GINNY:

When Lucy returned from her nap a few hours later, she had an absolutely dazzling smile on her face.

"You look very happy about something," I commented.

"It's Christmas," she replied, smiling wider. "Why wouldn't I be happy?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, but after a moment, I realized her smile was sincere, so I decided not to push her. "Can't argue with that logic. You didn't miss much while you were sleeping. George and Henry wanted to stay, but Henry has Quidditch practice in the morning and George offered to go back with him. Fred and Dad are outside, talking about Percy, I assume. Bill, Fleur, and Remus left shortly after you went upstairs. Mum turned in early. Harry was hungry and went to go eat more cookies in the kitchen, and, as you can see, Ron is kicking my arse at chess."

"I'll kick yours next if you're in the mood for a game," Ron offered with a grin. "If not, though, that's okay, I totally understand, I'm sure you're still tired after last night."

Lucy nodded as she flopped onto the sofa on her stomach, using her hands as a pillow. She furrowed her eyebrows, appearing to focus very intently on nothing at all, then sighed.

"What was that?" I asked, thoroughly confused.

"Remus, earlier." She wiggled one of her hands loose and cast a silencing spell before returning her hand to its original position. "He cast a silencing spell without even moving. I wanted to see if I could do the same, but apparently I can't."

"Yet," Ron said. "You can't yet."

I blinked. "Wait, speaking of Remus, did he say anything about your magic to you earlier?"

"Yeah, hence the silencing spell," Lucy replied with a smile. "Long story short, yes, I have heightened magic, but more interestingly than that, it's tied to what my Ilvermorny house would be."

"So Hermione was right?" I clarified.

Lucy nodded. "Definitely. My American friends seem to think I'd be a Thunderbird, which corresponds to my emotional magic being stronger than my other magic. The mood rings and the like."

"Wicked! Does that mean you'll stop being scared of your magic and start using it again?"

"Harry made a very similar comment," Lucy replied with a resigned smile and shake of her head. "Yes, it seems as if I was anxious over nothing."

I rolled my eyes. "You? Anxious over nothing? Imagine that."

Ron stifled a laugh behind his hand while Lucy just groaned, closed her eyes, and cut the silencing spell.

"Harry, I'm being bullied in here!" she whined.

There was a screech of kitchen chair against kitchen floor in the other room, and the door opened seconds later to reveal Harry, with an eyebrow raised.

"Oi, lay off my girl."

"Your girl?" I fired back, raising an eyebrow of my own.

Harry crossed his arms. "Yeah, and what about it?"

"Cleaned your glasses, did you?" Ron asked.

Harry looked hopelessly confused. "You Weasleys keep asking variations of that question, and I haven't the foggiest what you mean by it."

"I know what it means, but I am not explaining," Lucy said, eyes still closed, face very red. "He hasn't cleaned his glasses, no. Harry, they were accusing me of being anxious over nothing as far as my magic is concerned!"

"Well — er — you were."

Ron didn't bother trying to stifle his laugh that time, and I laughed too.

Lucy opened her eyes and pushed herself to a sitting position, a familiar playful, competitive gleam in her eyes as she smirked at Harry. Her eyes narrowed, and one of the pillows seemed to launch itself off of the sofa in the direction of Harry. It missed its mark, though, instead falling to the ground at Lucy's feet.

"Oh Merlin's balls." Lucy covered her face with her hands. "Bloody hell, kindly act like that didn't happen, or, better yet, forget that happened at all."

But it was too late. Ron was laughing so hard he'd toppled over, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, and Harry was laughing so hard his face was nearly as red as Lucy's as he sat beside her on the sofa. After a long moment, Lucy lowered her hands from her face to reveal that she was laughing too.

Harry patted her knee encouragingly, once he stopped laughing. "Don't worry, Lu, you heard Remus. It took him months of practice, and he happens to be about twenty years older than you."

"Yeah, I know," she said, her face still very very very very very red. "Thanks. I just — got overconfident. Clearly. I was all excited about getting to use that kind of magic again without worrying about it and conveniently forgot that I only use it for silencing spells and summoning spells and sparks."

