Jenny Was a Friend of Mine by xink_slingerx Rating: PG Ship: Harry & Hermione Canon: Books 1 - 7 Genre: Romance Status: Complete Length: 4,200 words in 1 chapter Published: 19 Aug 2007 Last updated: 19 Aug 2007 "And if we were to be together for the rest of our lives, to be married and have children twenty years from then, was I really willing to go the rest of my life being third in the heart of the man that was first in mine? Could I settle and accept that truth? I didn’t know the answer." From the Unofficial Portkey Archive: https://portkey-archive.org/story/7585/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine This is a simple one-shot I’ve had the idea for since the release of HPDH. I’m actually trying to portray Ginny positively in this one, which is a first for me. So do not expect any Ginny-bashing whatsoever. Now Jenny, that’s a different story. :P …well, let’s see how this goes! Jenny Was a Friend of Mine “Harry needs Hermione badly.” It was an inconvenient and very uncomfortable truth. The four of us stood still and awkward as Luna Lovegood carried on that placid, serene look about her. When the uneasy silence reached such a height that even Luna herself could not deny it, she shrugged uninterestedly and elaborated. “Ronald is a bit distracted with his own grief,” Luna said calmly. There was another pause, in which everyone looked at Luna. “Everyone is,” I pointed out finally. I clutched my handkerchief tighter as I forcefully held myself together, forced myself not to cry. “We’ve just survived a War.” “Oh, I know,” Luna agreed. “Only, Ronald and you have your own grief to sort out. Harry does too, and he has Hermione.” “We have each other?” Neville offered feebly. “That’s true too,” Luna said, smiling serenely. “I suppose I better go wander off for a bit, until you lot forget all about what I said; usually, ten to twelve minutes does the trick.” With that, Luna glided off down the grassy slope, almost as if being carried by the bouts of wind, and soon she was completely out of view. “I don’t even care,” Ron muttered, distraught. “Things’ll never be the same in the family again.” He took off now, becoming the third person to leave the small circle in the past five minutes. “Where’d Harry go?” I voiced aloud. I sounded sad and distant; I faintly wondered if I had left my body far behind, my voice was so distant. Hermione seemed to consider offering a reply to my question, but then she decided against it—she allowed her own pink eyes to stare off, in the direction of the village. Neville stared at his shoes. I took a step back and then another and another after that, and soon I was slowly drifting away from the two of them, appearing quite intent to find Harry. Down the grass hill I went, now out of view from their gaze, and I allowed myself to cry. I missed Fred and I wanted to be close to Harry, and I wanted everything to be okay. I couldn’t go anywhere near the others, the grave. I didn’t want to see Mum and Dad and George; I think Ron and I were on the same footing with that. I knew that staying in the distance would make the funeral easier, the goodbye … But whenever alone I inwardly wondered if I had been a good sister to Fred; if I hadn’t appreciated him and George’s mad jokes and constant brotherly protection. I was a bad sister, too wrapped up in small things that didn’t matter. The guilt was sometimes too much. The thought of never speaking to him again caused my throat to go dry. And then I thought of Harry and how he seemed to be stepping back too, not just from the funeral but from everyone … from me. I hated it, when he would go distant and miserable and play the part perfectly of a tragic stupid hero. I had hoped he’d return from vanquishing Voldemort with a plucky smile and a renewed, optimistic look on life. I wanted him to be that prince charming I’d always imagined him to be. I suppose it shows you how delusional the dreams of a starry-eyed little girl could be. I had always imagined it that way and now that things didn’t turn out the way in which I had always hoped, clean and content, I felt like an idiot. Maybe Harry was simply mourning every person who he had lost in his life; he had lost so many and there he was, still going. Now he had lost Remus too, the last tie to his parents, I suppose. I couldn’t decipher what was going on in that head. Harry Potter was an enigma and a puzzle. I’m not any good with puzzles … too short-tempered. As I continued about the cemetery in Godric’s Hollow, I preoccupied my tears with my search for Harry. He knew how to hide from me well; he was