Of Rhyme and Reason

At twelve, she started having dreams, dreams about what Tom had made her do, what he had done to her. She didn't know if they were dreams or memories, she had no mean to be sure, and nobody to talk to. She started fearing the evenings when she would have to go to bed. Little by little, one dream imposed itself. She almost talked about it to her mom but feared she would be disgusted with her daughter. She wondered if it was possible to dream so vividly about something you had never done.

At thirteen, she learned that she had a hymen, and that it would be broken when she first had sex. She checked it, awkwardly squatting on a mirror, and felt happy until she was fifteen.

That same year, she got groped in the rosebushes by Michael Corner and convinced herself that she loved him. They dated for the most part of her fourth year but there was neither passion nor tenderness. When Ron came to see her during Christmas break, while they were all at Sirius' place, they fought about it and when they stopped fighting she tried to kiss him, just because in one hour she had felt more than she had in almost one year with Michael, and her soul and body had demanded a kiss. Later on, she would smile about it, and blush about it, glad that Ron didn't seem to think any less of her for it. When she saw Michael again after break she couldn't stand him any longer, and even though she had planned to let him have her she couldn't go through with it.

When she broke up with him she realized she couldn't stand to be alone, so when Dean started talking to her out of nowhere one evening, she thought he was everything that Michael wasn't and tried to seduce him. Dean had been only too happy to succumb.

Dean was intelligent, artistic, tender, funny and caring, the Dream Date in every aspect, but Ginny didn't fall in love with him, and a few months into her fifth year she realized he wasn't in love with her (at least, not anymore). He started acting towards her with a brotherly tenderness, and Ginny broke it up once more, thinking that she already had Ron for that.

At Christmas that same year, Hermione offered her a book about witches through the centuries. In it, Ginny discovered that there existed an old charm to put the hymen back together; Arabian witches still used it a lot to be deemed pure before their marriage. She threw up all over her bed that day, and remained in bed for the whole of the Christmas holidays, pale and apathetic. Hermione spent a lot of time with her, trying to know what was wrong, what had happened, but Ginny wouldn't say.

Then Ron started coming to see her too, in the last days before classes begun again, because Harry was practising Quidditch almost day and night, preparing for the upcoming match against Slytherin, and trying to learn how to counter-curse while flying (Malfoy's hate towards him and thirst for revenge hadn't lessened when Lucius, unsurprisingly, had escaped from Azkaban). At first she didn't talk to him either, although she felt warm all over that he would care enough to come see her anyway. Then he brought up his chess game and forced her to play, and he got her to laugh and eat again, and she spent the very last day on the Quidditch pitch, following Ron's advice, flying for hours on end with Harry and feeling somewhat carefree again.

She spent a lot of time with Harry during those few months, she didn't know how it had happened but they were getting along great now, maybe because they didn't need to speak to understand each other (yes, after years of Harry seeing her only as blubbering idiot or not seeing her at all, he suddenly seemed to understand she was a human being on her own right, not just Ron's little sister). And when they spoke, they could speak about Voldemort without Ginny trembling like Hermione, or looking uncomfortable like Ron. She didn't tell Harry everything, of course, but she knew he felt better having somebody to come to when he had dreams, or just angst crisis.

But when spring came, she suddenly started having dreams again, those awful dreams, and she couldn't stand being alone anymore, alone in her bed, so she started dating. She tried to find boys who would go in her bed but not ask too much or do too much, but she somehow ended up always picking up jerks who tried to force her and called her a slut when they left her behind, always having done more than she wanted to.

She started fighting with Ron then, about her boyfriends and why she kept dating those guys when everybody in the school knew how they were. She would never admit it but she loved those fights. She always got a thrill when Ron burst in the room, cheeks ablaze with anger, promising that he would kill the bastard and lock her up in her room until she stopped acting stupid, giving herself (he had gone even redder at those words, suddenly afraid of how much he might be right) to people who didn't deserve to even look at her.

Just to piss her brother off, she tried to seduce Draco Malfoy and somewhat succeeded, seeing him after hours in cold dark corridors. He was surprisingly gentle and kept his cynicism for daylight, and when he broke up with her after two weeks he didn't tell her why, but she was thankful he never spoke about it to anybody, when he could have shunned the fact that he had dated her by calling her the names she was so used to by then.

Despite her original plan she never dared telling Ron, and a week later started dating Seamus. He was the first Gryffindor boy she had dated since Dean, because seeing guys outside her own house made it easier, and made it harder for Ron take his anger out on them.

