Constellography

Thursday, 19 February 1998

12:33am

The house-elves were very thorough, generally. Even though the average house-elf was no more than three feet tall, they still always managed to clear the ceiling of dust and cobwebs, using that special brand of house-elf magic that she'd never understood. No wand, no incantation, just pure, organic magic. In a way, she was jealous of them. She'd often resented the fact that although, as a witch, magic was supposed to be a part of her very essence, she had to spend so much time studying, refining her technique, learning Latin spells and chopping up potions ingredients and all the rest. She'd read some Muggle children's stories about magic - borrowed from Hermione or Colin or occasionally even her father - enough to know that in Muggle folklore, witches certainly didn't have to study the proper methods of wand-waving or incantation enunciation. In the stories she read, magic just happened. It was an extension of the witch herself. Every time she read about one of those evil, powerful fairy-tale witches, she burned with envy.

12:37am

She could count two small cobwebs in the ceiling, she realised, both in the darker corners, that the house-elves probably hadn't been able to see. She wondered how long they'd been there. Hogwarts was old, very old, but the spiders that lived there were probably just regular spiders, she reasoned. She hoped. The cobwebs couldn't have been up for more than a year. She wondered if anyone had ever noticed them before. Probably not.

12:38am

The clock on the desk was moving very slowly indeed, but she was a patient person. She cast her eyes over toward the window and studied the view. From her angle, all she could really see was the night sky, but she didn't mind. It was a clear, cold night, and she could pick out patterns in the stars, though she couldn't remember the actual names of the constellations. She'd dropped Astronomy after her fourth year, and hadn't paid much attention even while she took it; mostly she'd just copied Colin's notes. He was very diligent about such things, and he didn't mind letting her borrow them as long as she made sure to bat her eyelashes just so. She could remember Orion, though, and Ursa Major, and Polaris below it. She fixated on Polaris for a while. She recalled reading about the legends of the American Indians, how they called it the Star That Does Not Move, how they used it to navigate as they went on their long migrations across the American continent. She marvelled that she, on the other side of the world, centuries later, could be staring at the same star that they had followed, paddling their canoes down rivers out west.

12:42am

She was patient, but not this patient. Merlin, what had it been now, twenty minutes? More? She stopped bothering with the stars and focused on the windowpane itself. Spotless, of course; the house-elves at work again. She wondered how many house-elves were responsible for cleaning Gryffindor Tower every day, how it was possible that they managed to be this thorough and yet she'd never actually seen one at work. Even Hermione had said she always had to go to the kitchens when she wanted to speak to them, back in third year when she was off on her SPEW campaign. She smiled a little at the memory.

12:44am

She could tell it was almost over. Thank god. Out of habit, she made a few low noises and dug a couple of fingernails into his back, and then it was done. She closed her eyes and he rolled off of her, and after a moment she felt the tension starting to seep out of her muscles, her heartbeat slowing and steadying. She could hear him breathing next to her, and she rolled over to face the other way before he could reach for her.

"Ginny." His voice was soft, as it always was with her. She felt warm breath on her neck, a hand resting lightly on her hip. She wanted to brush it away. She didn't.

"Ginny." Lips on her shoulder now, light, tentative. As if he were asking a question of her.

She sat up and started scanning the floor for her nightgown. It was a few feet away, next to the desk, so she got up and grabbed it off the floor. She pulled it over her head, shoving her arms through the sleeves hurriedly. She was cold.

"Won't you stay?" That note was there in his voice again, that gentle, pleading tone that she despised. She knew he wasn't trying to make her feel guilty, not consciously, anyway, but that was the effect nonetheless.

"Not tonight." She didn't offer any further explanation, and he didn't ask for one. She'd worn slippers, she remembered, and she started glancing around the room, trying to remember where she'd left them. Her eyes avoided the bed.

"Here." He had them, somehow, even though she was sure she'd dropped her slippers near the door when she'd come in. She wondered briefly if he'd used a summoning spell. He hadn't spoken, but she wouldn't put it past him to summon without bothering with the incantation. Ordinary wizarding laws did not apply to him anymore.

"Thanks." She reached to take them, but he caught her hand and pulled her to him. He kissed her, gently, delicately, and she kissed him back. By now, it didn't matter; there was no harm in it. She broke away from him sooner than he probably would have liked, but he made no move to restrain her. She was grateful. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." She felt him watching her as she walked away, but did not turn to look back at him.

