Chapter 2
I'll never forget what we said when we left Transfiguration. Even though the words were nothing special, the converation is burned into my memory as part of that day. We started down the steps together. Not exactly together, but next to each other. The air was clear, the sky was blue and everything had changed. We just didn't know it yet.
People all around us were talking over one another. "The Humber Bridge has collapsed!" "School's canceled!" "I want to donate blood. Do you know where I can donate blood?"
I turned to you. "What's going on?" "Let's go find out. You're Ginny, right?" "Nice to meet you, Ginny, I'm Harry." You held out your hand. Amid everything, I shook it, and looked up at you as I did. Your dimple came back. Your eyes shone green. I thought then, for the first time. He's beautiful.
We went to your dorm room and watched tv with your roommates, with Neville, Dean, and Seamus. On the screen bodies falling out of buildings, blackened mounds of rubble sent smoke signals into the sky, and the bridge falling in a loop. The devastation numbed us. We stared at the images, unable to reconcile the stories with our reality. The fact that this was happening in our city, only a few miles from where we sat, that those were people, actual human beings hadn't set in yet. At least not for me. It felt so far away.
Our cell phones didn't work. I used your phone in your dorm to call my mom in Devon, who wanted me to come home. They knew someone whose daughter was in North Lincolnshire and no one had heard from her yet. I told my dad that subways weren't running. Probably not the trains either. "I'll come get you," he said. "I'll jump in the car now." "I'll be okay," I told him. "I'm with some friends. We're fine. I'll call you again later." It still didn't feel real.
"You know," Dean said, after I hung up. "If I were a death eater, I'd drop a bomb on us."
"What the fuck?" Neville said. He was waiting to hear from his uncle, who is part of the Ministry of Magic. "I mean, if you think about it academically..." Dean said, but he didn't go any further. "Shut up," Seamus said. "Seriously, Dean. Not the time." "Maybe I should leave," I said to you then. I didn't really know you. I had just met your friends. "My roommates are probably wondering where I am."
"Call them," you said, handing the phone back to me. "And tell them you're going to the roof of Common Room. Tell them they can meet you there if you want."
"I'm going where?"
"With me," you said and you ran your fingers absently along my braid. It was an intimate gesture, the kind of thing that happens after all barriers of personal space have been breached. Like eating off someone else's plate without asking. And all of a sudden, I felt connected to you, like your hand on my hair meant something more than idle, nervous fingers.
I thought of a moment, years later, when I decided to donate my hair and the stylist handed me my braid, wrapped in plastic, looking even darker red than usual. Even though you were a world away then, I felt like I was betraying you, like I was cutting our tie.
But then, that day, right after you touched my hair you realized what you'd done and let your hand drop into your lap. You smiled at me again, but it didn't go to your eyes this time.
I shrugged. "Okay," I said. The world felt like it was cracking in pieces, like we'd gone through a shattered mirror into the fractured place inside, where nothing made sense, where our shields were down, our walls broken. In that place, there wasn't any reason to say no.