Unlocking the Heart

CHAPTER THREE

Unlocking the Heart

Hermione, still cradling Crookshanks, moved back over to my bed, and sat down in front of me. We stroked the cat together while she looked me in the eye.

"Ginny, Harry and Ron told me that Gilderoy Lockhart did everything he could not to rescue you. First he tried to leave Hogwarts by the back door. When Ron challenged him, he said he didn't know where the Chamber of Secrets was. He tried to wipe the boys' memories – but Harry was too quick for him. Harry had to Disarm Lockhart and force him down to the entrance."

Yes, Harry is her hero too, I thought. But this time I did not resent it quite so much. She was only telling me what had happened.

"Even when the Chamber door opened, Lockhart tried to get out of entering," Hermione continued, eyes wide with disgust. "They had to push him in. He was despicable. He just didn't care about rescuing you at all. And then he tried to Obliviate their memories again." I could feel the anger coursing through her veins as she remembered.

I was leaning towards her, tensing with the same anger. I hadn't known that Lockhart had tried to destroy Harry. "How did they escape?"

"It was because of Ron's broken wand, which Lockhart had stolen. The spell backfired and hit Lockhart, and it memory-charmed him instead of them. I wonder why they call them memory 'charms'? More like curses. Anyway, that's the sort of man our fine Professor Lockhart was. I don't understand how I never realised it!"

"Well, you couldn't have known he was bad, before he acted badly."

"But, Ginny, he wanted to abandon you to a Basilisk and to destroy Ron and Harry's minds! Surely there should have been a clue about what kind of criminal he was? But I never noticed – not the least little bit."

"I suppose you wanted to believe the best of him. Shouldn't we always believe – " But my words died in my throat when I remembered how willingly I had believed the best of Tom Riddle.

Crookshanks stretched plaintively, as if we had neglected him, and we both began mechanically stroking him again.

"So Ron didn't tell you my guilty secret." Hermione's voice was suddenly small.

"Ron never tells me anything. He just teases me and sends me away."

"So you didn't know that I used to fancy Professor Lockhart?"

"No!" How extraordinary! The girl who spent her whole day with Harry Potter could waste her energies on a mere teacher! "I suppose Lockhart was very handsome." I knew this wasn't much comfort, but I really didn't remember much about the man.

"He was," Hermione concurred. "But that was the only thing you could say for him. He was vain, and stupid, and dishonest, and cowardly, and self-centred, and ... need I go on? He hadn't even done the brave deeds he described in his books; it was all lies. Ron was sceptical from the beginning. He tried all year to warn me that Lockhart was a fraud. I don't understand how I could have wasted my time on him."

"But why would anyone suspect such enormous lies without a reason?" I asked. "Most people believed Lockhart. Why shouldn't you believe him too? Perhaps you fancied him because he was brave?"

"Brave, and adventurous, and exciting, and a defender of the weak ... oh, it's easy to find excuses. But usually I'm right about people. I've always known that Hagrid couldn't be a criminal, and that Snape isn't all bad, and that your friend Colin is trustworthy despite his faults ... really, I think I would have known all along that Lockhart was a fake if I hadn't been befuzzled by his handsomeness. That's a very embarrassing thought."

"Hermione, it was very brave of you tell me when you didn't have to. After all, I was befuzzled by Tom Riddle because of his friendliness. It's the same thing. Or worse. Because Lockhart was only a fool, but Riddle was evil."

"Lockhart was an evil fool, then," said Hermione, although she sounded somehow happier. "The kind of fool who was happy to finish off all my friends. I'll never be able to forget how stupid I was about him. In fact, I shall never, never fancy a fair-haired man again."

Of course not. Not when there are black-haired men around! But my dislike for Hermione was rapidly losing all its passion. Instead, I felt sad and unlucky that we were rivals, when clearly we were so much better suited to being friends. And I did promise myself I would make friends this year. I must start with Hermione. Whatever it cost, whatever the effort, I must try.

"What made you recognise you were over Lockhart?" I asked.

"Realising that I'd just spent fifteen minutes being outraged and disgusted at him! The boys had spent hours telling me about the Chamber, and I was so busy being angry with Lockhart that I'd completely forgotten that he was supposed to be my hero. So when I did remember that I'd forgotten, I knew at once that he wasn't my hero any more. I wasn't sorry to be over him. Who wants to have a crush on a teacher anyway?"

"Lots of girls have crushes on famous people – Quidditch players or singers or Aurors," I pointed out. I could feel the flush spreading under my freckles as I remembered that the boy I loved was also famous. I hoped Hermione couldn't see it in the dim candlelight. "Men whom they don't even know." I looked up, a little defiantly, because I did know Harry.

"But, really, it makes more sense to love someone you know," said Hermione. "Someone whom you know isn't going to change into a coward as soon as you come close to him. Someone whom you know isn't stupid. Someone with whom you can have fun every day because he's always around. Someone with whom you don't have to pretend because you feel comfortable telling him anything."

I closed my eyes and dropped my head to my knees. For a while, I had almost been liking Hermione Granger. But there was no escape. There was no mistaking the light in her eyes or the tone of her voice. She was going to go on ... and on ... and on ... about how she and Harry were always together. Without even noticing that that meant: How Ginny Weasley was always being left out.

