Maybe Even Love

Maybe Even Love

"I think..." she begins, and then pauses moodily. "I think I may..."
He wonders what could possibly be so difficult to say.

"I may... like you." She frowns off into space, as though scolding this peculiar thought that has weaseled its way into her brain, full of dangerous meanings, dangerous implications. He raises his eyebrows, drawing his fingers through his scattered black hair and squinting into the sunlight. He cannot decide what he thinks of this glacial finish to her confession of love, but if it is true he will be happy. He doesn't know when he realized it, but right now he loves her.

"How flatteringly phrased," he murmurs, matching her detachment to the final freezing degree. She reaches with one hand, and draws his head down to look into his eyes. She is solemn, which secretly bewilders him. In this rare calm, the usual twinkle of her light step, her bewitching eyes, her fiery hair, has fallen away to reveal a beautiful ease. She looks, not like the pixie of a girl he has become enamored of, but like a woman of vast experience and endlessly deprecating understanding. This new layer of her, months in the revealing, draws him deeper into the spell of emotion she has cast on his all too willing heart.

"It's true," she murmurs simply, the lack of laughter in her voice proving more than her puzzling statement ever might have. He draws his hand down her cheek gently, and then reaches to encircle her waist with both his long arms.

She leans in slowly, and his brain shivers like jello as their eyes meet and hold, each the picture of gravity. She lays a chaste kiss on his cheek, and as she pulls back he realizes exactly what she has done, or rather what she has not done. He grimaces slightly.

"You are," he begins, anger fading into his voice. "Impossible."

She raises an eyebrow slowly, a bit of her usual smirking twinkle visible behind the veil of severity she has chosen to display to him.

He lets out a profound sigh, which does not ease the confusion in him at all. She is still in his encircling arms, and he hates it. Where has all her energy disappeared to? He cannot understand where the girl he knows and loves has gone. His eyes harden in a flash of anger, and suddenly he is desperate to jolt her out of her bewildering detachment. He grabs her face between his large, sun-stained hands, and presses his mouth to hers.

She shivers and puts her arms around his neck, refusing to let go. When finally they break apart, she meets his eyes and then lets out a wash of giggles. He sighs contentedly, for she has returned to him.

"You passed!" she cries exuberantly.

'What?" he cries, unwilling to let her go.

"You did it. You never gave up on me!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demands.

"I wasn't sure how much you liked me, or even knew me, and I meant to find out," she explains simply, staring into his face and daring him to protest.

"Well. Um. Okay, but..." he is groping for the words he needs. "Don't toy with me anymore, all right? I can't really take it."

"Well, don't expect me to be bouncing off walls every moment of my life," she warns, a wash of irritation slipping over her features."But okay. I pledge to be true to you, Harry Potter, from this day on," she proclaims, a bit of her former solemnity returning to her voice. Then she grins and places her mouth on his.

"I love you," he murmurs into her ear.

"Well," she says, pulling back a little. "I certainly like you..." His arms tighten warningly about her waist. "Yes, I may even love you."

He smiles and she presses into his embrace.

"Ginny Weasley, girl I adore," he murmurs into her ear as they walk hand in hand towards the castle they inhabit. "You are completely insane."