The first time Ginny gave Harry a gift, it was a singing Valentine. She'd been over the moon when Professor Lockhart had organised them, and had managed to pluck up the courage to request one for Harry. If she had known how embarrassed he would be, how the Slytherins would tease him and laugh at him...
Well, she knew better the next time. She left a simple gift, a single chocolate frog, sitting on his pillow. She'd had to sneak into the boys' dormitory while no one was around, her heart pounding in her ears with the fear of being caught. Harry never said anything about it, but she imagined him finding it after a hard day and enjoying it, and wondering who had left it for him. She didn't find out until much later that Scabbers had gotten to it first.
It had been a long time between that and her next gift. First, she had been trying to convince herself and the world that she was over Harry. Then, there had been the on-again, off-again period of their relationship, where the danger was too great for them to stay together, but they loved each other too much to stay apart. She had given him a kiss for his eighteenth birthday – a kiss she still remembered, that might have led to more if Ron hadn't come barging in – but she hadn't given him a real gift, a thing for him to have and hold onto.
She bought Harry a broomstick servicing kit, a really nice one with all the bits and pieces a Quidditch player could ever need, a few months after the war was over. She knew he had been running low on broom handle polish when he was at school, and she figured that now that things were back to normal, he would start playing again, maybe even professionally. He never had, though – he was far too busy, he said, and it wouldn't be fair for the other teams to have to play against the saviour of the wizarding world. So the kit stayed under her bed, ignored.
She tried to give him chocolates for Halloween. She knocked on the door of the room he was sharing with Ron, hoping to find Harry in there alone. Unfortunately, she had no such luck. Harry answered the door, but Ron was right behind him, and assumed the chocolates were for him. She didn't have the heart to argue, especially when he so gallantly promised to share them with Harry, but she did make an awful face once he closed the door again, just to relieve her feelings.
For Christmas, Ginny wanted to get Harry something really special. She thought about chocolates (too quickly eaten), a book (boring!), or maybe just a card with a handwritten message inside (too cheesy?), but eventually she settled on jewellery. Not something too flashy or ostentatious, just a nice piece that would show how much she loved him.
She found exactly what she wanted in a small shop in Hogsmeade. It was a necklace in the shape of a golden snitch, its wings encrusted with tiny diamonds that caught the light with a hundred sparkles. It cost her everything she had in her purse, but it would be worth it to see the look on Harry's face when he opened her gift.
When Christmas Day dawned, she was so excited she could hardly breathe. She waited impatiently for the gift-giving to begin, and made sure that hers was the first that Harry opened. She studied his face, waiting to see how he would react. She was expecting happiness, or excitement, or joy, but what she got was wide-eyed astonishment. A smile flickered briefly at the corner of Harry's mouth before he managed to school his features into something resembling seriousness.
The rest of her family were not so kind. "What on earth is that?" demanded Ron with a muffled snicker. "It looks like a unicorn threw up on it."
George didn't even bother to hide his laughter. "It looks like a unicorn crapped on it, you mean! Is it made of ground-up fairies?"
Even as her mother began to tell her brothers off, Ginny was making her way out of the room as fast as she could. Even when they had been as nasty as they could to her, she never let her brothers see her cry, and she wasn't about to now.
She was sitting on her bed, gulping back tears, when there came a knock at her door. "Go away," she said. "I'll be out in a minute."
The door opened despite her orders, and Harry came in. She turned her face away as he came to sit next to her on the bed.
"Are you alright?" he asked, a little awkwardly. "I think your mum's not going to leave those idiots alive, if it makes you feel better."
Ginny giggled softly, despite herself. "I just wanted to give you something special, something you'd like."
"You did," said Harry firmly.
Ginny turned to stare at him. "What? You don't hate it? Or think it looks like unicorn poo?"
Harry's mouth twitched. "Well, it does a bit. I mean, it's not really my sort of thing. A bit... sparkly, you know."
Ginny turned away from him again, unable to bear it. He reached for her chin, and gently turned her face back to him. "Thing is, though," he continued, "you gave it to me. You did. So even if it was the most hideous thing in the world – which it's not," he added hastily, "I'd still love it, because it's from you. It's ours." He reached beneath his shirt and pulled out the snitch necklace. "And I'm going to wear it every day, and think of you."
He held out his arms, and Ginny melted into his embrace. Somehow, finally, she had managed to give Harry the perfect gift, and he had given her another perfect gift in exchange.