I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, only this original plot that I wrote

suzyg1212 – Thank you so much! I hope the rest of the story lives up to the first chapter

beautifullovex3 – Thanks to you too!

I thank both of you for reviewing! I hope everyone else does the same.

5 days before

Hermione's smooth robes settled down upon the reflective black lacquered bench of the grand piano in her and Ron's apartment. Weary hands upon fingerprinted keys flowed in a form of emotion that she had trouble expressing otherwise. They pushed the keys with a lethargy that could only complement her already brooding nature. Somehow it was beautiful. Ginny never could identify the way the notes would enter her ears so smoothly so sedating when the melody was full of sadness and something missing. Hermione had her ways of turning something dilapidated with torment into something graced with the air of beauty. Like herself. Her eyes were stormy gray when she cried and she never knew that Ginny saw her like that. Everytime she played the piano, Ginny was struck with the largest desire to tell her how stunningly beautiful she looked, mascara smeared with wet cheeks, but her wavering voice expressed refusal to hear such a compliment.

The Order members had been taking turns going on missions to be sure of the exact location the Horcruxes before the group of them together would attempt its destruction. Ron had been gone a long time. Since the day of his scheduled return, Hermione had been scarcer than usual. She never knew that Ginny came to the apartment everyday filled with worry but lacking the guts to say a word. Her back would rest against the bland wall of the hallway flanking the piano room, as she would listen and worry until she realized that her station here was useless until she could gather herself enough to utter a single sound. She loved Hermione too much to risk saying something wrong, something upsetting. All she wanted to do was be there for her, but after years of being her best friend, she didn't even know how, and couldn't stand to admit it.

'I can't let her,' Ginny thought to herself while she watched the toes of her shoes against the apartment's hardwood. 'I can't let her just be here. It doesn't seem okay.' Ginny stood in a sort of half-attempt at determination and fearlessness, but her knees buckled just at the thought. Catching herself, she took a single step.

"Her..mione?" She spoke softly, almost cautiously, as if Hermione would bruise at just the sound of her voice. The piano stopped abruptly. It was like she had just created a void between them in an effort to break through one. It deepened the space that Ginny had previously ignored, but she wasn't going to give up this easily.

"Ginny. Why are you here?" she whirled around and her eyes, stormy as always, avidly looked with a construed emotion into Ginny's delicate green ones. The absence of tears on her fair cheeks made Ginny reconsider her choice to interrupt her and the piano, however the way Hermione's eyes were carefully fixed in her direction while a reckless emotion lurked behind them told Ginny that she needed her.

"You haven't been at Grimmauld Place.." Ginny said, rather uselessly.

"Why do you think Ron bought us this apartment, to get away, maybe?" Hermione said, her voice laced with an unintentional sarcasm.

"What do you need," the words came abruptly from Ginny's mouth. The effort she had foreseen them taking was nonexistent, and she was actually rather annoyed that she had even stood from the hall at all.

Hermione's index finger stroked the middle C key in a whimsical annoyance. But she wasn't annoyed. Her thoughts raced. This plague had haunted her through Hogwarts, so she threw herself at classes, and now she threw herself again away from it, at music. This is what she had secretly hoped for. Someone to ask her just what it was that drove her to be a recluse at times like this. Now she licked her lips, considering the words, but they sounded like poison in her head; they sounded like the teenage angst that was supposed to be flying free from. Somehow it was more then.

"I miss Ron," she said with hesitation.

Ginny launched into a almost-performed response to this, claiming that he'd be back soon, that he would have owled had there been trouble, how it's normal to miss your fiancée when they're away and how if she would just come down to Grimmauld Place…

"No, I don't miss Ron," she interrupted. "I miss how Ron loved me. Passionately, with excitement. With assurance," she said with a hopeless smile.

"I was sure he loved me. Now I'm not sure that anyone would care if I was gone, if I never became and Auror, if I just forgot everything I ever wanted and…gave up," Hermione finished with a blank stare.

"I can't be alone. I need someone else to give me a purpose, to love me. Because I can't do it myself," her voice resolute, she finished and looked up at Ginny longingly.

Ginny sat next to her on the small piano bench and didn't know what to say. She loved her more than she could possibly express, but words felt unsuitable for this time. Ron gave her a physical connection that insured emotional love and commitment. That's what she could not function without, could not dream, could not flourish without. With Ron, she had had a taste, but now that he had been gone for half-a-year, all of her sustainability was faltered.

Ginny became consumed by a desire to do everything to Hermione that she could ever want. Give her everything. Make her feel like someone cared. Ginny did that, in the only was she knew how.

Ginny placed her slender fingers upon Hermione's now flushed cheek and tilted her head in, connecting her pink lips with hers. She opened her mouth, slipping her tongue into Hermione's to suppress the hopelessness she couldn't bear to witness.