Title: Twice
Author: whynoy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione
Word Count: 2,812
Disclaimer: JKR owns. I play. You don't sue.
Summary: How a silly test in a Muggle teen magazine can bring Harry to unexpected revelations.
A/N: When I decided to repost this story at (it had been archived somewhere else before the 5th book came out) I considered tweaking it a little to make it OotP-friendly, but in the end I chose not to. You see, it's my baby and I like it this way, even if it has become AU. Anyway, suppose H/G dated but broke up because he shut her out. Now it's Christmas of the Trio's sixth year and they're all spending it at the Burrow…
.
Harry gaped incredulously at the open magazine Ron had dropped on his lap.
"You've got to be joking! 'How Pure are You?'" he groaned.
"Why not? It's not as if we had anything better to do" Ron argued, gesturing to the snowstorm outside.
"Don't be silly, Ron!" said Hermione. "I bet this wasn't what your sister had in mind when she asked me to stock her up on Muggle magazines."
"Oh, please!" moaned Ron. "As if you didn't know she asked you precisely because there is nothing like these tests in Teen Witch Weekly."
"Hey!" Ginny protested, but her brother simply ignored her.
"Or maybe…" he narrowed his eyes in fake concentration. "Maybe you're just afraid of what we might find out about your little exploits with Vicky…"
Harry sighed. Ron certainly knew how to push Hermione's buttons. The mention of both her Gryffindor courage and Viktor Krum in the same sentence was hands down the fastest method to make her jump.
Five… four… three… two…
"Fine!" Hermione snapped. Though he wasn't looking at Ron, Harry could practically hear the triumphant sneer on his best friend's face.
"Okay, in an effort to keep this moment of folly under control, I'm taking charge," said Hermione in her best bossy tone. "Since we only have one test, we'll pass it around and take turns asking. Write your answers on a piece of parchment and we'll total when finished."
"Trust little Miss Head-Girl-in-the-making to keep fun under control," muttered Ron under his breath.
Hermione just pretended not to hear him. "Okay, um, Harry? Why don't you start?"
Harry cleared his throat. "Err… 'Have you ever got cosy in an airplane?'" he read aloud and immediately regretted having agreed to this.
"I've never even been on an airplane!" Ron protested.
"What about a broomstick?" suggested Hermione.
"Well, yeah… wait a minute. You hate flying!"
"God, Ron, it was a rhetorical question! Besides, it's not as if it was humanly possible to do the Wonky Font while… you know…"
"Wonski Feint!" Ron corrected at once.
"Whatever." Hermione rolled her eyes.
Harry heard Ginny snicker. It really was amazing how those two were still dancing around each other in that bizarre mating game of theirs ever since fourth year. While absently answering to the questions the others kept reading aloud, he considered the different options to force his best friends into admitting their feelings.
Just as he was evaluating the finer points of locking them inside the broom shed, Ron tossed the magazine at him. "Your turn."
Harry looked at the question and chuckled. "Look, this one's for Malfoy: 'Have you ever paid for sex?'"
"Actually..." Hermione started, "You have to admit that he is good looking." Harry had a sneaking suspicion she was saying that exclusively to annoy Ron. "In a slimy Slytherin bastard sort of way, of course, but still… don't you agree, Gin?"
In a very wise move, instead of replying, Ginny hastily grabbed the magazine and started reading the next question before Ron could open his mouth. "Have you ever caught your parents having sex?" She made a face of disgust.
"Let me tell you, this test is going to leave us permanently scarred" Ron shook his head.
"'Have you ever engaged in sexual activity with a 4-legged creature?'" read Hermione.
"Maybe we should ask Hagrid that" Harry suggested.
"Ewwww!!" cried the other three in unison.
"'Have you ever had an affair with a friend's significant other?'" Ron read. "Well… in my fantasy," he added with a dreamy expression.
"Give me that." Hermione abruptly took the magazine from him. "'Have you ever had an affair with a friend's pet?' How come I get all the animal questions?" she moaned.
"Okay, last question." Harry paused. "'Have you ever been in love? If so, how many times? Give yourself a point of purity for each time'." He instinctively looked up at Ginny, only to find her staring right back at him. She quickly averted her gaze when their eyes met.
"Fine then, let's score them up and…" Hermione was interrupted by a persistent tapping noise coming from the window.
Ginny stood to open it, and a huge black owl flew in and landed on Hermione's lap, solemnly holding its right leg out.
Harry recognised the owl at once. Unfortunately, so did Ron.
"Well, well, well… what do we have here?" Ron's ears were rapidly turning a dark shade of pink. "Christmas love letters from Bulgaria?"
In a desperate attempt to get away from the line of fire, Ginny approached Viktor's owl and softly stroked its feathers. "Why don't you come with me and I'll get you some nice treats, huh?" The bird hooted happily and followed her into the kitchen.
