Harry crawled into bed that night before eleven, exhausted but unable to sleep; the two significant events of the day replaying themselves in his mind, each causing his stomach to lurch, but for completely different reasons.
For after his impromptu proposal of marriage, Ginny had gone ahead and placed her name in the Goblet of Fire anyway. The jolt he got from that event had nothing to do (as she had feared) with a belief that she would not be able to handle the tasks, since Harry was firmly convinced that Ginny was by far the most capable person from all three schools to try out for the Tournament. Rather, his apprehension had more to do with a primitive, irrational fear of losing yet another person he loved.
Harry also couldn’t help but wonder if she was entering simply to prove something to him, but she had, when he voiced this concern, assured him that her desire to compete had less to do with him and much more with a need to prove to herself that she was up to the challenge; she had put it down to having grown up with so many adventure-seeking, and often foolhardy, older brothers.
It was these thoughts and fears combined with the underlying thrill that he had actually blurted out the suggestion of marriage to Ginny that kept him awake, lying on his back and staring, bleary-eyed at the ceiling, long after Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville had each entered the room, changed, and gotten into their respective beds.
As he listened to his roommates’ whispered comments to each other and the creak of their beds as they slipped under blankets, his stomach clenched horribly at the sudden, sickening realisation that Ginny had never given him an answer. This caused his heart to pound dully and his eyes refuse to close long after the lights around him were doused and he heard the soft snores and deep breathing of the others.
Harry was therefore wide awake when, well past midnight, he heard the door softly open and close, and tiptoed footsteps cross the floor. Even in the dark, he knew who it was before the visitor approached his bed and had sat down upon it; he would recognise that delicate flowery scent anywhere.
“It’s me,” Ginny whispered.
Harry sat up and beamed at her, his worries and anxious thoughts evaporating in a rush at the familiar blazing look he could see on her face in the pale moonlight streaming in through the window.
“I can see that,” he told her and she stifled a giggle. “The question,” he went on, “is why. Looking for some fun-filled detentions with Professors McGonagall and Oblongata if they catch you?”
“Nooo... You said earlier that you had something for me. Up here. So I thought I’d, um, come up and ...” Her voice trailed off weakly and for the first time in years, Harry marvelled that she actually looked shy. As if she could read his thoughts, she recovered quickly and jutting her chin out defiantly demanded, “Well? Do you have something for me, or not?”
“Oh yeah,” Harry replied and leaning closer, he pressed his lips to hers. What followed were many long, delicious moments of relative silence, the soft ticking of a nearby clock and a couple of owls hooting in the distance their only accompaniment.
Or at least it was until a disgruntled voice from the next bed called out, “Oi! Just so’s we’re all clear: I turn over and see my little sister anywhere near your bed? Best mate or not, I will kill you!”
Amid muffled snorts from the other beds, Ginny rolled her eyes dramatically, making Harry grin widely.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he whispered.
She looked like she was going to argue, but must have thought better of it because she gave him one last, lingering kiss, stood, and headed for the door.
His grin wider still, his lips still tingling with the pressure of hers, Harry grabbed for his glasses, threw off the sheets, jumped out of bed, and hurried to his trunk. Rummaging in it for a few moments, his lit wand his only light, he finally found the tiny velvet box he sought and, snatching it up, strode to the door. He was in the hall before he realised he was only wearing underpants and vest. With an inward groan, he sped back inside the dormitory and flung on some clothes before bounding down the stairs, three at a time, landing with a bump at the bottom in front of a startled Ginny, who let out a nervous giggle.
“Well?” she prodded, eagerly eyeing the hand that held the box. “What did you want to give me?”
Grabbing her wrist, Harry pulled her over to one of the fireplaces lining the walls which he lit with an impatient wave of his wand. Glancing around the common room to make sure they were alone, he said, “Wait. I want to do this right this time.” He let his grip slide from her wrist until he was holding her hand instead, and dropped to his knee before her.
She laughed again. “You know you look a right ass when you do that, don’t you?”
“I don’t make fun of your traditions, do I?” he retorted, with mock seriousness, fighting not to laugh himself.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Ginny pressed her lips tightly together to refrain from laughing aloud again. “Continue,” she managed to get out through her pursed mouth.
“Ginny ...” he began and then stopped. “Or maybe at a time like this I should call you Ginevra?”
“Do and I’ll thump you.”
Harry smirked and clasped her hand even tighter. He cleared his throat, and all of a sudden he didn’t have to feign a serious tone. “Ginny Weasley, will you marry me?”
All trace of her giggles gone, Ginny dropped onto her knees too so she could look in his eyes when she answered. “Of course I will, Harry. Of course I will.” She leaned in to kiss him, but his attention was taken with opening the velvet box.
“Then this is for you ...” He held out the ring, his heart beating madly somewhere near the back of his throat.
Ginny gasped when she saw it shining in the firelight like a yet-to-be-used Golden Snitch. She peered at the setting: huge, blood-red rubies, stone of Gryffindor House, set in a distinctive zig-zag pattern, highly reminiscent of a tiny lightning bolt.
“Wow, it looks exactly like a ...” Her eyes flitted to his forehead.
“Yeah.” Harry watched her face closely; all of a sudden, a ring shaped like his scar seemed completely idiotic. “Stupid, isn’t it?”
