Hermione's fingers gripped the side panel of Ginny's jumper as the younger girl clung to her, tears wet on Hermione's neck.
"It's so unfair," she sobbed, slapping her shaking hand against her knee.
"Shh," Hermione said, for the hundredth time, gently trying to push some hair out of Ginny's face, which was wet and sticky from her crying.
"God, why is this happening?" Ginny whispered, the shaking hand now clutching at her heart, as if, for a moment, it had stopped.
"It's for the best," Hermione said again. It's for the best. She just kept saying it. It's for the best. For the best. The mantra. The mantra everyone just kept repeating, over and over again.
Ginny made a very pained sound, like something was being ripped from her. Like the words Hermione was saying were actual pieces of her that were being torn away, pieces that kept Ginny from falling each direction at once. She pulled away from her friends embrace.
"Gods, I love him, Hermione," Ginny cried with her head hung back, clutching at her chest again as if the pain was going to over take her. "It hurts, how much I love him. It hurts so badly…I…I think I might die." She closed her eyes, as if it could happen any second, red ropes of hair sticking to her face.
"That's why he's being kept away," said Hermione steadily, reaching a hand towards her friend's swollen eyes again, intent on pulling the strands away. "It's for the best. We're doing this because we care about you. We'll help make the pain stop."
There was a pause in which Ginny's tears subsided slightly, Hermione pushing the damp hair off of her face; her puffy eyes cracked open, and she leaned her head back down at look at Hermione again. A sad sort of confusion was ebbing into her watery eyes.
"…Stop?"
"Yes," said Hermione imploringly, and though she was careful to be gentle, it was said not without enthusiasm-it must have shown on her face, because Ginny leaned back from her a bit more, out of the reach of Hermione's fingers, the bewildered expression growing in her expression, even as tears continued to leak down her cheeks.
"…I don't want it to stop. I love him, and everything that comes with loving him." Her red face was softening back into the sad, almost dreamy look of longing. "I can't-it can't just stop. It's so powerful, Hermione…" Ginny sighed, sounding almost in awe. "The world could end at any moment. That's how powerful it is…it hurts so badly, it feels as if the world could just start spinning so fast that we all get thrown off. Never have I…"
"You have to resist it," said Hermione firmly, breaking into Ginny's sorrowful rant. "It's for the best. He is poison, and you have to rise above-"
Ginny made a noise in her throat. Hermione couldn't tell if she was coughing or if it had been a sort of half-strangled scoff. It made Hermione pause.
This time, instead of looking baffled at Hermione's words, Ginny's suffering, albeit fiery expression was slightly pitying. She shook her head, causing more hair to cling to her flushed, sticky face.
"No, Hermione. No. Don't you see? That pain is larger than I am. There's no ignoring it, it's just there, existing, a part of each day…" She shivered a little. "It's larger than you are, it's larger than your-bigger than everyone's determination to make it go away. It's a pain that fills you up from the core and gives you a reason to live each day-it forces you to live each day. And…and…" she swallowed."I love it. I love being that in-love. I love being so in-love it hurts. I love being so in-love with him that if feels as if everything could just…stop, at any moment. Don't you understand that feeling?" She looked at Hermione for a moment. When she didn't answer, Ginny reached a hand out to grab her wrist.
"…Surely you've felt it? Here," she bumped her hand against her heart again, the same could-die-at-any-moment look rushing back to her face. "Here, and all through you. Like…like everything inside of you is too big for your skin. You've felt that, right? You-you've been in love, haven't you? You are in love-you love Ron, don't you?"
Ginny sounded as if she was desperate. Hermione stared at her, Ginny's hands now gripping her wrists, eyes imploring-no, begging-for Hermione to answer, to explain that she understood.
But…she didn't. She hadn't ever felt that way with Ron. There was no desperation with him, no pain that Ginny had described with such passion and anguish. Ron had, quite simply, told Hermione that he loved her, one day. And…the easiest thing to do at the time was to just say it back. That was all. …Hermione supposed that she, along with everyone else watching, had just gotten used to hearing it and saying it each day. And after a little while, she had just started accepting it for truth. She'd very honestly never given it this level of…emotion. She'd never given the emotion this level of thought, something even she'd admit was unusual for herself. But…it was just what seemed to make sense. Everyone always said it would happen, and there it was. He'd said he'd loved her, she'd accepted it, and that was that.
