Chapter Eighteen

"Gin," Hermione said at last, coming up for air after a couple minutes that felt like an hour. "We should talk about this."

"Mm, talk. Do we have to?" Ginny murmured against her lips. "Right now?" The redhead brushed her lips against a sensitive spot between Hermione's ear and her neck, causing Hermione to shiver and twitch at the same time. If Ginny meant to distract Hermione from their inevitable discussion about what, exactly, they were doing, she almost succeeded. But Hermione recovered and pulled away – just a few inches – and said breathily,

"Yes, right now – before we get carried away and never stop. As much as I'm enjoying...this, I want to be sure we're on the same page about some things."

"Oh, fine." Ginny sighed, pulling away a little herself, but keeping her arms wrapped around Hermione's slender waist. "You go first. What do you want to know?"

"Well, I guess the main question on my mind is..." Hermione bit her lip, enjoying the sensation of Ginny's touch, but then pressed on, "Your kissing me just now. That isn't a joke, is it? Or just some random experimentation thing? Do you...really mean it?"

"A joke? Do I mean it?" Ginny shook her head. "Hermione. I've been mad for you for months now. Maybe even longer." She laughed, but tears were welling in her brown eyes. "I can't believe I've finally said that out loud. Merlin, it feels...so fucking freeing. More than I even thought it would."

"Oh, Ginny." Hermione felt her own lashes become dotted with tears, and she resisted the strong urge to kiss her friend again. Friend...was that still the right word? Did friends snog each other senseless the way they just had?

"And you kissed me first!" Ginny said suddenly, as if the fact had just occurred to her. "Honestly, I never once thought that would happen. It seemed so impossible that I didn't even let myself imagine it. How long have you...?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione said, her voice trembling a little. "I think it kind of, um...snuck up on me, bit by bit, and I wasn't entirely sure what it meant until very recently. Until I couldn't deny it to myself anymore."

"So, you're not just...like..." Ginny hesitated. "I mean you're not just grateful for the gift I gave you? You won't tell me tomorrow that all this meant nothing...?"

Now Hermione found herself laughing incredulously. "I've gotten lots of nice presents from people over the years, Gin. Snogging them has never been my way of saying 'thank you' before. And to answer your other question - no. This certainly does not mean nothing to me."

The girls stared at one another in tense silence for a moment. A sudden shyness seemed to have struck them both, a mutual feeling of being at a loss of what to say next.

But then the wild bravery that had taken control of Hermione when she decided to kiss Ginny returned to her. She might as well tell her friend everything.

"You know, for days now I've been thinking over – well, maybe overthinking – all of the interactions that you and I have had these last few months. It's been driving me insane, trying to figure out if they were my imagination, or...meant something more..." Before she knew it, she had pulled her Gin Bottle out of her pocket and handed it to Ginny. As Ginny began to read the words in Hermione's tidy script on the little pieces of parchment, a bark of a laugh erupted from her beautiful freckled face.

"You kept a scientific journal about your crush on me? Hermione, that is the most you thing I ever saw in my life."

The redhead was mostly silent as she read Hermione's notes. She only stopped to comment when she said, "So you were jealous of Harry because you thought Susan Bones was me? Wait - Harry was kissing Susan?!"

"I know! He never even told us that he liked her!" Hermione cried. Normally the girls would have continued to prattle on about this detail, but speculating about Harry's love life would have to wait for another time. They had their own relationship to consider first.

Ginny finished reading the contents of Hermione's Gin Bottle, and wordlessly handed back the bottle and notes. Without missing a beat, she clasped Hermione's hands in her own. And then she was pouring out everything to Hermione as well, telling her the entire history of how she realized she was falling for her best friend...

A story of lingering glances and subtle touches...of clumsy missed cheek-kisses that (accidentally?) landed on the mouth...of Quaffles thrown into lakes in despair...of drunken, embarrassing ramblings that attempted, unsuccessfully, to mask her true feelings...of her devastating fears that Hermione might return to Ron...of the confusing but exhilarating experience of waking up next to her crush to find that they were both in a state of undress...of whispered confessions of her crush to Harry, Colin, Rosmerta, and Hooch...of the moment that she had allowed herself to stop grieving the loss of a relationship that had not even begun, and to finally have a sliver of hope...

There were no longer any secrets between them. And the impossible had turned out to be true: their feelings for one another were not unrequited.

Only one question stood between them now.

"What next?" Hermione breathed, resting her forehead against Ginny's.

"That's it. I've told you everything."

"I mean, what do we do next? What happens now?"

