CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Hardest Thing
"Lupin sure knows how to ruin a weekend," Ron stated grumpily, flipping uninterestedly through his notes on proper dueling techniques.
"He's not the only one," Harry acknowledged, knowing they still had Charms and Transfiguration midterms to study for. It was only Friday night but with the workload they had been given they would be lucky to get through it in time for Monday's classes.
"If we stick to Defense Against the Dark Arts tonight, we won't have to review it again until Sunday because the midterm's not until Tuesday," said Hermione, the voice of reason as always.
Ron groaned. "By the time I'm done with this I'm not going to have the energy to study for anything else."
Harry silently agreed with Ron, even when he knew they both had little to complain about. Hermione had two more classes then them and she seemed all right. Of course, knowing her she had probably started revising months ago.
Taking off his glasses, Harry rubbed his tired eyes. Turning in early was not an option for him, otherwise he would have twice as much work to do on Saturday.
At the sound of the portrait hole opening, he put his glasses back on and turned his head in that direction. Colin Creevy and Ginny Weasley entered the common room, chattering adamantly amongst themselves. Harry readied himself to look down at his notes if she caught him staring, but she didn't look over – and why would she? He had made no attempts to communicate with her since the incident in the Quidditch locker room earlier in the week. It wasn't that he didn't want to; he just didn't see how offering up an apology could fix anything. He wasn't sure if he was ready for her forgiveness either. It was just easier on the both of them if he stayed away from her.
He felt someone tap his shins under the table. His head snapped around to see it was Hermione who had kicked him. While Ron was actually absorbed in reading something from his Dark Arts text, she indicated her head in Ginny's direction and mouthed the words talk to her. Harry shook his head and picked up his quill to start writing again. She kicked him again, only this time with more force, and shot him another meaningful look. He gave in. He wasn't sure if it was because he was worried Hermione would keep kicking his shins until he did, or because he desperately wanted to talk to Ginny, and this looked to be his best opportunity in days to do just that. In any case, there was only so long he could put off talking to her.
Ron went to say something when he saw Harry stand up, but Hermione effectively shushed him.
Harry had gone over in his head at least a thousand times what he would finally say to her, but for all his practice it seemed to elude him the second he approached her and Colin. He was hoping Colin would take the hint and walk away when he noticed him coming towards them, but he stayed where he was at Ginny's side, almost as if he were trying to protect her from him. She did a good job of hiding her shock when she saw him approaching.
He nodded curtly at Colin, before turning to Ginny. "Can we go somewhere?" He asked in a low voice.
She briefly considered his offer before nodding her head. "I'll see you in a bit, Colin."
Harry was all too aware of Colin's eyes on them as they stepped through the portrait hole. He certainly didn't look like the same kid who had walked around worshipping him for the last six years. He reached the obvious conclusion that Ginny had told him some of what happened. What he wondered was exactly how much she had told him.
He let her lead the way. He didn't care where they were going as long as they were alone. He was more than a little caught off guard when she led him up to the Astronomy Tower. It was the favourite snogging place for many Hogwarts students, and if things hadn't been so tense between them he would have commented on it. But it turned out to be empty that night, which meant they could talk freely without having to worry about their voices carrying.
She kept her arms folded over her chest, waiting for him to speak. Harry noticed she was keeping a fair amount of distance between them. He couldn't blame her after their last couple of encounters.
It had been a long walk up to the tower, and she had pushed up the sleeves on her robe to cool herself, revealing small welts each the size of a fingerprint.
"I hurt you," said Harry, his voice flat. He remembered how roughly he had grabbed her that evening in the classroom. No matter how many times he went over it in his head, he still didn't understand how he had turned so violent.
Pushing her sleeves back down to cover them, she shrugged off his concern, saying, "I've been hurt worse."
Fingers nervously playing with the hem of his robe, he said, "I've missed you."
Anger flashed in her eyes. "Is that why you wanted to talk to me? Thought we could snog and make up, did you?"
Why was she accusing him of that when she was the one who brought him up to the Astronomy Tower in the first place? However, he resisted the urge to say that. Arguing was only going to make things worse. "I know I've been a complete bastard towards you and I shouldn't have let things go this long without talking to you, but I didn't know how to get you to believe how sorry I was for everything. Ginny, I swear on my life I would never let myself hurt you like that again."
