Four Weddings and a Funeral

Who

28 June, 2001

The butterflies in her stomach make Ginny feel ridiculous. Here she is, an honest-to-goodness decorated war hero with almost nineteen years' experience sneaking around the Burrow, and she's as nervous tonight, stealing off for an assignation with her lover, as if she's still a school girl.

In the kitchen she almost turns back, before yelling at herself--in her mind, of course. She's getting married tomorrow. She won't be able to do this again. And she burns with need. After casting Silencing Charms on the hinges and on each of her feet, she opens the kitchen door and tiptoes out. Leaping nimbly over the middle step down from the porch--the one that creaks--she eases herself into the garden.

Stopping just a few paces from the house, she looks up. There's no sign of light or movement from her parents' window, nor anywhere else in the house. She needn't have worried about silence--crickets are playing amorous symphonies that could drown out an army of Weasley mischief-makers out on their midnight rounds.

Trying not to stumble, trying not to moan out loud at the feeling of her old cotton dressing gown moving over her flesh, she makes her way towards the garden bench.

Someone is there. Who? Is he early? Her breath quickens.

No. It is a woman. A girl. Her head is down, her shoulders heaving. Ginny curses--silently, of course--realizing who it must be, but with no idea at all why she might be out here at such a frustratingly inconvenient time. "Gabrielle?"

Ginny's young sister-in-law-by-extension looks up, and her enormous blue eyes glisten wide before narrowing.

"Is something wrong, Gabrielle?" Ginny sits beside her; even in her distracted, hungry state, she can't help but notice the young girl's misery. Her body--longer than Ginny's own--is twisted against the arm of the bench.

"Tort? Tu as tort! Salope! Putain! Tu l'as volé de moi!" Gabrielle spits, and then dissolves into tears.

Stunned at Gabrielle's tone, and having no clue what she's just said, Ginny blinks, then touches her on the shoulder. Again the French girl glares at her before dissolving into tears. "Gabi? Gabi, are you... angry with me?"

Gabrielle wails, throwing herself against Ginny's shoulder, pulling Ginny tight to her.

This isn't the embrace Ginny has been anticipating all night. She strokes Gabrielle's long, disheveled hair, the lovely chignon from dinner long abandoned. "What have I done, Gabi? I'm so sorry, whatever it is.... How can I help? Shhh. Shhh...."

The younger girl--what is she now, Ginny wonders, fourteen? Fifteen? Merlin, was I this young when I bullied my way along to the Department of Mysteries?--weeps, unbridled, and Ginny is forcibly reminded of her brother howling on Harry's lap the night before Hermione's funeral. What has happened? Has someone been hurt? Has there been a new attack after all these years? Could he?...

"Gabrielle," Ginny says in what she hopes is something like her mother's voice of reassuring authority. "I need to know what's wrong. Tell me, or I won't be able to help. What is it?" Gabi sniffles, sitting back, her eyes wide. Good, Ginny thinks, I learned something from Mum after all. "Tell me, Gabi. What's wrong?"

Blinking tears away, gasping for breath, Gabrielle Delacour suddenly looks even younger than her age, and nowhere near as gorgeous as Ginny knows her in fact to be. "It is stupid," she moans, finally. "Je suis idiote!"

"Nonsense," Ginny murmurs, stroking her blotchy, tear-streaked face, trying to wipe away the tears. The tears are coming faster than she can wipe. "Nothing that could get you this upset could possibly be stupid. Tell me what's wrong. Is anyone hurt?"

The girl shakes her head. Ginny lets out a breath that she wasn't aware of holding. That's a relief, she thinks.

"Did someone in my family do something or say something to you?"

Gabrielle pulls a face of pure, dejected misery, and suddenly Ginny sees it.

"Oh, bloody hell," she sighs. "You're angry with me, aren't you?" Gabi nods. "Because of Harry?" She nods again, and Ginny pulls her into a hug once more. "Oh, you poor, poor... I'm so sorry."