Ron wasn't exactly happy when he learned the news (Dean wasn't exactly happy either, Ginny soon realized), but at least he never shouted at Seamus. And he had no reason to, either. Seamus treated her even better than Dean, better than Draco. He saw her both as sister, friend and lover, he was fun in life and in bed, showed her stuff that had made her disgusted before in a whole new light and she knew if he didn't really Love her, he still loved her a lot.

They wrote to each other through the summer and she even went to his place for two weeks. But back at Hogwarts, for her sixth year, things started looking bleaker with each day that passed and you couldn't feel safe at school anymore, because Voldemort's shadow was suddenly spreading everywhere. She kept dating Seamus but got closer to Harry, because the outside war (it really was a war now) was making a mess of him, and he kept pushing Ron and Hermione away.

He would tell her that he didn't know if he wanted to fight or to hide, and that it made him feel ashamed. He also felt increasingly guilty, because he had somehow gotten into his head that Voldemort himself was all his fault. Ginny would shout at him at first, trying to hammer reason back into him, then she learned to just listen, Harry's head naturally coming to rest in her lap, his eyes staring not at her face but at the ceiling (or the sky, when they were on the Quidditch pitch) as he got all his nightmares and anguish out of him and shared them with her. And then she would go to Seamus to relax and cuddle, listening to his silly stories and feeling safe for a while.

One of those evenings on the Quidditch pitch, after dinner, Ron came to look for Harry and found them talking peacefully in the stands. He had looked oddly embarrassed at first, then, as they made their way back to the castle, he had barely said a word to Harry or to her, looking sulky. When Ginny had thought back about it, later on while lying in her (empty) bed, she had felt oddly pleased by this, even though she couldn't have said why.

A few days later Harry let it drop in the conversation that Ron was acting a bit distant these days, he didn't know why.

Two weeks later, one week before the Christmas holidays, Ginny and Seamus decided to break up. They were still getting along marvellously, but somehow Seamus' attentions and comfort had become unbearable to Ginny, making her ache for a reason she could not fathom. He wasn't enough anymore, and at the same time he was too much. She thought she would figure it out in time, and fell asleep at times longing for warmth both familiar and unknown.

When she casually mentioned her break-up at dinner one day, Ron's eyes flashed up to hers, then he almost glared at Harry, who happened to be sitting next to Ginny and glancing at her quite often. Ginny shrugged it off, but still that warmth was spreading in her stomach, when a few years before Ron's behaviour would have annoyed her to no end.

And then they all came back home for Christmas, while Harry went to Lupin's, for Dumbledore had deemed his place safer than the Burrow. Hermione was with her parents, even though she had looked reluctant to leave her friends in such dire times. Voldemort didn't know the Christmas spirit, or had a twisted view of it, and the war was raging more than ever, casualties increasing with each week that passed, and the Order's missions getting more and more perilous. Ginny wished Harry could have come with them, because she knew he must feel awful all alone. So she wrote to him every day, and he never failed to write back, and they both felt better.

It had been four days they were home and Ron had barely talked to her, not writing to Harry and refusing to read the letters he wrote to Ginny, no matter how many times she told him he could read them. He seemed to blame her for leaving Seamus, which she couldn't understand. Of course, she wasn't blind, she knew he didn't like her and Harry getting so close (truth was, he probably already thought they were dating in his back). She liked thinking he was jealous of Harry, though she would never admit it.

Ginny Weasley had known many men. There was Tom, who cheated her, used her, and destroyed her. There was Michael and the nameless others that had followed his path, guys she wanted to use and who had ended up using her. There were Dean, and Seamus, who loved her, comforted her and gave her pleasure, but who had both been too much and not enough at the same time. And there was Harry, who was so different she couldn't even define him, whom she wanted to both protect and shake, but who she knew she couldn't love, not yet.

And now, aged sixteen, she realized there was also Ron, who was everything she had sought in the others, and some of the things she had found. She also knew that she had never truly loved anyone, that she might die soon, and that she couldn't afford to push away the only person she had ever truly needed in her life, no matter how wrong it would be not to do so.