"And bottle caps!" Harry added. "That trick you did at the Quidditch party in February was neat!"

Lucy nodded. "Right. Silly things like that."

"No, no, not silly," Harry argued.

"You just didn't realize how useful your pillow-launching skills could become, so you haven't practiced that much yet," Ron said encouragingly.

"Right." Lucy grinned. "Thanks, Ron."

"Any time," he replied with a grin in kind before returning his attention to the game.

A couple hours later, I was still sprawled on the floor losing to Ron at yet another game of chess, Lucy was sound asleep on the sofa, and Harry was sitting in an armchair with Flying with the Cannons lying open and unread on his lap as he glanced back and forth between our chess game and Lucy's sleeping form. Or, well, what little was visible of Lucy's sleeping form — she was very snugly tucked underneath a thick blanket. The twins had left the turntable behind, so soft ABBA music swirled around us.

As it got later and later and Lucy showed no signs of stirring, I told the boys to go on and head to bed, promising Harry that I'd make sure she got to a proper bed whenever she woke up. I made myself quite comfortable on the floor next to her, fashioning for myself a little nest of armchair cushions and blankets.

"Just you and me tonight, Lucy," I whispered, lacing my fingers behind my head and staring at the ceiling. "I hope you had a good day. You're so loved — we all love you so much. I hope you know that."

I glanced up at her. The clouds had parted a bit, so moonlight streamed through the nearby window and illuminated her face just enough for me to see details I missed in every other light.

The little flyaway baby hairs that framed her face.

The steady pulse that I could see in her temple.

The slight furrow of her brow, even in sleep.

The soft shape of her lips.

"How could you ever see yourself as a monster?" I wondered aloud as I found myself staring, captivated by the marvel of a girl sleeping so peacefully on the sofa above me.

Surely the little flyaway baby hairs framing her face in that moment were the same ones that were the first to stick to her forehead with sweat when we played Quidditch together. Surely that pulse in her temple raced with excitement whenever she saw a creature she loved, from Tuck to Norbert and everything in between. Surely that furrow in her brow disappeared when she let herself fully enjoy a moment without worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. Surely those same lips that were capable of releasing the most heart-wrenching screams and sobs I'd ever heard could contain so much love too, for whoever was lucky enough to kiss her one day.

I swallowed all of my emotions with tremendous effort and sighed. "I know you can't even hear me, but you're no monster, okay? You were far kinder to Percy today than any of the rest of us would have been, for one. You managed to forgive Hermione after the Marietta Edgecombe incident, for two. You kept on loving the world even when you had every reason to hate it after Cedric died. I watched you keep Harry and Ron and Hermione afloat your third year even when the dementors and the drama affected you too. And bloody hell, you've always been so unfailingly kind to me, even when we were kids, before we were properly friends." I pressed a kiss to the tip of my index finger and gently tapped the tip of her nose. "You're the best person I know, Lucy Everlin Diggory. Don't you forget that."

I hadn't fallen asleep quite yet when the door to the living room creaked open to reveal Harry, bleary-eyed as he shed the invisibility cloak.

His eyes widened when he saw us. "Bloody hell, sorry, I forgot you two were down here."

"You alright, Potter?" I asked, propping myself up on an elbow.

"Nightmare," he explained as he dropped onto an armchair. I opened my mouth to warn him that I'd stolen the cushions, but he had fully sat his arse all the way down before I could say a word. He hissed and jumped up. "What the — "

I gestured to my lovely nest. "Sorry. Had to sleep comfortably somehow."

"That does look comfortable," he said, lowering himself gingerly to the floor.

"It is." I offered him a cushion to sit on, but he shook his head. "I'm no Lucy, but I'll listen if you want to talk about the nightmare."

"I just haven't had a nightmare about your dad in a while," he confessed after a long pause. "About — the snake. Last year."

