The next morning at breakfast, Ginny spotted Draco easily. He was sitting where he always did at the Slytherin table. At first, he seemed so confident and relaxed that she wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing. But then she noticed his gaze continually wandering to a certain Slytherin boy. He was very discrete about it, even more so than she was when she watched her crush out of the corner of her eye, and Ginny doubted that anyone would have noticed the direction of his gaze unless they were looking for it. But he was watching Blaise, who was once again clueless. And Ginny smiled, feeling somehow better knowing that she wasn't the only one who felt this way... even if the only other person was Draco – a Slytherin and, well, a boy.

Ginny returned her gaze to the brown-haired witch sitting across from her brother and bit her lip as the girl laughed at something Ron said, wishing more than anything she had made Hermione laugh instead of Ron.



"Hey, can you help me with my charms homework?"

Hermione nodded, sliding over to make room for Ginny on the couch. They were sitting in the Gryffindor common room, relaxing after dinner. Harry and Ron were having a detention with Snape, Ginny couldn't remember what for. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that they weren't here and Hermione was alone. Part of her felt terrible for feeling so happy that Ron and Harry were having detention with Snape, of all people, but that really wasn't her fault and she might as well take advantage of the opportunity to spend time with Hermione.

"What are you having trouble with?" Ginny blushed and showed Hermione her assignment. It was really quite simple, but it was the only homework she had that night and she had no intention of letting a perfectly good chance to be alone with Hermione go to waste. Hermione raised an eyebrow when she saw what the assignment was, but she didn't comment and for the next hour; Ginny had her beloved all to herself.

Seeing Harry and Ron entered the room, Ginny felt her heart sink. Hermione followed her gaze and brightened when she saw her friends.

"So, how was your detention?" she asked as they flopped unceremoniously down on the sofa across from Hermione and Ginny.

"Not so bad," Ron replied with a grin. "We're back, aren't we?"

The four of them laughed, though Ginny's laugh was slightly forced.

"It's getting late. We should go to bed," Hermione told them, yawning. "We have a test tomorrow, after all."

"I think I can finish the last of this on my own," Ginny told her. Hermione nodded and got up. Ron and Harry followed her out of the common room and Ginny turned back to her homework so that she wouldn't see Hermione kiss Harry good-night.



After that, it became something of a routine. Every night Ginny would ask Hermione for help with her homework, no matter how easy the assignment was. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with Hermione, to be able to watch her and listen to her. To sit close enough to smell her and feel her hair tickling Ginny's face. To have Hermione's attention focused on her and only her.

And everyday Ginny would see Hermione with Harry, smiling and holding hands and kissing and happy and she would suppress her rising jealousy and despair and smile and try to be happy for them.


Ginny was sitting in the library, reading Hogwarts a History and waiting for Hermione to arrive to help her with her homework. She had her hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing light purple eye shadow and lip gloss. Yesterday she had found a spell to keep make-up from smudging or wearing off until you caste the counter-spell and so far it was working beautifully. She was still looking for a spell to lighten her freckles. At some point, Ginny had taken to wearing make-up and doing her hair up nice whenever she knew she would be seeing Hermione, which was now everyday. She wasn't sure why she did it, seeing as Hermione was straight and had a boyfriend, but she still wanted to look pretty in front of the girl. And Hermione had even complemented her on it occasionally, which had made Ginny practically glow with pleasure.

Hogwarts a History was actually somewhat interesting in places, though most of it was dull enough to rival Professor Binn's classes. Still, it gave her something in common with Hermione (who was, to the best of Ginny's knowledge, the only student ever to attend Hogwarts who had read the thing) not to mention something she could talk about with Hermione. She supposed that the girl must find it strange that she could discuss Hogwarts a History or the theories behind newly invented spells (Ginny had also started reading the 'Magical Research' section of the Daily Prophet) but couldn't manage to transform a knife into a spoon or cast a simple levitation spell, but Hermione had never commented on it.

Ginny's attention began to wander from the book. She was in the middle of a particularly dry chapter about some former headmaster and his 'radical, new teaching methods' (which were now standard practice). Realizing that she had been reading the same sentence for about three minutes, she sighed and shut the book. She could continue later.

Ginny picked up the book her mother had given her for her birthday. It was a fictional book about a pureblood witch who was forced to live with muggles for a year and fell in love with a muggle boy and then spent the next 200 pages agonizing over whether it was okay to love a muggle. Ginny was about halfway through and almost ready to give up and find something else to read. In her opinion, the witch was being an absolute twit about the whole thing and boy should just ditch her and go find himself another girl. Not to mention how much it irritated her that the witch was staying with a beautiful, fun muggle-born witch who she could only seem to think of in terms of 'you're trying to steal my man' (the same man I can't even make up my mind as to whether I'm allowed to like or not).

But the book had been a gift, so Ginny would try to finish it.

She looked up briefly as three Slytherin girls sat down at the table next to hers and began talking loudly about this and that. Ginny was about to move somewhere quieter when she heard one of them giggle, "I bet she's lesbian."

Now Ginny was listening, book forgotten.

Another girl laughed. "Of course she is. The hottest guy in the school asks her out and she says no."

"Yeah, and have you seen the way she watches Pansy?" The three girls burst into a fit of giggles.

"I bet they've already fucked each other," giggled the first girl.

"I bet Draco was watching," replied the second.

"Perverts."

"Dykes."

"I bet You-Know-Who'll set them straight." They laughed again.

Trying hard not to cry, Ginny put away her books, picked up her bag, and left the library, homework and Hermione forgotten.


