Work Text:
can you light the fire?
Like many things in Harry’s life, it all began with an ill-thought, spur-of-the-moment decision that he came to regret. Specifically, the decision to listen to Ron when he’d urged Harry to balance the traffic cone they were nicking on top of his head because it, like, distributes the weight easier, only to have the cone slip down and refuse to come off.
“Why,” Hermione hissed as she yanked furiously on the orange plastic, “on earth did I decide to request to move in with you two?”
Elsewhere in the kitchen, Ron answered with another round of helpless laughter like he had done all the way home. Pausing in her efforts, Hermione snapped at him to shut up and do something helpful for once; Ron replied that Snapchatting the ordeal was just that. Inside the cone, Harry voiced his resentment.
“You don’t understand, Harry,” Ron said. “Your head is stuck in a fucking cone. This is funnier than that one time Neville kept hugging his cactuses and then crying when they stabbed him.”
“Cacti,” said Hermione.
“Bless you.”
Harry sighed. The vodka buzz that had convinced him to steal a cone in the first place had long since faded now; if he could reach his nose with his hands, he’d have pinched it in frustration. “Can we get me out of here sometime this century at least? I have a degree to pass, you know.”
“Oh yes, your degree,” Hermione said waspishly. She began to tug on the cone with renewed energy, irritation powering her muscles as she ignored Harry’s yells to watch out for his ears. “I wonder if the university would have let you in if they could see what their star lacrosse player does in his spare time. I wonder if they approve of you interrupting the sleep of other students at four o’clock in the morning especially when said student has a meeting with their course administrator in less than five hours.”
A grunt punctuated each sentence; Harry’s steady stream of swear words met the aggression just as readily. His hands flew up to curl around the rim of the cone for balance as she tugged so hard that his arse came off his chair.
“For the love of – Hermione, you’re hurting me!”
“Well, it’s not like I’m trying to! You’re the one with such a large head!” The plastic gave way about an inch or so. “Let – go.”
“My head is perfectly normal-sized!” Harry said indignantly.
Lost in the background, Ron wailed, “Don’t ruin his ears, he needs them for lacrosse!” He was immediately ignored as she pulled with even more vehemence.
Several things happened in the next handful of seconds. Firstly, Hermione ripped the traffic cone free from Harry with a shriek worthy of a Spartan warrior, miscalculated the force she’d exerted and staggered backwards into Ron, the two crashing down in a kaleidoscope of neon orange and pale limbs. Secondly, Harry’s head – now free of its prison – flew back to hit the side of the table and he yelled a curse straight from the arsenal of a Weasley. And then, just in time to add to the eruption of noise, the kitchen door slammed open.
Too winded to wonder who it was, Harry merely leaned back and wheezed.
“What,” said Ginny Weasley, “did I just walk into?”
A mixture of groans answered her.
Crawling out from under Hermione, Ron squinted at his sister. “What… Why the fuck are you in my flat, Gin?” He was promptly jabbed in the side by Hermione’s well-placed elbow. “I mean… welcome to our humble abode.”
There was a noise from Ginny that sounded faintly sarcastic.
“Okay seriously,” she said after a moment. “Why are you all yelling at four in the morning and why is there a massive orange traffic cone in the middle of your kitchen?”
Ron sniggered into the tiles. “Haven’t you heard? It’s Harry’s new hat.”
Still recovering from the traumatic ordeal, Harry raised a lazy hand and flipped him off wordlessly. He lifted his head to face Ginny and offer her an explanation – albeit one that didn’t make him sound like such a twat – only for his brain to come to a stuttering halt.
Sometimes, things happened when they were least expected. Thoughts that had once meandered quietly in the peripheries of your mind suddenly exploded into the forefront of rational thought, fully formed and demanding your attention. This was one of those times. So, when Harry looked at Ginny and found her already turned to him, pale eyebrows drawn together and her bottom lip tucked under her front teeth in confusion, all he could think was oh.
Oh.
Ginny was really pretty.
What the fuck.
“Care to explain your choice in fashion, Harry?” said Ginny, oblivious to the sudden panic that had gripped him. Her eyebrows were now aloft in amusement, choosing to roll with the joke instead of lingering in bewilderment. “Just what inspired your bold decision?”
Oh God. Oh God. OH DEAR GOD.
Face losing all colour, Harry met her gaze somewhat distantly. “I think I’m going to throw up,” he announced and promptly emptied the contents of his stomach right there on the kitchen floor.
The thing about fancying Ginny Weasley was that –
Well, it was that he couldn’t fancy her. She was strictly off-limits. A No Entry zone. She might as well have walked around surrounded by four walls made from six feet of concrete. He could not fancy her under any circumstances. Mostly because she was Harry’s best friend’s little sister. Entirely because of that, actually.
He'd been best friends with Ron ever since the first week of Year Seven. Back then, eleven-year-old Harry had been about 70% curiosity, 20% lacrosse and perhaps 5% impulse control (the other 5% was his godfather’s influence) which had paired with Ron’s distaste for lessons to result in one rooftop exploration and three days of detention. They’d spent the first detention playing Noughts and Crosses for half an hour and thus began the start of their beautiful friendship.
Harry honestly loved Ron.
