...Something For The Weekend?

Ginny's Tale

I had lunch with Hermione on Friday. I've finally finished the first stage of my curse breaker training - two months that felt like twenty - and I celebrated with lunch with my best friend.

She talked about Ron, of course, about all the wonderful things that he does for her. I'm delighted that my brother has turned out so well. Certainly when we were kids and he tried to convince me to be the Quaffle in a game of Quidditch, I didn't imagine him turning into the sensitive, kind, loving man that Hermione describes.

I think that Hermione and I get to see two very different sides of Ron.

It's quite sweet, the way Hermione talks about Ron. I must admit, though, that after a while it grates slightly. She's so very much in love with my brother, and he comes up with all these grand gestures that Hermione loves to talk about. In anyone else, it might be them trying to prove how wonderful their boyfriend is. In Hermione, I know it's just that she loves Ron every bit as much as he loves her.

But I'd like to set one thing straight. Harry Potter is a wonderful boyfriend, the best in the world. Ron, my brother, Harry's best friend and also my best friend's boyfriend, seems to get all the good press nowadays, probably because he loves to surprise Hermione with big displays of how much he cares for her.

Harry's never been like that, but he's always been the introvert to Ron's extrovert. What he feels for me is just for the two of us. He doesn't get the credit that Ron does because he's so quiet and because I love having the memories all to myself to treasure.

So, I hope you don't mind if I set things a little straighter.

Ron's very proud of the Quidditch Ball last year, winning Hermione back after she broke up with him.

But it was Harry who got him that ticket.

And it was Harry who gave him pointers in what to say, and what to do. You may notice that part missing from Ron's retelling of the story. That's because Harry swore him to secrecy. Ron learned his lesson from that mess, happily.

It was also Harry who talked Ron through the morning after he kissed Hermione for the first time. My brother, the supposed Casanova, is not so forthcoming about the way in which he refused to go down to the dormitory because he was so scared of facing Hermione.

Harry also reunited the two of them when we all got plastered on Firewhiskey the night of Voldemort's defeat and the two of them had a huge row.

I ask you, why then, of all times? And what did they do to deserve a friend who'd go from defeating a Dark Lord to banging their heads together?

What did I do to deserve a boyfriend that wonderful?

Even after three years, I still don't know. Whenever I ask, Harry says that I'm the only one who always knew the real him, but I didn't, not at first. I do now, but in my first year at Hogwarts. . .

But that doesn't matter now. I don't care what people think about Harry. I know the truth.

I know that Harry flew up to my window through the worst thunderstorm in nearly a decade last Valentine's Day to give me a single pink rose.

I know that a year after our first kiss, Harry gave me his Firebolt to fly against Hufflepuff because my broom got snapped. And he flew the match on a school broom. And he still caught the Snitch.

And I know that six months later, when Dumbledore was killed and Harry had to defend the rest of us from Voldemort's first attack on the school, I know that he was nearly killed protecting a first year who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I know that he came to my room that night - I don't know how he got past the wards around the girls' rooms, and he never did it again - and just held me. I don't know how he knew I was scared, but he did and I've never felt so safe as that night.

And I know that when Voldemort attacked the school the second time and he carried Harry off to the Department of Mysteries again, I know the big secret of how Harry defeated Voldemort. I know something that Ron and Hermione don't know, that Professor McGonagall and Professor Lupin don't know.

I know what the terrible weapon held in the Department of Mysteries is.

All year long, the wizarding world had been buzzing about it. When Dumbledore was killed, there was a call for the Minister - my father - to use the weapon.

In the end, Harry did.

Harry used love to defeat Voldemort. It was that simple. His mother's love had saved him as a child and now, he said, his love for me had saved him.

He didn't go into details. I don't know if anyone will ever know the whole truth.

But my boyfriend loved me enough to save the world, and I happen to think that that's pretty special.

And now, with our three-year anniversary behind us, I think I may have discovered how to show him how special he is to me.

As far back as I can remember, Fred and George have had lots of girlfriends. They were the most popular boys in school, and all the girls loved them. During the summer, they could be heard talking until all hours about what they'd like to do to various girls. I didn't always understand all of it, of course. I remember being eleven and asking at the dinner table what 'something for the weekend' meant.

Dead silence.

Several hours later, after Mum's hysterics had worn off and Dad had stopped yelling at the twins for corrupting their sister and brother, the twins came into my room and promised to tell me anything I wanted to know when I got a bit older. Provided I kept my mouth shut.

In the summer before my third year, the twins told me everything they thought I would need to know.

"Just the basics, Ginny," Fred had said. "You can find out the rest for yourself."

"Not until you're married, though," George had added.

"You're not married," I said.

"We're different."

"What about the girls you go out with?" I asked. "Why are they different to me?"

"We're not related to them," George said.

"Apart from Samantha Fairwell," Fred said, happily.

"Shut up," George growled.

"Seriously, Mum loves meeting distant relatives. Bring her around one day."

"Shut up," George repeated. "Just 'cos her great aunt Florence was our great Grandad Frederick's second cousin's niece, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it."

