Chapter 2: A Sprout Wilted
“Harry!” Ginny screamed and jumped into his arms. Harry was surprised at first, but pleasantly so.
“I take it that you did miss me,” Harry chuckled as he set Ginny down.
“We’ll leave you two alone,” said Hermione while leading Ron back to their room, 208.
“So you made Seeker, huh,” Ginny stated rather than questioned.
“Yep. I don’t know how this team got along without me,” said Harry with a playful, falsely cocky tone. Ginny gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Ouch.” Harry feigned pain, clutching his arm as thought he would have a bruise the size of California on it.
“Oh, stop being such a big baby,” chastised Ginny without meaning. “So, where are you staying?”
“Flat 211. You?”
“Right across the hall in 210.”
“Awesome,” Harry said in a distracted and slightly more serious tone. “Ginny, could I talk to you in private?”
“Sure,” Ginny said as she opened the door to her flat and dragged her trunk over the threshold.
You’re over him, you’re over him, you’re over him, Ginny kept repeating to herself, willing herself to believe it but failing miserably.
The room they entered was quaint. Maroon furniture of two couches and an overstuffed chair provided the focal point of the living room, and a bay window with maroon curtains adorned the wall directly across form the doorway.
”So much maroon,” Harry commented as he sat on the sofa.
Ginny threw her trunk in a corner and replied, “Hey, I didn’t decorate it. Though, I’d bet Ron would love it. You know how maroon is his favorite color and all.”
Harry laughed at the sarcastic tone to Ginny’s last statement before turning to face Ginny as she took a seat on the couch opposite him.
You’re over him. Ginny wanted to believe it, but knew that the seed inside her had already sprouted.
Harry’s face turned from playful to serious. “Ginny, there’s something about the final battle that I never told you.”
That’s not a good way to start off a conversation, thought Ginny.
“It specifically has to do with your coma.”
Wow. Are we going for the worst way in history to start off a conversation or what?
“When I tell you this, you have to promise not to be mad at me,” said Harry with that voice of a small child with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
“You know I can’t promise you that, Harry,” said Ginny with her arms crossed. “Just say it.”
Harry nodded and fidgeted with his hands. Ginny had never seen him more nervous.
“I got Dobby to go to your house and spike your evening pumpkin juice with a potion I made to put you in a coma until after Voldemort was dead.” Harry waited for the inevitable explosion to happen, but it didn’t come.
Ginny was still processing this newfound information. How could he do that to me? He had no right to stop me from doing whatever I wanted to do, whether my life was at risk or not, thought Ginny.
Harry, wrongly, thought it was safe to continue.
“I hope you understand why I did it. I couldn’t let you-”
“Couldn’t let me?” interrupted Ginny with deadly quietness. “Since when do you ‘let me’ do anything? Since when is anything I do any of your bloody business?” Her voice was getting steadily louder.
“I couldn’t stand to live without you! I had to keep you safe!”
“Well what if you’d never come back? What if you didn’t murder Voldemort?”
These last two words had a demoralizing effect on Harry. Now the explosion had begun.
“You said the potion would keep me in a coma until after Voldemort was dead. What if he didn’t die? What would have happened to me then? Stuck in a coma my entire life; what kind of an existence is that? And you risked leaving me like that, just to fulfill your own selfish wants.”
Harry sunk into his seat, looking as if all his will and determination had completely left him.
“I was just trying to keep you safe,” Harry mumbled almost incoherently.
“I wasn’t yours to keep safe,” Ginny spat venomously. “You assured that the second you turned your back on me at Dumbledore’s funeral.
Harry had no response for this. She was completely and totally right.
“As if I didn’t have enough misery that day and you go and increase it tenfold.” Ginny felt tears springing up into her eyes. “I waited for you.”
Harry turned quickly to gaze at Ginny.
“After the breakup, I was convinced that you’d come back for me after Voldemort was gone. I looked forward to all the breaks, just in case you would come and stay at the Burrow for a day or two… just to see your face.”
Ginny couldn’t stop the tears any longer, and they streamed down her face with the force of a raging river.
“Two years, Harry. Two agonizing years. And all that time I held out hope that you’d be back; just the next day, just the next break. Do you know how hard that was on my heart? It was like it kept getting broken and broken again with every expectation and every absence. Ron and Hermione made it, so why couldn’t you? I began to think that you hated me; that you never would return because you didn’t want me.”
Ginny paused again and conjured herself a handkercheif, ignoring the one that Harry held out for her. In that moment, she realized that the seed inside her had become unmistakably brown and wilted. She believed it now. She was over him.
Ginny walked over to her trunk and removed several old newspapers. She threw them violently onto the coffee table in front of the couch, though still holding onto one.
Harry gingerly picked them up and saw pictures of himself, Ron and Hermione a few days after Voldemort’s demise. Several others depicted the weeks following and all of his activities.
“You weren’t responding to my owls, so I relied on newspapers to assure me that you were indeed still alive. I remained loyal to you through all of it, and how do you repay me?”
She threw the paper she was holding into Harry’s lap. He gazed down at himself passionately kissing Susan Bones. On the next page, it showed the same, but with Romilda Vane. He knew it went on, but chose not to delve deeper into the paper’s contents.
“Looks to me like you could live without me, seeing as you didn’t remember that I existed.”
“Ginny, I… I’m sorry.”
“Well sorry isn’t good enough, Harry. This is the last straw. I was determined to forget you when I set out on my own, but you turn up at the one time I don’t want you to. I was almost ready to take you back, after all the absence, after all this,” she jabbed her finger at the pictures,” when I saw you again. But now, after the truth comes out…I don’t think I can take you back…ever.”
Harry looked desperate, but could come up with no argument to account for his actions, to justify them, because they simply couldn’t be justified.
