Chapter Four: The Dormitory Thoughts

I wrote this in kind of a hurry, Hurricane Jeanne is coming in around an hour or two, so I couldn't look things up in the books and such. Don't flame me for that. Xx;

"Ginny?" Sitting at the end of her bed, was Ginny. But from a distance, one wouldn't guess it as Ginny Weasley at all. Her knees were held against her chest held up by her crossed arms, her face was wedged in-between her knees and the space between them and her chest, hair was pushed aside everywhere. She was sobbing silently.

"Ginny?" Hermione said again, resting her palm on Ginny's knee. Ginny jumped, and looked over at Hermione, relieved.

"Oh, it's just you," she said quietly, sounding as if her nose was stuffy. She had a small smile on her face, even though her eyes were red from crying. "Solve Ron's problem?" Ginny wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

A pink tinge made its way across Hermione's cheeks and nose. "A little bit— but he still doesn't want to get over the fact that— that— Harry's dead."

"And that's a problem— why?" Ginny said somewhat moodily, sitting cross-legged, offering a seat to Hermione on her bed. How could she say a thing like that? "Come on, Hermione. Even you can't get over it in twelve hours. I know you can't." She finished quietly, lips pursed.

She, of course, knew that Ginny was right. Hermione took the offer and sat, looking out the window. "And why would you just assume that?"

"Hermione, I've known you for six years. Harry's your best friend. You're not over it."

"How do you know that?" She still didn't make eye contact with Ginny.

Ginny scowled. "Hermione, stop being so stubborn!" She was suddenly very interested in the carpet pattern. "Harry's your best friend, Hermione. You can't just move on when your best friend in the world has just died! You can't just—pretend nothing at all is

different—nothing at all has happened—when someone as important as Harry won't be there when you wake up.

"He won't be at exams, he won't be smiling back at you under the invisibility cloak—he won't be—he won't..." She trailed off, tears falling down her cheeks silently. How dare Hermione say that she has not a care in the world that Harry's dead. How dare she...

Hermione put an arm around Ginny. "It's okay," she whispered. "Ginny, it's going to be O.K." She didn't want Ginny to keep crying like this, because it was making her own eyes water.

But Ginny did not seem to like this kind of comfort at all. Tears still rolling down her face, she shook her head slowly, muttering, "No...no, no it's not. 'Mione it's not going..."

Hermione put both of her hands on Ginny's shoulders, looking strait into her eyes. "Gin," she said firmly. Ginny had helped her realize what she needed to, and yet Ginny could not see that, "It's going to be fine."

Ginny still didn't think that Hermione's words were true, even though she was looking at her through those amber eyes. "No Hermione," she said, her voice more steady, breaking eye contact with her. "No. I don't think I'll ever be fine." Didn't Hermione

understand? Harry was dead! Dead!

"Sure you will, Gin, you will," Hermione said hopefully, not understanding fully what Ginny meant. They were all going to get through this together. But, "I don't think I'll ever be fine," was what affected Hermione more questionably.

"Hermione," Ginny muttered, looking at the ground. "I— I loved him." More tears sped their way down her face, down her neck. Ginny's eyes were growing redder and redder.

Hermione gasped softly, she knew that Ginny fancied Harry years ago, but thought that she had much moved on after that. Although she didn't know the complicity of the pain that Ginny was feeling right now, she had a general idea.

The world was ending to Ginny. She was slipping away. Harry was dead. She would just love to black out with him. But how could this be happening? How could such a good life fail so quickly?

A tear fell down the brunette's face as she hugged Ginny tightly. "You know, Ginny," she said quietly. Hermione was trying her best to understand how Ginny felt. "I've only felt near to how you're probably feeling now once."

She didn't bother waiting for Ginny's reply. "When I was eight, I got a kitten for my birthday," more tears were rolling down her cheeks as if she were reliving the event. "I named her Ashleigh, because I thought that name was pretty and delicate." Of course, only Hermione would use such vocabulary in a time like this. "Ashleigh got," she paused for a moment, "run over by a car two weeks later. I saw it happen."

Ginny let Hermione's words wash over her. She didn't care what she had to say. She could never know how she felt right now! She could never even get close to the feeling of lost, confusion, sadness, and anger that she was going through now.

But Hermione kept talking, "The good thing to think about all this is that Harry died for the good of this world. He didn't die in shame, he died as a hero. Now we know it's all over. We can sleep soundly in our beds at night now. The only question left is how..."

This was far from easing Ginny's thoughts. She stood up so quickly that Hermione was startled by such quick movement.

"Hermione, just-" she said, "just go." And Ginny laid, face down on her bed, not saying another word.

Hermione hesitated for a moment. She wanting to say one last thing to Ginny, but couldn't work the words out on how she wanted them to sound. She wanted to tell Ginny that all would be well, that they all would make it through all of this, that she would still be her friend no matter what, but the words wouldn't come out of her mouth.

She stood outside Ginny's dormitory room door, tears slowly falling down her cheeks. She knew Ginny was right. He was never coming back. He wasn't going to be there again.

Instead of walking back down to the Common Room, she ran up to her dormitory, hoping no one would inhabit it. Hermione wanted some time to herself. Some time to think. Some time to analyze all of this.

When she opened the dormitory door, Lavender and Pavarti were whispering to each other, and stopped when they saw Hermione enter the room. When she did, the two of them decided they were better off whispering to each other somewhere else, and walked out of the room, staring at Hermione.

Hermione took no notice of their odd behavior, however, they were always gossiping over one thing and another. She took a seat on her bed and gazed out of the window, not a thought in her mind, eyes and face damp from the tears.

The question that was bothering her would surely haunt her in her dreams; but how, how could Harry have died? How could Dumbledore's shrewd idea have been so wrong?

She could remember the night when Dumbledore assigned Harry to the mission, believing in him one-hundred percent. She didn't know it then, but that night was the last night she would ever see Harry.

After speaking with the three of them about the event, he asked to speak to Harry alone.

When Harry emerged from Dumbledore's sure-to-be-'pep talk,' he didn't say a word of what just had happened, but walked up to the common room with them to get good lucks, and good wishes.

And yet he still died.

But...how?

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