Well, this is likely the last chapter.

Thank you so much to Son of Whitebeard for sticking it out with reviews!

Thank you all for sticking with my ramblings.

Condolence

The first snow comes in November. It starts at night, falls thick and fast during the lessons the next day, so that when they emerge out of Transfigurations after break, the grounds are glowing white. There is a buzz in the air, especially those in the younger years who live further south, for whom snow retains its novelty. Some older students are also far too enthusiastic; a snowball fight erupts on the fresh patch just outside the entrance hall and naturally, the Weasley twin's scarlet hair can be seen flashing through the chaos.

Drawn out to the grounds with the rest of the school, Harry stands in the snow. White flecks swirls across the air. He can see them on his lashes, too settling snugly in the space between his glasses and his face. He wants to join in with the fight but he has left his gloves in his dormitory and his fingers are freezing after patting down the first few snowballs. They are still recovering in his pocket – red and numb. Instead, he resides to laugh with the other bystanders as the centre players pound each other with white fluff, their winter cloaks brushed with white.

George (or perhaps Fred) turns their way, gives a wide grin. He has a ready snowball sitting in his hand.

"Oh no," Ron says. Harry laughs and ducks as George throws. He stumbles in the snow, feels the cold biting into his ankles and spreading to his toes as snow tumbles into his shoes. The snowball sails over his head and hits a first year in the middle of chucking his own snowball in the opposite direction, who gives a yelp and spins around. Ron is laughing as Harry stands. He does not notice the first year's snow ball until it hits him squarely in the nose. Laughter is like music in the air, rising like a tide. Even Hermione, who has an indignant frown on her face cannot suppress the smirk pulling at her lips.

Then past Hermione's face, Harry's eyes trail to another blur of red. He meets Ginny's eyes as she leaves the entrance hall, accidently, and Harry's smile freezes on his face as he looks into their dark depths.

Harry ducks his head. Suddenly he wants to be alone. His hands are cold, his feet are numb and his chest aches. He pushes past the students, away from the school in the general direction of the lake, not yet frozen but cold and dark in winter, thus unpopular at this time of year. If anybody saw him slip away, they do not call him out.

As he gains distance from the school building, the sound of students drops away. The snow is not yet thick and he can feel the grass underneath the white blanket that crunches as he walks.

The lake is a black canvas and flecks of white shimmer as they fall across it in thick sheets but nearer to the edge, where the waves lap across the grey stones at Harry's feet rhythmically, he can see the green moss through the dark liquid. He stands right at the edge, so close that the waves skim his toes. His hands are thrust deep into his pockets and his chin tucked into his winter cloak in an attempt to stave off the biting cold that comes with the chilly wind blowing across the lake. He tilts on to his heels, then tips forward to his toes. Leans against the wind as he closes his eyes.

"You come here too."

His eyes snap open at the voice, which has a familiar ring to it but is not immediately recognisable.

In the wind, her hair floats as a single sheet of burning orange, flaked with white snow that shimmers in the light. Her eyes are brown, like Tom's, but so much brighter, lit with the same fire that coils in her hair.

"Not really," Harry replies. "This is the first time."

Initial impressions aside, Ginny looks rather nervous. Her feet shuffle on the stones and her eyes constantly dart to the left, as if planning escape routes away from Harry.

"I can leave if you want," Harry says.

"No, no… it's alright," Ginny says, softly. Her voice is almost lost in the snow.

She walks towards the lake until she is in line with Harry, looking out across the dark surface and the snowflakes dancing atop the waves. Harry cannot keep her eyes off of her, even as he turns to face the lake too so that they are standing side by side. Her expression is unreadable.

It is cold. It is not snowing heavily but with the snow melting on his shoulders, the chill is starting to permeate into his body, the sensation weighing him down like a physical mass.

"I'm sorry," Ginny says, out of the blue.

"About what?"

They stare at the lake, the snow. More than quiet. All sound is muffled by the air laced with soft snow and nothing moves, other than a few flakes of snow drifting across their vision, hardly distinguishable from the white clouds that blanket the sky.

"For ignoring you." Ginny looks down at her feet. Her lashes are ginger too – the papery white of snowflakes stands out against them as she blinks.

Harry doesn't know what to say. He had tried to initiate conversation once, failed, and then never really put his heart into further attempts, having deduced that Ginny really didn't want to talk.

There were other reasons to, although Harry keeps the thought buried.

"It's alright," Harry says.

"I stole back the Diary. I put you and Ron in danger."

Ginny does not look at Harry as he says this, eyes fixed on her shoes. They look quite old – rough around the edges, with the heel worn down.