The seventh-year corridor was cold and deserted. She ought to get back to her room, she knew, but her legs were aching, and she didn't feel like moving any further. Instead, she slid down against the wall and sat on the floor, her legs drawn up to her chest, her back flat against the cold stone. She was aware, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was sitting in the narrow space between Harry's door and her brother's, but she didn't care enough to dwell on it. She curled her arms around her knees and fixed her eyes on a speck of mud on the opposite wall.

The seventh-years were the only ones who got private rooms, and she resented them for it. She could be alone with him, but never really alone. The only place she had to go was the room she shared with the three other girls in her year, nice girls, smart girls, girls who had ignored her throughout her first five years at Hogwarts. For all that time she'd had no one. Except Hermione, sort of. And Percy, but he'd been gone a long time now. Now that she was Harry's Girlfriend, though, suddenly everyone wanted to talk to her. The Gryffindors showered her with attention. They were all her friends, now.

The door on her left opened, and for a moment Ginny felt a flash of panic run through her. It was the door to Ron's room. She leapt to her feet, trying to think of a reasonable explanation for her presence there, one that would minimise the already palpable tension between him and Harry. She'd come to see him, of course. She'd had a bad dream. No, wait, that didn't make sense. She'd never gone to Ron with a bad dream in her life. Shit...

"Ginny?" A voice was speaking softly, but with a jolt, she realised it wasn't her brother's.

"Hermione?"

The other girl quickly closed the door behind her. "Ginny? What are you doing out here? Are you all right?"

Ginny raised a hand to her face and realised her cheeks were wet. She'd been crying again. That had been happening a lot lately. She'd pause while reading her Charms assignment, or scribbling an owl to her mother, and notice tears rolling down her face. She cursed herself silently, hoping it had started since she'd been out in the corridor.

"Fine. Couldn't sleep." Stupid thing to say. Hermione knew very well what she was doing here. It wasn't like she had any more official reason to be hanging about the boys' dormitories late at night than Ginny did.

Hermione seemed prepared to accept this explanation, though, and nodded. "Want to talk about it? The fire's still burning in the common room, I think. I could make us some chocolate."

The thought of sitting in a warm common room with freshly conjured hot chocolate was tempting. The thought of sitting there whilst having a serious discussion with Hermione, however, was enough to make the prospect of the cold, empty bed in Ginny's dormitory suddenly much more attractive.

"Actually, I'm getting sleepy now," she said, knowing Hermione wouldn't believe her, but hoping she would accept the lie, as she had the first. "Think I'm going to go back to my room."

Hermione nodded again, slowly, and the little gold M on the collar of her robe flashed. Ginny wondered for a moment why she'd bothered wearing a robe over her nightgown, then decided she didn't care. "Okay," Hermione said. "If you still have trouble getting to sleep, or you just want chocolate, I'll be downstairs."

Ginny nodded back. "Thanks. Goodnight."

"Night."

Ginny trudged up the corridor and down the stairs that led to the sixth-year girls' room. It could have been worse, she knew. Hermione knew that something was wrong, but she didn't know everything, and Ginny knew she could trust her not to tell Harry and Ron she'd seen her. She felt the other girl's eyes following her until she was out of sight around the corner, and marvelled, not for the first time, at how similar Harry and Hermione really were. Sometimes she was surprised that Hermione had wound up with her brother instead of Harry. They had seemed so well suited to each other. But then, Ginny had long ago stopped trying to predict how her friends' relationships would turn out. It just wasn't very productive; she didn't seem to have much intuition about such things.

Her roommates were already asleep. Ginny was relieved. She hated it when she came back to the room late at night and they were awake. They pestered her with questions about Harry, and Ginny never felt like talking. She'd always hated the lack of privacy at Hogwarts. Not that she wasn't used to it, having grown up with a house full of meddlesome big brothers, but even there she'd had her own bedroom, her sanctuary. Her own space. Ginny craved space.

She wasn't tired. She settled down onto the bed and lit a single candle, afraid that much more light would wake the other girls, and pulled out her journal. It wasn't a real diary, of course. She hadn't touched a diary since her first year. She still felt the need, though, to record things, to make charts and lists and sketches, to keep a record of her life. She never labelled any of her records, though; her lists were untitled, her drawings had no names or captions. This way, only she knew what it all meant. Her own private code.

Ginny dipped her quill into her inkpot and sucked on the end of the feather absently. What to list tonight ... her brain was full of morose thoughts that she didn't want to dwell on. She searched for something lighter. She thought of her roommates and their aggravating questions and decided to list kisses. People she had kissed. A nice, easy, even pleasant topic. Ginny smiled a little to herself.

