Hermione pressed her forehead against the glass of the train. She felt like a furnace against the chilling window. She was thinking how depressing it is to know that you've road the roller coaster of true love by the time you're 16. Having grown up surrounded by muggle pop culture toting a society where you find your true love and are attached at the hip forever, she felt like, for once, a complete failure.
Harry fidgeted. She was coming back today. After leaving abruptly so close to the end of 5th year, she was coming back, halfway through 6th. A whole year. To the date. Harry pushed thoughts of fate. He swallowed, trying to dissipate the dull pain in his chest. Ginny suddenly appeared by his side. She was saying something about "it all will be fine", and how "It's not your fault that she left". He tuned her out, knowing she was just trying to calm him. For the first time in a very long time, he wished she'd leave him alone.
Ron was elated, but very guiltily so. He knew he should be worried over the emotional status of his friends, but he couldn't help himself. She was coming back today! The only news he had heard of her the entire time was that she hadn't gone home for the summer. Instead, she had stayed over at Beauxbatons.
Harry would be nervous, Ron knew, wanting to only apologize. He was the hero. Heroes always apologize, because it is the right thing to do. But then again, maybe that wasn't why Harry wanted to apologize. Because, after all, a hero would never cheat on his loving girlfriend for his best friend's sister, leaving her devastated and him torn.
"It's the right thing to do," Ginny whispered. Any other time, this action would be seductive, but the situation and the content rendered any flirtation useless. Harry knew she thought that she was repeating his reasons for talking to Hermione, so he nodded distractedly. The truth was that Harry was guilty. He was guilty because of what he had done, and he was guilty because he didn't regret it. Harry had pretended to be sorry for all he had done. And he WANTED to be sorry. But he couldn't. No one seemed to reveal they noticed. And maybe no one had cared enough. But Hermione would notice. After all, Ginny was still leaning on his shoulder. And holding his hand. Or giving him butterfly kisses. He couldn't push her away while Hermione was around. It was cruel, but he decided he would not stop his life over this. She had surely moved on. He would too.
Ginny, though she seemed though she was calmly trying to soothe Harry, was actually about to collapse. Corny as it was, the suspense was killing her. She had always emulated Hermione, going back and forth between intense jealousy and intense idolization. She had (better than) perfect grades, a perfect boyfriend (whom Ginny wanted to the point of tears), a perfect (well-off) family, new (not hand-me-down, thank you) clothes…the list goes on. Ginny had at one point planned to make a poly juice potion to BECOME Hermione. The plan never came through. She luckily discovered the absurdity of it before embarrassing herself.
And then, one day, Harry had smiled at her. Ginny had been on the off-again of her on-again off-again crush, so she knew she wasn't reading too far into it. She screamed at herself a million times that it was just another brotherly smile that she was taking too seriously. He had a devoted girlfriend. Why would he finally want her after so long?
But with those "brotherly" smiles, she had been trying to convince herself that it was real. This one, though, she was trying to convince herself that it wasn't.