A/N: Chapter updates may become a bit sporadic; I haven't done a whole lot of planning in terms of plot and such, so we'll see where everything goes.
Ginny's POV
I am a genius. I charmed my bedroom door's hinges not to creak, and I am a genius because of it.
She's still asleep, good. The clock on my wall reads 5 AM. Specifically, it's 5:10:28. The clock on my wrist reads 2:3:4:19:02. I'm no Hermione, but if I didn't know any better I'd say that I'll be meeting my partner at 9:30 on a Tuesday morning. It seems so mundane, so normal. Even the minutes and seconds break even. We could be strangers bumping into each other at work. We could be strangers forced to marry for three years and parent at least two kids. The thought makes me oddly sad more than it makes me wonder. There's nothing particularly exciting about a Tuesday morning.
Hermione is sprawled out on her back, her sleep-mussed hair covering her pillow, her body tangled in her sheets, almost like she's been tossing and turning from some horrific nightmare. But now she's still, and she doesn't so much as stir when I come in. I close the door behind me and slide into my bed, my heart beating out of my chest with the fear that she should wake and discover I've been out. My nighttime departures can only continue until Monday night, then. My covers are cool and relieving as I pull them over myself and lie down. Hermione remains still, and my affair remains clandestine.
"So Ginny, dear, have you decided what you'd like to do for a career?" Mum asks me as she bustles around the kitchen, scrambling eggs and making sure toast gets seen to plates. Ever since the Battle, meals have gotten larger. Maybe it's because Hermione, Ron, and Harry came back looking emaciated, like the scary skinny models I've seen on the covers of Muggle magazines, with their cheekbones hollow as skeletons and ribs more protuberant than Snape's nose. By the time that war was over, we all looked more dead than alive. Some of us showed it in our bodies, some of us showed it in our personalities, but all of us showed it in our eyes; there will always be something missing.
"Something Quidditch-related, I hoped," I reply, hoping vague answers will give her the hint that I don't feel like discussing it. It works pretty well because, after an odd look of matriarchal concern, she drops the subject and goes back the breakfasts.
The window is streaked with rolling raindrops of spring showers. The midmorning sky is gloomy and overcast, but I love the greys because they remind me of her. Her eyes are the same shade, light, light grey. And her voice is soft and misty like raindrops and she's a far cry from perfect but she's imperfect and that's what makes her perfect. It doesn't have to make sense. She never does.
"Might as well call them down," Mum says, shaking me from my thoughts. "Breakfast's ready."
It's an unusually quiet affair, as all the meals have been since the news was announced. There's an odd sense of foreboding. Since we don't know when each other's clocks are due to hit 0:0:0:0:1, at which time you Apparate, arriving exactly when every number hits 0, we've been staring around the table, waiting for someone to disappear in a blur of contortion. It seems too soon for that to happen though. I just sit, not feeling like eating and knowing Mum won't force me, and study seven pairs of scarred hands that weren't quite as scarred a few weeks ago.
A simple Alohomora grants me entrance into the rook-shaped house. I tip-toe past the shut door of the small guest room where Neville sleeps, not wanting to return to his grandmother's. He knows I'm here, night after night, early into the morning; I just don't want to wake him.
It's not getting into the house that proves challenging, it's navigating it. It's pitch black, and something prevents Lumos from fully working, like particles of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder linger in the air. I drag my right hand along the wall, mentally noting doorframes or oddly shaped picture frames, stumbling periodically on a miscellaneous textbook or random cauldron filled with glowing, steamy Merlin-knows-what. The house is like her—it's easy enough to get into, but once you're there you don't know what to make of it. And some people like it and others hate it, and some are scared by it.
At Hogwarts, under Snape's regime, we started spending more and more time together. She's an acquired taste, but I got used to her. I grew to like her, if not understand her. And together, we got worse and worse. I saw the light fading from her eyes a little more everyday and slowly she was less and less nonsensical and I was weaker and quieter and had so little reason to keep going. That's how we know we weren't in love with each other, because we weren't seeing each other for real. We were seeing weakened, diluted versions. I don't know what happened. If I fell in love with her or just the company. I don't want to let her go.
Her whole room gives off an eerie, pale blue glow, no doubt from some concoction she's been working on. The pictures are still up, huge photographs of me, Neville, Harry, Ron, and Hermione linked together by the golden "friends" chains. Friendship is, after all, a chain that links us together, for better or for worse. I almost feel hopeful then—we'll get through this together. Maybe. Hopefully. I close the bedroom door behind myself, sealing it with locking and silencing charms. She stirs at the barely audible sound of my voice; she's an incredibly light sleeper.