nowhere in sight. At least I could spot almost everyone else in the distance one direction or the other. But Harry, he had really managed to disappear. I wondered if he had left the funeral altogether. I gave up. My shoulders slumped and I didn’t bother to wipe the mess of tears clinging to my face as I admitted defeat and headed back over to the rest of my family and friends and acquaintances. I took my place between Ron and Charlie and no one was saying anything. Everyone seemed terribly drained. Minutes went by, and a sudden feeling hit me, urging me to look up and over my shoulder. I did and saw Harry walking back, Hermione at his side. They didn’t look to be talking and just like everyone else, they were tired. “You’re back,” I said quietly when they had come to a stop before me. Harry didn’t say anything. On second thought, he apparently regretted coming back. He stepped around me and everyone else and stood a few feet off; I wondered if his eyes would ever leave the ground ever again. “Where was he?” I asked, turning to Hermione instead. She shrugged. “The village square—where the war monument of his parents is …” I wanted to ask her how she had found him; how she knew, but I couldn’t bring myself to because I knew how annoyed I would sound. Rather I gave a curt nod and turned my head to peer in Harry’s direction. I wanted there to be a connection between us. I wanted that. I was beginning to feel as if we needed it, the connection … sort of like we couldn’t go on forever without forming one. The funeral and the evening would end with me longing for one, gazing in Harry’s direction. He never met my gaze. And when he departed, he departed alone. --- We got back together and we had wonderful times. Our times were light and one-dimensional, with laughter and Quidditch talk. Looking back, I was his girl version of Ron, only he got to kiss and touch me. I didn’t mine, though. I like Quidditch and I like to make him laugh, as Ron does I suppose. Weeks and months went by. Soon things seemed to be brightening … slowly but surely. I was away at Hogwarts, finishing off my last year with Luna, but I knew details of what was going on; George was carrying on with the business and Ron was his new partner in crime, though never coming close to replacing Fred or ever wanting to; Fred had become an inspiration and a dedication of the business. Mum and Dad had gone on as ever, working and overseeing the household, the Burrow almost as warm as it had always been. Hermione had managed an internship at the Ministry, but from what I gathered from Harry’s letters, she wasn’t pleased. She and Ron had broken up again; their relationship was a constant on-again, off-again. And Harry … he was sort of taking a break from everything and sorting his priorities out, or so he wrote in the letters … Harry and I were in the gossip magazines. Harry became more interesting than ever to the press; he was a celebrity much like any wizarding band or Quidditch player, and his life was talked about all the time. Being Harry’s girlfriend, even from a distance, I got mentions too. It didn’t bother me when they misconstrued and misinterpreted things. I expected as much; I don’t think Harry was very bothered either. I remember the day before Christmas Holiday, I opened up a copy of Witch Weekly and burst out in laughter. There was a long, detailed article about Harry and his current life. Detailed bits about the day-to-day happenings and even predictions of his future; they mentioned Ron and Hermione a lot. They always seemed to have this … need to remind their readership of how Ron and Hermione were his best friends, the two living people closest to Harry Potter, the only two who knew and understood what made him tick, the people who had personally gone and battled along with him during the War. It was all true of course, but rereading it constantly did make me frown. Sometimes the truth of something didn’t fit well with my own perception and I hated the thought of having to come to terms with what they were saying, what was the simple truth. And then as I reached the end of the Witch Weekly article, I found my mention! There I was, in the very last sentence of the entire three-page-long article. The sentence read: Currently, Harry Potter resides in a flat in London and is seeing past flame Jenny Weasley. I laughed initially. Jenny? Did I have a sister I never knew about? It honestly didn’t bother me that they would make such a stupid mistake. At least they had gotten the last name right? That’s the joke I kept making about it, to replies of laughter