Out of Time

Chapter 15

She arrives back in her common room to a ruckus. Ginny and Ron are having a row, their faces quite as red as their respective hair. Harry appears to have tried to mediate and given up, standing to the side in open dejection and shaking his head. His hair, clearly abused by his hands running through it, is catastrophic.

Hermione slips through the small crowd of spectators to stand beside him. "What are they on about?"

"A mix of things. I'm not sure whether to be offended, really."

"Like what? Why?"

"Well, Ginny and I have been - well, studying together, and playing Snap sometimes, and -"

"Harry, we aren't in first year. You can say it."

"Well, not to Ron, I can't. Apparently." Harry rolls his eyes, aggravated, and pushes his glasses up his nose.

"Is he really so upset that you and Ginny might finally go out? It's not as if it's news that the pair of you fancy each other. He's had time to adjust."

Harry folds his arms over his chest and leans against the wall. "He says it's not about that. He's said it at least four times. It's more that we're so obvious about it. So he wouldn't mind if I date Ginny as long as he never has to see it."

Hermione barks out an incredulous half-scoff, half-laugh. "How hypocritical can he get? What about him and Lavender?"

"Well, that's what Ginny lunged in with. But she can't quite hold to one argument. It's either that Ron's a gigantic hypocrite and how revolting it is to watch him and his girlfriend snog everywhere - that got a whole side tangent going for a while - or that he's being an overprotective twat of a brother. Ron insists their other brothers would react just like he is. Ginny threatened to owl them all and find out, and owl their mum, too, for good measure. Ron told her to do it, because he's sure their dad would have a few choice words to say about his youngest and only daughter snogging boys in public."

Harry covers his eyes with one hand for a brief moment and sighs. "Then, they started arguing about how much Arthur and Molly love me, specifically, which got Ron's hackles up. And now I really don't know whether his real objection is me with Ginny, or Ginny with anybody."

"Ron really didn't pitch a fit like this when Ginny was with Dean last year," Hermione reflects. "Bit unfortunate for his argument now, in contrast."

Harry's quite crestfallen at these words and Hermione rushes to mitigate the damage. "Maybe it's because now that we're all getting older, there's likely going to be... more things happening."

She cringes, quite as unwilling as Ron to imagine Harry in any sort of sexual light. And while she knows Ginny and Dean had done plenty more than snog, she's not at all sure Harry or Ron know that.

"And if it doesn't work out?" Ron yells, throwing his hands in the air. Hermione's attention is diverted at once. Ron shoots them a glance and startles a bit, as if he didn't realise Harry had company against the wall.

"But wouldn't you love it if it didn't work out? Isn't that what you've been saying, that we shouldn't do it at all?" shouts Ginny, hands balled into fists at her hips. She's tilted forward on the balls of her feet as if drawing momentum. "Pick a side, Ronniekins!"

"If it doesn't work out, things will be awkward and horrible! Think, Ginny!" For some reason, Ron's eyes skate across Hermione again, before focussing back on his sister. "How are summers going to be at the Burrow, huh? Christmas hols? The rest of our bloody lives?"

Ginny is looking at Ron as if he's grown a second head. "Now you're just reaching," she dismisses with a derisive sniff. "I suppose we could be like you and Lavender instead, together and miserable for all eternity because one of us is too terrified to end it. Or is that why you won't end it? You think things will be awful and horrible in your own common room until you graduate?"