A/N: After seeing all the hard work that My Beta Majerus has been doing, I have finally found my lost motivation to finish this fic.
PS: I am Sorry M about the Firewhiskey Part..;-P
After finishing the bottle of Firewhiskey with his friends, Harry was finally drunk enough to spill all the details regarding Ginny to Neville, Dean, Seamus. All three of them burst out with laughter after hearing what Ginny had accused of him.
Dean was actually having trouble in forming coherent sentences. "Haaaarry Potterrrrrrrrrr! A flirt?"
"A FLIRT!" confirmed Seamus gleefully, and more than a little buzzed.
Harry was getting annoyed, "Thanks. I know what she called me, you don't have to remind me every two seconds."
Neville suddenly stood on the couch, swaying as he announced, "Let's make toast. To Harry James Potter, the-ever-so-awkward-in-front-of-girls-guy, has achieved his ultimate goal, a flirt."
All three of them raised their glasses and said "To Harry."
"Go on, take the Mickey out of me," he grumpily responded.
Neville suddenly stopped laughing, sat down hard next to him and said in a dead serious voice, "Does this girl mean anything to you?"
Harry, taken aback by the question, shook his head furiously and said "No, no... this girl means nothing to me. Why would a simple girl that I only know from a café mean anything to me? She doesn't even know me and called me a flirt! I mean, I'm Harry freaking Potter, I can get a girl like her in seconds. Wait, why do you think this girl would mean anything to me?"
All three of Harry's friends were staring at him while he ranted. There was barely a moment of silence before they burst out laughing again.
Dean was grinning widely as he swept his arm towards his confused friend. "Mate, you are not hard to read. You are just one of those people who wear their heart on their sleeve."
"So?"
Neville actually sounded somewhat sober as he tried to get his thick headed friend to understand, "So, this girl is special and you like her. That's why it is bothering you so much that she called you a flirt."
Harry retorted, "I don't like..."
All three of them rolled their eyes and Seamus interrupted, "Here he goes again."
Harry sighed, "Okay... I like this girl a lot and I don't know what to do about it."
"What's there to do? Just go and ask her out." Dean reasoned.
"But she called me a flirt only twelve hours ago. If I go and ask her out tomorrow, she'll think I'm actually a flirt!"
"Look mate, women love straight forward men. If you ask her out tomorrow, she will definitely be impressed. Trust me, I Know," Seamus stated with authority.
Harry nodded and decided that tomorrow morning, he would just ask her out. If she says no, he will just have to hex Seamus for his womanizing ideas.
Harry woke the next morning sprawled in bed with a bad headache. He remembered getting drunk last night with the guys and talking about Ginny... Merlin's beard! Ginny!
He hastily looked for his watch. 11:00. She had left the café already. Feeling somewhat dejected, he took some hangover potion to ease his headache and made his way out of his room.
Neville, Seamus and Dean were all still asleep on the couch. The potion had taken away the nausea and headache, but he still felt as bad as they looked. Rubbing his unshaven face he thought maybe it was a good thing that he didn't meet her today. It would give him some time to figure out what the hell he is going to say in front of her. In the mean time he started some coffee.
Harry had been standing in front of Susie's café for the last ten minutes. Last night he had spent almost two hours writing and rewriting what he was going to say to her. Seamus came to his room just to check on him and saw the parchments all over the room.
He shook his head at his friend. "Mate, this isn't going to work, confidence is the key. You just have to wing it."
"Yeah, if this doesn't work out, I know who to blame Mr. Love Guru."
Seamus stuck out his tongue before leaving hastily.
Harry took a deep breath and entered the café. 8:45. He had fifteen minutes to get his nerves under control. He took his usual seat and Susie came to his table.
She poured him some coffee and simply said, "It's not going to work."
"Sorry?"
"I know why you come here everyday. It's not going to work."
Surprised by her boldness, Harry replied in stiff voice, "Thanks for your insight, but I would like to try my luck."
Susie shook her head, "You don't understand, Ginny is a very special person. She is very different from other people. If you are smart, you will stay away from her.""
Harry raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"
Susie's face saddened a bit as she took the seat in front him. Taking a deep breath the waitress spoke in a strained voice, "About five years ago, Ginny was in a terrible car accident. Her father broke some ribs, but Ginny suffered a serious head injury."
Harry swallowed hard, "And?"
Susie's face twisted, her words apparently painful to reveal. "She lost her short-term memory."
His mind seemed to be locked in a cage. He heard what Susie said but couldn't wrap his head around what he was told.
"Wait... what? Short-term memory? What do you mean by that!?" His voice becoming strained as he finished.
"She has all of her long-term memory," Susie continued, "that's in a different part of the brain. Her whole life, up to the night before the accident, she remembers just fine."
Susie saw the confusion in Harry's face, she hated what she had to tell him as it hurt her every day. "Harry, Ginny can't retain any new information. It's like her slate gets wiped clean every night while she sleeps. That's why she didn't remember you the other day."
Harry had seen the pain in the woman's eyes but the information was just too hard to accept. He quickly lost his temper, his voice both harsh and panicked, "Stop it! Stop this non-sense, you are making this up, aren't you!?"
Susie sighed, her moist eyes staring right back as he glared at her, "I wish I was." He looked away.
Another deep breath and her voice turned from shaky to resigned. "She wakes up every morning thinking its February 6th of five years ago. She reads the same newspaper every day. It's a special paper her father puts on their porch, from the day of her accident. He got hundreds of them printed."
Susie stopped for a moment, her voice cracking a bit. Looking down at the table she finished her tale, "Ginny repeats the last day she can remember every day, over and over."
The last line of Susie had such a tone of finality that Harry had to look back at her.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I saw the way you look at her. It's just best that you know the whole truth."
"I don't believe you," he snapped.
Susie's shoulders slumped even further, "Please clam down. Look, I care for Ginny. I don't want to see her get hurt. So, I am warning you beforehand."
Frustrated, Harry banged his fists on the table at the same moment Ginny entered the café.
Without thinking he was up and out of his chair before Susie could react. Harry walked straight towards the redhead, he forced his voice to sound cheerful. "Hi Ginny, remember me? I'm Harry, you called me a flirt a day before yesterday?"
Clearly startled by his sudden introduction, Ginny's face twitched with a smile after a second and called to Susie over his shoulder, "Hey Su, your list of loony customers is increasing everyday, include this guy with me."
Ginny started to laugh, her care-free voice ringing clearly in the silent diner. Harry had never seen anything less funny in his life.
