GEORGE:

I'd had a number of long days in my lifetime.

Sitting through Bill's graduation was excruciating. Charlie's was a tad easier, since I knew more people in that class, but Percy's was the worst — how he managed to find something nice to say about every single person in his class during his Head Boy speech would have impressed me if it hadn't been so dreadfully long as a result.

Our first detention with Filch was truthfully the worst of all of our (many) detentions. He'd (correctly) pinpointed us as troublemakers from the beginning and was thus determined to try to stamp every bit of mischief out of us (unsuccessfully). We'd never told a soul the truth about the faint scars around our thumbs, but we had sworn to each other that we'd never let ourselves be that helpless again. So far, so good, at least as far as the two of us were concerned.

We'd felt rather helpless that night we found Neville on the couch, then checked the Map only to find that there were four Gryffindor first-years missing. A couple minutes later, three dots appeared in the forbidden corridor. Finding all three worse for wear, one being our brother, was another blow. Harry, our brother's best friend and our Quidditch teammate and adopted brother, turning up later the worst off of the lot made it even worse.

Even worse than that night was the night Ginny disappeared. I'd never forget the way it felt like everything in me was being slowly turned to stone when we heard the news. Cold, hard, unforgiving. Not human. Humans were warm and fragile and forgiving, but if being human had to hurt that much, I didn't want it.

I'd felt similarly around the dementors the next year. Every time one was around, I heard McGonagall's voice in my head saying Ginny had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and that we would be on the train home the next morning. I didn't hate the dementors nearly as much as Harry and Lucy did, but I hated the way they reminded me of the most helpless hour of my life up to that point.

I felt helpless the night of the Quidditch World Cup too. Losing Harry and Ron and Hermione, finding Lucy and Cedric with the former coughing up both lungs and covered in soot, hiding in the forest with Fred and Ginny as terror raged around us. That had been the scariest night of my life, and I thought it could ever get worse. I was wrong.

The helplessness I'd felt the night Cedric was killed hurt like a physical pain. As long as I lived, I'd never forget the sound of Lucy's agonized scream on the shores of the Black Lake. I'd never forget the sight of the Dark Mark over her house just over a month later, and the fear that plagued us for the days before she was found. For all of my long days, those had been the longest. I couldn't help Lucy. I couldn't help the other people who loved her, either. That kind of compounded helplessness was something I would never forget.

The newest long day, however, the most recent in a long line of long days, began with Hermione Granger stumbling through the portrait hole twenty minutes after the full moon had ended.

My bouncing leg froze at the look on her face. "What happened?"

"I-I'm not sure," she managed, breathing hard as if she'd run the entire way to Gryffindor tower, "but she's hurt. Where are the others?"

"Ginny's up waiting in your dormitory already, Ron's getting Harry's bag together, and Angelina was in our dorm last night so Fred's there so she doesn't wake up to find him gone and come to investigate," I explained as I jumped to my feet. "I'll get Fred and Ron while you get Ginny, we'll go see her."

Hermione grabbed me by the arm as I turned to get my brothers. "Wait, we have to think about this. We don't want to draw unnecessary attention to her, with the way Umbridge is about... you know."

"Right." I nodded and tried to slow down. This wasn't as easy as the Dark Mark above her house, we couldn't afford to rush into this. Not with the Pink Venomous Tentacula surely itching for any chance to wrap her vines around Lucy. "Well, I'll go so I can tell Ron and Fred I've seen her for myself. Ginny's going to want to see her for herself, though, so you should probably let her come down too."

Hermione bit her lip and nodded. "And then there's Harry. He's not going to want to leave."

"He doesn't have to, except for maybe DADA. Fred and I can stay with her while you're all in Umbridge's class. That way she doesn't get any of you in trouble and you can tell her whatever the story is this time."

"Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey are figuring that out now. You and Fred might have to be the ones to tell Lucy, though, if she wakes up while you two are there."

I nodded, trying to at least appear calm for Hermione's sake. "We can do that. Alright, you can go get Ginny, I'll head down there now."

