Ginny lay moodily on her bed and stared at the ceiling.
She'd been up here for what felt like hours, though if she looked at her clock it'd probably say five minutes had passed.
It was boring being obstinate on your own.
You couldn't play chess or exploding snap without somebody else there to play against.
It made her wonder if Tom knew anything about chess.
Even if he did, he probably wouldn't be able to do it in his head well enough to make it interesting - or whatever passed for a head when you were a book - and she could never remember how the weird move calling system worked for it.
Writing to Tom to complain had been fine at first, but then all the writing made her sleepy and you can't send the message you're purposely excluding someone if they think you're just taking a nap.
Besides, he hadn't been of any help at all. He was still of the opinion that she should let Harry have this first little romance so she could be there to comfort him when it fell apart. Boys were so stupid sometimes.
Ginny cocked her head to one side as she heard someone on the stairs. It had to be Percy; he was the only one with such rapid and prissy footfalls. It'd be just like him to come home and rush straight upstairs to write to his girlfriend. Say what you want about his priggishness, he was a dutiful boyfriend.
She could've wished Harry was less dutiful though, at least when it came to her . No doubt he'd be back soon too and then - No! She didn't want her here, not at the Burrow. This was her home, her place, her family, and Harry belonged to her. She had no right to be here when she didn't want her here.
It didn't matter though, she was coming anyway.
Maybe she should write all of her frustrations out in Tom again and sleep until tomorrow - or next week - or until it was time to go to Hogwarts, she didn't care. What's one day or another to her anyway?
Ginny could just see what she'd write now: 'Oh Tom, the day had started so wonderfully - and then an elf butt landed on me and everything went wrong. ' She hoped it was its head rather than its butt, but so far she wasn't having the best of luck. It made her wonder if elf butts were unlucky somehow; Luna would have known.
She should have done what she had wanted to from the beginning and just gone flying, though taking Harry's broom would only have made him hate her more. The ancient brooms Bill and Charlie had left behind were barely fit to fly anymore and probably only good for sweeping out the shed. Still, one of them might have gotten her to Luna's house; she still knew the way.
'And wouldn't she be surprised when I showed up at her window!' she thought.
But unless they could convince Luna's mum not to tell her mum then the whole visit would be cut short. And then she'd either be grounded for the rest of her life or all the brooms they had would be turned into a bonfire for the elf to dance around again.
An indecipherable higher-pitched greeting from below some time later marked her traitorous mother welcoming Harry back. It wasn't fair that she treated him like that, not when he was dating somebody else. That should be saved for when he was her boyfriend, not given out like that when he was with Hermione.
The slow-and-steady creeeak, creeeak, creeeak, of the stairs was the only warning Ginny had. Only her mother creaked like that; but she always called from the foot of the stairs. As fast as she could she rolled off the bed and scrambled to shove her trunk in front of her door and sat on it.
"Ginny?" her mother asked tentatively as she made the light triple-knock she always used unless she was mad.
She didn't respond.
The doorknob turned and tried to open, and she didn't respond to that either.
"Ginny, please open the door," her mother said softly.
Even the sound of her mother's voice didn't sound right today. It sounded like the few times her mother had been wrong about something and hurt her feelings and had to come and apologize to her. And that had always made her want to cry.
'She has no right to make me cry right now!' Ginny thought as tears welled in her eyes. 'I'm not the one who's done anything wrong!'
"I'm not coming out!" she sniffled.
"Ginny, please," her mother softly pleaded.
Ginny screeched as loud and as long and as high as she could; her mother always hated that.
"It's import-"
Ginny screeched again, this time through her tears. Why won't her mother just leave her alone?
"Youhavetocomeoutsometime, " the woman said quickly.
"When pigs fly!" she sniffled again before covering her ears and singing the Holyhead Harpies Fight Song as loud as she could. By the time she was finished her mother was gone.
'Good, ' Ginny thought. 'Let her be all sad and alone and see how she likes it. '
Maybe more time being sad would make her mother act like she should.
Ginny scrubbed her eyes dry and pulled her knees up under her chin, curling up while sitting on her trunk.
As time dragged on, more and more images of the date that should have been hers floated through her mind. It wasn't the shopping, or the clothes, or anything like that she particularly missed; she would've been happy without any of that.
The Hopefuls would've been nice; meeting all of those new people would've been fun. She just really wanted someone to pay attention to her, even for a little while. She would've been happy just sitting in the Leaky Cauldron holding hands and sharing a smile, she didn't even care with whom. They just had to be nice.
Chasing after Harry was silly, she knew that, but if she caught him then everyone in the world would know who she was. Then she'd be on the front page of the Daily Prophet and girls would look at her all green with envy. They'd cut out the picture and keep it in their bottom drawer, wishing they were her. It'd be the closest she'd ever get to being a Quidditch star like Gwenog Jones.
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