"Ah." I bit my lip, weighing the pros and cons of being vulnerable in that moment. On one hand, it was Harry. He had more than enough going on, and he had a tendency to act like Lucy was the only person in the world who ever understood him. She understood him best, no one ever argued that, but the rest of us did try to get it through his thick skull that we cared about him and could empathize with him even if we didn't truly understand everything about him. It was a losing fight, we all knew it, but we tried anyway when we had the emotional energy to spare, and I was feeling very low on emotional energy to spare in that moment. But on the other hand, he'd been vulnerable with me first when he didn't have to be, and he looked so damn sad and self-loathing in that moment I had to say something. "For what it's worth, I still have nightmares about a snake too. The basilisk. And Riddle, and what he made me do, and what he wanted to make me do."

Harry stared at me, processing what I'd said.

"The most frequent nightmare I've had recently is about you, actually," I admitted. "In that nightmare, Riddle wants me to turn the basilisk on you and Lucy."

Harry stiffened, paling considerably. "Lucy? Why?"

"Relax, Potter, it's just a dream. You killed the basilisk, remember?"

"I know, but — what does he want with Lucy? Wanting to kill me makes sense, but why her?"

I shrugged. "I've talked to Hermione about it, because it was bothering me too, it doesn't make sense. You're right, him wanting to kill you makes sense — no offense — but Lucy's a pure-blood, so he has no reason to want her dead, right? In fact, as we learned, her being a pure-blood and a werewolf makes her... desirable, in a way, to him and to his cause and all of that rubbish. Once Hermione talked me through that, she told me it's most likely just a projection of my fears. I don't want to lose either of you, and, well, historically, you two are most likely to die."

"Historically, I'm most likely to not die," he said with a snort. "The 'Boy Who Lived' and all. But — " He glanced over my head at Lucy. " — I see what you mean." He released a deep breath, sounding a little relieved. "Just a dream. Just you projecting your fears. That's all."

"Yeah." I nodded. "And I'm sorry you had a nightmare about what happened a year ago, but Dad's fine. He made it."

Harry nodded, more to himself than to me. "Yeah."

In the silence that followed, Lucy mumbled something. Naturally, Harry and I both crept closer to her, to eavesdrop. I knew from experience that when Lucy started mumbling in her sleep, it was often entertaining. One time, sound asleep, Lucy had told Maxence Auclair she'd shove a broomstick so far up his arse it would destroy what was left of his brain.

That night, however, she appeared to be in the throes of a nightmare like Harry had been.

She was breathing heavily. "Kill me, then," she grit out. She thrashed around for a couple of seconds, then went eerily still. "I see her."

I glanced at Harry, confused. His eyes were wide as he lunged forward.

"Lucy, Lucy, it's okay, you're safe, wake up," he said, shaking her shoulder. "Lucy, you're safe, you're at the Burrow, it's okay."

Lucy's eyes snapped open, and she shot up to a sitting position, visibly panicking.

I jumped into action and sat down next to her, reaching out to rub her back, but she pushed us aside and got to her feet, heading in the direction of the kitchen as fast as she could. Harry and I moved as one, following her.

She pushed through the door and almost bumped directly into Fred, who had been staring out the window and twirling his wand around his fingers.

Fred blinked. "Cub? Are you okay?" She shoved past him without answering, so he glanced at us for an explanation.

"She was having a nightmare," I explained haltingly, "but this is new."

"Lucy, what do you need?" Harry asked.

I peered around Fred to see Lucy frantically rifling through kitchen drawers.

"Parchment," she panted, turning around, eyes wild, "and a quill. Anything that'll let me draw."

Wordlessly, Fred pulled a scrap of parchment and a quill from his pocket and passed both to Lucy.

"Thanks." Lucy dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and started feverishly drawing something.

The three of us exchanged confused looks as we gathered around her to see what she was drawing. Stroke by stroke, a teddy bear with a heart on its tummy came to life on the parchment.

"What's that, Cub?" Fred asked after a minute.

