Not Quite Closure
By PepsiAngel
Disclaimer: Characters courtesy of JKR and challenge courtesy of She's A Star.
Author's Note: Ginny is like a bizarre mix of me and Mia Thermopolis from the Princess Diaries. It's awful! I'm sorry. Read at your own risk, folks.
I had thought of nothing but this night for the past month. Looking around the room, it's hard to believe this is what I had been dreaming about. The Great Hall had been transformed until it was nearly unrecognizable as the place I ate breakfast each morning and everyone was cleaned up nicely in their dress robes but it seemed strangely anticlimactic.
It wasn't that I was dissatisfied with my appearance, since I thought I looked quite nice, honestly. My hair was done in one of those fancy up-do's, with a few stray tendrils of auburn falling across my forehead and obstructing my view from time to time. The midnight blue dress my mother picked out, she likes the color on me, contrasted with my milky white skin to perfection. Or so I've heard, personally I would go with 'pasty' when describing my complexion. Even Neville Longbottom, my not-so dashing date for the evening, was looking sharp for the occasion, though this didn't stop him from stomping on my toes. By the ninth time I was getting rather exasperated and suggested we take a break from dancing.
The reason I believe I felt let down, and there was been a lot of thought put into this, was the lack of romance surrounding the whole event as far as I was concerned. Whenever I fantasized about the ball I was always gliding around the room in Harry's strong, manly arms (I have an active imagination, thank you). Somehow awkwardly avoiding Neville's shoes as we half-stumble across the floor never played into my vision. Of course, I was grateful to simply be there. As was the only one of my third year friends asked and they were all horribly jealous when they found out. In fact, one girl had even shown interest in being Ron's date if Padma Patil should fall ill at the last moment.
Yes, I know, it disturbed me as well. She had always seemed a bit off, mind you, but this was still cause for concern. I mean, my brother? Someone like Cedric Diggory I could understand but Ron isn't even good looking. Well, all right, he's not exactly ugly either; he just doesn't pull off the freckles half as well as I do.
So, as you can imagine, I was feeling rather dissatisfied with the whole affair when I made my way over to the refreshments. The last thing I expected was to meet Michael Corner over the bowl of butterbeer. Okay, it wasn't exactly love at first sight, but I don't think there was actually any attraction at all, due to the whole still worshiping Harry thing. He smiled at me, in a way he surely thought was alluring but was actually a bit goofy, and said, "Hi, Ginny."
Immediately, I adopted a fighter's stance. "Who are you?" I asked suspiciously, my fists guarding my face. Looking back on this, I realize I might have reacted in an unnecessarily dramatic manner but I still maintain that he could have been a double agent for the death eaters. Honestly, it's possible.
The way he explained himself, after backing away slowly with a look of pure terror on his face, was that he had been "interested" in me for quite some time. He thought the Yule Ball would be the ideal place to confess to me that he found my laugh irresistible and longed to run his fingers through my hair. I kid you not. I replied that I did not think there was ever an appropriate time to tell a person something like that and I could pretty much guarantee it would scare me, no matter the setting.
He replied earnestly, saying that was exactly why he liked me so much. Apparently my dry sense of humor and sarcasm are very appealing. Right. I didn't bother pointing out to him that I was, in fact, quite serious. Up until this point, I had found his attempts at charm completely laughable, yet a part of me couldn't help but think his efforts were cute, in some twisted way. He had a lot to learn about courtship, this is coming from a girl who prefers the admiring from afar route, but I saw potential in him. He was sincere, you had to give him that, and he certainly seemed interested, which was far more than could be said for other people of the male variety.
With his dark eyes and lips that begged for some disgusting description, think kissable or luscious, he was also rather good looking. All in all, not a bad catch and hanging out with him beat being boyfriend-less by a long shot. Take that, Mr. Harry James Potter!
. . .
Not that this was about Harry or anything. No, not at all. I am making a conscience effort to get over him and all that my obsession with him stood for, so there would be no reason I would dwell on him or his lack of caring when it came to my thinly veiled affections. I'm moving on, starting with my budding relationship with Michael.
At some point during our encounter, Neville wandered over to make sure I had not been kidnapped by masked men (see! Someone thinks like me.) and didn't seem very bothered when I informed him that I had been engaged in a riveting conversation with a random guy who knew my name before we even spoke. Though, perhaps, he was just relieved that he didn't have to rescue me from said masked men. I know I would be apprehensive about any acts of heroism, Gryffindor or not. It turns out he had been having a chat of his own with one Eloise Midgen. Despite her problems with acne, poor thing, she is actually a perfectly nice girl as he found out when she asked him to dance and said she wouldn't mind if he were to trod on her toes a bit. He did, several times, and she didn't blink an eye.
This was the kind of love that only came along once in a lifetime. Who was I to stand in the way? I told Neville that no, I wouldn't mind if he spent the rest of the ball with her, and was therefore free to say yes when Michael asked me if I would spend the rest of the evening with him then.
As we twirled around, I thought about the odd way things had turned out. Of course, there was Neville and I leaving with different people then we came with. Then I spotted Padma and her twin, Parvati, giggling over some boys from Beauxbatons, without their dates in sight. When I did spot Harry later that night, completely by accident may I add, my heart hardly sped up at all. And that, my friends, is what they call closure.
Well, almost. Not quite.