Summary: Post HBP One-shot. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have taken several more steps down that "dark and twisting path" that will eventually lead Harry to Voldemort. Injuries and loneliness have already taken their toll, and Harry is beginning to lose faith in the few remaining shreds of hope he had been unknowingly clinging to. Fortunately, though, a surprise visitor is about to change all that, and Harry Potter is about to be shown that the choices he made at the end of last year were not just his to make in the first place. (Some Ron/Hermione but mostly Harry/Ginny).