And Gabrielle is weeping again, and again Ginny is pulled back to another summer night, her own tears soaking through Charlie's shirt, just as Gabi's are soaking through her thin bathrobe. And Ginny rocks her, and kisses the top of her head, saying, "Shh... Shh... I'm so sorry, luv. I'm so sorry...."

"'E was supposed to wait for me!" Gabrielle moans. "'E saved my life! 'E saved my life and I came to 'Ogwarts because of 'im and now he is marrying you and I feel so... stupide!"

"Oh, Merlin, Gabrielle, I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I'm so sorry."

"Why?" Gabi laughed damply. "Why be sorry? 'E is yours! And 'e should be! I'm not so much an idiot really, even if I am acting like one... Even my first year I saw 'ow much 'e loved you, one would 'ave to be aveugle, blind as the bat not to see it. And the DA meetings, and the battle... And at Fleur and Guillaume's wedding, I knew, Fleur told me you were fiancés.... But I thought... I thought 'Arry would wait." Her beautiful face twists once again into a mask of utter wretchedness. "I fell in love at the age of eight with the man 'o rescued me, only to discover I 'ave already lost 'im to the other girl 'e rescued! It is tout à fait absurd... Totally... a joke."

Ginny does find herself laughing, but it is out of sympathy with the poor girl. "I'm so sorry, Gabi. It's not a joke. Nothing this upsetting could possibly be a joke."

Gabrielle pouts dejectedly. Ginny has to bite her cheeks not to laugh again.

"If anyone in the world knows how you feel," she says, "I do." When that provokes an expression of skeptical surprise, Ginny feels that she has permission to continue. "So, everybody knows Harry rescued me from the Chamber of Secrets at the end of my first year," she begins. Never mind what I was doing down there in the first place, she thinks. I need to wait until you've been in the family a few more years before we go there. "Mind, I was already smitten with the Boy Who Lived, from stories about him when I was a little girl, years before I'd even met him. I've fallen in love five times in my life, and three of them were Harry..."

Ah, a small smile. If having Fleur in the family has taught Ginny anything, it is that nothing amuses the French more than a story laced with love and irony.

"So, I'd heard all of these stories about this boy who defeated Voldemort, and how he had been hidden away from the Wizarding World, but that he would come back to take his rightful place... It was straight out of fairytale. I thought, right. I'll be his princess, and when comes back, I'll be there and I'll marry him. And then, on the day that he made his return, showing up for the Hogwart's Express to start his education, I was there! And, as it turns out, my brother becomes his best friend! I was so excited, because I knew--knew--that he would fall in love with me and whisk me away to Potter Manor, wherever the hell I thought that was. I was so excited, unfortunately, that I couldn't speak in his presence. I knocked things over whenever I was near him. I stuck my elbow in the butter. I dropped bowls of soup into my lap. More than once."

Gabi snorts. Love and irony.

"Well, to be fair, I was eleven. As I remember, you were able to speak to Harry just fine when you first came to school."

Even by starlight, Ginny can tell that Gabrielle is blushing. "I dropped food more than once myself."

"Ah, then you understand. But you see, I wasn't even at your level yet. It wasn't even until the end of that first year that he saved me from the Chamber of Secrets and I truly knew what it meant to fall in love. Because I realized for the first time that not only was he famous, and a nice boy with gorgeous green eyes, but he was the real deal. He was a hero. He risked his life for me, someone he barely knew. He killed a bloody Basilisk. And now I was well and truly lost. You know."

Gabi nods. Comrades. Sisters.

"The horrible thing was," Ginny said softly, "that seeing him for what he was didn't stop me from realizing that he was a boy. And like most boys, he was an idiot."

Again, Gabrielle nods. "Tell me about it. Imbéciles...."

