Chapter Eleven

Work was fairly uneventful on Thursday. George was still highly amused by the Oliver situation and kept making bizarre references to "the Ginny of yesteryear" but Ginny ignored it after the first few minutes and the day was largely tolerable. In fact, by the time Hermione came to get Ginny for dinner, she was in a rather good and anticipatory mood.

"So, are you still going out with Oliver tonight?" Hermione asked over the bowl of pasta she and Ginny had elected to share. "Sorry for ditching you tonight, but my bosses want me to travel to meet with my client tomorrow so I'll have to get up a bit earlier to finish all the work I need to do."

"I understand," Ginny said. "No hard feelings, and yeah I'm still going. Harry's working late anyway so I might as well go out. There's nothing to do at home without Harry around, really."

Hermione frowned. "That doesn't really sound like the self-sufficient Ginny I've known," she said, a teasing edge to her voice but the frown still present on her face. "You always used to be able to entertain yourself."

"Well, Grimmauld isn't exactly known for its thriving neighborhood," Ginny quipped. "Besides, I've watched too many Muggle shows to even want to know what's on the internet. Harry and I only have a computer and stuff for convenience, I guess. I still use owls and all that. I guess I'm just old-school."

"I think you're side-tracking," Hermione said firmly. "I don't know what it is, Ginny, but something has been up with you lately. Has… I mean, I hate to pry into your business like this and it seems so unlikely, but has anything happened with Harry?"

Ginny opened her mouth to set Hermione's fears at rest, but then she paused. Really, had anything happened with Harry? The answer was still "no," but as she thought about it, the answer went deeper than that. Nothing bad had happened with Harry, but nothing really great was happening either. Their relationship had plateaued. Before they had moved in together, she had felt a kind of nice excitement of anticipation whenever they would see each other, no matter how often, because there was always a break in between. There was time without each other to make the time together more sweet and varied. Now it was the same daily schedule: work, come home, maybe have sex if they both felt like it (which was often - Ginny had no complaints about her sex life with Harry, unless it was that it had become rather routine). They slept in the same bed every night. Ginny knew Harry would never cheat on her, so there was no use stirring the pot.

All this passed through her head in an instant, and she returned to Hermione's question. "No, nothing's happened," she said, "but maybe that's the problem."

Hermione furrowed her brow, twirling the same few strands of pasta on her fork over and over. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well," Ginny began, "things have been nice with Harry. But that's just it. They've just been nice. Nothing terribly exciting, you know, pretty much the same routine every day. I feel like we're stagnating together, you know? Like an old couple. But I don't feel old, Hermione, I feel young. I want to go out and live something, you know? I want to fight and have adventures and have sex in dangerous places and just be risky together and that-"

"That is totally not Harry at all," Hermione finished Ginny's sentence for her. "Well, what are you planning on doing about it? Maybe if you told him all this things would change."

Ginny shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It would make him feel guilty and I hate when that happens, because I get this 'I've-kicked-a-puppy' feeling and that's not a good feeling, in case you were wondering." Ginny sighed. "I don't know, Hermione, maybe if you said something to him? I mean, not making it obvious that I told you but, you know, kind of hinting at it somehow?"

Hermione smiled wryly. "Ginny, I'm the least subtle person in the world," she said. "I don't think you'd want me to be the one to deliver this message. I mean, I'm not sure who you would want to… Maybe Luna? She's crazy enough to make it work. In a good way," Hermione added quickly. Everyone loved Luna but really she was a little nutty.

"I don't know," Ginny moaned. "She'd be blatant about it, you know, either that or too confusing to be followed at all."

"Well," Hermione said softly, stirring her water with her straw, "you could just tell him yourself. That would probably be the easiest way of doing it. You could tell him exactly what you want him to hear and then be done with the whole thing, without having to rely on anyone else's discretion."

Ginny thought for a moment. In the silence, Hermione started speaking again in a very small voice. "Ginny, I mean, do you think it's worth ending things? I mean, you don't want to get married yet, you both know that, and if Harry is anything it's the marrying type."

"Which I'm not," Ginny agreed. "I don't know, Hermione. I keep telling myself that I'll wait a little while, maybe I'll want to get married, but it doesn't happen, it hasn't happened yet. And I know I'm only twenty-one," she said, seeing Hermione's next point and cutting her off before she could ask it, "and I totally think I could turn into Betty Housewife in the near future, but I'm not sure if I can wait - or if it's fair to Harry to wait - in this one-note relationship until I am ready, you know?"

