Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS JK ROWLING DOES!
SUMMARY: It's difficult to fall in love; it's even more difficult to fall in love with someone you can't ever be with, someone who will never love you back. That's what happened to me. This is the story about how I fell in love with my friend Hermione Granger.
Everyone sat at the table eating dinner. I was seated across from her, and next to me boyfriend Harry, she was sitting next to my infuriating brother Ronald, my brother who had yet to ask her out even though he was obviously infatuated with her. People may think I'm being a bit of a hypocrite seeing as I hadn't asked her out myself, but our situations were different, he had a penis, giving him the right to ask her out. Not like me, I was a girl, and a girl with a boyfriend at that. So I would have to be content with staring at her when she wasn't looking.
I looked at her the way she moved, the way she would blush when she thought something was funny. Sometimes I noticed that she would tuck a strand of hair behind her ear only to have it fall back out of place. I saw the way she would touch the scar on her neck when she was nervous. I to this day had no idea how she received it only that she got it during the hunt, she always refused to talk about it. I would ask Harry or Ron but they told me it wasn't their place to tell me.
I remembered how during my sixth year I would fall asleep and have dreams about her. I'm not sure when exactly I had fallen in love with her, only that I refused to admit it for a long time.
"Ginny. Ginny!" I was brought out of my muse by a voice to the left of me.
"What is it Harry?" I snapped angrily not wanting to be brought back to reality.
"We just wanted to know if you were up to going to diagon ally with us tomorrow," looking like a recently kicked puppy. I suddenly felt bad for snapping at Harry like that, it wasn't his fault that I was besotted with Hermione. That the mere thought of her made me worse than a raving drunk. I looked around and saw that my normally vivacious family was looking at me in silence, most likely waiting for my response to this.
"Yea I would like that," I whispered not wanting to cause another scene.
"Are you alright Gin, you've hardly touched your food," it was here the object of my affections, the reason for my somber mood. I felt like saying no but I knew that it wasn't really a 'tell the truth' kind of question; so I said something that was expected, something that didn't go along the lines of 'No it's just that I've been in love with you since my fifth year in Hogwarts.'
"Yea I just have an upset stomach," I answered. It wasn't really a lie she was giving me butterflies. "Can I be excused?"
"Yes Ginny," my father said looking at me with a concerned expression.
I left the table and headed straight for my room. When I got there I sat on my bed and cried for what felt like hours. I mean what chance did I have with 'The Hermione Granger', the war hero; she had an autobiography at age nineteen for Pete's sake. She had a chocolate frog card (I have thirteen Hermione cards by the way), posters put up in little girls rooms that idolized her, she was in history books, she had her own action figure, and she was the poster child for muggle-borns everywhere. What was I, Ginny Weasley, poor girl.
I wrote Luna asking her to come over so I could ask her opinion on the matter. I honestly had no idea what to do. Maybe she would have advice on what I should do.
Today I woke up to Hermione changing. It was difficult not to stare at her body. I woke up and nearly had a heart attack when I realized that she didn't have a shirt on.
"What's wrong Gin? Your face is all red, do you have a fever?" she asked placing her hand on my forehead. What she didn't know was that I was actually blushing. "Well, you don't feel warm maybe I should tell Mrs. Weasley you don't feel well," It touched me that she cared so much about me.
"Don't let her hear you call her Mrs. Weasley she'll be insulted," I warned half joking half serious, since Hermione found out her parents had died my family have been like a foster family to her.
"Are you sure your okay Ginny?" she asked looking at me with an expression I couldn't read. She brushed the hair off my face the way a lover would. I couldn't help let a sigh escape my mouth. "You said you weren't feeling well yesterday,"
"Don't worry about me Hermione I'm fine," I reassured her putting my hand on hers. I slowly stood up so I could be eye level with her. My heart was racing as I took a step closer to her, suddenly I heard my mom shout at me from down stairs to hurry up.
"We better go down stairs for breakfast," she said turning around and looking for a clean shirt to put on.
'This is all in my imagination, I'm just over analyzing things' I thought to myself.
Hermione looked a lot different than she did before, her bushy hair were now soft looking curls, her body had filled itself out leaving womanly curves behind, all in all she was gorgeous.
"Ginny what are you staring at do I not look good in this shirt?"
"No you look amazing!" I told her but the way I said it made me sound like a pervert.
"Thanks Gin," she said not noticing "Come on lets go"
Mom made the best bacon and eggs they could cure any type of emotional pain my mom said when I was small. Cured everything she said, except for heart ache, which unfortunately for me I was currently suffering from.
After breakfast Ron suggested that we should head to Diagon Ally to head to some shops. The golden trio as they called them had yet to make an appearance in public since the end of the war in May, we were now in the middle of August and today they would go outside for the first time in months.
"We should try not to be noticed, we don't want to cause a scene. We'll apperate there. Ginny since your youngest you'll use side along apperation with-" but I interrupted Ron before he finish saying what he was going to say.
