Um, so, this is the result of procrastinating on other things and on my Rose/Scorpius fic. This idea came to me kind of randomly so I decided to get it out because I know how long it's been since I've updated. Yeah. I'm sorry. Really, it's just I can't get anything out on my other one right now. Sorry, again.
So the title is kind of lame and I considered doing like a series of characters asking themselves questions but to be honest I don't know if I can come up with that much XD;; so it's just a one-shot for now, unless somebody really wants it to have other characters doing the same thing. Tell me in the reviews :)
This one's for HP.te because she constantly has to listen to me whine about how I can't get chapters out and she's in the same situation as me with the whole school deal. Check her out. F'reals.
Disclaimer: Belongs to JKRowling.
Ginny Weasley sat in the back of the library, behind a stack of books that teetered in front of her, hiding her from view.
She was sitting cross-legged on the chair, silently staring down at the floor as she tried to forget about the last class she had with Amycus Carrow as her professor. She shook her bright red head and rubbed her eyes tiredly. She wasn't getting any sleep either.
It was hard to, really, if you were her.
If you were Harry Potter's girlfriend.
Well, she didn't even know for sure if she was really his girlfriend. Because it had just been so, so long since she had last seen him.
Ginny's heart nearly stopped beating every time she thought of Harry. Which, unfortunately, was often. Oh, so very often. She woke up every day and thought of him. Where he was. What he was doing. She fantasized sometimes and wondered what it would be like if Harry were with her, there, at Hogwarts.
When the bits and pieces of news would trickle into the castle carrying whispers about him, they'd make her sigh with relief, because for the very least, it helped to know that he was safe from Voldemort and the Death Eaters. That he was quite definitely on the run. Even if once in a while, there would be reports of him being seen, and sometimes coming very close to being captured. Those were the times when she wished there was no news on him.
Ginny had frequent nightmares of Harry being found, caught, and killed by Voldemort himself. Every time she saw the dream, she'd wake up sweaty and shaking with the bright flash of green still blinking in front of her eyes.
She wished she could have gone with him. But she knew she couldn't have. Even if it scared her every time someone would start a whispered sentence with "Did you hear about Harry Potter?" she still knew she couldn't have ever joined him.
It made her angry sometimes, but mostly just sad
She lifted her head. This year was definitely the hardest, she decided. She always knew this, but it was the first time she had really clearly thought of it like that. It was terrible, much more terrible, than being controlled by Tom Riddle, or waking up in her bed with blood caked all over her fingers and her robes covered in feathers when she was in her first year.
Ginny dwelled a bit more on this (Which she had a bad tendency to do in such troubled times, but what else could you think when your own school was run by Death Eaters?), until she heard someone approach her. Her hand automatically went to her pocket, where her wand was. She had also made that into a habit this year.
Seamus Finnegan was standing right next to her stack of books. She slowly put her feet back on the floor and looked up at his standing figure.
"Seamus?" she whispered, wondering what he was doing standing there in front of her in the very back corner of the library.
"Ginny. Merlin, it took me so long to find you!" he chuckled nervously. Ginny understood. It was hard to laugh now.
She looked down and said, "I'm sorry. I came back here to think about things."
"I know how that feels." He looked away as his face went incredibly sad for a moment, until he spoke again. "Ginny—I came back here to ask you something. I wanted to know if you were free this Hogsmeade weekend," Seamus shifted his weight from foot to foot as he spat all of this out very fast. He then spoke again, this time a little faster. "I mean, I understand—with Harry, and all—I just wanted to ask if I could see if maybe we could go together...Though, I just thought, maybe since it's been so long…" he trailed off.
Ginny stared at him for a minute before looking down and wondering what she should do. She and Seamus both had two questions that were planted firmly in each of their minds.
Was Harry still hers? Was she still his?
Her mind went blank as she searched for a reply. For his offer, and for the two questions she had just risen back up to the surface of her thoughts.
Hermione would know what to say. Ginny felt a small pang go through her body as she remembered one of her best friends. Of course Hermione would know, how could she not? She was the most brilliant witch of her age, after all.
What about Harry? What would he think? She tried to answer these questions, but realized she couldn't possibly without him there.
Ginny had asked herself many questions her past year at Hogwarts. She knew this. It was one of the few things she was certain of. Sometimes, though, she didn't want a lot of questions to ever be answered. If those questions were answered, she knew she'd probably die. But the other questions, those were the ones she wanted answers to.
So she asked herself while looking up at Seamus' face, with all the Gryffindor courage she could summon:
What did she have to lose?
Ginny followed Seamus down the road that cut through Hogsmeade. Hogsmeade, she noted, had lost much of its brilliance. It used to project warmth from each of its shops on slightly cloudy days like this one was. Now, though, the stores on either side of her seemed to only emit dull, faltering rays of an illusion of coziness.
Seamus stopped in front of a shop and opened the door for her. She stepped inside and her eyes bulged a bit as she surveyed the small shop.
Madame Puddifoot's? This was Madame Puddifoot's? She squinted through all the pink and shuddered a bit at the thought of how much her hair clashed with the whole room. She walked quickly over to a small, round table near a window and sat down. Seamus followed suit. Out of nowhere, a stout woman with black hair appeared next to their table.
"Hello, and welcome, dearies! What can I get you?" she said. Ginny assumed that this was Madame Puddifoot.
