Disclaimer: If only I owned the HP characters. Think of all the fun I could be having…hmmmmmm….
I've been in love with him since the moment I saw him. Ok, so maybe not love but you know what I mean. Every time I see him, my stomach does flip-flops, my face turns tomato red and I can't speak to him without stuttering. I think about him every minute, every hour. I dream about him. I daydream about him. I think about him incessantly.
I try not to, really I do. But the fact that he's my brother's best friend doesn't help.
I'd never really been included in their little "circle". They'd always been the "trio". The Dream Team. And I was just Ron's little sister. The annoying little tag-along. I knew Harry would never look at me the way I saw him, but a girl can dream, can't she?
But this summer, everything changed. Things were different. Harry wrote letters to not only Ron and Hermione, but me too. The first time I got a letter from him, I fell out my chair. Seriously. I was so shocked. Fred and George harassed me all day about it, but that was the moment I knew things were different. After that, Pig always carried two letters on his tiny little legs.
Ron didn't understand why Harry would waste his time writing to me, but I think he just wanted someone else to talk to. He's very isolated during summer and just needed someone else to interact with. It's understandable. Or maybe he…never-mind.
We wrote to each other every few days. Then…then he came and stayed with us for the last month of the summer vacation. We had a belated birthday party for him. We played Quidditch in the open field nearly every day. We had huge family dinners every night (Percy even popped in once in a while). I even learned to talk to him without blushing. Honestly!
During the summers, my brothers tend to ignore me. Fred and George are always away in their "secret laboratory". Percy working at the ministry. Bill and Charlie only are home for a week at a time and Ron. Well Ron just ignored me, he'd go off and play Quidditch or do whatever it is he thinks is fun. But Harry was here, and he, if no one else, would talk to me. If Ron was de-gnoming the garden, Harry would come over and ask if I wanted to beat him at a game of chess. While Ron and the twins were playing some stupid game I would find Harry sitting and reading (I think Hermione rubbed off on him!). But when he saw me, he would put the book down and call me over. We had some pretty interesting conversations. He opened up to me about his situation at the Dursleys and his views on You-know-who (he's working on getting me to say his 'real' name. I can't get past Vol-). I shared my opinions on the conditions of the ministry and what I think will happen in the next five years. He told me all about his obsession with Quidditch and I revealed my fascination with muggles (so I'm like my dad. Big deal). Some nights we would just sit and watch the sun go down or watch the squirrels chase one another. But one night stands out in particular.
Most of my family had already gone to bed, but I was still wide-awake. I was sitting on the bench in our garden not doing anything but thinking. I head the crunching of leaves behind me and turned around. Harry froze and held up his hands in mock surrender. "You caught me," he said.
I smiled.