Chapter Twelve

Mia Bella

Ginny stared at the piece of parchment in her hand. Her hand was shaking. It was the worst and best letter she'd ever received in her entire life. The happiness she felt presented frightening prospects, and the sadness she felt stemmed from humiliation of his direct honesty. It wasn't right. No man should have such a gift with words. Ginny cast her eyes down the parchment, searching for a missed sentence that would help tame the craziness going on inside of her. Nothing. She dropped the parchment and threw herself on her bed, face-down on the pillow, her body wracked with silent sobs that seemed as though they would never end. What right did he have to say those kinds of things to her? She felt humiliated, used and abused. The tears kept falling. Ginny wasn't sure if she'd ever recover from this.

She screamed into the pillow, her voice echoing inside of her head. The tears were hot on her cheeks and her eyes were stinging from being pressed so closely to the polyester material. She thumped her fist repeatedly on the bed, continuing to scream a torrent of abuse into the pillow. A thought occurred to her and she sat up quickly, blinking away the tears still forming in her eyes. She reached out a shaky hand for her wand. "Silencio," she whispered, before letting the wand slip through her fingers. She fell back onto the bed and gazed blankly upwards, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. Nothing made any sense anymore. How could he have written all that? It was almost nonsensical, the way he'd gone on about how he felt about her. She wasn't sure if he hated her or if he loved her! She felt the familiar prickling in her eyes again and sighed, rolling onto her side. She'd have to answer him, of course. She just wasn't sure if she knew how.

Ginny hesitated, then reached over to her nightstand and pulled out a loose sheet of parchment. Dipping her quill into her new ink bottle, she furrowed her brow, clueless as how to start the letter. "Dear Harry, Thank you for ruining my life. Much love, Ginny Weasley. xxx" Hardly appropriate. She pressed the nib of the quill to the parchment, letting the ink blot until a large, dark splotch appeared. She sighed, and sketched downwards to turn it into an elaborate side margin.

Dear Harry,

Or should I say, 'To The Boy Who Made Me Very Unhappy'? I think it'd be more appropriate, somehow. I wonder why that would be... how that could possibly be? Hmm. Let me think. What on earth have you done lately to make me feel like that? Well, aside from the obvious, I mean; ignoring me, not mentioning Diagon Alley, talking to Hermione about me and, oh yeah, did I mention ignoring me? Aside from all that? Huh. I don't know. Maybe it was a particular LETTER I received this afternoon, which proceeded much along the lines of this, in short:

'Dear Ginny, I'm a very confused little boy, I don't know what to say; I wish I could find the words to say what I feel. I don't know what to say. I'm very confused. I wish I knew what to say to you. You've lit up my life in so many ways and made it darker in so many others. I wish I knew how to say this. I'm so confused. Maybe this is what love is all about. I'm so confused. I don't know anything anymore. Forgive me for anything I have done. Yours always, Harry."

Bearing in mind, of course, that that rendition was simply a shortened version of the other, more elaborate letter.

Forgive me, too, Harry, for not having a clue about what you were trying to say in your letter. Indeed, forgive me for entirely misinterpreting your 'confused' status for 'hating Ginny' status these past many weeks. Also, maybe you could try to forgive me for not understanding that your silence was merely your way of expressing yourself to me in not so many words. I must be as confused as you, Harry; because try as I might, I can't figure you the hell out.

Just stay away from me. You've ruined my life enough already for one year.

Ginny.

Downstairs

"I don't know, Hermione," Harry said, pulling his arm back, squinting, adjusting his glasses and letting the dart fly. "Whoa—no! A bit to the—no, don't hit—oh, it's gonna—score!"

"An excellent shot, Harry," Hermione applauded him, smiling warmly.

Ron looked up from the Quidditch magazine she was reading. "She influenced it again."

"I did not!"

"Hermione!" Harry groaned. "I wanted a game of darts to relax me, not teach me how terrible I am at darts!"

"That was a good shot!" Hermione protested.

"'Mione," Ron said smugly, "if your magical powers can only influence Harry to get the outer ring, I shudder to think how he'd fare if you weren't here."

Harry aimed a dart at Ron's head.

"Duck, Neville," Ron advised the boy sitting next to him.

Harry broke into laughter. "I can't be that bad, surely."

"There's a reason you're not a Beater," Ron said tactfully. "Mostly that reason has to do with audience safety."

"Yeah, yeah," Harry rolled his eyes. He squinted at the dartboard again. "Far out, that really was a terrible shot."

Hermione nodded. "Abysmal, even."

"It's a fact." Harry sank down onto the nearest seat and sighed. "What a lousy, lousy day."

"Week," Ron interjected.

"Month," Hermione said gloomily.

"I get the feeling I'm supposed to say 'year' right about now," Neville said thoughtfully.

Harry sighed again. "I didn't even reread it, Hermione. I just sealed it and gave it to Hedwig. I could have said anything. I honestly don't remember what I wrote."

"Subconscious writing," Neville said knowledgably. "Trelawney was talking about it yesterday."

"Maybe," Hermione said. "More than likely 'angry and upset writing' but whatever."

Neville got up and went outside.

"Your bad mood is affecting us all," Ron said glumly, putting down the Quidditch magazine.

"It was Ginny's to start with," Hermione reminded him.

"Because of Harry," Ron said succinctly. "Not Neville."

"True, true," Harry agreed, trying to hide a smile. "But now I've written a letter of some description. Surely that will help."

"Depends what you wrote," Ron remarked. "If you said, 'Hi, Ginny, listen, about this whole us kissing thing and me leading you on for weeks and making you all miserable, well, hey, I've been thinking about it and you know what? I don't look good with redheads;" well, that mightn't go down so well."

"I highly doubt I said that," Harry groaned. "Thanks for the support."

"Any time." Ron got up. "Going to follow Neville now."

Harry hit his head against the desk. "Not a good sign."

There was a rustle of wings above. Hedwig soared into the room from an open window and flew into Harry's lap, nudging his stomach and pecking at his arm.

"Hedwig!" Harry stroked the bird. "Food?" He dug into his pocket for a treat. "Here ya go!" He patted the bird's head and she flew off again.

"Wonder where Crookshanks is," Hermione mused.

"Stalking something, no doubt," Harry said, looking down at his lap. Hedwig had dug her claws in a bit more than usual this time. "Hey, a letter!"

He broke the seal and tore it open, skimming it quickly. "Uh-oh."

"What?" Hermione asked worriedly.

Harry shook his head. "Is sarcasm a good thing from girls?"

Hermione frowned. "Generally, no."

Harry's face fell. "Then this isn't good."