“Get out, Harry,” said Ginny, her voice icier than ever before. “Get out now.”
“Ginny, let me try to make you see-”
“You just don’t have a way with words today. ‘Make me’ see? I’ve seen it all very clearly I’ll have you know, and even with the clarity, I still love you-”
Ginny clasped her hand to her mouth as if she had uttered a disgusting swear word. She turned suddenly and ran out of the flat, a fresh wave of tears pouring down her face.
Ron opened the door to his and Hermione’s flat just in time to see his little sister running from Harry, her face shining brightly with tears.
“Ginny!” Harry called after her, but she didn’t stop. He didn’t follow.
Ron stared after Ginny, then rounded on Harry. “What did you do to my sister?” he asked angrily.
Harry just stood there, starring hopelessly at the spot where Ginny had turned the corner, his eyes unfocused, his heart shattered. He now had a vague knowledge of what it felt like to be Ginny every time he wasn’t there. His emotions finally overwhelmed him, and he sank to his knees in the middle of the hall and cried.
************************************************************************
Ginny ran. She almost flew down the stairs in her attempt to put as much distance between her and Harry as possible. The front doors flew open even before she reached them, and she made her way to a bench beside a fountain of dolphins she had seen on her way into the building.
Ginny sat down on the stone bench, put her head in her hands and let the last of the tears flow until she could cry no more. She looked up at the fountain of happy dolphins, which seemed to be toying with her in her misery.
“Hey,” said an unfamiliar voice.
Ginny looked up and saw the cute blonde haired boy she had waved to earlier standing beside her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. I saw you running out of the building and thought something was wrong.”
“There is, but it can’t be fixed now. He’s just so lucky he’s not on an opposing team or I’d knock him off his broom with the Quaffle on purpose.”
“Wait; are you a Chaser for the Cannons too?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, it’s my first year. You?”
“Second. I came on fresh out of Hogwarts last year.”
“What’s your name?” asked Ginny.
He was comforting her significantly by making her forget the problems she’d left behind in the flat.
“Mark Matthews,” he said, extending his hand.
“Ginny Weasley,” she replied with a slight smile as she met him halfway in the handshake. “Which flat are you staying in?”
“209,” Mark answered.
“Awesome!” Ginny exclaimed. “I’m in 210. We’re diagonal from each other!”
“Cool. Is your room decorated with maroon everything?” asked Mark.
“Unfortunately,” complained Ginny, causing Mark to laugh.
“That’s what I thought when I saw it!”
The two laughed again, unaware of Harry, who was watching them with narrowed eyes full of jealousy. He saw this ‘new guy’ stand up and walk with Ginny back to the dorms, and decided it was time to make his exit.
But it was not before Ginny saw his brilliant green eyes staring at her and his head of unruly black hair turn away.
I’ll show him, thought Ginny as she started talking animatedly to Mark again.
When Mark and Ginny had finished climbing the stairs, they were well acquainted.
“Listen,” Mark said as they stopped in front of his door on the odd numbered side of the hall. “I know we just met, but would you like to go out with me sometime?”
“As a date or as friends?” Ginny asked, with a tone in her voice that said she preferred the former to the latter. She saw Harry peering out from his doorway and tried her best to ignore him.
“As a date,” Mark said anxiously.
“Absolutely,” Ginny said and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. “When and where?”
“How does 7:00 tomorrow night sound? I know this local little Italian place called Graziano’s that you’ll love.”
“Brilliant. Isn’t that right after the first Quidditch practice?”
“Yeah. That’s okay right?”
“Yes. It’s more than okay. See you then,” and with a flirtatious smile, Ginny headed for her room. On her way, she gave Harry a murderous stare and closed her door with a snap.
How dare Harry watch me! Ginny thought. My life is none of his business, and he has no right to be jealous of Mark. He screwed our relationship up, not me!
Ginny looked around at the horrid maroon everything of the living room and changed the color to a lived in, non-perfectionist, off white.
Much better, she thought and went over to the left well which had two doors in it. She opened the first door and discovered an office, complete with a desk, a fireplace big enough to Floo from, and more maroon.
Why is everything maroon? she thought as she changed the color to a comforting blue.
Ginny closed the door to the office and opened the next door on the wall. She peered inside and saw a marvelous kitchen with a window at the far end and, miraculously, no maroon. Although smaller, the kitchen reminded her of the kitchen at the Burrow.
Ginny shut the door with a sigh, turned around and saw a small hallway directly across the living room.
Puzzled, as she hadn’t noticed it before, she crossed the room to reach it.
In the hallway, there were two doors, one on each side of the hall. Choosing the left one first, Ginny opened it and revealed a deluxe bathroom with a maroon theme. But that was the only downside. It had a spacious bathtub that resembled a swimming pool, gigantic shower and luxurious sink. Ginny added the final touch, a color change to varying reds and pinks.
Ginny exited the room and opened the door directly across from it.
What Ginny saw took her breath away. Her bedroom had a canopy bed, the kind she had dreamed about since childhood. Against the wall were a squishy couch that looked very inviting and a beanbag chair; both of which were maroon. Ginny rushed over to her bed and, like a giddy second year, jumped on and sank into its squishy softness.
This is the life, thought Ginny once she had changed the maroon to four different shades of a pinkish purple. If only Harry weren’t such a prat.
That was her last thought before she fell asleep.
The sprout inside her was wilted and brown, but not dead. Not yet.
A/N: And here is where I tell you to review. I also want to thank all the ppl who edited this, and all you lovely people who have reviewed so far. Check my Author's page for news on what the chapters are doing. It will tell you which chapters are being written, which are typed, and which are edited. Thanks to you all again!
Next Chapter’s title: A Seedling Before Dawn