AFTER
Colin is sitting by himself in a chair by the fire. Ginny steels herself and walks over to him. She stands awkwardly by his chair for a minute before he notices her.
"Oh, hi Ginny," he says cheerfully with his easy smile.
Ginny tries to smile back. "Hi, Colin," she says softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Great! I don't even remember any of it. And I missed exams!" he says excitedly. "How cool is that?" He chatters on in thsi vein for a few minutes. Ginny feels a headache coming on. She's had a lot of them since Tom – died? Left? Was vanquished? Retired? Well, since whatever it was that happened to him.
Colin stops suddenly and looks intently at her. "Are you OK, Ginny? You seema bittired."
She nods. "I haven't got much sleep lately, what with all the stuff that's been happening," she tells him.
Colin nods and agrees sagely. He launches into a humorous story of how his father had been so happy to hear that his son was all right that he had misdelivered some milk and eggs, or something along those lines. Ginny is tired and can't concentrate anymore.
Colin stops again and watches her. Ginny finds that she can speak now and bursts out, "I'm sorry, Colin."
He looks surprised. "What for? It's wasn't your fault."
The moment stretches out, filled with all the things Ginny could have said. But she smiles weakly and fibs, "I didn't visit you too much when you were in the hospital wing. Sorry."
He waves the apology off. "I wouldn't have noticed anyway." They chat for a while and then Colin leaves to go to bed.
She feels exhausted, like she's just played Quidditch for three days straight. Right now she just wants her bed, even if it means lots of dreams about red paint and snakes and diaries that don't really mean what they say. Walking across the common room, she almost bumps into Harry, who's been standing there since she went over to Colin.
She blinks up at him, her mind fuzzily wondering why he's standing in her way. He stares at his feet and clears his throat. "Um, I just wanted, wanted to say that, er-" he clears his throat and rallies, looking her in the eye. "You don't have to apologize to people," he says firmly. "It wasn't your fault and you shouldn't think that it was."
Ginny could kiss him for that, she really could. She doesn't believe a word of it, but it's still a lovely thing to say. She doesn't kiss him though, because he looks vaguely terrified and Hermione and Ron are watching closely from the other side of the common room. She gives him a tired smile, touches his arm and thanks him. He looks relieved, she notes as she goes off to bed.