Lucy passed the quill back to him, folded the parchment, and stuck it in her pocket. "Thanks. I just — I saw it in my dream and I — I wanted to remember it." She managed a smile for a moment before it faded to an expression of scrutiny. "Why are you awake? George is usually the one awake at this hour, and you were up all night with me last night."

Fred glanced back out the window. "Lot on my mind."

"Percy?"

Fred nodded wordlessly.

Lucy studied him for a long moment before speaking. "Nothing about anything has been easy for anyone for a long time." She turned to stare out the window with him. "You know, Henry told me something on the anniversary of Cedric's death that I found quite wise, and I think it applies quite nicely to this situation too. He said future problems are more easily resolved than past regrets. The past, for better or for worse, already happened. But the future is something we actively shape every day." She sighed. "I might not know every detail of what you and Percy have said and done to each other over the years, and I don't need to. That's the past."

Harry gently snagged me by the shoulder and gestured toward the living room. We slipped away, but as soon as the door closed, we pressed our ears up against it. Fred clearly needed to talk, and he'd do it more freely if it was just Lucy around, but we were nosy. Always had been, always would be.

"Past and present, we've been awful to each other," Fred mumbled. "It's quite reciprocal. It's not all on Percy, not by a long shot."

"The past shapes the present, but it doesn't have to define it. We all have choices we have to make every day. It's equal parts exhausting and refreshing, if you think about it. I happen to be of the opinion that your family is full of good people, Percy included. Good people can make bad choices, unintentionally or otherwise. Good people can make neutral choices, or even good choices, that have harmful impacts. We don't often know the full scope of the consequences of every choice we make, and that's okay. We just do the best we can with the knowledge we have."

"She's including herself in that 'good people' description, did you hear that?" Harry whispered to me, beaming.

I blinked, then nodded. She had. I smiled back at him.

"Where were you, all those years ago?" Fred asked after a moment. Harry, inexplicably, tensed beside me, looking like he had half a mind to go in there and answer the question himself. "You fit so seamlessly into our family the handful of times you were here before you started school. Cedric too, of course, but especially you, Lucy. And, I mean, when the scrappy little first-year on Harry's broom turned out to be our neighbor, well, we couldn't help but wonder how you'd escaped our notice for so long, considering you had that amount of spunk just begging for release."

"Yeah, well, something else, something far more sinister than 'spunk,' begs for release once a month," Lucy retorted, her tone surprisingly light. "As a kid, I spent a lot of time either sick or nursing werewolf injuries or both, so the excuse was most often something along the lines of 'They'd be suspicious and they'd figure out you're a werewolf and that would be horrible.' My parents had other reasons for hiding me too — some I knew at the time, some I didn't — but they didn't want my secret to be exposed."

"For your benefit, or theirs?"

Lucy snorted. "Touché. At any rate, that's where I was. Hiding. I think they let me start coming here over summer once I successfully hid my secret at school. I prefer hiding in plain sight, given the choice between the two."

"There'll come a day when you don't have to hide at all, and I'm looking forward to that."

"I hope I'll make the right choice, when that day comes," Lucy confessed quietly. "I have to make more decisions every day than you think, hence why I think I'm so qualified to get up on my soapbox and deliver a lecture on choices. Certain ones come more easily than others, certain ones have more predictable consequences than others, but... I still have my doubts. I'm constantly afraid that I'm making the wrong choice. But, well, that's life."

"That's life," Fred echoed. "C'mon, you look like you need a hug." He spoke again after a couple of moments. "For what it's worth, Lucy Diggory, I'm beyond happy that I get the honor of experiencing life with you."

I jumped up and burst into the room and joined the hug, unable to contain myself. "Me too!"

"Me three," Harry said, joining the hug a second later.

"Oh Merlin, I had no idea you two were eavesdropping," Fred commented sarcastically. "What a surprise."

I gasped in mock horror. "We were not! Did you drop any eaves, Harry?"

"No eaves were in fact dropped," he said.

Fred ruffled my hair, then Harry's. "Alright." He ruffled Lucy's hair last. "Get this one properly to bed, will you?"