With that, I hurried through the portrait hole and down the stairs to the Hospital Wing as quickly as I could without drawing any possible suspicion from the couple of early risers I passed in the corridors.

I hurried straight to the bed with the curtain drawn around it and slipped inside.

She was breathing. I relaxed a tiny bit. But the look on Harry's face stopped me from relaxing any further. He was nearly as pale as Lucy was, and there was a haunted look in his eyes I had seen only a few times before.

He glanced up at me and nodded in acknowledgement. It seemed as if he didn't trust himself to talk without crying.

I looked back at Lucy. She appeared to be asleep, though her face was still contorted in pain. Though the blankets were pulled up to just under her chin and hiding everything — except for the hand Harry was holding — I could tell that her left shoulder was heavily bandaged.

Before I could ask what had happened, the curtain parted behind me and Ginny burst through, breathless and panicking.

"What the hell happened?" she panted. "She was in the Room of Requirement last night, right? She wasn't in the forest or the Shrieking Shack, was she?"

Harry nodded. "Room of Requirement, yeah." His voice was hoarse and hollow.

"So what happened?"

"Her magic overpowered the magic in the room keeping her safe," he replied.

"WHAT?"

Harry flinched, looking up at Ginny pleadingly. "Shh, you'll wake her up. You don't even want to know how many potions it took to get her this way."

"What did she do?" Ginny asked in a softer voice.

"I didn't get a good look at it since I was just worried about getting her here before she..." Harry's voice trailed off, but he cleared his throat and shook his head and looked back at Lucy. "She cut her shoulder somehow. I didn't see it, but it was bleeding a lot and..."

I walked closer to the head of Lucy's bed and pushed a lock of sweaty hair back from her face. "You muppet, you're not allowed to get hurt in there." A thought occurred to me, and I turned to Harry. "Where is she going to go now, if it's not safe in there anymore?"

He shrugged. I doubted I had ever seen such a defeated shrug.

"We'll figure something out," I said with as much confidence as I could manage. "We won't let something like this happen again."

Ginny sniffled suddenly, and Harry and I both looked over at her as a tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away, keeping her gaze on Lucy. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but her lower lip was trembling too much. I stepped around Harry to wrap an arm around my sister's shoulders, and she turned to cry silently against me.

For what it was worth, Harry looked like he was trying awfully hard not to cry, too, and I felt the same way. After everything, this wasn't fair. Nothing about the past several months had been fair, but there we were anyway, in the Hospital Wing on a Friday morning with the girl who had suffered more than any of us lying nearly lifeless on the bed.

Once Ginny stopped crying, I suggested getting breakfast to dispel any suspicions. Ginny agreed, but Harry refused, saying he wasn't hungry. I told him that Fred and I were planning to take a turn with Lucy while he was in Umbridge's class, and he nodded without seeming like he had actually heard me.

Fred snagged me by the collar just before we got to the Great Hall. "What happened?"

"Harry said she somehow overpowered the magic in the Room of Requirement."

"What? How? What does that mean?"

I shook my head. "Don't know. He didn't elaborate. C'mon, we have to head in and act like nothing's wrong, we can't risk Umbridge getting any more suspicious than she probably already is."

Though he didn't look happy about it, Fred nodded, so the two of us sat on either side of Ginny in the Great Hall. The look on Ron's face told us that he already knew what had happened, and Hermione still looked shaken.

It was good knowing Lucy would be alright. A scratch on her shoulder, no matter how serious, wasn't a death sentence. But knowing how much worse it could have been, how much worse it could be in the future now that she'd somehow beaten the Room of Requirement, was terrifying, and we all knew it. None of us ate much, and we all exchanged long looks as we went our separate ways for class.

"How bad was it?" Fred asked under his breath just before we ducked into class.

"I don't know," I replied. "I didn't see it. Why?"

"Reckon she'll still be able to play Quidditch?"

I huffed. "I know you're dating the Quidditch Captain, but that doesn't matter. She's alive, that's more important than playing Quidditch."

"With Lucy, I think those are one and the same."

"You know... I stand corrected, I think you're right. And I think that she won't let anything get in between her and Quidditch ever again, especially something related to the full moon."