'o'-'o'-'o'

She was clutching the letter in her hand when Ron turned to look at her, looking nothing short of horrified, all colours drained from his face and his hands visibly shaking. She had come in his room to have a talk, because she couldn't stand his silence and avoidance anymore, and when she had seen him writing she didn't want to interrupt, thinking that maybe he was at long last giving Harry news. She had tiptoed to his desk and peered over his shoulder, and she had had barely time to read two sentences when he pushed the paper aside and stopped writing. He clearly didn't know she was there and curiosity got the better of her, and she read the parchment (most of it). When she understood what it was all about she unconsciously slipped the letter from the table to see it from closer, and Ron started writing again, muttering the words out loud.

It all happened in a few seconds and though what went through her mind would have filled hours with its complexity. Suddenly she understood that warmth she felt when Ron got upset about her "love" life, she understood that it was that same warmth she had been seeking for the past year or so, she understood why Dean had annoyed her and why Seamus had made her ache, and she felt both horrified and soothed, because at least, now, for the first time in five years, she knew where she stood, what she could have and what she wanted. But she didn't know how to get it, or how to say it.

Ron was about to faint, she knew it, and she knew if she didn't talk it would make matters worse, but she couldn't for the life of her think of something else to say. Then Ron got up, his body violently shaking from head to toe, and snatched the letter from her; it fell on the ground, his hand incapable of holding on to it. Before she could do anything Ron spoke, his voice nothing more than a croak.

"Please don't tell it to the others..." he begged, and tears were spilling out on his cheeks as he looked away from his sister, thinking he knew now what a Dementor's kiss might feel like. Like everything had been sucked out of you, both solid and ethereal, and that you were now so empty that your body would surely collapse on itself any moment.

With the calm and determination of somebody too dazed to think, Ginny turned around, locked the door and soundproofed the room, before walking to her still trembling, still crying brother, pulling him to his bed. He was too weak to fight and sat on it with a "thump", staring at the floor, ashen-white. Ginny gingerly sat beside him, gazing at his profile with worry, still unsure of how she should act. She couldn't stand to see him in so much pain and she couldn't fathom how to tell him that it was all okay, that she understood, that she would (could) never hate him, that she loved him so much. So she did the only thing she could think of. She made Ron lie down and put his head in her lap, stroking his hair and wiping his tears away as they fell, her right hand resting on his shaking chest.

When Ron finally stopped crying, he was curled up on the bed, his face pressed against Ginny's stomach, one hand clenched around the fabric of her sweater. The sky was darkening outside but nobody had come looking for them yet. Molly and Arthur were both away for the entire day anyway, and probably the night. There was a reunion in Grimmauld Place that evening.

"Do you hate me?" Ron finally asked, his voice muffled against Ginny's sweater.

Her hand stilled in his hair, then slid down to his cheek. "Of course not," she whispered, and the sound of her own voice almost startled her after so much silence. "I told you you shouldn't be sorry," she added, even more softly.

Ron sat up, leaving Ginny's comforting warmth reluctantly, and looked down at his knees. "Of course I should be sorry. I am sorry," he said adamantly, his features hardening. "I'm sick," he said in a hissing whisper, his right hand clenching around his left one almost painfully.

"Then I'm sick too," Ginny said simply, putting her hand on Ron's knee and leaning closer to him.

Ron's eyes widened and he roughly put her hand away from him, shaking his head. "You don't know what you're saying," he said.

"I know perfectly well what I'm saying," Ginny said softly but firmly, putting her hand back on Ron's thigh and placing his own hand atop hers.

They fell silent again, Ron's palm clammy against her skin.

"Hey," Ginny finally said. Ron looked completely lethargic. She inched closer and softly turned his face toward her under the pretext of tucking his hair back behind his ear, on the side of his face she couldn't see.

She gazed up at his face, taking in every little detail, details that she had always known by heart but which suddenly seemed different. She guessed he would always look different from now on.

"Don't do it," Ron whispered pleadingly, but he didn't move away from her, instead tilting his head slightly to the side.

She knew she was going to kiss him, and she wanted to do it, but she couldn't bring herself to actually do it. She had done this so many times but this time it meant a lot more than with the others, and for the first time she felt intimidated. She also wondered how it would feel. Would it feel gross? Would it feel like it felt the last times she kissed Dean, like kissing one's best friend, completely devoid of sexual tension or even pleasure? Or would it feel nice? She hoped it would feel nice, although she guessed the best would be if it grossed them out, because then they wouldn't have to feel bad anymore, it would all be over.

