All of This

I glanced at the little Muggle alarm clock Dad had gotten me for my birthday. Nearly 2 a.m. I sighed and started to toss my book aside, but didn't. I'd had trouble sleeping for nearly a year. One thing made it possible for me to maybe rest easier that night. Harry had come to spend the rest of summer vacations with us.

I felt safer having Harry in the Burrow, knowing he was a few flights upstairs, safely asleep in Ron's bedroom. Like I could keep an eye on him, like nothing bad would happen to him as long as he was in this house. In the back of my mind, I knew that wasn't exactly true. The past few years had taught me that anything could happen at any time, but knowing Harry was close by and out of harm's way for now gave me some peace.

One of the candles hovering above my bed flickered and sputtered out. Just as I was reaching into the drawer of my bedside table for a fresh one, there was a soft knock on my door.

"Ginny, are you asleep? I see lights in there," Harry said quietly, just incase I was, in fact, asleep.

I jumped out of bed and tiptoed as quickly as I could to the door. "Yeah, I'm awake," I said as I opened it.

Harry stood before me in his pajamas and dressing gown, pale and sleepy looking.

"Can I hang out in here for a while?" he asked. "Only, you know, Ron's just getting over his cold and he's snoring like a hippogriff."

I snorted and opened the door wider, inviting Harry inside. "That's one of the advantages of being the only girl in this family," I told him. "I've never had to share a room with anyone."

"Don't any of the girls in your dorm ever snore?" he asked curiously as he sat down on my bed.

"Snoring is unladylike," I teased and grabbed the candle I needed. I lit it with the Muggle matches that Dad insisted on keeping around the house and placed it in the Permanent Hovering Charm dad had put above the head of my bed for occasions such as this.

Harry plucked the burned down stub out of the air, absentmindedly pressing the soft wax into an abstract shape. "Do you always read by candle light?" he asked, nodding towards the book lying on my pillow.

"Yeah, pretty much," I said. I crawled onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard. I gazed up at the floating candles and sighed. "It's soft, you know? Candle light doesn't glare off paper, and I like to read before I go to sleep."

Harry nodded and remained quiet for so long I considered picking up my book again, just to have something to do besides sit and stare at the flickering shadows on my wall.

After what seemed like several minutes, Harry tossed the lump of wax into the basket beside my door that served as a rubbish bin. He turned to face me, took a deep breath and said very quickly, "I need to ask a favor of you."

"Sure, Harry, what is it?" I asked, leaning forward curiously.

"I want ... no, I need -- " he faltered and took another deep breath. "Do you ever get lonely? Like, so lonely you feel like you need some sort of human contact or you'll die?"

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly. An odd sort of heat crept from my chest into my face.

"I mean ... I don't know what I mean, really." He closed his eyes for a moment, to gather his thoughts, I guess. When he opened them, he looked directly at me. I had always admired Harry's eyes. The green was so vivid I always thought somehow that a color like that should be impossible. But now it wasn't just the shade of his eyes that captured me. It was something in them.

"Ginny ... there isn't anyone else I would ask this of."

I felt an electric shock run through my body as his hand wrapped around mine and gently pulled me closer to him.

"Just what are you asking?" I said nervously. I could barely hear my own voice through the buzz of pleasant panic sounding in my ears.

"Not that," he said, shaking his head but never taking his eyes away from mine. "I don't know why, but I need to feel another person. I want someone next to me."

Before I knew it, I was lying down on my side with Harry nestled behind me. He draped his arm over me and laced his fingers through mine. He was so close I could feel his breath on my hair.

It was a dream and a nightmare all at the same time. A dream because Harry Potter, a boy I'd had some sort of romantic feelings for, for as long as I could remember, was lying beside me with his arms around me. A nightmare because it brought every ounce of other-than-friendly affection I'd had rushing back to the surface. I understood the need for human contact and comfort, but at that moment I found myself really hoping, for the first time in almost two years, that Harry could see me as something more than a friend, or his friend's little sister.

When Harry shifted aside my hair and planted a small kiss on the back of my neck, I shivered with mixed emotions. "Goodnight, Ginny," he whispered in my ear.

"Goodnight, Harry," I whispered back, biting my lip to control the tears of desperate confusion that threatened.

For two weeks it went on that way. I never quite got comfortable with it, but every night I found myself waiting up with a book, waiting for that soft knock on my door. Every night I would let Harry in, he would kiss me sweetly on the cheek, take my hand in his and we'd fall asleep in each other's arms.

During the day, we acted fairly normal, I think. I was so paranoid, I would have immediately noticed any sign of suspicion from my family. Thankfully, Ron was a deep sleeper and never heard Harry sneak out in the dead of night. Harry was such a light sleeper now he was awake at the first signs of movement within the house and was always out of my bedroom and back into Ron's before anyone was any the wiser.

I knew it couldn't go on like that forever. Being that innocent would have been laughable. Either someone would find out and we'd have a hell of a time explaining ourselves, it would have to stop, which I would hate, or it would have to move further.

Out of the three choices I saw, I, more than anything, wanted it to move further. Every night I was with Harry, I died a little more inside. The feelings I had been denying, trying to hide for so long, wouldn't stay hidden much longer.

I found myself extremely preoccupied wondering what would happen. I thought of things other girls I knew had said about boys, things I head read in books, trying to figure out what Harry was thinking.

I tried to imagine carrying on like that with someone I didn't have romantic feelings for, and I couldn't. Truth is, I couldn't imagine doing something like that with anyone other than Harry. I reasoned that that was probably a universal sentiment, and if Harry didn't, at the very least, feel some slight attraction to me, we would never have ended up spending every night together.

But still, I wondered how long it would be before I had my answer.