"Of course," Harry and I replied in unison.

Suddenly, Lucy yanked herself free of us, her head whipping toward the window.

I followed her gaze but saw nothing. The clouds had moved while we were sleeping, so they were once again obscuring the moon. "Er — everything okay?"

Instead of answering, she muttered "Stay here" before tearing off.

Naturally, none of us did, and we raced after her as she sprinted out the front door.

I skidded to a stop on her left side, Harry on her right.

"What is it?" Harry asked quietly.

Lucy's eyes were trained on the darkness in front of us. "We aren't alone."

"Should I get Mum and Dad?" Fred asked.

When Lucy nodded, Fred told us to follow back inside and not get any crazy ideas before darting into the house.

"I know you're here," Lucy called as soon as Fred was gone. "Leave, and you won't be harmed."

"You really think you can stop me?" a menacing voice replied.

"Yeah, I do," Lucy fired back, marching forward. "You don't scare me, Fenrir Greyback. I won't let you hurt my family."

"Haven't I already?"

Before Lucy could respond, a wall of fire appeared. It rapidly spread left and right, soon completely encircling the house with the exception of one small gap in front of her.

Harry charged forward and grabbed Lucy by the shoulder and started pulling her back, but a shrill giggle split the night, and he froze.

"I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black!" Bellatrix screeched.

"Harry, no!" Lucy said, but it was too late.

Harry had already dropped Lucy's shoulder and sprinted right through the gap the fire, disappearing into the night.

And just like that, Lucy sprinted right through the fire after Harry.

And just like that, I sprinted through the fire after Lucy, and the gap closed behind me.

Lucy gained on Harry faster than I did. As soon as she caught up to him, she grabbed him and started shaking him by the shoulders.

"Harry, stop, please, I miss Sirius very much too and I want revenge too but not here, not tonight, the three of us are no match for Bellatrix and Greyback — "

"You're right!"

Lucy hands fell from Harry's shoulders as she slowly turned toward the sound of Bellatrix's voice, so much closer than expected.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously at Bellatrix, who emerged from the trees right next to us with a wicked smile on her face.

Bellatrix started to reach for her wand, but before she could even get it out of her robe pocket, Lucy screamed, "NO!"

I found myself flying, launched entirely off my feet and twisted through the air before I hit the ground hard.

The world went black.

As soon as my eyes opened, without wasting a second, I scrambled to my feet and looked around to see that Harry was doing the same, across the field from me. Lucy was standing a far ways off, completely frozen as she looked back and forth between us.

Harry and I rushed forward as one over to her.

"I'm so sorry," she said breathlessly. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

"What, why?" I asked.

Harry gently took her chin in his hand. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" she replied, backing away, her face so pale it was a wonder that we had been the unconscious ones.

"Yeah, I'm okay, Lu," Harry said. He glanced at me meaningfully.

I nodded. "I'm okay too, I promise. What happened?"

"I don't — I don't know, I — I just could tell that — that she wanted to hurt you and I — I couldn't let that happen, so I — I did something and — and it scared her enough that she disapparated on the spot, and everyone else disapparated too, but — but I — I didn't want her to hurt you and I wanted to protect you but then I hurt you and — and I'm so — so sorry, and — "

"Lucy, it is okay," I said slowly and firmly. "We are okay."

"I hurt you," she whispered, shaking her head and taking another step backwards.

Harry glanced over his shoulder at the Burrow. "The fire's out. Lucy, when you say 'everyone else' — "

"There were others. More than Bellatrix and Greyback. Hiding in the trees."

"And they all left?"

Lucy nodded.

"Sounds to me like you saved us, Lucy," I said.

"I hurt you," she said again, backing up again.

I stepped toward her. "No, you saved us."

She shook her head again. "No. Don't say that. Please. I hurt you."

"Lucy — " Harry started, but before he could say more than that, distant frantic shouts reached our ears.

"Ginny!"

"Harry!"

"Lucy!"

"Ginny!"

"Lucy!"

