It's Him

It's Him

It's him.

I have to run away. I panic. I run into an empty classroom. Any old empty classroom. At least I thought it was any old empty classroom until I looked around. I know those desks. I know the chairs. I know the two couches in the back corner more than I really want to admit. I hurry back out of the room as quick as I had run in, praying over and over that he will be gone, or at least distracted.

"Ginny!" The familiar voice floats across the hallway and I freeze. I focus my eyes on my shoes. I polished them last night at least five times. I can see my reflection in them. But I don't want to look at her. The fool. So I scuff my shoe on the hallway floor and focus on the rubber soles instead.

"Ginny, love..." he says as he lays a hand on my shoulder. I tense up and I know he can feel it. He pulls his hand away and reaches for mine. I tighten my grip on my books and keep my eyes focused on the floor. I will myself not to cry.

"Seamus..." I say quietly, before turning away from him and heading down the hallway. I can hear his footsteps following after me.

"Ginny, wait, please!" he calls to me. I keep walking. I walk as fast as I think I can manage without drawing too much attention to myself. If I can make it to the common room I will be fine. If I can make it to the common room, I can make it up the stairs and into my room. He can't follow me up there. I can hear him try to catch up with me. "Ginny..." he pleads as he catches my shoulder and turns me around.

I can't even look at him anymore.

"I...I have to go. I promised Marianne I would help her," I mumble as I start to walk away. He doesn't release his hold on my shoulder, so I just turn away, cursing my eyes as they well with tears that threaten to spill over any moment. I blink furiously in an attempt to control them but I think it just makes them worse. I once again focus my gaze on the floor. "Let me go..." a small whisper escapes my lips, begging for release, pleading for an answer to a question I am too afraid to ask.

'Is it true?' I want to scream. 'Do you love her? Are you in love with her? Do you still want her more than you want me? Am I a replacement? Am I a stand in?' My mind throws question after question into my mouth and I just purse my lips, clench my teeth, and swallow the words around the lump rising in my throat. In all honesty, I cannot ask those questions. Because I know the answer. And I cannot bear to hear him say the words.

"Please, Seamus. Let me go..." I plead again. Finally, after a very long moment, I feel the pressure lifted from my shoulder and I start off at a run before he can say anything. The lump grows by the second and I cannot swallow the words much longer. I throw myself through the closing portrait hole behind a small group of second years and hurry up the stairs. I fling myself onto my bed, my books scattering and falling haphazardly to the floor. I thank god that I am the only one in the room and that my roommates are apparently in the library or outside or in the common room or at dinner. I don't really care, as long as they are not in here. I heard enough from the four of them last night and I do not want to be put through that misery any longer.

It wasn't always like this. It started off wonderfully. A stolen glance, a secret letter. An eye caught across the crowded common room. It wasn't expected, but it was wonderful and perfect. It made sense. He cared about me. He loved me.

Or at least he said he did. And then, last Friday happened. And everything apparently changed. At least, that's what the girls said last night. Even Hermione confirmed it when I went to her in tears, begging her to tell me they were wrong, they were mistaken, even that it was just a misunderstanding. But she had seen it too. Just what my roommates had seen. Seamus, my Seamus, in a dark corner with a dark haired girl. I close my eyes and shake my head, trying to shake the words swimming in my ears out of my head. Hoping that if I try hard enough, they will slip out the way they came in and none of it will be true.

But I know that won't happen. I know it is wishful thinking. I turn over on my bed and stare up at the red curtains, impatiently wiping at the tears that pull at my eyelashes.

Laughter bursts into the room before it cuts off suddenly. I am facing three girls, all of whom seem caught. And as my eyes flit from girl to girl and land on the third girl's face, I see why. A growl catches in my throat and I close my eyes tightly. I take a deep breath and throw my legs to one side of the bed, my feet to the floor and stand as tall as I can manage to pull myself.

"Parvati," I managed around a low hiss, pushing my hair behind my ears and collecting my books from the floor.

Parvati's face goes red to the tips of her ears as I brush past her and my two roommates. "You could have at least knocked..." I hiss to Kylie as I pull the door shut behind me, a little harder than I intended. 'Well, I don't care if they think I am mad at them,' I think to myself. 'After they seemed too crushed to break the news last night...I should have known...' I sigh, brushing at tears again as I hurry down the stairs. The library. No one will bother me there. I don't even look around the common room as I hurry through, but keep my head down, my eyes once again focused on the floor.

I hurry through the hallways and almost collide with a number of figures - students and teachers I'm sure - who exclaim and call to me but I just hurry on my way. I almost reach the library, my escape, my oasis, when that familiar hand reaches out to my arm again and I freeze in mid stride.

"Please, Ginny. You cannot keep hiding from me forever. You have to talk to me. You have to tell me what is wrong," his familiar drawl coaxes the tears to the corner of my eyes once again. He pulls me into the abandoned classroom, our own secret, and guides me toward the plush couches in the back corner. I stare at a small hole in the hem of my skirt - anything to keep myself from having to look at him. I don't think I can bear it.

"You know..." I whisper. He mumbles something in return but I cannot make it out. I stare at the floor, bent almost to my knees. His strong hand rubs my back and I try to blink back the tears. "Maybe it's time to admit that this is not meant to be."

"What are you talking about Ginny?" he sounds hurt. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I'm not sure I can do this. I've run it over in my head time and time again, but I'm not sure I can actually say the words leaping forth from my brain as they get caught on the same lump that gave me trouble swallowing words earlier.

"When you cry more than you laugh it is time to move on," I whisper. His hand stops, laying motionless on my back. I know what's coming. He is going to tell me what happened; he is going to tell me they were all right. They weren't just seeing things. And I am going to have to admit what a fool I am.

"Crying? I know you've been crying. But why? Why have you avoided me since Friday? Ginny...love...Bunny...what is going on? Did I do something wrong?" he sounds so hurt, so confused, so sincere. "You are the best thing - the only good thing - that has ever happened to me. I do not want to lose you because of something that I did that I don't even know I did wrong. Please, talk to me." I don't know what to think.

I look up at him for the first time in almost a week. I stare into those green eyes that I have come to know so well; those green eyes currently hazed by a cloud of tears collecting and pulling at the corners. It is not there. There is no betrayal, no fear of being caught, just pure confusion and hurt. I say the only thing I know to say to test him.

"Parvati. My roommates saw you. Hermione saw you..." I whisper to him as I lose the battle with my tears and they tumble across my cheeks. There is no flicker of recognition. He is not lying. He is not hiding anything from me. I don't know what the girls saw, but whatever they saw was not what they were led to believe.

"Ginny? What are you talking about?"

"Tell me, honestly. Do you still love her? Am I just a distraction?" I ask into my hands and force him to decipher my mumblings. He smiles slightly and pushes my hair out of my face, lowering his lips to brush my cheek.

"I swear by all of Ireland, my love, that you are no distraction. I love you and I always will, no matter what anyone else says," he smiles at me and kisses my forehead.

I look up from my hands and smile weakly at him. Tears have fought their way out of his eyes and he smiles at me around them. I reach up and brush them away slowly and smile wider.

I know that people are going to keep talking. And I know that I will be told time and time again that I should not trust him. That he is lying. But somehow, through it all, I have to trust him. I have to trust that he will not lie to me, that he did not lie to me. And I love him. I will and do trust him beyond any rumor. If he tells me it is a lie, then I have to believe it is a lie. I have to.

Because it's him.