Some Things Aren't Meant to Be

Stomp.

Stomp.

Stomp.

No response.

Ginny Weasley gathered up the folds and flourishes of her golden bridesmaid’s dress and sprang back down to the landing – as nimbly as one could spring while perched precariously on three-inch heels – only to clomp up the stairs again.

Stomp.

Stomp.

STOMP!

He was supposed to come after her. He was supposed to beg her to rejoin the wedding reception that was rapidly devolving into a drunken revel in the Weasley’s garden paddock.

In fact, Harry Potter was supposed to do and be a lot of things that he simply wasn’t.

That’s what you get for five-and-a-half years of pining after him from afar, said a knowing voice in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Mrs. Weasley’s. Or Hermione’s.

She shook her head to clear it. She knew she mustn’t think of Hermione. Hermione and her “just be yourself and he’ll come around” doctrine. Hermione and her well-intended, wrong-footed advice.

Hermione and Harry.

Et tu, Brute?

She peered out the crooked window to see Harry sulking in a corner, pacing like a caged animal. Even as she watched, Hermione moved to his side, her lips forming around words of comfort, a soothing we’ll-put-it-right look on her face. Ginny could see it from here. The look. The way he leaned towards her as they spoke. The quiet manner with which she put him at ease. Ginny could see her chances with Harry slipping away with every word spoken and every gesture made. She only wished that her friend looked smug, self-satisfied, while she was stealing Ginny’s one true love away; it would be easier to hate her if she did.

Now, Ginevra  – her mother’s voice again -- you know there are plenty of perfectly good boys out there. Plenty of other fish in the sea.

She harrumphed and turned her back on the stairwell, empty but for a pair of Wellington boots and a cluster of discarded dungbombs. Her feet aching, she slid out of her sandals – hand-me-downs from some distant cousin or another who was probably happily wedded off by now – and pitched them over her shoulder and down the stairs, relishing the clattering ruckus they caused as they bounced from rickety step to rickety step.

“Ouch!”

She whirled around – eyes wide and fearful – and found herself face to face with Neville.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, but one glance at him – massaging the welt rising on his temple – softened her temper. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” he said, giving her the inexplicable impression that he would say he was fine even on the verge of death, if it would spare her feelings and smooth her path. “I was just wondering where you’d disappeared to.”

“I just needed to get away,” she said evasively, hoping to shake Neville off as quickly as possible. It was easier to rage and feel sorry for herself when no one was around.

But Neville Longbottom showed no sign of budging. She gestured hopelessly at the window and Neville stepped up to stand beside her – the better to see, she told herself, dismissing the goosebumps that erupted on her bare arms as he brushed past her.

“Did you love him?” Neville asked, his tone straightforward and simple.

“Yes,” she snapped, sitting down in a frump of taffeta and hurt feelings. She felt a seam tear along the side of her dress. Nothing Mrs. Weasley couldn’t put right.

“Oh” was all Neville said, ducking his head and shuffling his feet as he stood before her. “I can just go, if you’d rather.”

“No—” she said swiftly, motioning for him to sit beside her. “I think,” she confessed, after several moments of silence had passed between them, “that I loved the idea of being in love with him.”

Neville rested a comforting hand atop her knee, sending chills down her spine.

“Some things aren’t meant to be,” she said bravely, raising her eyes to meet his steady gaze. How could she ever have felt that she deserved better than Neville Longbottom? That she was somehow superior? He was so close.

“Some things aren’t meant to be,” she repeated dazedly, leaning in to him, seeking something that she found in his kiss.

Some things aren’t meant to be.

Other things are.