"He said you would be expelled didn't he?" Harry says. (Told them to keep it a secret because otherwise they would be in trouble. Yes, Harry knew his games.) "So it wasn't your fault. You were being manipulated. You were scared…"

"But that's not… it's not," Ginny looks up and takes a deep breath. "I was scared. But I wasn't scared of being expelled. Well, I was but… The truth is… I was scared of you. I like- liked you," Ginny presses her lips together and looks straight at Harry, as if daring him to laugh at her. Harry does not find this remotely funny. Almost imperceptibly, Ginny's shoulders relax.

"Nobody took it seriously, except Tom. He listened to me and he was always so patient. I felt special when he spoke to me. I felt as if he really cared… When I started suspecting he was involved with the attacks, he changed. It was scary… really scary… but… but… it was lonely too," Ginny's pace quickens as her words tumble out, one after another. "He never said it explicitly but I could tell he just wasn't interested in my worries anymore… I suppose he wasn't interested from the start… I thought I'd done something wrong at first – I tried to reach out for him. I begged him for help. When I realised he wouldn't… I wasn't…"

Ginny stutters to a halt, biting back tears. They gather in her eyes, mixed with the snow that has melted on her cheeks.

"You don't have to do this!" Harry blurts. "I'm sorry…"

"I want to say this Harry," Ginny retorts sharply. She wipes her tears on her sleeve with a jerky motion. "I thought getting rid of the Diary would solve all of my problems; that I would wake up and be able to make lots of friends and Tom would be out of my life. Life doesn't work like that, does it?"

There is bitterness in her voice.

"When I saw Hermione with the Diary… I was pretty sure by then that Tom was involved with the attacks but I didn't let Hermione hand it in because I was so scared of you finding out what I'd said to Tom… Oh I was so selfish." Ginny kicks a loose stone and it goes flying into the lake, a heavy plonk following it as it disappears beneath the surface in a ring of new ripples.

"After the Chamber… the more I thought about it, the more it seemed obvious that you'd talked to Tom lots and… I was scared. Again. I was scared of you thinking I was silly and pushing me aside like Tom had… even after you'd saved my life! I spent a long time agonising over it. I thought… I thought I didn't deserve to be in Gryffindor." Her voice drops to a whisper at the last line – cracked, hoarse and agonising.

Harry doesn't know how to respond.

Ginny takes in a deep breath, exhales slowly. She looks at him. Her eyes are rimmed red but the tears are gone, replaced by a brows set in a firm line. While her skin is pale from the cold, there is colour across her cheeks – a fierce red that accentuates her soft features. The snow swirls around her.

"But you know what? It wasn't my fault. Tom was horrible and knew exactly what to say to make me feel worthless. I decided I wasn't going to give into that."

There is silence.

Harry swallows. He is rather taken aback by Ginny's intensity. At the same time, he feels the heat of admiration flood through him, warming his frigid fingers. It is nothing like the wonder that Tom had once inspired or even the quiet respect that Dumbledore commanded – it makes Harry feel stronger rather than smaller, more comfortable to be stood there sharing this moment.

"That's… amazing," Harry says. There has to be better words but he doesn't even look for them. There is no need. Some things don't need well-crafted words to get them across.

Ginny looks back to the waves the lap at their feet, obviously embarrassed. She pulls at the silver fastenings on her cloak, twisting them absentmindedly underneath her fingers. However there is a smile on her face too, small but reaching her eyes.

"Well, that was about two months ago. Its… erm… work in progress."

But that's alright.

The best things take a lifetime.

He returns to the castle, wet from the snow that has melted on his hair. The cold has found its way into his cloak too. Harry doesn't mind the cold – he almost enjoys the deep numbness it gives him – but his body betrays his discomfort. He is shivering, his breathing is coarse. Professor McGonagall gives him a stern glare as he enters the hall, among the last students coming in from break.

"Getting a cold is no excuse for being late to lessons, Potter," she says. Her tone is as sharp as always, but Harry thinks that there is concern there too.

"I'm not late, am I?" he asks.

He doesn't think he has been by the lake that long, but he could be wrong; recently he has become akin to loosing track of time.

"You have five minutes," Professor McGonagall replies coolly.

"Right," Harry mutters. Five minutes is not enough time to return to the dorms, let alone wipe his wet hair. He adjusts the strap of the bag digging into his shoulder and makes for the stairs.

"Potter," Professor McGonagall says.

Harry turns. Professor McGonagall flicks her wand and suddenly a rush of warmth blows over him. His hair no longer drips onto his glasses.

"Thanks," he says.

"Run along, Potter," Professor McGonagall says sternly.

It is charms next. He is not late, but just. Hermione gives him an inquisitive, if a little disappointed stare, before turning back to the book in her hand. Ron seems to have no particular opinion of Harry's disappearance at break, just pulls up a chair next to him, by the window. Harry likes Ron's obliviousness (feigned or not) in times like these. It let him be normal, for a moment at least.