I didn't hear a single word any of my professors said that morning. I had more pressing matters on my mind. Aside from the obvious concern for Lucy's current injury, my mind was spinning thinking about all of the future moons she would have to endure. Would the Room of Requirement still be safe? Would there be a way to somehow strengthen its magic for the night, or weaken hers for the night? Would there be a way for one of us to be in there with her? If she was busy trying to attack us, she wouldn't be able to attack herself, but there was no way she'd agree to that. The door disappeared when she went behind it anyway, so we wouldn't be able to sneak in— yeah. My mind was spinning.

Eventually, it was time to replace Harry at Lucy's bedside. Fred and I found him staring into the distance sitting with his knees pulled to his chest. He jumped when he saw us.

"Oh, you were serious," he muttered, shaking his head. "I want to stay, I'm not going to go sit and listen to Umbridge of all people for an hour."

"She's suspicious enough of you two already, mate," Fred replied with a sympathetic shrug. "The last thing we need is her thinking the two of you are organizing a secret army behind her back."

He smiled just a tiny bit for half a second. "Right." He reluctantly pushed himself to his feet and grabbed his bag. "If she wakes up, the dark purple one is for helping her fall back asleep, and the green one would help with any pain but it would keep her awake. Er, and if somehow Umbridge beats me back here, the story is that she was sleepwalking and impaled herself on one of the lances from the suits of armor in the corridors."

"We all believed the sleepwalking story once upon a time," I said with a shrug. "It makes sense. Does she know that's what happened to her?"

Harry smiled a bit again, for another half a second. "No. She's been asleep this whole time. If she somehow wakes up before I get back, just let her know I'll be here as soon as DADA ends."

"I think she's the lucky one of the two of you," Fred quipped. "I'd rather be sleeping than stuck in the same room as the Pink Venomous Tentacula."

The attempt at humor didn't seem to register with Harry, who looked beyond exhausted as he glanced at Lucy one more time. "Right. I'll be back as soon as I can." He sighed heavily and muttered rude but accurate names for Umbridge as he left.

Fred muttered a silencing charm around the two of us so we could talk freely without bothering her or being overheard by anyone else who happened to come in, since she was still asleep and the curtain from earlier had presumably been removed as soon as the story idea happened. I conjured up another chair, and we sat on either side of her.

I reached forward to feel her forehead. She was still on the cold side, like she always was after the full moon, but all of the blankets seemed to be helping. Probably the dittany, too.

"Suppose we'll have to wait until next month to offer her these," I said, drawing out one of the modified Fever Fudges that I'd put in my pocket that morning. Merlin. That morning felt like a lifetime ago.

Fred nodded. "Now we just need to figure out how to do the exact opposite for before the moon, since the other end just neutralizes the fever-inducing magic. No fever-inducing magic, nothing to neutralize, it's useless."

I pulled the blueprints out from my pocket and raised my eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, I'd rather not sit here and stare at her for an hour," he replied, getting out two quills and tossing me one.

I cast an engorgement charm on the parchment so it was the size of a blanket hovering over Lucy's legs and feet. Fred and I had charmed the quills to follow our verbal instructions, so we just tossed them onto the blueprints and began muttering ideas, keeping the silencing charm in a bubble around us that excluded Lucy.

Almost an hour into our brainstorming, we hit a wall. Around that time, though, Lucy finally started to stir. We managed to put everything away before she opened her eyes, though, so she wouldn't see. Something told me she would rather not know we were working on something for her. She'd probably say something about not being worth it, and we would disagree, and we would argue, and that wouldn't be a terribly pleasant way to wake up from a potion-induced nap.

Finally, her eyes did open a little.

"Hey, Cub," I said gently as Fred and I inched closer to her. "Feeling any better?"

She shook her head a bit, blinking as if her eyelids were heavy. She was still very much out of it, even if she wasn't fully asleep anymore.

"Harry should be back any minute now, he went to Umbridge's class to tell her you impaled yourself on a lance while sleepwalking last night."

Lucy didn't say anything, but she did look a bit confused.

