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"Will you marry me?"
"Harry…" I murmur. I stare intently at the ceiling trying to make sure those waiting tears don't fall. Not tears of happiness, joy, shock or surprise.
Frustration. Impatience. Desperation.
How did it come to this?
I think I've lost time. I'm sure it got away from me somehow. An hour there. Half a day there. Slipped away from me so that I wouldn't notice. Hurtling onwards to this impossible situation: Like the very essence of time conspired against me. To punish me. To grab me by the throat, shake me and yell 'It's getting bloody serious now, isn't it? Think you better do something, eh?'
"Ginny, are you crying?" Harry asks softly. "Are you happy? Overwhelmed? Or-Or is the ring? Do you not like the ring?"
Merlin's sake, Harry, I haven't even seen the ring! That sliver of light told me all I needed to know about that ring. I do not want to look at the fucking ring.
"Gin?"
You back a great, dirty rat into a corner and it'll jump for your throat. Bite you at the weakest point to cause maximum damage. Fred told me that when I was a kid. Terrified me. I almost developed a phobia of corners in case I accidentally trapped something there that would hurt me. I spent the best part of my formative years walking in careful circles.
Now I'm in the corner and I don't have the heart to go for the jugular.
This just keeps getting deeper and deeper and I don't know how much longer I can go on breathing without saying anything. But I don't know how many more lying words I can manage. I'm drowning in these twisted lies and this false life. It would be justified if it was just me sinking to the bottom but I've caught hold of Harry's cuff and I'm dragging him to the murky bottom as well.
It's time to push for the surface.
"Harry, I—"
The sight before me pains me inside and out. Harry, on his knees, holding out a beautiful ring, his face shining with hope.
I'll just suck in enough air to survive and return to the depths I'm so accustomed to.
"Harry, I'm so sorry, I forgot I was supposed to be at my mum's after work," I fake-gasp as I fake-clasp my hand to my forehead in fake-realisation.
"O-Oh," he stutters, pulling himself off his knees. "And you—"
"I need to go now. There's so much to do for the wedding," I explain convincingly. "I promised. I'm sorry. Can we pick this up later?"
Merlin. I'm helping mum plan the wedding now? How does this crap fall out of my mouth with the greatest of ease?
"Um, sure, whatever you need."
"Great," I smile, kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you Thursday then, yeah? For the rehearsal dinner?"
Which means I better have an answer or an explanation or a better bloody excuse by Thursday. I should just buy my own personal shovel; good for twenty-four hour hole digging.
I think the desperate sight of him proposing marriage to me is having a serious effect on my lying capabilities. I rush through to the bedroom to shove some clothes in a holdall for the next few nights. I'm going to the Burrow. How the Hell did this happen? What happened to resolve? What happened to not going at any cost?
"We could meet tomorrow couldn't we?" he asks softly as he watches me pack. "I'll come to your mum's after work. We could talk and—"
"Can't," I reply. "Dress fitting, isn't it?"
Some one please stop me. Smother my voice with a charm, steal it with a potion, cast the Avada Kedavra behind my back – Anything to stop this mess of my own making.
"Dress fitting?" he repeats quizzically. "You're going to be the bridesmaid?"
No
"Yes."
I wish to die.
Maybe it's not too late to play dead; drop to the floor, close my eyes, slow my breathing and let him walk away.
"When did you decide that?" he asks, bemused.
"My mum convinced me." Another lie, another foot deeper underground.
"She did, did she?"
I have to get away before I suggest we have a double wedding with Ron and Hermione. What the Hell is he doing to me?
--
"That's us nearly got everyone's RSVP's back," Ron smiled, flopping onto the sofa next to Hermione. She was reading a muggle novel, her brow furrowed, and appeared not to be listening to him.
"Great," she murmured, turning a well worn page.
"I didn't know we sent one to Katie Bell," Ron mused, turning over the invite in his hand.
"We didn't, I did. Yesterday," Hermione replied quietly.
"Yeah? I didn't know you were close with her," Ron replied, eyebrows raised.
"I'm not really," Hermione replied cautiously, her sight still fixed on the pages on front of her. "I met her a few days ago. And she got so excited over the wedding I thought it'd be rude not to invite her."
