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Turning Point
By St Margarets

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Category: Hogwarts Discovery Challenge (2005-6)
Characters:None
Genres: Fluff
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 89
Summary: ** Winner of Best Overall & Best Romantic in the Hogswarts Discovery Challenge **
The longest night of the year is the turning point for Harry and Ginny. A one-shot written for the Hogwarts Discovery Challenge, set in Ginny's sixth year. HBP spoilers.
Hitcount: Story Total: 9603



Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.





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A/N: I'm back! It's been such a long time since I've posted anything at SIYE! Thanks to Sir Ollivander for dreaming up such a fun challenge and thanks to redlightspecial and Darker_Ragefor the beta!

Turning Point

"Do you think it could be true," Luna asked Ginny as they left Professor Frienze's Divination classroom, "that this solstice will bring a new hope for the war against You- Know-Who?"

Ginny sighed and shifted her rucksack. Double Divination with the Ravenclaws was doubly tedious since Luna always managed to nudge Professor Firenze off on a tangent. In this last class before the Christmas holiday, it was especially irritating because Ginny had been hoping that Firenze would let them out early. All hopes of a quick broom ride around the grounds before sunset had been dashed, however, when Luna had started talking about the meaning of the winter solstice.

"Ginny?" Luna stopped and studied her with concern in her blue eyes.

Some of Ginny's irritation melted at the sight of Luna's cheerful round red earrings. They were the size of gobstones and so shiny that Ginny could see her own distorted reflection in them.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "I don't know if Professor Firenze meant this year or in twenty years."

Luna nodded. "Still, I like what he said about the light being born out of the darkness. It makes so much sense."

It made no sense to Ginny since she didn't see the point of light being born at all. Light was just there: and this time of year in the far north, there just wasn't enough light.

Maybe that's why she was feeling depressed.

Or maybe it was because she was to spend her first Christmas away from every member of her family since they thought she was safest at Hogwarts. Or maybe it was because she hadn't seen or heard from Harry in six months . . . and counting.

Stop it, she told herself as they walked to the staircase by the Entrance Hall. All of the people she loved were still alive and well. There were so many of her classmates who had suffered terrible losses — far worse than what she had endured. And she was still lucky enough to live the life of a schoolgirl, worried about Quidditch and homework - while Harry, Ron and Hermione were fighting Voldemort.

At least she could try to be cheerful.

They had just reached the staircase when Peeves swooped down on Luna and nicked one of her red orbs. "I have the Quaffle!" he chortled as he tossed it high into the air.

"Oh dear," Luna sighed.

"Give that back!" Ginny dropped her rucksack on the stone floor with a thump. It felt good to yell, even if it was just at Peeves.

"Why should I?" Peeves stuck his tongue out at them and zoomed down the stairs that lead to the kitchens.

"Peeves!" Leaving her rucksack behind, Ginny chased after him, Luna puffing beside her.

"I'm the king of the castle!" Peeves called as he grabbed the round stone newel post from the stair railing on the landing.

"Oh!" Luna stopped in the middle of the staircase. "Are we having a Saturnalia this year?" she asked Peeves, who was now juggling the red orb from her earring and the heavy, marble orb from the railing.

"Peeves doesn't talk to Luna —" He glided farther down the staircase and twitched a muscle in his cheek. "Tics!"

"Stop it!" Ginny yelled, taking out her wand. Luna's bright shiny orb was going to be smashed, judging by the careless way Peeves was tossing it into the air.

"Weasley isn't our king anymore!" Peeves chortled at her, hovering cross-legged, seven feet in the air over the bottom step.

"Yes, but you won't be king past the twelfth day of Saturnalia," Luna called earnestly. "The king is always sacrificed for the good of the kingdom."

"Can't kill a poltergeist!" Peeves taunted, turning upside down and juggling the orbs with his feet.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny could see Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, skulking behind a suit of armor in the corridor leading to the Hufflepuff common room. It was time to end this before Filch showed up. "Accio red orb!" she called.

