Because of Me

Because of Me

x x x

Ginny

You always think that, after six years of knowing someone, you really know them; what makes them happy, what makes them crazy, who or what they love, and who or what they can't stand. I always thought that I knew who she was after three hours, and that the other two-thousand-and-ninety-three days and twenty-one hours were merely time to spend being with her. I mean, honestly, Hermione Granger didn't seem like the most difficult person to understand; she was a teenage girl like me, she attended to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry like me, and she was in love with my best friend... like me. I guess I figured that we were exactly alike. As it turned out, I figured wrong.

Although it had obviously been going on for quite some time, I only first noticed it during her sixth year. It was the week before the winter holidays, and, I'll admit, most off the school was acting off. Hermione was just acting a bit more off than the rest of us. She was often cloistered away in some empty classroom or elsewhere in the school, "studying," as she told me. To her credit, it was a good excuse. She did have the OWLs to prepare for at the end of the year. But the only flaw in her plan came in the fact that she had been studying for the OWLS since she could first read. And that, even blind and half-dead, Hermione could pass any test, magical or not, without even breaking a sweat. I mean, the girl did nothing but study. This was her only free day of the year, and even she knew better than to blow it with some musty old book.

It was dinner, the last day of classes before the halls would empty and students would return home to spend Christmas with their families, and the atmosphere was a splendid mix of anxiety and gaiety. Hagrid had decorated the Great Hall a few days before, and the large tree in the center of the room spread both its scent and warmth throughout. We were all at the Gryffindor table, ready to spend our last meal together for the next three weeks. But Hermione, the fourth member of our small group, was not there. We always occupied one end of the table; the furthest from the door, in the Northernmost corner of the Hall. We were closest to the professors, yes, but we were also the furthest away one could possibly get from the Slytherins.

It was nice, being surrounded by the people I was closest to. Ron, with our family's inherent fiery hair and temper to match it, sat to my right where he was animatedly engaging Harry in a discussion about the Chudley Cannons. Harry, the boy who had survived numerous battles with the world's most powerful dark wizard and was still alive to enjoy talks such as these, was across from me, waving his fork as he explained some Quidditch play to Ron. I can honestly say that is one of the happiest, most treasured memories I have: eating dinner and watching the two men, one I loved as my treasured older brother and the other I loved with all my heart, having as frivolous a discussion as to whether or not could catch a Snitch after performing a Edinazel Evasion in the rain.

I don't know why I chose to leave the table at that moment, why I chose that day of all of them to go looking for Hermione. And still, to this day, I can't decide if things may have been different if I hadn't picked that fateful day to satisfy my curiosity. I can only suffer through the guilt that they might have been...

"Ron!!" A tall, gangly young man with fiery red hair and a shock of freckles, turned at the feminine voice calling his name just in time to catch a snowball with his face. He reached one gloved hand up to wipe the melting frost from his eyes and glared, quite fiercely, at the laughing girl. Her chocolate brown eyes sparkled against cheeks rosined by the cold, and her long and curly mane of brown hair was held back with a pair of fuzzy earmuffs. She grinned, white teeth standing out in sharp contrast to her pink face and maroon-and-gold scarf, before laughing again. "Happy Christmas, Ron. That's just a little something to remember me by for the next three weeks."

His eyes softened and he smiled warmly, gazing at her as if she were the thing on earth most precious to him. Tenderly, he drew her against his side in a one-armed hug. "You know I could never forget you, Hermione." A handful of freezing slush slid down the back of her shirt as Ron dashed off, grinning deviously. "No matter how hard I tried." She yelped at the sensation that was now trickling its way down her bare skin and chased after him, lobbing large clumps of snow in retaliation. The ensuing snowball fight was fierce in its intensity, if not childish in its principle. Across the clearing, two figures looked up from their more sedate snowman to watch the battle.

"Honestly, will those two ever grow up?" Ginny grinned at the sight of her older brother - the one she privately considered to be her favorite of all her many siblings - losing a snowball fight to a petite girl who was more at home in a library. Still, their joyous laughter rang in the crisp air, proving that they, at least, were enjoying themselves.

"Those two act like an old married couple," her companion watched his friends with mock seriousness. "Or a young one on holiday," he jokingly added. Harry winked roguishly at Ginny, causing her face to flush with heat despite the near to freezing temperature. She looked away quickly, silently cursing herself for letting herself be affected so much by his proximity.

To distract herself, Ginny stood and sprinted over to tackle her brother, attacking him with a pile of snow she dropped on his head. Ron yelled out in agony as the girls, giggling, proceeded to bury him. They fled when he finally shook them off and, as Ron pursued an amused Ginny, Hermione came to join Harry.

"I don't know about you, Harry, but I'm looking forward to some cocoa and a change of clothes." Hermione, although the proclaimed victor of the Great Snowball War, was soaking wet and shivering uncontrollably as she reached him. Easily, he slipped out of his down jacket and slid it over her shoulders, rubbing her arms to warm her. "Ron, Ginny! We're heading inside!" When neither of them came over to join the pair, she turned and began to march back to the castle.

