Midnight Confessions Chapter 8: Beautiful Disaster.

By alloy

For Sandy

She would say she was getting tired of it, but she would be lying. Every time she found herself alone with Harry, every time their lips met, and his hands roamed her body, she thought it might be the last time. Her love was ending.

Her brother's was beginning. Ron and Hermione were going through much the same motions as she and Harry; sometimes competing with each other for places of privacy.

Ginny glanced across the room at Hermione; her brother's love was nervously preparing to take him to dinner at her parents.

Ron had a name for her, an intimate name that seemed to send shivers through Hermione when he used it. A name he jealously guarded, threatening to box George's ear when that brother sought to mock it. Ron's love, Ron's life with Hermione was definitely beginning.

It was so unfair, Ron was older than her, it was so unfair. Why did Harry have to be such a beautiful disaster?

"Hermione?"

"Ready to go, Ron?"

Ron laughed nervously. "As good as I'm going to get."

The chestnut haired witch took Ron's hand and led him away. "We'll just tell your mum that we're going. Bye, Gin."

Ron wiggled his eyebrows at Ginny even as Hermione pulled him out the room. "Don't wait up."

"Don't wait up."

Harry Potter was a complete and utter disaster. He made Ron look practically perfect. Harry was asleep now; he had taken to sleeping at odd hours. Ron had said it was some of the old nightmares returning, the ones he had had when he first arrived at Hogwarts. Witnessing the death of the headmaster had resurrected his barely imagined memories of his parent's deaths.

Ginny clicked open the ballpoint pen Hermione had carelessly given away, she pulled a piece parchment towards herself and began to write:

She wrote about Harry, she wrote in rhyme, almost in response to some primitive human rhythm. The Harry Potter she knew, the boy, not the legend, seemed almost like a damned soul.

Ron and Hermione were trying to save him. They had been for six years. Merlin knew how many hours Ron had laid awake watching Harry sleep. He had even tried to ward Harry's bed, using drops of his own blood at Grimmauld place, at the Burrow, and quite possibly in the boy's dormitory at Hogwarts. The twins had noticed, but wisely kept their council. At the Burrow, Ginny had added her own blood to Ron's for all the good it did, the nightmares persisted.

Was Harry damned? Would loving him damn her? Harry probably thought that, the stupid noble bloody fool.

Loving Harry couldn't damn her, any more than Ron loving Hermione made his blood impure, not unless she let it. Ginny bent her head forward and wrote again:

She felt as if she were spilling her soul out onto the paper, as if all of her sixteen years were flowing out of her, regressing her, taking parts of her life away, taking away the tears and the laughter, taking away Harry Potter, taking away that flawed handsome young man, taking away the myth and legend, though in truth she had discarded that years ago, but still leaving the hurt behind.

Ginny felt the tears well up in her eyes, it was easier to let them fall onto the parchment; the marks of the muggle pen were far more resilient than the traditional quill. Perhaps Hermione used this pen for much the same reason, while she was crying over Ron. Despite herself Ginny giggled. Hermione must have used these muggle pens a lot over the years.

"Did you always know it was Ron?" Ginny had asked.

"Yes," Hermione had replied.

"When did you know?"

"From the beginning -- from before the beginning."

"From before you met him?"

"Does that sound silly, Ginny?"

"No, just sad," Ginny had drawn a deep breath. "So you've always cried over Ron, never over Harry?"

"I've cried for Harry, Ginny, you can't know Harry and not want to cry for him." Hermione had reached for Ginny's hands. "All the stories that they tell about him, Ginny, all the myths they've built around him. They always ignore the tragedy, the sadness; they always seem to end up doing more damage. Ron's the only one who's ever helped at all. Ron and you."

"I want to help him, Hermione, but he's shutting me out."

"Then hold on tight."

"Hold on tight," Ginny wrote.

"Tight – Tight –Tight"

How could she? Harry kept on slipping out of her grasp. That was his talent really, to escape death, and Voldemort, and Privet drive. How long before he escaped the Burrow and her? Would he escape Ron and Hermione, too? Leave them hurt and wondering where he was? Would Ron cry over Harry like Hermione? Perhaps he had already?

