Author's Note: This chapter has been finished for a while, but I was waiting on beta-readers and the writing of the next chapter to post it. Finally, though, I relent, because both things are taking too long. Real life stuff, at least in my case. Anyway, point being, all errors are solely mine, and do enjoy the chapter.
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"You told me it would be different," she says, her dark eyes glistening with tears. "You told me that you'd stop ignoring me – but all you did the whole year was ignore me!"
"That's not true, Ginny, and you know it," I answer heatedly, staring her down. "You and I watched all the Quidditch games and practices together, we spent our birthdays together –"
"Ron," she cries, looking at me pleadingly. "Listen to what you're saying! I'm just a little sister to you – a substitute for Harry or Hermione, someone to see on special occasions, someone you tell to leave when you have something important to say! Didn't I used to be worth more than that? Didn't we used to be best friends, to be Ron and Ginny? Now you're Ron, I'm Ginny, and I feel like I'm not worth anything! Ron, I'm not worth anything without you…"
She bursts into tears and sobs brokenheartedly. I don't know how to respond at all; the best I can do is to gather her into my arms and stroke her hair.
This doesn't appease her in the least. She pounds on my chest with tiny, shaking fists, as if my nearness drives her mad.
"No," she protests. "No, you can't. You can't! I don't mean anything…I don't mean anything – I'm just another Weasley – even to you…"
"Ginny," I say, my voice trembling with emotion, "you're wrong."
I release her and step away, determined to meet her eyes with mine. Her lips tremble in anger, and she lifts her head to meet my gaze in a defiant motion – but something inside her falters when she looks at me. Her expression melts into one of curiosity, surprise; awe, even.
"Why, Ron?" she asks, genuinely wanting to know. "Why am I wrong?"
"Ginny," I begin, words failing me in the abyss of her innocent eyes. "Ginny, I've tried to keep you out of this because you're too good for this. I don't want you to be around Harry, Hermione and I, because being around us means you'll be in danger. And I don't want that for you. I don't want that for you, because you're Ginny, and I can't bear to see you in danger."
I suck in a breath; even my lungs quaver. "You know what it was like to hear it? To hear them say that the student that had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets was Ginny Weasley – was you? I couldn't see straight. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't stand, I couldn't think. And I had to get to you. I had to make you all right. Gin, every year I go through stuff like that now – with Harry. And I've been scared. I've been afraid that Harry might die, or Hermione. I've been afraid I might die, and I almost have. But Ginny…I've never in my life been so paralyzed by fear as that time they said your name. I can't live with that. I can't. In my right mind, I could never put you in that danger. So yeah, I try to leave you out of it – the Harry, Hermione, Ron thing. Because we don't have a choice, Gin, we're always going to be in that danger. But you…you can still be safe, Ginny, and that's all I want for you. Because I couldn't live with myself…I couldn't –"
It's too much for me. I break down and cry – blubber like a baby, more like. All over the memory of a time when my sister, my Ginny, could've died. Just a memory.
I don't care if it's just a memory. It was still real. And I love her so – I love my Ginny so – that even the fleeting thought of losing her is enough to tear me apart.
I don't know how she could ever think she doesn't mean anything to me. She means the world to me. It's always been that way – Ron, and his Ginny. Ginny, and her Ron. Even now that it's more often Harry, Ron and Hermione, I still feel the same.
Nothing will change how much I love Ginny.
"Ron," she begins, her doe eyes staring up at me. In perfect innocence; an angel, she is.
"Ron," she repeats, and the harshness in her voice has melted away; she now speaks in perfect composure, and even with affection. Even in her Ron's it's evident.
"You do have a choice," she says, solemn gaze square on me. "You can choose whether or not to be in danger – you can choose whether or not to be Harry's friend. And so can Hermione."
"Ginny," I burst out heatedly, "he needs us. We can't just stop caring about him. It would destroy him."
Her gaze has become more pointed. "Exactly, Ron. You can't just stop caring about him. Just like I can't stop caring about you. So maybe I make a choice. Maybe I choose to be in danger, and maybe you don't want me to, but I don't care, Ron – without you, I'll break. I'll fall apart. I need you, Ron. I need you, and unlike Harry, I have no Hermione to fall back on when you're not there."
I open my mouth to protest, but realize the truth of what she's spoken; Ginny doesn't have friends she can turn to, friends like Hermione and Harry. And she can't run to Fred, George or Percy anymore than I can. It was always Ginny and I; they know that, and we know that. It's unspoken and yet so clear.
And Mum and Dad are distant, now; after all Hogwarts has put my Ginny and I through, we can't go back to them. Not if we tried.
"Gin…" I try weakly. "I just don't want you to get hurt."
She gives me a wistful smile. "I'm perfectly capable of getting hurt all by myself, Ronald Weasley," she chides, but it pains me – because this, too, is strikingly true. "With or without you, I'll get myself into more trouble than I know what to do with. All I ask of you is for you to be there to bail me out of it. Like you used to be."
Nostalgia paints an unbidden smile on my face. "I was a big brother then. Protective, all the time. And I remember – I used to try to save you from Percy…"
She snorts. "Only because I saved you from the twins."