Ron was his bro. His soulmate. His bromate if you will.
He was also insanely protective over his only sister. One only needed to think back to Ron’s ruthless alienation of their friend Dean – or as Ron liked to darkly call, “The Backstabbing Bastard Who Betrayed the Bro-Code,” to confirm this. Just the memory of how red his face had gotten gave Harry nightmares.
So, the thing about fancying Ginny Weasley was that Harry most certainly did not and would never do such a thing.
Never.
(But if he somehow got possessed and did so, it would be an understandable position to be in. After all, Ginny was just… wow. Charming in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner, but with a ferocity that belied her small stature. She carried herself in a way that suggested she could handle any trouble and damn it, if that wasn’t attractive.
Or would be if Harry ever thought about Ginny that way.
Which he didn’t.)
What Harry could do, however, was befriend Ginny – which he had fortunately done years ago once she’d managed to stay in the same room as him for more than ten seconds. Ten-year-old Ginny had been a bit of an odd thing, refusing to look Harry in the eye and accidentally breaking things in his presence. He’d never really known why, to be honest, because he was about as intimidating as a pug in a costume. Ten year olds were weird like that, he supposed.
But yes, back to the point. Since Harry most certainly held no non-platonic feelings for his dear friend Ginny Weasley, he was at perfect liberty to hang out with her and cement the platonic fortitude that was their friendship. Which meant it was completely fine to drop into the Starbucks she worked at every now and then.
On the odd occasion.
Because that’s what friends did.
“Oh, hey Harry,” said Ginny brightly when he approached the counter. “Back again, are we?”
His palms sweated against the pound coins in his grip. “Er. Yeah. Got a lot of work to do, you see,” he said. “Midterms are just around the corner.”
“Sounds awful,” she said cheerfully. Reaching for a marker, she added, “The same as usual?”
Oh god, he had a usual. He had never had a usual somewhere before and he didn’t know how to feel about having his first one be at a Starbucks. He was so fucking dead.
“Yeah, go on.”
She scribbled his name onto a cup and then passed it along, punching his order into the till. After she was done ringing him up, she spared a glance around the shop, confirmed there were no new customers and then leaned against the counter in a decidedly unprofessional manner. The grin she flashed was entirely too lovely.
“So,” Ginny drawled, “how is the world of uni like? Anything changed since yesterday?”
But then again maybe death was worth it if it meant getting to talk to Ginny like this. Groaning about his lecturers and how they were out to get him, or about the weird Malfoy kid who kept trying to corner Harry after class to bribe him into letting him on the team, or how Hermione had tried to cook again last night and the only one who had managed to get through the entire thing was Ron. Sympathising with her rants about A Levels or bantering back and forth like they had all the time in the world. Ginny was captivating to listen to, even more to talk to. She was…
“Weasley, get back to work,” snapped her manager as he passed by.
… in the middle of her shift.
Ginny sighed, aiming a scowl at her manager’s back. “That’s my call.” She pushed away from the counter and smoothed down her apron. “I’ll see you around.”
“Have fun,” he said, his fingers tightening around his Americano in disappointment.
He was so fucked.
As was often the case, Hermione was ranting.
Harry had gotten home from practice to have her respond to his tired “Alright, Hermione?” with, “Have you seen the World Development Report from this year?” as she shoved a hundred-page document into his face. He had not, but it was clear that she had. She’d even highlighted and annotated it and everything, meaning that there was only one topic their evening would focus on: capitalism.
“It’s absolutely inhumane,” she seethed as he stared vacantly at a dark spot on their living room ceiling. He didn’t think she even cared that he wasn’t paying attention; he was pretty sure she just wanted a body to hurl words at. “The loss of human life is not a tragedy because of the loss of the potential realisation of productivity, it’s a matter of humanitarianism! How was that even a sentence that made it to the final print? Is there no end to this depravity? Is this really the world we’re living in? One where children are only seen as a potential cog in the capitalist machine – “
Clearly, Hermione studied Politics.
“That’s really bad,” Harry said absently, wondering when he’d be allowed to shower. “I don’t understand how that happened.”
“It’s the perpetuation of the neoliberal agenda, Harry!” she exclaimed passionately. “It’s making machines out of man. Did you know that in economics, time is often split into simply work and leisure? As if that encompasses the complexity of human life, as if labour is all that we were created to do and everything else is just an add-on. It sickens me. It well and truly sickens me, Harry.”
He hummed in agreement.
A head popped into the living room. “I thought I heard your voice, Hermione,” Alicia said mildly. “Ranting about capitalism again?”
“Yes,” she said waspishly as if challenging Alicia to make fun of her. She glowered over at Harry. “It was supposed to be a stimulating conversation, but someone isn’t paying much attention.”
“He just came back from lacrosse practice,” Alicia reminded her. “He’s tired and needs a shower. Please shower, Harry.” She turned to him, her delicate nose scrunched up in disdain. “You’re sweating all over our sofas.”
Harry grunted. Now that he was collapsed on his back, he didn’t think he ever wanted to get up again. Maybe he could stay here forever and just let his crippling student debt pile up around him. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.
Rolling her eyes, Alicia jerked her head towards the kitchen. “I’m about to pop the kettle on. You want a brew?”
