Breaking the shadows

The lake

1996

Thursday September 9th

Nora is starting to settle in more and more every day, she talks with some of the other first years from the different houses and I see a positive development from her side. Nora's settling in made more alone time for me and Ginny, we've been hanging out a lot, making out in the corners, cuddling in our rooms, when no one is there. We are pretty open with our relationship, but some people look down on us like Sophie, but we don't mind, we know that not everyone will support us and that's okay, we love each other and that is the most important for us right now. A few students have been chatting in the corners about me and Ginny, mostly how we went from best friends, and both having boyfriends, to being lovers and being in love with each other. Ginny and Harry are fine, Harry is very understanding, he knew that it didn't work out, and if Voldemort ever succeed by killing Harry it would hurt too much on Ginny and I wouldn't want that. I'm not saying that I want Harry to die, not at all, he's my friend and I care about him, but we all know that it's kind of is his destiny, he is the boy who lived. Maybe he won't be the boy that killed Voldemort, or maybe he will and that would be awesome for all of us. But right now, is all I care about is Ginny and school. We are only a week in, but fifth year is harder than I thought. Later this year is the O.W.L'S and I'm a little scared, Hermione said that even she thought they were hard. I don't know if she was joking, but she made me terrified. I hate tests and exams already; she doesn't have to make it worse.

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I'm sitting in my room trying to concentrate on my drawing, but I can't, every little sound irritates me. I think I might go mad, if I don't get out of my room, I will definitely lose my mind. I get up and knock on Ginny's door, its Lavender that's opening and she turns around and says: "Ginny, Harlow's here."

I hear Ginny answer: "Just a second."

Ginny appears in the door frame with wet hair, she's wearing an oversize t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She asks: "What's up?"

"Do you want to get out of here?"

Ginny: "Of course, doing what?"

"Anything"

Ginny: "great, come in, I'll just change really quickly"

Ginny changes into a blue pair of jeans and a white long-sleeved t-shirt with black sleeves.

We go outside and she asks: "So what's the plan?"

"I don't have any."

Ginny: "Even better"

"Do you have any ideas?"

Ginny: "I might have one"

"What is it?"

Ginny has a flirty grin on her face as she says: "you'll see."

She takes my hand, and we find our brooms and we fly to the lake nearby the school, it's a bit chilly out, but its only start September so the water is still warm, so we sit by the bathing jetty, dipping our toes in the shallow water, holding hands. I look at Ginny and whisper: "Thank you."

Ginny rests her head on my shoulder as she says: "For what?"

"Just for being here" I still whisper, the nature is so calming that I don't want to ruin the moment by talking loudly. Ginny looks at me in a way that only she can, and suddenly she gets up and start to pick flowers, I just lay back on the bathing jetty and watch Ginny, she comes back a few minutes later, sits down beside me, I sit up and she moves so she sits behind me instead. She takes out my hair from the ponytail it has been in all day. And Ginny starts braiding tiny flowers into my hair, and I let her. This is a tradition that we have been doing many times. Each year we go down to the lake and braid each other's hair with flowers. We usually do it a few times in September before it gets too cold, but last year we only got to do it once.

I love our small traditions; we have a few others but mostly it's just what we like to do and whatever we come up with. For the most part we just enjoy each other's presence. After Ginny has braided my hair with flowers it's my turn to braid hers. I wasn't as good in the start but we both became better throughout the years, now we've been doing these three to four times a year for five years so we get pretty good, if I should say it myself.

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We sit by the lake for hours, and wait for the sun to set, it's another one of our traditions, we watch the sunset at least once a month and we watch the first full moon every year if it's possible. Sometimes it's too cloudy, but then we just wait another month, and do our tradition then. We agreed on our traditions already in our second year. We would do the sunset thing once a year because Ginny loves the sunset and the full moon tradition because, I'm obsessed with moons and astrology.

When the sun has set, we get up and fly back to the school. I don't want this day to end. It has been too perfect. I love spending time with Ginny even if we aren't doing anything special. I just like her company.
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Puplished: 17-05-23