"I've told you a thousand times, Ron. Viktor and I decided we were better off as friends months ago. He simply wanted to wish me a happy Christmas, that's all!"
"Yeah, well, that's his story."
As Harry looked around frantically for an excuse to leave the living room, he spotted the now forgotten parchments on the low coffee table. The one on top held Ginny's distinctive tidy writing. He knew he shouldn't, but if he squinted jut a tiny bit he could… no, he couldn't. It wasn't right. However, his eyes seemed to have a mind of their own and travelled the length of the test. Harry gasped. It couldn't be. He stared now openly at the parchment and ran a hand through his unruly mop of hair. It just couldn't be. He jumped to his feet and purposefully strode into the kitchen, where he found Ginny feeding pumpkin seeds to Viktor's owl.
"I thought what we had was special" he blurted out while leaning on the doorframe in what he hoped looked like a casual pose.
Ginny looked up and stared blankly at him.
"But apparently… it wasn't that special. Anyway… I just wanted to know who the other bloke is."
"What other…?"
"Well, I realise I'm not all that good at Arithmancy, but I certainly know what a two looks like. And since you answered that you have been in love twice…"
"You looked at my test?!" Ginny cut him off.
He continued as if she hadn't spoken.
"… I was curious as to who bloke number two was. You said that I was your world… I don't believe you're shallow enough to fall in love with that Ravenclaw after a couple of afternoons in Hogsmeade."
"You looked at my test?" she repeated.
"It laid on the table for all the world to see! It almost seemed you wanted me to!"
Ginny shook her head. "I can't believe this…"
"So, who is he?"
Ginny threw him the patented Weasley Stare of Death, while her cheeks kept getting dangerously close to matching her hair colour.
"You have no right to ask me that."
Harry took off his glasses and started rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, looking very tired all of a sudden. But Ginny knew better. She had spent too long memorising each and every one of Harry's expressions to realise just how furious he was at that moment.
"Stop avoiding the question, Gin." There it was, the pent-up anger she had sensed before, barely noticeable behind his apparently calm voice. "Just tell me who the other bloke is" he repeated through gritted teeth.
"Don't you understand?" she spat so loudly that even Viktor's owl seemed to recoil at her sudden outburst. "There is no other bloke!"
Harry looked at her as if she had just confessed it was Neville Longbottom.
"Wha… what?" he finally managed to whisper.
"Harry, the two times I fell in love, on the test, they were both you. I mean, the first time I fell was for The Boy Who Lived, the hero, with his romantic aura and his legendary bravery and his bloody scar. And the second time was when we started to be friends and I truly got to know you. Then you became this whole new person to me and… I fell in love all over again."
Ginny suddenly thought that she might regret this later, but she simply couldn't cut it off, it was as if words had taken control over her and she was physically unable to stop them.
"Only this time it was with you. Harry. The one who made the twins buy Ron new dress robes, the one who stays up all night to see the first snow fall over the Hogwarts grounds, the one who always steps into the Quidditch Pitch with the right foot on match days and saves me a blueberry muffin if I'm late for breakfast because he knows they're my favourite."
Although Ginny was marginally aware that she was rambling, she simply felt too drained to care anymore. Harry was at a loss, he merely stared at her, hardly believing his ears.
"But you believed I didn't see past the name, didn't you? And I was so desperate to show you how wrong you were, to prove that I didn't care in the slightest for your fame, your fortune and all the things the others see when they look at you, that I only managed to push you further inside yourself."
"Gin, I…"
She raised her hands to silence him. "No. Just…" She sighed dejectedly. "Forget it. This is going nowhere." And with that, she stormed off the kitchen, leaving a very confused Harry behind.
A pair of bright emerald green eyes gazed unblinking at the strange shadows the moon drew on the ceiling. Harry Potter couldn't sleep. Although this was by no means unusual, what kept him awake this time had nothing to do with Voldemort and everything with a certain redheaded girl sleeping two floors beneath him.
At the time Ginny Weasley had broken up with him, he had thought it was because she simply wasn't able to cope with Harry's role in the war. Now, however, he understood that what had ruined their relationship had been nothing but his own fear of tearing down the walls he had built around him. Someway he had made Ginny believe he didn't love her enough to let her in, when the truth was he loved her far too much to do so. Harry had not wanted to burden her with the weight he bore, of being The Boy Who Lived, even though he knew everything would have been so much more bearable with Ginny by his side.
He realised he had been an absolute prat to her earlier that night and felt awful about it. But the thought of Ginny in love with someone other than him just… he was well aware of how irrational and even arrogant this was, but he had always felt that Ginny somehow belonged to him. She was his and, despite everything, he had never renounced his inner conviction that she would find her way back to him one day.
