Such a thing happened to Ginny Weasley. Her tears dried as she stepped out of the woods that day; her grief and sorrow faded into the abyss. Her mind cleared as she recounted the events of the evening once again in her head, questioning everything that she had assumed. She no longer knew if Harry had smiled at all during that dance or if she had merely overreacted to his and her own words.
For months, she kept her
distance, knowing that trying to avoid him would also lead to her
avoiding her own family, the people who had always stood by her. The
only person who kept in contact with her was Hermione, who was the only
one who knew of the events that had happened between Harry and her.
Only Hermione knew why she insisted on being alone for that dreadful
summer, two months and two weeks of convincing herself that she had to
leave.
-
"Hermione, I don't know," Ginny said, putting down the
teacup that Hermione had just offered her. "I think I should go
somewhere else, get a job in another country or something..." Hermione
glanced at her, eyes wide at the suggestion, as if she had just
realized something. She wore baggy clothes that hid her stomach from
view, and if you looked hard enough, there was a small bump.
"There's a job offering at Hogwarts," Hermione said, sitting down across from Ginny in a overstuffed chair, another teacup in her hands. "You were always good at Charms. Flitwick had some sort of accident while attempting a spell; I think he fell. I doubt that they've decided yet; they're probably looking for more applicants." Ginny smiled slightly at the suggestion. Going back to Hogwarts would be rather lovely for her. She had enjoyed her time there, for the most part.
"You were
thinking about taking the job, weren't you?" Ginny said, nodding to
Hermione's belly as if to answer her question with an explanation of
why she hadn't. "I guess I just go see McGonagall about it then,
right?" Hermione nodded, sipping her tea from the cup. Ginny said her
thanks and after saying good-bye, left without touching the tea.
-
"Well,
Miss Weasley, I would rather like someone with a bit more experience
teaching seventh years and the like," Professor McGonagall said after
Ginny told her of the reason she had come back to the school. "But it
seems like we are having the same problem we had a few years again with
the Defense Against the Dark Arts posts, but we now seem to have a more
permanent one. We'll try you out for a year in order to determine your
teaching abilities and skill before making you a full member of the
staff here. I'll have a house-elf show you to your new rooms."
Ginny
said her thanks and glanced toward the elf that had still appeared in
the center of the room. The elf gestured toward the door of the room,
and Ginny walked out into her new life at Hogwarts, away from Harry
Potter.
-
A few days later, when Ginny had finally finished
lugging in boxes from her old flat, there came a gentle knock on the
door, as if the person didn't know whether to be there or not. Thinking
that Hermione hadn't told anybody of her employment at Hogwarts, Ginny
called for them to come in without turning and looking toward the door.
"Hermione told me to wait a few days before coming to see you," a familiar male voice said as Ginny reached into one of many boxes to pull out a few books. She gripped them tightly as she recalled the voice and brought them up to her chest before turning around and facing the man who had answered.
Harry had his hands in his pockets, like the last time they had seen each other, and was looking around the room, eyeing the mix of the four house colors around. Everything was bursting with color, as if just a touch more would cause utter disaster. "Trying to spread the love around, huh?" Harry said, his voice calm and reasonable, glancing Ginny's way.
Immediately when he looked at her, Ginny touched one free hand to her hair, which wasn't brushed and was simply thrown up into a simple bun. She had been so busy getting ready for the start of term, which was only a mere week away now, that she hadn't given much thought to her appearance. Now, to her dismay, she found herself facing Harry Potter completely disheveled and horribly dressed in shorts with no robe on.
"Don't worry about it," Harry said, noticing her obvious concern for her appearance. "I've seen worse." At this, Ginny had to smile, but she didn't try to suppress the grin from forming on her face. "I always wanted to see a professor's room. Now that I've seen one, it doesn't look anywhere close to what I imagined it would." Harry smiled at her in a lazy but nice attitude.
"I thought the exact same way when I first saw it," Ginny said, wondering about all the small talk that Harry seemed to be insisting on. "Uh, Harry? I'm wondering why you've bothered to come all this way to see me?" When she had said the words without thinking about it first, she immediately wished she could take them back inside her mouth. His face fell with her question, but he opened his mouth to speak.
"Ginny, I wanted to say that I'm sorry for saying those things to you at the reception," Harry said, glancing down at his shoes and stuffing his hands seemingly deeper into his pockets. "It had been five years, I shouldn't have come out and announced it like that." Ginny's face fell even more than Harry's had before.
"So you're saying that you shouldn't have told me that you still loved me," Ginny said, turning around again and placing the books still in her hands onto the shelf that was still half-empty. Determined to keep her eyes away from his, she picked up more books from out of the box and kept placing them on the shelf as Harry stood there silent for a moment.
"No, you needed to know the truth from me," Harry said firmly but not forcefully, his eyes watching her put the books on the shelf. "But I'm simply saying that I should have waited until... well, you weren't completely surprised to see me." He took his hands out of his pockets and unsure of what else to do with them, hung them out at his sides.
"Harry, don't worry about it," Ginny said, finishing off the box by placing the last book that it had contained on the shelf. She pointed her wand at the box and levitated it over to the pile of empty boxes near the corner of the room. "It's nothing, really. I mean, we probably won't be seeing much of each other anyway. I work here now, and you probably work somewhere in London." She walked over to another box and opened it to reveal maybe ten sets of robes. She flicked her wand again and they flew over to the wardrobe and hung themselves up.
"But Ginny," Harry said, looking at the differently colored robes and watching as sweaters and the like flew over to rest underneath them. "I don't watch it to be like that. I want to be able to see you. I want us to be on friendly terms." He gulped as Ginny turned around again with her wand still pointed out. She hadn't seemed angry before, but now her face was set in a stern position. She lowered her wand but kept her face stern.
"What did you expect, Harry?" Ginny said, her voice forceful but calm. "Did you honestly expect me to just fall in your arms the moment you came back? Oh, I'm sorry, the moment you decided it wasn't a waste of your time to visit the family who were always nice to you, no matter what you did." She turned away again, back to the now empty book, and waited a moment before she began to speak again. "It took you five years to come back to the girl who loves you more than anything in this world."
Harry was silent a moment before it dawned on him what she had just said to him. "Loves?" he asked quietly, though loud enough that Ginny could clearly hear him. "Ginny..." He didn't know that tears were slowly beginning to form and fall down the curves of her face as he gently spoke her name.
"Please, Harry, just go," Ginny said, her voice weak and struggling to get through the words. "Come back at Christmas, okay? Let me sort out my thoughts." His face fell after being lifted up by the simple word she had hidden, and he turned away and left, closing the door as gently as he could manage. Then when she was convinced he was gone, she walked quickly across the room and collapsed into a chair, tears rolling down her cheeks.
--
A sequel to this story is going to come out soon. As soon as I get it written, it'll be up.