The gleaming red ball zoomed obediently toward Ginny. Peeves let out a roar of dismay and kicked the stone orb high into the air.

Just as Ginny was going to catch Luna's orb, a stubby-fingered hand reached in front of her and grabbed the ball. "No magic in the corridors!" Mr. Filch yelled triumphantly.

Ginny yelped in surprise and at the same moment, Filch yelped in pain as the stone ball Peeves had been juggling landed on his foot. Filch immediately dropped the orb to grab his foot with both hands. The shiny red ball bounced merrily down the stairs past Mrs. Norris. Peeves shrieked with delight as Luna ran anxiously to Filch who was now frantically tearing off his shoe and sock.

Grateful for the diversion, Ginny followed the red ball, which was rolling smoothly in the grooves between the rough flagstones, picking up speed as the floor sloped downward. Wand still in hand, she followed it past the painting of fruit that guarded the entrance to the kitchens, past Mr. Filch's office, past the numerous supply cupboards, and into an area Ginny had never seen before.

The corridor dead-ended in what looked to be the base of one of the many round towers of Hogwarts. Here the red ball found a groove where the flagstones of the floor met the curved wall. The orb, seemingly with a magic of its own, traversed the perimeter of the empty room, making one complete circle before picking up speed and starting the circuit again. Ginny stood in the middle of the round room and watched it. She could have stopped the ball at anytime, but there was something mesmerizing in the sight and sound of that shiny ball clicking so smoothly along the wall. After the second circle was complete, Ginny felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

There was magic in the air now.

Her eyes widened as she felt the floor tremble. The ball rolled on in its inexorable path. Ginny tightened her grip on her wand and looked wildly around — was it an earthquake? Something was moving underneath her; the floor was pulling away from the walls as the ball cut a neat circle. With a shriek, she tried to scramble back into the corridor, but it was too late. The floor was dropping into the darkness taking Ginny along for the ride.

*

"I can't believe we're sneaking into Hogwarts," Ron said, as their tiny rowboat crossed the lake. They could see fairly well, since Hogwarts Castle was ablaze with lights and some of them were reflected in the murky water below.

"We're not really sneaking," Hermione said, pulling her cloak a little tighter around her neck and moving closer to Ron on the narrow seat. "Professor McGonagall knows we're coming sometime over the holidays. And we're not out of bounds since we're still technically students." Then she looked sharply at Ron. "You are still doing the correspondence course Hogwarts offered all homebound students, right?"

"Um," Ron began.

Even though it was dark, Harry could tell Ron was blushing guiltily. He and Ron had just spent the past month tracking down the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes. School had been the farthest thing from their minds.

"That's all right," Hermione said in a softer voice. "I know you two have been busy." Harry couldn't tell for sure but he thought Ron had his arm around Hermione. "Once we're done destroying the Horcruxes, maybe I can help you with your assignments."

"Sounds good." Ron sounded relieved — probably because Hermione wasn't going to scold them. Harry really wasn't surprised at Hermione's softened attitude. She hadn't seen Ron in several months. Absence did indeed make the heart grow fonder, Harry decided, watching Hermione put her head on Ron's shoulder.

Harry didn't want to think about his own heart at the moment. He just wanted to destroy the four Horcruxes he had in his rucksack and then move on to the last unthinkable part of his task.

"Right, Hermione," he said, shifting in the bottom of the boat so he could peer over the bow. "In Hogwarts, A History, where did it say the ancient entrance used to be to the castle?" The boat was taking them straight toward the beach where Hagrid had led them up the stairs to the Entrance Hall in their first year.

"Under that tower," Hermione answered.

"But it's guarded by rocks," Harry protested. Tall, slime covered boulders rose six feet high above the dark waves. The rocks were so closely grouped together that even their tiny boat couldn't slip between them.

"Maybe we could levitate a few out of the way," Ron suggested.