from everyone I told. The next day I went home for the Holiday. The Burrow was as zealously decorated as ever, Mum and Dad wanting Christmas to be as close-knit and cozy as it had always been, even now with Fred gone. I was glad to be back and ecstatic to have the chance to spend time with Harry again. He was happy to see me too! I was relieved. We went Christmas shopping at Diagon Alley. It began as one of the most lighthearted dates we’d ever been on. We held each others gloved hands and wandered about in the snow around the shops. Our cheeks were bright pink from the cold and our breath came out in frozen puffs. We laughed more than anything. “They called me Jenny,” I told him. He laughed. “Yeah, at least they got the Weasley part right,” I said for the umpteenth time. I tried to smile, but my face was so frozen I could hardly manage it. “If they had called me Jenny Weaslabiff I would have been wondering if you were cheating on me.” He laughed again. “Oh yeah, that Jenny … can’t get enough of her.” “Don’t let me catch you with the wench,” I teased. We spent hours there; we practically went into every shop in existence, even the one’s we didn’t care to go into. When we were browsing the aisles of Flourish and Blots, I thought of Hermione and I knew she would be perusing these shelves and the books. Eventually, Harry and I ended up at one of the cafes, drinking hot chocolate. The steaming chocolate warmed my face and slithered through every other limb and gave it feeling once again. I was grateful; I thought I’d stay frozen forever. The hot chocolate had a similar effect on Harry. “We should go to a Quidditch game together next time I visit; I’ll be around for a week in April,” I said nonchalantly as I drank from my cup of chocolate. I looked up at Harry to read his expression; it was constantly a challenge for me. “What do you think?” He shrugged and stared into the contents of his cup. “Chee, lovely to hear your opinion,” I retorted sarcastically. There went my temper, flaring up. Harry still didn’t say a word; he made a face, a mingled irritable and conflicted one. “What? What is it?” I asked, irritated myself. “For once I would like some insight into what’s going on in that head of yours; obviously it’s something more than going to see a bleeding Quidditch game.” “Forget it,” he said dismissively. “No!” I challenged. “You’re not going to dismiss me that easily, not again like you always do. If you’ve got something on your mind, spit it out!” His eyes snapped up from the cup of warm chocolate and onto my face, the brightness of them too intense for my liking. “Fine,” he said quietly, voice controlled. “All right, Ginny, I want to break up with you.” The cold didn’t need to freeze me any longer; Harry’s words did the trick better than any icy wind. The breath was taken from me, as if I were pushed into a lake of the iciest water, and all I could do was meet his eyes and be surprised. “I’ve been thinking everything over these past few months; I don’t want to be with you. We don’t work, Ginny, sorry. There’s important stuff that I’m not going to ignore and stuff that I have to … overcome … that I haven’t gotten over. I can’t do this anymore,” he explained, frustrated. “Do what?” I yelped. I wanted to argue his points, but I found that I couldn’t. I settled for staring at him, puzzled. “This, you know—these stupid, meaningless dates where we do nothing but make jokes and talk Quidditch and-and end up snogging! It’s nice and everything, it is, but I don’t want to do it anymore; it’s not real. I don’t even want it to be,” Harry snarled. I seemed to have really pissed him off and he seemed to be unable to quiet the fire that was his own temper. Making another frustrated face, he carried on, “The War’s over, Ginny, yeah, but … it’s not done with for me! Don’t you understand that? I thought you would, you lost Fred; I thought you’d finally get it, but you don’t. You can’t. I’m not a happy person. I want to be, but I have all this stuff that haunts me and that I have to learn to cope with and accept for the rest of my life. I haven’t done that yet—you go about as if I already have! It’s time to stop pretending.” He rose from his seat and pulled the hood of his cloak up, turning away from me and walking off with furious footsteps. I sat confused and cold and I cried. I didn’t know why he had blown up at me, even if he had a track record of doing so at people … I hated it when I was on the receiving end. And I hated what he had to say. I took off myself. I was crying as I wandered Diagon, hood up and cloak wrapped tight