (which were often vulnerable to high amounts of suspicion in Luna's experience), because people would interpret L sneaking off as just another one of L's quirks. Like check on Cedric's deep sleeping body where it lay in its casket, making sure he didn't freeze to death or suddenly wake up with no air or food to keep him alive. Sometimes it made L laugh just how many cloaks and pairs of shoes L lost that way - cause charms could only go so far. Despite all this, L actually enjoyed keeping watch by the Hufflepuff, not because L had any particular emotional attachment to Cedric, though throughout the year, L began to feel that there was a part of L that was doing it for Harry, who had sort of become L's friend. But the other reason, which even Ginny never really believed, was that L liked sitting on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where the thestrals would roam and where the music of the toads kept L company. Unlike the Ravenclaw dormitory, which made L feel claustrophobic and stereotyped (by gender, House, and insanity) and, in some ways, alone.

Most of Hogwarts tended to feel that way. It wasn't that L didn't like coming to school; the magic of the place excited L in every possible way... except that L never felt like L fully fit in anywhere, even the forest. Most places had a little bit of something that Luna could resonate with but when your personality is so split like that, even though you feel like you understand everyone, you never truly feel understood. Anywhere.

That is, until Luna met Neville. Neville, who actually listened to Luna's crazy speculations and theories. Neville who wasn't quite ready to join Luna by the forest but who was always eager to hear about it the day after. Neville who talked to plants, for crying out loud! Neville who seemed to understand and always had time for Luna, no matter their differences, no matter what else he had going on. And best of all, Neville who made Luna feel like L had been right all along, who quieted L's doubts and fears, even though he was still himself fighting against his own. All Luna could ask was that L could return the favor - and pay it forward in any way L could.

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You can't really blame Harry for not thinking straight in his fifth year. The guy had a lot going on. Not that that was an excuse for how he treated people. But illogical thoughts... well those are a different story.

For one thing, puberty had definitely started to kick in, which was perfect timing, considering that he'd watched a friend die for the first time, come closer to dying than ever before, was constantly plagued by nightmares between the two instances, had seen Voldemort, the most horrid and dangerous creature to ever exist (to the point that most people were too afraid to even say his name), come back to life, while the Ministry of Magic refuses to acknowledge that, burdening Harry with all the more responsibility, even though no adult seemed to trust him with that responsibility, and on top of that he had no one with shared experiences. With all that weighing on him, things came out sounding way more angry than he intended. That, for sure, was just just dandy. But Harry was too exhausted to even feel too sorry most of the time because on top of all that, the majority of the wizarding world thought he was blazing mad, which was particularly upsetting to a traumatized Harry, who had often been unfairly punished for things he didn't mean to do. Besides, Harry never really liked attention of any kind. Growing up, the best days of his life, the days when he didn't have to fight so hard to survive, were the times when people just ignored him, and, while this certainly wasn't ideal treatment, 10 consecutive years of this will get you accustomed to that.

Plus, Harry was on the verge of admitting defeat and considering himself crazy after all. Or at least that he was a danger to everyone involved. After all, HE had been an ingredient in Voldemort's return, and between that and their fiasco during first year where Harry had accidentally gotten the stone out of the mirror, where it would have been perfectly safe from Quirril if harry hadn't shown up, he was starting to wonder if the only damage he managed to fend off was a part of the damage he had helped to cause. And it hurt. But not as much as the fear of hurting his friends. Sometimes, he fantasized that they should just cut him off for their own good, as much as he hates the prospect of it. Such ideas made his head swim. He felt like he had been thrown into an age where nothing was certain anymore. All he has left was his curiosity. And Sirius - the only real family he felt he had left. And the only family he felt sure was in no more danger by being in Harry's company. In fact, given his recklessness, Harry honestly felt that Sirius was safer with people like him cautioning him away from whatever risks he intended on taking.