Harry Potter, she wrote. He was the only one from sixth year, since they'd first started dating back at the Burrow over the previous summer. Ginny grimaced a little, recalling her mother's squeal of delight when she found them kissing in the garden that afternoon. Harry had been so embarrassed.

Who came just before him ... Ginny thought back to fifth year. Seamus? No, that was at the beginning of the year, right after he'd broken up with Lavender for the fifth time. Ah, right ... Draco Malfoy, she wrote, smiling to herself again.

She and Malfoy had lasted a week, which was longer than either of them had anticipated. Or so she assumed, anyway, since they'd never actually discussed it. He hadn't been the best of everyone she'd kissed, but he had definitely been the most exciting. Ginny ran a finger idly over her lips, remembering the first time, behind the broomshed after Quidditch practice. He must have been hiding somewhere, watching, because he'd known when the Gryffindors were walking in from the field, and he'd come up behind her and seized her tightly around the waist. He'd probably been expecting her to fight him, but to her own surprise she yielded. And then, later that night, she'd yielded again. And again.

She knew now, and on some level had probably known at the time, that their little tryst had had less to do with Malfoy himself than with his father. Ginny was not a hateful person, but she hated Lucius Malfoy with every fibre of her being, had ever since she first saw him that day in Flourish and Blotts. And when Draco approached her that first time, she communicated that hatred with her body, lashed out at Lucius by throwing herself on his son with all the energy she could muster.

In her life, Malfoy was the only boy she'd actively sought out. She memorised his class schedule, pulled him and let herself be pulled into storage cupboards, behind the greenhouses, under stairways, anywhere they could get a moment's privacy. She'd even considered sleeping with him, but back then, before she got used to such things, she couldn't keep herself from shuddering every time he touched her below the waist, no matter how hard she tried. She finally gave up. The next time he approached her, on her way out of the Potions dungeon, she pushed him away and kept walking, her chin held high. He didn't seem to care, and sometimes she wondered what he'd been trying to prove with her in the first place. It didn't really matter, though, and she didn't think about it much anymore. No one she knew had seen Draco Malfoy since last June, anyway.

She continued her list. Seamus Finnigan. That was it for fifth year, and there had been no one in fourth year. Third year. Neville Longbottom, she wrote, cringing and trying not to remember that awkward moment after the Yule Ball. Colin Creevey. Another prickly memory; after that, she'd resolved not to play any more of those ridiculous games with her roommates.

Hermione Granger. Ginny paused, stared at her list and considered crossing this last name out. Hermione didn't really count; after all, it was only been a fluke, it had only lasted a second or two. Sometimes she wondered if she'd dreamt it, even though she knew she hadn't. It was the night after the World Cup, and Ginny couldn't even remember anymore what had led up to it, exactly; one minute they had been just sitting up in their tent, talking, and the next they were leaning forward, their lips brushing awkwardly. She remembered the slight pressure of Hermione's hands on her shoulders, the softness. Then suddenly her father was there, calling for them urgently, and the softness was gone as they ran outside. Ginny still wasn't sure what had happened, who had initiated that warm, soft kiss. They were so young then. They were children.

Every so often, even now, Ginny would look at Hermione from the corner of her eye. She'd watch her whispering with Harry, or curled up on the sofa with her brother, and she would remember that night, remember the warmth of Hermione's lips, how it had felt to be so close to her. She remembered the slight blush on Hermione's cheeks as they'd run outside. Her father had sent them into the woods to hide, and she'd found George and clung to him, since Percy was off with the grownups and Ron and Fred would only have made fun of her for being afraid. Then, the next time she looked up, Harry, Ron and Hermione were gone. When they'd finally reunited, it was late, and they had all gone straight to sleep. She and Hermione had avoided each other's eyes for the next few days. Eventually, the memory started to fade, become more distant, and their friendship resumed as if nothing had happened. That was the year that Hermione had had her first boyfriend, Ginny recalled: Viktor Krum, the spectacularly unattractive Bulgarian Seeker. Ginny had often wondered, but never had the nerve to ask, what Hermione could possibly see in him. She could have done so much better. Fortunately, Viktor hadn't lasted very long, and Hermione and Ron had been together ever since Ginny's fourth year.

