“Good luck, Harry!” murmured the excited, wide-eyed redhead as the Hogwarts Express slowly chugged into motion.
Good luck. They were the first words she had ever said to him, and at the time she thought them terrible. What a thing to say to the Boy-Who-Lived, who triumphed over the Dark Lord! What a thing to say... “good luck!”
But she had meant it “ the whole two words. Even at the ignorant and tender age of ten, Ginny had known that Harry was somebody special “ a force to be reckoned with. Everybody knew it. What no one seemed to realize, though, was that surviving amongst very jealous, awestruck, less famous wizards his own age was going to require a great deal of luck.
And what luck it was, thought she, when Harry Potter had befriended her brother, of all people. And such luck when Hermione had befriended her. The very boy who had saved the Wizarding world, befriending her brother!
Oh, but what a fool she was. She would run from the room when he would greet her, she would avoid his vivid green eyes at all costs. Maybe if she had been prudent this wouldn’t have happened. She would never have spent three years agonizing over him, and a fourth trying to forget him. Oh, if only she had stayed!
Oh, if only her neglect for the here-and-now was not so ridiculous and blinding! Perhaps in that day she would have seen her true love, the Harry Potter that she loved. The man behind the lightning bolt.
The first time that she had been really stupid had been on Christmas Eve, during the Yule Ball, when she had left early under the pretense of fatigue. Everyone thought that she was tired of Neville, tired of wincing when he stepped on her delicate toes, but she used it as a cover for the real reason. If she was honest with herself, the reason was to escape Harry and Parvati together, to escape them, regardless of their open contempt for one another.
That contempt did not matter to Ginny, for all that she wanted even then was to be with Harry, to collapse into his arms, and to know that he was there. She knew the steady beating of his heart “ she knew the twinkling green of his eyes “ as green as a fresh-pickled toad.
The only other person who was yet awake she met outside of her Common Room. Michael Corner had been on his way back the bathroom. If only she had kept going, rather than letting him stop her. If only! She did not love him, but he was the first boy she had ever kissed.
But why? She had no reason to do it. There was no obvious attraction between the two, no chemistry, no sparks. Why then had she done it? It was the beginning of that quest to rid herself of the lost love who had haunted her for four years of her life.
After that awkward period in which neither would admit the existence of the other, in which they denied each other’s existence, Ginny found that she did have feelings for Michael, and the next year they began their relationship, Ginny in denial of what she truly felt.
Shortly thereafter, though, Ginny realized that it was not out of love for Michael that she had done it, but to free herself from Harry’s unwitting clasp. No more would she pine for the Boy-Who-Lived!
And thus began the year-long saga for something whose profit was solely selfish. She had never done anything like it in her life. Now every waking moment, every breath she drew was devoted to a singular purpose “ forgetting Harry Potter.
She wanted to forget the one who had unknowingly saved the world in which she lived. She wanted to forget the one who had saved her very life. She wanted to forget the one who had so many times thought of her, but had never given it notice. What was this strange and foreign emotion called love? Why had it taken hold of her and whipped her into thinking that she no longer wanted to be around him?
She spent a summer agonizing over him, dreading the moment when they would next see one another, but her fears were in vain. She had lost all emotion regarding him, her lost love, except that he was her brother’s best friend. She felt lost and undone.
But the love that she had for Michael was not genuine, and Ginny’s heart was all in knots. Harry “ her one, her only, her savior “ he alone could fill the gap that lay inside her heart, screaming to be filled. Ginny developed a habit, one which she regretted ever contemplating. She lost the little girl in awe of Harry Potter, and created a new girl who did everything in her power to forget him.
It was then that Ginevra Molly Weasley realized that the male population did not consist of Harry Potter and Michael Corner alone.