Perfect Imperfections

Perfect Imperfections

Ginny:

I've known that Jade Latimer was something special ever since I first saw her, back when I was a first-year Gryffindor meeting the first-year Slytherins for the expected initial conflict. They were taunting my friends and I, nothing unusual there, but Jade stepped in, not defending us so much as telling them to learn to do as they were told. She was establishing herself as someone you obeyed without question, I have no illusions about that, but she also flashed me- not the others, me, a small, fleeting smile.

She fascinated me. She was everything I wasn't, everything I could never be. She was delicately beautiful (at least to my eleven year old mind), smart, confident, and she had this aura of great power about her, that she appeared to pull close like a cloak. I didn't realize it then, but she did this to protect herself from the world. The world that, though I didn't know it, had been cruel to her.

I studied her, wanting to emulate her but fearing greatly to do so. I thought that maybe Harry would like me if I were more like Jade Latimer. I never did find out, and after a while I stopped caring.

It took time, but eventually I grew up. I grew up and knew that Jade Latimer was simply another person- a remarkable person, but a person still. I grew up and, instead of wanting to be like her, I wanted to know her, to be her friend.

In my fifth year, I came to know that I wanted to be more then just her friend. I wanted to be her everything.

I was in love. Yes, you heard correctly, Virginia Weasley was completely catch drunk in love with a female Slytherin.

Jade:

When I was a second year- a lonely second year that had only one friend in the entire world, a boy named Draco Malfoy- I saw Ginny Weasley for the first time. Her hair was what caught my attention initially, a mass of fiery red waves. Gorgeous hair, really. That was when I noticed the Slytherins harassing her. Well, I couldn't allow someone that young and that pretty to be troubled so much before they even had a chance to start out. So, I intervened, twisting it to look like I was establishing myself as a leader of the house. Which I was, a Slytherin is a Slytherin no matter what, but I had other motives. The children left, doing as I said, and I turned to go, too. But before I did, I looked her in the eye and smiled quickly. Her eyes lit up.

After that day, I made it my duty to protect Ginny. I did this silently, of course, no one ever knew, save perhaps Draco, but I did it. It made me feel better about not being able to be her friend.

From a safe distance, I watched her childish crush on Harry Potter with disdain. It didn't occur to me then, but I was distinctly jealous, especially after the Chamber of Secrets thing when she looked at him with complete adoration.

Then, one day, early into my sixth year, I glanced over and saw Ginny talking to Harry Potter. She wasn't stuttering or blushing or looking doting. She was smiling openly, talking freely, and looking only like a very good friend of his. I knew that her crush had ended, that, maybe, at fifteen, she'd begun to grow up.

It happened gradually, over so long a period of time that I don't know when it began. But happen it did.

I fell in love with her.

Ginny:

When Harry and Draco got together and Harry made it his mission of the day to get Jade and I together, I thought that it was a plan doomed to failure. Well, I was wrong. There, I've admitted it.

We met in the rose gardens (leave it to Harry and Draco to find a place like that) and, well, just looked at each other for a few minutes. Then, Jade spoke.

"You've got really beautiful hair,"

"Thank you, I like yours better," I went a bit red, but plunged on recklessly, "It looks like satin when the sun hits it."

Her voice was thoughtful, "No one's ever said anything like that to me before, thank you," she smiled and I relaxed.

"It's true," I glanced down at the ground, finding some comfort in staring at the path.

There was a long pause in which we both smiled nervously at each other. Again, Jade was the one to break the silence, this time more hesitantly, but growing bolder as she went.

"I can't offer you security. I can't offer you that perfect life with the perfect job and the perfect relationship. I can't promise you tomorrow. Or even today. What I can offer you is walks in the moonlight. Romantic evenings and long talks. I can promise you some of the best moments of your life. I may not be able to give you tomorrow, but I can give you right now," she stopped.

At first, I didn't know what to say. Then, it hit me; I didn't need any of the things she couldn't give me. I didn't need security, a perfect life, a perfect job. I didn't need a promise of tomorrow, or today. What she could give me was more then enough.

She was waiting for a response.

I smiled and said simply, "That's enough."

Jade:

It took half a second for her words to hit home. When they did, I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed her: softly, sweetly, slowly.

And I knew that, no matter what happened, no matter if the world fell apart the next day, we had the now.

And that was perfection.