I grinned. "Terrible story, I know, but it's what Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey decided, apparently, possibly with help from Harry. He's been here all day except for this last hour." I shifted in my seat, desperate to try to get something out of her. A smile, a laugh, even just a word or two. "He gave us the rundown on the potions. Do you want anything for the pain?"

She shook her head. Her eyes sank shut, and she sighed shakily. When she opened her eyes again, there were a couple of tears glistening in the blue. Before I could ask about the sleep potion, the Hospital Wing doors opened and Harry entered.

His eyes met mine with a silent question, and I nodded. He darted over, dropping his bag at the foot of her bed and rushing forward to grab her right hand again.

"Hey," he said, smiling even though his voice was trembling, "there you are."

"She only just woke up," I explained softly, "and she hasn't said anything yet. Those potions really put her under."

"They had to." Harry's voice was strained. "Didn't have another choice. She was going to tear it open again." He lowered himself onto her bed with the utmost caution and squeezed her hand. "You can go back to sleep, Lu. I'm not going anywhere."

Lucy's eyes closed again, and her face briefly contorted in more intense pain. But as soon as it did, Harry started rubbing his thumb back and forth against her hand, and within a minute, she was asleep again, pain and all.

I cast a nonverbal silencing charm around us, excluding Lucy again. "How was Umbridge?"

"Horrible." Harry glanced over at the door briefly before looking down at his hand intertwined with Lucy's. "Ron and Hermione wanted to come and see her, but I may or may not have taken a bit of a shortcut so I'd get here first."

"The hidden staircase?" Fred asked with a grin.

Harry nodded.

"She was only awake about a minute before you got here," I said. "She didn't want any potions, though, I asked. I think she was still more asleep than she was awake, though, so I suppose that would explain it."

Harry nodded again.

Ron entered then, so I extended the silencing charm to include him as well.

"Mione went up to their dormitory to get something," he said with a shrug. "She'll be here soon." Ron glanced at Lucy, then looked at Harry. With Lucy asleep again, Harry had dropped his guard a bit, and he looked even more exhausted than he had looked earlier. Ron didn't miss any of this, and he quietly grabbed the heaviest book out of Harry's bag and put it in his own. "Umbridge seemed to buy the sleepwalking story, at least. I doubt she'll realize it was the full moon, or think anything of it if she does."

"That's a relief," I said. "Did any of the other professor say anything?"

"Well, the Heads of Houses all know about it, apparently. A couple of the others have probably figured it out by now, like Sinistra. But no, she's a good student and just misses class sometimes, so nobody asked. But the nosy bitch that is Dolores Umbridge—"

Fred and I laughed.

"That's not very perfect prefect of you, Ron," Fred teased.

"Oh, shove off," he replied with a grin. "You know it's true. Besides, you should hear what Henry says about her, good old Hufflepuff prefect that he is. Lucy told him that Umbridge watches the Gryffindor fire a couple nights ago and he just about lost it in the prefects' meeting talking about it."

The Hospital Wing doors opened again, and Hermione and Ginny hurried in, Hermione with a bundle of something in her arms. She screeched to a halt at the foot of Lucy's bed. I extended the silencing charm so it covered all of us except Lucy.

"Harry, wait, move, I have an idea," Hermione panted.

He turned his head, clearly annoyed, and glanced at what she was holding.

"She mentioned this was Cedric's old jumper," she explained quickly. "She wore it to the Hufflepuff match. I think it — well, let's see."

Hermione marched over to where Harry was still perched on Lucy's bed and carefully wedged Cedric's Montrose Magpies jumper between her good arm and her torso. Lucy shifted a bit, but not necessarily in discomfort. Her fingers still intertwined with Harry's, she curled around the jumper ever so slightly, still asleep. And somehow, magically, her face relaxed.

We all looked from Lucy to Hermione, waiting for an explanation.

Hermione sighed in relief. "Alright, to put this simply, a person's magic can bind to inanimate objects, right? Brooms, for example, or the mood rings Lucy made us. Not everything can be a vehicle for magic, but it's possible, especially if a witch or wizard interacts with an object regularly. It happens more often when someone gets more adept with magic, too. Sometimes, for instance, if I reach for my favorite quill, it will meet me halfway because I've written with it so often it somehow has started to recognize when I need it. I don't fully understand it," she added, cheeks reddening, "because the more intuitive forms of magic frighten me sometimes."

