She hadn’t meant for her to find out this way.
Sophie had planned to tell Ginny on her own terms, in private, where she could elaborate and do anything to prevent the exact look that she was giving her right that moment.
She hated that look; she couldn’t really tell what it meant. Maybe a mix of surprise and resentment, pity too.
But now it was too late, and she stood frozen in her spot for no longer that a second before she was turning around, avoiding all the eyes pointed in her direction and ignoring the hushed whispers that erupted around her, glancing once behind herself before pushing the heavy doors of the room of requirement open and leaving as fast as possible without looking back.
She didn’t really know where she was going. She didn’t have a class anywhere near these corridors and the few times she had been here had been with someone else. With Ginny. To her, all doors and statues looked the same, her eyes blurry with tears that were threatening to fall, so she blindly rounded corners and walked through the corridors hoping to recognize something that might give her a clue on where to go.
It was late. The group always met after class, but today the meeting ran later than expected. Much later. Which meant that there was barely any light outside and that she had to hurry before she was found wondering on her own and punished for breaking curfew.
Her mind was racing through all the possible scenarios. Her classmates, people she even thought to considered friends. Indifferent and ignoring her at best. Expulsion and a trial at worst.
She had no reason to hope for anything else, anything better. With the way hushed whispers erupted the moment the blue light from her want took a clearer form. The looks some of her classmates gave one another. The way some of them stared at the floor, avoiding her gaze as she left. The way they all stood and watched as she stumbled her way outside, and nobody tried to stop her.
Hermione was the only one who did not look shocked. Her face was neutral, if not for a knowing look in her eye that made her feel sick to her stomach. How long has she known?
She cursed under her breath. This was the second time she found herself in a dead end. She turned to retrace her steps when she stumbled into another figure.
Those brown eyes she had memorized long ago were giving her that same look.
Her anxious pace and wondering mind hadn’t registered the steps that were following her, nor the initial calls of her name, asking her to stop, to stay.
It was now, that she stood in front of her, no longer wondering around at a brisk pace, that she noted the way she could see her breath and didn’t feel her feet from the cold.
Ginny was standing in front of her, and she was torn about what to do. She could run, maybe shed get away. But she did not know where to go, and Ginny was faster, had longer legs that would catch up with hers. She could deny it, that she must be mistaken and her assumptions, although completely logical, were misplaced, as was everyone’s else. But that argument had no grounding, flimsy at best if not completely impossible.
She could just stand there, in silence, waiting for what Ginny was going to say. The words that would come out of her mouth to unmistakably break her heart. She deserved it. The hateful words that would be directed her way, the look that would haunt her in her sleep, the future of indifference that would follow whatever Ginny was about to say.
And she waited for it, for this conversation she knew would end her. And she looked at Ginny, who was breathing fast from following her, and was examining the look on her face, as if she might try to flee – again – any minute, or was a time-ticking bomb.
And she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t stand there and let her break her heart with words shed heard a dozen times before but didn’t matter until now, until she said them.
So she rushed in before Ginny could get a word out.
“I’m sorry. Gin, I’m so sorry. You must understand. I didn’t mean for it to go this way. You were not supposed to find out like this. I- I don’t- “-she pauses and takes a shaky breath-“I’m not bad. I didn’t mean anything bad by not telling you. I wanted to, thought about it so many times, but never had the courage to do it. Cause you could hate me-and you do now, and maybe if I had done something different-but I don’t think it might have changed the way-I just”-
“Soph, hush.” Ginny’s words stopped her right in the middle of her ramble. Then, Ginny reached out and grabbed her hands, that for the first time she noticed were trembling in front of her, slightly red from the cold. Ginny’s hands were much warmer than hers, and it brought her back to the present, grounding, as always.
Sophie averted her eyes from Ginny’s intense stare to their hands, trying to savor the feeling before it all came crushing down.
“Are you alright?” She asked, not louder that a whisper.
Her gaze flew back to Ginny’s eyes and found no hateful look, but a questioning one.
She didn’t know what to do.
Had she gone mad? Didn’t she connect the dots? Could it be understood?
It couldn’t.
There was no way she could. (But maybe she did.)
She couldn’t answer with anything more than a curt shake of her head, her throat dry.
“Why did you run?” - She asked softly.
It takes her a few seconds to bring herself together and be able to give her a coherent answer.
“I couldn’t take seeing them staring at me. Seeing you staring at me.”- But that was a lie, wasn’t it? So, she tried again- “I couldn’t bear knowing you would never look at me the same way you do. Or did.”
But Ginny’s face was the same as always. It’s the same nose, slightly scrunched. And the same eyes, soft and crinkled at the corners. The same mouth, bottom lip pulled between her teeth. It was all the same.
And she was giving her the same look that she did that time where she visited at the infirmary wing after she broke her arm. The same look that she gave her after receiving a especially mean letter from her parents. The same look she had given her the time she almost told her, when she wanted to come clean with her secrets, but didn’t.
The same look Ginny seemed to reserve just for her.
“Oh Soph.” - Ginny said, tears welling up in her own eyes. - “Nothing’s changed.”
“Of course it has.” - Sophie said. – “How couldn’t it?”
She felt a hint of frustration. How could Ginny think nothing would change between them? After what just happened.
After-
It was their last lesson before Easter, and they were summoned slightly later than usual, but other than that, it proceeded with normalcy. The coin warmed up in her pocket, she left the Ravenclaw common rooms in search of Ginny, she followed her to the room of requirement and met with the group.
This day, they had practiced defensive charms – expeliarmus, protego, impedimenta, stupefy – before moving into uncharted territory.
