"Diddykins has a little girlfriend now," Aunt Petunia squealed into the telephone. "I know!"
Harry watched the water from the tap fill the sink with a mound of soap bubbles and wished for the six-hundred and fifty-third time that week that he was allowed to use magic.
"Yes, she's simply darling," she went on in her artificially high-pitched voice. Harry wondered if she had actually met the young lady in question, who swore more than anyone he'd ever met. He picked up a sponge and began scrubbing a pot crusted with something seemingly left over from first-year Potions.
"Oh, it's terribly exciting. It would be so wonderful to have another woman in the family." Aunt Petunia tittered and rang off.
Harry scrubbed viciously at the pot.
"I don't know what you're looking at," she said to his back as he stared resolutely into the sink. "You'll never get a girl like that yourself, you freak."
----------
Harry flopped into a chair in the gloomy library and let out a sigh.
"Hello there," Professor Lupin said mildly, sticking his head out from behind a shelf. "Come to do some summer reading?"
"Girls are mad," Harry replied.
"Yes they are."
"Aren't you going to try to give me advice or something?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Yes," Harry said angrily. "No. I don't know."
"Girls are mad," Lupin said, as he opened the book in his hand and looked back at it. "That's all I know."
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"Wotcher, Harry." Tonks strode into the darkened kitchen, looked around, and began rummaging in the cabinet where Mr. Weasley kept his hidden stash of ginger biscuits.
"Hey, Tonks," he replied listlessly, tracing scratches in the battered table in front of him with one finger. "Hey... Tonks."
"Yes?" she asked curiously. "Ah, here they are," she muttered to herself, slowly emerging from the cupboard with a tin of biscuits in hand.
"You're a girl."
"Sort of," she agreed cautiously. "Why?"
"Well, it's just that..." Harry said awkwardly. "How do you know if a... if a girllikesyou?" His face reddening, he looked down at the table again.
Tonks studied him for a moment, munching on a biscuit. "She does."
"What?"
"She does. I'm sure of it." Popping another biscuit in her mouth, she set the tin down on the counter and left the room.
----------
"If you hurt her, I'll kill you myself," Bill said conversationally over the motorbike. "Hand me that spanner, will you?"
Harry swallowed.
"I, erm -- nothing -- pardon me?"
Bill just laughed. "These bolts need tightening."
"Oh." Harry handed him the spanner, which was large and metal and fairly heavy.
Harry waited for Bill to say something else about his sister, but he didn't mention it again.
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"Girls are mad," Seamus announced as he entered the dormitory room, falling dramatically onto his bed.
"That is the smartest thing you've ever said, mate," Ron said, earning a laugh from Dean.
"I mean," Seamus went on, ignoring the comment. "They never say what they mean, they use so many charms who knows what they really look like under there--" Neville snickered at this "--they're always surrounded by their friends so you can never get them alone for a minute... and then they complain when you don't recite poetry or act like a bleeding ponce!" He groaned in frustration and the others agreed with him.
Harry sat back and thought. Ginny didn't do any of those things. She was honest and straightforward and seemed to genuinely enjoy his company. She didn't use a million cosmetic charms or spend all day on her hair like some girls, and yet he found himself watching her from the corner of his eye whenever she was in the room.
"Yeah, mate," he said, staring up at the red canopy of his bed. "Girls are mad."
----------
He finally kissed her, standing on the stairs near the common room and pressing her up against the banister. Afterward she asked, "What took you so long?"
He mumbled something about spanners and dirty dishes.
She sighed. "I swear, guys make no sense. You're all mad, you know that?"
Harry just smiled, and said nothing.