"Oh. Right. I don't mind, I'm not getting on at you." Ron scratched his head. "Katie's always been really nice to everyone. I see she's got Oliver Wood as her plus one. I heard something about them going out. Where did you meet her, then?"
"Just a pub, out."
"Can I guess when it was you went to a pub?" Ron asked quietly.
"If you like," Hermione sniffed, trying to remain as rigid as possible.
"Right. Just forget it then," he mumbled, thumbing through some more replies. "Alicia Spinnet? You invited Alicia? When did you see her?"
"Same time as Katie Bell. Is that a problem?" Hermione asked coldly, still not looking up.
"Well, neither of us really knew her, did we? She was older and not that social. Bit of a weirdo actually. Do you remember the rumour about her and Patricia Stimpson? Fred reckoned he saw them at it in the—"
"Yes, very good, Ron. You can remember gossip from years ago. Nice to know I'm marrying a man with such a keen memory!" Hermione snapped, sitting briskly up on the sofa and glaring at him.
"Bloody Hell, Hermione," Ron grumped as his fiancée pushed off the sofa beside him to escape to the kitchen. "It was only a bit of fun."
"Fun?" Hermione echoed, coming back through to stand in front of him. "You think it was much fun for her to have the entire House, the entire school, gawping at her and gossiping about her because of something which – at the end of the day – is nobodies business but her own?"
"Hermione. That's school. That's being a teenager," Ron shrugged, flabbergasted at why Hermione had taken such umbrage with this. "Folk talk. They gossip. They poke fun at. It's just what happens."
"Oh, I'd forgotten that it's perfectly acceptable behaviour to belittle anyone remotely different in the world according to Ron Weasley. And you're not a teenager now, remember? Yet you're still 'having fun' at someone else's expense?"
"Why the Hell do you care?" Ron asked through gritted teeth. "You were probably like the rest of us – gossiping about what you'd heard."
"I certainly was not!" Hermione snorted indignantly.
"Sure. So you let that whole scandal pass you by because it wasn't 'p.c.' or whatever your muggles call it—"
"My muggles?" Hermione near screamed. "Did you mean to say that? Or Mudblood, Ron?"
"Now you're just fucking hysterical," Ron shouted, standing up to match her. That word always ignited such a rage in him. "You know I would never dare say – or think that word. To you, or anyone else. You're just making up reasons to be angry with me now! You're fighting with me over fucking Alicia Spinnet?!?"
"Yes, I am!" Hermione spluttered. "Alicia's coming to the wedding and she can bring a boyfriend, a girlfriend or the Giant fucking Squid from the bloody lake and you won't say a word about it!"
"Who said I would? I'm not a bloody bigot, Hermione. And I'd've hoped that you out of anyone should know that," Ron told her fiercely, jabbing a finger in her face.
When Hermione didn't come back with a retort and her face crumpled as she realised how aggressive and accusatory she'd been, Ron just felt angrier.
"And I'm not staying here to have another pointless fight so you can insult me with this shit for no bloody reason," Ron sneered. He grabbed the coat that was hanging over the chair and walked to the door. "You can stay here and fucking tear lumps out me all on your own."
Hermione shuddered as the front door rattled in its frame as Ron slammed it behind him.
--
It was too late to wake Mum when I got in last night. No doubt she'll be surprised though – second time in a week I go to ground in my childhood home.
So when she comes in my room early in the morning with an armful of clean bed sheets, I don't blame her for screaming.
"Merlin, Ginny! Where did you come from?" she demands, holding her chest.
"Sorry," I mumble, sitting up and still half asleep. "Last night. Didn't want to wake you."
"I don't know what you're playing at, Ginny. Creeping in here at the dead of night. Are you and Harry... fighting?" she asks tactfully.
"Harry and I…" I mutter, pushing my bed head back from my face.
"I mean, you keep running over here and won't talk about it. And Ron won't talk about what Harry's telling him—" Mum sighs. We both sit in silence – Her full well expecting me to crack and me hoping she'll bugger off until I'm fully awake. I'm not a fan of being interrogated half-awake. I feel very vulnerable.