"Harry!"

Harry exhaled sharply and started trudging back to the Burrow. I started to follow him, but Lucy remained rooted to the ground, staring at her stockinged feet with her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

"Lucy," I said, "come on."

Harry stopped and turned around. "Lu. Please."

I half-expected Lucy to be crying, but when she glanced up, her eyes were dry. Without a word, she started following us, and we walked back toward the Burrow in silence.

"They're over there!" a relieved Ron shouted, and soon, he was hugging me so tightly I thought my ribs would shatter. Before they could, though, he left me to go hug Lucy, then Harry. "You're all mental. Are you okay?"

"Yes," I replied, looking hard at Lucy, who was staring at the house with storms in her eyes. "We're all perfectly okay."

Mum, Dad, and Fred caught up to us then.

Fred pulled Lucy and me to him quickly before letting us go. "Don't worry, they're all gone, we were able to put out the fire once they left, they didn't even touch the house. Now that you're back, we'll expand the wards just in case anyone gets any wise ideas about coming back."

"Let's get inside," Dad suggested, pulling me to him in a side hug while Mum started ushering Lucy and Harry inside.

Once the door closed behind us, Mum, Dad, and Ron stared at the rest of us, curious expressions on their faces.

Dad found his voice first. "While I'm very glad that we are all safe, why in Merlin's name were the three of you outside in the middle of the night in December in the first place?"

I glanced at Lucy, hoping she'd explain more of how she'd known something was wrong, but her breath was coming quietly, almost imperceptibly, in short inhales and shaky exhales as her face got redder and redder and redder. Before I could come up with something to say, Fred jumped in.

"I never went back to the flat after our talk, Dad. I was in the kitchen thinking about everything when I heard everyone apparate. I sent a patronus off to the flat through the Floo network and went upstairs to wake you two and Ron. I didn't realize the other three were still downstairs. They must have heard something too and gone outside to investigate, as they're unfortunately prone to doing."

"I heard Bellatrix," Harry said. "She was taunting me. I chased her. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

"Then Lucy and I chased after Harry," I explained. "Then they all disapparated at once. I'm... not exactly sure why." It wasn't a lie, and it wasn't the full truth, but it would have to do.

Lucy offered no help, standing there silently, face reddening, breathing quickening.

Dad sighed. "Well, once we got outside, Fred spotted Greyback and started dueling him, so your mother and I jumped in to help while Ron started trying to put the fire out, but Greyback disapparated suddenly too. Then we put the fire out and realized you three were gone, and, well, here we are."

"Here we are," Mum echoed, voice trembling violently. "You four best head off to bed while Dad and I tinker with the wards. Fred, you best figure out where that patronus of yours ended up. I didn't even know a patronus could be sent through the Floo network."

"I, er, am just now realizing that I forgot to add the Floo powder, so I do believe my patronus is just sitting in our chimney," Fred admitted with a somewhat-sheepish grin.

Ron snorted. "What did you do, just shout 'expecto patronum' into the fireplace and hope for the best?"

"No! I shouted 'Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' first! But, er, I'll go tell George what happened now."

With that, Fred headed in the direction of the living room, and Mum and Dad headed outside. I half-expected Ron and Harry to follow us girls to my room, but instead, they stayed on the stairs. In the candlelight, I could see that Harry was feeling the same way I was — a little dizzy, a little bruised, but fine, because we needed to be fine for Lucy's sake, we were fine, we'd both objectively suffered far worse injuries and it was worth it to be a little injured and have the Burrow still be standing than to be unscathed but homeless. When we made eye contact, we nonverbally agreed that we just needed to get to bed and sleep it off before Lucy could suspect we were any less fine than we were letting on.

"See you in the morning," Harry said, a little too forcefully, a little too cheerfully.

Lucy stared at him, still not saying a word.

Harry stared back for a moment before hurrying over to hug Lucy. He held on for one second, two, three, four, five before finally letting go. As he backed toward the stairs, he looked at her longingly.

"Good night," she whispered.