"I'll go with Hermione!" I shouted before I could stop myself. I knew it was a mistake the moment after the words left my mouth. What on earth would I say when they asked why I wanted to go with Hermione. I should want to go with harry, my boyfriend, that's what everyone expected from me. "Sorry harry but she's had more experience," I said thinking of an excuse and grabbing Hermione.
I clung to her the way I should have been clinging to harry, like a girlfriend holds on to a boyfriend when she needs protecting. She felt like my protector, I had never felt that with Harry. He never really made me feel safe when I was scared, well not anymore than anybody else would, but it was different with her, I didn't know to explain it. She had a bewildered expression on her face as hugged her but she did not protest. She slowly wrapped her arms around me and before I could process what was happening I heard a deafening crack. What I felt next must have been the most uncomfortable feelings I've ever felt. It was as if I was being squeezed through a tube.
Even when we stopped moving I still held on as if my dear life depended on it. "You can let go now Ginny!" said a cold voice from behind me. It was Harry he was glaring coldly at my direction. It took me by surprise when I realized that he wasn't glaring at me but rather at Hermione. I was even more shocked to see that Hermione was glaring back at him, her arms still wrapped around my waist protectively.
"Hurry up you guys!" Ron shouted not noticing the conflict going on between his best friends. 'This couldn't be about me,' I thought.
Hermione finally let go of me and made her way to the wall to Diagon ally. She put the hood of her robes on making sure no one would be able to see her face and brushed her hand against the wall making it split revealing the market. I was amazed at her display of wandless magic; I made a mental note to ask her when she learned it.
I was more than a little annoyed at the feeling of Harrys' sweaty, calloused hand wrap possessively around mine, while we were walking. His hand was nothing like Hermione's, her hand was soft and warm and it was never sweaty. Hermione wasn't possessive, protective sure, but never possessive.
We made our way through the thick throng of people to Gringotts, avoiding everything putting our heads down so that no one would see our faces.
"I need to go withdraw money," Harry said once we were at the entrance of the bank, he was still holding my hand much to my dismay.
"So do I," Ron said
"I'll wait for you guys here, I'm never going back there unless it's absolutely necessary," Hermione said cringing at the goblins at the front door.
"I'll wait with you," I said walking to her making Harry let go of my hand. "We'll meet you guys in front of Olivanders in an hour alright," after they left we stood there awkwardly for about five minutes before I broke the silence. "So where do you want to go?" I asked.
'Typical Hermione would wanting to go to a book store' I thought to myself.
Hermione would have been there hours if the store's owner hadn't have had a stupid rule about no hoods. "No hoods aloud!" the store owner shouted from over the counter.
"Why the bloody hell not?" I shouted back angry that the owner shouted at us.
"Because you could be death eaters disguised"
"Do you honestly think that they're going to let to teenage girls still in Hogwarts be death eaters?" I asked
"That Malfoy kid was a death eater and he was still in Hogwarts," the old man retorted
"Good point," I whispered "Come on let's get out of here," I said grabbing Hermione's arm and leading her to the door.
"Wait you're not leaving until I know who you are, and know you're not a death eater," he said pointing his wand at me.
"Put your wand down," Hermione ordered getting in front of me, but the man wouldn't listen and still had his wand pointed at us.
"You can't order me, this is my store!" the store owner shouted.
"We deserve to have privacy, no I'll tell you one more time, lower your wand!" she shouted getting her wand out. At this point people had started to see what was going on. "Ginny if someone shoots a spell I need you to lie down and cover your head," she whispered at me.
"I'm not going to let you face him alone," I whispered back not wanting to have her get hurt.
"Don't worry I think I'm more scared of crookshanks than I am of this guy,"
"Stop whispering! Stupefy!" I ducked like Hermione had told me and I saw her evade the attack with a simple side step.
"You're going to have to do a little better than that to hit me," she scoffed, sidestepping another of his curses.
That's when everything got out of hand, things happened so quickly that I don't even know exactly what happened. I saw the man point his wand at me and I flinched I heard the sound of a powerful spell being fired off and then a crash. When I opened my eyes I saw Hermione's outstretched hand pointed at where the man had been, but he wasn't there anymore. Instead there were about three fallen bookcases the shop owner laid unconscious on top.
"Is that Hermione Granger?" I heard a voice call out. I turned and noticed that Hermione's hood was down, probably as a result of the fight, if you could call it, that the man didn't stand a chance. "IT IS IT'S HERMIONE GRANGER!" then suddenly like a swarm of bees, people surrounded her, shoving pieces of paper in her face and asking for autographs. I tried to fight through the crowd of people so that I could get to my friend but failed miserably.
"OUCH!"
"I HAVE A LOCK OF HER HAIR!!!" I saw a hand shoot up holding the unmistakable brown hair of the girl I loved.
"Accio hair! Hermione apperate back home!" I shouted catching her hair running towards the door. I heard a loud crack and saw Hermione appear in front of me, without hesitation she wrapped her arms around me like before and apperated.
Hey you guys like it? Hate it? Please leave a critic using the comment button below. Tell me what I can improve on. I already have the next chapter done I just need to edit, so it should be up relatively quickly.