Chapter 10 “ Share the Silence
“Times of joy and times of sorrow
We will always see it through
We can face it together
The way old friends do.”
- “The Way Old Friends Do” by ABBA
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“I’m coming!” Ginny shouted towards the door once again, becoming annoyed. She turned quickly back to the essay she was in the middle of writing, but just realized she had lost her train of thought, her quill posed about a half finished sentence.
There was a louder knock on the door.
Frustrated, Ginny threw the quill down and hurried over to the door, throwing an annoyed look up the stairs where she knew Ron was ignoring the door and probably in the middle of snogging Hermione.
Sometimes she really wanted to move out of her the Burrow. If she could just get out of this internship and get a new job, she might just be able to afford to.
Her hand reached the doorknob and she flung open the door, not bothering to hide her annoyed look.
“What in the bloody he-“
Her words stuck in her throat as she gazed at the man in front of her, not daring to move or blink, for fear he would disappear.
“H-Harry?” she stuttered, wondering if her lack of sleep the past few days was catching up with her.
He just managed a lopsided smile at her and set down the small pack he was carrying, his eyes full of relief, joy and remembrance. Behind all that, however, she saw his shoulders slightly sagging, the shadows under his eyes just a bit darker and his smile not as wide as it used to be.
“Ginny.”
He surprised both of them by stepping forward and gathering her into a tight hug.
Tears came to Ginny’s eyes as she felt Harry’s arms wrap around her and she cried a few tears of joy as her own arms reached around his back and held back, just as strong.
It had been a long three years, but he was home.
----
Harry stayed in the shadow of the stands, not wanting to bee seen as he watched the players fly laps and exercises in the air before him. The Cannons had definitely improved over the years, especially since Ron had been made captain. His natural strategy skills (from all those years playing chess, of course) made him one of the best player captains in the profession today.
His eyes found the redhead high above the others, watching casually but alert, one hand on his broom for balance, the other hanging loosely to the side.
The large clock on the west side of the stadium chimed five o’clock, signaling the end of practice, and Ron motioned for everyone to land.
The team began to head to the locker room, smiles on most of their faces as they talked about the day’s practice and the upcoming game. But Harry’s attention was still focused on Ron who, instead of following his team, stayed out on the field, watching them walk in, an indefinable expression on his face.
Taking a chance, Harry removed himself from the shadows and began walking towards his best friend.
Ron made mo move that he saw him coming, but Harry knew that he could see him out of the corner of his eye.
Feeling awkward, Harry stuck his hands in his pockets, stopping a few feet away from Ron and looking at him apologetically.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said carefully. Ron still hadn’t looked at him.
“I don’t miss a practice,” Ron stated, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I know.”
They were silent for a few minutes and Harry didn’t dare speak until Ron finally turned to look at him.
“Your team looks like they’re in good shape,” he said carefully. “Primed for a win on Saturday.”
Ron’s gaze shifted back to the locker room doors his team had disappeared through. “Why shouldn’t they be?” He shot a harshly accusing look at Harry and hoisted his broom on his shoulder, beginning to walk towards the locker rooms himself.
Harry stood still for a moment before deciding to follow. After many years of being Ron’s friend, he knew getting his trust back wasn’t going to be an easy thing.
“Well, you’re speaking to me. I suppose that’s a step up,” Harry began as he caught up to his friend.
Ron scoffed. “We’re not in fourth year anymore.”
“Damn right we’re not,” Harry agreed, stepping so that he blocked Ron’s path and the redhead was forced to stop. “So what’s up your arse making you believe I would do that to you?”
Scowling up at him, Ron pushed Harry out of the way before continuing his track. “I don’t need this right now.”
“No,” Harry called out to him, deciding not to follow anymore. “What you need is your wife, just as much as she needs you.”
Thankfully, that was able to stop Ron in his tracks. His back still turned to Harry, Ron hung his head just a bit.
“You’ve seen her? She’s okay?” His voice was surprisingly timid.
“I don’t know if Ginny would call her ‘okay’ since she’s the one having to deal with the hormones, but I wouldn’t call her ‘okay’ since she’s been crying her eyes out every minute she’s not asleep.”
Harry let the words sink in for a moment.
“Whatever the hell you think you’re doing staying away from her for so long…it’s a dumb idea, mate.”
Ron’s temper flared up again and he whirled around, glaring at Harry. “Listen, mate,” he spat out the word, “don’t tell me how to live my life. You are not qualified.”
And without another word or backward glance, Ron disappeared into the locker room.