Hermione sighed, unfolding her legs as she made to stand up. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt.” Just before she left the room, she looked reproachfully at her best friend one last time. “Ron would’ve listened to me.”
That was because Ron found it attractive when Hermione was passionate about anything she cared about. And since she was Hermione, who never did anything by halves, that included everything in her life.
“Sorry,” Harry offered.
With one last hmpfh, Hermione left for the kitchen.
Too exhausted to get up straight away, Harry continued to stare blankly at the patch on their ceiling and wondered whether it was something that needed to get checked out. It should be fine, shouldn’t it? Wasn’t the situation only serious if there was mould growing? He made a mental note to ask Neville when he got back from his gran’s since that was the kind of thing he knew about.
Finally, when even he couldn’t deny that he needed to wash the grime off his body once and for all, he reluctantly rolled off the sofa and hit the ground hard.
The puttering about in the kitchen paused. “Harry,” Hermione called. “You haven’t died, have you?”
He heaved a sigh into the carpet. “No.”
“Okay, that’s good. Let me know if you’re about to. Anyways Alicia, I don’t suppose you’ve read the World Development Report that’s just come out…”
The first thing Harry had learnt about Ron was that he was hilarious. It was something that came to him naturally, just as instinctive as breathing, and he couldn’t help but envy him for how easily he could use it to twist a situation around so it would suit his tastes. Where Harry might’ve fallen silent, Ron would already be approaching a situation in his typical brash manner. It was something Harry had quickly grown to admire because at the heart of it, Ron was cool.
The second thing Harry had learnt about Ron was that he was unbelievably proud.
Not in a pompous manner, or one that suggested he believed himself to be superior to the rest of the world. But he had a great deal of pride about his family’s humble background and a fierce desire to earn everything he owned. No one could just give him something if he hadn’t deserved it whether it was money, a scholarship or a place on the lacrosse team. It wasn’t something outsiders would guess, especially given how lazy he could get. But pride was as dominant a trait in the Weasleys as red hair and freckles; it was stamped into their very genetic coding.
It made Harry feel guilty. He’d never known hunger the way Ron had. Never had to shrug on some hand-me-down jumpers or buy shoes on sale from ASDA because Sirius’ money could only stretch so far. It wasn’t until he’d reached secondary school and had seen Ron skip lunch just to save up to buy his dad a birthday present that he’d properly considered that other people hadn’t grown up the same way as Harry had.
“This is for this week’s grocery shopping,” Ron said, picking up a small pile of notes and pushing it to one side of the bed. “I’ll give that to Hermione when she gets home.”
From where he was lounging on Ron’s bed Harry glanced at him over the pages of his Criminology textbook. It was that time of month again when Ron would count out his wages from the takeaway down the road that he worked at, separating the money into three piles: bills, savings, and spending money. He hummed absently under his breath as he carefully counted, double-counted and then recounted his earnings to be sure.
“Ahh, Mum’s birthday’s coming up.” He removed a couple of notes from the spending money pile. “I’ll have to buy her something small. Flowers should be alright, don’t you think? And wine or something?”
Harry nodded. “Everyone likes flowers. Do you want to get her some jewellery as well? We can split the cost since I need to get her something too.”
“Dunno, I think Ginny might be getting her some jewellery. She’s been going on about some emerald drop earrings or whatever. I think the wine should be alright, especially if we get a good one. She knows we’re skint students anyways.”
“Fair enough.”
Just as he was returning to his textbook – honestly, required reading was such an inconvenient pain in the arse – Ron said abruptly, “I’ve meaning to talk to you about Ginny actually,” and Harry’s blood ran cold.
Holy shit. Ron knew.
He knew that his best friend had a big fat crush the size of Mars on his little sister. That Harry, pathetic as he was, had been dropping by to see her at Starbucks under the pretence of needing coffee to power through his assignments. Ron had discovered his terrible, dark secret and was now about to kick Harry out of his life forever, leaving him friendless and heartbroken. Jesus, his heart was hyperventilating at the very thought.
“Er,” he said, somewhat strangled. “You have?”
“Yeah,” said Ron very seriously. When Harry chanced a look at him, he found Ron already staring hard in his direction, his pale blue eyes narrowed in thought. “You know how Ginny’s been coming to the flat more and more recently?”
Did he ever.
Now that he had discovered his very real and very persistent crush on her, anything Ginny did in his immediate vicinity was noted and memorised by his lovesick fool of a brain. On the one hand, he was extremely pleased to see Ginny crop up in their living room at random since that meant he could spend even more time with her without seeming like a stalking creep. On the other hand, it really wasn’t good for his heart.
Just like this conversation funnily enough.
“I – I guess she has,” Harry mumbled.
“She has,” Ron said with conviction. And then: “Do you think she fancies Neville?”
Wait, what? Neville? Where had that even come from? Harry voiced this, soft with disbelief, only for Ron to shrug.
“They’ve always been really good friends. They hang out with Luna Lovegood a lot, I’m pretty sure. Oh, and Ginny went with him to prom, remember? So, it’s not, like, completely out of the blue. Besides, as far as I’m aware, she’s only into guys so she won’t be fancying Alicia or Susan, will she? So that leaves Neville.”
