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"I found the last of your things," Ginny says, and in her hands is a book you haven’t seen since Christmas. She’s looking down at it nervously, and you wonder if it might be infested with Northumbrian Paperwyrms. Her fingers are shaking a little, and you take it from her so she doesn’t get bitten.
Ginny smiles at you in a way that doesn’t reach her eyes at all. Maybe you should give the book back. You sit down on the edge of your trunk and watch her. "You’re not actually smiling," you inform her. "What’s wrong?"
"I’m fine," she says with a hint of annoyance, and sits down in front of you, frowning. She looks up at you oddly. "You won’t have your notes," she says. You think that it’s something you’d say.
"What?
"Your notes," she says tersely. "Remember? They’ll all be in the margins of my book. You’ll need them for Divination next year."
You remember. You remember the nights, keeping warm curled tucked in one chair long after bedtime. Scribbling notes that reminded you more of Ginny than Divination. Classes seemed like an endless queue, waiting for the chance to study.
Ginny never understood the stars. You’d thought it was bizarre not to know them by heart, a realm you could have lived in. You had to bring them down for her, this girl who warded off insults for you and climbed your tower. You made them appear in the air, and connected the freckles on her arm into constellations with your quill. She’d sat quietly blinking under your touch, nodding as you pointed them out – Cassiopeia, on your shoulder. Ursa Minor, on your wrist.
When she couldn’t remember the next night, she insisted on the real thing, ran with you through the halls. You dragged each other into corners when you heard noises, giggling and shushing. You stood under falling snow – she let smoky breath past open lips into the sky, as if the stars were something new, and you watched her collect unrepeatable crystals on her eyelashes.
One night, she fell asleep in the middle of talking to you, and you wondered if she was still talking to you in her dreams, and if you fell asleep, if you could keep talking. You counted her freckles like stars and drew new constellations on the curve of her shoulder until she woke up.
"It’s all right," you answer her. "I’ll still be in class with you, you know. We’ll see each other all next term. It’ll be all right."
She fists her hands in her skirt and stares at the ground. You’re not sure what’s going on, but she’s obviously not all right, and that’s not what Ginny is for you. Ginny’s strong, and funny, and bright, and like her hair in so many ways. When she cries, it’s like seeing something break, only you can’t fix it with a wand.
You get up, set your book in your trunk, and sit down next to her. Take her hand and unfold it in front of you, turn it palm up in yours.
"What do you see?" she asks you, and you trace the waves and breaks of her life line with one finger, watch where it joins her head line in a simian crease, smile, tell her honestly:
"You." You frown over unforeseen obstacles in her fate line and wonder how many of the children born into the Second War have the same hands.
Ginny sighs as you peer over her palm, and says calmly, "Harry dumped me. He said it was safer."
You look up at her. "Nothing’s safe." You think to yourself that Harry Potter is sometimes very brave, but nonetheless has a very poor comprehension of how life works.
"It’s okay," she says in a strange tone. "You know, it’s sort of like the constellations."
"Hmm?" You put her hand down.
She rubs her right hand with her left, massaging the palm. "Well, you know. First you don’t know something, and then you think you have an idea. And someone explains it to you, and you realize you didn’t know in the first place. And then you find out that you still don’t know. And you get it explained again…but it’s not any good until you see the real thing..."
You smile nervously, and you’re horribly unsure why your heart is beating like this. You feel like a Flibbering Horsluf is trapped in your body, trying to get out, and you really wish it would just get it over with already, because it’s not fair. You have no idea why your insides know more than your brain does – because you don’t have any idea what she’s talking about. You wonder sickeningly if this is what you sound like when everyone looks at you strangely.
Ginny seems to understand that she’s rambling. "I thought I loved Harry," she says simply. "I thought I should, because I didn’t love Michael, or Dean. And because I thought I did for years. But I don’t." She looks at you.
"People don’t usually fall in love by thinking about it," you tell her, looking down at your own heart line for evidence of this fact.
She says, "I hid your book so you’d have to keep sharing mine."
"I know," you answer, though you didn’t even think about it until now. It seems so clear. You wonder how you’ve looked at stars and lines and teacups for so long, and haven’t been informed that you were in love with Ginny Weasley the whole time. She looks up at you, cheeks pink, and you lean forward and kiss her. It’s not like kissing a boy.
Later, on the train, you remember the way you traced springtime stars onto her skin, and hide pink cheeks with a Quibbler. You pretend to read; think about the Burrows in the summertime, bright with flowers and freckled smiles. Maybe your father will let you go to Bill and Fleur's wedding. You’ve never seen one before.