"It's alright, Mione, you didn't grow up with it," Ron said. "We understand. So Cedric's magic is still contained in the jumper because he wore it a lot?"

"Yes, but it's even more fascinating than just that!" Hermione, now distracted from her embarrassment, plowed on. "A couple of weeks ago, Lucy's American friends wrote her, and we talked a bit about Ilvermorny houses. To make a very long story very short, everyone there was in agreement that Cedric was a Pukwudgie, which is the house that's representative of the heart of a healer. I've been doing a lot of research about that for fun in between O.W.L. study sessions, and I found that the American sorting system is actually more effective than ours. See, our system varies. Sometimes, it sorts based on values, and other times, it sorts based on your actual traits. For example, everyone seems to think I'd be in Ravenclaw because of how much I study and whatnot, but I'm really a Gryffindor because the Hat sorted me because my values align more closely with those of Gryffindor than those of Ravenclaw."

"I've always thought I'd make a good Slytherin if they weren't all such blood supremacist wankers," Fred commented. "Except for the two in the D.A. though, they're alright. Anyway, Hermione, what makes the American system better?"

"Their sorting system actually draws on their magic. They're sorted in a circular room and have to stand on the Gordian Knot in the center to be sorted. There are four statues, one for each house, and the statues react based on the magical strengths of each student. So, all this to say, Cedric was undeniably a Pukwudgie, meaning his magic was most attuned to healing."

"So he really was a natural healer," I said, remembering comments Lucy and Henry both had made in the past with that same sentiment.

Hermione nodded excitedly. "He was. Obviously, every skill can be developed whether it comes naturally or not, but there's relatively new magical research — new to us, anyway, Ilvermorny has clearly known about this for a while — that suggests that everyone's magic is inclined to certain skill sets more so than others. For example, students sorted into Wampus, the warrior house, are generally best at combative magic. But, well, Cedric being who he was, I thought maybe having his healing magic nearby might help."

"You're brilliant, Hermione," Harry said, glancing from the jumper to Lucy and back again. "I think it's helping. You know, Madam Pomfrey was wondering aloud earlier why this time was so bad compared to other times in the past when this has happened, but if Cedric being around has something to do with it..."

"I think it did," she agreed. Hermione looked from me to Fred pointedly. "I don't want to crowd her in case she wakes up. Does anyone want to head to dinner with me? We can go in two groups, take turns staying with Lucy."

"We can go with you," I said. "We were here when she was awake once already."

Fred, catching on, nodded. "We'll be back in a bit," he said to the others.

As soon as the three of us were in the corridor, Hermione gestured for us to follow her and hurried all the way to the library. She plucked a book from the shelves and set it on a table, looking up at us with the glow of someone who's had an epiphany.

"So what exactly happened in August, again? Because I think I've made sense of it."

Once we cast a precautionary silencing charm given the subject matter, Fred and I took turns telling the story again. She was in the basement for the transformation, she was seriously injured, we brought down Cedric's book to heal her ribs, and we healed the bite marks with just episkey.

"So..." I started. "Following your train of thought earlier... you think the book had something to do with it? Since he used the book a lot, and the book was probably handled by people who are predisposed to be healers too, having it around made it easier even though Cedric wasn't there?"

"Or the house?" Fred guessed. "Since, you know, he lived there so long?"

"Yes, and yes, but there's something else I found out." Hermione opened the book and rifled through the pages with surprising speed until she found what looked like a layout of St. Mungo's. "I had the same ideas as you two, about the book and the house just being vehicles for his magic still, but he spent a lot of time at Hogwarts too, in the Hospital Wing especially, so I wasn't terribly sure why she would have healed so much better at home than here considering he spent the better part of his later life here rather than at home. But then I remembered his summer internship at St. Mungo's and wondered if that had something to do with it, and I think it might." She whirled the book around and pointed. "Have you ever wondered why the floors are divided the way they are?"

