Kiss the Girl

Kiss the Girl

Chapter 9

Beginning to Crazy Glue Broken Hearts

***

You don't die of a broken heart, you only wish you did.

-Marilyn Peterson

***

Ron wished that the floor would open up and eat him. And not just eat him, mind you, but also crunch him up into itty-bitty pieces with razor sharp teeth so not even his remains could be seen.

Damn it, where was Hagrid and his pets when you need them?!

The voice that had inhabited Ron´s head all night seemed to have left. `It figures,´ Ron thought darkly, `that they´d both leave, why would any one stay?´ The forlorn figure eventually found his feet, and walked over to the booth where he and Hermione had been sitting. He felt numb now, totally and completely unfeeling. He doubted if he´d ever truly feel again.

***

"Oh my wizards..." Ginny finally said, after about ten minutes of shock and silence. Harry nodded beside her, unable to add anything more intelligent to the declaration. "She left. She just...left. After all our hard work...she left."

"Stop saying it, Ginny, please," Harry moaned.

"She left..."

"Ginny!"

"Sorry."

They sat there for another couple of minutes, watching Ron as he gulped down drink after drink. Of course, the drinks held only the tiniest bit of alcohol, but at the pace Ron was going it seemed he was trying valiantly to get himself drunk. "We should do something," Ginny gave Harry a look that plainly said, `You should do something, for I sure as bloody hell don´t want to.´

"Can´t I go have detention with Snape instead, it´s looking cheery at the moment," Harry began to work up the will to move, unsure which thought he´d follow through with.

"I´ll go with you," Ginny told him, standing up and waiting for him to do the same. "But we´d better hurry, he´s starting his fourth..." she trailed off, wondering if that was a martini Ron was holding. But surely nobody would give one to a fifteen year old! Ginny started to doubt that reasoning, observing that Ron was looking awfully pathetic over there.

Harry seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Let´s go," he said, sounding as if they were marching into war. Ginny nodded, trying not to let her legs win the battle to run away like Hermione. The two worked their way through the throng of dancing people, many of which were their peers. It seemed, however, none had witnessed Ron´s plight, or were too scared to admit they had.

At last, the duo stood before Ron. He didn´t even turn his head to them, just sighed. Harry sat down next to him, and Ginny across. Nobody said anything for a long time.

***

"We should go, the feast is starting in ten minutes," Ginny´s comment broke the silence like a chisel cracking into ice.

"I´m not going to the ruddy feast," Ron said sourly. Of course, he had ever right to be sour.

"Ron, it might be good for you. You´ll get your minds off things, and maybe you should eat something," Harry tried to sound like a nurturing friend, but thought he came off a bit desperate. `Which I am,´ he admitted to himself.

"Harry, after tonight...I want you to stop."

"Stop eating?" Harry wondered if the beverages Ron had consumed had managed to get to him.

"No. I want you to stop trying get Hermione and me together. We never would have worked anyway. We´re too different, and she obviously doesn´t want anything to do with me."

"Ron, that can´t be true!" Ginny exclaimed. "Harry and I were here the whole time and things were going wonderfully between you two."

"Wonderful seems to have a different meaning than what I thought it did," Ron said darkly.

"Ron, don´t..." Ginny looked at Harry for help, who was just as clueless as she.

"Ginny, I mean it. Both of you, promise me right here and now that you won´t try to set me up with Hermione."

Ginny looked ready to protest again, but Harry spoke before she could. "We promise, Ron."

"Good, I´m going back to the castle. I´m going to skip the feast and go to bed though, so you two have a good time." Ron waited for Harry to move so he could get out of the booth; Harry obliged. Ron walked towards the door a different person than he who had entered, his gait a little slower and his head a little lower. Ginny felt tears prickle in the back of her eyes, feeling guilty and not knowing why.

Ron had always been her favorite brother. Charlie and Bill had been more like uncles, already quite grown by the time she was born. The only time she really remembered spending with them as a child was during the short summer months between terms.

Percy was too bossy for anybody´s liking, especially Ginny´s. Though she´d endured all her life, learning from a very young age it would do little good to argue with him, Ginny wasn´t the type of girl who liked to be bossed around or manipulated. After the incident with Tom she had become especially loathe to do something she didn´t want to. This excluded, of course, such things as favors or chores, but could be applied to situations where a person was pressuring her to do something. Her entire family had taken little time to notice this after her second year (the discovery came via Fred and George, of course), and Ginny was known as person who could be extremely scary when she was angry, even by the twin´s standards.

Fred and George had each other, they didn´t need--or want, for that matter--to be anybody´s favorite. They took delight in causing chaos and didn´t want any extra-special bonds getting in the way of a good prank. Ginny had often wondered what would happen the first time they gave a No-Gravity Gummy Worm to their future intended.

Ron had always been a friend to her, though. He had never let her down, and Ginny had a feeling he never would. Their closeness in age was nice, too. The summer before her first year at Hogwarts he had spent hours comforting her and telling her all the wonderful things there were about Hogwarts, rarely mentioning any memories that had to with Voldemort--which is saying quite a lot, too, as most of them did.

"We´re just giving up then?" she couldn´t help but question Harry´s promise to Ron, especially when she was feeling more than ever that Hermione should be with her brother.

"No, not entirely." Harry stared out the window, watching Ron as he walked back to Hogwarts.

"Then why did you promise him, Harry?" Ginny was curious indeed.

"First off, I just have to say that even though I wasn´t particularly fond of watching my two best friends snog, I was hoping they would. With this in mind, I managed to keep my eyes open right before Ron tried to kiss Hermione."