"I don't think so," Hermione said doubtfully. "Especially if they're guarding the ancient magic that's supposed to be underneath the castle. Harry, direct the boat closer to the rocks."

He tapped the side of the boat with his wand and it swung toward the tower. "Now what?" he asked over his shoulder.

"That note R.A.B. left with the locket," Ron began. "It said the ancient magic was at Hogwarts. You don't think he meant the Basilisk, do you? I mean that's how Harry killed the soul in Riddle's diary."

"But Dumbledore destroyed the soul in the ring," Hermione said, a trace of her old impatience back in her voice. "And the Basilisk was long gone."

"And his hand was blackened like it had been burnt," Harry said. "So it couldn't have been an animal."

"Unless it was Fawkes that somehow burned the thing," Ron suggested.

"Fawkes is ancient, that's for sure — but —"

"Fawkes would never have hurt Dumbledore," Harry interrupted.

"Whatever it is, we can't find out until we find a way to get through these rocks," Ron reminded them. "Too bad the Marauder's map didn't show it."

Harry shrugged. He had brought the map along just in case. At least he could look at it at some point and see the name 'Ginny Weasley.' Then he would know that she wasn't just a dream. And he would know exactly where she was in the castle — whether she was walking gracefully down the corridor or sitting in the common room, twirling a lock of bright hair on her finger as she read. Or perhaps she was lying on her bed with her eyes closed, her long lashes sweeping her cheeks, her lips slightly parted as she slept.

He swallowed a lump in his throat. He would not think about her or about how tantalizingly close he was to her. The temptation would be too great to put on his invisibility cloak and seek her out.

"Okay — rocks - straight ahead," Ron said from behind him.

"Why don't we try to activate the rocks like we did with the Room of Requirement?" Hermoine said suddenly. "We'll go back and forth in front of them and think really hard."

It was as good of an idea as any, except that it didn't work. Hermione shivered in the cold night, her breath a white cloud as she spoke, "This isn't working."

The boat bobbed gently on the waves as they sat in silence. Harry leaned against the side of the boat and looked up at the night sky. The stars always seemed brighter here than anywhere else. He found the North Star and thought about ancient magic — according to Firenze, the light from the stars was so ancient that no witch or wizard could ever fathom it.

Magic, he thought, staring at the bright North Star, I need some magic.

His head started to whirl. He thought for a moment that he was dizzy from looking up, but it was the boat itself that was the cause. They were turning in a tight circle, the water rushing around them.

"What's happening?" Hermione gasped.

They spiraled downward with ever increasing speed, the circular motion throwing the water away from them in a perfect column.

"I think we found the ancient magic," Ron answered.

*

It was dark. So dark, that Ginny wondered for one mad second if the blow to the head she had just suffered had blinded her. She was stiff all over and shivering from the damp cold of the stones she was lying on.

"Lumos," she whispered.

Nothing happened.

Panicked, she ran her fingers over her wand. It was still there, gripped tightly in her right hand. It seemed to be intact, she realized with relief as she rubbed its smooth, familiar surface. Why didn't it work?

"Lumos," she said in a louder voice.

Nothing.

She started to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. Think, she commanded, think. An image of a candle flickering in the darkness popped into her mind. If only I had a candle, she thought, concentrating on the golden flame in her mind's eye. At its heart, the fire was blue, then gold, and then white. Suddenly her wand tip lit up, creating such a bright circle of light, that Ginny knew the incantation Lumos hadn't conjured it. They had been learning nonverbal spells; perhaps she had just stumbled upon an unfamiliar one.

Whatever method she had used, she was glad for the wide, cheerful glow of the light, so different from the narrow, rather austere beam of Lumos.

Holding her wand out like a lantern, she could see that she was in another round room, this one smaller than the tower room that had delivered her here. She turned around slowly, looking for a door or a hatchway for her escape. There was nothing. She was trapped; unless there was some way she could climb up the rough stone walls.

