Ginny hesitated, then placed one hand carefully over Hermione's, releasing the measured breath that signified it was okay to let her go.
"I should go talk to him," the brown-haired girl argued quietly, nonetheless reclaiming her arms and stepping around to stand beside her girlfriend.
But Ginny just shook her head, her eyes still on her brother. I know that Weasley temper, she thought, finding her wand once again with her hand, just not which one of us it'll want to get at first.
When the red-head stepped forward, however, she felt Hermione grab her shoulder gently, stopping her short. "Together?," the other girl asked then, her voice still cool and calm.
Ginny's lips formed an answer, a less eloquent version of in everything else, my love, everything after this, I promise. But the words never let her mouth. For in that moment, the last straggler boarded, and Ron's eyes found the spot where the two girls stood beyond the platform, under the snow-covered trees. His scowl immediately deepened, as he struck a foot forward, headed their way.
"Together," Ginny agreed haltingly, resigned to the fact that the choice was now no longer hers to make. "But get behind me," she added in a protective whisper, "I know he's your friend, but, Herm, I've seen this look before . . ."
Hermione, however, didn't move, not even when the scarlet-faced boy reached them a minute later, both of his hands balled into tight fists, the right one shaking a crumpled piece of pink parchment a mere ten inches from her face.
"Is this true?," he implored, his voice barely concealing a quiet, building rage.
"Ron, look at me, I can explain . . .," Ginny started; she was ready for such a greeting but had to trail off in her uncertainty of how to best defuse it. Her brother, however, didn't look at her, didn't hear her, seemed almost unaware that she was even there. He had eyes that glared wetly, and for Hermione alone.
"Is. It. TRUE?," Ron asked again, his final word a solitary, grief-filled shout.
Ginny held her breath, watched as her girlfriend looked down and nodded slowly. Then she readied herself to quickly jump between them if her sibling so much as twitched one knuckle closer to the girl she loved.
She wasn't quick enough though. For less than a heartbeat after Hermione's head had confirmed the gist of Lavender's words, Ron's right arm lowered. Then it sprung forward again forcefully, crashing into the trunk of the Pine to their left. There was a dull crunch of broken bark meeting bone, and Ginny watched the boy crumple, into a near-sobbing mass with his knees drawn up in the snow.
Hermione approached him, reaching out to check the bloodied hand held gingerly against his heaving chest, but Ron pulled fiercely away from her, his face unreadable. Then he simply spit out four bitter words: "Don't touch me, you . . ."
But whatever he thought Hermione was, neither of the girls heard, because Ron's fifth and final word was taken up by the screech of grinding gears. The screech signifying that their train home was already beginning its long journey down the tracks.
An hour later, Ginny and Hermione sat a few feet apart on a chilly stone floor, back in the familiar washroom of Hogsmeade's newest joke shop. Neither Fred nor George, nor the both of them in unison, had asked for an explanation when their sister had first shown up here, pounding frantically on a window and shouting about an injured Ron taking off down the road.
Furthermore, from the persistent questions Ginny later overheard the twins' badgering the younger boy with, to no avail, it was clear that Ron had not said a word when they found him and fetched him back, when the full strangeness of the situation finally hit and piqued her older brothers' curiosity.
At the present, however, it had been some time since any sound had come through the door crack from the shop beyond. And the silence only gave Ginny's worries a greater mental space to roam around in: Will Fred and George Floo us home before they get the full story?, she wondered, or do they know already? And what will they think if they do, when they find out that it was here, in their store, that Herm and I . . . or is Ron planning on telling mum and dad first? Does he still have one of those bloody notices? Will they believe the lies Lavender put in there? And what about the true part? The one that says that their only daughter is gay, well, both of their daughters technically . . . Hiding it is one thing, but lying to my parents' faces . . .
"You've been awfully quiet," Hermione said softly, interrupting Ginny's thoughts, then edging her body sideways until she had closed the gap between them and could take her hand.
"And you've been awfully calm," the red-head replied, meaning it more as a question than the statement of fact that it sounded like, and was.
Hermione shrugged, her mouth playing silently with unformed words, as if she understood the intention of Ginny's statement but didn't quite know how to answer it yet. Finally, the movements of her lips carried sounds, and with them, the explanation her girlfriend sought. "Gin, I . . . listen, you know I really care about you, right?"
On impulse, a small smile broke out on Ginny's face, and she laid her head on Hermione's shoulder, nodding against the scratchy wool of her girlfriend's cloak. I do.