Her list complete, Ginny shut her journal. She set it carefully back on her nightstand and extinguished the candle. She was a little more tired now, but her thigh muscles were still throbbing, and she rolled onto her back and bent her knees, trying to find a more comfortable position. She should go take a shower, really, but she didn't want to risk running into Hermione again, and she'd have time in the morning. Maybe I should have stayed with Harry tonight after all, she mused. She wouldn't be feeling so guilty now, for one thing, plus his room was nicer than hers. It was small but cosy. He had hung Quidditch posters on the walls, plus there were pictures up everywhere. Old pictures of his parents and their friends, mixed with new ones of her family and Harry's friends from Hogwarts. The photos covered almost an entire wall. Then there was that gorgeous ink sketch that his godfather had sent him from Japan earlier that year. Yes, she liked his room. Some nights, though, she just couldn't bring herself to stay there. To lie there next to him, watching him sleep. Hating herself for lying to him, hating him for expecting her to just be there whenever he wanted her. Or needed her. Whichever.

Some nights she did stay with him. Some nights she wrapped her arms around him and listened while he talked to her, told her things, speaking in vague terms that she didn't understand. He was very cryptic, always afraid of saying too much, afraid of putting her in danger. Ron and Hermione were the same way. Sometimes, when she was in a room with the three of them, she could see them checking their speech, hesitating over certain words, exchanging meaningful looks that they thought she didn't notice. Every now and then she'd get exasperated and beg them to be honest with her, assured them that she could handle whatever it was. She pleaded with them to tell her where they went when they disappeared for days and weeks at a time, to let her know how the war was going, what her father and older brothers were doing to help, but the response was always the same. Woeful expressions, shaking heads, and a weary-sounding "Ginny, trust us, you're better off not knowing." Sometimes she wanted to shout back at them, "Why don't you let me decide that for myself for once?" But she never did. Her rebellious phase had consisted of one week of illicit snogging with a teenage Death Eater. Since then, she'd done as she was told, and accepted their "protection" without protest.

She cared about Harry. She really did. After all, there had been a time, a few years before, when she would've given anything to be in her current position. And she wanted him to be happy. She knew that he cared about her too, and that was why he wanted so much to protect her, why he spoke in code and talked carefully around You-Know-Who and the Order and everything else that she wasn't supposed to know about. She just wished that she could be there for Harry and keep him from being lonely and all the rest without the whole sex part being involved.

Ginny had known ever since that night after the World Cup, and even before that really, that her childhood crush on Harry was just that. By then, though, it was a part of her - comfortable, like a worn pair of trainers - and she didn't want to let it go. Ginny had always had a fondness for crushes, and Harry had been her first. When she was a little girl, her mother would tell her and her brothers stories about the Boy Who Lived, who defeated You-Know-Who. She would go on about how he was a legend, a hero, and he was only a child, just Ron's age. Ginny would replay the stories in her mind as she lay in bed at night, thinking about Harry Potter, the saviour of the wizarding world. Some day, she knew, they would meet, and fall in love at first sight. He would sweep her off her feet, kiss her until she was breathless. They'd have a beautiful wedding. Her father would give her away, dabbing at tears in his eyes; her brothers would beam at her, so proud of their little sister, and the whole wizarding world would be there, cheering for her. She'd be radiant in her jewel-encrusted gown, and she and Harry would live happily ever after in a mansion outside of London for the rest of their lives.

Well, that's what she'd thought when she was six, anyway. When she finally did meet Harry, she was ten, and he wasn't anything special, really. She hadn't even known it was him until he was already on the train. By the time he showed up at the Burrow a year later, Ginny's crush had developed from an idle childhood fantasy into a full-blown obsession. It had taken the better part of a year and a near-death experience for that obsession to start to wane.

Over the years, Ginny had other crushes. Blaise Zabini, in Slytherin. Percy's friend, Oliver Wood. Cho Chang, the beautiful, exotic Ravenclaw Seeker - Ginny had been furious in third year when she found out that Harry liked her, too. But her crush on Harry had been constant, running underneath all the others, second in intensity only to her six-year infatuation with Angelina Johnson.

From the first time she'd seen Angelina, Ginny had been stricken by the older girl's poise. It wasn't so much her actual appearance, although she was gorgeous; there was just something about the way Angelina carried herself, a certain grace that Ginny coveted and worshipped. Every time Angelina was nearby, she couldn't help but stare. She'd been devastated in her fourth year when Ron was chosen as the new team Keeper before she even had the chance to try out. The constant reassurances from her brothers that she was sure to make the team the following year had been meaningless. Ginny had wanted desperately to play with Angelina, to be able - no, required - to see her at games, during practices, in the girls' changing room...

Ginny blushed at the thought. Of course, she'd be seeing plenty of Angelina in the years to come. For the rest of her life, in fact, now that she was engaged to Fred. No one in the family had expected it, not so soon, at least, but things were different now, and they'd be getting married in the spring. Instead of being resentful, though, Ginny was actually looking forward to it. Her infatuation with the older girl had recently been fading into something that more closely resembled admiration, and she genuinely liked Angelina, after all. Fred could certainly do much worse. And she'd always wanted a sister, so a sister-in-law would do nicely.