His mind is as turbulent as the snow outside. The conversation with Ginny rings in his ears, bringing a lightness to his limbs, but with it the dark knot in his insides is back, pulling him down with even more intensity than before.

Don't let him get to you.

You're not worthless.

"Yet so… weak."

"It's Tuesday. Did Flitwick set homework last week? I hope not. Blimey, I haven't done anything for today!" Ron mutters. He does not ask anything of Harry. He is talking to himself. That too, Harry finds comfort it.

"If you did your homework on the day it was set you wouldn't be in this situation!" Hermione hisses as Professor Flitwick starts the register.

"Who has time to do homework on the day it's set?"

"Everyone, if they didn't play chess in the evenings with Seamus!"

A smile comes to Harry's lips.

He imagines his thoughts as a whirlwind of snow, each word a single clump that churns in the turbulence. He bunches them up into his hands, watches them without touching them, then lets them go. They do no disappear, but when he is not grabbing at them desperately, they fade into the white canvas of clouds.

"Was it the one about practicing sticking charms? I don't think it was an official homework," Harry says. "I haven't done it either."

Hermione huffs.

"It's important to practice, even if it isn't checked!" She then opens her textbook with a sharp but silent movement and shoves her nose into it. Ron gives Harry a look. Even though not a single word is spoken, a blimey crosses the air between them. He is not annoyed or spiteful; a long time ago he might have been, but Hermione's nagging and Ron's laidback attitude to life is integral to their relationship. Ron treasures them.

Harry swallows. Sometimes, they don't need words to communicate. The meaning is already there, written into their connections through months of experience. It's obvious now that he thinks of it… but for months he had forgotten, too trapped in his own worries to connect to those around him.

Perhaps, he thinks, he didn't need a Diary to fight the loneliness inside him.

Evenings are always difficult. There is too much time and too little to fill them. Although… that is a lie too; there is plenty to do, from homework to boardgames, or just chatting and laughing as groups of Gryffindors tended to do in the common room, but Harry finds emptiness in all of them. So he had made it a habit to leave for bed early, then stare at the ceiling or curl into a ball, as if hiding could shield him from his own thoughts.

Today, like any other day, he walks up to the dormitory early. There is Quidditch practice today but Harry has not gone for several weeks now and the emptiness fills its place. It is better when they have homework due in the next day, because then there is a sense of urgency to drive him forward. Not today. It is empty. The minutes are long.

His broom lies tucked under his bed, waiting for him patiently.

For a few moments he stares at it, contemplating. If he goes down now, he could still play past sundown – the wind in his hair and the feet of the ground. He could fly. Harry misses that sensation of true freedom. He does not consciously make the decision; his hand moves on its own accord, picking up the broom by the middle. The wood is smooth under his fingers, soft and inviting, his hand fitting around it as if it belonged there.

In the common room, it is warm, especially in the armchairs close to the fire which burns low in the neatly laid out coal. Anywhere else, the floor are cold, but here the tightly woven rugs in numerous shades of red radiate a mellow warmth that can be felt even through socks and shoes. The air hums with conversation – each voice indiscernible but melding into one melody that rises and falls with time.

A few stares find their way to him and Harry shrinks back, suddenly nervous. Ron spots him, blue eyes taking in his Quidditch robes, the Nimbus in his hand.

"Harry?" Ron says. Then his expression melts into a grin. "Fred and Gorge have just left so you can catch up if you run."

Although the sun is still out, the air is frigid, forcing its way into their lungs and gripping their lungs with its icy touch. With the snow on the ground, their feet also feel the chill, even through thick shoes. Thankfully there is little wind and though the clouds are low, there is an empty patch where the sun is setting and the pitch is dazzled by the low rays which paint the sky in an array of colours – deep red near the bottom, a fiery purple higher up, melting into the sky with a purple tinged grey.

Wood is surprised to see him but evidently happy.

"Take it easy," he says.

Harry mounts the broom.

"Three. Two. One. Go!"

Kicks off.

Rises up into the sky.

There is nothing quite like flying. He soars through the sky, rising higher and faster than the others, feeling the wind against his ears, also pushing his glasses against his face. The ground below becomes quickly small and replacing the expanse of green is the Hogwarts grounds – spread out below him like a picture post-card. Far ahead, the horizon fades to a dusty line of mountains, to his left, the castle rises out of the stone as if it had grown there.

The broom under his fingers feels almost alive as it responds to his grip, until the individual motions are lost to him and all he is simply flying however he wishes. At an appropriate height, he turns in the air and looks down. The falling sensation is still there, tickling the back of his mind. Instead of trying to ignore it, he stares at it deeply, marvelling it like a precious object. He tucks it into his chest with the caress of a loving parent: sleep now, and I'll come back later.

For now, he does not want to remember the fall. He just wants to fly.

The evenings are still difficult. Harry stares at the ceiling, tired but unable to close his eyes. The heaviness is back, possibly even worse tonight after the high he had experienced earlier, pressing down on his chest like a clamp. Breathing coarse, mind numb.

