Between Friends

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Chapter 13: The Infamous Bathroom

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Recap:

“You’re so sweet!” she squealed, making Harry’s eyes widen as his eyebrows shot up in shock.

And all of a sudden, her hands were wrapping around him and she burst into tears on his shoulder. “It’s j-just,” she said shakily, her voice wracked with sobs, “I lo-loved him! And… h-he doesn’t love m-me!”

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the girl clung to him. He patted her on the back a few times, hoping that she would feel comforted enough to let go of him. “It’s… er, it’s okay,” he said awkwardly,

The girl finally lifted her head up from his shoulder and looked at him in the eyes. For a moment, there seemed to be some indecision in her eyes as though she were about to do something of consequence, but Harry did not notice; he was too thrilled that she had finally gotten off of him and was now trying to flag down the bartender.

The indecision in Carrie’s eyes melted away, leaving a strong resolve to do… something. Not that Harry noticed at any rate – he just wanted a nice shot of firewhiskey, at the moment.

However, when Carrie threw her arms around his neck again, Harry started and looked at her bemusedly.

“You’re perfect for me,” she said as she kissed him soundly on the lips.

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Ginny was frozen in her place. Harry was sitting at the bar with another girl. She was blonde and looked like she was probably pretty – Ginny could only see the back of her head; the girl was wrapped around Ginny’s supposed boyfriend.

Rage coursed through Ginny’s veins. How could he do this to her when it was him who had been in the wrong in the first place! The little voice in Ginny’s head that seemed to be acting as the Voice of Reason clucked at her, telling her that she had overreacted before, but Ginny overlooked that minor detail. All that mattered now was that Harry was snogging a random girl at a bar.

And what if she was not just a random girl? Ginny’s eyes widened, giving her a wild, almost feral look. Possibilities of scandalous affairs and secret meetings ran through her head; she had a vivid mental image of exactly what Harry could have done.

She took a step forward, intending to pull the girl off Harry, give him a piece of her mind, and then lock herself into a stall in the bathroom for the remainder of the night. Were all men like this? First, Connor and now, Harry? She had known (perhaps a bit too well) about Harry’s multiple conquests that he called girlfriends. But she had thought that he…

No. He obviously did not love her. Nor did he have any feeling of affection towards her. She would always be Ginny Weasley, the best mate’s little sister. Or, if she was lucky, Ginny Weasley, faithful friend who helped him win a bet.

Another step forward. All of the treacherous thoughts were running through her head wildly, with no sign of stopping. It felt like she had been standing there for several minutes, hours even. But, in reality, it had been a mere two seconds since she had first spotted her cheating boyfriend (soon to be ex-boyfriend) and the girl with the long blonde hair.

She paused for a split second after her second step. Something seemed wrong about the situation – Harry’s eyes were wide with shock.

Finally coming to her senses slightly, she shifted over from her spot to get a better view of the whole situation. She had a nagging feeling that she had missed something important about the whole situation. After all, whose eyes would be wide with shock if they wanted to snog someone? And it would definitely not be shocking for him to be snogging someone if he had been having an affair with her.

Perhaps it was that the girl was half on Harry’s seat, wrapped around what looked like a stiff mass, but was really Harry’s unmoving leg that seemed to be rigidly suspended in midair as though he were particularly uncomfortable. Or perhaps it was that, upon closer inspection, Harry did not seem to have his arms around the girl. Instead, his hands were glued to his chair, as rigid as his legs. Whatever the reason, Ginny had finally realized something quite important: Harry was not taking an active part in that kiss.

As if Harry had just realized that Ginny had figured out what was wrong with the situation before her, he recovered from that initial shock of having a stranger throw herself at him and pushed her off of him and back onto her seat. “What’s wrong with you?” he exclaimed, wiping his mouth roughly on the back of his hand.

The girl, Carrie, looked shocked for a second and glanced at a point behind Harry’s head before pasting a simpering smile on her face. “Harry,” she whined, coming closer to him still by leaning off her seat again.

Harry leapt off of his chair before Carrie could get any closer. “I don’t…” he said, waving his hands wildly. “I don’t even know you!”

“Sure you do!” Carrie said enthusiastically. “I’m Carrie. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

“We just met!” Harry said, backing away.

“Yes,” Carrie said nodding in agreement. “And those few minutes were all that it took for me to realize something. I want you, Harry Potter.”

Harry raised his eyebrows and backed away some more. “All right,” he said uncertainly. He was seriously concerned for Carrie’s mental stability. “But, you know, I’ve got a girlfriend. I already told you that.”

“You said you rowed with her,” Carrie pointed out. “But if you were with me… well, I wouldn’t row with you. Not ever.”

Harry backed away more, putting at least ten feet between them. “Yeah, I’m sure. But I’m not with you, see?” With that, he turned his back on Carrie and walked briskly away, hoping beyond all hope that she would stay where she was and not follow him. How did Ron and Hermione know her anyway? Harry had always thought that his best mates took pride in the fact that their guests were sane. Shaking his head, he continued to walk away from the bar, hoping to put a great deal of distance between himself and Carrie.

Ginny watched him leave; he had not seen her yet. She peered over the crowed and followed the head of messy black hair to the other side of the room, where he finally sat down at a table by her brother, Charlie. She made a mental note of that so she could find him later, assuming he was still in that exact location, and turned her head back towards Carrie.

