Chapter 3: McGonagall Resolves the Conflict

In the room that was to have been the ultimate attempt by the 'friends' to make Harry stop his play act to ignore Ginny Weasley, the eight dejected and somewhat miserable plotters sat, each pondering the day's events and the outcome that no one had foreseen. There was a noise at the other end of their chamber and the door to their prison opened slowly.

They were not shocked to see Minerva McGonagall saunter quietly into the room. She deposited a handful of wands on a small table by the door and casually strolled over to where they sat on the floor, in a spiritless assemblage. Minerva looked them over shaking her head slowly, her hands clasped in front of her.

"What a fine kettle of fish you all make. I am finding it hard to fathom how eight members of my house, former and current, have come to this end; simply deplorable."

She turned to look at Ginny Weasley, who was clearly in an unhappy state, make-up sullying a face slightly awash with tears, and hair somewhat disheveled. She produced her wand and gave a quick flick and a Finite Incantatum, releasing all their bonds and allowing them to speak, stretch, and stand. They all seemed to understand that they were in a spot of trouble with Minerva McGonagall, and none of them was anxious to bare the brunt of her temper, especially with the visage of the withering stare she was giving them all.

Hermione stepped forward at last, willing to risk the storm to come, willing to be the scapegoat, as she had been one of the main plotters anyway. "Since it's you, Professor, that has come to us," she began contritely, "I assume that Harry has been to see you and discuss our further attempt to help him acknowledge his feelings for Ginny."

Minerva focused her weary eyes on Hermione. This is the brightest witch of our school and my house; Too smart perhaps. She might have been better sorted into Slytherin for her deviousness, ran the thought through Minerva's head.

"I believe my original assessment of your behavior and thoughts to give detention should have been more deeply considered. Perhaps we would not find ourselves in the position we find ourselves now." She scowled at Hermione.

"What were you thinking? To have actually kidnapped Harry Potter, brought him here, and subjected him to the ranting of these hooligans. You might just as well make yourself into another Dark Lord and try to Imperious him into following your wishes. Not that that would have really done you any good either, as I understand that Harry is relatively immune to it by now." Minerva turned away from Hermione as Hermione made to reply to her, and looked at the others gathered there.

"I will deal with you lot momentarily, so kindly keep silent."

The boys stood uneasily under her wilting stare, as she turned to Ginny Weasley.
Ginny Weasley stood a little ways off of the group, her face a blank, despite the sheen of recently shed tears evident there, hardly even aware of what was being said.

Minerva moved over to her, saddened by the fact that this little incident had perhaps impacted on Ginny the most. She was all too aware that Ginny had been in love with Harry Potter since she had come to Hogwarts, and despite Harry saying that Ginny had given up on him, Minerva had seen the proof through the years that Ginny still loved Harry very deeply. She wasn't the kind of girl to throw herself at a boy, just as Harry was not the kind of boy to push himself on a girl he did not think cared for him. Yet now here was Ginny trying to make the overture to Harry, only to be rebuffed.

"Miss Weasley... " Minerva began. "Ginny... "

Ginny turned to her professor, eyes closed and a pained expression on her face, her breathing deep yet even. Slowly her eyes opened and she caught the eyes of Minerva and moved forward and Minerva's arms moved to encircle her and comfort her, and Ginny laid her head on Minerva's shoulder.

"He's gone." she said, in a tired unemotional voice. "I've lost him and he may hate me now--he hardly even looked at me--I never even got a chance to talk to him, to tell him that I love him." She sniffed quickly, then took a deep calming breath.

"What do I do now? I wanted so much to spend my life with the boy whose been in my dreams and in my heart for most of my life. I've always wanted to call him mine, even though there was just the slimmest chance that he would be."

Ginny was beginning to sound a little resigned to her fate, and after her last words she seemed to still in Minerva's arms.

"Ginny..." Minerva began. "Listen to me. I don't think you've lost Harry. You never really had him to begin with, did you? You and he were never together. There was just the dream that you both secretly had to be together. But you, neither of you made the attempt to make the dream a reality."

Ginny lifted her head from Minerva's shoulder and pushed back to look into her eyes.
"What do you mean the dream that we secretly had to be together?" Ginny sniffed out, confused.

"From what I gather from what Harry said, he has had feelings for you for quite some time. Being a boy, and you are aware of how dense boys are, I'm sure, it took him quite some time to work it out in his mind that he was beginning to have deeper feelings for you."

"But that can't be right. He never said--never did--anything that might..." Her eyes grew larger. "He never looked--oh Merlin!"

