The Burrow was unnaturally tense; Ginny didn't like it. Even with the Wizarding Wireless droning on about the latest news it wasn't like when they were younger and they all gathered around to listen to Charlie's first games of Quidditch straight from Hogwarts. She'd been too young to really remember Bill's first games but assumed they'd been the same.
They'd been an exciting kind of tense that made you break out in a grin for no reason and cheer as soon as their names were called, even when they were hundreds of miles away and couldn't hear you. This felt like something bad was happening out there and they were left to wait around and find out what it is, and without being able to do anything to help.
'Was this how it felt with You-Know-Who?' she wondered.
Her parents, Bill and Charlie, and even Percy had all said the younger kids couldn't understand what it had been like back then. Percy only remembered bits and pieces, and the twins not at all, but Percy remembered enough. Mum and Dad gathered around the wireless after sending them to bed, talking in whispers about this or that; always very quiet, afraid, or sad.
'But all of it stopped, ' she thought as she unsuccessfully tried to occupy herself by checking what she had with her school list.
They hadn't gotten everything before the goblins had come for Dad and Ron, but what they hadn't bought didn't seem so important without them; even Ron. He might have been the one responsible for running her off every time she had tried to play with the others but that didn't mean she wanted the goblins to take him - well, not as long as he had Dad with him too.
'Harry defeated You-Know-Who and he's dead and gone and never coming back, ' she thought as she tried to soothe her jumbly stomach.
'The books said all that was a lie though, ' her fear reminded her.
The books about Harry - no, about the Boy-Who-Lived - had been full of plots by polite-seeming but nefarious-minded cut-throats scheming to control the wizarding world in secret, hunting down their adversaries, and seeking a way to return their mysterious Dark Master to life after years of Banishment in the Hereafter, and only Har- no, the Boy-Who-Lived - could stop them.
'The books are nothing but stories, ' Ginny told herself firmly. 'Little adventure tales where the hero defeats the villain, saves the girl, professes his love, and gets a True Love's Kiss at the end of it. They're not real. '
'What about Harry and the bouncing broom?' that annoying part of her asked. 'What about facing the giant three-headed dog, fighting free from the devil's snare, and outsmarting the giant chess set?'
Ron might've been annoying, and rude to boot, but he'd come home with a huge tale to tell. Her brother had made it seem like it was pretty much him doing everything, but she knew it'd all been Harry; even the bit with the troll shouted hero in a way Ron could never live up to, but he had said You-Know-Who had been there too. He hadn't seen him, but Harry had, and had defeated him again.
Even if that bit had just been something to throw in at the end to make it seem exciting, she couldn't deny - even if what her brother said was only half-truthful about everything else - that bad things did swirl around Harry Potter, be he the Boy-Who-Lived or just this plain Harry. Maybe he was a hero after all. The thought didn't comfort her any though because things had already gone so… well, so terribly wrong .
Harry was never supposed to save anyone else - well, he was never supposed to save anyone other than her anyway. He had saved Hermione Granger though and messed up all Ginny's hopes and dreams in the process. And now she was his girlfriend, though Ginny had never heard him use the word. Hopefully he never would.
She didn't want to think ill of anyone, let alone have anyone die, but if Hermione Granger simply hadn't been there then perhaps she still would've had a chance to have the hero of her dreams. Harry might not be that now, and far too into studying from what she'd seen - heroes didn't need to study, they just did things - but he could always change, couldn't he? Couldn't he become a hero later on?
From watching her mother when Charlie had brought his first girlfriend over, Ginny knew precisely what not to do: she couldn't try to break them up. It wouldn't work and anything she tried would only make them closer. Plus, it'd make him hate her even more than he already does.
'Creepy indeed, ' she thought. 'Doesn't he know what gazing longingly at someone's supposed to look like, what it's supposed to mean?' Having her mother make her stay away from him was going too far though. If she was looking for proof this Harry wasn't the boy from the books then she didn't have to look any further than that. Harry Potter wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived, he was just a skinny kid with glasses and messy hair and an ugly scar on his forehead. 'He'd probably have pimples soon too, ' she sulked.
But the niggling sense of doubt remained; what if he changed? If only Ron hadn't been born then perhaps she would've been bumped up in the queue. Then she would've been in Harry's year instead of Ron; she would've been the one to meet him on the train and become friends with him straight away. She might have even been the one to get attacked by the troll, saved by him, and she'd be in Hermione's place now. It would've been perfect!
Giving things a good hard look, Ginny had to admit her mother had been right. She'd had the amazing opportunity to get to know the real Harry Potter, and maybe even become friends with him, and she had blown it because her head had been too full of Book Harry for her to realize it. With the way things were now, even if they broke up - no, when not if, because they would, Charlie and that girl had after all - even then, Harry wouldn't want her around, much less be interested in creepy little Ginny. And if she wasn't around then how could she get her hero when he changed into one? It was a nightmare.
There was a shift in the background noise and before Ginny could pick up on what it meant her mother descended upon Fred as he and George came back downstairs.
"Don't you turn that down," her mother scolded, Fred's hand still on the wireless. "They might say something about Gringotts."
"They hadn't said anything important for an hour," Fred said defensively.
"Yeah, why would anyone think Bulgaria tearing itself apart in a bloody civil war again was important?" George said with a look to his twin. How anyone could fail to tell them apart was beyond her.
"No talking about tearing anything apart while your father and brother are still with those goblins," their mother said looking concerned. "Did you get Charlie's old trunk out like I told you?" she asked, trying to distract them all with other things.
"Yeah, it was a bit more beat up than we thought-," Fred said.
"-So I took it instead. Ginny can have mine," George gave Ginny a quick wink to say he was glad to do it.
'Fred might be a bit much sometimes, but George is a nice guy. We should find him a girlfriend,' she decided. 'Oh! Then I'd have a sister! I wonder if he'd be interested in Hermione,' Ginny wondered. 'As long as she and Harry didn't kiss then it didn't mean anything and everyone could still be friends .' That thought made her smile more than the newer hand-me-down.
"That's nice of you, George," their mother said as she went to check the clock again.
No one's hand had changed positions since they had gotten home. Merlin alone knew where Percy was, he hadn't been with them and Mum didn't want to let anyone out of her sight to search for him. He, Dad, and Ron were still all pointing at Traveling, which seemed to be for when the clock didn't know where else to put them. But at least they weren't pointing to Mortal Peril so she guessed they couldn't be in too much trouble.
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