"Well, they can't help it. Believe me, I know, I've got six brothers, and they're sweet as hell, but they're gits, every last one. Harry, of course, hadn't the slightest clue what girls were about. Ignored me entirely. Developed a crush on a girl who, well, just made me want to hex her nine ways to Sunday, she was such a silly bint." Ginny pauses, not being particularly silly herself, and having some clue what the younger girl is considering saying.

"I..." Gabrielle began, then stopped, hiding her face in Ginny's shoulder. She spoke into the damp cotton of Ginny's robe. "I wanted to hex you. A lot. At school. At Fleur and Bill's wedding. At little Tristan's baptème..."

Ginny just nods.

They sat there in silence for a moment. Ginny takes a deep breath, trying not to think about her lover, about where he is, or what is holding him up.

"Ginèvre?" Gabi said, and Ginny smiles to hear her silly name sounding so exotic. "You said... You said you fell in love five times?...."

"Yes," Ginny murmured. "I gave up on Harry around the time your sister came to Hogwarts. There was this bloody ball, and not only didn't he ask me, but even when the girl he was obsessed with turned him down, he didn't even think of me. Then, not long after that, he saved you from the lake, and I thought, See, it was nothing personal. He saved you from the Basilisk because that's what he does. So I decided I wasn't going to wait for him, and I started going out--and falling in love--with other boys. And I know you're not going to believe me, but it was wonderful. For once to be with a boy who really wanted to be with me. Me. Who wasn't trapped in his head thinking about slaying Dragons and evil sorcerers and rescuing fair maidens at the drop of a hat. Having fun. Realizing that having a relationship with someone isn't just about fairy tales and happily ever after--it's about spending time with them, and working through things with them and sometimes even fighting with them. So I owe Michael and Dean a lot."

Gabrielle digested this for a while, then said, very quietly, "And the last time?"

"Ah," said Ginny. What to tell? "The last time... You have to understand, Gabrielle, I was very happy with my boyfriend, Dean. This was during my fifth year. And Dean was funny, and romantic, and he drew the loveliest pictures.... He was everything I thought Harry couldn't be. And somehow, in the middle of all of that Half-Blood Prince nonsense... Were you there that year?"

"No, I came the year after, but everyone talked about it."

"Well, Harry suddenly noticed me. When I say noticed... Harry went out with a couple of girls that year. Friends of mine, Luna and Daphne, you'll meet them tomorrow--Luna's seeing a bit of Ron, these days. But every time we'd run into each other at Hogsmeade, or in DA meetings, or even the Great Hall, I'd feel as if this enormous green spotlight was beaming down on me; I'd look up and he'd be staring, not at the very nice girl on his arm, but at me. Dean ended up getting properly hacked off, not that I can blame him, and I can't say I was exactly chuffed. I mean, not only had he ignored me for years, but here he was, treating my friends, my boyfriend as if they weren't there. After the whole mess at Easter, we're all laid up in the Hospital Wing, almost a dozen of us, including Dean, myself, Daphne, Luna, Neville, and Hermione." Oh, Hermione. Neville. Even now, three years later, it's hard to say their names without wincing. Should we?... With Fred like Sleeping Beauty at St. Mungo's? Yes. Time to celebrate life. "And he and Ron come bursting in as soon as Madam Pomfrey allows visitors, and Ron runs off to Hermione, which is only to be expected, and where does Harry go? To his supposed girlfriend, Daphne? To his mates, Dean and Neville? No, all pale and sweaty he runs to me, spewing on that he's so relieved that I'm okay, and that he couldn't have stood it if I had died... And I, um, let him have it."

Gabrielle frowns. "Let 'im 'ave... what?"