Feeling rather sick, Harry asked, “Why does she have to fancy anyone? Can’t she just want to see us because she likes our company?”
But Ron was already shaking his head. “No, that can’t be it. She fancies Neville, I’m telling you. Damn it, am I going to have to corner him to make sure he doesn’t hurt my sister’s feelings? And after all the pep talks I’ve given him over the years as well! This is so inconvenient.”
The words on his textbook turned fuzzy before his eyes. Staring hard at the incomprehensible mess, Harry thought back to Ginny’s recent visits to the flat. With a sinking stomach, he realised Neville had been present for every single one of them and that Ginny had behaved so familiarly with him: legs draped over his lap, a hand occasionally reaching out to ruffle his sandy hair. She was always so soft with him.
Of course, she was. He was Neville. It was impossible not to regard him with pure fondness. There was something so earnest about his love for plants and the quiet manner with which he had built himself a backbone, notch by notch. Neville was a good guy. No wonder Ginny liked him.
“I never realised,” Harry said distantly.
Ron paused in the middle of his rant about yet another friend betraying him. “Yeah, well,” he said with a little shrug, “you’re a bit oblivious sometimes, aren’t you, Harry? I know Hermione says I’m bad, but Hermione also thinks that carrot juice is a nice drink to have so her opinion doesn’t really count.”
Harry curled his fingers around his textbook and wished the cavern in his stomach would swallow him whole.
One good thing about Ron’s revelation was that it yanked Harry back to reality.
He hadn’t even realised he had been living in a dreamland for so long until he was once more gazing at the world without rose-tinted glasses. In the dreamland, the possibility of a relationship with Ginny Weasley was not so inconceivable. There, the smile she shot him was sweet with desire and her touch lingered on his skin. When she laughed, she laughed for him and when she said his name, she murmured it with care. And when the contractions of his heart quickened in her presence, the voice in the back of his head whispered that maybe just maybe hers did the same.
But the reality was this: he could not fancy Ginny Weasley.
First, she was Ginny Weasley. Not only was she miles out of his league but she was also Ron’s younger sister and so she was off-limits, no questions asked. Secondly, she had feelings for his good friend and flatmate; though the envy ate at his veins like acid, he could not bring himself to pine after a girl who was so clearly unavailable. His friendship with both Neville and Ginny deserved more than that.
And so, he uncovered a new problem: how to bring all romantic inclinations for Ginny to an immediate end.
It would’ve been easier if he could find something about her that he disliked. But her stubborn attitude warmed his heart and the way her hair caught the light set him aflame. Her sharp tongue and quick barbs could not chase him away, or the way she swore like a sailor on a bad day. Even the way she dressed – loose joggers and a rotation of oversized hoodies with obnoxiously large logos – did not make her any less attractive, if only because her vivacity shone so much brighter than her unflattering clothing. He didn’t think he could ever stop liking her over something so superficial anyways.
In the end, he surmised that the immediate course of action was to cut back any and all contact with her, and promptly did so. No more coffee runs to Starbucks or offers to walk her to the tram stop. No more late-night movie marathons whenever she decided to drop by their flat or Pot Noodle dinners while watching The Chase. He had excuses on hand whenever she sprung a sudden visit on him – lacrosse practice, an assignment for his Psychology, Crime and Justice module, a much-needed nap – and after three weeks of this, he was certain he could eventually nip it in the bud.
Until one day when Hermione announced that she needed a vanilla latte this very instant and dragged both Ron and Harry to the nearest Starbucks.
Which just so happened to be the one Ginny worked at.
Great.
“Aw c’mon, Gin,” Ron begged, his hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer. “You really can’t give me one family discount?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t. And I don’t want to. So that’ll be £5.65 please.”
He scowled, fishing his wallet out from the front pocket of his jeans. “You’re actually evil, you know that? Fred and George have nothing on you. Little shit.”
“Thank you,” she said, her smile as saccharine as honey. Her teeth flashed white under the artificial lights. “Have a nice day!”
Ron stomped over to their table. “I swear to God, she has no loyal bone in her body,” he hissed. “Can’t even give me a family discount. I’m her brother! You’d think she’d have pity on me, especially because I’m a student, but no! No damn love or compassion there.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive,” said Hermione mildly. “I did tell you not to get the blueberry muffin though.”
“And why would I listen to that kind of awful advice?”
“Well, if you’re going to complain about the final cost, then maybe you should consider doing it!”
“And what, starve? You think I should starve instead? I haven’t eaten since before my last lecture so my stomach is literally about to fall out of my arse – “
“Oh, very classy of you, Ronald – “
“ – and you think that I should just allow that to happen just because it takes my total to over a fiver. Well, money is a bloody social construct anyway so…”
Sighing at their antics, Harry leaned forward to rest his left cheek on the fold of his arms. The position inadvertently had him catch Ginny’s gaze from across the café. The pretty pink of her lips quirked up in amusement and she rolled her eyes at the bickering of his friends as if to say those two, huh? It was a well-established fact amongst everyone who knew them that Hermione and Ron thrived off this kind of interaction, no matter how much they gave Harry a headache afterwards.
In the words of Fred Weasley: what sick freaks.