"Ginny?" she mumbles, sitting up slowly. Her hair cascades around her like a wavy, platinum blonde waterfall. "Ginny."
"Hey, Luna," I say quietly, crossing the room to sit next to her.
"It doesn't let us say our countdowns," she tells me sleepily. I notice the silver chain and watch-face sitting on her wrist. I can't see the numbers.
"I know. I tried."
"I'm really tired," she says through a small yawn. I can see the sleep in her eyes, but nothing else. No mysticism, no sense of wonder or enlightenment. She is not a child anymore; that is the price of battle.
She scoots over and lies back down, and I follow suit, slipping under the light blue blankets. Sometimes a rendezvous will be all fire and passion and wild desperation, sometimes it'll be all softness and emotion and sad emptiness. Sometimes it'll be just sleeping together in the most innocent sense, and quiet fearfulness. Our little affair has been going on almost nightly since a few nights after the Battle, but even before the law was announced, we had known that we'd likely be driven apart. It wasn't—isn't—a love affair. It's just a friendship infused with a desperate need for comfort. A friendship with lesbian hedonism on the side. Well, lesbian on my part, bisexual on hers. I love Harry, yes, but I came to realise I'm not in love with him, that it's just impossible for me to be, that I can't see him or any other man that way.
"Guys, I…I have something I want to tell you," I said, my voice shaking like an earthquake. I stood up, immediately fearing my legs would give in, and coughed awkwardly, hoping to get everyone's attention. I was at the lunch table with everyone but Mum and Dad (and Percy; he still hasn't returned home)—even Charlie, Bill, and Fleur had temporarily returned to visit, but I wasn't ready to tell my parents just yet, so I waited for them to busy themselves with some other, out-of-earshot task.
"Hey, settle down, guys!" Hermione urged. "Ginny wants to say something." She clinked her fork against her glass a couple times, until all eyes were on her, and then she directed them towards me and I felt the heat rush to my ears.
"Well, I don't really want to," I laughed anxiously, putting my hands on the table to steady myself.
"Go on, Gin," Harry encouraged me. For a fleeting moment I wondered if he already knew.
"Well, um…the thing is, I…Merlin…it's so much harder than I thought it would be—"
"Sounds like my first time," Charlie snickered, pulling grins from the men at the table. Fleur and Hermione exchanged looks that were mixed exasperation and hidden amusement. They had really come to bond rapidly post-Battle. "Sorry, Gin; couldn't resist."
"That's alright. I…okay, excuse me, I feel ill. Alright. I'm…I'm lesbian," I finally said, rushing the last two words in an attempt to just get everything over with.
"That explains a lot," Harry said, smiling broadly. I laughed, relieved that I had at least one person on my side.
"Maybe it was growing up with six brothers," Bill suggested, smiling as well.
"Or maybe it was your fault, Harry," Ron chimed in, ignoring the look Harry shot him in response.
"It's no one's fault—"
"Relax, Hermione, we're kidding," Bill assured her, putting his hands up as though she was about to shoot him a Killing Curse.
Relief rolled over me in waves and I lowered myself back to my seat, returning to my dinner.
"Are you going to tell Mum and Dad?" Ron asked between mouthfuls of food.
"Eventually."
"We won't out you, Gin, but you really should tell them at some point," Fred said.
"You're their daughter; I'm sure they'll support you," George seconded.
I nodded, promising that I would tell Mum and Dad some point in the not-too-distant future.
"I mean, really, after a Battle like that—" Fred started.
"Which was partially influenced by hatred over blood status—" George continued.
"Why would she ever think to hate her own daughter—"
"Over a part of herself—"
"That she didn't choose to be?" they finished together.
A long moment of stunned silence ensued. The twins looked confused.
"We're all behind you, Ginny. We support you," Hermione finally said, with a nod toward me then one toward the twins.
"I just don't want it to be one of those nights," Luna says as she curls up against me. "Not tonight."
"I know. I'm perfectly fine with this," I assure her, absentmindedly running a hand through her hair. The numbers just keep ticking down, down, down. Second by second, getting closer to that Tuesday morning.
There's no sex, no speech, nothing but sleep. And this is how things would be if the law was never passed. And maybe this is how things will be in three years, when the law is over. We all need something to hope for.