Ginny's Take

The Burrow

One Day Before the Wedding

Ginny's Room

"Sometimes, I wonder if he even likes me."

"Likes you? I'd say the odds are pretty good that he loves you."

"I didn't say all the time. Just sometimes."

"It only proves you're paranoid."

"Just a little. Considering what I've been through, I think I have a remarkable constitution."

"You're changing the subject. The point is, you two have been making moon eyes at each other for ages now, and it's about bloody time it's over."

"Well...do you think he likes me? Sometimes he just gets a little mean...sometimes it even seems like it's random, I don't even know what I did to deserve it."

I shook my head, my flaming red ponytail fanning out behind me.

"Oh no, it's never random. It might be over something insignificant...but not random. He often wonders the same thing himself, you know - wondering what he's done to deserve your ire sometimes."

"Such as..."

"Hmm...this almost seems like digging up ancient history, but very well. You remember your fifth year?"

"In detail."

"Yes, well, you remember when Harry came in after kissing Cho after a DA meeting?" I flushed slightly and reset my face to its normal cheery expression, realizing that unwittingly I had gritted my teeth a little as I said it. I often got angry at Ron - and the rest of my dimwit brothers - for being overprotective and jealous, but the truth was, I didn't have much room to talk.

"I do. You weren't there."

"Well, Ron didn't confide in Harry about these kind of things. He confided in me. Anyway, do you want you to tell me about this or not?"

Clearly surprised that Ron would prefer to talk to me as opposed to Harry, Hermione nodded quietly.

"Alright. So I don't really remember the precise details, but what it boils down to is that you insulted Ron for having...'the emotional range of a teaspoon'?"

Hermione flushed, realizing well that the remark sounded more than a little mean. "Well, he was being immature and ridiculous. Entirely insensitive to Harry's feelings if you ask me."

I bit my lip, adverse to having to prod my frequently defensive best friend into giving up her position. "I doubt Harry really minded at the time, Hermione. Besides, if you insulted Ron every time he was being immature, I don't think you two would have ever become friends."

"Fine," Hermione snapped. "But if this was a frequently occuring kind of thing, you'll need more than one example."

I smirked automatically, realizing that I had won this particular argument. "Alright...let's go to fifth year. Your sixth, that is."

Hermione groaned audibly, not particularly excited about the idea of talking about a year when she spent nearly half of it feeling at a personal low. "Do we have to?"

I pretended to ignore her, but rolled my eyes anyway. "You made Ron feel inadequate about his Keeping." Ooh, she really didn't like that one.

"I most certainly did not! No one believed more in Ron's Keeping than me!"

"Rubbish, Hermione. You implied that the only reason Ron was able to do so well was because Harry had slipped him Felix - whatever it was..."

"Felix felicis," Hermione responded automatically.

"Yes, that. And you knew how hard he worked at being Keeper, and how sensitive he was about it -" Hermione cut me off, and I couldn't tell from her face whether she was getting more angry, more upset, or both.

"The evidence pointed that way! Harry pretended to put it in - Ron believed he had too - what else was I supposed to believe in?"

"Ron's abilities," I snapped back. I made my voice calmer to soothe both of our tempers. "And Harry's morals - he wouldn't cheat, Hermione. Besides, if you prod Ron all the time for being 'insensitive' and 'tactless', perhaps you should exercise some yourself! Even had Harry slipped him some Felix thingy, you should've known better than to accuse Harry right in front of Ron! You and I both know that the two of you often have fights over tiny little things - how do you think Ron would react to something like that?"

Hermione sniffed and hung her head. "So I suppose all my fights with Ron are my fault."

"No, just more than you think. And besides, only partially. it always takes two to make a fight."

Hermione shook her head at that. "It doesn't. He sometimes tried to make it up with me in sixth year, you know, or just talk to me, but I didn't let him - all because of Lavender." She said the name with unwonted venom, as if she wished it didn't exist. "I never really knew what I did wrong. I suppose I do now, though - the Quidditch thing?"

I squirmed as we came to a subject that I was trying to avoid - not only because it was very sensitive for all concerned, but because I had always borne some of the guilt in that situation. "Partially. It was a lot of things, you know. He started to feel as if you didn't pay attention to him - he told me about a time that you were talking to Harry about how fanciable he was."

Hermione squinted as she dug back through her memory for comments she was sure she had considered obvious and totally inconsequential.