There was a small pause. Hermione waited for Ginny to add anything, and, when the quiet persisted, she spoke up. "Ginny, I want you to know something. You should never be afraid of going after the things you want. You're brave and independent and I love those things in you. Never let something tie you down just because you feel obligated to it. You're not bound to anything permanently. This sounds cliche," she added, laughing a little, "but you only live once. You only have one chance to really be yourself and go after what you want. The only person that can coop you up is you, Ginny."

Ginny smiled. "I know, Hermione," she said. "It's hard to keep that in mind sometimes, though, so thanks for reminding me. I don't know, I don't feel like ditching Harry or anything because it seems like such a fixable thing but we'll see. I just feel like permanently living like this is going to drive me insane. You know me, Hermione, I can't even sit still for twenty minutes."

"You did at painting class," Hermione said around the final mouthful of pasta. "It seemed like you were really interested there, even in that awful lecture about artists no one's ever heard of."

Ginny let her jaw drop comically. "Hermione Granger thinking a lecture was boring?" she gasped, pressing her hand to her chest as if shocked. "Is the world ending?"

Hermione smacked Ginny's hand with her napkin. "Come on, silly, let's get going. Wouldn't want to be late for another instance of you sitting still for ninety minutes."

"Your wish is my command, you degenerate," Ginny replied, and laughing, the two women made their way out of the restaurant.

"Today we're going to learn how to manipulate what you've all discovered you can do," Oliver announced as Ginny, Hermione, and Roger grabbed their canvases and perched themselves on stools. "So that means we're going to first try painting a monochrome canvas."

Ginny rolled her eyes. So much for enjoying painting class.

"I'm sure all of you are wondering why we have to do that when it only took a burst of inspiration for you to complete those beautiful works of art last week," Oliver said. "Well, sometimes it's fun to paint with purpose, you know? Usually imagination formatting is only done as a practice, and, to be honest, it usually doesn't work after the first time. Now, I'm sure you all noticed that there were differences between your thoughts and what actually appeared on the canvas? Like, there was one image in the process which came out but it wasn't the final image you pictured, or it wasn't quite as you imagined it?"

Ginny nodded. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hermione and Roger nod too.

"Well, that's common," Oliver said reassuringly. "There's nothing wrong with you, that's just why we have to practice this. All your works turned out beautifully, though. You all show signs of very vivid imagination and very realistic senses of memory. I'm excited to see if your willpowers match up. Probably not all of you," Oliver added, winking at no one in particular. Ginny felt the comment was directed at her but refrained from reacting. "So, let's get started: choose a color in your mind."

After several failed attempts, Ginny had made a canvas that was almost completely the same shade of green. She had been trying to imagine the color of Harry's eyes, but somehow it was difficult to remember them consistently. She kept changing her mind and slightly altering the coloring in the midst of her painting attempts, and the transference from mind to canvas was proportionately disrupted.

Hermione shoved her arms into her coat sleeves. Her attempt to paint a brown canvas had not been nearly as successful as she had imagined and Ginny could tell her friend was frustrated. Hermione had never had difficulty succeeding and any impediment to her prowess always seemed much bigger to her than it actually was.

"So, are you ladies still up for drinks?" Oliver said, shrugging into a weathered-looking leather jacket.

"I can't," Hermione said curtly. "I actually have work in the morning."

"I'll go," Ginny said, glaring at Hermione as she tied the belt on her pea coat. "It'll be nice to catch up. Hermione wasn't happy when she told me she couldn't make it."

"No need to be nice, Ginny," Oliver chuckled. "Hermione's had a difficult class and I'm sure I'm the last person she wants to spend more time with."

Hermione huffed and bid Ginny a brief goodbye before walking out. She didn't acknowledge Oliver, but he seemed unperturbed as he turned to Ginny. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. " I was thinking about going to the Leaky but of course it's up to you."

"The Leaky is fine," Ginny said. "I'm not much of a barfly so I don't know many good spots."

Oliver chuckled. "Really?" he asked. "I would have expected you to be more of a party girl, you know? Just having fun and all that."

"Well, I'm grown up a bit now," Ginny said as they walked down the steps toward the front door together. "You know, I've got a job and a house and a boyfriend and such. I just don't need to be going out all the time to enjoy myself."

"Very respectable," Oliver said, proffering his arm. Ginny took it and felt the squeeze of Apparition once more clamp down on her and whirl her away.