Five years ago, Ginevra Weasley’s life changed forever. For worse and for a bit of good. The bad part; Harry Potter, the boy she had loved for Merlin knows how long, went missing after the Final Battle. Voldemort was dead, his robes were found in Godric's Hollow, but Harry could not be found...

“Final Battle,” Harry muttered, dropping his grin and eye contact with Ginny, searching the thin, blue sheets on the bed, as though they held the answer. “Tom… screamed…I went unconscious… woke up in a cell, chained to a wall…”

It was dinner time when Lily finally met her dad for the first time. Ginny heard Molly’s voice and left Harry for a few seconds to see what she was saying...

Ginny was awoken by whispering voices. Firmly clamping her eyes shut, she listened to the conversation...

The next morning Ginny woke up in the guest bedroom with a yawn and scrambled out of the lilac covers. She showered, threw on an assortment of clothes and brushed her tangled hair. She walked slowly down the stairs, undoing charms and enchantments along the way with a wave of her wand and a sleepy mutter...

Ginny gazed at the ring, turning it over, inspecting every angle. She jumped when she heard a voice in her ear...

Ginny had a rough time getting to sleep that night. Everytime she closed her eyes, flashes of the spidery blue veins, scars and the Dark Mark danced before her. But, when she finally got to sleep, she had witnessed a horrible, horrible dream…

Hermione was panting heavily on the bed, tears staining her beautiful face, but a wide smile plastered upon it. Her hair was slightly damp but, cradled in her arms, was a sleeping baby. Ron was sitting in a chair beside the bed, looking extremely relieved...

Ginny stirred, put kept her eyes shut and the vomit in her throat down. She tried to recollect her memories in her throbbing head...

Harry swallowed nervously as he and the three Weasley brothers slowly made their way up to Malfoy’s looming Manor. He never wanted to come back here again and he could almost feel the horrible memories radiating...

Harry’s head swam – no - drowned in pain, dizziness and confusion. His body seemed to vibrate with agony; he tried to move his fingers just a bit to see if he could. Pain rattled up his arm and almost seemed to hum...

Malfoy had completely ignored Ginny and Lily over the next three days, sending Goyle two times a day only with a small amount of food. Ginny let Lily mostly consume the bread and water...

Malfoy yelled at Blaise to follow him, as he turned heel from the pathetic Potter’s and almost skipped with joy back to his study...

Ginny felt horrible, to put it mildly.
Her legs were on fire they were so painful, her arms felt like blocks of ice, her stomach was as empty as a vacuum, her torso was flaming up like her throat, her eyes were itchy and heavy, her mouth thin and coarse.
But the worst was still to come...

Equin sighed. It had been a long fortnight. In her mind, it didn’t seem like a fortnight. More like a year, or ten. But in reality it had been two weeks exactly...

Hermione stared with a blank, expressionless face at the newspaper before her, her gaze fixed upon the glittering emerald ring Harry had bought; which seemed like centuries ago. Ron, however, was scrambling around, trying to find parchment and a quill...

“Ginny, Nigel wants another check up,” Hermione said hoarsely, peeking into the hospital room. “Now, Ginny,” she added wearily, rubbing her bloodshot eyes with one of her hands...

Bill accompanied Ginny back to her room, having grudgingly removed her from Harry’s room. Nigel was just checking Harry’s apparatus and status; Harry was never left alone... Ginny sank down into her hospital bed whilst Bill drew the covers up over her...

Neither Ron nor Ginny spoke of her breakdown, because no one had to know or find out. Hermione suspected something was wrong, as she always did with Ron, but didn’t pressure him, especially when he snapped at her for asking...

Ginny groaned, pushing the toilet seat down and landing heavily on top of it, waving her hand to lock the door.

She sighed and held a shaky hand in front of her watering eyes.

“Lily – please – just listen,” Hermione moaned, pulling the shaking five year old into her lap, “She’s just… sleeping. She’s tired; she’ll wake up soon...!"

That infernal, incessant beeping… it was going to drive him up the wall, over it and back again...

Ron’s body froze. The noise from the living room went mute; everything else disappeared apart from the letter...

Harry put the chart down hastily as the door clicked. Curiosity and impatience led him to pick up the parchment on the table beside him; but the charts, codes, symbols and paragraphs made little sense to him...

Lily raised her head from the bed as the door creaked open.“Lily! Thank Merlin…” Charlie said, hurrying over to her. He knelt beside her chair and took one of her hands. His eyes glanced over Ginny.
“Uncle Charlie,” Lily muttered in greeting before looking back at her mother. “Where did everyone go?”
“Harry,” Charlie said softly, “Daddy. He’s awake,"...

As the days passed, Harry seemed to be getting steadily worse and worse. Everyone was concerned, yet Harry was only thinking about Ginny.
How is she?
Any better?
Any worse?...

She was surrounded by thick, numbing, swirling fog… she couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think… could she breathe? She didn’t know…. Was she even there? Was she even alive?

As the door shut and as the shouts were stifled, Ginny's gaze fell to the floor…

You’ve made… startling improvement,” Nigel stammered, slightly surprised as he read avidly over the chart in his hands, as though he had missed something that screamed Harry was about to drop dead any second...

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Harry muttered quietly. Nigel had left after checking them both up in Harry’s hospital room; Ginny refused flat out to leave Harry’s side...

With one finger, he lightly traced the blue trail from the inside of his wrist to his elbow, his green eyes narrowed slightly as he did so. He withdrew his finger from the blue line he was following when he got to the hem of his rolled up jumper...

Ginny’s fingers were biting into the arms of the chair she was sitting in; Hermione was standing behind her, her hands softly positioned on her shoulders in case she tried to stand...

“Why didn’t you stop?” she whispered quietly, hands resting in his. He smiled softly, face still as white as the sheets he was lying upon, the very corners of his mouth pulled upwards in a slight curve...

Harry groaned, closing his eyes tightly and gripping the bedside table for support. His legs shook and shivered beneath him; he felt weak and drained...

Harry was already awake when Nigel slipped quietly into his room.
It was Christmas morning, and no one else was up...

High up, up in the empty air that hovered above Earth, there was total, complete darkness...