"Er, no, I can't say that I have," I said, "but don't let that stop you. Go on, why are they divided that way?"

"Well, I've always wondered why there are so few healing spells and potions given the wide range of ways to be magically harmed. A lot of those types of remedies seem centered around minor problems, too. Episkey normally would be completely powerless against something like a werewolf bite, but it worked and I wanted to know why. I didn't think the magic from the book or the house alone would be enough, in the absence of powdered silver and dittany, and I was proven correct today because she's still... you know. Even after that. But, anyway, it was hard to find this, but St. Mungo's teaches its healers highly specialized forms of healing magic that can be attuned to very specific injuries and illnesses. They operate like defensive wards, except they work by containing and concentrating healing magic rather than as protective forces to keep harmful magic out. Well, technically, they work both ways, but that's besides the point," she amended with a shake of her head. "They have to be renewed on a yearly basis. I think Cedric set up werewolf-specific healing wards around their house after his summer at St. Mungo's, and he likely did the same here, but in August, they were still in effect, and now, they're not."

I whistled lowly. "Well, everything you've said makes sense. I don't understand much of it, of course, but everything you've said makes sense."

"So what you're saying is that we have so many generalized healing spells and potions because the more specialized forms of healing magic are so challenging only St. Mungo's-level healers could manage it?" Fred asked for the sake of clarity.

"Essentially," Hermione said with a nod. "There's another reason for that too, though. Apparently it's easy — too easy — to turn it to Dark magic. You could invert the magic and keep all of the harmful magic in and prevent the healing magic from reaching the person. All of these are invisible, too, so you'd never know that was happening. The danger is the real reason why it was so hard to find that information, and why the books were so vague about how these spells would theoretically be cast."

"My next question was going to be about how we could learn that, so that's unfortunate," I muttered.

Hermione lifted her chin defiantly as she tucked the book back into its spot on the shelf. "I'm still going to find a way. I'm going to talk to Professor McGonagall about it as soon as Lucy's on her feet again. In the meantime, though, I didn't eat lunch, so I'm going to go have dinner then go be with Lucy."

With that, Hermione swept from the library, leaving us stunned in her wake.

Fred huffed out a laugh. "Well then."

"Well then," I agreed.

The day wasn't over yet, though. After eating a quick dinner, the three of us returned to the Hospital Wing to be with the still-sleeping Lucy. She was curled even more tightly around Cedric's jumper, and her breathing seemed more even and relaxed than it had been all day. Fred and I got the blueprint back out, and Hermione offered a couple of suggestions as we worked on the plans. It was the most supportive she had ever been about our, er, magical experimentations, and I knew it was all because it was for Lucy's benefit. Logical and no-nonsense and occasionally pretentious though she was, Hermione had always possessed a soft spot for Lucy, and she did always mean well in the end.

The others returned, but Madam Pomfrey ejected us at curfew, saying Lucy would be fine and would most likely sleep through the night anyway. We all huddled together in the common room, though, and the atmosphere was scarily similar to that of those days in summer when we didn't know where she was or whether or not she was even alive. We knew it would be alright, that she would be alright, but we were all painfully aware that something, someone was missing.

Ron and Hermione were clearly tired after being awake all night with rounds, but Harry was definitely more asleep than awake at that point. He was so exhausted he looked on the verge of passing out where he was sitting with his back against the wall, but his anxiety kept his eyes open. He listened intently to Hermione's explanation about the healing magic, but when she asked for specifics about the Room of Requirement, he seemed to shut down.

"Her magic overpowered the room's," Harry said over and over again. "I don't know how else to explain it."

After a while, Ron was able to convince him to go to bed by saying he could get up early to see Lucy before the rest of the castle woke up. Harry liked that suggestion and stumbled upstairs. Hermione headed to her own dormitory shortly after the boys left, since she was plenty tired too.

Ginny had been oddly quiet all night, a sure sign something was wrong, so I challenged her to a game of chess in an attempt to cheer her up. Though she didn't seem significantly cheered, she seemed glad for the distraction, so we made it best two out of three, then best three out of five, then best four out of seven, until we were five to five and going for a tiebreaker. It was then that we realized we were alone in the common room and it was long after midnight.