But I had faced Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. I must face Hermione Granger in the confidences of love. I lifted my face, and made myself say:

"So you do like someone else, then?"

She smiled ecstatically. "Of course."

"When did you realise he was the one?"

"About five minutes after I realised I was over Lockhart. There he was, telling me all about the Chamber ... and he'd been so brave, so enterprising, so very right in the way he'd behaved ... yet he was so modest about it, unlike some people. And he's so intelligent too. And he really is very good-looking, even if he does forget to comb his hair ... there just wasn't any doubt in my mind that I belong to him, and always will."

I swallowed hard and forced my voice to sound normal. How would I sound if I were happy for her? As if she fancied a boy whom I'd never met? "Do you think he's noticed that you like him?"

She laughed. "No-o. He's a boy. He hasn't noticed girls yet. He wouldn't realise I fancied him if I tattooed his name in a heart all over my face."

I was brave enough to ask, "Doesn't that worry you?" But it wasn't an enthusiastic question. Since Harry didn't know that Hermione fancied him, I had a chance, a very slim chance. I didn't want her to dash my chance away. I wanted her to tell me that she hadn't meant it, that this was only a mild crush, and it would fade away by next week.

"I read somewhere that girls start noticing boys younger than boys start noticing girls. Since we're the same age, it's natural that I would notice him before he notices me. But I'm sure he'll work it out in the end."

"When do you think that will happen?" Please say next year, in ten years, never ... Please say that you'll have found someone else by the time he's old enough to care ...

"I think it'll take another ten months."

I gawped. "How can you be so precise?"

"Because of his height," she said calmly.

I stared at her again.

"You should read more, Ginny. Last Christmas I'd nearly caught him up in height. But by the time the school year ended, he was towering over me. He was growing really fast in the first half of this year. Well, I read that boys start – er – noticing girls about six months after their growth spurt begins. But it usually takes them another year after that to admit that they're noticing. So he won't be telling me that he knows I'm a girl until the end of this academic year. ... Ginny, is something wrong?"

It's taken you a long time to notice that, I thought, as I shook my head, fighting desperately against an overwhelming sadness. This was supposed to be a good year. But Hermione had planned, down to the minute, exactly when Harry would become her boyfriend, exactly when I would be cut off from all hope forever. "What if – " I hesitated. We were skating on very thin ice here. But Hermione had started it, so I would continue. "What if he does start noticing girls, but the girl he notices isn't you?"

Hermione frowned and stopped petting Crookshanks. "I suppose that might happen, but it doesn't seem very likely. After all, I am his best friend. We're together every day. When he does wake up to girls, I'll be the first girl he sees. So I'm not really worried that he won't be interested."

Nice, I thought, to be so confident.

"No, I'm more worried that he'll lose interest after he's started. I'm sure I'll be the first. Sooner or later there'll be a school dance or – or some kind of pairing-off activity, and he'll realise it's easier to go with me than to make the effort to approach a stranger. But once he's comfortable with me, he'll become more confident about other girls too. What worries me is whether or not I'll be able to keep him interested in me then."

I pushed back the glorious vision of Harry becoming so interested in other girls that he abandoned Hermione and transferred all his interest to me. No. It wasn't fair to think that way. Take a deep breath. Say what a friend would say. "If he does like you already as a friend, you have gallons of advantage over anyone who's still a stranger," I said, unable to keep the sad tone out of my voice. Intimate lighting or not, she would soon see that I was on the verge of tears.

She frowned. "Well, it may not be as easy as I'm hoping. He's not exactly the most in-touch-with-reality person. Today he was talking as if he'd catch Sirius Black single-handed. And he's refusing to face up to the painful truth about Scabbers' old age. Harry was saying today that the rat isn't going to live much longer."

I was confused. First she said that he wasn't facing the truth about Scabbers, then that he knew Scabbers was dying. I knew that I too had to face up to a painful truth soon. But my world was about to rock, and I wanted to keep it out of my consciousness for just a few minutes longer. It would be easier to talk about Scabbers – of whom I had somehow never been very fond. What on earth did she mean about Harry saying it without facing up to it?

"Talking of whom," Hermione continued, "Harry's been getting himself into trouble this summer. Did you hear how he blew up his aunt? He wants to be more careful."

"It wasn't his fault!" I protested automatically. I didn't understand Hermione's sudden cool tone. "People can't help it, you know, when they do wandless magic."

"No, but everyone can develop self-control." There it was again, a definite coldness towards Harry when he was in trouble. "If Harry would deal with his resentful attitude – "

"Hermione," I insisted, "Don't you love Harry?"

"Of course I love Harry," she replied, still coolly. "Harry's my second-best friend ever – "

The world did rock then. The bedroom walls shrank away, and the bedcovers billowed up enormously, and the candles – and shadows – flared up to the ceiling. I had lost all sense of balance and didn't know whether I was swaying backwards onto my pillows or forwards into Crookshanks. I was suspended in an eternal moment, barely hearing what Hermione was saying about acknowledging her friends' faults because they were her friends, because nothing else that Hermione said was really happening. A year could have passed around me, and I wouldn't have known.

Hermione had said something desperately important, but I couldn't hold on to it; it would fly away forever unless I managed to grasp the important point before Hermione started talking about something completely different. I tried to dredge out the significant idea, but when I found any voice at all, I could only whisper an echoed:

"Second?"