My smile breaks into a grin. "Yes, well, let's not try to suss out which is the greater evil."
Her smile is genuine, now, but her eyes have again turned solemn. "You're still the big brother, you know. Gallivanting off to save me from that Chamber and all the memories of…" she hesitates. She's been trying to forget Tom, I know. I let it go.
"You still try to help me," she recovers. "When you remember I exist."
"Gin…" I groan. Every time she says that, I want to scream. Of course, I know that she exists! Of course, I think about her! Of course, I want to be with her, but I don't want her to get hurt…
"Ron," she cuts in quickly, dismissively, "just promise me it'll be different now. Just promise me that you'll let me in. That you'll love me like you used to."
"I've always loved you, Ginny – I'll always love you," I say loyally.
She seems downcast again. "I wonder," she murmurs.
"Ginny! What in the bloody hell do you mean?" Shock overtakes me. I can't believe the look on her face. It's as if she's lost her best friend and family, all in one day. I can't blame her – she thinks I don't love her, and I know if I thought she didn't love me, I'd be in a state. But how can she even think such a thing? There hasn't been a moment in the years we've spent together that I've ever dwelled on a passing thought about not loving Ginny. I just always have, completely, through absolutely everything.
Why can't she see that?
"People say 'I love you' all the time, Ron," she informs me. "And it doesn't mean a thing."
"What makes you think that it doesn't mean anything when I say it?"
"Because," she says. "It just pops out of your mouth, so easy. Like you've practiced. Like you're just used to saying it – as if you were telling people your name."
"Well, that's because I know I love you as well as I know my name, Gin," I state, matter-of-factly. "It's easy, because it's always been true. It's natural."
"It hasn't always been true," she protests. "You can't just love me always. There's always a moment."
"What moment?" I demand.
"The moment – the moment when you realize you love someone."
"Then," I say, smiling at her, "the moment is now. And every moment before now. And every moment after. Because I'll always be realizing another way I love you."
She breaks eye contact with me. "Ron, I'm serious," she says, sounding forlorn, and slightly annoyed.
I sigh; she's lost me somewhere along the way, but all I can do is try to make it better.
"What do I have to do, Ginny?"
"What do you mean?"
"What do I have to do," I repeat, exasperated, "to prove that I love you?"
She looks me straight in the eye, an uncompromising glint in her gaze. "Kiss me."
"What?" I cry, flabbergasted.
"You used to kiss me goodnight every night," she explains calmly, "and no matter how much we fought all day, or how angry you were with me, you always did it with such affection I knew you loved me. I just knew. You didn't have to smile; you didn't have to say a word. You would always kiss me and tell me everything inside you, and all of it was for me; love for me. And…"
She falters. Her gaze drops. "I miss that," she concludes, dejectedly.
My eyes lower to the floor. Something about her sad eyes gnaws away at me inside; the guilt of leaving her consumes me until I'm drowning in it, choking on it, and I can barely breathe. I didn't realize until now how much she needed me; I guess I'd thought because I didn't have to depend on her anymore, that she didn't have to depend on me…but I was obviously wrong.
We stand together in funereal silence for a lengthy moment – and finally, she turns to go, tears sparkling in her eyes. I grab her by the arms before she can take one step and I try to tell her what she needs to hear; I try to bridge across two wasted years to make it right.
I kiss her, with everything inside me, but it's changed from when we were children; the light, brief brush of lips we shared then has turned into something more intimate. I feel Ginny's slight body press up against mine and our hearts are beating together, and I know it now – I know she feels that I love her; I know that she can read the unspoken words from my lips.
Now I've told her, but it doesn't seem like I should pull away. What was meant to be little more than a brief peck is persisting; she doesn't draw away, and I don't want to be the one to break the embrace. I don't want her to think that I did this out of obligation…I want her to know…
Ginny's mouth against mine tastes as sweet as strawberries and cream and suddenly I realize the price. The price of kissing her like this; in a way that's more passionate, more adventurous, than I ever thought to kiss her as a child. I'm crossing the line; that line between love, and then the kind of feeling that a brother never ought to feel, that kind of feeling that you get when someone's lips taste so sweet, and you can't seem to bring yourself to pull away, and your fingers become impossibly tangled in their hair –
I muster the will to draw back, and try to do it smoothly, as to not alarm her, but it's hard. Sometime inexplicably along the way, our hearts had to have ceased beating as one, because I feel mine going a thousand miles a minute and my fingers shake with adrenaline. It's hard to keep her from being alarmed, because honestly, I'm terrified.
"Ginny," I say, and my hoarse voice scares me, too. I clear my throat as best I can.
"Ron," she blurts out, her voice higher than usual. "I'm sorry."
I frown slightly. "What for?"
"Never mind," she replies quickly. "I just…never mind. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," I answer, and she leaves the room as quickly as I can utter the response. My hand involuntarily reaches up to my lips, which throb and seem to swell, as if seared by hers.
I can't help but to think that I'll never look at strawberries the same way again.