"Alright, so what's bothering you?" I asked a few moves into the game.

Ginny froze. "Er, isn't it obvious?"

"Yes, I know, I'm upset about Lucy's situation too, but why do you blame yourself for what happened?"

"I hate you sometimes, you know," she muttered, face flaming. "You know me too well."

"Fred goes mute when he feels guilty about something too," I replied.

I shoved the board aside. And then I waited.

Ginny held my gaze for a long moment, biting her lips together. "This is our secret."

"Alright."

"I mean it, no one else can know."

"Alright."

"Not even Fred."

I grinned. "Alright. I won't tell a soul, not even the other half of mine. What's bothering you?"

Ginny pulled the chess board back between us and moved her knight forward. "I'm waiting for a lightning storm."

"Is that a complicated way of saying you still fancy Harry?" I asked after a moment, thoroughly confused.

"What? No!" For the first time all day, Ginny threw her head back and laughed. "Sweet Merlin, no! What makes you think that?"

I shrugged. "You said lightning storm, the boy has a lightning scar. I put two and two together—"

"—and got five for an answer," she finished with a roll of her eyes. "Merlin, you're going to make me say it explicitly, aren't you?"

"Apparently."

Ginny sighed. "George, I need a lightning storm so I can finish the Animagus process."

"Well, that is not what I was expecting you to say." I shoved the chess board back out of the way. "Alright, go on, now I need to hear the whole story."

"I heard Sirius telling Mum about it over summer. Mum was pitching a fit about how it was illegal and dangerous and all of that, and she had made me upset earlier that day, so I told Sirius I was interested in the process and got him to tell me everything."

I blinked. "That's not what I was expecting you to say either."

"Wait until I get to the part where I got McGonagall to agree to help me," she said with an impish grin.

"Are you bloody kidding me? McGonagall is helping you?"

Ginny nodded proudly. "It's quite dangerous, you know, but she did it when she was a student. Dumbledore helped her. I told her it was to help Lucy on the full moons the way Sirius helped Professor Lupin, and she agreed right away. I did the month with the mandrake leaf, and I've been doing everything else, but now... I just need a lightning storm." Her face fell. "You know, a couple nights ago, I could have sworn I saw lightning, but the storm didn't reach the castle. It was odd. But I still feel like I should have chased after it, because maybe if I had..."

"Hey, you had no way of knowing something would go wrong this month," I said. "Don't be upset with yourself. What you're doing is great, Ginny, honest. You heard what Hermione said about the healing magic, so between that and you and the modified Fever Fudges and everything else, we'll be able to help make sure this doesn't happen again. For now, she'd hate it if she knew you were beating yourself up over something you can't control, so stop feeling sorry and start praying for a lightning storm." I slid the chess board back over and let a couple of turns pass in silence before speaking again. "Any guesses about what your Animagus form might be?"

"I just hope it's something cool, and big enough to be helpful. If I become a hummingbird, I might actually cry."

I laughed. "I don't think it'll be a hummingbird. Maybe you'll be a bear, like Lucy's patronus."

"That would be great."

"I'm guessing Lucy doesn't know?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, and she's not going to. Not yet, anyway. She's got enough worries at the moment."

I nodded, glancing at her empty window seat. "Definitely." I looked back down and swore.

"Checkmate!" Ginny crowed, laughing. "Best seven out of thirteen?"

I narrowed my eyes at Ginny in mock evaluation. She had always been my baby sister and always would be, but that night was the first night I started to realize just what an extraordinary witch she was becoming. I realized, too, just how soon Fred and I would move on from Hogwarts, and how these nights playing chess in the Gryffindor common room far too late into the night were numbered. I was exhausted. My head was still spinning with everything I had learned, from Hermione's information to Ginny's admission and everything in between. It had been a long day.

But I had almost lost Ginny on one of my long days.

"You know what," I said, sweeping my wand over the board to reset the pieces, "I think I have two more games in me."

"You mean one?" she asked, a competitive gleam in her eyes.

I grinned. "You wish. No, I mean two."