Taking pity on him, Ginny coughed loudly. “Blueberry muffin for Ron Weasley,” she called.
Her brother cut off in the middle of his argument with Hermione – or whatever it really was. The two of them seemed to be discussing the exploitation of vulnerable members in society due to capitalism in a very heated exchange despite being on the same side. Harry honestly did not understand the two.
“Be right back,” he said, his chair skidding back as he got up.
The second he was out of earshot, Hermione tapped Harry’s head from across the table. When he looked at her resentfully, rubbing against the offended spot, she said very matter-of-factly, “You fancy Ginny, don’t you?”
Much like Ron’s stomach, his heart literally fell out of his arse.
“What?” he blurted, his cheeks exploding with pink. “I – what. No, no! Of course not, why would you even think that? We’re just – we’re just friends. Why would that even cross your mind?”
She rolled her eyes like it was obvious. “Honestly, Harry, you’re not very subtle about these things. I can practically see the heart eyes from here.”
Torn between denying all allegations and taking offence, he chose to shoot back with a defensive: “We’re really going to talk about my heart eyes? You and Ron are the definition of heart eyes. All you do is make eyes at each other. Even when I’m here.”
“We do not!” Her cheeks reddened to match his. “And even if we did, that doesn’t change the fact that you fancy Ginny.”
He shot an anxious glance towards the counter, reaffirming that Ron was there. “I don’t,” he insisted before adding gloomily, “And even if I did, it wouldn’t change anything. She’s Ron’s sister. And she fancies Neville anyway.”
“What?”
The despair he’d become all too familiar with over the past few weeks came to claim him once more. In a pathetic attempt to shield himself, Harry withdrew into the safety of the hood of his jacket. His thumb crushed an errant crumb of a brownie against the table.
“Yeah, it’s why she’s been coming to our flat so much recently,” he said miserably. “Ron told me.”
Hermione didn’t react for a moment, save for a small cough. Reaching over to still his fingers, she said, “Ron’s good at a lot of things, but figuring out girls isn't one of them, Ginny included. And apparently, the same goes for you since you’ve been avoiding her for the past three weeks.”
“I haven’t been avoiding her,” he mumbled.
“Don’t bother denying it, Harry, we both know you have. And Ginny does too for that matter. It’s made her really upset.”
Frowning, he stole a quick glance at the girl in question. She appeared to be bickering with her brother again although the grin on her face suggested it was anything but serious.
“Doesn’t look that way.”
Hermione pinched her nose and sighed. “Just stop avoiding her, Harry,” she advised. “You might be surprised by where it leads you.”
He opened his mouth to argue why that was a bad idea, but Ron chose that moment to blunder his way back across the café, grumbling some more about blatant disrespect and dropping a vanilla latte in front of Hermione. She smiled at him softly, her face glowing like the sun.
Harry wondered how people were lucky enough to have their feelings returned.
Avoiding Ginny worked up until… well, up until it didn’t.
Because the thing Harry had forgotten to factor into his brilliant plan when he’d concocted it was that this was Ginny Weasley and she was not someone who allowed others to snub her without good reason, not if she had anything to say about it. Even if it was someone like Harry, who she had known since he’d walked into the Weasley home eight years ago and seen her in her Hello Kitty pyjamas. Especially not if it was someone she’d known for that long.
Which meant that when he ran into her after lacrosse practice – sweat on his back, sports bag slung over his shoulder and the smell of grass clinging to his hair – and made some half-hearted excuse about needing to grab dinner instead of stopping to chat for a few minutes, she didn’t let him escape. No, she flung out an arm to stop him from taking another step and then proceeded to barge into his personal space.
Somewhere beyond the fog of exhaustion and fear, Harry felt somewhat mortified that she could probably smell just how bad he stank.
“Have I done something to offend you?” she demanded, tilting her head up to glare at him right in the eyes. She had very pretty, pretty eyes. “Do you have a problem with me or something?”
He blanched, the fog in his thoughts rapidly disappearing. “No, no, of course not,” he stammered. “Why would I have a problem with you?”
“That’s what I want to know actually. Because I thought we were doing just fine, Harry, and then you suddenly started to avoid me out of the blue – and don’t even think about denying it, I’m not stupid. I know when someone doesn’t want me around. The only thing I can’t figure out is why.”
“I – I…”
Well, this was going swimmingly. Damn it, this was why he hated conflict. This confrontation was exactly what he’d been hoping to avoid.
She arched an eyebrow while she waited for him. “Well? You what?”
“I don’t have a problem with you,” he said quickly. His mind raced to find some semblance of a proper explanation, one that still hid the truth deep down inside him where only the sheer determination of Hermione Granger could lure it out. “I just – I’ve been busy.”
“Busy,” she echoed. If it was even possible, her face became stonier. Harry had the distinct feeling that he would have been reduced to ashes had she had the ability to do so through force of will alone. “You’ve treated me like an absolute dick because you’re busy.”
“I didn’t mean to, I just – “
“Well, that’s what you’ve been doing, Harry! It’s not exactly a nice thing to blow off one of your friends without giving them an explanation. I would never have pinned you as the kind of guy to do something like that – “
“I’m not,” he protested. Oh, but he was. It didn’t matter what his private reasons were; what mattered was what she perceived and what she’d perceived wasn’t flattering in the slightest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just – Look, I fancy you, alright? Like. Really badly. And I know I shouldn’t because you’re Ron’s little sister and you like Neville, so I figured this would be the next best thing to do and I’m sorry that you got the wrong idea, but – I was just doing what I thought was best. That’s all.”