So, all in all, not one of his better years. And that's why he failed to notice, failed to remember a few things. Things like Sirius's mirror in the moments when he most needed it - but also things like the fact that he hadn't seen the Thestrals at the end of fourth year when they were supposed to be visible to all who had seen... human death...

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Avoiding Dudley's gang, while still making sure to return to his aunt and uncle's house before Dudley did, was almost impossible. Yet impossible seemed to be the kind of thing Harry was expected to do in order to survive.

That's how Harry ended up in the forest (spying on Dudley and simultaneously keeping a good enough distance to stay out of sight). Of course, the forest was nothing new to Harry. I'm comparison to his previous experiences, this should have been a walk in the wall. Except, Harry hadn't ever really had a pleasant experience with paths either, and, well... he didn't exactly connect the forest with fond memories. Images of a disturbed and distressed Bartimus Crouch, the dark mark, and a hooded figure standing over a dead unicorn kept popping up wherever he looked. So it took him a second to realize that the creepy circle of individuals surrounding Ludo Bagman was, in fact, not a hallucination - but the moment he did, his blood ran cold. He wanted to rush into action (to do what, he didn't write know, all he knew what that Ludo Bagman was in danger and Harry just had to save him), but before he could even come up with a plan, he found several fingers pointed his direction. He was suddenly unable to move. Damnit. Goblins may not have been allowed to carry wands, but that didn't mean they couldn't pull of one hell of a - well, whatever kind of spell they wanted to really! They just usually didn't bother with it unless someone got in their way.

Thankfully, they seemed to deem Harry no longer a threat, instead focusing on Ludo Bagman, who was cowering, pleading. It was a state that Harry had never seen him in before.

"Please," Bagman said "There are children present! Shouldn't we go somewhere more private? Just give me my wand, and I can take us there; I promise you won't regret - I've got the perfect place in mind."

"And where might that be?" one wise-looking goblin answered easily. "Somewhere more secluded than a forest? I don't think so. Besides, given your history, you'd just use your wand to try to escape."

"That's for sure!" another chimed in in a shrill voice that Harry had never heard coming from a goblin. "Do you remember when he asked for a 20th extension on his debts-" "Oh surely it wasn't 20?" Bagman protested, but Harry could see that his heart wasn't in it. "-and ten months later, found out that he had not only neglected to find a job that might get him that money, but he was stealing coins from St. Mungo's fundraisers to buy merchandise at the Quidditch World Cup?"

"Please," Bagman repeated "have mercy!"

"Mercy?" the first guy echoed incredulously. "And how much mercy did you have on all those poor souls you paid in leprechaun gold? Or those who asked for extra time to pay you back on their debts from their World Cup bets? Hm?"

There was a bitter silence. Then-

"Why do you have to do this?" Bagman murmered. "I can talk to the ministry! They can -"

"The ministry?!?" yet another shouted incredulously who seemed as though he were not normally the type to be angered, making it all the more impactful when he did allow himself to get upset. "You mean the ministry run entirely by wizards, for wizards, and in representation of wizards in every single way?"

"Not true!" Bagman protested. "We not only take great care to include witches in all of our policies, but we are an organization inherently inclusive of all magical species! Haven't you seen-"

"The fountain?" the same guy finished for him. "Ha! You've got nerve! That pitiful excuse of a construction is not only stereotypical in its supposed representation but in no way reflects the actual actions that they take."

Harry finally recognized the tone he'd been hearing in all of the goblins. It was a tone that said, "we're sick of this, and this is the last straw." It was a tone Harry found himself barely withholding at times, when he did choose to speak.

A fourth goblin, holding a staff, took command. "The point is, there is no mercy left for us if we want to survive as a species. I'm sorry," he softened, temporarily - only for the smallest moment, but it was just enough for Harry to understand why Hermione had been so upset about House Elves lack of rights. "But we can't let people like you off the hook."