Ron and Harry both studied Lucy for a long moment, but she turned on her heel and walked into my room without another word. I offered an apologetic shrug before hurrying to follow her.

I closed the door behind us and watched for a couple of seconds as Lucy walked toward the window, thought better of it, and sat down heavily on her bed.

Without second thought, I sat down next to her.

"What is it?" I asked. When she offered me no answer, I reached for her left hand with my right and interlocked our fingers. "You didn't do anything wrong. You saved us, you know that, right?" When she still didn't answer, I squeezed her hand and turned to face her. "Talk to me, Lucy, please."

"You should sleep," she said after a long moment, still not looking at me, still staring off into the distance, still red in the face, still struggling to breathe. "We, I mean. We should sleep."

I wanted to push her, I wanted to argue, really I did, but I trusted Harry's judgement. If he was going to sleep, I figured I ought to follow his lead and do the same. Surely Lucy would feel better come morning, once she'd slept more. She always felt better once she'd slept. That must have been what he was thinking. I trusted Harry to know Lucy, better than I did. But still, I couldn't help myself.

"You're sure you'd rather sleep than talk about it?" I asked.

Lucy's voice was tight with unshed tears. "I'm just really sorry."

"You have no reason to be — "

"We should sleep," she interrupted. "We can talk about it in the morning, if you really want to talk about it. With Harry. No sense in repeating the same conversation twice, you know?" She offered me a weak smile and a weak laugh as she squeezed my hand back. "Besides, you look tired."

"Well, yeah, and so do you, it's the middle of the night and the full moon was last night — "

"We should sleep," Lucy said a third time. She tugged her hand free of mine and shooed me off of her bed onto my own so she could swing her legs up. She laced her fingers together on her stomach and closed her eyes. "Good night, Ginny."

I crawled under my covers, still eyeing Lucy warily. "See you in the morning, Lucy."

"Good night," she repeated.

Despite my misgivings, I could feel sleep tugging me down, down, down, down, down. I blew out the candle between our beds, submerging the room in darkness.

I didn't close my eyes, though, instead letting them adjust to the darkness. Lucy's eyes remained closed. I didn't think she was asleep, not really, but I still waited a couple of minutes before I whispered it, like a secret, even though it was far from a secret.

"I love you."

Lucy's breath hitched. I watched as she swallowed with considerable effort.

"I love you too," she replied. She opened her eyes a crack and looked at me. "Good night, Ginny."

"Good night," I relented, finally resting my throbbing head against my pillow and letting my eyes sink shut, thinking to myself about how it had been just a few hours ago that we were laughing about her failed attempt to launch the pillow at Harry. Thinking to myself about how it had been just a couple hours ago that I had been watching Lucy sleep and wondering how she could ever possibly think of herself as a monster. Blissfully unaware of the trouble, the trap, brewing on the horizon, just a couple hours later. I found myself wondering if we'd spend the rest of our lives chasing those little moments of light until one day the darkness swallowed us whole.

No. The darkness would never swallow us whole. Lucy would never let the light flicker out for anyone else. I remembered, so vividly, the way she'd watched the candle on the table in Grimmauld Place all night while we worried about Dad. She watched it like she was ready to jump into action and light it again if it dared to flicker out.

Lucy's own candle, though, the one deep down inside her, the one that made her eyes sparkle and her smile shine, was in danger of going out again. I'd seen it go out once before, when Cedric had died, and I'd be damned if I watched it go out again right in front of me, so soon after it had sparked to life again.

I wasn't sure if Lucy's fire would spark to life a second time, if it disappeared again.

I tried to open my eyes, get out of bed, do something, anything to help Lucy, but my body felt too heavy. Just before sleep claimed me, I snaked my arm out from under my covers and reached for her. A hand for her to take, if she needed it throughout the night.

"Stay," I whispered, not sure if she'd even hear me, not sure if I was even speaking out loud with how tired I was.

I'd chase more little moments of light in the morning. For Lucy. Anything for Lucy. Always for Lucy.