The ache in her muscles was starting to lessen. Ginny rolled onto her side and drew her legs up, curling into a ball. She was lonely. It seemed silly, but she was. She was practically the most popular girl in school now, in Gryffindor at least, but still, she was alone.

I'll never be satisfied, she thought, kicking at the blanket in frustration. I want people to give me space, but I hate feeling lonely. Me and my ridiculous self-pity. She stretched out again, rested her head on the pillow, and recited her Arithmancy tables in her head until she fell asleep.

~

Harry and Ron weren't at breakfast the next morning. No one seemed surprised. Hermione was there, eating her toast and drinking from a large mug of coffee, scribbling something onto a parchment. NEWT reviews, it looked like. Study schedules, three sets. Ginny sat down across from her, in Harry's usual place.

"When are they coming back?" she asked. She wanted to demand that Hermione tell her where they'd gone, to shout that it was Ginny's brother and her boyfriend and she had a fucking right to know. But it would have been useless. She was lucky if she got any answer at all.

Hermione shrugged and kept writing. "Depends."

Ginny nodded as if this clarified things.

~

A particularly vicious freeze hit Scotland a few days after that. Hogwarts students huddled for warmth when they left the castle for their outdoor lessons, shivering and shoving their hands deep in their pockets. For once Ginny was glad that there weren't any Quidditch practices to attend. They would have conflicted with the sombre mood that permeated Hogwarts that year, anyway. No one was particularly interested in playing games at the moment.

Harry and Ron had been gone for a week and a half. Ginny still didn't know where they were, but she knew that they should have been back by now. She could tell from the way Hermione kept looking up apprehensively at the Gryffindor portrait hole every few minutes while she studied in the common room in the evenings. She could tell from the owls she got from her mother. Mrs. Weasley wrote in her usual cheerful tone about the weather, the gardens, Aunt Gertrude's broken leg; her only mistake was to leave off the customary "And tell your brother it wouldn't kill him to owl his mother every once and a while" that usually concluded her twice-weekly letters. The same with the owls she got from George. He was the only one of her brothers who still wrote to her. Bill and Charlie and Percy were all off somewhere helping Dumbledore and couldn't be contacted. She hoped they were together. Maybe Harry and Ron were with them, too. She decided she liked that idea, and clung to it. They were all off somewhere, working together, watching out for each other.

It was late Saturday night. Ginny was working on an essay for History of Magic. Her work load was lighter this year, due to many of the teachers frequently leaving Hogwarts for long periods, but Professor Binns, being a ghost, wasn't needed in the war effort. He still droned on about goblin rebellions, undeterred, week after week. Ginny sat next to Hermione on the floor of the deserted common room. Neither of them had spoken for the past hour, and the only sounds in the room were the scratch of Ginny's quill across the parchment and the pages of Hermione's book turning.

"Proserpina," came a male voice from the other side of the Fat Lady. Both girls' heads snapped up automatically.

It was Seamus, climbing through the portrait hole with a smiling Lavender. They were holding hands. It must be one of their good days, Ginny thought. Were it not for the fact that they broke up every few weeks, Seamus and Lavender would have been the longest-running Gryffindor couple. They'd been on-again/off-again since Ginny's third year.

Seamus and Lavender said "Hi," Ginny and Hermione said "Hi" back, and no one said anything for a moment while the unspoken Have-you-heard-anything-no-you-no-well-let-us-know-when-you-do passed between them, and they all nodded, resigned. Then Seamus let go of Lavender's hand, bade the girls goodnight, and trotted off up the stairs. Lavender sat on the floor next to Hermione.

"Descartes?" she said. For a moment Ginny thought Lavender was making some joke she didn't understand. Then she realised Lavender was pointing to the book in Hermione's hand.

"Yeah." Hermione let out a little sigh. "It's taking me longer to get through it on the re-read than I'd like."

"Oh, I couldn't get through it the first time around," Lavender said, ignoring Hermione's scandalised look. "He's rather long-winded, isn't he?"

"I think it's the translation," Hermione said, nodding. "I can help you with it, if you like. It's likely to be on the Arithmancy NEWT, you know."

"That would be great, thanks," Lavender said. Hermione smiled a little, and Ginny couldn't help but be impressed. Hermione must miss tutoring when Harry and Ron weren't around, after all. Nice of Lavender to try to fill that void for her.

