Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling and don't own Harry, Ginny, or their beautiful love story.

A/N: There's a reason for the italics, so please bear with them.

I was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, eating dinner. Harry was next to me, with the usual respectable distance between us. I wanted to close it but had never, in five years of going to school with him, dared, and tonight was no exception.

On the other side of Harry and across from him were two boys who looked rather alike and also somehow familiar, though I was sure I had never seen them before in my life. "Henry and Benjamin Wood, Oliver's younger brothers. Eager to make the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and with plenty of promise." The voice at my shoulder was Michael Corner's. I turned and smiled at him, and he nodded and made his way to the Ravenclaw table. I had no idea where these new Woods had come from or how Michael knew about them, but I did not question either point. Strange things happened at Hogwarts, and Michael knew everything. The latter fact had been annoying at times and had figured in our breakup, but we were amicable exes, and he knew as well as I did that I would likely be Quidditch captain one day and that being able to hold the post well was of utmost importance to me. He had always been willing to discuss Quidditch with me, though he was careful to stay in the theoretical and tactical aspects of the game and never give away any Ravenclaw team secrets. With a wink, he had always said that that made him feel like he wasn't really fraternizing with the enemy. It had been awhile since we'd talked Quidditch, but not long enough for me to question his sudden provision of trivia.

Hermione was across from me, and Katie Bell sat next to her, talking across tureens and dishes with Harry about Quidditch. I tried to figure out exactly what it was they were discussing. I felt as though I were just coming out of a reverie and still getting my bearings.

"Ginny's one of the best Chasers I've ever seen," I heard Harry say.

I looked at him in astonishment. He'd never been loquacious, and since becoming Quidditch captain he'd been careful not to seem to have any favorites, at least in public. He merely grinned back at me, slow and easy, and then surprised me further by patting the small section of bench in between us. By this point, his grin was so wide that I felt like it was blinding me.

I scooted closer to Harry until our hips were touching. He slung a relaxed arm around my waist and gave me a wet kiss on the cheek.

I could not think.

I did not think. I merely leaned my head against Harry's shoulder and let his slow, easy smile recreate itself on my face.

"Ginny!" Hermione hissed. "You are dating Dean Thomas! You need to be aware of where your loyalties lie!"

I felt like I'd taken a Bludger to the stomach. Did she have to say that? Couldn't she have just let me have my moment with Harry, something she knew I'd longed for for years?

I straightened and scooted a bit away from Harry, feeling his arm fall away from my waist as I did so. I didn't want to look at him, but I had to let him read my face. Withdrawing was bad enough without hiding how I felt about it. I caught his crestfallen expression and felt like the Bludger was back.

The Wood boys seemed to have noticed none of what had just happened. "You're an amazing Quidditch player, Ginny," said the older one, leaning forward so he could see me around Harry. "I saw you in that last match against Slytherin, and I have no idea how you managed that fifth goal."

"The one where you faked out the Slytherin Keeper and then managed to fly over him, get between him and the goalposts, and then scored," supplied the younger Wood. He was unusually intelligible for someone whose mouth was full, though it was abundantly obvious that his voice had not changed and his brother's had.

"I've never seen a Chaser play the way you do. You're unbelievable," added the aforementioned brother.

I grinned ruefully, but it was a real grin, because the slavering young wannabes had just given me an opening to compliment Harry, and as a Chaser I was very good at spotting openings and using them to my advantage. "Well, thanks for saying so. I don't want to be a Chaser, though. I'm better at Seeking than Chasing. I just have the double-edged blessing of playing for one of the best Seekers Hogwarts has ever seen."

"I know the feeling," said the elder Wood sympathetically, playing the role of the kind, interesting peer much more convincingly than his brother. "It's so hard to play a singleton position. I aspire to being a Keeper, myself, like my older brother was, but versatility is always useful for those of us who covet a role only one person can play. Do you think you could teach me to be a Chaser? Just a couple lessons, of course. I've played all the positions more times than I can count, as you might expect in a family like ours. But your finesse as a Chaser—well, that's something I think plenty of people could stand to learn."

"If you teach Henry," blurted the younger Wood, who by process of elimination must have been Benjamin, if I remembered what Michael said correctly, "can I watch? I want to be a Beater, but watching flying as good as yours could never be a waste of time. From a personal-improvement standpoint, I mean."

Harry sent me a look that I couldn't quite read, somewhere between amusement and pain. "What do you say, Gin? Will you be opening the Ginny Weasley School for Spurned Singletons soon?"

The question bit into me like a Basilisk. He was not talking about Quidditch.

I couldn't help it. I snuggled up to him again and nuzzled my head into the curve of his neck. "Nope," I murmured. With a comfortable sigh, I gave the Wood brothers their response. "Sure. I could spare a few hours."

"Thanks," said Henry. "It will be such an honor to fly with you. I hope someday I'll have the even bigger honor of playing for you."

"Presumptive there, aren't you?" Katie Bell broke in. "It's not like the captains are announced two years in advance." She laughed at the expression on Henry's face, which read clearly a specific kind of horror. "You're right, of course. Ginny will be captain someday. She's excellent at Quidditch."

I felt it was time for a bit of modesty. "Thanks, but this is all a bit much. I'm hardly the only Quidditch player here. Katie, Harry—it's been such an honor to share a pitch with you these past two years."

I should have said more, but Harry drew me in even closer just then and my mind went blank once again—

—until the happy fog was penetrated by Hermione's voice, hissing, "Ginny! You have a boyfriend, and he is not Harry!"

I opened my eyes, which seemed to have closed when Harry pulled me into his embrace, in order to glare at Hermione. Bright morning sunlight hit my retinas with altogether too much force. After a few moments, I realized that I was awake now and I'd been dreaming.

Dreaming about Harry kissing me.

I rolled over in bed. I'd dreamt about kissing Harry before, but never had he taken so much initiative. Usually I kissed him, and otherwise the act was mutual. I had never dreamt that he kissed me.

No one had ever tried to stop me from kissing Harry in my dreams, either, and my own inhibitions rarely surfaced and never triumphed. However unfair it was to Dean—or, for that matter, Michael before him—my dream-self always enjoyed these stolen afternoons, meals, walks, flights, and evenings with Harry. Remorse never came until the morning, and even then it was as hard to summon as a Patronus.

This morning, after a brief inner battle, I gave up trying to feel bad about never having gotten over my crush on Harry. I never would, and it would be pointless to spend the rest of my life finding other guys to be with and forcing myself to hide and regret that he was the only one I'd ever loved or ever would love.

No, a much more reasonable course of action would be to break up with Dean.

I swung out of bed and dressed quickly, intent on doing just that.