Time.

Everything takes time; time to let the particulates settle, the temperature to stabilise, for plans simmer and sit. There is a long path from resolution to fruition, realisation as a thought to realisation of an idea and no shortcuts without peril. That's alright, he thinks. There is plenty of time. He is patient and familiar with the slow rolling of silent clocks, the grinding hours that trickle away as slow as treacle…

It was nothing, after all, compared to fifty years.

They stand side by side, in a corridor that is parallel to the wall of the castle that faces the lake. The sky is grey and tumbling downwards in huge sheets that move slowly through the air, melting into one another before slowly splitting off; a giant show of floating curtains that drift in the breeze. The snow has coated the grounds in a thick blanket of white, punctuated with the dark outline of trees or jutting rocks and the blue-black smudges across the surface of the frozen lake. Other than the snow, the landscape is still. No people are out, no animals are present: just the air, alive with dancing flakes.

Although warmer than outside, the air inside the castle is frigid. The stone windowsill too, half covered in snow, has a coldness to it that sinks deep into Harry's hands as he clutches it. Despite the fact it is stealing his warmth, Harry stays close to it, as only by leaning against the wall with his body thrown forward can he truly appreciate the scenery outside.

He envies Tom's height. The taller boy doesn't need to lean against the window to get a good view. He places one hand lightly on the stone in front of him anyway, and the coldness does not seem to touch his pale fingers.

The castle is quiet. It is the muffling effect of the snow but also the lack of people too; no higher tones of laughter from the corridor below, no clatter of footsteps or the occasional bang of a misplaced spell; just he creek of the moving stairs carrying no one. This is the Christmas holidays – most students are at home.

"Were you always alone over the holidays?" Harry asks.

He looks away from the snow outside and turns to Tom. From this angle, the line of his jaw is prominent. His eyes are fixed ahead and Harry sees that they are not just dark – they flicker at brown when the light hits them at just the right angle.

"No," Tom says. "But mostly."

"Were you lonely?"

"No."

It is the expected answer. Tom seems to dislike showing his own emotions - positive or negative - but sometimes, Harry can tell if there is some feeling lurking behind Tom's words. Not this time. Tom could have been saying that he did not fancy tea, with the neutrality of his tone.

"I would be, if there wasn't anyone else here," Harry says with a shrug. "But there's Ron, and Hermione stayed last year."

"If there was nobody here, would you go back?" Tom asks. For a second, Harry is confused. Back? Back where? He has no home except Hogwarts. Then realisation strikes him and he shivers unexpectedly.

"To the Dursleys? Never."

Harry looks back out of the window to the shades of grey outside – Hagrid's hut is below to the left, it's chimney hazy with smoke that is quickly lost to the dancing snow. He imagines the chimney without smoke, the windows quiet. It would be lonely, certainly, but still, he would rather stay at a silent Hogwarts, among the cold mountains of Scotland, then go anywhere near Privet Drive.

"You don't have to go back to them," Tom says.

The statement takes Harry aback and he blinks several times. It had never been an option, even if it had entered his dreams; where would he go? It wasn't like he had another place to stay.

"You're the Boy Who Lived. Someone would be delighted to let you stay over, if they knew what despicable relatives you had," Tom continues with a sly smile. There is something in his tone of voice which implies experience.

"Is that what you did, stay over at a friend's house?"

Tom laughs.

"Not quite. After my Special Award for Services to the School, the Headmaster made special arrangements," Tom says. "I spent four weeks on a Ministry internship, at Hogwarts." There is pride in his voice and an elated glee in his eyes that make them shine.

Harry's stomach swoops. He almost doesn't dare to hope that he could do the same; to stay in this enchanted castle and never see his relatives again.

"Could I…" His mouth is so dry he can barely get the words out. Tom eyes are narrowed slightly as they look at him. They are not malicious, more calculative.

"If you exposed the culprit to the recent attacks, perhaps… But you would have to be clever about it. You couldn't tell the professors that you were planning this, or they would take the chance away from you… Of course they're just trying to protect you but it wouldn't help your case…"

Harry latches onto those words like a desperate child holding a mothers hand.

"Is that why you looked for the Heir of Slytherin?"

Tom gives an elusive smile.

"Well, I have to admit, my curiosity got the better of me. The outcome was favourable though."

Harry listens to Tom, adores Tom, because Tom always has all the answers. Oh he has doubts, but he has doubts about everything, and they are lost in the admiration that he can barely conceal in their interactions. To Harry, Tom is a blessing fallen out of the sky.

Until he woke up, of course.

Yep. Cliffhanger? Maybe. Or unsatisfying ending. Sorry.

Although life is full of unsatisfying endings and that's okay because it means you can move onto the next fanfiction:)