When she started to point out some phrase in the book to her, though, Lavender held up a hand to stop her. "Not tonight, though, if you don't mind," she said apologetically. "I just can't handle studying quite so late at night."

"Well, with the NEWTs coming up in just a couple of months -" Hermione began, but Lavender cut her off.

"Hermione," she said gently, "you need a break. We all do. Don't you think, Ginny?"

Ginny nodded vigorously, a little surprised at being addressed. "Yes. A break would be wonderful."

"Right, then." Lavender stood up as if the matter were settled. "I have an idea. I'll go get Parvati, and we'll meet in five minutes in Hermione's room."

Hermione offered a weak protest. "My room? Why not yours?"

"Yours has space for all of us," Lavender said matter-of-factly. It was true. Hermione, as Head Girl, had by far the biggest room of the seventh-years, even bigger than Harry's.

"Oh, all right," Hermione sighed. "I suppose I can finish this later."

"Yes, you can," Lavender said firmly, taking the book from Hermione and setting it down on the table. "Just the four of us. Ladies' night."

"Ladies' night," Hermione echoed. She didn't sound particularly thrilled at the idea, but she followed Lavender up the steps regardless. Ginny watched them go for a moment, lost in thought, before scrambling to her feet after them. While she doubted she would have been included in any Ladies' Night events had she not been sitting there at the time, that didn't mean she was going to write her History of Magic essay while Hermione, Lavender and Parvati were doing who-knew-what in Hermione's room. This was too good to miss.

~

As it turned out, the evening was less than overwhelming. Lavender's big plan, apparently, had been to get Hermione drunk, and on that score it was working. Seamus had somehow obtained a family-sized bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky ("Don't ask," Lavender had said when Hermione narrowed her eyes). Once they managed to get Hermione past her initial "Head-Girls-don't-drink-on-school-grounds" objections (which Ginny knew were just for show anyway, as Hermione had certainly violated that policy several times that year), and Parvati had transfigured Hermione's toothbrush glass into four elegant crystal shot glasses, all four of them managed to get thoroughly pissed.

Actually, Ginny didn't think she was quite as far gone as the rest. The bottle was draining rapidly, though, and the other girls were very giggly indeed. There was no need to be quiet, since there was no one else on the seventh-floor girls' corridor, so they weren't bothering to keep their voices down. Whenever there was a lull in the conversation, Lavender or Parvati would start off with a loud "Remember this" or "Remember that," bringing up some nostalgic moment from the past seven years, and they'd be off and tittering again. Ginny knew some of their stories, of course - she'd been there, after all, the first time Neville turned into a canary, though that story didn't seem quite so funny to someone who'd spent the past two years watching her brothers try to come up with relevant sales projections - but most of the stories she didn't recognise ("Remember back in first year, when Harry and Draco were flying around waving their fists and threatening each other during that flying lesson? Wasn't it just the most homoerotic thing you'd ever seen!" Parvati shrieked at one point), and the whole thing was getting old fast.

"You know what, Hermione," Lavender said at one point after she'd recovered from her most recent giggle fit, "it's high time you let me try out that discincinnatus charm on you."

"For the last time, no, Lavender," Hermione said, hiccupping. "I've told you, all those cosmetic charms are very risky, you never know what could go wrong."

"Oh, bollocks," Parvati said, and everyone giggled, even though it wasn't really funny. "Susan Bones told me she used it all the time in fifth year and it worked perfectly, no problems at all."

Hermione shook her head. "Susan Bones had straight hair to start with."

"But, Hermione." Ginny she felt she ought to contribute something to the conversation. "Didn't you use a cosmetic charm to fix your teeth back in third year?"

"Ha!" Lavender whooped, triumphant. "There you go. And that was a much more complicated charm. Come on, we're going to get my wand. I'm going to charm your hair and I don't want to hear another word about it."

"But Madam Pomfrey fixed my teeth -" Hermione started to protest, but it was no use. Lavender was already standing, though a little unsteadily, and pulling an equally wobbly Hermione to the door. They were both laughing, though, so Ginny wasn't too worried, even after she heard Hermione call out, "If I come back bald, it's her fault!" as they went through the door.

Suddenly, the room was very quiet. Lavender had been dominating the conversation, really, and now that she was left alone with Parvati, Ginny didn't quite know what to say. She'd never been particularly good friends with Parvati, even less so than she was with Lavender. There was something about Parvati that intimidated her a little. Ginny was considering making an excuse about a test the next morning and going back to her own dorm when, out of the blue, Parvati turned to her, raised an eyebrow, and said, "So, is Harry Potter a good shag?"