The waiting game is interrupted by two Owls appearing at the bedroom window. One brown – looks like Ron's. And the other – Shit. Mine and Harry's.
"I know who they are," my Mum hums gently as she crosses to the window to let them hop in. She removes both the letters – one looking a bit bumpy in the middle. She reads the names on both and hands the bumpy one to me. That's a bit disconcerting.
"Ron's probably been up early making plans," Mum says aloud although I don't think she's specifically talking to me. She opens it and reads it in the time I take just to stare at Harry's handwriting on the front.
"Oh, Ginny!" she exclaims, turning to me with a beaming face.
Oh fuck, what?
"Ron says you've decided to be the bridesmaid after all!" she gushes, pulling me into a tight hug which I can't quite respond to.
"What?"
She pulls back, looking at the letter again. "He says Harry Owled him last night to tell him you were coming home for the dress fitting today and to help me with the preparations! Ginny, I knew you'd come round!"
I squint awkwardly, feeling tiny and surely looking like Professor Flitwick when confronted with an Ogre. How can I tell my mother it's all been a big misunderstanding and that I lied to Harry to get out of making a certain decision—
"He also says you have some news," she reads quizzically. "You and Harry have some news?"
"We do?" I ask weakly, absent-mindedly tearing open the letter. As I do, a small glinting object falls from the envelope onto the bedspread.
"Apparently you do!" Mum half-shrieks, pointing to this small instrument of Hell in my lap.
I pick up that little ring and look at the few scribbled words accompanying it.
Thought you should have this while you decide – Something to remind you of what I'm offering,
Love, Harry.
"Oh Ginny, you're getting married!" Mum exclaims, now crying openly.
Fuck me.
--
"I'm sure Ginny and Harry will be much more organised," Molly remarked, inspecting the hem of Hermione's dress.
"I don't think they're quite there yet, Molly," Hermione replied quietly.
"She hasn't said to you?" Molly asked, looking up in surprise.
"Said what?"
"He proposed! Harry's asked her to marry him," she beamed. Hermione stood frozen and stared at her own reflection. Subconsciously, her fingertips scratched down her the folds of her dress. She felt the white-ness of the dress overwhelm her senses until it was all she could see. Like the Antarctic explorers she'd been fascinated with as a young girl. So much snow that after a while you go blind. You can't distinguish anything else from blankness. White-Out.
"Oh, fantastic," Hermione said statically, still transfixed by her own reflection.
"Ginny? Are you coming out of there? I need to see the dress on," Molly urged.
--
"Minute, mum!" I call back to her. This is my worst fucking nightmare. The colour's not too bad and the dress fits nicely. But I am standing in the dress which makes me part of the wedding I would have robbed, murdered, begged and cried to get out of.
But I'm here. In a satin blue dress. All because of bloody Harry and his bloody question which sent me running for the nearest bomb shelter.
"Ginny!"
"Right, Mum," I mumble, slipping out of the bathroom.
When I see Hermione in that big white dress - the final costume for her Tragedy of Errors - I want to hit something, or someone.
I catch Hermione's eye and it looks like she's thinking the very same thing. That look scares me in ways I'll probably dream about for nights to come.
"I need air," she says through gritted teeth, swishing the dress out of my mum's grasp and pushing past me roughly.
"You didn't tell her," my mum points out, as if that is supposed to be an explanation for the human disaster that is Hermione Granger.
"What, Mum?"
"Your wedding," she smiles uncontrollably. "She's probably annoyed you didn't tell her that Harry proposed."
"Seriously, mum?" The demented cow just smiles. Not a fucking clue. "Right," I sigh, hitching up my skirt and taking off after her.
She's at the bottom of the garden heading for the woods before I catch up to her. That dress seemingly doesn't affect her ability to run away.
"Hermione you need to go back. Mum'll have a bloody fit if you ruin the dress," I yell at her, exasperated, but doing my best to remain detached.
"And?" Hermione yells back, pulling out of my grip and darting between the trees.
I could walk away. I need to walk away. But I feel I have no chance but to follow.
Pushing through the brush and springy branches, I see Hermione in the middle of a small clearing. She's doing something, but I can't see what.
