Chapter 20: Breaking His Heart

"BECAUSE HE STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU!" Ron roared.

Ginny froze, and the words hung in the air around them. Ron sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his face. "He's still in love with you," he repeated quietly. "He won't tell you because you're with Malfoy, and he won't date anyone else because he can't honestly commit to them. He's being his usual noble, do-gooding, suffer-in-silence self, and you're just leading him on. He can't get over you when you're like this, Ginny."

"No," Ginny said softly, "He's not in love with me. He can't be…." But even as she said the words, a dozen images flashed through her mind. Harry telling her that cutting her out of his life hadn't been working anyway. Harry's hand hesitating at the zipper of her dress. Harry looking at her in the Astronomy Tower. Harry, just moments before, telling her she looked beautiful.

Ginny felt her heart pounding hard and loud in her chest. Harry was still in love with her. Ron seemed to notice the shell-shocked look on her face, and he lowered his voice sympathetically.

"I always worried that he'd break your heart, Gin," he said slowly, "But now you're breaking his."

Ginny suddenly felt incredibly light-headed. Damnit – how could Harry be in love with her? They were supposed to be friends – just friends! And now everything was complicated again. Wouldn't their relationship ever be just simple? She swallowed hard. She couldn't face him right now, not after what she'd done to him over the past few weeks. She'd been hugging him and flirting with him, thinking it was all innocent fun, when really she'd been leading him on.

She started to brush past Ron back into the ballroom, but he put a hand gently on her shoulder and she paused. "He made me promise not to say anything. He doesn't want to ruin your friendship. And I didn't mean to be too harsh, Ginny," he said quietly, "But I couldn't let it keep going on."

"I know, Ron," Ginny muttered. "Look, congratulations on the Order of Merlin. I'm really proud of you. But I think I need to go home…clear my head."

"Okay," Ron agreed. Ginny stood on tiptoe to give him a quick peck on the cheek and he squeezed her shoulder as she headed back inside.

The dance floor was still crowded with couples and groups, and they'd turned down the lights a little to set a more carefree mood. Ginny skirted the floor at a quick pace, but before long she saw Harry coming toward her out of the corner of her eye followed by a confused-looking Hermione. She kept walking. She couldn't deal with this right now.

"Wait, Ginny, what's wrong? What did Ron say? Are you okay?"

Ginny clenched her hands together agitatedly and tried to avoid his eye. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said quickly. "I'm just feeling a bit tired, that's all. Congratulations, again, both of you," she added, "I think I'm going to head home."

Hermione smiled, gave her a quick hug, and moved away, but Harry wasn't fooled, just as Ginny knew he wouldn't be. He could always tell when she was upset. "Ginny, are you all right?"

Ginny cleared her throat and met his eyes. They were so bright green. Years ago one look from them had made the breath catch in her chest, but now all she felt was embarrassment. She looked away. "Yes, Harry, I'm fine," she said firmly. "I'll see you around."

He opened his mouth to protest, but she turned away before he could speak. She considered asking Draco to go home with her, but then she caught sight of him on the dance floor, still dancing with Pansy, and she just looked away and kept walking. She hurried through the wide, marble hallways, her heels clicking faster and faster. She just needed some space to think.

She Apparated back to the apartment and went straight to the shower, shedding her dress in a long strip of green on the living room carpet. She turned the dial until the water was as hot as it could get and steam filled the bathroom. She clenched her fists as the hot droplets pattered her skin. How could she have been so stupid! It had been so obvious to everyone that Harry was in love with her – had never stopped being in love with her. If she was being entirely honest with herself, she had known, in her heart of hearts, that he still had feelings, at least at the beginning. But she'd ignored it, hoping it would go away. She had wanted so badly to be friends with him – good friends, like they'd used to be – that she had ignored it. And when he'd started dating Helena, she had thought he had finally moved on. She pressed the bottoms of her palms to her eyes. At the beginning she had been selfish, and then she had just been stupid.

Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out of the shower, skin pink, and threw on cotton shorts and a big hooded sweatshirt. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up around her. She lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, but she couldn't fall asleep.

Ginny was jolted from her thoughts by the sound of the wards being lowered and the door opening. She glanced at the clock: two a.m. She felt a rush of irritation.

Through the open doorway, she watched Draco, hair-disheveled and tie hanging undone around his neck, walk into the kitchen for a glass of water. A few moments later his shape darkened the doorway of the bedroom, but Ginny knew that it was too dark for him to tell that she was awake.

But just as he started to move away toward the shower, she spoke. "Did you have fun?" she said testily. She knew she sounded harsh (and the slightest bit accusatory), but she felt her temper rising. Her friendship with Harry was ruined, and he had stayed out until two in the morning dancing non-stop with bloody Pansy Parkinson.

Draco paused, and she knew he had noticed her tone. "Yes," he said slowly, "It was a good time."

Ginny snorted, "Yeah, it sure looked like it."

This time, he was silent for longer. Then suddenly he flicked on the light. Ginny sat up in bed, pulling her pillow around and punching it down into her lap. "What's wrong with you?" he said. His tone was neutral, but he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, and his facial expression betrayed his annoyance.

"What's wrong with me?" Ginny scoffed. "You're the one who doesn't even notice when his date leaves the bloody ball and then comes back at two in the morning after a night of Merlin knows what with his ex-girlfriend."

Draco raised his eyebrows at her and pushed himself off the wall angrily. "Pansy is not my ex-girlfriend. And maybe I would have noticed you were leaving if you had bothered to come tell me."

"Well I would have," she snapped, "if your cheek hadn't been glued to Pansy's for the entire night."

"Hey, I danced with you first, if you recall," he replied sharply, voice rising. "And you said it was perfectly fine when she came and asked if I wanted to dance."

"I didn't think it was going to be until two in the bloody morning!" she answered. "I thought it would be one dance, for old times sake. But I guess I should've known you'd be spending the rest of the night with her!" she continued, laughing mirthlessly, "It seems like all you want to do lately is spend hours with Pansy and tell me absolutely nothing about it."

"Oh, so that's what this is about, is it?" he snapped back, "Well, I'm sorry, Ginny, but Pansy and I are old friends – good friends – and what do you want me to do all week when you're at school, huh? Sit in this empty apartment alone!"

"Of course not!" she said, angrily pushing the blankets away and getting out of bed. "But it's not right for you to be running around town and dancing provocatively with another woman – a woman you've basically told me you used to be in love with – for the whole bloody world to see!"

"Oh, that's rich coming from you!" he flared. "What the hell do you think you and Potter are like?"

At the mention of Harry's name, the guilt rose in Ginny's throat. She swallowed hard. "I don't want to talk about that," she said lowly, stalking across the room and pushing past him out the door.

"No!" he insisted, yelling now, whirling and following her into the living room. "You brought this up! You want to talk about it? Let's bloody talk about it!"

"I said I don't want to talk about!" she snapped, avoiding his eye by walking into the kitchen and pouring herself a cup of water.

"You think I didn't see you two dancing tonight?" he yelled. He was gripping the countertop so hard his knuckles were white. "You don't think I see those bloody tabloid articles they print about you two? You think I don't wonder and worry and agonize over what you're doing with him at Hogwarts?"

"Don't you dare, Draco Malfoy!" she yelled back, facing him and stabbing a finger into his chest. "We have been over this and over this!"

"Then don't you bloody lecture me about Parkinson! You hug him, you dance with him, you hold his hand, you flirt with him, you live one bloody floor beneath him, and I don't say a damn thing! And that's a hell of a lot more than most self-respecting boyfriends would do!"

Draco's list of all the things she had done to Harry – all the things that had led him on – hit home, and Ginny looked away. Draco saw her eyes slide to the ground. When she met his gaze again, his grey eyes, usually so clear and piercing, were wide with shock and clouded with anger.

