Weeks Later.
For the first time in his life, Harry was finding a Quidditch game hard, harder than ever before.
In fact, 'hard' was probably the biggest understatement of the century. It was unbearable, and completely distracting him from the game at hand. He hated himself for it.
But it didn't have anything to do with his flying, or his team mates, or the weather, or any thing else you would normally have thought to potentially cause problems.
It was something else entirely. And the problem wasn't even on the pitch. No, 'It' was was in the stands over looking the pitch. A better word for 'it' would be 'they'.
And 'they' were none other than two of his friends, Neville and Luna. They weren't taunting or booing him, or anything like that. Harry wouldn't have minded if they were, he would probably have preferred it. At least it would be more bearable than this, the way Luna was chatting to Neville and completely ignoring Harry even when he was the one playing in the Quidditch final.
He saw a faint glimmer of something golden in his peripheral vision, and forced himself to turn away and pursue it, and try to stop thinking about his two friends.
And they were his friends, Harry thought to himself as he chased the snitch absent mindedly. Both of them were his good friends, and he liked them both a lot. You couldn't help but like Neville, he was so innocent and got himself in trouble so easily.
As for Luna, many people couldn't understand why Harry liked her so much, – Harry himself being one of them. She was just so, so likeable and sweet. He really did like her and Neville. But for some reason he couldn't get his head around - he didn't like them when they were together.
When he saw them standing together, talking and laughing as they were now, and sometimes doing other things Harry didn't want to think about for fear of losing his sanity, all he wanted to do was to curse someone or kick something. And when Harry saw Neville make Luna laugh or hug or kiss her all he wanted to do was rip Neville's head off. He didn't understand why he felt like this, it was embarrassing. Neville was one of his good friends, for crying out loud.
Just then a loud cheer arose from the stands. Harry jumped and nearly fell off his broom. He looked to his left into the stands to see the whole audience shouting and clapping at something. Well, the whole audience, except for Luna and Neville.
"Harry!" Some one was calling. He whipped his head around to see a fair, red headed girl waving and smiling at him. Ginny."Nice catch!" She shouted. He looked at her blankly.
'What catch?' he mouthed questioningly.
She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind - which he thought he probably had – and pointed to his hand.
In it was the snitch. He had caught the snitch?
Suddenly his whole team were surrounding him and congratulating him."Well done Harry!" They were shouting as they dragged him back down to the floor of the pitch.
He got off his broom. Ginny came up to Harry, beaming, and wrapped her arms around him, kissing him gently on the lips.
Harry looked over his shoulder to find that Luna was doing the same to Neville. Anger arose inside him. He frowned.
Ginny pulled away, looking hurt, and walked off the pitch without saying a word. Harry didn't stop her. A wave of guilt washed over him, but he pushed it away. He hadn't done anything wrong. A voice inside his head whispered 'maybe it was what you didn't do.' Harry pushed that away too.
He pictured Ginny in his head. He loved her really, but she just wasn't Luna. She just wasn't the sweet, beautiful, blonde girl who Harry loved dearly.
Harry was astonished at how true that last thought was. He did love Luna, more than just as a friend. He thought of when Luna had had feelings for him a few weeks ago, and how he had been so wrapped up in Ginny that he hadn't noticed. That reminded him. Ginny. He sighed. The problem with Ginny was that sometimes she made Harry feel as if he was just her 'trophy boyfriend.' He couldn't be sure if Ginny would love him without the scar. With Luna, however, well she didn't care whether he had defeated dark forces time and again, all she cared about was that he be himself and be nice. Luna let Harry be Harry, famous or not. And she was so fascinating, he never had an ordinary or normal conversation with her – she was very unpredictable and Harry liked that. He liked her weird ways.
And as he looked at Luna, who was making her way off the stands, hand in hand with Neville, he realised what he had been feeling before, and what he undoubtedly was feeling now. He was jealous, completely green with jealousy. He wanted to be in Nevilles place.
How stupid he had been to turn Luna away - what an amazing opportunity he had missed. All he wanted to do was approach her and ask for another chance. But first, he decided, he would have to deal with Ginny. The wave of guilt washed over him again, but this time he didn't push it away.
Instead he let himself drown in it as he made his way up to the Griffindor common room.
It was the least he deserved for what he was about to do.