Reflections

One week after the Third Task

            Ginny pulled her hand from the soft earth and wiped the fringe out of her eyes with her forearm, careful not to touch her face with her soiled hand.  The sun beat down on the Hogwarts grounds and Ginny squinted her eyes against it, leaning back on the balls of her feet and rolling her sore neck.  Her classmates were all around her, on their hands and knees, digging into soil patches with sweat running down their faces.  It was a very hot day and nobody felt like being in class at all, much less having to bake in the sun for a Herbology lesson.  And Ginny was having a particularly bad time of it.  She couldn’t concentrate on Herbology right now.  Her thoughts, as usual, fell onto Harry Potter.

But Ginny always thought about Harry.  It was something that was out of her control now, something she just accepted.  Her childish fancy had blossomed quite solidly over the years and she didn’t try to fool herself by calling it a crush anymore.  These days it brinked on obsession, but Ginny chose not to think so much about that.  And even though she openly admitted that her feelings were real, Ginny often blamed them on the fact that Harry was always around her.  If he weren’t in her life, then she wouldn’t still have these feelings. If she didn’t have to see him everyday, then she could slowly begin to get over him.  She knew she fooled herself, knew that she would never get over Harry.  It was just easier on her heart to imagine. 

            If only he would see her.  As usual, Ginny pushed the thought out of her head.  Even though Harry occupied her thoughts more often than not, she rarely wasted time on the “if only’s” any more.  And at times like these, Ginny rarely needed to stop herself wishing… there were more pressing things to think about. 

The bits and pieces Ginny knew about what had happened during the third task were like pieces of a puzzle that she would never be able to put together.  She knew what her mother had explained to her and that had been next to nothing.  She knew what people were saying, but she didn’t believe any of that.  She knew what Hermione had told her and that had been slightly substantial—but not nearly the full story.  No, Ginny would never know.  She would forever have to think and worry with thousands of unanswered questions.

She hadn’t seen Harry in days.  He was avoiding everybody, probably eating meals between classes and spending most of his time in his dormitory.  She didn’t need to know where he was to know why he wasn’t there. And how could she blame him for staying away? She almost wanted to do the same. 

She wished she could see him, though.  Catch him when he was leaving for class or going into the Great Hall.  She wanted to do something for him.  Perhaps just take his hand and squeeze it and smile a little.  She could do that…if she could be sure that it would comfort him. But she knew it wouldn’t.  Ginny knew how he would react to her.  He would be embarrassed and uncomfortable.  That was just the way it was.

Breaking out of her trance, she reached for a clay pot to plant the seeds she had unearthed.  For a few glorious minutes, she focused her entire mind on filling her pots with soil and burying the large purple-ish seeds.  But her thoughts returned to him after a few moments. 

She thought about what she would really do if she saw him.  She couldn’t say anything about it to him.  No, that would not do at all. She never spoke to him about anything really, so how could she speak to him about this?  Should she smile at him?  How?  Should she show sympathy?  Probably not—he received sympathy from plenty of people. Should she act normal? How could she?  He had just been through a horrific ordeal.

Professor Sprout’s voice announced that class was half over and they had one hour to complete the rest of their assignment. Various sounds of protest could be heard from the third years and Ginny found herself groaning inwardly as well.  She reached up again to shove the hair from her face and upon doing this, her gaze fell across the grounds and landed on the Quidditch stands. Her insides went numb. 

Harry appeared in her mind again. He was falling through the air with Cedric Diggory and landing face down in the grass. And Ginny saw herself, sitting far away in the Quidditch stands, powerless.  She dug deeper into the soil, sweat gleaming on her face.  She could still hear the screams from everyone surrounding her.  She could still hear her brother shouting Harry’s name and Hermione whimpering incoherently.  And she could feel the rushed confusion when people began swarming from their seats, and Mum and Bill and Ron and Hermione had pushed their way through, desperate to get to Harry. 

