She had waited. She had wondered. She had wished. And then she had given him up as a bad job. A very bad job. Not only was the most wonderful boy in the world oblivious to her, she hadn't even been able to make conversation in his presence. He hadn't even been able to see what she was. He could only see Ron's little sister. That little girl with a crush on the famous Harry Potter. Her crush, right there with the rest of the world's. And then he'd finally seen girls, and she'd already been playing the floor. Taken by the biggest, hottest, pig head in the school. It was Hermione's idea, not that it was Hermione's fault. Ginny wasn't that stupid. She'd been waiting for years without the slightest bit of hope, and she'd recognized that the time to move on had come.
But Cho Chang. Pretty without trying. Intelligent. Popular. A year older than him. She even was a loyal Tornadoes fan. Seeker for her house. All that jazz. Nobody ever mentioned that she was depressed. That she had lost her boyfriend the year before and that she'd actually liked Cedric too (girls seemed not to recall that). That one of her best friends nearly got them all expelled (not that most people were supposed to be aware of that). Ginny hadn't really known Cho though. Not as a friend. Harry obviously had seen something for a while, and just because she couldn't see what it was, it didn't mean it wasn't there.
But then the time to move on, to stop wasting her time, to get on with things, had ended, ended so abruptly and affirmatively that there was never any going back. And she was confused. No not confused. Some big, high-tech stronger word that she wished she knew. Because after five and a half years of knowing her, Harry had changed his mind. She hadn't hoped anymore, and she'd been taken by surprise. And more importantly, she had realized that moving past Harry Potter and getting on with things hadn't worked out so well.
Dumbledore believed that love was more powerful than anything. And Harry had proved it. He had the power to make her forget about OWLs. About the future. About her little girly problems. Even about the not so little-girly ones, the ones that threatened to destroy their world. She had done her best to do the same for him. Everything showed up in a brighter shade when he was in the room. Everything he did made her want to smile. And every time he kissed her, she knew that he was the only person on earth.
But then Dumbledore had died. And Harry, the same Harry who had held her and told her about that power, Harry who had made her so complete, had proceeded to break her heart. Not because he dumped her; because of the reason he dumped her. Because he had let Voldemort win, had let Voldemort grow stronger than their love. The power that was invincible had come crashing down.
But Ginny knew Harry. She had always known Harry. And she knew what he needed. Knew how much he still had to learn about love. And Ginny knew, knew now, that she would be waiting. As long as it took.