Author's Note: Thanks for zee reviews, guys! You're all splendiferous! Hmm...the song Angel Standing By belongs to Jewel, and if you look closely, you shall find eight Sweet Valley High: Senior Year book titles within the chapter...*dun dun dun*
Chapter Two: Angel Standing By
Two thirty in the morning. Two freaking thirty in the morning.
Who on God's green earth stayed out until two thirty in the morning on a date??!!
"Well, Harry, that's who," Ginny mumbled angrily to herself, eyes fixed on the television screen. She'd watched Breakfast at Tiffany's five times straight now, having decided after the first viewing that changing the tape was probably a bit too risky. She had, however, mastered the stop, rewind, and play buttons.
If he doesn't come home soon, I'm getting up and going to the stupid Golden Watch and pulling him out by his ear.
However, those drastic measures proved to be unnecessary, as the sound of the doorknob turning filled her ears.
"Shit," Ginny muttered, pulling the blanket over her head and striking what she hoped was a convincing 'I've-been-asleep-for-hours' position. If there was one thing more pathetic than waiting up for Harry, it was having him know that she'd been waiting up.
"Oh my gosh, there's someone on the couch! They practically just gave me a heart attack! Harry, quick, get out your wand!"
Fabulous. Susan.
"Calm down," Harry instructed.
Susan's voice silenced, which either meant that she'd left or Harry had performed a nifty little Avada Kedavra curse on her. Ginny hoped for the latter.
"Ginny?"
I am not awake, I am not awake...
He tapped her shoulder gently, sending about a zillion little tingles throughout her body.
"Hmm?" she asked 'sleepily' (mwahaha...), forcing open her eyes.
"You weren't waiting up, were you?" Harry asked, looking a bit concerned.
"Oh, no," Ginny responded airily, waving a hand and very narrowly knocking his glasses off. Harry flinched.
Ha.
"I completely forgot you were gone," she finished casually. "So, what time is it?"
"Dunno. Twelve thirty."
Try two thirty, you asshole.
"Mmm," Ginny responded, forcing herself to stay calm. "Seems later."
Harry shrugged. "Might be."
Gee, ya THINK?
"The movie is still on??" he asked incredulously after studying the television.
"I wanted to watch it over," Ginny responded delicately.
"You could have watched something else."
"I didn't want to risk it," Ginny snapped. "I'm going to go make a cup of tea. You want anything?"
She rose from the couch and made a show of tossing her blanket to the floor before stomping towards the kitchen.
"Er, Gin?" Harry called from behind her. "You might not want to..."
Ginny ignored him and pulled open the door to the tiny, falling-apart kitchen. And there, on one of the bar stools, sat Susan, leaning on the counter and sipping a diet soda poured into a wine glass.
"Classy," Ginny commented sarcastically.
"Who are you?" Susan asked, wrinkling up her perfect nose in disgust.
"Your boyfriend's roommate," she responded dryly.
We were only at Hogwarts together for five years, she added silently.
"Oh, you're that Weasley girl," Susan said, studying her long fake nails. "Ron's sister. Didn't you used to be, like, really poor?"
Ginny resisted the urge to dump the water she was boiling over Susan's head, and instead responded sweetly, "Didn't you used to be, like, red-headed and not-so-stick-thin?"
"No," Susan replied immediately. "Of course not. No way. I'm perfect. That must have been somebody else. Like...you."
"Aren't you going home??" Ginny asked, annoyed.
Susan shook her had. "I think I'm going to spend the night here."
Over my dead body.
"Great," Ginny mumbled. "Don't do anything you wouldn't do if your grandma was in the room."
And with that, she left the tea forgotten and made her way upstairs.
~*~
"Ugh, Harry, I cannot stand that girl," Susan said, rolling her eyes as she sunk into his lap. "She's such a beastly little thing!"