Ginny was finding it harder and harder to stay mad at him, seeing how miserable he was. He was finally making a real effort to fix things with her. But the stubborn part of her wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily. He was going to have to do a lot better then a simple apology. Even if he was able to make up for everything that had happened, she didn't think there was anything he could say to change the decision she had come to three nights ago while lying awake in her bed, silently sobbing into her pillow.
She hadn't walked out yet, that was something, but Harry was unsure of what to say next. Suddenly telling her she made him feel too much sounded lame in his own head. "I don't mean to keep you at a distance. I know we've shared a lot but it's not always easy for me to open up to you or anyone else. That's not fair to you, I know, but there's certain things I can't talk about – yet. But I want to, and it makes it that much harder not to because of how I feel about you. You make me feel things I didn't know I could. I don't always show it, but that's because I don't know how." He swiftly closed the distance between them, cupping her cheek with his hand. His eyes were burning into hers. "Ginny, I need you."
She moved his hand away, feeling the first sting of tears on her cheeks. He was making this so hard for her.
The seconds ticked by and she had still said nothing. The silence was beyond unbearable for Harry. "Say something, Ginny – anything."
She was too much of a coward to look at him when she said the words. She stared down at her own feet instead. "I think we should break up."
She heard his sharp intake of breath as he took a step back from her, his entire body going rigid.
She desperately wanted to reach out to him, but resisted the urge to do so. "Harry, I'm so sorry."
"You don't mean that," he said, his hands starting to shake at his sides. "I know everything's a mess right now, but just give it some time and we'll fix it."
"Harry, please don't make this any harder," she pleaded through her tears.
"Well, you got what you wanted, didn't you?" Harry snapped, the first hint of his temper breaking through. "You wanted me to show a little emotion. Are you happy now?"
No, she wasn't happy. He had just told her everything she had ever needed to hear him say, and now she was breaking his heart in two. That knowledge made her cry harder. She couldn't stand there any longer. She had to get away from him before he changed her mind. Before he convinced her that she was making the biggest mistake of her life. Blinking her tears away, she hurried for the doorway. She was almost free when the sound of his voice made her stop.
"Please, Ginny. I – "
He stood there, his eyes pleading with hers, but he couldn't finish the sentence. Even if he had been able to say those three words, Ginny wasn't sure if it would have changed anything. But it was the not knowing that was killing her inside. If Harry could have taken that final leap, things might have been different, but because he couldn't she left him there. She ran away from the Astronomy Tower as fast as her feet would carry her, the corridors appearing as a mass of blurs through the tears that kept falling.
The Great Hall was deserted as it always was on Saturday mornings. Most students took the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep, but not Hermione. Once she had awaken and let her mind drift to her daunting Arithmancy assignment there was no hope for her to go back to sleep. She had quickly showered, dressed and then left the still silent Gryffindor Tower for breakfast.
Harry was already at the Gryffindor table when she arrived. She had taken it as a good sign that neither him nor Ginny had come back before she had gone to bed. She was hopeful Harry had taken her advice and the two of them had been able to work things out. Although judging by the way Harry was scowling at his toast, she was starting to consider that might not have been the case at all.
"Morning," she said, hoping she kept her voice from sounding too cheerful.
Harry grunted some incoherent response and kept staring at his plate.
"Are you all right?" She was dreading the answer, knowing it would not be good.
He brought his head up to look at her, his face devoid of all emotion "She broke up with me."
Of all the responses she had been expecting, it had certainly not been that. She assumed maybe they had another fight, but not this.
"I told her everything about how I feel and about – everything, and then she broke up with me."
Her heart ached for him. He looked a complete wreck. "Harry, I'm so sorry."
She went to put a comforting hand over his, but he jerked it away. "You told me I should tell her how I feel otherwise I would lose her," he accused. "And you know what her exact words were? Harry, I think we should break up," he said, doing a very poor imitation of Ginny's voice.
"You're right, that's what I told you. But I never said it would fix everything."