Ginny's face was suddenly transfixed, as memories seemed to come to her. "That summer before his fourth year…and the night the Quidditch World Cup…he started giving me these odd looks and he tried to talk to me… and we even, hugged on occasion. I kept having the feeling that he was watching me… as much as he was watching the Quidditch game, but nothing ever came of it." The passion that had always simmered in her shone more fiery in her eyes. She understood now what might have been had she not misinterpreted the signals.

Minerva smiled a bit. "I suspect that, being the shy boy that he was and still is, that this was as close to showing you his feelings as he could come." Minerva moved hand up to Ginny's face to push a stray strand of hair back.

"Then of course there was all that nasty business with being made to enter that awful Tournament, and your brother's bad reaction to Harry being in the Tournament, oh yes, I know about that as well. I also know that you told Miss Granger that you had given up on Harry. You had decided to move on with your life. Somewhere in conversation Miss Granger relayed this message to Harry, which in his boy's mind meant that he had lost his chance with you."

"No. no… no… NOO!" Ginny began shaking angrily. "I never stopped loving him, I've loved him forever......." she said, inwardly cross with herself. "That's probably why I could never keep a boyfriend, he was always in the back of my mind."

"That, Ginny, is not the way to win over the heart of any boy, much less Harry, unless you are a Leglimens or have some telepathic abilities. If you had made your feelings known to Harry years ago, this year's subterfuge would not have been necessary. You would most likely have been a couple for all of those years."

"I've been such a fool......" She turned away from Minerva, shaking her head. My fault not Harry's, she thought. I had him and I let him slip away.

Bill stepped through the group and walked over to her. "Gin..." Ginny brought her arms up to wrap around her and hug her body as she turned to look at him. Bill gave her a comforting grin. "Hey...little bit......don't be so hard on yourself. We all had a hand in messing this up, not just you."

"But don't you see? I've messed this up for so long, a fine Gryffindor I make, couldn't even tell the boy I love that I was in love with him." Ginny said irritably.

"I imagine Harry's about as dense as any other boy, as far as feelings go-- and I have to think that Voldemort played some part in interfering with your lives as well." Bill put his hands on her shoulders.

"Look, little bit, my getting together with Fleur didn't just magically happen. I was attracted to her, but, I knew from certain sources that she was a Veela, so I didn't just run right at her like an idiot to declare my undying love for her." Bill's smile broadened as he thought back on this memory.

"Let me tell you, Fleur isn't the kind of woman to just sit back and wait for something she wants. I did just like Harry did for awhile, watch her and hope for fate to intervene. Fleur wouldn't have any of that. She came up to me one day, and got right in my face and said, 'Beel Weassley you 'ave veelings pour moi, nest pas?' I just stared at her in shock and nodded." He gave a half chuckle.

'Tres bien, mon amour, zen ve get togezzair zoon, tonight. sept heures. Don't be late, Beel.' Then she reached up and gave me a quick peck on the cheek and we haven't looked back since."

"You're getting good with the French accent, Bill." Ginny's left eyebrow shot up and she snickered at big brother Bill coming to the rescue, Like when she was little. Bill would probably always see her as his 'little bit'. She wasn't a little girl anymore though, but it was nice to know she still had him there to fall back on.

"I've spent enough time with Fleur now that it's probably becoming a part of me without my knowing it." Bill replied candidly. "Any relationship that works does so because you both spend time with each other and at some point you become a part of each other," Bill looked up and away to the right, lost in thought "Till you don't know where one stops and the other begins. "He looked back down at her again, and really looked at her. She's not my 'little bit' anymore, he thought, and I reckon, Harry's not just The Boy Who lived anymore. Somewhere along the way they grew up on us.

"Do you think I might still have a chance with him, Bill? He ran out of here like he was a first year being chased by Peeves," she said dejectedly.

Bill chuckled. "Most boys his age would rather fight an army of dark wizards, rather than deal with a pretty young girl like you. With a dark wizard, you know what to expect, a battle and death. With a girl it's always a game being played at the boy's expense. You make up the rules as you go along, and change them whenever you feel like it."

Ginny gave him an unhappy stare.

"Now, you know I'm bloody well right in this. This whole last school term you've been playing with Harry, instead of just sitting him down, as many times as you have to, and telling him, showing him that you love him." Bill arched his brows. "I can't believe I'm saying this to you.--But if YOU want him, YOU have to go after him. YOU have to fight for him. Fight with him, if that's what it takes. You both deserve to be happy, you just have to convince Harry of that now."

Ginny turned toward the open door, let her arms fall to her side, and stood straight as she headed to the door. She halted a moment, poised in thought.

"Thank you all for trying to help me…and Harry. From here on out, I guess it's up to me to work this out..."

She moved quietly over to the door. Noticing her wand on the table she reached down to claim it and then exited. Minerva walked behind a little way, a sympathetic smile on her face, and then she turned to the other occupants of the chamber, a scowl suddenly apparent on her visage.