"Two coffees, please," Seamus answered, looking at Ginny to make sure this was alright. She nodded and took in the room again with more caution. She simply stared at the pink and red hearts adorning the room, barely even registering in her mind that there was confetti all over the floor.
She giggled a bit at the ludicrously decorated room. Seamus looked up at her, puzzled. "Wow, I knew that this place was a hit with a lot of the girls, but I didn't know you'd enjoy it this much!" he grinned at the notion of the so-far successful date.
Ginny smiled politely at his comment, while her mind reeled back to Harry.
What would he say to this? If he saw her, right now, in the coffee shop with Seamus Finnegan. If he saw her at all. With someone else.
But Ginny got angry again, thinking about all of this. It was up to her who she saw at Hogwarts, wasn't it? Yes. Yes, it was. Who knew what Harry was doing at this very moment, anyways?
A small but strong voice answered this question with another. The question is not what, darling, it is who.
Ginny quickly quieted that jealous thought, though, and decided to pay more attention to the date at hand.
"So, Ginny. How are you doing?" he asked. It was clear he wanted to dive straight to the point.
"If by that, you mean 'What's going on with Harry', then my answer is about as certain as your own." She said to him directly. He didn't speak, so she continued. "I don't know either. Harry is out there," she waved her hand towards the window, "somewhere," she said. "I can do what I like. So it's fine that you asked me here. Really, Seamus," she said briskly.
They were then served their coffees, so they sipped in silence for a minute. "Alright. How are you doing?" Ginny decided to ask him back. She knew she had been too hard on him. After all, she wasn't the only one who was lonely.
"Erm. I'm fine, I suppose. Could be—could be better." He sighed and drank from his cup. His eyes also wearily moved towards the window. Ginny's heart softened considerably at that moment. There were others people missed, she knew.
"Any news of him?" she asked quietly.
"Dean? Nope. But he's out there," he too waved in the general direction of the window. They both sighed simultaneously in understanding and loneliness. "I guess that's why I asked you here. Knew you might be lonely too. I thought we could hit it off a bit like that, I suppose," he shrugged and glanced downwards at his cup.
"I understand," she nodded at him. She knew the feeling of loosing a best friend (or three) too. Or, well, knowing that you could lose one (or more) very soon.He looked up at her and grinned weakly. She looked at him too, and smiled as well. Seamus wasn't so bad, she thought. He looked straight at her.
Ginny looked directly back at his sparkling eyes and felt something sharp go through her at the very moment she did so. She paled and turned away quickly.
Seamus' light eyes reminded her. The fact that he was a male, didn't help either. Nor that he was a Gryffindor. She had been around too many Gryffindors to know that there was a certain type of pride that they held in their gazes, something that made them twinkle like her old headmaster's own eyes.
Why aren't his eyes green? She wondered a little disjointedly. She shifted in the dainty chair she was in. Harry wouldn't have brought anybody here, she thought.
Seamus looked at her, concerned. "Ginny? Are you alright?" he reached out and put his hand over hers. Ginny simply looked at the top of his head.
His hair wasn't messy, either. She resisted the urge to put her hand through it. It would all just be so much better if Seamus needed glasses and had much darker hair.
A scar wouldn't hurt.
No, she decided. It would not.
She stood up and her hand fell away from Seamus'. She shoved a few fingers into her pocket and took out a few sickles and put them on the table. "I'm sorry. I don't think we can do this again, Seamus. Thank you for the coffee, though," she burst through the door and heard Seamus calling out, "Ginny? Ginny!" as it closed behind her.
She ran down the street and all the way to the edge of the village, where she stopped and reassembled her thoughts dazedly.
What had gotten into her, she had no idea. But she did know how incredibly dull it was to sit down with someone else. To talk to a boy on a date if it wasn't him. She walked over to the side of a small shop and ripped down a poster of Harry himself, with a large caption reading, UNDESIRABLE NUMBER ONE. The Harry in the picture waved at her shyly.
She grinned and decided to run all the way back to the castle, all while imagining Harry's black hair and his magnificent eyes and the way his glasses rested on the bridge of his nose.
She felt an adrenaline rush go through her as she recalled the question she had asked herself before.
She knew the real answer now.
It was him she had to lose. And that, that was everything. And even if he wasn't there at that moment, she knew really having him gone would be something else entirely.
Harry would wait for her, and she would wait for him. For him to defeat Voldemort, and for it to finally be over.
And she knew now, that she just couldn't prepare for the worst. Not with something like this. Ginny would fight until the end.
She vaguely felt the cobblestone path under her feet. Ginny gripped the wrinkled poster in her hand and wiped the strange tears that had dripped out from her eyes as she walked faster and faster.
Ginny clutched the poster like it was hope itself.
In a way, it was.
So there you have it. Tell me what you think/if it should have other characters/whatever in the reviews. I'd appreciate it :)
I finished this in, like, an absurdly short amount of time. Well, I'm going to go back to my corner and rocking back and forth in the fetal position and whatnot now. I kind of have school in two days. But don't worry, you'll see more of me...
Reviews are nice. Especially since I don't know if I'm going on with this or just keeping it a one-shot (as mentioned before). It'll take you a minute tops .. Okay, I'll stop bugging you now.
-E :)