Well, shit. There it was.
His mouth had run away from him, spilling his secrets before he had granted it permission. As soon as the last word was thrown into the air, he tensed, his eyes tightening. Before him, Ginny’s grew wide and a surprised gasp of air left her. She scanned his face intently.
“I… what?” she said a little helplessly. “You did all this just because you like me?”
Not trusting himself to speak anymore, Harry slowly nodded.
“That’s… that’s.” She floundered for words before suddenly steeling herself. “That’s completely ridiculous.”
“Not really,” he began.
“Yes, really. For one, I don’t like Neville, he’s just a friend. I don’t even want to know where you came up with that idea, but you need to take it out of your head. Like right now. And you need to stop avoiding me because that’s really not the best thing to do. It’s so far from that actually. I mean, a normal person would just ask me out on a date if they liked me, instead of treating me like I have the plague.”
Harry blinked. “But I can’t,” he said. “You’re Ron’s sister.”
“Yeah, and?”
“So I can’t date you,” he said like it was obvious. Which it was. Ron’s ability to cut off people who dated his sister was both notorious and ruthless; who knew how he would treat Harry, the one person he was meant to trust above all, with this matter? “He wouldn’t like it. It wouldn’t be right.”
Ginny let out a startled laugh – and then cut herself off when she glanced at Harry’s face. She took a step away, brushing back her hair as she looked at him disbelievingly. “You’re being serious.” When he nodded, she laughed again, only this time it dripped with incredulity. “You won’t even consider being with me because you’re scared of what Ron might think?”
“He’s my best friend.”
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why she didn’t seem to understand this. Ron had been by his side for over eight years now, loyal and steadfast and funny. Sometimes, Harry thought he’d been his first real friend. He was certainly his oldest. Why would he jeopardise that?
Ginny’s disbelief tapered into something a lot less angry. When he looked into her eyes – her pretty, pretty eyes – he saw the death of something there, the loss of something he hadn't even realised existed. “Does he really mean that much – “ She cut herself off and shook her head. When she continued, her words were gentle and sad, “You don’t need his approval to be happy, you know. My brother might be your best friend, but he’s not… He’s still just another person at the end of the day.”
As she spoke, there was the oddest sensation in Harry’s chest. Sort of like the icy edge of a sharp object was prodding at his skin, searching for something to give.
“You’re really not going to do it, are you? You’re not going to have anything to do with me… even though I feel the same way about you?” She searched his face again and there it went: the hope she was clinging onto vanished into smoke. She sighed in defeat. “No, of course you’re not. I’ll see you around, Harry.”
Her gaze lingered on him for a few heartbeats longer – at the pathetic way he curled in on himself, a lacrosse stick poking out of his bag, and at the closed seal of his mouth – and then it swept away. She turned her back, her fists shoved deep into the pockets of her joggers, and left him there on the pavement.
The knife at his chest broke skin.
Truth be told, Harry had never experienced heartbreak. He had a girlfriend once, back when he was fifteen and hadn’t done much more than hold hands with someone or clumsily kiss them on the mouth. When things had ended with Cho – she’d been a complete wreck, in no position to give herself to someone after Cedric – it had been at the tail-end of weeks fraught with frustration and arguments over pointless things. At the time, he hadn’t felt much aside from relief.
It was different this time around.
He hadn’t even dated Ginny or had the chance to do any of the things he’d explored with Cho, but the image of her eyes shuttering, of the defeat on her lips, stayed fresh in his mind. He drifted through daily life like a puppet going through the motions. Lectures, lacrosse, long hours in bed where he distracted himself with Candy Crush – this was what his days were made of. Offers to party or even to simply pre-game were rejected in favour of staying in and mulling over their conversation in his head. It was like his daily life suddenly demanded too much of his effort and he had no energy left to provide.
But this was better than the alternative, wasn’t it? Because the alternative was Ron cutting him out of his life and he didn’t think he could handle that, even with Ginny by his side.
“Do you think I rely on Ron too much?” he asked Hermione one day at dinner.
It was just the two of them that night: Ron on his shift at the takeaway, Neville and Susan at their friend Hannah’s, Alicia and Katie at pre-games somewhere else. They hadn’t stocked up on groceries yet so dinner consisted of oatmeal and bananas. Harry pushed his around with a spoon, hoping to avoid Hermione’s knowing look.
“No,” she said eventually. “I don’t. But I do think you hold him on a bit of a pedestal.”
He frowned. “No, I don’t.”
“He was your first friend after what happened with your parents.” Her voice was gentle as she spoke. Perhaps that was what made it worse – Hermione was never gentle. “You’d been home-schooled for two years before you went to secondary school and met him. The two of you have been attached at the hip since. You don’t think you’re scared of losing that?”
Harry stared at his oatmeal, unseeing. He abruptly stood up, letting go of the spoon with a loud clatter. “I’m not hungry anymore,” he said.
