Rating: PG
Spoilers: Order of the Phoenix
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place remains the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, even though Sirius is gone. It feels wrong at first, as if they're trespassing, but both Remus and Dumbledore say it's okay, and they grow used to it again.
Hermione and Ginny share the same room as they did last summer, and they've been plaiting each other's hair and lying in the same bed in thin cotton nightdresses talking about the past year for a week before Hermione says, "You never told me about Dean."
Ginny suspects it was meant to sound more casual and less hurt than it does, and the hint of a blush on Hermione's cheeks confirms that theory. And yet perhaps she's misreading the situation, and hurt can be for a number of reasons.
"There's nothing to tell," she says finally. The truth, but not the whole truth.
"You told Ron –"
"I never said there was anything going on between us," Ginny reminds her.
"But you like him?" Hermione asks. Anxiously, almost. Is it anxious? It's so hard to know, so hard to read people's emotions when what you want to hear and what you're actually hearing may be two separate things. And may be the same.
Ginny is facing her now, and they are so close that there is barely an inch between them because the bed is only meant for one person, but they have always shared, and left one empty, for comfort, she supposes, only she's starting to realise how it would seem to anyone outside looking in, and it's that that gives her the courage to say lightly, "Hermione, don't be silly."
"So why did you –"
"You saw how he was about Michael. How do you think he'd react if he knew who it really was I was after?" She pauses. "The person sharing his little sister's room, no less."
She has a moment of panic, a moment of ohgodivesaidtoomuchivecrossedthelineandshellneverspeaktomeagain before Hermione smiles and says, "He'd go crazy, you're right."
And somehow that's all that needs to be said, and later they find themselves kissing, and it's not different or weird or strange in any way, or even surprising. Just them. One summer, one bed, two girls, and it feels right.