She lowered her wand and looked up into the darkness. Magic, she thought. I need some magic.

A faint scraping sound echoed in the silent room. Ginny looked at her feet and saw Luna's shiny red orb, rolling across the floor to the wall. With a soft clink, it bumped into the wall and started to make another circle.

As it traced its way around the room, Ginny sat cross-legged on the floor in anticipation; if she was going to take another ride with the floor, she was going to be ready. This time the ball did not stay in the groove by the wall. It started to make smaller and smaller circles around her, until it was so close it brushed her shoe. She felt the floor beneath her trembling. The split second before she plummeted, Ginny imagined sand — loose, powdery white sand - to break her fall.

And incredibly, she landed on her bottom in yet another round room. But this time the floor was covered with heaps of white sand that sparkled from the glow of her wand light.

"Oh!" She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. The magic had worked. Somehow, her thoughts and the red ball were helping her find her way safely down this labyrinth.

She stood up and immediately sank to her ankles in the fine powder. Take me where I need to go, she thought, imaging the shiny orb effortlessly rolling through the deep sand.

Ginny didn't need to look at her feet to confirm that the faint crunching sound was the sand compressing under the slight weight of the ball rolling inexorably to her fate.

*

"Where are we?" Ron asked.

"Some place dark," Harry answered. Their voices sounded curiously muffled.

"Do you think we're at the lowest point at Hogwarts?" Ron asked.

"Um. I think we're under the lake if that's possible," Hermione said nervously. They were still in the rowboat, but they had beached on something solid.

"Lumos," Harry said.

Nothing happened.

"Lumos," Hermione said in a louder voice.

Still nothing.

"Why won't my magic work here?" she said fretfully.

"Cause whoever rigged this probably didn't speak Latin," Ron observed.

"That's — " Hermione began. "No — wait. That's brilliant. Of course. Hogwarts, A History is wrong! Hogwarts Castle is older than the Founders time! When R.A.B said ancient magic — he really meant ancient magic — like before Roman times — like pre- history."

"Just our luck, we're going to fight mad dinosaurs, aren't we?" Ron groaned.

"Humans weren't alive at the same time as dinosaurs," Hermione said impatiently. "This is ancient human magic. I'm guessing that the base — the true foundation of Hogwarts — was a made by one of the ancient magical tribes."

Harry could almost hear her frowning in concentration. "The aboriginal people must have needed sanctuary from the giants," she said slowly. "That's why the portal was so small. No giant could have fit through that column of water."

"Okay, we're safe from giants," Ron said impatiently. "Now what?"

"We'll have to use nonverbal magic — because I don't think our spells will work," Hermione answered. "I think everything we do will have to be magic like we used to activate the Room of Requirement."

"So think about light," Harry said abruptly. "Imagine light at the end of your wand."

Ron's wand tip glowed orange and the light looked so warm and inviting that Harry expected it to start crackling like a hearth fire. Hermione's was as narrow and intensely white as a laser; Harry's glowed like the molten gold of the sun on a hot afternoon.

"Wow," Ron said. They were in a large circular room of rough hewn stone with a low ceiling. It appeared to be the rather unremarkable foundation for the tower above except for the drawings covering every inch of the walls. "I definitely believe we're not supposed to be here."

"Why not?" Hermione argued. "This is part of Hogwarts. It's a good place."

"Oh yeah? Check out some of those pictures," Ron said.

"Oh, my," Hermione breathed, stepping out of the boat and rushing to a large drawing of a giant falling to the earth after being hit on the head by what looked to be a meteor. Like all wizarding illustrations, these drawings moved. They moved so much that the room seemed to be spinning with them.

Harry looked away from the whirling drawings and saw that in the center of the room was a simple circle of stones. "Look at this," he called.

They stared at the small stone circle. This must be the location of the source.

"The drawings will tell us what to do," Hermione said confidently. "This was the aboriginal wizard's school after all."