Hermione sighed, but let him go all the same.
She wasn’t right. Surely, she wasn’t. Yes, Hermione was in all honesty the smartest person he knew, but she was no psychoanalyst and she didn’t know everything.
So what if Ron was the first friend he’d made after the car crash? That didn’t mean anything, it just meant that he’d been the first person to take pity on the quiet kid who’d sat next to him in Science and had drawn him into conversation. And yeah Harry was grateful about it, but who wouldn’t be? Ron was his best friend. Of course, he valued him.
He thought of Ginny and her pretty, pretty eyes looking at him in sadness and what he now recognised as pity. Does he really mean that much to you? was what she had started saying before she’d caught herself and clipped the question short. She’d already known the answer.
She’d already known she had lost the race before she could even dream of competing.
For some reason, it made him feel all the worse for it.
He waited until Ron returned from work. At a little past midnight, the boy in question stumbled into his bedroom, flicking on the light switch as he passed it. When he registered Harry sitting on his bed, he raised two pale eyebrows.
“Just so you know, I smell of grease,” he announced unnecessarily. The smell had announced his presence several seconds beforehand.
“I know.”
“And I’m not showering until morning,” he said, shrugging his jumper off him and dropping it where he stood. His freckled torso seemed even paler in the yellow light of the bulb overhead. “So if you’re planning on, I dunno, sleeping in my bed, you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
“I’m not sleeping in your bed,” Harry informed him.
“Oh, thank fuck. You always heat up at night and I can’t be arsed dealing with that in this weather.”
Yawning, Ron stripped to his boxers and reached for the pyjama pants on his pillow. As he hopped into them, he asked, “What’s up anyway? Why are you in my room?”
Harry opened his mouth. Closed it. And opened it again. To be honest, he didn’t really know why he was there. All he’d known was that he hadn’t been able to stop tossing over Hermione’s words and Ginny’s crestfallen face and the fact that he felt awful inside, as if there was a knife permanently lodged in the open slots of his ribcage, scraping against his heart. He just knew that he was miserable and when he was miserable, he sought out Ron and that –
“Do you think I rely on you too much?” he asked in a small voice.
Ron paused, one pant leg on. “No?” He frowned. “If anything, you don’t do it enough. You’re always trying to figure out shit by yourself. Like this past week, you’ve just been holed up in your room.” He scratched behind his ear and added unnecessarily, “I noticed.”
“Do you think I idolise you?”
At that, Ron snorted and yanked on the rest of his pyjamas. He crash-landed on his bed, jostling Harry in the process. “Idolise me? What the fuck is there to idolise? I work at a takeaway and I study Business. Nothing special there.”
“You work at a takeaway to support your family,” said Harry. “And you study Business because you’re smart enough to. You’re a good lacrosse player and you’ve always been there for me. And you were my friend when no one else was, even though I was just the weird quiet kid in your class.”
“I wanted to be your friend because you always said the funniest, most sarcastic shit under your breath in class. You weren’t weird, you were hilarious. And you thought I was, even though I just sounded like a tosspot half the time. I wasn’t your friend out of pity, I was your friend because I wanted to be.”
Harry bit his lip, staring down at his fingers as he anxiously knotted them together. The picture Ron painted wasn’t one he could see, wasn’t what he remembered, but he spoke so matter-of-factly that it almost seemed absurd that Harry didn’t recall it that way too.
He cleared his throat. “You’re always going to be my friend, right?” he asked. Just to make sure.
“Pretty much, mate.”
Anxiety fluttered in his throat like a bird. He licked his lips hesitantly. “Even… Even if I like Ginny?”
There was silence. When Ron spoke, his voice was unusually even, giving nothing away. “You like Ginny?” he asked. At Harry’s nod – he didn’t dare to look up just yet – he followed up with, “Is that what you’ve been worried about this week?”
No one could say Ron wasn’t perceptive when he needed to be.
“Yeah,” Harry whispered. Steeling himself, he braved a look at his best friend. Ron’s face was a blank slate: all freckles and no feelings. He wasn’t even looking his way. “I’m sorry.”
The first sign of emotion appeared in the form of a crease between his brows. “What are you sorry for? Having a heart?”
“For – for liking your sister,” Harry said slowly. Wasn’t it obvious? He had betrayed his trust. “I know how much you don’t like it and – and don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything about it. I won’t ask her out or anything – “
“Why not?”
Harry blinked. “What?”
“Why not?” Ron repeated. He frowned directly at Harry. “If you like her enough to have gotten this depressed over it, why wouldn’t you ask her out?”
“Because… because she’s your sister? And you hate everyone who dates her?”
It appeared as if the world had turned upside down because Ron inexplicably began to laugh like Harry had cracked his best joke yet. Grinning, he said, “Yeah, but Ginny’s past boyfriends weren’t you, were they? Yeah, the thought of you two together knocks me a bit sick because you’re my best friend and she’s my little sister, but like. I know you won’t hurt her. I trust you more than anyone not to hurt her. And besides, Ginny’s had a bit of a crush on you since she was ten.”
His mind spun from the whiplash. What on earth was going on? Why wasn’t Ron shouting at him, calling him names and denouncing their friendship? Where was the magenta he had turned when he’d discovered Dean Thomas snogging his sister? Harry had fucked up. Plain and simple. Why was he acting like he hadn’t?
