Part Five
Soon after all Ron's belongings were boxed up and moved to your flat, I decided it was time for Ginny and me to also take a big step in our relationship.
I proposed to her at night on the empty Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts, made especially romantic with the dozens of enchanted, glowing Snitches that flitted around us. She cried. I laughed in fear… and in so many kinds of hope.
The next day, at the normal Sunday lunch at the Burrow, we announced our engagement. My eyes couldn't help but look for you even as I was practically tackled in a hug by Mrs. Weasley. You held my gaze.
Again, your eyes tore through me and I had to remember to keep laughing through the pain, laughing jovially at Mrs. Weasley's incoherent squeals of delighted congratulations.
It was for the first time that my heart truly broke for you, for us. Tears slipped from your shocked, hurt eyes. But you covered it with a smile as soon as you turned away from me to congratulate my fiancée. You laughed with her as she had laughed with you on the occasion of your own revelation just weeks prior. You were the perfect friend, the perfect sister. Everything you had to be.
And my heart was pounding a frightening rhythm I forced myself to smile through as I hugged my future in-laws and my dear friends. At last, you came to me. You hugged me, tightly.
Lodging itself in my throat, my heart carried on with its uneven, frantic beat. Could you feel it? I held you tighter. I couldn't help myself.
Your voice broke, tainted with misery, on the only two words you whispered in my ear. "Congratulations, Harry."
And you pulled away again, refusing to look at me. You went to Ron's side, wrapped an arm around his waist and laughed blushingly when Mrs. Weasley asked the two of you when you would follow in mine and Ginny's wonderful footsteps.