Emerging from the shrub, I see clearly now. And I'm completely speechless.
There stands Hermione, bare feet on the mossy green forest floor with nothing on but her underwear. She stands over her wedding dress, with her wand pointed. Her hand is shaking, her face is red and she looks ready to let a stream of curse words loose that would make the Twins blush.
But only one leaves her lips.
"Incendio!" she cries. And in that instant (as Hermione Granger is the last person alive who would miscast) the entire dress is engulfed. I can't stop watching the dancing flames as they illuminate her slightly relieved features. It isn't long – or perhaps time has skipped on me again – until the entire beautiful, hand-made gown is burned to cinders.
She looks up at me over the dying embers. That slightly crazy expression isn't lost but she looks at me like I'm the only very person she wanted to see in these woods.
"Harry asked you," she says clearly and pointedly. She slips her wand underneath the fine lace of her wedding garter. I feel slightly easier knowing it's sheathed for the time being.
"He did," I admit.
"What did you say?"
I open and then close my mouth again.
"Well? Are you getting married or aren't you?" she asks haughtily.
"Surely a question I should ask you. Seeing as you've burned your bloody dress 'n all," I half sneer.
"Harry's not the One," she says quietly, stepping delicately over the ashes of her wedding dress and edging closer to me.
"And I don't believe in 'One's'," I reply, trying to shuffle back.
"No. You believe in the 'Two' and the 'Three' and the 'Fifteen'," Hermione tells me harshly. "Isn't that right?" Before I can answer, she presses on further. "It isn't, is it? That would imply serial fidelity. Faithful, you are not, Ginny Weasley," she says crisply, twigs crackling underfoot.
"And you are?" I scoff, my sweating palms sliding on the soft satin.
"You've cheated on everyone you've ever been with. Michael, Dean, Harry – I know for a fact."
Uncomfortable isn't the word. Neither is nervous. Something in her burned with the dress. Or perhaps the flames rose up in her.
"You-you call a couple of stupid kisses cheating?" I stammer, pushing backwards through a few stray branches.
I'm being hunted; stalked. She's out for blood. Not to wound – Just the Kill. It won't be long before I'm caught in a trap, metal jaws clamping around me and they'll be no escape.
"I know you've done more than that," she retorts. She comes closer still, her entire body tensed, though it's not her body I can focus on. I can't look at her fully, clad in just her underwear. If I did it would take more power than I have to tear myself away.
"No you don't," I nervously smile, licking my lips.
"Yes. I do," she smiles dangerously back.
"How?" I challenge, nothing else coming to mind at the moment.
"Water cooler gossip, funnily enough," she says, tilting her head to the side. Sizing up the prey. Not long left. "A few years ago from one of the women I work with. She just had to tell me about the red head she 'had' last night. I knew it was you before she did. I'm guessing you didn't dabble with magical women for much longer after that. Risky. You know how small the magic world is. Best stick with oblivious muggles."
"Muggles," I repeat softly, nodding slightly.
"So, how many? One a week? Two? I know Harry travels a lot. And he's too trusting to be suspicious," Hermione surmises. "Do you ever feel guilty?"
"Guilty?" I echo, clearing my throat. Another step backwards and I fall into a threaded cage of branches. It feels like they wind around me, holding me steadily upright but not letting me go.
And still Hermione advances.
To anyone who hasn't seen her like this, they would doubt Healer Granger ever could act like this. It's a unicorn's hair's breadth between being terrified or desired.
Her bare feet are dirty now, her toes sinking into the soft earth as she pushes ever onwards. A few feet away. I can almost taste her skin glittered with ash.
"I said: Do you ever feel guilty?"
"Guilty isn't a good enough word for what I'm feeling," I reply in a low voice.
"It isn't," she agrees, softening slightly. But still her fingers are like claws; elongated and ready to strike.
She reaches out her hand and for a moment I think she's going to tear me to pieces, pluck out my heart and dance in my blood. Instead she delicately touches her fingertips to my cheek and to my lips.
"You never cheated on me, though, did you?" she asks quietly.
The look I give her is all the validation that she needs.