See What's in Front of You

---------------------------------------------

See What's In Front of You

---------------------------------------------

Two girls stumble into the dormitory, hand in hand, and collapse onto a bed in fits of laughter.

"I can't believe he bought that excuse!" Ginny pants between gusts of giggles, dragging herself upright. She knows her brothers are willfully blind to large parts of her life, but this was even more ridiculous than usual.

Hermione shakes her head. "Honestly, checking to see if I had a Billywig sting behind my ear? With your tongue? Where do you come up with these things?"

"Practice. A lot of practice. You try living with the twins and see if you don't learn how to lie." Ginny leans over and gathers Hermione's hair in her hands, running her fingers through the bushy, crinkled strands. Hermione leans back, letting Ginny's fingertips massage her scalp. Ginny has practiced this over the past month and knows which spots to press, and how hard, to make Hermione melt.

"It wasn't a very good lie," Hermione says.

Ginny shrugs, wiggling forward on Hermione's bed until she can wrap her legs around the other girl and tug Hermione's head back to rest on her shoulder. She looks down into Hermione's upturned face.

"It's Ron," Ginny says. "He doesn't want to know the truth -- and he's so dense we could strip and have wild, passionate sex in front of him, and he'd still think it was either a hallucination or some plot by Malfoy."

Hermione giggles wildly. "Merlin, can you imagine his face?"

"Oh yeah." Ginny smiles as Hermione starts rubbing her hands up and down Ginny's legs, her fingers drifting up under Ginny's skirt. "I wonder what Harry would say if he were there?"

Hermione gets the thoughtful pout and the tiny frown line between her eyes that Ginny adores. She used to love Harry's serious expressions, the way his green eyes narrow in worry or anger or determination, but now she thinks Hermione's figuring-things-out expression is even better.

Because Hermione can solve problems before they grow into crises. Hermione noticed that Ginny had stopped pretending to chase Dean Thomas and was sending her meaningful looks this summer. And Hermione tries to figure out how to make Ginny happy, instead of just saving her almost-too-late from evil diaries, dragging her off to rescue people who don't actually need rescuing, and forgetting that she exists most of the time.

"Maybe we should try it in front of Harry," Hermione says slowly, hands resting on Ginny's thighs. "Not stripping, but a kiss -- a serious kiss. If nothing else it might knock him out of his sulking..."

Ginny knows that trailing silence. There's something on the end of that sentence, something Hermione isn't sure Ginny will want to hear.

"And what's the best-case scenario?" she asks, hands drifting downward to massage Hermione's shoulders, the steady contact silently whispering that she's willing to listen.

"He might let us... cheer him up... together."

Ginny considers this, hands slowing. Kiss in front of the boys and drag their relationship into the open. Shock Ron into realizing that she's fifteen now and can make her own choices in life. Shock Harry out of his self-imposed gloom. Keep bringing out Hermione's wicked streak, even though her girlfriend still has to wrap her mischievous impulses inside her mother-hen streak to justify them to herself. Maybe even get to 'cheer up' Harry -- Ginny smiles at the euphemism, wondering how she spent so many years not noticing how adorably shy Hermione can be. Just like Harry, actually...

"Eh," Ginny says, bending down to kiss Hermione's forehead, "why not? It could be fun."

After all, she tries to make Hermione happy too. And she does still love Harry's eyes.

---------------------------------------------

End