"Bloody hell! It's guilt!" he choked, "I've been trying to figure out what that is…in your eyes…since we started this. It's guilt. You're sleeping with him, aren't you? AREN'T YOU?"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," she snapped, "I'm not sleeping with him!"

"Don't you lie to me, Ginny!" he yelled, slamming his fist into the counter.

"I am not bloody sleeping with him!" she cried, frustrated tears welling in her eyes.

"Then why is there that guilt?" he challenged.

Ginny thrust her glass away from her. It shattered against the tiles of the countertop. "BECAUSE HE'S IN LOVE WITH ME!" she shouted. Her vision blurred as the tears began coursing down her face. "He's in love with me," she continued, "And I've been doing all those things…all those things you said. And now everything's ruined."

She swiped at her tears, but when she had cleared her vision, she saw Draco looking down at her with hard eyes. There was no sympathy, just his fists clenched at his side.

He took a deep, shaky breath. "You told me he wasn't in love with you," he said. His voice was lower now, and colder. "I asked you, and you told me you were sure he wasn't."

"That's not…it's not important," she managed.

"It is bloody important, Ginny," he said warningly. "Did you know he was in love with you? Have you known this whole time?" His lips were set in a hard line, and his gaze was burning into her.

"No," she said shakily. "I knew at first, but I thought he got over it. I thought he had moved on. I didn't want to believe it."

"But he told you?" Draco said. "He told you today, at the ball?"

"No," she said quickly, determinedly training her eyes on the corner of one of the floor tiles. "No, Ron told me at the ball. Harry didn't say anything."

Draco was silent for a moment, and Ginny's gaze shifted to his clenched fists just barely grazing the fabric of his pants. "Are you happy that he's in love with you?" he asked finally.

Ginny's eyes flew to his face. "Of course I'm not happy!" she cried. "I'm in love with you!"

He didn't respond. His eyes just bored into her own. Finally his gaze flicked away for a moment, and then he spoke. "You can't see him anymore."

Ginny bit back a retort. She hated anyone telling her who she could or couldn't see, but she knew this wasn't the time. She exhaled deeply. "You know I can't do that. We work together," she said wearily.

"Ginny, look at me," he said quietly, and she met his gaze. "You know what I mean. Work with him. But all the other stuff – the spending time together outside of required meetings, the lunches, thehand-holding – it stops now."

"So you're asking me to end my friendship with Harry?" she said, balking.

"No," he said firmly, "I'm telling you. He's in love with you, and it doesn't matter how noble you think he is. You have to put an end to this now. Right now."

"It's not his fault he's in love with me, Draco," she insisted, but there wasn't any fight in her tone. "He can't help it."

He looked at her determinedly, his eyes pinning her in place for a long moment. "I know that," he said flatly. "But you can."

And she knew he was right.

The rest of the Christmas holiday passed quickly. As soon as she had agreed to distance herself from Harry, Draco's shoulders had hunched with relief and he had seemed to release all of his pent-up…was it tension? After that, he didn't mention Harry or their conversation for the rest of the week, but he was all gentleness. He held her close as they slept and kissed her hair every morning, and Ginny knew that it was his way of thanking her.

Harry Owl'd her three times that week, asking her if everything was all right and whether she wanted to have lunch sometime. She could tell he was worried about what Ron had said to her on the balcony. She replied with short notes, telling him she wanted to spend the rest of the holiday with Draco and that she would see him at weekly staff meetings once the new term started. She hoped he would stop asking soon; she hated distancing herself from him, but she knew she had to do it.

Too soon it was the morning of the first day of the new term, and Ginny found herself back at Hogwarts. She entered the Great Hall for breakfast, steeling herself for what she was about to do.

She scanned the professors' table. Harry had saved her a seat beside him, just like he had every morning for the past few months. She took a deep breath and strode purposefully across the hall, eyes straight ahead. She walked right by Harry and took the seat next to Madam Pomfrey.

"Hello, Ginny, dear," the stout matron said surprisedly. "How was your holiday?"

Ginny forced herself to smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Harry looking straight at her, confusion written all over his face. She shook herself and turned her attention back to Madam Pomfrey. "It was lovely, Poppy. How was yours?"

