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SIYE Time:21:43 on 28th March 2024
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It Takes A While
By Calliope

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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: G
Reviews: 25
Summary: "Everyone thought I was dead. No one else was doing anything to save me. I didn't even think I deserved to be saved. And Harry came anyway. You know why? Because it never occurred to him not to."
Hitcount: Story Total: 6687







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Everyone thought I fell in love with him at the train station.

For years, people would ask me if I fell in love with Harry Potter when saw him for the first time, when I first heard his story, or when I found out who he was. I usually told them what they wanted to hear and sent them on their way…the real story was far too long and personal for most people to hear. It wasn’t until Hermione asked me, one late night in our room in Grimmauld Place, that I finally said the words out loud.

“Ginny?” The voice had come through silence after a gap in our conversation. It was no earlier than two in the morning, and we had been up discussing almost everything for hours. Harry had not yet arrived, but Hermione had gotten there that day.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you going out with Michael?”

I shrugged, even though I knew she couldn’t see me in the dark from her bed. “I don’t know. He’s nice…and he’s smart. He makes me laugh sometimes. I like him.”

Hermione’s voice was timid, as though she was afraid, after three years of close friendship, she might offend me and I’d storm out. “What about Harry?”

“I’ve given up on Harry, Hermione. You know that.”

“Yes, I know.” She paused. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not still in love with him.”

“So what?”

“So nothing, I guess.”

“Right.” There was another pause.

“Ginny?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“Are you in love with Michael?” I hesitated. Hermione had never asked me questions like this before. She knew more about me than almost anyone in the world, but we had never gone too far into the topic of love. I knew of her frustrations with Ron, and she was always the first to know about any new developments with my crush on Harry (or lack thereof), but I had always figured her to be too much of a pragmatic to breach the subject.

“It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

“Right.”

Hermione stopped again for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was almost a whisper. “Are you in love with Harry?”

“I don’t know.” I shut my eyes. “What is being in love, anyway? No one knows for sure. Maybe I’m in love with Michael. Maybe I’m not in love with anyone. Maybe I’ll never even fall in love. It’s a mystery.”

“But…if you had to guess. Are you in love with Harry?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m not sure.”

“Why?”

“Why am I not sure?”

“No, I know that. I mean, why are you in love with him?”

“Why not?”

“I’m not in love with him.”

“You could be.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“Well, you know. When did you fall in love with him? Was it love at first sight?”

“No.”

“What did you think when you first saw him?”

“I wondered why that little boy didn’t have anyone with him. When I found out he was Harry Potter, I just wanted a better look at his scar.” I let a hint of shame creep into my voice.

“Oh, Ginny.”

I continued as if Hermione had not spoken. “Then, at the beginning of the summer before I went to Hogwarts, Ron came home and told me everything you three had done that year. That was really the only year he told me everything. And that’s when I started to fall in love with him.”

“Why then? Because he’d beaten Quirrell?”

“No. Because he went in the first place.”

“What?”

“Ron told me how you had tried to convince him not to go after the Stone,” I explained. “And then he told me how Harry seemed completely-” I searched for the right word “- flabbergasted that you would consider not going an option.”

“Oh.”

“And I thought, ‘Wow. He’s risking his life to go up against completely unknown forces that he has almost no chance of beating to try to do the right thing.’ And that’s when I developed the crush.”

“Just the crush?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when did you…you know.”

“Fall in love with him?”

“Yeah.”

“It took a while. It’s funny, everyone thinks I got a crush on him immediately, because they know I had one my first year. And even if that was true, they assume it never changed. I would always be there, waiting, drooling over Harry from afar and sending silly valentines and get-well cards.”

“And it’s not true?”

“Of course not. Sure, I had a crush on him. And I blushed when I did silly things around him. But when I was that age, I blushed at everything. You see how red Ron gets all the time.”

“Yes.”

“And I did give him that get-well card. It wasn’t supposed to sing like that…it was actually supposed to sing that Weird Sisters song — you know, ‘Feels like a Long Fall’? I though he might be bored and like to hear some music. But the charm went wrong. And I would have felt bad not giving him a card when he was lying there in the hospital wing, so I brought it anyway. I even suggested he keep it shut under a bowl of fruit. I’m pretty sure he did, too.”

“So…you never sent that valentine?”

I shook my head in the dark. “Nope.”

“Who did?”

“Fred and George, of course. I would have told Harry, but…things got in the way of me talking to him that year.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I started to like him that summer. And then he saved my life.”

“Is that when you fell in love with him?”

“Be patient, Hermione. I think that’s when the crush began to develop into something deeper. Because it wasn’t just that he was risking everything on an impossible mission again. Everyone thought I was dead. No one else was doing anything to save me. I didn’t even think I deserved to be saved. And Harry came anyway. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because it never occurred to him not to.”

“I guess. I never really thought of it.”

“I did.”

“So I guess every time he managed to get himself into some silly situation…”

“Right. When you and he went after Ron and saved Sirius. When he went into the lake to do what he thought was saving Ron again, and then when he brought up Fleur’s little sister because he thought she’d drown. He never thinks twice about helping other people, and when someone suggests he sit still and wait, he thinks they’re insane. You know, he gets that look on his face. He looks at you like you’re completely crazy.”

“Yes, I know that look.”

“I love that look.”

“It’s funny, I always thought of it as Harry’s hero complex. He does tend to be reckless, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. But to me it’s part of the charm.”

“One of these days he’s going to get himself or someone else killed.”

“Probably. But it would happen anyway. And this way Harry will be there to help anyone else.”

We lay in silence, sleep finally beginning to claim us. I thought Hermione had drifted off when she whispered, “Ginny?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“You really do love him, don’t you?”

“Yes, Hermione.”

“He’ll see reason someday.”

“Maybe. Go to sleep, Hermione.”

“Goodnight, Ginny.”

“Goodnight.”




A/N: Can I please be J.K. Rowling? Please? No? OK.

I know, you all have a perfect right to be mad at me for posting this and not another chapter of After All. But I wanted to write fluff...::whimpers::

Please review...nicely?
Reviews 25
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