Everyone had been exited to try out the Patronus charm, and for a while, Harry had been reluctant, saying he wanted to focus on more important spells. And morale was high considering only a few had succeeded after trying for twenty minutes.
“They’re so pretty!” - Said Cho brightly, watching her silvery swan-shaped Patronus soar around the Room of Requirement.
“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to protect you,” - said Harry patiently.
He had been trying to get his point across; that this was an ideal scenario, without pressure to perform the spell correctly, and that if we were ever to need it, it would be under much more stress.
Sophie had failed her first attempts and was currently contempt with watching Ginny’s focused face. Eyes closed, furrowed brow, lip bitten in concentration. The tip of her wand glowing slightly bluer before going out entirely with a frustrated sigh before looking at her, exasperated.
“Soph stop looking at me. I can’t focus.” – she said, looking at her expectantly.
She laughed - “Sorry, I’ll leave you to it.” – and turned around to give it another try herself. She closed her eyes and searched for her happiest memories. All she could see were freckles on pale skin, the way the wind tousled red hair, and a dimpled smile. “Expecto patronum.” – she whispered, and without needing to open her eyes, she could tell it worked.
And for those blissful seconds, with her eyes closed, smiling and thinking of a girl, she was unaware of the sudden stillness in the room. And she didn’t register the quiet that was once laughs and chatter. And she didn’t have to look at Ginny and see her expression.
But those seconds slipped by in an instant, and she opened her eyes to find what everybody was looking at - herself.
Or a version of herself, at least.
In glowing blue, floating before her was herself, hunched over. But her arms were longer, and her hair shorter (and everywhere), and instead of her usual smile, she was bearing fangs. Glowing eyes instead of her own, and claws that looked dangerous even when a vision. It was Sophie, but it was a monster.
And for a second, time stood still.
She saw the look of shock in most faces, disgust in some. Many glanced at her neck, where just above her loosened tie you could see the beginning of a scar, which they now know what it meant. Hermione, of course, seemed unfazed, a knowing look in her eye.
And Ginny. – Oh Ginny – Stared at her like that. And she was not brave. So she turned away, and then she ran.
She was a coward, at least when it came to her.
But now here she was, standing in front of Ginny, and she had come looking for her.
“Soph” - she said as she lifted one of her arms to Sophie’s face, wiping away the tears from her cheeks that were freely falling now. - “Nothing can change the way I think of you.” Her hand now rests there, in the nape of her neck with such care, her other hand tightly wrapping both of hers.
How do you think of me? Is it how I think of you? You don’t want to know how I think of you.
“And how is that?” – She says before she can second guess herself. Before she can regret it.
But she doesn’t, not when she sees Ginny’s eyes glance between her own, can feel her fingers softly playing with the strands of hair she finds, her lips quirk slightly in a smile.
“Obsessively.” – She says – “I think about you all the time when we are not together. And I miss you.”
But it can’t mean what she is thinking, not in the same way she thinks of her.
“We are together almost always.” – Sophie dumbly says with a furrowed brow.
“We are, aren’t we?” - She answers, with a watery smile. And Sophie thinks she looks wonderful. “But it’s never enough. It’s never the way I want it to be.”
“It isn’t?” – She doesn’t figure out what else to say, deciding to do anything for Ginny to keep talking, even if she sounds like a fool.
“No, it isn’t.”- She pauses, and then – “So nothing is going to change the way I feel for you. You are still you.”
Ginny feels something for her. Could it be the same?
Sophie looks down at her hands, at the way Ginny’s freckled hand contrasts with her tan ones. And she can’t help it. If there is a chance this could be it - they could be it – she has to take it, or she’ll resent herself forever.
“I can’t lose you. Ginny, I-” – She almost says it. Love. - “I like you; so so much. And that is still me. You can hate me for it, but it is true, and I can’t keep more secrets from you.”
She doesn’t breathe. She is still looking at their hands, afraid of what she might find hidden in her eyes. But when those words leave her mouth, she sees – and feels- how her hands are slightly squeezed by Ginny’s.
Before she can take that, or anything, as a bad sign, she feels Ginny’s other hand tilting her head up to meet her eyes.
And when she does, she sees her own feeling reflected in Ginny. An unforgettable smile in her lips. Warm eyes now glancing at her lips.
And Sophie has made questionable choices today, but for once she does something that is right.
And when she feels Ginny guide her up, close. She closes the space between them.
The kiss is everything she had dreamed, but better. So much better, because it was real. It was real, and there were no secrets. It was real, and Ginny felt the same.
It was the most tender of kisses, and tentative, at first. Knowing each other in every way but the one they most wanted to.
Sophies hands held Ginny’s face tenderly, while Ginny’s free hand came to rest at the small of her back, bringing them closer together.
And when they pulled back, barely, foreheads resting on each other, with a blissful look on their faces, she couldn’t help but think: That is the same look she always gives me. It is her same smile. It is the same. And maybe so am I.
And the feeling in her chest is new, and delightful, and it’s everything that Ginny makes her feel. And Ginny is so much more wonderful when she can hold her in her arms, and she feels so at home when sharing their breath. And that brown that looks at her is her favorite color.
And she thinks back to the room of requirement, to the faces of the other kids and what she might have to face when she returns. But with Ginny in her arms, it all feels so small in comparison.
She could lose many things, maybe even everything. But having Ginny might suffice.
“I feel like I might have over-reacted.” – She says sheepishly, with a smile on her face.
And when Ginny giggles at that, pulling her back into a life-changing kiss, she knows it.
She can lose EVERYTHING. But Ginny is so much more than enough.