Ron's head inched closer ever-so-slightly and Ginny closed the gap, their lips meeting and yet barely touching at first. Warmth swept through her body and she kissed him again, pressing her lips against his, almost trembling with fright. Because it did feel nice. It felt amazing.

"See?" she said softly when the kiss ended, their noses touching. "No thunder, no screams, nobody from the Ministry. It's okay..."

"No it's not okay!" Ron said, looking panicked and scooting away from his sister. Clouds were gathering in the evening sky and the room was dark now, but they didn't notice it.

Ginny sighed and sat further on the bed, her back against the wooden wall. She wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her chin on her knees and looked at Ron silently for a while. "Maybe it's not okay, but it felt so."

"That's...that's not a good enough reason," Ron whispered, looking disheartened.

Minutes passed slowly by, both teenagers frozen as in a Muggle picture, night softly falling onto the house.

"I'm tired," Ginny finally said, after what felt like one hour, maybe two.

"Me too," Ron mumbled. The room was completely dark now, only lightened now and then by the moon.

Ginny crawled under the covers and held them up, nudging Ron's leg with her foot. "Sleeping isn't against the law, right?"

Ron looked at her, seemed to hesitate, then crawled in beside her. Ginny curled up against him, nesting her head against his chest, her long red hair spread on the pillow.

They dozed off for a while. Ron, after what seemed an eternity, finally dared wrapping an arm around Ginny's waist, feeling relieved when the gesture didn't look more than a brotherly one. He wanted to think about everything but his brain didn't comply, instead sending him in a kind of limbo where the only thing he could feel, touch and hear was his almost sleeping sister.

The clouds had dissipated when Ginny finally looked up at Ron.

She didn't flinch once, didn't stop gazing into Ron's eyes while her hand gently made its way down Ron's body, barely touching it, before tracing his belt and fumbling with the buckle. Ron's hand shot down under the covers and gripped her wrist painfully, keeping her fingers away from the half-undone leather band.

"What are you doing?!" he hissed, looking both panicked and frightened.

What had looked so obvious and simple mere seconds before suddenly seemed impossible to explain and Ginny stammered: "I...it's just..." She looked at him with almost imploring eyes before whispering: "I just wanted to make you feel good..." She didn't know why but she suddenly felt ashamed, and at the same time justified, like Ron should have expected this to happen. That was what he wanted, after all, wasn't it?!

Ron's face went stern and he refastened his belt with frantic hands, shaking his head as much as he could while lying on his side. "You don't...you mustn't...you can't do that!!" he exclaimed, his chin wobbling. "Ginny you mustn't do that!"

"Why?" Ginny asked, feeling rebellious. "Isn't it what you wanted?"

"No!!" Ron said, shaking his head again. "I don't...I...Ginny you don't have to do that. I don't want you to do that."

His eyes were alive with fear and he seemed on the verge of spasms again, so Ginny wrapped her arm around his waist and pushed him against her, pulling his head up against her shoulder and whispering again and again, "Okay, I won't do it. I won't do it, I swear. I won't try it again."

"You mustn't do that..." Ron whispered one last time, after endless minutes of comforting words and gestures from his sister. He closed his eyes and put his head back on the pillow, blindly groping for Ginny's thin hand.

She kissed him, even though she knew it would probably undo all her soothing work and belie her promise, but she just had to kiss him. She thought Ron would push her away once again, but he didn't, instead sliding his hand behind her neck, his lips answering to hers in a sad, hopeless kiss, a comforting embrace meant to erase its very own induced trauma.

But comfort soon turned to something bigger, something sensual, like all kisses should be. When Ron half-rolled on her Ginny only kissed him harder, opening her mouth in a silent authorisation. They weren't brother and sister anymore, they couldn't be. Ron kept his eyes tightly shut, not wanting reality to intrude, not when Ginny's fingers on his neck were giving him such warm shivers.

"Is it bad of me, trying to pretend you're not my sister?" he whispered a few seconds later, back on his side.

"I don't know," Ginny whispered back. Her lips were still tingling, but the warmth which had spread inside of her stomach was turning sneakily into dreadful cold. She willed the cold to warm back up, pleading with her mind to forget about family. "Maybe it's still better than if you enjoyed the fact that I happen to be your sister..."

"I guess," Ron said, but he didn't look reassured at all. It was so weird, to feel so hopeless and so nice at the same time. He wanted to turn to Ginny as his sister, to confide in her how horrible he felt right then, and at the same time he needed to have her as everything but his sister, to comfort him in ways only a lover could do. His heart was trapped in a short, endless circle, like a Phoenix bursting into flames only to reborn from its ashes, going in a smooth spin of pleasure merging into pain, solace into despair.