"Oh. Um." Ginny swallowed. "Well, I never actually thought this far. I didn't think that this would ever happen. But I guess if I were to use my imagination..." A small smile crossed Ginny's lips. "This is the part where I would ask you to be my girlfriend."

Hermione wanted to make this moment as romantic as Ginny clearly meant for it to be. She yearned to melt into the other girl's arms, and tell her that she'd be anything that Ginny wanted.

Something was holding her back.

"But are we sure it's a good idea to…to leap to that decision just yet?" she stammered. When she saw the crushed look on Ginny's face, she said quickly, "I'm not telling you no. I do want to be with you, I wouldn't have kissed you otherwise."

"Then what the hell did you mean?" Ginny demanded, clearly still upset. "We just established a moment ago that this meant something - that we're not going to change our minds in the morning about our feelings for each other, or chalk it up to bicurious teenage experimentation or any of that bollocks."

"And all of that is true."

"So why are you getting hung up on the idea of calling me your girlfriend? I mean, if you wanted a friends-with-benefits kind of thing – I guess I could try to do that, because it would be better than nothing. But it would never feel like enough."

"It's not really about the labels thing," Hermione confessed. "I just...I'm scared. If I'm honest, I'm bloody terrified right now." She was crying again, but not tears of joy this time. "Mostly, I'm worried about what if it ends badly, and it drives us apart forever? Look at what happened with Ron and me. My friendship with him has taken months to rebuild, and it'll probably still never be quite the same again. Losing you would feel much, much worse than that. I can't lose you, Gin. I don't know if I could recover from that kind of heartbreak."

"'Mione." Ginny's tone was softer as she pulled the older girl into a tight, comforting hug. "I'm scared of that too. Who wouldn't be? Every relationship that evolves out of a friendship comes with that risk."

"I know, but-" Hermione's voice shook. "What we have isn't just any friendship. I feel like it's something special, that it's deeper somehow. The stakes are higher for us than they would be if I'd fallen for any other friend."

"We can't let that stop us," Ginny said quickly. "Not now, not after all we've been through to get this far. Please, Hermione. Please give this - us a chance. If we don't, we'll always wonder how things might have turned out. At least I know I will."

"I would wonder, too," Hermione admitted. "I guess our relationship will have to change no matter what now."

"How so?"

"We could...date, or whatever we want to call it, and then possibly break up at some point in time. Or we stay just friends, but never be able to stop wondering what else we could have been. And our friendship might get weird, because even if I tried, I'd never be able to forget that we kissed just now. And that it was amazing."

"You're forgetting another possible outcome."

"Which is…?"

"That we dive headfirst into this," Ginny murmured slowly, "and it doesn't ever go bad, and you don't lose me. That it continues to be amazing. Just like our kiss."

Her lips were on Hermione's again. Instinctively Hermione responded by deepening the kiss, causing Ginny to let out an adorable whimper. Hermione continued the kiss and entangled her hands in Ginny's hair, which was almost completely coming out of its messy topknot.

She had never imagined that it would feel so incredible to kiss another girl. But this wasn't just any girl – she was kissing Ginny Weasley, and she knew for sure now that she hadn't been just imagining her attraction. She wanted this. She wanted Ginny, no matter what might happen between them in the future.

"You forgot something else," Ginny whispered suddenly against Hermione's mouth.

"Hmm?"

"You said you didn't know if you could recover from the heartbreak if our friendship didn't survive a breakup. Did you mean that?"

"It definitely feels that way."

"But Hermione, I know that you could recover. I've seen how strong you are. You would move on and have a great life, even without me in it. Don't get me wrong – I want to be in your life for as long as you'll let me. But I don't believe that anything could ever truly destroy you."

"I wish I felt that optimistic."

"And I wish you believed in yourself as much as I believe in you. If you ever have doubts...just read what I wrote to you again."

Ginny pointed toward the words she'd scribbled on the poster. Hermione's eyes smarted with tears again as they fell upon the sweet message in her girlfriend's handwriting.

The uncertainty of what lay ahead still frightened her. But her heart told her that Ginny was worth being reckless for.

Author's Notes: Yes, I know. It's been.. *cough*sixYEARS*cough* since I last updated this story. ((Sigh)) I got bogged down in real-life stuff for ages, and I honestly didn't believe I would ever continue this fic. But I suddenly got re-inspired for the first time in a long time. I already have part of Chapter 19 written, so you shouldn't have to wait another six years for me to put the next part of the story up.

I can't say thank you enough to everyone who has continued to read and review this story, and who asked (sometimes begged) me to continue. It means more to me than I can say.