"Here's a new, inventive way we could kill Snape," Ron said, pointing to a picture of a writhing wizard with a Hippogriff pecking out his dripping heart.

"Snape doesn't have a heart," Harry pointed out.

"Would you two stop? We don't have a lot of time, you know," Hermione said, directing her laser beam shaft of light higher on the wall. "And stop looking at the fertility rites, Ron," she added without turning around.

Harry exchanged amused glances with Ron and continued to look for clues in the drawings. Finally, Hermione found the key: a picture of a stag and a unicorn.

"You mean we have to kill a stag and a unicorn?" Ron's jaw dropped.

"Don't you remember anything?" Hermione snapped. "This is alchemy — the final stage before gold. The animals represent the mystical marriage of sulphur and mercury."

"Back to fertility rites then," Harry said with a grin. The stag looked so familiar that he felt more cheerful already.

"Not literally!" Hermione rolled her eyes. "They never brought real animals in here. There are no bones or anything. No." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "These animals have to be conjured."

"Easy enough if we were Animagi," Ron sighed, running his hand through his hair.

"What about a Patronus?" Harry asked.

Hermione's eyes widened. "Yes! That's it." But then she frowned. "Do you think you could do a Patronus without the incantation?"

Harry nodded. All he had to do was think of Voldemort dead at his feet and he could muster a Patronus.

"Okay, we have a stag. But we need a unicorn," Ron said. "Who do we know who has a unicorn Patronus?"

Harry swallowed and looked from Ron to Hermione. He had been trying to avoid involving her from the beginning, but now it looked as if he had no choice. "Ginny," he said. "Ginny has a unicorn Patronus."

*

It seemed she had been following the shiny red ball down the spiraling, sandy path forever. But Ginny plodded on, knowing that somehow, somewhere, the magic would reveal itself and her part in it.

She rounded a tight curve and again felt a curious tingling on the back of her neck. The ball had stopped dead in the middle of the path, but there didn't seem to be anything physically blocking it.

Instinctively, she whispered nox, but her wand didn't go out. She then frantically thought of starlight and the friendly shadows of a dusk that would hide her. Her wand obeyed, casting only the faintest light.

Of course, now she couldn't see.

For some reason, her mind flashed to the last time she was deep underground at Hogwarts. After Tom Riddle had come out of the diary, all had gone dark and she had awoken to find Harry standing over her with a sword in his hand.

Stop it. Harry is not going to be with you this time, she told herself firmly. Your destiny and his are no longer intertwined.

With that thought, she stuck out her wand with its faint light so she could examine the red ball and discover why it had stopped.

For a split second, her mind refused to believe that it was a trainer that had stopped Luna's orb. After all, she was miles under Hogwarts; she should be running into dragons or Chimaeras or Manticores — not a person wearing scruffy-looking trainers and a . . .

She gulped as she realized that this person was wearing an invisibility cloak that didn't quite cover the feet. And the only person she knew who wore an invisibility cloak was . . .

Harry? She didn't speak the question, since the magic didn't respond to spoken words. Obviously, her longing had conjured him as her guide.

"Ginny," the apparition said, pulling the invisibility cloak off of his head.

Odd, that after hours of silence, the first voice she heard was his. Of course, it had been so long since she had heard his voice that she probably wasn't remembering it correctly. She smiled at him in the dim light, letting her eyes freely roam his face. He was Harry just as she remembered him — from the little knob at the bridge of his nose, to the slightly fuller lower lip, to the soulful green eyes full of wariness. What now? she asked silently. She would follow her Harry-guide anywhere.

"Ginny?" the apparition repeated. Now the hairs on the back of her neck stood up again. He sounded so real. But it couldn't be.

She reached out her hand and touched his arm. He was warm and solid under her fingers.

The light in the room started to flicker. She saw her wand reflected in his glasses; its light was still steady, but her hand was shaking so badly that she thought she was going to drop it. But before that could happen, Harry reached out and covered her hand with his.

