A Glimpse of Truth

Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JKR; I’m just borrowing them for fun and not for profit.

Author’s Note: Going through some of my old archives and I found this fic and realized I hadn’t posted it.

For my very dear Marie_j_granger.

A Glimpse of Truth

She’d thought of her as being the other woman. She’d thought of her as the interloper, who had intruded where she wasn’t supposed to be, who had thought nothing of stealing someone else’s boy.

Now, she knew that wasn’t true.

It wasn’t that Hermione was the other girl; it was that she herself was, or had been, in some odd way. She understood that now.

She’d known she wasn’t supposed to be spying on them like this but she couldn’t help it.

She knew that Harry and Hermione were more than just friends now, were- together, for lack of another word. She had seen the way they occasionally held hands, the way they smiled at each other. She had heard of how they behaved together from Ron, from Bill, from her father (overheard her father telling her mother about it, that is).

And now she had this unexpected chance.

She had come along with her mother to Grimmauld Place for a meeting of the inner circle of the Order, even though she’d promptly been sent up to one of the unused rooms and told to wait there, because her mother hadn’t wanted to leave her alone at the Burrow.

But she hadn’t stayed there and had snuck into the room directly at the head of the stairs leading down to the front room, keeping her head out to watch what went on and using an Extendable Ear which she’d borrowed from Fred and George.

Hermione had gone with Tonks, Bill, and Hestia Jones on a quick visit to Diagon Alley, because there had been some vague rumors of an imminent attack on it. They’d gone to try to put up some security measures and make sure the main business owners were aware of the threat so they’d be more vigilant and careful.

Harry and Ron had stayed behind to practice more defensive and offensive spells with Remus and Mad-Eye Moody, while Professor McGonagall, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Professor Flitwick discussed other Order issues in one of the upstairs rooms.

The front door opened and Hestia Jones entered, followed by Tonks and then Bill and Hermione, Hermione leaning rather heavily on Bill’s arm, her face dirty and her robes torn.

Ginny frowned a little but her wondering was interrupted by Tonks stumbling into the coat stand and swearing under her breath as she hung up her cloak and then by Harry and Ron emerging from where they’d been.

Hestia Jones slipped out, after a quick exchange of nods with Tonks, and a brief ghost of a smile at Harry and Ron.

“Hermione! Are you okay?” Ron exclaimed.

“What happened?” Harry demanded at the same moment, even as he hurried over to Hermione and slipped his arm around her, so that he took her weight off of Bill and onto himself.

“I’m fine, Harry,” Hermione hastily assured him. “There’s no need to make such a fuss.”

“She caught a glimpse of someone whom she thought—and she was right— was Augustus Rookwood and followed him when he went into Knockturn Alley,” Bill explained.

Ron turned to goggle at Hermione with an expression that was an expression of mingled dismay and admiration. “You followed him?”

“I had to! We had to know what he was up to, what they’re plotting!” Hermione insisted.

“She would have been fine but for her bad luck of having some hag accidentally bumping into her and letting out a screech that made him turn around and see her.”

Harry’s sharply sucked-in breath interrupted Bill’s continued tale. “What’d he do to her?” he demanded grimly.

“He used a Bone-breaker Curse and broke her leg to keep her from following him while he Apparated away,” Bill finished briefly as they all disappeared into the front room.

Ginny had never been so thankful for the Extendable Ears that permitted her to hear the rest of their conversation but she wasn’t satisfied with only listening and snuck down the stairs until she could just see through the crack between the door and the frame.

Harry led Hermione over to the table and helped her to sit down and insisted she keep her leg elevated on another chair, even though she kept insisting she was fine and didn’t need him to fuss over her.

“We found her and fixed her leg in a minute. She’ll be as good as new in the space of a few hours,” Bill said reassuringly.

“Wow, Hermione,” Ron breathed, looking at her as if she’d just gone up dramatically in his estimation of her. “Following a Death Eater on your own like that. You really are barking mad,” he said, as if that were one of the highest compliments he could bestow.

Hermione shrugged it off. “I had to. He could have led us to something important and I’d have found out what if it hadn’t been for that blasted hag.”

“What did you think you were doing?” Harry interrupted her sharply, his voice rising a little.

“I needed to find out what he was up to,” Hermione shot back, straightening up in her chair.

Harry threw her an irritated look. “You should have told someone and not gone off alone.”

Ginny knew it was a mean thought but she couldn’t help but feel a flare of pleasure at the annoyance in Harry’s voice. She had resigned herself to Harry and Hermione being together but she couldn’t help but feel a little bit of resentment towards Hermione, in some small corner of her mind, that Hermione who was such a bookworm and wasn’t nearly as pretty as Ginny, could have won Harry. Hermione, who could have had Ron too, Ginny knew, but no, she’d had to go for Harry and had won him, instead of leaving him for her, Ginny, who’d been waiting for Harry… Hermione, who was still in some tiny, unacknowledged corner of Ginny’s mind, the other girl… The reason Harry didn’t care about Ginny anymore…

Hermione’s eyes flashed. “There wasn’t time,” she defended herself hotly. “And I was careful so he wouldn’t see me!”

Bill and Ron exchanged looks and quietly retreated out of the front room and into the other room across the hall, leaving Harry and Hermione alone, not that either of them paid Bill or Ron the slightest bit of attention.

Ginny had shrank back, trying to make herself invisible, but thankfully neither Bill nor Ron bothered to glance up the staircase as they crossed the hall.

“Do you have any idea how badly you could have been hurt?” Harry’s voice rose sharply. “It’s only a fluke that he didn’t try to use an Unforgivable on you! Why do you think we sent Tonks out with you; she’s the best person to follow people because she wouldn’t be recognized!”