And with that, the four loan sharks raised their fingers. Ludo Bagman closed his eyes, flinching, and Harry, still under a stunning spell, was wishing harder than anything he could do the same.

It wasn't like Cedric, who just fell over, defenseless. He supposed it would have been illegal to use A ada Kedavra, the unforgivable curse, but as he saw the blood spill from every orfus of Bagman's body, he wondered why this wasn't on the list of spells who, according to Barty Crouch Jr, could earn you a lifetime sentence in Azkaban. Bagman's ear fell to the ground. His face seemed to split in two. Slashes appeared across his neck and chest and legs and arms, his fingers opening up even wider to allow waterfalls of blood to trickle down. It was too much to bear; Harry wouldn't have wanted this to happen to his worst enemy, and Bagman... well, he was problematic but Harry couldn't help but remember the joyful man he'd once been. Harry felt so sick, he felt he would die if it went on any longer.

Suddenly, Ludo Bagman stopped moving. His blood-stained body felt to the ground with a think. Wordlessly, the loan sharks performed the spell Harry had heard of from Barry Crouch Jr, but had never wanted to imagine, let alone watch it happen in real life. It was just as heart-stopping as he imagined. One minute, there was an almost entirely red body lying between them, the next, there was only a pure white bone.

"That's something I'll never unsee" the third goblin shuddered, giving voice fo Harry's thoughts.

There was a silence. Respect for the dead. It was something Harry wouldn't have expected from a group of individuals that had just committed such an act of violence, but he supposed he had no idea what life would have been like in their shoes. Then-

"Luckily for these guys," the guy with a staff answered finally, motioning towards Harry, Dudley, and the other muggles who, Harry imagined, would have been just as silent and still without the stunning spell. "They won't have to remember this."

With that, the goblins, in one synchronized motion pointed their fingers at each of the boys. Gold sparks shot from their fingers. They flew towards Harry's face with the force of a million hippogriffs (he would have fallen over had he been able to move), and, gradually, Harry's mind went blank.

He had never been obliviated before, but it was honestly a lot more relaxing than he had expected. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that he was glad to forget everything that had just happened, maybe it was just the fact that it felt so much like the way he imagined a lullaby might, if you transfigured the melody into something cuddly - or misty like a cloud. The foggy brain that followed left him feeling slightly frustrated, but something told him not to fight it, even though he didnt quite remember why he wanted to forget... whatever it was that he was forgetting. Wait, hadn't there been a group of some sort of people in front of him a second ago? Harry couldn't remember. His eyebrows were furrowed in concentration so hard and yet so dreamy that he barely even noticed that he could move again.

Suddenly, as if waking him up from a dream, Dudley spat at him "Didn't think I'd see someone as twig as you dare to follow us here." And Harry ran, forgetting to try to remember anything except that he needed to get away, away from Dudley.

But, for some reason, years later, when Harry found his archenemy facing a similar curse at his own hands, lying on the bathroom floor in a puddle of blood, Harry's guilt and concern was quickly overcome by an even more unpleasant sensation. One that he couldn't quite place. Whether he wanted to figure it out, Harry didn't know.

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Dating Harry was like a dream come true, something that, once she managed to believe it was real, felt like a raging fire had been enacted in her soul. Feeling this way was - what was the word? Re-vitalizing,
which counted for a lot in the middle of all that chaos.

But she knew it was too good to be true, so the day Harry let her go... she didn't even have it in her to be upset, not to his face anyway.

"I never really gave up on you," she told him, and in that moment, she realized it was true, in spite of Cedric, in spite of everything. She only wished the dream were a little more possible so she wouldn't now have to let it go - let him go. She wondered what Luna might have to say about it. But now was not the time for that. There was a war to be fought and, after all, if Dumbledore was dead, it seemed that might be more powerful than love after all. It wasn't until after she got home from Hogwarts - after she had stayed up night after night repeating those words to herself, that she had never given up and yet this was still the end, that they had almost won and then suddenly been betrayed as Snape took Dumbledore and Riddle took Harry - that she finally let herself cry. For the first time since Cedric, Ron seemed able to understand her again, and he held her as she shook, waiting for the worst.