But Ginny had just sat there.  In the midst of chaos, she’d sat frozen in her seat, staring at him, hearing “he’s dead!” shouted from all over.  She’d watched as Dumbledore blocked her vision of him and had felt sharp relief when she’d seen Harry next, on his feet.  People were still screaming and it was about Cedric.  The panic and the terror had caused Ginny to start crying along with everyone else.  But still she’d watched Harry, gripping her seat, as Professor Moody—no, Barty Crouch’s son—had lead Harry off.  She had watched him until he’d disappeared inside the castle.   

Ginny dug with fervor now, pulling up more seeds in the next few minutes than she had in the past two hours.  Her hands were shaking, but still, they worked harder than ever for the next forty minutes.  She was disappointed when Professor Sprout called for them to begin cleaning up—she didn’t want to go up to Gryffindor Tower and wonder where Harry was and if she would see him.    

She sat up again and stretched, hearing cracking noises from her back and neck.  Ginny began gathering her things together slowly, putting her instruments and ingredients into her bucket carefully.  There was chatter amongst her classmates as everyone spoke of going to dinner, but Ginny didn’t join in.  She barely heard them. 

All at once, her face began to burn.  Her hand froze in mid air and slowly she looked up at the source of her discomfort.  It was Harry.  He’d just emerged from Hagrid’s cabin a ways down and he sat down on the steps, completely oblivious to her or her class at all.  Ginny could do nothing but stare at him for the first time since she’d seen him disappear inside the castle with Prof- no, Crouch, days ago. 

He looked… defeated.  His shoulders sagged, and his head was bent. His hand pushed his glasses up and his head lifted every few seconds to look at the grounds, or the castle, and then fell back down again.

Ginny felt a prickling in the corners of her eyes.  If she were anyone else, anyone at all, she would get up and go to sit next him.  She’d take his hand and lean her head on his shoulder and whisper the right words.  But she couldn’t.  She was Ron’s sister and she was Hermione’s friend, but she wasn’t anything to Harry.   

With a small sigh, she tore her eyes away from him and continued her slow process of cleaning up.  Most of the class had finished and were already heading back to the Greenhouse. But Ginny didn’t rush—she was in no hurry to leave Harry. 

Just then a noise coming from the direction of Hagrid’s cabin made her head glance up.  It was Hagrid emerging from the small hut and closing the door.  Harry stood and the two of them started walking down the pathway to the castle.  Hagrid was saying something in an animated sort of way and Harry’s mouth was twisted in a half-hearted smirk.  Ginny kept her eyes on them as they neared her—they wouldn’t come close enough to see her, but she wasn’t interested in Harry seeing her.  She needed to watch him and see him now before he disappeared again.  Hagrid clapped a hand on Harry’s head and ruffled his hair, bending low to say something in his ear. Harry grinned up at him, shaking his head and Ginny’s heart soared.  The smile hadn’t reached his eyes, but it was there.  It was there.

She watched him pass the Greenhouses, disappear behind some trees and come into view again when he neared the entrance to the castle.  She watched as she had the night of the third task until he disappeared inside the castle, this time with Hagrid’s huge hand on his shoulder. 

Ginny felt something like relief.  He was safe now.  She knew he felt it, even if it had only been during the time he’d spent with Hagrid today.  But he was safe right now.  And that was all that mattered.

Wiping her hands on a towel, Ginny stood up finally and gathered her things.  The sun still beat down, only now from a further distance over the lake. As she walked slowly to the Greenhouse, Ginny turned her face back to the castle again, and her eyes fell on Gryffindor Tower.  He was up there now, she thought, probably enjoying a few peaceful moments with Ron and Hermione before people started coming through the portrait hole.  She thought briefly of hurrying to be able to see him before he hid again.

But she didn’t.  She stayed where she was, staring at the tower for a long time before turning around and heading back to the Greenhouse.

FIN

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