around me. I cried silently and emotionally to myself as I passed shop after shop and happy wizards and witches after happy wizards and witches. I ignored them when they gave me pointed, questionable glances. I was too wrapped up in the scene that had just played with Harry. For the first time I told myself to accept the truth. Ron and Hermione were the closest people in Harry’s lives and they always would be. I could never surpass either of them in Harry’s heart. I could never take over those spots; they had their names engraved on those places in his heart. They knew Harry and I didn’t. I was just Ginny … Jenny. Everyone seemed to know it but me—that I was the afterthought. It hurt. Admitting it to myself hurt. It stung. I didn’t like the truth, but who does when it doesn’t fit your fancy? There were parts of Harry, chunks and great pieces of him that I would never know and never understand. I didn’t know how. I wasn’t made to understand him. We were two jagged pieces that didn’t fit together to form a heart. I had always imagined we did fit together. I was wrong. I offered him easy, quick laughter and escape. He had needed that before, had wanted it. But maybe he had finally decided that wasn’t what he wanted or needed anymore. A distraction could only last for so long … And if we were to be together for the rest of our lives, to be married and have children twenty years from then, was I really willing to go the rest of my life being third in the heart of the man that was first in mine? Could I settle and accept that truth? I didn’t know the answer. I spent an hour walking around Diagon, part of me wishing I would have ran into an upset Harry and been able to comfort him just as I had never been able to. But I didn’t run into him. He was nowhere in sight; he had probably gone as soon as he left the café. Then the thought occurred to me, if Harry was upset where would he go? I thought for once I had solved the puzzle … --- The cemetery was empty. Many of the gravestones were almost completely covered in snow. Flowers and wreaths and other small gifts were laid out for almost every grave. I passed Remus and Tonks’ and I forced myself not to look. When I passed Fred’s, I winced and shed a few tears, but still I didn’t look. I wanted to find Harry and to prove to him I understood him. I knew he would be here, doing some mourning and thinking. At that point it was almost as if I weren’t just trying to prove to him that I could understand him, but to myself that I could. I walked and walked through the gravestones, looking about when the thought occurred to me. I had been about to check up the tall, grassy slope, but he wouldn’t be there. Spinning around, I ran as fast as I could toward the front of the graveyard where the kissing gate was. I hurried past the stones and out into the silent village. Picking up speed as the sky seemed to darken, I dashed breathlessly toward the center of the village. He would be there … it made sense. I had figured him out. I passed the small cottages and the shops and then turned the corner around a pub, hurrying past the post office and then the church. I stopped running, walking a few steps before I stopped altogether. I could see the statue from there and Harry was there … with Hermione. I had figured him out too late. Hermione already had. Or maybe, perhaps she hadn’t needed to figure him out that winter day; perhaps she simply knew. There they stood beside each other, staring at the statue of his parents a baby Harry. They didn’t look to be talking, a calm silence between them. It’s that moment that I like to think I accepted what I could not change. In that moment I let go, I think. As I cried and my chest seemed to tighten with emotion, as if trying to cling and clutch even further, I let out a great breath and a shudder and like that … it was gone. My heart stopped clinging and my chest lightened as a serene, accepting armor fit itself onto me. And it was almost as if … I had matured in only a minute’s time, as if I were a new girl, a smarter and braver and more independent one. For the first time in my life, I was not a girl infatuated with The-Boy-Who-Lived. It was a strange and alien feeling, actually. I was almost a different Ginny. Slowly, I approached them. I listened to the sound my boots made in the snow, the squishy noise that seemed a lot louder because of the quiet. They seemed to sense my presence and looked over their shoulders, startled to see me there. I wanted them to know I came peacefully and so I allowed a small smile to grace my face. “Hey,” I said. “Hello