----
Harry knocked again, a little harder this time, hoping Ginny would hear.
He had thought about the possibility of her not answering because of the small “moment” they had shared earlier that morning.
He, on the other hand, was hoping they would never bring it up again. That crisis on top of the Ron/Hermione angst that was coursing through his life would not be a good combination. Besides, now was not the time to get involved with another women, especially because he might end up being re-engaged to his ex-fiancé by Saturday.
Finally getting fed up, he reached down, opening the door himself and cautiously entering the quiet house.
“Harry?”
He glanced towards the stairs, seeing a sleepy Hermione walking down them, dried tear marks all down her face as she looked at him curiously.
“Hey Hermione,” he said with a comforting smile, walking towards her and gathering her into a hug as she reached the bottom stair. “How are you holding up?”
“Alright,” she said unconvincingly.
They pulled apart and Harry swept some hair out of her face, trying to smile. “Since when do you get to sleep all day?”
Hermione laughed a bit and Harry was relieved to see that she wasn’t crying anymore. “Since I’m pregnant, and don’t you forget it!” She poked him lightly in the stomach, making him double over a bit, and started leading him towards the kitchen.
“Have you had dinner?” she asked, starting to rummage around in Ginny’s fridge.
“I’m not hungry,” Harry said, waving her question away and sitting down at the bar stools by the counter. “Where’s Ginny?”
Hermione frowned slightly as she turned back to Harry, holding a cup of yogurt in one hand and going to find a spoon. “I’m not sure exactly. I woke up to some yelling a few hours ago. When I went downstairs, Edward was storming out the door and Ginny looked ready to kill. She looked at me for a second before mumbling something about needing fresh air and then disappeared out the door.” Finding a spoon, she went around to the other side of the counter and began to eat the yogurt, throwing Harry a small look.
“What was that for?” Harry questioned.
“What?”
“That look!”
“What look?”
Harry ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Never mind.”
But when he looked up again, Hermione was scrutinizing him carefully.
“What?!” he said, exasperated.
“Whatever happened with you and Ginny?” said asked suddenly, catching Harry off guard.
He turned away from her gaze, rubbing at a spot on the counter. “What are you talking about?”
“After the war,” Hermione pressed. “In St. Mungo’s? There was something different about you two after you had whatever conversation it is that you had. It was like you broke up…but you didn’t. Then you disappear to the other side of the world and Ginny doesn’t bat an eye. It’s like you two didn’t love each other anymore.”
“Is that right?” Harry didn’t know whether to scowl or grin at that comment. He settled for using his fingernail to try to get the spot off of the counter.
“Well neither of you ever talked to anyone about it. Even when you came back, you and Ginny just acted like best friends. Ron wanted to find an excuse to beat you up for breaking her heart, but she never seemed to cry about it.”
She fell silent and Harry hoped she had dropped it, but suddenly she was sitting beside him and he felt her gaze on his face.
“Are you going to just let me keep making my own assumptions, or are you going to tell me what happened?”
He turned to glance at her. “I saw Ron today.”
A flicker of something passed across her face, but it disappeared quickly. “Don’t try to change the subject, Harry, I’m sick of crying.”
“Well, who says my story is going to make you happy?”
She breathed out a huff and turned back to her yogurt. “You’re as impossible as Ron.”
“He misses you too.”
She stopped, her spoon in her mouth, frozen in the action, just as Ron had been only an hour to so ago when Harry had mentioned Hermione to him.
She finally lowered the spoon, swallowing once before starting to scrape away at the practically empty yogurt cup.
“Have you ever been in love, Harry?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
She turned to him inquisitively. “How many times?”
He hesitated just slightly on that question, not quite knowing where she was going with this. “Once.”
She cocked her head to the side a bit. “Were you in love with Ginny?”
“No.”
This answer seemed to shock her slightly and she turned away, embarrassed.
“I’m still in love with her.”
This brought an even bigger shock as Hermione’s hands slipped and both spoon and cup clattered to the counter. Harry smiled a bit behind his hand, even though he had been surprised with his own answer as well.
“Does she know?” Hermione finally found the nerve to ask.
Harry shrugged. “We don’t bring it up. Even if I want to be more than friends with her again, I wouldn’t risk it.”
“Why not? She might be wanting the exact same thing.”
Harry grimaced. “I never know anymore. And until I know, I really don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“Screw friendship, Harry!” Hermione cried, suddenly becoming very fierce. “You two could have been married by now.”