"Harry, get on with it."

"Right, anyway, she leaned in at first. She wanted him to...you know..."

"Sweep her up in a romantic embrace that defied all time and space?" Ginny suggested casually.

Harry looked at her strangely, "Do you read romance novels or something?"

"I read one once, just to see what they were like," Ginny crossed her fingers under the table, deciding she was not ready to share with Harry the fact that she was an addict. In actuality, she was an expert when it came to heaving bosoms and reluctant damsels. Luckily, she had learned there was a fine line between the romance in the books and the romance of real life. For example, just how often did the dashing prince/celebrity/assortment of any other incredibly handsome men ever jump over a couch to confiscate their declarations of love?

Harry, blissfully unaware of Ginny´s trail of thought, seemed to take her answer with no qualms, and continued on.

"So, I think all we have to do is find out why Hermione left Ron, and then get her to tell Ron the reason."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "You, Mr. Potter, have become an all out matchmaker, even after Ron just tried to stomp it out of you."

"No! But don´t you see, it´s not matchmaking, it´s just finding out the problem, and besides, it´s been such a quiet year."

"That´s just because nobody´s tried to kill you yet!" Ginny´s eyes grew large as she began to stutter, "N-n-not that I meant that, well, I don´t mean to say--"

Harry cut her off. "Ginny, we all know that I´m devastatingly killable, and talking about it isn´t really that big of a deal. But perhaps we could just do so a little less."

"In the end, I don´t think you´ll have to worry, Harry." Ginny´s grew serious as she cautiously reached out a hand to put over Harry´s. She´d never been so bold before, and Harry wondered how she had managed to change it such a short amount of time. But then again, he had never really known her before this year. Harry felt a bit ashamed actually, of having never bothered to find out her real character after five years of friendship to her brother. Perhaps it was his fault she´d always been in the shadows. "Harry--you do realize how many people would do anything for you? Don´t you? There´s Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Mum, Dad, Hagrid, Professor Lupin..." Ginny neglected to mention herself.

"I know Ginny," Harry said, feeling that he should be the one to comfort her. He squeezed her hand. "But now I think it´s time to get back to Hogwarts. I think food deprivation has gotten to us all."

***

Ron sat and stared out the window in his empty dorm room. He hadn´t bothered to turn the light on, and was basking in the glow of the silver moonlight. It was oddly comforting, and he began to realize why Ginny always spent hours gazing at it at home. Charlie had gotten her started on it when they were all children, and the addiction had never gone away. Nor the one she had for romance novels, but that was another story.

The feast was definitely in progress downstairs, Ron realized. However, his crushed ego, not to mention heart, did not allow him to go enjoy it. The scene of Hermione running away from him kept replaying in his head like a History of Magic class. It even seemed to be in slow motion, and everybody had gathered deeper voices.

"I´m soooory..." said Hermione´s irrationally deep voice, then she turned and left at the pace of a snail. Ron thought that if she really had gone that slowly he could have caught her.

`And done what?´ he asked himself. `Stood there and made a fool of myself again! All this time I let Harry and Ginny convince me that she wanted more than friendship...I was so stupid!´ Ron looked at the moon, half expecting a reply. But the moon did nothing but shine brightly, never wavering. It´s steady light kept on glowing, and his depressing thought kept on coming.

What Hogwarts really needed was a school shrink.

***

Hermione sat and stared out the window in her empty dorm room. She had lit one solitary candle, and was attempting the process of writing an essay that was always assigned to those going into sixth year.

"I´m finally getting a head start on my summer work!" she said aloud, not listening to the very small part of her that wondered why in hell she was doing homework that wasn´t due for another year. It sounded very much like Ronald Weasley.

"Damn you, Ron!" she crumpled up the paper and threw it into the wastepaper basket by the door. The outburst was extremely uncharacteristic of the Gryffindor prefect, and would have had Lavender and Parvati banging on Madame Pomfrey--nay, Dumbledore´s door. Hermione Granger did not curse; she was supposed to be perfect. Not that perfect people almost kiss their best friends, she mused.

The night had been cruel to Hermione Granger, almost as cruel as she thought she had been to Ron.

"But I don´t care!" Hermione was talking out loud again, and tears were streaming down her face. "I have tons of reasons why I can´t be Ronald Weasley´s girlfriend, tons! I was stupid to ever go out tonight, stupid, stupid, stupid!" The girl gave up on staring and lay down on her bed, forcing her tears to retreat. Or at least endeavoring to.

***

Albus Dumbledore was in the middle of a particularly grand piece of asparagus when the absence of two of his students, as well as the despair of two more, came to his attention.

He chewed, then swallowed. That being completed, he began to study the faces of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Both looked tremendously dejected, as if their favorite Quidditch team had been just lost a game 580 to zero. He remembered when the incident had happened to him, when he was just a little boy.

Zoning back in to the problem at hand, Dumbledore began to put the pieces together. He´d been watching the ongoing relationship of Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger for years now, and found the pair quite amusing. It wasn´t many student couples that could cause such interest in the man, and there hadn´t been one at Hogwarts since Lily Evans and James Potter, which could emit chuckles from him even in the bleakest of times. He´d used the trick at his sister´s husband´s uncle´s funeral, even though it had not been a particular bleak time for him. It had worked wonders.

The present couple, if one could really call them that, were obviously not skipping the feast to hold a clandestine meeting of great romance in some closet or another, but were having issues. He used the word issues lightly, remembering an "issue" that had involved a frying pan and James Potter´s head. He winced just thinking about it.

Perhaps he´d have to investigate the situation a little more, the man thought, as he took another bite of his asparagus.