“What?” Ginny wasn’t really listening as she took the ring from him to get a closer look. “Stupid? Are you joking? It’s brilliant!” She slipped it on her finger, still admiring it. “I love it!” She looked up at him finally, brushed away the usual untidy lock of hair from his eyes, and added softly, “I love you.”
This time when she kissed him, Harry had nothing else to occupy his attention at all.
It was some thirty minutes later that Harry glided back into the dormitory, his cheeks aching from the width of his grin. Undressing back down to underpants and vest in silence, still quite unable to stop smiling, he got back into bed and pulled the sheets up to his waist.
“Thirty-six and a half minutes?” Ron hissed from the next bed. “Thirty-six and a half? How the hell could giving a girl a ring take over ten minutes? What the bloody hell were you two doing?”
Still smiling idiotically, Harry replied, without thinking, “Sorry, mate, the couches are just too comfortable down there ...”
With a roar of anger, Ron had torn off his blankets, leapt from his bed, ripped aside Harry’s hangings, grabbed Harry’s vest in one fist, and aimed the other at Harry’s nose before his intended victim knew what was happening.
His arms raised in surrender, Harry cried out, “A joke, Ron. It was a joke! Nothing happened. I swear.”
Ron’s face faded from purple to red and he lowered his right fist, releasing Harry’s vest, slowly, from his other hand. Jerking his arms out of the clutches of Neville and Seamus, who had sprung to Harry’s aid, Ron climbed off Harry’s bed and dropped down onto his own, his head in his hands.
Seeing that the danger had passed, Neville and Seamus nodded to Harry and returned to bed.
Livid, Harry rounded on Ron. “What the HELL was that for? If there was one bloke I thought you could trust your sister with, it’d be me!”
“I know, mate, I’m sorry.” Ron’s voice was muffled by his hands.
Harry, still angry, snorted his derision.
Ron raised his head. “No, really. I am sorry.” He sighed heavily. “Don’t know what came over me. It was mental. I know it was ...”
“Nothing happened.”
“I know. Again, I am sorry.”
Harry grunted something noncommital which Ron must have taken as acceptance because he didn’t look as crestfallen. With another sigh, he got back under the bedclothes.
Harry did the same and, knowing full well something must be bothering his friend for him to attack him like that, he waited until he once again heard the sounds of sleep coming from the other beds and then asked, “So what’s wrong?”
Ron exhaled noisily. “It’s Hermione,” he admitted miserably. “She’s driving me round the bend. All night it was, ‘Isn’t it sweet, Ron? Isn’t it lovely? Don’t you think it’s so romantic about Harry and Ginny?’ ” Harry grinned at the remarkably good imitation of Hermione’s voice and was grateful for the darkness so Ron couldn’t see his face. “Every two minutes,” Ron was saying. “It’s mental. And I have to wait almost two months if I want to ask her at the Yule Ball.”
“You could have asked her first,” Harry pointed out.
Ron scoffed loudly. “Wouldn’t have been an issue, would it, if you hadn’t gone and bollixed it up!”
“I was trying to stop her putting her name in!” Harry retorted hotly.
“Was just saying ...” Ron replied, soothingly. “No need to get shirty.”
“Not shirty,” Harry muttered. He was still annoyed at Ron’s earlier attack. Recalling the time he had spent with Ginny down in the common room, however, he decided to let it go.
“So, you’re going to wait?” Harry asked.
“I’m going to wait,” Ron agreed glumly.
They lapsed into silence until Ron broke it with a question. “Well?”
Half asleep, Harry wasn’t sure what he meant at first. “Well what?”
“Ginny. The ring,” Ron said, sounding exasperated. “Did she like it?”
Harry’s mouth split into its wide grin again. “Yeah. She did.”
“Oi!” Harry turned to see Ron extending his hand and they shook.
“Congratulations, mate.”
“Thanks.”
“And, um, Harry?”
“Yeah?” he replied, wondering at the hesitancy in his friend’s voice.
“Sorry about earlier, mate.”
“It’s over. Leave it,” Harry assured him, forcing out of his mind, for now, the image of the way Ginny’s skin shone in the firelight.
“ ... speaking of rings,” Ron was saying, “remember when you offered to lend me gold for Hermione’s?”
“But you wanted to ask George instead.”
“Yeah, well,” Ron said, “the git was going to charge me interest.”
Harry bit back a chuckle. That sounded like the successful businessman he knew well. “So you were wondering if my offer was still open?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Course it is. Hermione deserves the best.”
Harry heard Ron’s sigh of relief. “Good. I’ve not got much time to get one. Oh, and, um, Harry ...” Ron added, the hesitancy back.
“And I don’t charge interest,” Harry assured his friend, smiling in the dark.
“Brilliant.”
Silence reigned once more until Harry heard a loud “Bloody hell!” from the next bed.
“What now?”
“I just realized. It’s going to be weeks of, ‘Did you see Ginny’s ring, Ron?’ ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ ‘Don’t you think it’s so romantic?’ ”
Harry crammed a fist into his mouth to refrain from laughing aloud. A few moments later, with Ron still describing possible Hermione-like remarks, Harry closed his eyes, and it was only Ginny’s voice he heard as he drifted off into a contented sleep.
“Of course I will, Harry. Of course I will.”
Author’s note - the No need to get shirty/Not shirty exchange between Ron and Harry was inspired by a very similar exchange in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7 episode, “End of Days” written by Douglas Petrie and Jane Espenson. I just borrowed it as it fit well in this chapter.