…There was supposed to be more?
…Passion had something to do with it?
Hermione did not pose these questions to Ginny, though, who was still looking at her with such desperation that Hermione just nodded.
"Then please," Ginny said, crying hard again, wincing as if saying the words had made the pain that much stronger. "Please, don't tell me that trying to take that away from me is going to make it all better. Don't tell me to ignore it, to rise above it, to kill it, to pretend it doesn't exist…it does exist, it's inside of me, it's a living, breathing part of me. Please, please don't tell me that killing a part of myself is all for the best."
What killed Hermione, down to her very heart as she looked at her friend, who was now gripping Hermione's wrists as she pled, was that Ginny sounded neither angry nor accusing. She simply sounded a very un-simple combination of resolute and fragile.
All Hermione could do was nod. Ginny sobbed, falling against her friend's side again, her hot red face pressed into the brown curls covering Hermione's shoulder. Hermione held her there, her mind both blank and racing. She hated herself for not understanding, but she also couldn't help feeling both pitying and envious of Ginny. …Such passion was supposed to come with love, then…A great love came with a level of great pain…Poor Ginny was being ripped to pieces by it all and clung to it, while she, Hermione, had yet to even feel love, just accept when it was offered…Why hadn't she felt it? She did love Ron, didn't she? …That's what made sense…Perhaps she was just not meant for such passion…The thought made Hermione panic. Her heart started to beat very fast.
There was a noise. Small, hardly audible over Ginny's crying. It was a squeak, a floorboard moving-Hermione's eyes, now red and teary themselves, narrowed in the noise's direction, her chin turning a few inches over Ginny's head. She took in a sharp breath. Ginny didn't notice.
Harry was standing at the bottom of the boys' staircase. His foot was on the first step, but he was looking over her shoulder in Hermione's direction. Hermione barely registered the blood on the corner of his mouth, or the wand still gripped in his bruised knuckles-Ginny would never forgive him, he'd promised he wouldn't hurt him-she just, in her surprise, saw Harry. His passion-filled, still slightly angry green eyes were looking at her. His glasses were cracked. She'd fix them later.
Harry's breathing was fast and silent, as if he'd tried to hurry passed the two girls on the couch without disturbing them. Now, he looked slightly guilty. Hermione's mind was still buzzing, she didn't even have time to remember how exposed and vulnerable it was-that she was.
Harry's eyes shifted slightly, and it took Hermione a moment to realize they were staring right into hers. There was a pause-neither of them blinked. The only movement and sound was coming from Ginny and her crying. And then it happened, suddenly.
Her heart stopped.
A feeling filled her, rushing into and through her body so fast that…it hurt.
It was pain. It was a pain that itched under her skin, spread to her fingers and toes; it felt as if it would shoot right through her nails, or the ends of her hair. It circulated and pulsed, Hermione was sure she would die of it at any moment. It was…a beautiful feeling, that pain. Her heart had become unstuck for a moment, it was like a humming bird's, she could hear it in her ears, her blood was moving through her veins so hard she could feel it-
It was with another pause of her heart-sharp, as she saw him turn away quickly and rush up the stairs and Ginny shifted, burying her face deeper into the crook of Hermione's neck-that she understood.
She felt elated.
She had been meant for passion, after all.
It had just been kept with someone else.
Ron was never the one passion had to do with.
That night, she would pretend to still be asleep when Ginny crawled out of bed and headed down to the dungeons, desperation trailing in her wake.
The next day, she would be enthralled when Harry looked at her and her heart stopped.
Over the next month, she would answer her own questions. There was supposed to be much, much more, and passion had everything to do with it.
By that summer, she would put her findings all out in the open.
Ron was never the one passion had anything to do with. And Hermione had woken up.
By the next year, Harry always looked at her and pain accompanied her each and every day. She thought she might die.
And she loved it.
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