Sometimes Ginny wished she were a boy, like her brothers, that she could grab Harry and shake some sense into him.

"Of course," thought Ginny, smiling wryly through her tears. "If I were a boy I wouldn't be crying over Harry Potter, would I?"

Ginny scribbled on, heedless that her tears were making even the resilient ink of the ballpoint pen unintelligible. "I should be more like my brothers. I know what I want, I should hang onto it."

Ginny smiled again. "Like a limpid, like Lavender Brown desperately clinging to Ron, only," thought Ginny, "with class, if that's possible." Perhaps it wasn't.

Sighing, Ginny moved away from the desk to her mirror.

"Your friend was very happy," her mirror said. "But you're not."

Ron was making Hermione happy, he hadn't always, he was trying so hard, almost all the family had noticed. Her father, Ginny had noticed, had taken to carrying a book on muggle weddings around, comparing the preparations for Bill's wedding to the "

Muggle Way

."

It was funny really, in an age where many pureblood wizards would be horrified at the thought of their child marrying a Muggleborn; her father was positively drooling at the thought.

Her parents had also sensed that something was amiss with Harry, that Harry's intensity bordered on resignation, their kisses, the last meal of a condemned man. One last disaster.

"We're both disasters," Ginny thought. "I'm the only girl in the family, the smallest, the youngest, the weakest, the victim. I'm as much of a disaster as Harry."

"Well then you deserve each other," It was Ron's voice, unbidden in her head. "Two disasters cancel each other out."

That was precisely the sort of logic that made Hermione roll her eyes at him, but sometimes, just sometimes, Ron got it right.

Ginny looked again at the tear stained parchment.

Suddenly she began to passionately tear it up. "Damn you, Harry Potter! You may be a bloody disaster, but you're my bloody disaster, and I'm not letting you get away. I can be just as stubborn a bloody Weasley as any of my bloody brothers!"

"Language, dear," the mirror admonished, and Ginny threw the scraps of parchment at it in response.

"He's my beautiful disaster," she said before crying herself to sleep.

It was late when Hermione returned to the room. The trip to her parent's house had resulted in some unexpected revelations, and Ron---Ron continued to surprise.

It was the scraps of parchment at the base of the mirror that attracted Hermione's attention. With a flick of her wand she reconstructed the parchment and a few more passes brought clarity to the smudged and blurred words.

Ginny had written this. Hermione had known the younger girl long enough to recognise her handwriting. Hermione also knew first hand what effects tears had on ink.

It was really beautiful what she had written and Hermione felt it was a great shame that it had been destroyed.

The final words Ginny had written stuck in Hermione's mind.

"Mine!"

That's what it sounded like when Ron called her by her pet name, "'Mione!" When he would suddenly break off a kiss and growl it in her ear, "'Mione," making her go weak at the knees.

'Mione! Mine! Ron and Ginny were far more alike than either of them would care to admit. Ginevra Weasley hadn't given up on Harry Potter, and in Hermione's opinion she wasn't about to either.

With great care Hermione folded the piece of parchment, and locked it away in her trunk. Ginny would need this later, once she had tamed her disaster.

Fin.

1. This Chapter was inspired by the song Beautiful Disaster sung by Kelly Clarkson and written by Rebekah Jordan & Matthew Wilder written at my Beta's request.

2. This is a revised version of this chapter, the council deemed the original version to be a Song-Fic, and asked that revisions be made. The original version of this chapter, including the lyrics for the song can be found here: note:

I have to give soo many thanks to alloy for taking this request on! This is a special chapter for me as the idea for this fic has haunted me from the minute I heard this song, well over 8 months ago, so to see it finally come alive so brilliantly means soo much. I love this song and for all those readers who are familiar with it, you know how beautiful it is to hear. I can't help but listen to the lyrics every time and relate this back to Ginny and Harry's relationship. I feel it's scary how close it comes to describing Harry (ie- "He's magic and myth…") And since I couldn't find a way to write it myself for fear of screwing it up, I finally had the nerve to ask alloy for his opinion. He graciously took my idea, found a way to fit it in his story, and here it is! I can only hope that you love it as much as I do. Thanks again, alloy!! Thanks for reading and please… Review. :