"Why'd you dump her then?" Fred asked, with un-natural glee in his voice.

George stamped out of the room, muttering something about spikes and pillows and twin brothers. Fred followed, choking on his own laughter.

I was left with the impression that sex was rather complicated.

It's not. At least, I think that it isn't, if you're with the right person, the person you love.

Which I am, of course.

Which brings us back to Harry. Sorry about wandering away from the main story, but we're back now.

Harry picked me up from Gringotts on Saturday afternoon, but wouldn't tell me where we were going. All he would say was that he'd had to change his plans, and he hoped that this would be okay.

As I suspect his original plan had involved spending the night at his flat, I certainly wasn't complaining. The place just reminds me too much of Ron, and I don't want to be thinking of him when I'm in the middle of something very intimate.

First we went to the Leaky Cauldron. We exchanged gifts which, as usual, meant I gave Harry something small and he gave me something big. I always feel slightly embarrassed about this, right up until he opens his present and just beams.

This year, I got him a watch that had been enchanted by Dad and Professor Flitwick. It tracked all the Weasleys and the important people in Harry's life like our clock does at home. But this one shows the time until Harry says someone's name - Remus Lupin, for example - and then it would show what he or she was doing.

The way that Harry smiled when he realised what the watch was made me want to cry. He has so much lost time to make up, so much love he needs to be given that even a simple thing like this means so much to him.

Harry bought me a trenchcoat that had been lined with dragon hide. It was resistant to tons of spells, and Harry felt that it would help me with my job. I couldn't help but smile, and I knew that he had to have been talking to Bill to find out what sort of equipment a curse-breaker needs to do well in their job. I'd been looking at a coat like this one - though nowhere near as nice - only a few days earlier.

And then the time came for us to go off and spend some time alone.

We hadn't said anything about it. We hadn't put anything into words. But I think we both knew. It was time. It had been time for well over a year. But there was something about the way I felt that told me that this was the moment I had been waiting for.

Harry pulled a Portkey from his pocket - it was a Weasley Wizard Wheezes carrier bag, but he said that it was a Portkey - and told me to take hold.

I did, and immediately felt the tug behind my stomach that always makes me want to throw up. But that's Harry. He'd be so obsessed with keeping our destination a surprise that he wouldn't even tell me ten seconds beforehand so that we could Apparate there.

I always shut my eyes when I take a Portkey. Dad says I should ride with my eyes open, but I tried it once and the swirling effect just makes me feel even more ill. So when my feet touched the ground, and I opened my eyes, I was nearly knocked over backwards by the beauty of what I saw.

It was the Head Girl's bedroom in Gryffindor Tower.

It had been my bedroom for the last month or so of my seventh year, once the Tower was restored.

More than anything, I had wanted Harry to come here to see me.

And now, a few months late but none the worse for it, we were here.

"How. . ."

"Dumbledore," he said. "He taught me how to make a Portkey that would get through the Hogwarts wards, in case I ever needed to. I needed to tonight."

I looked around the room, dazzled by all that had been done to it.

"The room's not being used this year. The Head Boy is a Gryffindor, but the Head Girl is out of Ravenclaw."

I barely heard him, I was still so amazed by the room. For a start, it was larger. Somehow, Harry had enlarged the room to nearly twice its original size. Tiny candles burnt all around the room. The comfortable bed that had been mine for such a short time was even larger, easily big enough for two people.

The windows appeared un-natural, and a closer look showed that they had been enchanted, magnifying the moon and the soft glow of its light so that the room seemed to shine silver.

And that was just the beginning. There was so much that was amazing about the room - the plush rugs, the gorgeous drapes, I could go on for hours - and none of it had been there when I was there. Harry had done it all for me.

"It's incredible," I said, and I meant it.

"Fred and George helped," Harry said quickly. He's never liked taking the glory, especially if he could shift it onto anyone else.

"Really?"

"They owed me a favour."

"And the favour was letting you seduce their little sister?"

The words had slipped out before I realised they were coming, and for a second Harry looked as though I'd slapped him. But then he smiled.

"I told them that I wanted to show you how much I love you."

"You saved the world. . ."

"I wanted to show you when it mattered," he interrupted. "Now. Here. It's easy to love someone when you have to. But today is just an ordinary day, and that's when it matters. I wanted you to know that it doesn't matter if we fight, or if we disagree, or even if something happens between us."

He looked me directly in the eye, and I felt a shiver of anticipation run down my spine. At some point, Harry learned how to use those piercing green eyes of his. Now he just has to look at me a particular way and I'm left breathless. Like now.

He smiled at me.

"I love you. Forever."

He leaned into me, and our foreheads touched as we stared into one another's eyes. I've always been fascinated by his eyes, how they say so much, even when Harry himself is saying nothing.

Tonight I looked into Harry's eyes, and all I could see was me. . .

Guess what? The twins were right. Not about waiting until I was married, of course. But the basics they taught me served me pretty well. And afterwards, as we lay there, Harry pointed out little things about the room that I hadn't noticed.

And he admitted as well that the twins had given him a few pointers over the last few years.

Well, thank you, Fred and George.

The End