Steady, she thought, steady. She concentrated on his warm grip. He was here. Holding her hand. He was here.

"Oh!" She swallowed hard.

"Ginny-" He still had her wand hand in his, but he reached out with his other arm and pulled her close.

"I thought I had conjured you," she babbled. "I was thinking about you — remembering the last time I was underground at Hogwarts and your were there. And now you're here."

He was hugging her so tightly, she could barely breathe. She didn't care, that meant he was real. She hugged him back, still holding her wand in one hand.

"Ginny." After a few moments he stroked her hair and then pulled away so that he could look into her eyes. She knew that look - it was her look. Any doubts that she might have harbored about his true feelings for her were put to rest at that moment. He hadn't forgotten her, she realized tearfully. He still loved her.

Her heart turned over with pain; he wasn't here to tell her that.

He put both hands on her upper arms and stepped away. "Ginny, we need your help," he finally said.

"We?" she said through dry lips. She wanted to kiss him, she wanted to drink in the sound of his voice, she wanted to weep against his chest. Instead, she gripped her wand with both hands, praying for control.

"Ron and Hermione. We have to destroy some — uh — things," he explained quickly. "If we're successful, then this might be a turning point. But it could be dangerous — for you I mean." He ran one hand through his hair and stepped completely away from her. She missed the feel of his warm hand on her arm.

"I'll help," she said, stooping to pick up Luna's orb. It had done its job well. It had brought her to her Harry. It had brought her to her fate.

*

"So you know what to do?" Hermione asked, licking her lips nervously.

Ginny nodded and looked at Harry from across the stone circle. Like her, he had his wand out, and like her, he was scuffling his feet in the sand nervously. Who knew what they were going to create together?

"Ready?" Harry asked.

She nodded again and concentrated on his eyes. She needed the best memory she could possibly think of to conjure a Patronus. Green, she thought. The green of the Hogwarts lawns long ago when their love was new and they would walk hand-in-hand for what seemed like hours until they grew tired. Then they would lie together on the grass and she would sprawl on top of his chest and steal his glasses so she could kiss his brow and then his nose. She would nuzzle his neck and kiss his chin and finally she would find his mouth. At that point he would roll over and pin her in the cool grass with his warm weight.

Gold, she thought. The light was golden and the darkness was brief during those long June days. Young unicorns were gold, Ginny thought. They pranced through the green forest without fear.

Suddenly there was a silver stag cantering clockwise around the round room and a silver unicorn gliding in the opposite direction.

Go, Ginny thought.

Faster and faster the silver unicorn and the silver stag ran around the room, until they were nothing but two silver streaks of light rushing toward one another. They looked as if they would collide until one silver streak opened and the other dove into it and the room was bathed in red light.

"Oh!"

"Stand back!" Harry warned.

Ginny had taken only two steps before the room was suffused with brilliant gold light. Momentarily blinded, she stumbled and fell in the soft sand. When she dared to open her eyes, she saw that there was a column of light in the center of the stone circle. They had done it - they had invoked the ancient magic.

*
The objects from Harry's rucksack had been burned. The magical fire had been banked. Hermione had made a portkey out of the red orb, by concentrating on Ginny's dormitory room. Ron was already in the boat with Hermione at his side.

It was time to part from Harry.

Again.

The only light in the dark room was the light from the end of each of their wands. His was as small as the light from a far-away star. So was hers. She didn't touch him; she didn't say a word. She just crossed her wand over his and stared at the two separate stars glowing in the dark cavernous room. Then he aligned his wand with hers and the stars touched and glowed into one new light.

*

"Ginny! You weren't here the first time we looked!"

Her dormates were standing around her bed with identical looks of concern.

"We've had a search party and everything!"

"Search party?" Ginny asked, clutching the red orb in her hand. There was no way she could explain where she had been.

"Blimey, we should have checked here earlier," said Lucy.

"When you didn't show up at dinner —" Natalie added.