Ginny,” said Hermione. She offered me a small smile of her own in return. Harry didn’t say anything; he seemed ashamed. He didn’t meet my eyes. He stared at the snow, at our boots … “I came to talk to you two,” I said quietly. “I’ve come to tell you, Harry, that … you’re right.” His eyes shot up, surprised, and he looked at me as if he had never seen me before. Hermione didn’t have a reaction. She seemed to understand that what I was saying was between Harry and me. I was grateful she respected and understood that. “I don’t think I’ve ever uttered those words before, with how stubborn I am,” I confessed and then I allowed myself a short laugh. Hermione’s smile widened, amused with my small joke as well. Again, I was grateful for the support. I focused on Harry, though, because I wanted him to know. Maybe then we could all move on. “I’ve been thinking it over, and … I’m Ginny. I’m not Ron, I’m not Hermione. I can’t be and I never will be. I can’t compete. I’m not even going to try.” “Ginny …” Harry said, trailing off. “No, I won’t. I’m serious, actually. And I’m not trying to be dramatic or to make you feel guilty or to make a scene, because … it’s not worth it, is it? I think we’ve all gotten past the point of stupid hormonal problems. It’s time we all do a bit of growing up, and that’s what I’m doing here. What I see in you, Harry, is only a fraction of you. It’s not even a real part of you.” Harry’s eyes lowered from my face and he looked to the ground for a brief second before glancing up at Hermione. “That’s fine,” I said, smiling still. “It was nice while it lasted, and even if it was never too … real, it was nice. Just that, nice. And, you know, I’m Ginny Weasley, not Jenny, and I deserve to be first in my love’s heart—the way Hermione is first in yours.” I wasn’t surprised with how uncomfortable they suddenly became. Harry shuffled his feet and looked down at them as Hermione blushed and fidgeted. Me, I smiled. “One last thing,” I said, hoping to make the situation even more uncomfortable for them. I felt it was the only way they themselves would stop pretending. “Harry, I think I do get it now. And I think if I was able to stop pretending, you should be too. Luna was right; I get it. Harry needs Hermione badly.” I paused slightly as I watched the two become even more awkward and flustered. I liked that it was so easy and uplifting for me to move on. “I better go,” I told them. I smiled again. “See you. Mum’s having a big Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve. You should come, both of you.” With that, I turned and walked away. I, Ginny Weasley, walked away from what I had been clinging to my entire life. I walked away from it and toward the future, where I wouldn’t depend on a childhood dream, but on myself. --- It’s taken a while for things to work out, but they have. It certainly took Harry and Hermione a while longer after that winter day at Godric’s Hollow to stare their feelings in the eye and open their arms to them, and when they finally did … they knew they would never be with anyone else again. Seven years have passed since the Second War ended and we’re all quite content. Harry and Hermione came together only to never apart, to be content and real; they’re Aurors and despite hectic jobs, they lead simple lives in a place that’s almost their own world. Ron has remained at the business with George, Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes more of a household name than Zonko’s; Ron’s taken to Luna and Luna’s long been taken to him. Strangely enough, since dating, Ron’s confidence and security in himself has made it impossible for me to tease him for being insecure and awkward. I’ve accepted it. I guess all he’s ever needed in a partner was genuine support. And as for me, well, I’m playing chaser for the Holyhead Harpies. I travel so much that it’s at times hard to keep a good relationship going. I’ve dated blokes from all over the world. Right now, I’ve been seeing Neville Longbottom (yes, Neville) for a good few months. I don’t know where it’ll go. We’ll see, I suppose. I do know I’m happy. I’m happy for Ron finding Luna, and I’m happy that Harry and Hermione are the most complete couple I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Mostly, though, I’m happy that I’m no longer living as a fan girl. That girl is a different person from me, a different witch … she’s not Ginny. The witch I am today is Ginny. She’s only an alter-ego. She’s Jenny. She was a friend of mine. Well, more than a friend. Jenny was a part of me. --- Thank you for reading! Please review!