Rapidly covering more than two years in the HP universe, this is the story of Ron and Hermione's engagement. Not everyone is happy about it. Part Two, Ginny's POV.
* * *
She knew it was coming, and when they finally gather her and Harry together in the common room, and show off the ring that probably exhausted several years' worth of Ron's pocket money, her tears are not surprised ones. And Ginny knows from the way her brother and Hermione are looking at her, excited and bashful and beaming all at once, they must assume that her tears are happy ones, tears of joy that she'll finally have a sister, and maybe some nieces and nephews someday, and she's content to let them go on thinking that. She's not about to ruin their happy news by disclosing any of her own feelings, and from the stunned, board-stiff look on Harry's face, she thinks that he must have some feelings of his own. And so she burst into a flood of practiced tears, because that's what girls do when they get good news and when their dreams come crashing down.
She wonders, because she can feel Harry sneaking looks at her, exasperated in the way of older brothers ready to thump their little sisters on the head, if he knows just why she's crying. She's sure that if he thinks about it for a few minutes, he might figure it out, because he looks at her brother the same way she looks at her brother's fiancée. But then, Harry's a boy and boys aren't necessarily good at noticing the little things that add up to the sum of an obsession, so no – maybe he really has no idea.
Ginny does, of course. She's watched them and seen, she's listened and heard, she knows that Harry is in love with Ron, even if he doesn't quite think of it that way. She knows that Harry watches him on the Quidditch field, ostensibly because he still helps Ron with his skills as a Keeper, but mainly because he wants to see the lines of her brother's long, lanky body folding themselves close around his broomstick. She knows that he keeps his back toward Ron while they change for bed, and the thought always makes her giggle a little – a mean little giggle, but an involuntary one. She knows that he runs through words in his head, trying to think of a good one to describe Ron, but he can never quite find one. He bypasses the word "love."
Ginny has never hesitated to apply the word "love" to her feelings for Hermione.
Today she stares at her brother and her future sister-in-law, at her friend and almost-brother who is looking at them with equally shocked green eyes, and she wills her lips to curl up into a bit of a smile. It feels terribly forced to her, but it must be all they can see, because they both hug her, hard, the way you hug a sister.
She tries hard not to think about the other things – homework and parchment and late-night chats and cocoa and beds shared with Hermione, braiding eachother's hair with quick, certain fingers brushing at the scalp. Summer nights have always been the best, the two of them in just one quiet little room at the Burrow, hiding under the eaves and giggling until the sky turns the colour of a new strawberry. Sometimes she takes Hermione's hand after her best friend falls asleep, and the warm pressure of her fingers in Ginny's coaxes Ginny into slumber, too.
There have been fall mornings at Hogwarts, rushing down to breakfast before the boys so they can go for a quick early walk together. Hermione loves the changing leaves that turn red and orange and gold like Ginny's hair, saying they remind her of her home. Ginny doesn't quite understand it because after all, if you want red and orange leaves, you can just magic them that way, but Hermione insists that it's different. "You're missing the point, Gin," she teases, tapping one especially wide leaf on top of Ginny's head.
"What's your point?" Ginny asks lazily, pointing her wand to the top of her head and muttering a spell so the leaf turns purple between Hermione's fingers. Sometimes she misses and accidentally turns her hair a different colour too, and that makes Hermione laugh. Ginny cherishes the sound of her laughter mingling with the crisp morning air.
She remembers Christmas her fourth year at Hogwarts, Christmas on the closed ward at St. Mungo's, and it would have been a dismal holiday if Hermione hadn't been there, holding her hand and resting her chin in the soft fire-perfume of Ginny's red hair. At Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, Hermione held her until she could sleep – first just her hand, then an arm around her chilly shoulders, then a full hug that warmed Ginny until she could stop shaking. It reminded Ginny of summer nights holding Hermione's hand, except that summer had always been fun, and that was an awful Christmas season.
She remembers the easy light of springs past, when everything seems to come alive on the Hogwarts grounds. There are late-night Quidditch practices that Hermione attends sometimes, to watch Ron, and Ginny can pretend that Hermione is there to see her. They get more coursework in the springtime, which means that she and Hermione are nearly always up together, and sometimes Ginny just doodles and scribbles on her parchment, any excuse to sit up late with Hermione. There are nights when Hermione's face is lined with ridges of stress, and Ginny is glad for the opportunity to rub her friend's neck, dig her small freckled fingers into the knots, and listen to Hermione's sighs and moans of relief. She files those sounds away in her brain, calling them up again when she is alone in her bed and her fingers flutter between her legs.
There has only been one night when she thought her heart might actually burst with the agony of wanting and finally having – one night last spring when the girls pooled all their Galleons and Sickles and Knuts and bought heaps of alcohol without the boys. Triple-Strength Butterbeer, Firewhiskey, Muggle vodka and tequila – the house-elves were finding bottles and cups littered around the common room for days afterward. She remembers Hermione passing out after her sixth shot of tequila, and their kisses later, in Ginny's bed, were fast and sloppy and tasted bitter like lime.
She liked watching Hermione sleep that night, not because it was especially cute or peaceful, since Hermione was crashed out in her robes and shoes, dead to the world and certainly to the soft stroking of Ginny's fingers at the small of her back, but because she was in Ginny's bed. For one night, she felt the certainty that Hermione might be hers.
In the morning Hermione drank six goblets of water and had forgotten everything about the night before.
Ginny certainly hasn't. She keeps with her the taste of Hermione's darting tongue, the ragged flesh of her often-chewed lips, the pressure of her clumsy fingers against Ginny's small breasts with their darker cocoa-brown nipples, and it's what she remembers when she slides her own fingers over her clit and rubs at her own wetness, whispering Hermione's name.
And now her brother and her best friend are hugging her, and the wetness is on her cheeks, pressed roughly against their robes, and she knows that it's over, that even the most ardent fantasies aren't any match for reality – this reality, that her brother will marry Hermione Granger, that they will wear white matrimonial robes and cut a lavish cake together, move in, build a life, have sex. She tries to give them one more shaky smile, but it's hard, so hard, because she's afraid if she hears one more excited squeal from Hermione, if she sees one more bashful grin from Ron, she'll break apart into a million tiny pieces, like drops of water scattered on the common room floor.
Harry is giving her some absolutely disgusted looks, and she glances at him, certain that he's only giving her disgusted looks to cover the incredulous ones that he'd be giving Ron and Hermione if he could. Ginny's afraid that in another minute he'll break down too, and that's the last thing she wants to happen, short of actually seeing her brother snog Hermione, so she bursts into another flood of tears and smiles, eliciting another round of hugs and back-thumps from the happy couple.
She cries because it's okay for girls to cry, at happy news and sad news, marriages and deaths, and this way, Harry doesn't have to. He knows it, and the private look he gives her is a grateful one.
She cries because Ron and Hermione are in love, really in love!, they're getting married and she'll have her first sister. They know it, and their hugs are happy ones.
But she also cries because she knows her dreams have just been cracked in half, and the tears on her face refract a thousand rainbows off her damp cheeks.