Harry’s eyes went wide at the statement and he turned a bit red. “Er, no. It’s really not that simple, Hermione.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off. “Besides, we were talking about you and Ron.” He frowned at her. “Don’t you think it’s time you went back home? He might be there.”
Hermione scowled at the change of subject. “I don’t think I can handle seeing him just yet.”
“Why ever not?”
She sighed, standing up and taking her cup to the trash and her spoon to the sink. “Now that I’ve gotten over the initial shock of just being away from him for so long…” she slouched down on a chair at the table. “I’m mad again.”
Harry wanted to roll his eyes, but resisted the urge. He kept reminding himself that Hermione was pregnant. “You were mad before, right?”
“Yes,” she admitted carefully. “I’m not as mad now…but I just can’t.” Her eyes shut tight and she took a sharp breath. “How could he do that? Really? Did he just have no sense at all? Didn’t he realize what he was doing?”
“Hermione,” Harry said comfortingly, standing up to go join her by the table. “Ron, is Ron.” He slung an arm around her shoulders. “He’s not going to be perfect like you.”
She sniffed and Harry saw that a few tears were leaking out of her eyes again. “Oh...I’m not perfect, Harry.”
He smiled, glad she had said just those words and waited for their impact to sink in.
When it finally did, he felt her stiffen a bit under his embrace. “No…no, I’m defiantly not perfect. Especially if I can make a mistake like this.”
She straightened up a bit and looked at Harry ruefully. “You’ve probably been waiting for me to admit that since our first year at Hogwarts, haven’t you?”
“Of course not. I knew it the moment you lied to Professor McGonagall about the troll.”
His chuckled were interrupted by her smacking him on the arm.
----
Of all the brilliant moments to be smashed, Ginny Weasley knew this was at least one of the top ten, but yet she had no energy to go find a pub.
Wandering the darkening neighborhoods around her house, Ginny would rather have been drunk earlier that day. If she could just forget what happened then she would be having no problems now.
They had been about to kiss…had kissed. She admitted it to herself, even if she didn’t know which one it was.
The thing that was bugging her the most was what would have happened if Edward hadn’t chosen that moment to floo her.
The answers she had come up with only made her despise Edward even more.
She turned into a small park where only a few children and parents were left playing as she sun continued to set. The swings were unoccupied so she plopped herself in the nearest one and slowly pumped her legs, enjoying the silence that came as the last few stragglers on the playground left for home.
It let her think better.
It wasn’t that she had been pining after Harry all these years, far from it. She had been determined to get on with her life as soon as he left for America. She had done alright, she expected, graduating, getting an internship, applying to the Auror Academy…
She grimaced. She did not want to be reminded of that.
Two times she had applied already and was rejected for various reasons between being unqualified the first time to the academy being overcrowded the second time and she had been pushed to the bottom of the pile.
Not this time, though. Ginny was going to prove to herself and to the world that she would not be stuck behind a desk her whole life. Anyone who knew her knew that would never make her happy.
Harry had been the first to get her interested in the job. He knew her skill and encouraged her immensely during the first few years after he returned from England. It was just one more part of her life she linked with Harry.
What part didn’t she link with Harry?
Her thoughts turned back to the green-eyed, bespeckled boy who had captured her fancy so. What exactly had happened that had led them both to this moment. A teenage romance, snuffed out by the reality of the real world that led them to becoming best friends?
He was her best friend. There was no question there. Even before Edward, Harry was the first person she turned to in times of trial and in times of joy.
It was just like they were dating…only they weren’t.
Oh, Merlin, my head is starting to hurt…
She jumped off the swing and began waking back towards her house, the street lights flickering on as the last of the light from the sun dimmed into the horizon.
As she turned the corner and spotted her house, she was surprised to see a few lights on inside. She figured Hermione would have gone back to bed by now. And Riley was working till midnight. Who was there?
Cautiously, she walked through the front door, surprised to see Harry sitting comfortably in her living room, a book in one hand and an apple in the other.
He glanced up at she entered and smiled.
She couldn’t help it.
Looking over at her best friend, she smiled back.
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A/N: Don’t worry, they’re going to talk! I promise! That’s the next chapter. Just you wait and see the sparks fly…Thanks again to all my reviews for sticking with me! That was a really long wait, I’m terribly sorry! I’ll try not to do it again!
Head Over Feet by Liisa
Chapter Notes: I’m SO sorry this took me so long to get out. Most of my excuse has to do with school (it’s almost over, three more days!) but I also couldn’t seem to get this chapter just right. I still don’t like it very much, but hopefully the next chapter will make up for it!