"Well, Hermione, look's as though it's just us." Harry slung a companionable arm around the girl's shoulder and pulled her close, walking back up to Hogwarts with her. Despite public opinion, the two were not madly in love, nor would they ever be. Their relationship was one of a brother and sister who had never had a real sibling to support them or torture them. They were, in some ways, the only true family the other had; Harry an orphan and Hermione the only magically inclined Granger in history. And, as they had promised each other years before, nothing would ever tear them apart.

x x x

"Has anyone seen Hermione?" Ron tore his gaze from the mass of students enjoying their last night together for next month and turned to his friends, raising an eyebrow quizzically. They were already tucking into the treacle pudding at the end of the meal, and Hermione had still not joined them at the Gryffindor table. Please tell me she's not off on another of her "SPEW" tirades and boycotting food again.

Harry stopped his chatter about Quidditch, which they had been discussing only seconds before, and looked around in surprise. "She hasn't come in yet?" He looked up and down the length of the long table and, sure enough, no familiar bush of coffee-coloured hair caught his eye. "That's odd. She told me she was going to change into dry clothes and meet me here for dinner..."

Ron narrowed his eyes, glaring suspiciously. "She told me that she would be late for dinner because she was studying..." It slowly dawned on them that perhaps, but just perhaps, she had lied to them and was elsewhere in the castle, neither studying nor changing her clothes.

Harry sighed thoughtfully, then looked across from him, startled. "Where'd Ginny get off to?"

Ron waved his hand impatiently. "Who cares? I want to know where Hermione disappeared off to and why she doesn't want us to join her."

x x x

Ginny, who had left the table earlier in order to take a more active approach in finding their missing friend, wandered the corridors of Hogwarts. In any normal castle of this size, one could spend weeks searching the many rooms and towers for a person. In this particular castle, and all of the enchantments and hidden halls, it could take years. In fact, she thought grimly as she peeked into an empty Transfiguration classroom, if someone in this school did not want to be found, they would not be. The room, as she had expected, was quite empty. "Hermione... where would you want to hide?" She laughed suddenly as the conclusion, so simple that she was amazed it took her this long to come across it, reached her mind.

She turned and headed for the Gryffindor tower, walking more confidently. Who has to say that Hermione wasn't studying or changing her clothes? Maybe the conspiracy of her lying and hiding had only been in the boys' minds. She reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and smiled brightly, curtseying in greeting. "Good evening. Cerdd Nos, if you please." The Lady smiled in return and obligingly swung open, allowing the young girl access to the warm, friendly, red-and-gold common room she loved so. Passing the stairs to the boys' and girls' dormitories, which were to her immediate left, she went straight to the tower reserved for the House Prefects. Bounding up the stairs, she slowed at the top.

The door to Hermione's room was shut.

Now, although she was fanatical about studying and enjoyed her privacy as much as the next, Hermione never shut her door against the friends who would drop by to join her. Unless she was naked, in which case she would leave a towel tucked through the door handle to let Harry or Ron or Ginny or whomever it may be that she would soon be out. But now, no matter how hard Ginny searched in the darkness, there was no towel; no sign anywhere that Hermione was even inside. Until she noticed the line of light seeping out from beneath the oak and iron barrier. Softly, she crept over to the door and nudged it lightly with a knuckle. It swung inward of its own accord, alleviating her from any guilt of forced entry.

She tiptoed in and froze, embarrassed, as she saw the two figures entwined under the scarlet sheets. The larger of the two, obviously male, was lying on his back, one arm pillowing his head and the other wrapped possessively around Hermione's waist. Hermione, equally asleep and naked as the male whose identity was not clear from Ginny's angle, lay against his side, her head resting on his bare chest. It was obvious, and frighteningly so, that the two were lovers. Red-faced and thoroughly uncomfortable with walking in on such a compromising situation, Ginny turned to exit the room. Her trainers, as worn as they were, must have made some noise on the floorboards, for she heard the slumbering male roust and begin to move.

Panicked, she ran for the door and was just about to pull it shut when she heard him speak. "Wake up, 'Mione. I'm losing the feeling in my arm." Even though it was through an inch of solid wood, and even though she was most distressed by the situation, there was no mistaking that voice. It was sleek and smooth, but was usually as harsh and bitter as the man it belonged to. It was that voice that Ginny dreaded the day for, that voice that took it upon itself to remind her of her family's class, every single day. It was that voice that she had first learned to hate listening to. Fiercely, she managed to hiss it out through disbelieving lips.

"Malfoy."

x x x

Even now, even after the years that have bled past me, that day will remain forever engraved in my mind. Because that day was the moment that started it all; the day that set into motion events that would change the world forever. My life, as well of the lives of more people than I care to think about, have been both shaped and destroyed by my petty, fifteen-year-old need to know everything. And all I did was open a bloody door.

Because of me, the walls between worlds were shattered.