In spite of herself, Ginny burst out laughing. Somehow, when her roommates asked her such questions, they annoyed her, but when Parvati said it, she didn't mind so much. "What do you think?" she asked, her voice teasing.

"I'd think he is." It was clear from the sparkle in Parvati's eye that she had, indeed, thought about this question before. "All those Quidditch muscles."

"Um. I guess so." Ginny had never thought about it quite like that.

"You guess so." Parvati laughed, and Ginny was struck by how pretty she was when she smiled. Something about the colouring. Ginny had always been attracted to girls with darker complexions. Her own family was so pale.

"Yeah." Ginny smiled back at her and decided to keep going, since Parvati seemed interested in the topic. "Quidditch is quite good for the figure, it turns out."

Parvati laughed again. "I quite agree. You have a nice figure too, come to think of it. Well-toned."

That settled it. Parvati was flirting. Girls didn't say things like that for no reason. "Thanks," Ginny said, blushing a little, since she knew she looked adorable when she blushed. It was one of the few Weasley traits of which she was actually proud. Parvati just kept laughing, though - playing hard-to-get, apparently - so Ginny decided to take things into her own hands, and kissed her.

At first, it was perfect. It had been years since Ginny had last kissed a girl, since that night at the World Cup in fact. She'd forgotten how sweet it felt, how soft. Boys were always so forceful, so impatient. Or at least the ones she knew were. Not so with Parvati.

The sweetness only lasted a second, though, and before Ginny had time to realise what was happening, Parvati's hands were gripping her shoulders and she was pushed away with a startling amount of force. "Ginny," Parvati said, her voice trembling a little but still determined, "I'm sorry, but you've got the wrong idea."

"What?" Ginny concentrated all her energy on not crying. She couldn't tell if it was working or not. It usually didn't.

Parvati released her grasp on Ginny's shoulders and dropped her hands into her lap. She looked Ginny in the eye and spoke with a surprising amount of composure, considering how much firewhisky she'd had and how giggly she'd been acting all night. "Ginny, I'm flattered, really, but I'm not interested in girls that way."

"Right." Ginny nodded mechanically. No big deal, really, she told herself, it was probably for the best after all...

"If you want, I could talk to my sister - she's in the same house with Mandy Brocklehurst, you know, she might be able to arrange -"

"No." Ginny almost shouted. Mandy Brocklehurst had a crew cut and insisted on wearing trousers instead of the pleated skirt that all the other girls at Hogwarts wore with their uniforms. The boys made fun of Mandy; they called her names Ginny didn't understand, didn't want to understand. The thought of even being within three yards of Mandy Brocklehurst made Ginny want to cry.

Parvati nodded, still wearing a concerned, sympathetic expression. On some detached level of her consciousness, Ginny was impressed by the other girl's self-possession. Most of her, though, just wanted to put as much space between herself and Parvati as possible. There was no need to bother thinking up plausible excuses, she decided. "You know, I'm tired. I think I'm going to go to bed."

Parvati nodded again. "I really am sorry, Ginny."

Ginny stood up and walked, a little unevenly, toward the door. Without so much as a goodnight, she turned on her heel and fled the room. She walked rapidly down the corridor, ignoring Hermione when she poked her head out of the bathroom and drunkenly called after her, saying something about looking like she'd stuck her finger in a plug. A plug? Ginny shrugged to herself. Hermione never made sense when she was drunk.

When she got to her dorm, though, her roommates were still awake. They were sitting on their beds with the curtains tied back, gossiping loudly and looking through old issues of Jeune Femme Magique. They chorused enthusiastic hellos when she arrived, and two of them sat up to ask in worried tones if she'd heard anything from Harry. Ginny gave a few monosyllabic responses as she changed into her nightgown, then grabbed her wand, journal, and a quill and left the room as fast as she could, muttering some empty excuse over her shoulder. She couldn't deal with their questions, not tonight.

She hurried down the corridor again, trying to think of where she could go, where she could be alone. The common room made sense, but what if one of the older girls went down there for some reason? Parvati had probably already told Lavender and Hermione what had happened, she couldn't risk running into any of them. No, she had to go somewhere where there was no chance of being found.

Then it occurred to her. Of course. Harry was still gone. She could have his room to herself and actually have some privacy for once. She could have used Ron's room, but there was always a chance Hermione might go there for some reason, so Harry's it was.