"It just made things worse," he said, sharply. "She must have known what she was going to say from the beginning, but she just let me blabber on like an idiot. God, I feel so stupid," he said, taking his hands and raking them through his hair. "You would think by now I'd be used to rejection. The Dursley's spent ten years beating it into my skull."
She didn't have anything comforting to say to him, and she wasn't sure she was supposed to. It was better to let Harry vent. He didn't do it nearly as often as he should.
She saw him tense as he looked at something passed her shoulder. She turned in her seat, seeing the source of his discomfort. Ron and Ginny were walking towards the Gryffindor table.
Hermione turned back around, watching the emptiness in Harry's eyes transform into cold fury. "Harry – "
He held up a finger to silence her. "Don't give me any more advice. You've already done enough." He quickly rose to his feet, and forcing himself to look straight ahead, managed to leave the Great Hall without having to look at her.
Ron slid onto the bench beside Hermione and kissed her good morning. "What's up his arse this morning?" He asked, watching Harry's retreating back.
Ginny was far enough down the table that Hermione leaned over and said in a hushed voice, "Ginny broke up with him last night."
Ron's jaw dropped. "Are you sure?"
She nodded emphatically. "Harry just told me."
"Bloody hell…" he trailed off, shaking his head.
"Ginny didn't say anything to you?"
"No. She didn't look that good, but when I asked her about it she just told me she had trouble sleeping. I can't believe she wouldn't tell me."
"Don't ask her about it."
"Are you kidding me? She looks a downright mess. I want to make sure she's all right."
"I think we should both stay out of it," said Hermione firmly. "Harry and Ginny are both very private people. Unless they ask for our help, we should stay out of it."
"You can't expect me not to say anything to Harry," Ron said. "He's my best mate."
"Just don't force him to tell you anything. You know how Harry gets when he's forced to talk about things he's not ready to talk about."
Normally, food was the only thing on Ron's mind first thing in the morning, but the news about Harry and Ginny had diminished his appetite. He had spent all that time worrying about Harry breaking his sister's heart, he had never stopped to consider it would turn out to be the other way around.
By the time Sunday evening came around, and Harry was still holed up in his room in complete isolation, it was driving Ron to the point where he was sick of having to walk on eggshells around him whenever he went upstairs. Hermione didn't think they should interfere, and it was one of the rare times he agreed with her, but that didn't mean he was going to keep acting like everything was fine around Harry. He thought that after all this time he would be used to Harry's sulking around, but he wasn't. It was made that much harder for Ron to understand because it was over his own sister.
Bored to death with studying, Ron rounded up the other Gryffindor boys to take a much-needed break by playing a pickup game of Quidditch outside. That was his clever excuse for going upstairs and starting a conversation with Harry.
The curtains were closed around Harry's four-poster bed, but Ron knew for a fact that he wasn't sleeping. He pulled back the curtains, much to Harry's annoyance.
"What the hell did you do that for?"
Ignoring Harry's sour mood, he said, "we're heading down to the pitch to play a bit of Quidditch. I thought you might want to come."
Much to Ron's disappointment Harry appeared thoroughly uninterested. "I've got studying I need to do."
It might have been a little more convincing if he had a textbook or two on his bed, but none of his school things were in sight.
Annoyed that Ron was still standing there, he snapped, "is there anything else?"
Ron almost said no, but he wanted to say what he had come up there to say – whether or not Harry wanted to hear it. "I'm sorry about what happened with you and Ginny."
"It's for the best," Harry told him. "It's what you wanted, isn't it?"
Ron thought back to the sight he had walked in on that day in the locker room, and at the time nothing would have pleased him more than to see Ginny end things with him. But now, seeing the state of misery Harry had fallen into, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him. "I never said I wanted you two to break up."
"Well, what's done is done," Harry responded bitterly before looking pleadingly up at Ron. "Please, Ron, just leave me alone, okay?"
There was no sense in staying and forcing anything more out of him. He was just bound to get more defensive and the last thing Ron wanted was to start a row with him. Obeying his friend's wishes, he went to leave. Before he did though, he said, "I was so worried about you breaking Ginny's heart I didn't stop to think it would be the other way around."
Ron was in the doorway when he heard Harry's barely audible response.
"She didn't break my heart."
Ron had never been more sure of a lie in his life then he was at that moment.