Disclaimer: Still not my characters or world.

A/N: Wow. I barely get two chapters posted in a little over two months, and now I'm posting my second in just under four days. This chapter was the easiest one I've written, it' the one that was in my head when I first started this, and the one that just kept nagging at me until I started putting it on paper.

Thanks so much to everyone who has read and an even bigger thanks to those who reviewed. I hardly know what to say, but I just wanted to say that I am going to finish this, it will be more than just these four chapters, I've got five more planned, and I think that will finish it nicely. I do have a couple of other things in the works, a few slightly rabid plot bunnies that haunt my dreams and stalk me while I work, so forgive me if I take the occasional sidetrip before finishing this.

And one more thing, I'm finding myself in desperate need of a beta, so if anyone out there is willing to play comma killer for me and help me keep my tenses straight (when I can hardly even keep my head on straight) I would be eternally grateful to them.

Chapter Four

Late October, 1999

Ginny sighed as she finally found a chance to sit at the window in the bedroom she had claimed as her own in this hated house. She had been appalled by Grimmauld place the first time she saw it, the summer before her fourth year at Hogwarts. She'd hated it even more that Christmas when they'd been sequestered here while her father was in hospital. She didn't think it was possible to loathe it any more than she had that June night more than a year ago when she'd fled the burning remains of the Burrow through the floo, death and destruction at her back, choking on the smoke with a slightly singed Crookshanks at her feet and the precious tiny bundles of her infant nephews clutched tightly in her arms. She was wrong. Seventeen long months in this house made her hate it more than she had ever thought possible. She and her mother had worked tirelessly, trying to make the house inhabitable, drawing her memories back to that first fateful summer spent there.

The house had definitely changed since then, much of the strange objects and the grime gone. There was evidence of attempts to give the house a lighter feel, many of the heavy silver serpent adorned fixtures had been replaced with much simpler ones. Light had been added, brightening the dank basement kitchen and the other rooms, but somehow, something of the darkness of spirit still remained. A few of the occupants of the house swore that it was haunted, and in a sense, Ginny had to agree. For her, it would have almost have been easier to see actual ghosts wandering up and down the stairways and long halls, instead of the ghosts of memories that haunted her own mind. Everywhere she turned, she saw things that reminded her of Harry or Ron and she missed them desperately. She remembered Sirius roaming the halls and she sympathized with Harry and his utter reluctance to come back here, she certainly wished she could leave this place and never return. But number 12 Grimmauld place offered safety that couldn't be guaranteed anywhere else, and with the responsibilities she had taken on as the war had progressed, safety and security, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, was paramount.

Every night since Harry had left, she had made a habit of stargazing. Like every Hogwarts student, she'd taken astronomy and was well aquatinted with the celestial objects that moved above her, but until that one precious summer evening, on the night of her brother's wedding when she and Harry had sat on that grassy knoll and he'd revealed to her how he looked to the dog star as a link to his dead godfather, she'd never put much store in that knowledge. In the first few horrid days after he and Ron and Hermione had left, she could hardly wait for the sun to go down and the stars to rise, before she headed outside to lay on her back in the garden. She'd stare up into the sky, knowing deep inside when she gazed upon this star that he was somewhere doing the same, and the ache of missing him eased just a little. When they'd been forced to flee to London, she'd chosen this room over the one she'd stayed on her previous visits for the sole reason of its window that looked to the east, and she could see Orion from it year round, and for those hopeful nine months of the year that it was visible, Canis Major along with it. She'd slept in the room for weeks before she realized that it was the same room that Harry and Ron had shared when they stayed there. Almost a year and a half later, it had changed little, making it one of the few rooms in the house that hadn't. It still had the same dingy walls, the same picture of Phineas Nigellus residing on the wall, observing her, questioning her and seemingly making an effort to annoy Ginny whenever possible.

In the months following her unexpected occupation of the room, Phineas had been willing to chime in with a snarky comment at the most inopportune time. He was quick to notice Ginny's nightly vigil at the window, and was more than willing to point out to her that he considered her talking to the star as if were Harry was the first sign of insanity. Ginny wasn't sure if he had gotten bored with baiting her, if she'd gotten better at ignoring him, or if the two of them had just gotten used to each other.