As soon as she opened the door, though, she felt out of place. It was strange, being there without him. His room seemed somehow devoid of spirit; all the character was drained by the absence of the Boy Who Lived himself. There was nowhere else to go, though, so she lit a few candles and climbed into bed. She pulled out her journal and quill, taking no notice of her shaky hand or her throbbing head, and tried to think of what she could list, what the appropriate topic of introspection would be. Times I've Been Humiliated? Reasons I'll Always Be Alone? She couldn't bring herself to write words that were quite that pathetic. Merlin, she thought, I'm astonishingly self-absorbed.

Ginny snapped her journal shut and put it back on Harry's bedside table. She sat up on the bed and looked out the window, gazing at the moon, watching the clouds pass over it. Funny, she thought, I always wind up thinking about the same things when I'm in this room, whether I'm alone or not. She stared, captivated by the movements of the clouds, and she'd only been sitting there for an hour or so when the door creaked open and a hunched figure stepped through it.

Over the past few months, Ginny had seen a lot of Harry Potter. She'd seen him when he was in control, his expression cold and determined. She'd seen him when he was frightened. She'd even seen him looking happy, though those moments were usually brief, and late at night, his face covered partly in shadow. But she'd never seen him like this - never quite so broken.

He didn't register any surprise at her presence there, but in her relief she felt like she ought to explain anyway. "Harry - oh, you're back, Harry, we were so worried - I'm sorry I'm in here, I just wanted to get away for a while -"

He didn't say anything, just stood in the doorway, looking at her blankly. Suddenly, she felt a jolt of real panic, for the first time since they'd been gone. "Harry - is Ron all right?"

He started crossing the room toward her without speaking, and she jumped up and went to meet him. She wanted to shake him, to force him to say something, but he just nodded slightly and walked past her to sit on the bed.

"Oh." Relieved again, she sat down next to him. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

He just shook his head slowly, still not looking at her. It occurred to Ginny that he'd just come back from lord-knew-where and he might want to be alone. "Do you want me to go?"

He didn't give any indication that he had heard her. So she stood up to leave, wondering if she could wander around the school corridors on the pretence of going to the Prefects' bathroom. Before she'd gotten more than a foot away from the bed, though, she felt a sudden pressure on her right hand, and realised that he was gripping it in his.

"Harry?" She spoke softly, but he still didn't look at her; his gaze was fixed at some point on the floor between her feet. He was still holding her hand, though. "Do you want me to stay?"

He squeezed her hand tightly, and she wondered again what could possibly have happened that would have affected him this way. This wasn't how Harry Potter was supposed to act. He was supposed to be triumphant, weary, but still proud. Instead, he was making her nervous. She wondered if he was be badly hurt somehow, if he had some magical injury that she couldn't see. But then, if he'd been hurt he would have gone straight to the hospital wing, wouldn't he? She let go of his hand and grabbed his chin, tilting his head up so she could see his face.

There was a vacant expression in his eyes that terrified her. She knew that look, remembered it all too well, and she knew without having to think about it that it was up to her to make it go away. She let go of him. With an energy fuelled by a combination of instinct and alcohol, she reached down, pulled her nightgown over her head, and dropped it on the floor.

He still didn't say anything, but his eyes widened just a little. He saw her now, there was no question in her mind. So, still acting on instinct, she laid a hand firmly on each side of his face, leaned down, and kissed him.

He didn't kiss her back. For a second she had a horrible flashback to that awkward kiss with Parvati. Soon, though, she felt a hand cautiously sliding up the inside of her thigh, and Ginny smiled to herself. One of the more useful side effects to having a seventeen-year-old boy assigned to save the world, she thought - no matter how emotionally defeated he may be, he still has a fully functioning libido.

She kissed him harder, sliding her tongue between his lips insistently, and soon he started to respond. She didn't waste any time then, just pushed him straight down onto the bed and started pulling off his clothes, aware of him touching her, more enthusiastically now. She squeezed her eyes shut and wilfully commanded her body to go along with it. He needed this; she could give this to him, would give this to him.

It only lasted five minutes this time. When it was over, she collapsed next to him, kissed his forehead, and pulled him closer to her. He threw one arm around her and buried his face in her neck, and she lay there, wondering if he was going to talk to her now, if he would tell her what had happened, what had been so different about this particular trip when he'd already been on so many others that year.

After a few minutes, though, Ginny realised he was asleep, and sighed. Trying not to disturb him, she grabbed her wand from the bedside table, summoned a blanket from the bottom of the bed and extinguished the remaining candles. The moon outside was still bright, though, and she could look out, trace the constellations with her eyes. She found Polaris, and stared at it until she too fell asleep.

~