"And because I care about you," Hermione said firmly, "the last thing I would want is for this--us dating--to cause any problems for you, especially with your family. Not that I think they'll all react like Ron, maybe not, and not that his reaction doesn't bother me. I don't know, I guess the reason I'm so calm . . . it's just that, for so long, I had so many secrets. For half a year, I had to lie, over and over, to everyone that I loved. And then," Hermione continued more softly, while fiercely gripping Ginny's hand, "you came along. We were sitting on a lavatory floor, just like this one, remember?"
Ginny nodded again, remembering that hazy afternoon that she had skipped an important Quidditch match. When she had run after Hermione instead, burning with the need to resolve fears even more painful than the ones pressing down on her now. The memory made her hold her girlfriend a bit closer as she listened.
"That day, Ginny," Hermione went on, accepting the tightened embrace without pause, "you made me tell you everything, forced me to do it, even though I didn't want to, and, I . . . it's hard to describe how much of a difference it made. I didn't even realize the full extent of it at first, of you knowing, of you actually wanting to know, and then still loving me after . . . Then, there was the trial, that toad's information leaks and the new rumors that cropped up . . . They hurt, Gin, they still hurt, but at least this time, if people are going to think less of me, if people are going to whisper and call me names . . . at least this time it'll be for something that really is my fault, for something completely true, and something that makes me, well, happy."
"Are you happy? Really?," Ginny asked, unable to stop herself. For although she was touched beyond measure by her girlfriend's words, she couldn't help but give voice to the small fears that had been nagging at her, ever since their relationship had gotten more physical, ever since she had started wondering when, and if ever, that part would go both ways.
Hermione, however, did not answer, for in that moment the lavatory door opened, revealing George (or is it Fred?, Ginny wondered) on the other side.
"Alright there?," he asked, looking first at Hermione and then at his sister, "One of you want to tell me what all this is about?"
Neither answered, nor did they let go of one another.
"Right then," whichever twin it was continued after a long pause, "Not talking, eh? Same as your brother. Well, we've fixed up his hand alright; little prat nearly broke all the bones. 'Course mum'll be wanting a look at it just the same. And good luck to you two, dodging her questions. But anyway, the Floo's all set up if you're ready. Fred's sending Ron through now."
Ginny nodded, stood, and took Hermione's hand to pull her up. Then she walked with her back across the room, not letting go until the twins tossed a large handful of sparkling silver powder onto the flames and spoke the word that would cause Weasley Wizard Wheezes to spin out from beneath first Hermione, and then herself.
Stepping out of the dizzying bright green flames, the red-head attempted to brush her robes clean with one hand. Meanwhile, she took in the stuffy, candle-lit kitchen, crammed full of hanging herbs, burnished pots, and the generous honey-colored table that always sheltered at least a dozen mismatched chairs. It was her favorite room in the Burrow. The room where her mom had sat with her on the floor when she was still too small to see over the countertop, teaching her letters and numbers and snippets of simple magic. The room where her father had stood at the window reading muggle magazines on quiet summer evenings, secretly playing guard while she snuck one of her brothers' brooms from the shed to practice Quidditch. How much they loved me then, and still do, she mused, Could anything really ever change that? After all, even Percy . . .
Ginny heard a delicate cough, turned, and saw the kitchen in a new light. Now it no longer held memories of only her family's love. Now it was also the room where the most beautiful witch in the whole world stood, shaking the soot from her own hair, and awaiting Ginny's arrival on this snowy December day. Seeing Hermione and only Hermione, cast in the shadows of this well-loved place, the red-head felt, if possible, more at home than she ever had before. She couldn't resist wrapping the girl up in a hug and thinking of the thousand new memories she wanted to make, with her, on this hearth.
She also couldn't resist admitting that Hermione had been right, that after all the grim secrets she had kept from those she loved, they deserved to know now what filled her heart with such joy. "I'm ready," the red-head whispered, still unsure but suddenly determined, "ready to tell them all of the best decision I've ever made."
"We've ever made," Hermione corrected her with a gentle laugh, pulling out of the hug and wiping a single smudge of ash from Ginny's nose with her thumb. "So . . . together?"
Ginny nodded, unable to draw her eyes away from how happy the other girl really did look in that moment, despite the question her girlfriend hadn't had time to answer earlier, despite all of the other questions still lingering around the impacts that her best-loved Hermione's past might still have on their future.
One obstacle at a time, she reminded herself, and taken on together, how bad can this one be?
Then she heard a door slam above and the shout of a still-angry male voice, "Ask your bloody daughter if you want to know so badly!" It was followed by footsteps on the stairs, the slow and steady clicks that spoke of a Weasley mother. Surprising herself, Ginny smiled to hear them, then turned to Hermione, taking her hand.