Thankfully, the occupant of the portrait was absent tonight, leaving the tired young woman alone in the semi-darkness. Her exhaustion was evident in her face and her posture as she perched on the window sill, opening the window to the cool night air. She yawned as she leaned against the edge of the window, finally relaxing for the first time today. She was so tired she felt as if she could fall asleep in seconds, but she had this one nightly ritual to complete first. It was late, and for the first time in days the sky was free of clouds, allowing the waning moon and the stars to be seen. Ginny still marveled at how much different the stars seemed in London than they had in the relative seclusion of Ottery St. Catchpole or the utter darkness that had surrounded Hogwarts. Here they were duller, almost smudged with the stain of city air. The bright twinkles she had always known growing up were now feeble as they struggled to make themselves known though all the ambient light of the city, the fainter stars failing in their attempt. Still, Ginny looked hopefully to the sky as she sat, searching for the brightest of the remaining. It didn't take her long, a little over two years of searching for the same star every evening gave her an advantage when it came to finding it. There it was, brighter than the surrounding stars, and even after all this time, it made her heart jump to see it. Somewhere deep inside, was that last little tremor of hope, that somewhere Harry was looking up and seeing Sirius twinkling above him, and thinking of her. It was much easier to hope now than during those three long summer months when the star disappeared below the horizon, completely lost from sight.

But tonight there was hope. If hope was all she had, hope she would cling to. She loved him, and even as hard as it was to keep that love strong and fresh, even with everything she saw and felt and heard as the war raged around them, she never lost faith in him. Tonight Sirius twinkled brighter than any other star in the sky and Ginny's heart warmed to the sight. She reached into her robes and her hand closed around the galleon that hung on a chain around her neck as she whispered an unheard greeting to the night sky. News from Harry was sparse through traditional means. In the two years since he had been gone, she'd received exactly three letters. All were short and had precious little actual news, instead they were full of nothing but meaningless chatter and vague reminisces, however they were treasured as if they contained the secrets of the universe. Not once however, did they contain any news.

Ginny had found this not knowing harder than anything else. Thanks to the coin hanging around her neck, she was reassured at least once a day that he was at least alive and capable of doing magic. But she knew that between alive and functioning, and safe and happy, there was a vast array of possible scenarios, and despite her attempts to ignore her own mind, her imagination provided her with enough thoughts and fears to keep her on edge. The appearance six months ago of an unconscious Hermione in the lobby of St. Mungo's did little to assuage her worry. No one knew how she had come to appear there, sporting multiple broken bones, several deep cuts, large burned patches and evidence of some seriously nasty curses thrown her way. Even Hermione herself, during her long recovery had been unable to tell them how she had arrived there.

Upon her release from St. Mungo's, Hermione had refused her parent's request to join them at her childhood home, and had instead taken residence with the Weasley's at Grimmauld place, where she spent several evenings giving carefully edited versions of the exploits of Ron, Harry and herself to the various members of the order as they made their way through. Ginny was fairly sure that only herself, her father, Lupin and McGonagall had heard anything resembling the full story, although she was realistic enough to realize that even this version had large gaps that wouldn't be filled in until Harry either succeeded or failed in his mission.

Hermione told them of the discovery of Hufflepuff's cup, buried deep within the orphanage where Tom Riddle had been born and spent his childhood, surrounded by nearly undetectable magical protections. She told them of the strange meeting with the barman at the Hog's Head that resulted in the acquisition of the locket that had evaded them for so long. They were all slightly shocked to realize that many of them had not only seen the horcrux during the initial purge of the Black home, but that many of them had actually attempted to open it, and shuddered at the thought of what the consequences would have been had they actually succeeded.

Ginny was thrilled to hear Hermione talk about how close she felt they actually were to the fifth horcrux prior to her injuries in a fight with a group of death eaters intent on delivering Harry to Voldemort. Hermione refused to reveal specifics as to what the trio had suspected the horcrux was, or even a general idea as to where it was located, but no one could blame her for her secrecy. They all understood what was at stake, and if Hermione felt that Ron and Harry would be safer if Hermione said nothing even to their family, then so be it. For Ginny, in her more hopeful moods, days when the gold coin around her neck would grow warm against her skin and the numbers around the edges would change to the current date, nights when Sirius was glowing brightly in the sky, she would confidently remark that they would hear all about it when Harry and Ron returned.

And return they would, she kept telling herself that much she could at least count on. After all, he was the boy-who-lived. The chosen one. Great storytime heroes didn't die after all, they came home triumphant and married the girl and lived happily ever after. Right?