Harry tossed away the covers and patted around until he found his glasses and a jumper, then left the room on tiptoe, careful not to wake Ron. Once outside the door, he took out his wand and whispered 'Lumos'. The last thing he wanted was tripping down the stairs and waking the entire Weasley household.
When he finally reached the living room, he froze.
Ginny was sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace, with her back resting against the sofa and a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Her knees were drawn to her chest, and she was staring blankly into the flames.
Harry stood unmoving at the bottom of the stairs, taking in the sight in front of him. Even after all these years, he was still amased by the endless shades of crimson and gold the reflection of the fire could create on her hair. 'Gryffindor colours' he thought in some delirious part of his mind.
He approached her slowly and after a moment hesitation, sat down on the battered sofa. Ginny didn't even look up. He had forgotten how she could always tell when he was near.
"Look, no more rounds tonight, Harry. I am so tired. I'm actually trying to…"
"No, I… came to apologise. I don't have any right to pry on your personal life. Not anymore," he added, more to himself than to her. "I promise I will give you space and nothing like today's… episode will ever take place again. If you want me to, I'll leave the Burrow first thing in the morning. I could just tell your parents I got an urgent owl from Dumbledore or something."
"You don't have to do that. Really. It's Christmas and the Burrow has always been your home. Besides, I wouldn't… Mum would kill me if she knew you had left because of me."
Harry nodded. "Can we… could we pretend none of this happened?" he said after a moment.
"None of what happened?" she asked in mock puzzlement.
"That's the spirit!" Thankfully, he had been fast enough to catch himself before his original answer reached his lips. Somehow, he doubted 'That's my girl' would have met Ginny's definition of space.
When their soft chuckling subsided, Ginny looked down at her now empty mug.
"How does hot chocolate sound to you? I was thinking of making some more."
"Sounds wonderful," Harry answered, and they silently made their way into the kitchen.
He watched Ginny as she rummaged in one of the lower cabinets. She then turned to the stove and poured milk into a small cauldron, adding a big block of chocolate a moment later.
"I know it's silly, not to mention impractical," she said as she stirred the cauldron "but I've always found it tastes better when you make it the Muggle way."
As an afterthought, she anxiously asked "You won't tell Mum I said that, will you?"
Harry laughed. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
Once ready, Ginny poured two mugs of the boiling liquid and offered one to Harry.
"It has stopped snowing" she announced. Harry followed her gaze through the window and saw the now pristine white garden of the Burrow, surprisingly bright with the full moon reflecting on the snow.
"Would you like to sit on the porch and enjoy the view?" he asked on a sudden impulse.
Ginny unconsciously wrapped her dressing gown tighter around herself, but nodded in agreement and smiled as she grabbed her cloak.
As they sat on the porch swing, Harry was overly aware of the heat radiating off Ginny's body as it came in contact with his, spreading a pleasant tingle all over his right side. Maybe it was just his imagination. Still, he couldn't help but wonder if she felt the same way, or if she felt anything at all, for that matter. This was after all the first time they had been sitting in such close proximity, alone, since… well, it had been a long time.
Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Ginny shiver, so he quickly cast a warming spell around them. When she smiled kindly as an unspoken thank you, Harry felt his insides lurch.
He cleared his throat and started tentatively "Gin?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"I believe you just did."
"You know, it's really scary when you start channelling Dumbledore."
She chuckled. "Sorry, go ahead."
He took so long to continue she almost thought he had changed his mind or simply forgotten what he had meant to ask.
"Would you… d'you reckon… we could… maybe… er… turn that two into a three?"
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
"I mean… would it be within the… er… realm of possibility for you to… to fall in love with me for a third time?"
Ginny stared at him in silence for what seemed like an eternity.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't do that, Harry" she finally answered with a very serious expression.
"Oh, that's okay, I…" Harry started getting to his feet.
"I'm not finished." Ginny rested one hand on his arm to stop him. "I can't fall in love with you for the third time, you gigantic prat…" she grinned mischievously "… merely because the second one is not over yet."
Harry tried to speak, but since forming words seemed too difficult a task at the moment, he resigned to his best goldfish impression, opening and closing his mouth wordlessly.
"I mean, just because we're not together anymore does not change my feelings for you, you know?" Ginny added, as she snuggled a little closer to him on the swing.
"Wha… it doesn't? B… but…"
"Yeah, I know. Beats me too" she whispered softly as she leaned forward towards him. And before Harry could process what was going on, she had wrapped her arms around his neck and her lips were on his.
- The End –
The concept for this story comes from an old Dawson's Creek episode, 'The All-Nighter', from which I've borrowed a couple of lines. It was written by Greg Berlanti and belongs to the WB, Kevin Williamson or whoever, but certainly not to me.