"I am sadly disappointed in the manner in which events escalated out of control here. This was most certainly not the finest hour for the house of Gryffindor. You have acted in a manner more in line with members of the Slytherin House. Those of you who are no longer students of this school will, please find your way out of this establishment immediately, and be thankful that Mr. Potter has not seen fit to press charges. You may collect your wands from the table by the door."

The five elder Weasley brothers shuffled by nodded to the professor, and one by one picked up each wand, then went on their silent way, and Minerva followed their retreat, thinking it odd, that none, not even the twins had any snappy rebuttal on their tongues as they left.

Then she turned her steely gaze back to the remaining two Gryffindors who were still her students.

"As for you two, for the moment you will have detention every Saturday night for.... the rest of the term!" She glared at Hermione and Ron waiting for either to speak.

"Bloody hell, it's not fair" Ron mumbled, head bowed, knowing that as bad as that might be, they were getting off light.

"What was that Mr. Weasley? I'm not quite sure I heard you." She quirked, a wicked smile beginning to form at the corners of her mouth.

"I said, well, I s'pose that's fair." Ron said with a furrowed brow.

"Nothing from you Miss Granger........brightest witch of your age, and all!" Minerva smirked, but still knew that her star pupil was still concerned about her two friends.

"They may never get together now, after what we've done. Harry might just ignore her altogether, and then they'd both end up two old, lonely and bitter people. It hardly seems fair after all they've been through." Her eyes were fixed on the door, then she turned to her professor.

"I accept that it is just for us to serve detention, but I cannot accept that my two friends may have their lives ruined because one of them is a pigheaded prat, and the other may be too emotionally distraught to overcome the other's being a pigheaded prat.

"Do not discount the hand of fate, Miss Granger. I have the feeling that the final act of this comedy of errors has as yet to play itself out. As such it does not behoove us to dwell on the past and forget to live." She walked on past Hermione to the doorway.

"Believing in fate is not logical or reasonable, professor!" intoned Hermione urgently.

"Love is not logical or reasonable, Miss Granger. Love is a powerful force of human nature, and can in many cases, overcome logic and reason. Look at yourself and Mr. Weasley. Logic and reason would have suggested that Mr. Weasley remain a dunder-headed prat and not admit his feelings for you, yet we can rightly say, I think, that you have both found a means to allow your feelings for each other to overcome his being a dunder-headed prat. It is therefore possible to hope that Ginny Weasley has just as much of a chance to succeed with Harry Potter."

Minerva stood quietly by the doorway, gazing out into the corridor beyond and saying a small prayer to the fates, before she continued. "Perhaps it would be wise if the two of you would return to your dorm and prepare for your classes tomorrow, and as the new term begins we will see if fate can draw our two lovers together.............I bid you good day." And she departed into the corridor.

Hermione turned to look at Ron, who walked up to her and put his arms around her.

"What do you think about all of this Ronald?" Ron caught her eyes with his own, then moved forward to give her a deep searing kiss.

When he pulled back they were both somewhat breathless.

"I think she was right about us, and there's a reasonable chance that she's right about Ginny and Harry...nothing' we can do about it either way now, so.........do you want to head back to our dorm or...would you like to find a nice broom closet?"

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!" she yelled forcefully, then softened her tone and smiled. "As much as that might be particularly diverting at the moment, Professor McGonagall is correct about us needing to ready ourselves for the daunting task that lies ahead of us, Ron."

"What daunting task is that, 'Mione?" Ron gave her an unsure look.

"We've spent a great deal of time worrying about Harry and Ginny. We did the best we could to help them. We have not spent nearly enough time studying, though. We need to concentrate on revising and getting ourselves ready for our N.E.W.T.s, Ron." A concerned look transfixed her face, while Ron's face looked pained, as if indigestion had just flared deep inside him.

"I love you dearly, 'Mione, you know that. But you're bloody mental sometimes." They both snickered.

Hermione brought her right hand up, fingers curled but for her index finger, which she pointed at Ron.

"Ron, I'm going to take you in hand and make sure you not only revise and study as hard as you can, but do the best you can on your N.E.W.T.s, so that your mother can be proud of you… so that I can be proud of you." She let her hand lower slowly.

"You know, you can be right scary sometimes!" said Ron with a frustrated look that slowly bled into a smile. "You almost remind me of Mum occasionally."

Hermione gave him a big smile. "Thank you Ronald. Your mother is a very forceful and caring woman and she loves you very much." She moved forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "I love you very much too."

Then she turned from Ron to head over to the table by the door. Ron followed close behind her. Then she picked up their wands and handed one to Ron. With a tender smile up at him, she took his right hand in her left. They both looked back to the bed slowly, sighed, and turned and left.