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When Cho offers to show Harry to the diadem, alarm bells go off in her head. The last thing she needs is for those two emotional tornados looking to find their thought-to-be-dead crush in each other to rekindle their disastrous romance.

She found herself swooping in to volunteer her girlfriend. It was an innocent enough gesture since Harry and Luna were closer friends anyway, except that... well, now it looked like something else.

Luna, perceptive as ever, simply chimed in in agreement ("Ooh yes I'd love to," Ginny believed were her exact words), but Neville... she tried to look discretely apologetic at her boyfriend without drawing the attention of Harry of his friends.

As soon as they got a moment alone (it felt weird to have this conversation with only one of her partners, but of course Luna had gone with Harry as she'd suggested, and Ginny didn't want to wait to clarify), Neville raised her eyebrows at her. "So... Harry?"

Ginny had to keep herself from yelling as she hurried to explain, "it's not what it looks like I promise I was just thinking about how damn complicated it would be if-"

"We could talk to Luna, you know? I mean like she said we're kind of an anomaly among polys having everything go all ways like a polygon. I'm sure she'd understand shaking up the geometry a litt-" Ginny sensed that he was starting to ramble; he did that a lot when he was nervous (whereas the only Neville would have looked at his hands or not inturrupted at all, this Neville had taken on Harry's speech giving post - he kinda had to if they were gonna keep the DA alive since, for some reason, he fended to be the one people listened to. Count on Hogwarts -- the only place where the architecture actually kicked out anyone trying to enter the girls dormitory if they had the wrong body parts -- to defer to sexist stereotypes... even though Ginny had worked very hard not to be looked at as a typical girl, some days she just didn't feel like fighting).

"Neville," Ginny soothed him and, god she couldn't help but think that if anyone else had seen this, it wouldn't help the allegations that she was all feels (though most of the time what they called anger, she preferred to call passion). "I don't feel that way about him anymore, or at least, I don't think so. I mean, yeah I think I'll always have some part of me that... cares, but at the moment I'm mostly just way too pissed to feel that way anyway. I mean he shows back up here after this whole shit-show, no condolences, no updates, and just tells us to just him and sit back and do NOTHING?! I get fighting the Dark Lord - sorry, Voldemort - is his thing and all, but I don't know if I can ever forgive him for making the sacrifice play when the rest of us are just as ready... I mean look at how much you and Luna havs - and he just pushed all of your work - our work..." It was Ginny's turn to ramble, as she so often did when anyone said something about her major boyfriend downgrade (the fact that they were just riding off of assumptions about her and Neville, which weren't untrue, so she couldn't really deny them, and furthermore that they'd disregarded Luna altogether didn't help). It made her blood boil that even after all they'd been through, no one ever considered that Neville and Luna were just as worthy, if not worthier of the golden hero title everyone wanted to hand to Harry on a silver platter, just like every other thing in his life. She really didn't want to hate Harry, she really didn't, but keeping all that resentment for him and affection for her partners so bottled up... it made it hard for her to take the time to calm the inner fire, to let it breath in doses rather than blazing storms like the one that took hold of her now. And the worst was that it always felt like the sirens were close to the surface, like it wasn't that they were measured the same as they would be if she'd allowed it to be expressed in healthy, open amounts, no it was always there, at a hundred, just hidden, where no one would know.

Ginny felt arms around her, breaking her train of thought. She took a deep breath, and as the goosebumps ran down her skin, everything again felt okay. "What would I do with out you?"

"Hey, Luna wouldn't let you go it alone either," Neville pointed out.

"That's true," Ginny admitted. "But neither of you can make up for the other, really, at the end of the day. You know that."

"Yeah," Neville sighed. "I'm glad I have you two too."