“There wasn’t time to tell her!” Hermione insisted.

“Still!” Harry shot back, glancing at Hermione’s torn robes and an odd quiver passed over his face.

Ginny had to stifle her gasp as Harry abruptly sat down next to Hermione, his hands cupping her cheeks in a way which even Ginny could only label as tender. His voice was quieter, both rough and yet loving at the same time. “I need you to be more careful, Hermione. Do you know how much it scares me to think of you being hurt?” He paused, seeming to swallow back some emotion, before he continued and Ginny shivered involuntarily at the sheer intensity of emotion in his voice, feeling a flare of guilt at eavesdropping so shamelessly on something that was so obviously personal and yet she couldn’t tear herself away. This- this glimpse into Harry and Hermione’s real relationship- was something she’d wanted, needed to see, for weeks now—and she couldn’t stop watching, mesmerized almost in spite of herself at the honesty of it.

“You know about the nightmares. I- you have to be careful; you can’t take risks like that. I- I need you too much; I can’t lose you. I can’t!” Harry’s voice cracked a little.

Hermione’s expression had softened into one Ginny had never seen before on Hermione’s face, an expression of so much naked caring and understanding and even regret, an expression Ginny would never have thought Hermione, always so confident and such a know-it-all, was even capable of. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “There just wasn’t time; I had no choice.”

His shoulders slumped slightly as he deflated. “I know; I understand. I just—you just scared me. I can’t bear to think of you being hurt,” he admitted so softly that Ginny had to strain to hear him even with the Extendable Ears.

Hermione turned her head slightly to brush her lips against his hand. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

He sighed a little and there was a moment of silence and then he said, still quietly although now there was a thread of humor in his voice, “I thought I was the impulsive one among us. I must be rubbing off on you.”

Hermione smiled a little. “I guess I’ve spent too much time with you. You’re a bad influence on me,” she teased gently.

“I guess I am,” Harry said and Ginny could hear the smile in his voice, even though she couldn’t see his face.

He paused and then bent forward and brushed his lips against Hermione’s in a kiss that clearly spoke of so much love and caring that Ginny felt herself blush and then feel ashamed of herself. Very quietly she retreated, pulling back the Extendable Ears as she did so, and the last thing she heard, just barely, was Harry’s very low, almost pleading, “Don’t scare me like that again.”

She had seen and heard enough.

She retreated back to where she was supposed to have been, feeling rather as if she’d committed some sort of crime in witnessing what she should not have.

But she understood now.

It wasn’t so much the gentleness and affection in Harry’s actions and words with Hermione that struck her, although that had been revelatory to see. Harry had always been gentle and considerate; it was just the type of boy he was.

It wasn’t even the words he’d said to Hermione about needing her and being terrified of her being hurt, although Ginny was very conscious of the fact that Harry had never said as much—or anything even approaching that sort of confession—to her in those brief weeks they had been together. Harry had never even told her in as many words that he fancied her, that not being Harry’s way; she had only known it from the way he kissed her and from the way he smiled at her sometimes and the way he watched her.

It wasn’t the words, though, even though Ginny couldn’t help but feel a flare of jealousy that Harry would say that sort of thing to Hermione when he’d never spoken so openly of his feelings with her…

It wasn’t even the intensity that positively radiated off of Harry. Harry was intense, had always been intense, and when he focused even some of that intensity on you... Ginny flushed a little at the memory. But with Hermione, it was different; he was different. It was an intensity that excluded all else and Ginny could tell that, for Harry, at least, in those moments, the rest of the world, the entire universe even, ceased to exist. Nothing mattered—except Hermione—to Harry in those moments. Not even You-Know-Who—and that was almost the most telling thing of all, because Ginny remembered very well her vague feeling that Harry was always preoccupied, thinking of other things, worrying about other things, even putting other things and people before her… She had never come first with him—Hermione clearly did.

Oddly enough, it was, more than anything else, Harry’s very anger at Hermione, their fleeting argument, that told her everything—somehow. She had felt a little bit of triumph at first but then she’d realized the truth. Harry could—and did—get angry at Hermione and showed it because he didn’t have to hide anything, didn’t have to be careful. He could be honest, simply himself, with Hermione, because he knew that she would understand and accept him.

And Hermione fought back, disagreed with Harry when she needed to, something Ginny would never have, could never have, done. But Harry didn’t mind, Ginny realized; he wanted it, even. He hadn’t minded and had acknowledged he’d been wrong to over-react.

Harry and Hermione were still best friends, Ginny had realized; they were friends in a way that she and Harry had never been—and that was the difference. That was what made the relationship between Harry and Hermione real… What made it unbreakable…

And Ginny couldn’t shake the odd feeling that, after all, she had been the interloper when she and Harry had been dating. She had been the intruder; in a way, she always had been. She’d always been on the outside of the closely-knit Trio that consisted of Harry, Ron and Hermione and now, more than that, she had been the intruder between Harry and Hermione, who were closer now than they had ever been…

Ginny let out a sigh, closing her eyes to the tears that pricked at her eyes—and with that one sigh, she felt the tiny hope, the unacknowledged dream that maybe, when this was all over, she and Harry would get together again, die for good…

That hope, which she’d kept locked up in some small corner of her mind, was gone—and after all, things were the way they were meant to be.

Maybe, she thought, maybe it was time to look a little more closely at Neville, give him a chance…

~The End~

A/N 2: The last line was included just for Marie_j_granger, since personally, I think Neville deserves better than Ginny-Sue.