Her English is better than Fleur's, and it's easy to forget that it isn't her native language sometimes. Ginny grins and shakes her head. "I, erm, yelled at him. Told him there was a room full of people who'd almost gotten killed trying to keep him alive, all of them his friends, and what the hell was he doing talking to me." His face, chalk white. "And he stands there nodding. When I've yelled myself out, he says I'm right, that he owes everyone in that room his life, some more than once, but that there's nothing that he can do about it because I'm the one that he's in love with. Which came as a bit of a shock, for some reason, even though I suppose it shouldn't have. All of the people in the room are staring at the two of us. He goes on to say that he's been in love with me since the previous summer, but that he's very aware that I no longer have any bloody feelings for him, the silly boy, and so he hasn't wanted to burden me."

Gabrielle smirks.

"He says that everyone in that room knows how he feels, that he's had several screaming matches with Ron and Hermione, a bout of drunken weeping with Neville and Seamus that led to a near fistfight with Dean, that Luna had continually told him he was being silly not listening to his own heart and that Daphne had told him to get his thumb out of his noble Gryffindor arse and stop wasting her time. Which was when I decided that I really liked Daphne. Then he tells us all that there's this ridiculous prophecy that he's found out about--the one... yes, you know the one--and that he's been so obsessed with his own mortality the whole year that he's taken for granted the threat to the rest of our lives, but that seeing me in peril again made him realize that he couldn't stand to see me die, that he would rather die himself than see me hurt again, that he loves me, and that he has to tell me how he feels." She never saw him cry before that, not even after Sirius died. Not even when his arm was broken. Her mother and Ron talk about him crying after Cedric's death, but she didn't see it. Chin quivering. Snot running. It hurt to watch. "Then he apologizes to me, to Dean and to Daphne, in that order, and practically runs out of the infirmary."

Gabrielle's blue-silver eyes glisten as she gazes up at Ginny. Clearly this is the sort of story she enjoys. "And that's when you fell in love with 'im the last time, yes?"

Ginny laughs. "No. No, I was furious with him, with all of them. I wouldn't talk to him, wouldn't even look him in the face for two weeks. And he was perfectly content to be shunned. Thought he deserved it. Do you want to know who finally talked sense into me?"

The younger girl gives a Gallic shrug. "Your brother? 'Ermione?"

"Well, they tried." Ron loudly, Hermione more reasonably, if more persistently. "No, it was Dean. He said that he had known all along that I loved Harry, that it was obvious from the way that I woke up every time Harry entered the room. That he loved snogging and spending time with me but that, in all honesty, it wasn't much fun being my second choice, and there was a Muggle girl back in Hammersmith that he fancied. In retrospect, I think he was trying to be helpful. At the time... Well, I broke his nose. Poor Dean."

"Is he... did he die?"

"What? Oh, no. He's back in London. Engaged, I think, but the girl won't let him keep in touch with his wizarding friends. Won't let him use magic. What a waste. He was an extraordinary magical artist." The tears on Gabrielle's cheeks are almost dry. She can come to the point, now. "That May, Harry and I actually started talking about some things. Truly getting to know each other. And that's when I really fell in love with him." His seventeenth birthday. His kisses on her stomach. His chest against her chest. The newfound ocean of his unspectacled eyes. The second time she saw him cry. "The thing is, Gabrielle, no one understands better than I do how you must feel about Harry. And how angry you must be with me, and with him." Silver eyes flicker. "But I also know that if he'd returned my feelings from the beginning, we would probably not be getting married tomorrow. Well," she says, looking up, "Today. That there would have been no way to reach the point where we know each other, where we trust each other. Does that make sense?"

Gabrielle shrugs again, less French this time, more resigned. "It does not change 'ow I feel."

She finds her hand stroking the other girl's cheek. "Gabrielle, Harry's wonderful. But so are you. Believe me, you'll find someone. I know that's not much consolation. I wish I could offer more. But things change. Look at me...."

"Yes," sighs Gabi, "look at you. You loved 'Arry all along. The love, it changed over the years, and you even tried to explore loving others, but did you ever truly stop loving 'Arry?"