Ginny started sprinkling soft kisses on his face and once again Ron didn't push her away; he needed the caresses and love too much. However, when Ginny pulled her sweater off and started unbuttoning her white cotton shirt, he caught her hands in his again, although gently this time.

Just as gently, Ginny freed her hands and finished opening her shirt, before placing Ron's right hand on her bare, warm stomach, covering it with hers.

"You said you wouldn't try again..." Ron breathed.

"I'm not trying to touch you, am I?" Ginny said innocently, her gaze keeping Ron from looking down. She kissed him again, and for a long time she didn't move his hand, not wanting to scare him.

After a while, she slid it up a few inches, stopping on her ribs, feeling Ron's hand slightly trembling beneath hers. "It's okay," she whispered between two kisses. "It's nothing."

And they both wanted to believe that, of course, so Ron didn't reply anything.

Ginny was starting to feel angry at her own conscience. It had never piped up when she dated all those jerks, did all those things when most of the time she was everything but ready to do them. Now she was ready, and she knew exactly how much she wanted, and where she wanted to stop. So why couldn't her stupid conscience shut up?! What did she care that Ron was her brother, that society would crucify them if it ever knew? There was a war outside, and there wasn't a more dangerous place to be than at the sides of Harry Potter, where they would both stand when the time came. She wasn't sure if the war justified everything, but she didn't even want it to justify everything. She loved Ron because she loved him, not because she was afraid.

Ron didn't even see her unhooking her bra, didn't realize until suddenly his palm was pressed against her breast. He broke the kiss and gasped, looking livid.

She had one of those bras that open on the front. Seamus had convinced her to buy a few, for obvious convenience, and right then it was both her salvation and her loss. She knew Ron would have never let her strip, and she wanted him to touch her. But then, she thought maybe it would all have been better if she hadn't been able to do it so sneakily.

"You don't..." Ron started, but it was Ginny's turn to shake her head.

"It's nothing," she said again, taking her hand away from Ron's, who didn't remove it from her warming flesh. "I just want...I just want you to touch me. Just a little..." she whispered, feeling her cheeks heating up with shame and shyness.

Ron opened his mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say. His eyes slowly travelled down to his sister's chest and he gulped down, feeling his stomach clenching. He shouldn't do that. They shouldn't do that. It was wrong, it was bad, it was against everything their parents had taught them.

When Ron's lips brushed against her skin Ginny gasped, her hand clenching around a fistful of his hair, her other hand immediately coming to rest against his cheek in a silent reassurance that she was okay, that he could, should, go on. His touch was slow and shy, as if he was discovering a woman's breasts for the very first time, although Ginny knew that it was Hermione who had shown him this first.

It was a devastating pleasure, a strong one, making her middle ache with need, and at the same time it was soft, unhurried, something that didn't ask to be turned into more, that sufficed to itself, not like foreplay with Seamus had always lead to sex itself, no matter how tired they might have been.

Soon Ginny felt the soft touch of water on her skin, and soon after that Ron started sobbing against her breast, his sadness spreading around her nipple, penetrating her flesh. He stopped tasting her with a sniffle, resting his cheek on her ribcage and tracing circles around the wet, dark pink nipple as if to soothe himself. His sobs quietly faded and stopped, and he wasn't crying anymore when he asked: "What are we going to do now?"

Ginny felt her heart skip a bit at that decisive admittance that too much had changed, that they wouldn't, couldn't go back anymore. She expected to feel scared but she didn't, although she knew the light of day would most probably show everything in a whole new light, a crude light that would hurt them deeply. But she didn't care. They didn't need to love each other during daylight anyway, they could just meet at night, forget they were siblings, that they were wrong. Yes, she thought, staring at the ceiling, her hand coming to stroke Ron's hair reassuringly. They would reveal themselves in the night, always in the night. During day she would see him as her brother, she wouldn't even have to force herself, and he would do the same.

"We'll never be alone anymore," she said, which wasn't at all the right answer, and yet answered the right question.

Ron came back up to lie at her side and kissed her softly on the lips, before helping her to redo her shirt. They fell asleep in each others arms, after Ginny had undone both the silencing and locking spells, uncaring if anybody walked in to find them sleeping together. Who would ever suspect the truth anyway?

...