“Yeah, but,” he said with slow confusion, “I’ve broken your trust. And you told me Ginny fancied Neville.”
“Well, yeah, I thought that since she kept coming over. But on second thoughts, it might have been because of you actually. She kind of seemed upset every time you left the room the past few weeks. But she has liked you since she was ten, it just died down a bit when you didn’t notice her. Don’t you remember the butter dish?”
He did, in fact, remember the butter dish. At the time, he’d just chalked it up to her being shy around strangers, but the thought of a tiny Ginny fancying him – scrawny, awkward little Harry – hadn’t entered the equation. That still didn’t explain the rest of it, however.
“Aren’t you mad?” he asked desperately. “Usually, you’re mad about these things. You were even going to corner Neville at one point.”
“I did corner Neville at one point. But no, I’m not mad. A bit weirded out, sure, but like I said: you’re my best mate. If there’s anyone I know who won’t hurt Ginny, it’s you. And besides, even if I was mad, what could I do?”
“Stop being my friend?”
“Because you’re dating Ginny?” Ron laughed again. “Would anyone ever let that happen? Scratch that: would I ever let that happen? Even if I didn’t approve of it, I can’t stop you from being with someone who makes you happy and shit. And I can’t stop Ginny either – which she’s told me a million times over the past few years, remember? Honestly, Harry, I’d just get over it if I was mad.”
Harry could only stare at him. For the past few months, he had built up the fear of Ron’s wrath into his very own David, terrified it would squash him out of existence. But the truth was the fear had all been in his head. He’d agonised over something that didn’t exist, all because he was terrified to let go of Ron.
He’s still just another person at the end of the day, Ginny had said.
At the time, he hadn’t even realised that he’d forgotten it.
When Harry entered Starbucks, it was during one of their quiet hours. There weren’t many customers there aside from a few students with laptops propped open in front of them and the odd businessman scrolling through his phone. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was the girl behind the till with her sunset hair and the smile that faltered at the sight of him.
Ginny watched him weave his way through the tables until he was an arms’ length away from her.
“What would you like to order?” she asked, her fingers hovering over the buttons of the till. Her smile was perfectly polite, her voice customer service-ready. The sight of it made him even more nervous.
“An Americano please,” he said, resisting the urge to wipe his clammy hands on his jeans. He watched her ring him up and then he tapped his debit card against the reader, staring at the receipt it spat out. “Thanks.”
“No problem. It’ll be ready in a few minutes at the end of the counter.”
Harry nodded in understanding. Still, he made no motion to move, prompting Ginny to repeat her last sentence. “I know,” he said and then licked his lips nervously. “Can we talk?”
“I’m working,” she said.
“I know. But I just – I’d like to say this before I chicken out.”
For the next handful of seconds, they stared each other down, neither willing to back off. Then Ginny took pity on him with a sigh and a motion to get on with it. “Go on then. Make it quick please before I get in trouble for slacking off.”
“Okay.” He exhaled hard, trying to collect his thoughts. Might as well jump into it. “You were right. You and Hermione were right. I did… I do put Ron on a bit of a pedestal. I care a lot about what he thinks and his friendship means a lot to me, so I – I don’t want to risk anything happening to that.”
“I know that, Harry,” said Ginny softly. There was something like pity in her expression and he couldn’t have that, couldn’t let it end there. It spurred him on further until words fell from his lips faster and faster, like leaves in the thick of autumn.
“He’s my best friend, you know? The first new person in my life after my parents died and I guess – I guess that made me latch onto him, I don’t know, but he’s just always been there for me and – “
“Harry. You don’t need to explain anything to me. I understand.”
“No, no you don’t,” he said. “Because you’ve never seen how mad Ron gets whenever he finds out one of our friends wants to date you and I know you guys argued over Dean all the time, but like – he was mad, Ginny. He thought Dean was completely out of line and maybe you don’t agree with that which you’re fully entitled to, I don’t blame you, but I just couldn’t have that happen to me, you know? He’s Ron, I couldn’t lose him like that.
“But I told him anyways because I couldn’t stop thinking about our argument. And he wasn’t – he wasn’t mad? He was a bit weirded out, but it wasn’t like anything I expected. He just accepted it. Because it was what would make me happy or whatever. And I realised…” He swallowed and met her eyes. “I realised that I’ve worried so much about putting Ron first that I never considered he might do the same with me.”
Ginny looked at him. The frost was melting away from her features, the pity unravelling to pieces. There was only warmth and the quirk of her lips looked a lot like hope.
“What are you trying to say?” she murmured.
Inside his chest, his heart started to pick up its pace. Each pump pushed away the knife embedded beside it until it was threatening to fall out entirely. “I’m saying… I’m saying I’d like it a lot if you went on a date with me, Ginny Weasley. If that’s something you’re up for.”
She smiled at him and it was lovely, like flowers in March and snowflakes on the breeze. “I think I could make some time.”
The spring sunshine fawned over her hair, setting it alight. Her pretty, pretty eyes crinkled at the edges like crescent moons. On the counter, her hand was open, palm facing up and ready. Harry reached over and held on.