This was what he hated about her. Sure, Susan was gorgeous and...well, gorgeous, but that was pretty much all she had going for her. She was such a drama queen that she could make a broken nail sound worse than Lord Voldemort making yet another comeback, and she was constantly judging people by their looks. Harry, who didn't consider himself all that attractive, wondered why the hell she even bothered with him.
"There's just something about red-heads," Susan proclaimed. "I can't stand them."
"Susan," he said delicately, "You used to have red hair."
"Ew, don't remind me," she said, shuddering. "That was so totally not me. That was, like, the old me. Who is so not me."
"Oh," Harry said lamely, wishing more than anything that she would leave.
Instead, she draped her arms around his shoulders and began to caress his neck with glossy lips.
"Suz, maybe this isn't the time," said Harry awkwardly. "I mean, Ginny just moved in, and-"
"Forget Ginny," Susan ordered, beginning to unbutton his shirt. "I've got to release the inner bad girl sometimes, don't I?"
"But you'd better get home, right? I mean, Maria's probably getting worried-"
Yup. Blame it on the roommate.
"Maria who?" purred Susan, looking a bit frustrated at the undershirt she found under the one she'd just removed. "Baby, quit worrying about Ginny. It's your life."
"It's my life," Harry repeated blandly.
Well, it was true. It was his life. Why was Ginny bugging him, anyway? She'd needed a place to stay...that was it. Only a total moron would want Susan to leave. A gorgeous girl attempting to seduce him? It wasn't exactly your basic nightmare.
But still....
"Susan, you should get home."
Instant drama.
Just add water.
He should have known.
"Fine," she snapped angrily, standing up and straightening out her clothes. "As if I care...if you want to go be a total backstabber and hang out with that little Ginny brat, be my guest."
"Susan, God-"
"It's too late for apologies," she spat. "Goodnight, Harry."
Ah, she was gone.
The one that got away.
What a shame.
She'd be back the next morning as though nothing had happened, Harry knew that much. All she needed was her beauty sleep and she'd be perfectly perky again.
With a sigh, Harry switched off the light and went up to bed, knowing that nightmares of darker times awaited him.
They never failed, the nightmares.
Never stopped haunting him...
~*~
"AAAAAHHHH!"
"Harry!" Ginny sat straight up in bed, hand to her heart.
Perhaps it had all just been a nightmare, a nightmare...
"No, no, don't kill them, please don't kill them!"
It was real. That was Harry's voice, pleading so desperately.
He sounded so terrified, so terrified.
She had to do something.
Raising silently from her bed, she tiptoed out into the hall and pushed open the door to his bedroom. Blankets were strewn across the floor, and Harry was still yelling, hand to his scar.
It pained her more than anything physical ever could, to see him that way.
Biting her lip, she sunk down onto his bed and pushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead. He still didn't awaken, moaning softly.
"No...no..."
He had seen things so horrible that Ginny couldn't even begin to fathom what they were like. Ridding the world of Voldemort had destroyed him....
Ruined him.
"All through the night I'll be standing over you."
The words escaped her lips before she even realized it, bittersweet and soothing. She'd heard the song so long ago that she couldn't remember where it was from or who it was by, but somehow it had danced its way into her mind.
Harry seemed to relax at the sound of the words, and Ginny felt a surge of determination run through her.
"All through the night I'll be watching over you," she continued, a promise dancing in her voice. "And through bad dreams, I'll be right there baby...
Holding your hand...
Telling you everything is all right."
She silently took his hand in her own and shivered a bit. He was so cold.
"And when you cry, I'll be right there," she sighed, caressing his cheek with her free hand, "Telling you you were never anything less than beautiful..."
Harry's eyes fluttered, staying closed but startling Ginny enough that she rose from the bed right away.
With a last glance at him, she began to make her way out of the room. However, just before she closed the door, she sang out the rest of the song in a sweet whisper.
"So don't you worry...
I'm your angel standing by."
~*~
A sweet serenade lightly rung through Harry Potter's mind, and a vision of a red-headed angel held his hand.
And so he slept.