(A/N: I've been working on this story for months now, and thought I should finally post the prologue. This fic has been inspired by the short lyric below, but it's not a song-fiction, and honestly, I never listened to the song. hehe)

PAIRING: Focuses on Hermione/Ginny's friendship-love relationship; Hermione/Astoria; Ron/Lavender; Harry/Ginny; Ginny/several others.

WARNINGS: Might be sugary, fluff, and mushy. It's about friendship-love-romance between Hermione and Ginny. DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ. :p

I took the liberty and made Astoria Greengrass a year older than she is in canon. She's 15 years old in Hermione's sixth year.

DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns the Harry Potter characters and the Wizarding World.

What a wicked game you play
To make me feel this way
What a wicked thing to do
To let me dream of you
What a wicked thing to say
You never felt this way

By Chris Isaak

What A Wicked Game You Play

by chikinita09

PROLOGUE

Some people just say things, or just one sentence, without realizing its damage.

It amazes me how easily I let myself sucked in when it comes to her. She does it every time to me. I cannot help it; she smiles, I crumble… She makes my heart ache every time she leaves me, every time she says a word to wound me. But every time she comes near me, my heart skips beats. Every time she looks my way, I cannot help but melt. And when she kisses me, my heart stops.

I used to have these butterflies in my stomach whenever she was with me. But now, when I look at her, the first thing I see is the corpse of this once beautiful butterfly, now being carried away by what may seem like an army of ants. When she hurts me, another butterfly dies inside of me until I feel nothing but this emptiness.

We fight a lot, usually she starts them—the bitching, the arguments, the yelling. She's annoying me, she's confusing me; she's disappointing me. One moment I don't want to see her again, the next, I jump at the chance to be with her and I'm ready to give her the moon. I'm the one who compensates for our fights, the one, who cracks first, who makes amends, who weeps in front of her.

Ironically, we're not even together. Together as a couple, that is.

There've never been an Us and never been a We. But we act and love and hate each other like two people in love do. It's complicated; she doesn't know that she loves me. I don't know if I love her. She doesn't know if she wants me; I don't know if I want her. But isn't it true that actions speak louder than words?

Does she ever miss me in my absence, though, I wonder? Do her feelings feel dull and ordinary when I am not around? Or does her heart quicken when she sees me? So what if it does? But then again, what if it doesn't? It would never change anything between us, for we have promised to each other to be friends—forever. Well, I used to have a very positive stand on "forever" then – until I came to realize that good things, by nature, would have to come to an end in order to give way to the better ones.

When it comes to her, everything is either extremely hurtful, or ardently beautiful.

She's playing with me.

It all began with a simple conversation in the Gryffindor common room three months ago. I can't quite recall the order of this debacle, or what came first—the bet, the argument, the scathing remarks or my harboured feelings that seemed to have broken out then. It doesn't matter now. All I know is that she made it worse.

I knew they were talking about me, larking around, the usual stuff that friends do when one is not around. Upon climbing through the portrait hole, I heard them mention my name and heard them snigger. This, eventually, caught my attention.

I heard her saying, "Ew, no, seriously? Not her. She'd be the last girl on this planet I'd ever consider kissing." She pulled a face. "And even then I need a good shot of firewhiskey."

There were times before this, when I heard her say similar remarks to others. "Goodness, no. How can you think she's my girlfriend? Do I look like I'm into to girls?"

Or, "Despite our closeness, I've never thought in a romantic way about her. She's just a friend, all right? Only when Hell freezes over I'd consider dating her, or if she were the last human being on earth and I needed company. If you know what I mean?"

That evening three months ago, however, when I saw her sitting amongst our friends and she'd again pulled off this show, and made me feel rejected and humiliated than ever, I said to myself that I've had enough.

She would never kiss me she said. Fancy that!

The remarkable thing was that she didn't bother mentioning that she had already kissed me, once. Moreover, of course, she wasn't inebriated with firewhiskey when she had locked her lips with mine. With other words, she knew what she did! She didn't seem to be repulsed either. In fact, she was smiling then. She was smiling against my lips when she drew me closer to her. She was smiling even then when we pulled apart and looked at me.

I was taken aback by her action. For the first time I was looking at her, really looking at her as if I have never seen her before. Her eyelashes were fuller and longer in close-up, and her upper lip slightly protruded the thinner one on the bottom, coated mildly with lip-gloss. A very sensual mouth, I thought.

Why had she been smiling, I wonder? And then, completely deny it—deny everything the next moment? Pretend she only dreamt it. I figured that she might have been afraid—afraid of her own passion. Who wouldn't be?

Right then and there, in the common room, amidst our friends, she was denying this incident of course, denying me. She scrunched up her nose,, shook her head, made a vomiting gesture as if to underline her repulsion towards me. How immature, I thought. She did this charade in front of Harry, Ron, and the other girls she was barely friends with.

The instant she caught my eye, her face registered surprise, shame, embarrassment, and defiance, all in less than a fraction of a second, all unnoticeable to everyone but me. She dropped her head to her lap, whilst clutching with both hands her skirt as though her hands were strangling my throat, her cheek a light shade of crimson. There was something else in her eyes—hatred? Resentment? Or just guilt for having to hurt me once again like this? As if she can't help it. As if she needed to do this. But why?

This must explain why she didn't run after me when I excused myself to leave the common room and head upstairs to the dormitories. She didn't' apologise. She did not talk to me or explain why she had been so cruel. She had expected me to forget, to not take it seriously, to not make a big deal out of it, as usual. I tried playing it off, but it was getting to me.

We fought again. And I'm tired of it.

I am used to the fact that she never made things easy, and as time passed, by turns, she was defensive, often angry, withdrawn, and even nasty. Everything but contrite. Anything but sorry.

But to her defence, I'm not altogether blameless, that I've to admit. I am not a saint, but I sure did not deserve the way she treated me. If she had been afraid, so was I.

I've been pondering on how it would be like if I get back at her, pay it back, so just to get even. Show her how silly she acts sometimes. But I'm not one for revenge. Not really.

Now I got to a point where I'm tired of trying. I didn't give up on her, on our friendship, on all the wonderful and at the same time hurtful years that I've shared with her. I just realised that I'm better off without the drama in my life. I want to evolve, and move on, find someone else who cares, someone who's not scared of their feelings.

Someone who's not scared of being with me.

(A/N: In case you missed it in my first Author's Note, I made Astoria a year older than she is in canon. You'll find out why in later chapters.

Please leave a review/comment if you liked it. I don't take negative feedback personally, so feel free to tell me honestly what you think so far. I need inspiration.) ^_^