TITLE: The Look
AUTHOR: Maid M
PAIRINGS: Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione, Bill/Fleur, Fred/Angelina
DISCLAIMER: If I did own them, I wouldn't be sitting in my basement typing on a six-year-old computer.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I really don't know why I wrote this, as I'm not a huge Ginny fan, but we read this poem in English class and it just shouted out to me. It started out as a R/H story, but morphed into this.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The poem is by Sara Teasdale. I would thank her for not pressing charges.
* * *
I got over Harry after the ordeal in my first year.
That's what I tell myself.
* * *
I've had plenty of boyfriends, more than my brothers would care to know. I got my first kiss when I was twelve, younger than Ron or either of the twins were.
A boy named Stephen in my year confronted me in the corridor of the school train on the ride back home. He told me he thought I was pretty and gave me a quick peck on the lips. He then ran away, blushing.
When I tried confronting him the next year he wouldn't listen to me and ignored what I said.
So I left him.
He works at the Ministry now, so we pass each other in the halls. We smile at each other; sometimes we say hello. I used wonder if he still thought I was pretty. If he still wanted to kiss me.
Stephen started me on a long path of boyfriends. From the moment when Neville asked me to the ball, I went from boy to boy, not really being serious about any of them. I realized boys actually thought I was attractive. I would turn on the charm, and they would be lining up to talk to me. It was empowering.
But one of them didn't. The one I had truly wanted for the longest time. The one that knew me as his best friend's sister.
I was over him, though. So it didn't matter.
Now Ron and Hermione are engaged, and Bill and Fleur are having a baby. Fred and Angelina have been seeing each other for years now and show no interest in making any further commitment. George's having a secret affair with a pretty redheaded woman he met at their joke shop. I found her picture in his apartment and promised him I wouldn't tell anyone. I don't know why. Charlie has his dragons and I guess that will always be enough for him.
We don't know what Percy is doing.
I come home sometimes. Now that none of her children live at home anymore, Mum insists on having the whole family over for Sunday night dinner once a month. I don't think she feels at home in an empty house.
I see them together, so happy and safe. Now that the war is over everyone wants to get married and have children. Call it a post-war baby boom, I guess.
I envy them sometimes.
I've had plenty of boyfriends, though.
Tonight I'm going I'm going on a date with some guy I met at one of Hermione's dinner parties. Robert, I think it was.
I haven't told Ron. He still can't see me as anyone but his little kid sister. I haven't told Hermione. She's been trying to set me up with men for so long I don't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it worked. I haven't told Mum, or Dad, or the twins or anyone. They don't want to know.
But I told Harry.
He calls me at night. Says he needs someone to talk to. He tells me about training to be an auror, and I talk to him about how swamped I am with work at The Ministry. I never wanted to work there, anyway.
I like talking to Harry. Apparently he's seeing some woman he met at auror training. She's three years older than he is. I make fun of him for that. But when he talks about her, something flutters inside me. It's not jealousy. It can't be.
Because I'm over him.
What does it matter anyway? To him, I'm always going to be Ron's little sister.
I just can't stop picturing what it would be like to kiss him.
* * *
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
Haunts me night and day.
-- Sara Teasdale