Now it is Ginny's turn to shrug. "I don't know." She peers into Gabi's eyes. "But does any of us truly know how she feels? After that Easter, I would have told you I hated him. The truth is that love at first sight takes time." That earns a sad chuckle from Gabrielle. "You'll find someone, Gabi. I promise you will. That doesn't change anything right now, but you have to believe me. You're an incredible, beautiful girl. You'll find a boy..."

Heaving a deep, long sigh, Gabrielle stares up into Ginny's eyes, and Ginny is startled by their iridescence. She remembers, for a moment, that this is a part-Veela. "I don't like boys," she says. "I like 'Arry. 'E is very lucky to 'ave you, Ginèvre." Leaning forward, she kisses Ginny, first on one cheek, then on the other. Unwinding slowly, she stands and strides toward the house. "Bonne nuit, et félicitations," she whispers over her shoulder, and disappears.

Ginny has just let out a long breath when teeth close on her neck and she has to bite her lip to keep herself from shrieking. "Who?..."

A familiar voice, husky with desire, whispers, "You know it drives me crazy to see someone else kissing you."

Passion and desire blossom in Ginny, and the only response she can muster is a muffled groan. She begins to turn, to pull him over the back of the bench and have her way with him, but strong arms reach under hers and hold her in place; strong, wand-callused hands close over her eyes.

"Eager, aren't you?"

"Merlin, I want you so much. She's so sweet, but I so wanted her to leave. I was afraid..." His tongue runs along her earlobe, robbing her of speech, sprouting gooseflesh from her neck to her shins.

"Afraid she'd scare me off?" he whispers wetly into her ear. "Not on your life. The sight of you here in this thin robe..." He moans, and the sound sends a thrill straight to Ginny's center.

"Maybe," she stammers, "maybe we should g-go a little further from the house. If anyone heard us... If my mother saw you, she'd kill us. It's after m-midnight...."

"No, my love," he says, his hands moving down from her eyes and opening her robe, the summer night air cool on her body. "I'm going to make love to you right here, and the only thing that will keep the sound of you screaming my name from waking the entire neighborhood will be the crickets."

She laughs, the sound rolling up from depths she likes to pretend she doesn't know she has. "One last night," she says. "One last night of being nasty and illicit, before it's all family and government sanctioned... Do you know how bizarre it is that my own father is going to be signing the piece of paper that makes it legitimate for us to do this as much as we want? I don't want permission, I don't want conjugal intercourse, I want sex."

His long fingers dance lightly over her flesh, leaving each spot hungrier after the caress than before. "Well," he murmurs, "we don't have to get married...."

She laughs again, only now marveling that he managed to sneak up on her even with that bloody walking stick he has to use. "You're not getting out of it that easy, Harry Potter. Even if I still feel as if getting married on Victory Day is a little odd." Poor George. Poor Susan. Poor Ron.

He kisses her, his hands continuing to search. "Ron will be fine, love." He kisses her neck. "You know, standing there listening to you... She does know I didn't really save her life, doesn't she?"

"I guess. But... Oh... She knows you didn't know that." How can he do that with just a touch?

"You're right."

"Get used to it."

"I will," he says, and she can hear the grin in his voice. "So... I'm 'the real deal,' am I?"

"You heard that?" Images of Harry's face--bloodied, besmirched, beautiful--flash through her mind. Love at first sight takes time. "Well, yes you are. But Harry, if you don't come over here right now and make love to me, I'm going to be screaming your name, all right, only it won't be out of desire, and even the crickets won't mask the racket."

And like the smart man that he has become, he does just as she asked.

"Tort? Tu as tort! Salope! Putain! Tu l'as volé de moi!"=Wrong? You're wrong! Bitch! Slut! You stole him from me!

" Je suis idiote!"=I'm an idiot!

"tout à fait absurd"=totally absurd

"aveugle"=blind.

"fiancés"=engaged to be married.

"baptème"=christening; baptism.

"Bonne nuit, et félicitations"=Good night, and congratulations.