"We sort of panicked," finished Holly with a wry smile.

Touched by their concern, Ginny scrambled off the bed, hoping the sand wouldn't fall out of her shoes and give her away. "I'll go and tell Professor McGonagall I'm all right."

"She's down by the kitchens," Lucy said. "A hole opened up in the old tower and Filch's cat fell in. She's directing efforts to fix it."

Natalie gave her a quick hug. "I'm so glad you're safe. It was just like our first year all over again."

*

Ginny found the search party in the corridor by the kitchens. Professor McGonagall gave her a probing stare and then told her to report for detention after Boxing Day. The headmistress was too busy arguing with Peeves about bricking up the tower to pay Ginny much more attention.

"Tis my castle," Peeves said with dignity. "I am king now for twelve days."

"Saturnalia," McGonagall retorted. "You know what that means? It means that you are the sacrifice."

"I know, grim peasant," Peeves said cheekily. "But I am king now." He tapped the bowler hat on his head and it turned into a crown.

"Peeves," McGonagall said helplessly.

"Bury me in the tower after the twelfth night," he ordered.

McGonagall shrugged. "I'll wait to brick it off then."

"And I'll be back for the summer solstice." Peeves did several back flips. "I'm timeless, you know." Then he yelled down at the small group of students watching him. "To your dormitories, knaves! Or it will be off with your heads!"

The students scurried past Ginny, with Luna bringing up the rear.

"Here's the orb from your earring," she said.

"Thanks," Luna said, pocketing it in her robes.

"Um." Ginny hated to ask, but she did anyway. "Why is half of your jumper unraveled? Did you snag it on something?"

"Oh!' Luna looked down at her tattered jumper. "No — I needed wool to make some socks."

"Socks?" Ginny said blankly.

"For Mr. Filch." Luna looked over her shoulder at Peeves, still conversing with Professor McGonagall. "Don't tell anyone, but he has six toes, Ginny."

"That will be a secret between you and me," she said, trying to keep a straight face.

"No wonder he is always so grumpy," Luna said seriously. "His socks must bind him terribly."

"Ah." She wanted to laugh and she wanted to cry. Luna was so sweet. "That was your favorite jumper."

Luna shrugged. "Sometimes we have to make sacrifices."

It hurt to breathe at that moment. There were so many sacrifices being made all around her.

Luna touched her arm. "The solstice is over. We should go to bed."

"You were right, Luna," Ginny said as they headed up the stairs. "I think this winter solstice is the turning point."

"It is every year," Luna replied.

*

Their boat was almost across the lake before Harry realized that he was cold. He had been warmed inside and out from the magical fire. He took his gloves and hat out of his pocket and put them on while straining to see the shoreline in the distance.

"How old is Howarts do you reckon?" Ron asked.

"Pre-history," Hermione said decisively. "But the magic . . . I don't know."

The waves lapped gently against the boat.

"Timeless," Hermione said suddenly. "The magic is timeless."

Harry gazed at the inky sky again. The stars looked cold and distant, but he knew that up close they were burning hot.

He hadn't asked Ginny how she had come to be in the corridor — he hadn't asked her anything at all about herself. All his questions had been answered in that bright smile she had given him. It had felt like pulling a star from the winter sky and finding that it was summer yet again.

*

On Christmas day, Ginny woke up before dawn. In the faint light of the night torch she could see packages at the end of her bed. One small flat parcel - clumsily wrapped in brown paper - caught her eye. Written in black ink, in Harry's handwriting, was her name.

Her heart pounding, she carefully tore it open, thinking how silly she was to already cherish that wrapping paper with one word written on it.

The package contained a white paper star. She stared at it blankly and then picked it up and held it in both hands. It glowed white, warming her nose and her cold hands. Then it flamed forth and the paper was gone. In its place was a gold charm in the shape of the summer sun.

She pressed the still-warm charm to her lips and vowed to wear it next to her heart until summer came — just as it did every year.

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