"Or the times you kept writing letters to Krum. Then there was the Quidditch thing, and..." I hesitated.

"And?" Hermione looked curious, since it didn't seem logical for me to have any hesitation about Ron and Hermione's various disputes.

"Well, one time," I said, remembering the argument with painful clarity. "Dean and I were - well - snogging, if you want to put it that way, in a secret corridor. Ron and Harry came around - they were just taking the shortcut, I guess, and Ron became a little overprotective, I suppose - saying he didn't want to 'see his little sister snogging in public'. I guess I overreacted a little, so when Dean left, I went and yelled at Ron."

"...and?"

"Oh, right. So we started yelling at each other, in the usual way, until, well..." I closed my eyes and thought hard as I tried to get the memory out. It had been a long time ago, and my precise comments were ones that I had long forgot in the years of turmoil. They started to come, little by little, but I guess it was too slow for Hermione.

"Accio Pensieve!" Hermione's Pensieve, which she had taken with her when she came to the Burrow, slid along to stop between where we were sitting, cross-legged on the floor in my room. "Here," she gestured. "Use my Pensieve."

I nodded and drew my wand out (all of us kept our wands with us out of sheer habit, these days. I had tried to abandon it once, but had failed when I suddenly felt terribly insecure). Raising the tip to my temple, I slowly drew it out, little by little. I tried to focus on just the last part, but unfortunately, the entire memory came out. Oh well. It would give Hermione more context anyway - she always preferred things in context. I slowly stirred the contents with my wand and willed my memory - resisting an embarrassing temptation to see Hermione's memories. I probably knew most of them, anyway. We both stared intently into the Pensieve as the memory came up, my expression guarded and my face farther back than Hermione, who was peering with burning curiosity. I remember...

I wrapped my arms around Dean's neck as we continued to snog, keeping my eyes firmly shut. I always did whenever I was close to Dean - sometimes even when we were just hugging, although we didn't do that often. One time I hadn't, and I had seen beautiful hazel eyes staring back out at me. Not Dean's eyes, who were a deep brown. Harry's. Of course, I was mildly startled, and pulled back to see a perplexed Dean - with regular old brown eyes - staring back at me. Even thinking of it consumed with me guilt, causing me to intensify our kissing and pull myself closer.

I heard two dreadfully familiar voices conversing. Ron and Harry, coming through here! How could I have been so stupid to forget that the reason I even knew about this secret passage was because Ron had showed it to me - it was a shortcut to the common room!

I looked pointedly at the birds outside as the fight between Ron and I escalated. It was painful to watch my brother and I fight so vehemently. He was extremely overprotective, to an even greater extent than my other brothers, but I knew it was only because he had spent more time with me than the others. We had frequent spats and made fun of each other constantly, but it was never a fight - before, it never felt as if it meant anything.

Hermione didn't say a word as she watched the memory unfold, although her face started to adopt an expression of comprehension. In truth, even I knew I couldn't take anywhere close to all the credit for starting the fight between Ron and Hermione - but I knew that the words I had said to Ron, right then, right there, were probably one of the biggest reasons.

A sudden quiet from the previously loud yells of the two of us fighting preceded to signal that the memory was over.

"Well," I said. "There you have it."

Hermione didn't say anything, still staring into the depths of the Pensieve.

"Hermione?"

Her head jerked upwards, her perpetually bushy hair making a fwoosh sound.

"Oh! Sorry..." Hermione said, but she didn't say anything else.

I waited until I decided I might as well go ahead. "Look, I'm sorry. I never meant for it to happen. I just wasn't thinking - you know how I can get, and how Ron can get."

Hermione smiled warmly. "Don't blame yourself for what happened, Gin. He still chose to do what he did - just now it makes more sense, is all." Hermione put a friendly hand on my shoulder as she stood up. "Anyway, I think it's time for us to help prepare the banquet. We've been putting it off a little long, don't you think?"

I grinned back at Hermione and started to follow.

"One last thing?" Hermione said in a questioning tone, right before we were going to leave.

"Yes?"

"Do you think he loves me?"

I was almost stunned for a beat. Honestly..."Do you think you love him?"

Hermione hesitated, but then nodded in the affirmative, now twenty-two and no longer shying from the meaningful word as she once did.

"Well...why don't you ask him tomorrow?"

Hermione looked simultaneously mortified and thrilled at the thought and didn't say anything, and I smiled to myself as I went down the stairs to help my mother prepare for the pre-wedding Banquet.