She was the only one in her dormitory. The other girls were all in the common room or outside enjoying the last of the autumn warmth. Dumping her bag on the floor, Ginny flung herself on her bed, burying her face in her pillow.

She wasn't sure why the Slytherin girl's words had hurt her so much. They were Slytherins, after all, and it wasn't as if she cared about their opinions. They hadn't even been talking about her. But she had heard the girls (and boys) in her own House saying similar things. And it hurt. It hurt when her friends giggled and said that so-and-so was gay and oh, wasn't that so sick and wrong. It hurt when one of her friends or her mother would give her some book about a girl who fell in love with a boy. It hurt when her friends would sit giggling and drooling over some celebrity in one of the Teen Witch magazines or going on about some hot boy in their class and she hated it when her mother would point out the 'cute' boys in her year or comment on some 'hot' quidditch player or singer. And somehow hearing girls she didn't even know, Slytherin girls, saying the same things hurt even more. It seemed that the only thing that everyone agreed on was that being gay was wrong. Everyone from You-Know-Who to Dumbledore to her own parents agreed that homosexuals were perverted and sick and evil.

And they were, weren't they? It was wrong. Boys love girls and girls love boys. That was the way the world was supposed to work.

Draco was certainly evil. His parents were Death Eaters and he himself worshiped You-Know-Who. And then there was what he had done to Blaise... Even if she could see why he might have done that, it was still wrong. Wrong to do that to your friend and then cast a spell to make them forget. And how did Ginny know that that was the only time Draco had done something like that? What was to stop him from doing it again and again? The worst part was that she found herself feeling sorrier for him than for Blaise or any of his other victims, found herself envious of the strength he had to tell his friend the truth and the cold heartlessness it must have taken to then erase his friend's memory.

And if she was so sympathetic towards Draco, what did that say about her? Didn't that make her just as bad?

Did it even matter? She was lesbian after all; she had no doubts about that anymore. But was she really... evil?

And then she remembered her first year at Hogwarts, the year when she had been possessed by You-Know-Who's diary and unleashed a basilisk on the school. Even then, she had been evil. Or maybe she had just been screwed up ever since.

She was crying aloud now, unable to control her tears of self-hatred and despair. She cried until she was hoarse and her eyes were red and puffy and her nose was swollen. And when she finally calmed, she lay on her bed for a long time, staring out the window at the sun in the clear blue sky and the tops of the trees of the Forbidden Forest. Wisps of pale clouds drifted by peacefully, birds called, and the other students laughed and joked and Ginny could only watch through her window, cut off, alone, an outsider. Forgotten and unloved. And she knew that she deserved it.

After a time she got up and walked over to the window, looking down on the school grounds, spread out below her like a painting. Hundreds of tiny heads moved about below her, indistinct except for one cluster of three heads she would have recognized anywhere. Red, black, and brown, sitting by the lake. She watched the three of them until they got up and started walking towards the castle. Then she shifted her gaze to the sky, studying the clouds. She saw a dragon, white and wispy, floating through the sky. Shifting as the wind blew it until the dragon was gone and it became a woman, long arms outstretched, skirt flowing out behind her. Then her skirt shifted until there was another woman, her skirt blurring into the first woman's, her arm blending with the first woman's hair until it seemed that her head had turned so that the two now faced each other. The outline of the second woman's arm and the first woman's hair and neck and their skirts forming a heart in the sky.

Ginny spun around as she heard the door to her dormitory open.

"Hermione?" Ginny asked, startled.

"You weren't in the library. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Ginny winced guiltily. She hadn't meant to worry Hermione. It was just that... no, that didn't matter. "Well, I'm fine," Ginny told the older witch. "I hope you didn't wait for me long."

Hermione frowned. "You've been crying, haven't you?"

Ginny flushed. "No. What would I have to cry about?"

Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. Would you like to talk about it, whatever it is?"

Ginny shook her head in annoyance. "I already told you. Nothing's wrong, I wasn't crying. Everything's fine."

Hermione looked concerned and Ginny mentally cursed her for wasting her concern on someone like Ginny.

"You were crying. Your eyes are all red, your eye shadow's smudged, and your voice is hoarse. What's wrong?"

Ginny closed her eyes, wishing for the first time in her life that Hermione would just go away. "Nothing's wrong. I don't want to talk about it. Now just leave me alone!"

Hermione shrugged and left. Ginny watched her go, feeling like she had lost something important. She almost called after Hermione, asking her to stay, asking her listen. But she couldn't quite gather the courage and anyway, she had seen where that had gotten Draco.

So instead, she turned back to the window, trying to find the two women in the sky. But they were gone and the cloud was just a cloud again. New tears welled in her eyes, spilling over her cheeks as she stared out the window, watching the clouds. But she couldn't see any more shapes in them and eventually she turned away from the window to start on her homework. Alone.




That evening, Ginny found Hermione sitting in the common room with Harry and Ron. She walked over to the girl.

"Hey."

Hermione looked up and smiled when she saw Ginny. "Hi." She and Harry slid over on the sofa until there was room for Ginny.

Ginny sat down next to Hermione. "Sorry about... earlier," she apologized softly.

Hermione shrugged. "It's okay. Do you need help with your homework?"

Ginny shook her head. "No, I finished it already."

Hermione nodded. "So, is there anything you want to talk about, or should I just mind my own business?"

Ginny glanced around the common room. "Not right now," she told Hermione.

Hermione looked around the almost full common room. "Later?" she asked.

Ginny shrugged. "Maybe." She got up again. "I'd better get to bed."

Hermione nodded. Ginny glanced at Harry and Hermione's joined hands and hurried upstairs.