Author: Ophelya
Story: The Right Person
Rating: Everyone
Setting: Pre-HBP
Status: Completed
Reviews: 11
Words: 1,172
Ginny watched Harry Potter impatiently as dinner passed. He should have asked her already. Well, if Hermione was right, anyway. It was less than forty-eight hours until the spring dance, and Ginny had turned down six guys already—this all in hopes that Harry Potter would ask her to go with him, on a tip from Hermione.
Ginny shot a glance at the bushy haired witch, who turned to her, shrugging. If Harry didn’t ask her to the ball soon, Ginny would have to take things into her own hands, and she wasn’t looking forward to that. She couldn’t wait until Saturday night to wear her green dress robes; they would match Harry’s eyes perfectly. Ginny sighed and looked down at her bread pudding.
Harry groaned from across the table and Ginny looked up curiously. He was rubbing his side with a look of pain plastered across his features. Hermione grinned slyly and winked at Ginny.
“Alright, alright,” Harry huffed at Hermione who was looking rather smug. Ginny got up and left the great hall, wondering if that scene was about what she thought it to be. Smiling, she walked toward the common room.
Behind her, she heard steps. Hear heart gave a great leap into her throat.
“Hey! Ginny, wait up!” called the panting voice of Colin Creevey.
Fiddlesticks, Ginny groaned inwardly and spun around pasting a smile on her face. “Hi Colin,” she said politely.
When he reached her, Colin rewarded her with a winning smile. “Hiya, Ginny,” he said brightly and continued walking toward Gryffindor common room in silence. At the fifth floor landing Colin spoke, “Have you accepted anyone’s proposal to go to the dance on Saturday?” His voice was nonchalant, but Ginny could see him wringing his hands in his Gryffindor robe.
Ginny hesitated. Was Harry really going to ask her? She had been asked by people she’d rather go with than Colin Creevey, but she was running out of time and options now. “I haven’t,” she replied.
Colin’s smile widened even more, his slightly large front teeth protruding. His hands wrung the hem of his robes into a tight ball. Mentally shaking herself, Ginny started up the stairs again. She tried to recover quickly from her momentary lapse in judgment. “I was thinking that maybe I’d just go…” her voice faltered as Harry walked onto the sixth floor landing looking disgruntled and worse for wear. “—alone,”she finished in almost a whisper.
“Bloody Peeves, bloody trick stairs…” Harry mumbled moodily to himself leaning against a wall and taking one shoe off to shake the rubble out of it. He looked ruffled and out of breath.
“Oh,” Colin replied, his smile wavering, “alright then. I guess I should have known that you wouldn’t want to go with me, I mean you did turn down Dean Thomas and Justin Finch-Fletchley.”
They were on the sixth floor landing. “It’s nothing personal,” Ginny reassured him, her stomach sinking.
“I know. Sometimes you just have to do what you feel you need to do,” his true smile resurfacing with a shrug, “If going to the dance alone is what you need, then so be it. Save me a dance though, would you?” he asked her, his large ears turning red with the rest of his face.
“Deal,” Ginny agreed, almost reluctantly. Colin took her on her word and shot up the stairs with a spring.
Ginny sighed resignedly. Harry had undoubtedly heard what she had said to Colin. Even if Harry did ask her, she couldn’t rightly accept now.
Once on the seventh floor landing, Ginny walked past the portrait of the Fat Lady and sunk to the floor behind a dusty suit of armor. She had ruined everything.
Ginny growled in frustration at the mess she had made.
“What are you doing?” a voice startled her out of her wallowing.
Looking up, she came face to face with Harry Potter. “Admiring this lovely suit, do you think it would look good on me?” she said sardonically.
She was certain that her expression wasn’t too pleasant at the moment, but maybe it would keep him from asking her; thus keeping her from having to turn him down for the second time in her life because it was the right thing to do.
Harry knelt down on the floor in front of her, knitting his eyebrows suspiciously. There were pieces of rubble in his hair, artifacts from his run-in with Peeves, the school poltergeist.
“I’m sorry,” she said slowly letting out a breath. “I’ve no right to be cross with you.”
Harry then smiled at her shyly, “Are you alright, then?”
“Yeah, just fine,” she droned. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed before either of them spoke again.
“What was that all about?” Harry asked her, “On the sixth floor,” he clarified at her questioning look.
Ginny groaned and put her head in her hands. He had to ask her the most embarrassing thing first.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. He just asked me to go to the dance, that’s all,” she said with her face still in her hands.
“Oh… Did you accept?” he asked. His voice was oddly neutral.
“No,” Ginny said miserably, “I didn’t accept.” You were there! You heard what happened, you great prat! She added almost scornfully in her head.
“Are you even really planning on going to the dance?” asked Harry, “It seems like an awful lot of people have asked you to go.”
“Yeah, I was just waiting for the right person,” Ginny looked at him from behind her hands, smiling wistfully.
“I s’pose that makes sense, then,” Harry agreed.
Harry sat down on the polished stone floor, his legs tucked up to his chest. Silence wrapped around them like a scratchy wool blanket.
Ginny idly drew patterns in the dust at the base of the suit of armor. It was too late when she noticed the unwelcome prickle of tears at the back of her eyes. Silently, the first tear fell.
Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, obviously growing more uncomfortable by the minute. He shifted, pulling his legs underneath his body. “Ginny?” he questioned quietly, leaning forward, “What are you really doing behind the suit of armor?”
Wiping her eyes, she looked up at him. “I was hiding,” she said biting her lip.
“From who?”
“The right person,” she said sadly.
A moment later, Harry spoke again, “Listen, Gin, about the dance, I was wondering— I mean, since you aren’t going with anyone yet— maybe we could hang out once we get there. Unless of course, the right person asks you, then I wouldn’t expect you to hang out with me,” Harry rambled.
Ginny let out a choked cry. A little puzzled, Harry patted her arm awkwardly. He stopped when he noticed that Ginny was shaking, but when she looked up, a watery smile had replaced her look of despair. Small hiccoughs of laughter spattered in between soggy sobs.
“It didn’t work,” Ginny stated suddenly.
“What didn’t work?”
“The right person—he found me.”