She did the same thing at lunch, carefully avoiding sitting next to Harry and engaging in meaningless small talk in order to distract herself from the fact that his green gaze was boring into her.

Her last class of the day was Sixth Years, and she patted herself on the back for having planned defensive charms for the first day back. The students paired up and threw mild hexes at each other to practice their defenses, and between Ivan Porter's nosebleed and the red smoke bursting out of Ellen Wilder's ears, she barely had time to think at all.

"All right, everyone," she said finally, glancing up at the clock, "That's enough for today. I appreciate your careful choice of spells. Thank you for not sending each other to the hospital wing. Homework for tonight is ten inches on what you learned today about defensive charms. When did certain charms work and when did they fail? What charms are most effective when you don't have a lot of time to yell complex spells? Due on Friday, all right?"

There was a general murmur of acknowledgement and the students began to leave, chattering noisily, as the clock struck three o'clock. Ginny turned to erase what she had written on the blackboard, but then the chatter suddenly petered off, and Ginny knew who must have just walked in. She sighed and brushed the chalk off of her hands before turning. She desperately did not want to have this conversation.

Harry was standing by the door, looking a little agitated. His hair was even messier than usual. Several of Ginny's students had paused in the process of leaving the classroom and were watching them expectantly. By now most everyone had heard that Professor Potter and Professor Weasley had gotten in some kind of fight – there could be no mistaking the deliberate way she had avoided him at breakfast and lunch. And the two of them walking together through the halls, talking and laughing, had become a regular fixture of the castle. Ginny knew that her remaining students were hoping that they could delay their exit long enough to get some gossip. She raised her eyebrows at them and they moved out into the hall but, Ginny noticed wryly, still within hearing range.

"Can I help you with something, Harry?" she said briskly, straightening the papers on her desk before raising her eyes to his. He moved to close the door against the prying eyes of the students outside. "No, leave it open, please," Ginny said quickly. There weren't going to be anymore headlines about the two of them spending time behind closed doors, carrying on their secret romance in Hogwarts classrooms. Instead she cast a quick Silencing Charm over them.

She saw a quick wave of hurt cross his features and her heart clenched a little. She hated doing this to him.

"Did I do something wrong?" he said softly.

"No," she replied, "Of course not."

"Then why are you avoiding me?" he asked.

She sighed and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I just think we've been spending too much time together, that's all."

His brow furrowed. "I don't understand," he said slowly. "I thought everything was going really well, Gin…."

"It was," Ginny said quickly. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she exhaled heavily. "Look, Harry," she said, coming around her desk and leaning against it. She clenched her fingers tight on the desk edge. "I really like spending time with you, but you still have feelings for me, and I think it would be better if we just…weren't so close anymore."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up even more. "How-," he stuttered and swallowed hard. "I didn't want you to know about that. I didn't want you to think that I had ulterior motives or anything."

"I know, Harry," she said gently, "But I've known for a while. I want you to move on; I really do. And you can't do that while we're friends."

Harry laughed mirthlessly. "Ginny, you don't have to worry about me. You don't have to do this…for me."

Ginny smiled wryly. Her heart felt like it was being wrung out within her chest. "Yes, Harry," she said firmly. "I do." She slung her bag over her shoulder and moved toward the door.

"Ginny, wait…," Harry said softly as she came up beside him. There was so much hurt in his voice that her hand reflexively moved to squeeze his arm, but she pulled it back and clenched it hard. She bit her lip and walked past him and out the door.

Two days later, she and Harry were on the cover of Witch Weekly under the headline No Longer Together: Why Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter Have Parted Ways.

It was all for the better. Wasn't it?

Author's Note: That was a super-quick update, right? I'm having so much fun writing this story, and I hope you're enjoying reading it! So some of you are intrigued by the two-endings plan and some of you are pretty skeptical. But to those of you who expressed concern, just know that it will make more sense very soon - I hope you'll stick with it! For now, please review and tell me what you think!