Ginny’s eyebrows shot up as she saw the new situation unfold before her eyes – Connor was walking towards Carrie, who was obviously waiting for him. Ginny snuck behind another plant (she silently thanked the hall decorator that Hermione had painstakingly picked out for the abundance of potted plants in the vicinity).

“Did you get what you wanted out of it?” Connor asked, taking the seat that Harry had previously occupied and gesturing for Carrie to sit as well.

“We snogged, if that’s what you mean,” Carrie said.

Connor rolled his eyes. “Yes, I saw that. And you saw me watching, too,” he said evenly. “What did he say?”

“Rowed with the girlfriend,” she replied. She looked unbelievably bored; she was inspecting her fingernails at the moment as though they were a particularly interesting piece of artwork.

Connor sighed exasperatedly. “Did he say why?”

“No,” Carrie said in a bored tone. Connor looked at her expectantly, as though he were waiting for some startling revelation to present itself. Carrie looked up, her fingernail obviously boring her, and surveyed him carefully. “Look, Connor, I got what I wanted.”

“No, you didn’t,” Connor said, laughing derisively. “You wanted to date The Harry Potter. You barely even snogged him.”

“Yeah, well, perhaps I realized that he was a lost cause,” Carrie said quietly, looking straight into Connor’s eyes now. “He’s in love with her, Connor. And I certainly won’t be able to change that.”

“So?” Connor asked tersely. “Who cares what he thinks? Ginny’s all that matters now.”

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Face it, Connor,” she said, now standing. “You’re not going to get that promotion. Your boss wouldn’t give it to you even if you were, by some miracle, dating Ginny Weasley. And besides, you blew your chance, not that you even had one. You told her exactly why you went out with her in the first place.”

“She’ll overlook that,” Connor said dismissively.

“No, she won’t,” Carrie said, smirking slightly. She took a step away from Connor. “I think it’s about time you give up on using Ginny. It won’t work, especially not now that you’ve completely messed things up with her.”

“I’ll just get someone else to help me then,” Connor threatened, rising to his feet as well.

Carrie shrugged noncommittally. “Good luck,” she said. “You’ll need it.” She turned briskly on her heel and strode away.

Connor swore and sat back down in his chair, signaling the bartender over to his area.

Ginny, when absolutely positive that Connor was not looking, slipped out from behind the plant. She turned her head to where Carrie had walked, spotting her blonde hair a good distance from where Harry had been before. Then, she peered in the direction of Charlie’s table and saw Harry, still sitting there, engaged in a conversation with Charlie and his friend.

Swallowing her pride, Ginny strode over to Harry, ready to finally sort things out between them.

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“—real one of those? I thought they were just rumored to exist in –“ Harry was saying as Ginny tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head to look at her and fell silent.

“Can we talk?” she asked quietly, refusing to look at her brother and his friend, who were both watching the scene with avid interest.

Harry sighed. “All right,” he said vaguely. He pushed back his chair, muttering a quick goodbye to Charlie, and followed Ginny, who led him to the bathroom. They walked inside and locked the door magically, ensuring that no one would interrupt them.

“I saw you with that girl,” Ginny began quietly.

“Yeah?” Harry asked. “Well, I saw you with Connor.”

”You… did?” Ginny asked, the surprise evident in her tone.

“I did,” Harry muttered. “Snogging him behind my back. You know, we rowed. We didn’t break up.”

“I know,” Ginny said. “Well, if you had stuck around for another second you would have seen me push him off of me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Harry muttered, although he felt significantly happier about the whole situation now. At least Ginny was not seeing Connor behind his back. “And, if you saw me with Carrie, then I trust that you saw me push her off me?”

“I did,” Ginny said slowly. “I also stayed for a bit longer and found out that she and Connor had some plan to separate us. Connor told me, after he kissed me, that he was only using me to get a promotion.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Hermione wouldn’t give him a promotion because he was with you,” he said.

“I know,” Ginny said. “And now he does, too. The girl, Carrie, I guess, told him as much. And that it was useless trying to break us up.”

There was a moment of silence. “Was it useless because it looked like we’d stay together, then?” Harry finally asked. “Or did we already do the job for them?”

Ginny sighed. “Look, Harry,” she said tiredly. “I overreacted before about that whole bet thing. Yeah, you should have told me but, really, it makes no difference now, does it?”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “It makes no difference now.”

“So, let’s just forget it, then,” Ginny suggested. “It’s in the past.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “So, we’re okay, then?”

Ginny smiled. “We are,” she replied. “We’re just fine.”

They both stepped towards each other and embraced. “What made you decide all of that about that bet?” Harry asked, his words getting lost in Ginny’s hair.

“Oh, just something Hermione said,” Ginny replied vaguely.

Harry smiled and Ginny pulled her head away slightly to look at him, a smile playing about her lips. “Now, before,” she said. “We were supposed to meet in here.”

Harry grinned. “We were,” he agreed. And without a second thought or even a pause, his lips captured hers, both of them knowing that this is what they had been waiting for. It was not just the time they had missed out on in the bathroom before, either.

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One year later in July, in that same hall, Harry and Ginny could be found on the dance floor, revolving slowly on the dance floor, enjoying their first dance as husband and wife.

“This hall’s got so many memories,” Ginny murmured.

Harry chuckled. “It does,” he said.

“It’s where you first said that you loved me,” Ginny said, gazing over Harry’s shoulder to the bathroom, the famous (or infamous) bathroom.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “Right there, in that bathroom behind me.”

“This is where I found out about that bet,” Ginny said vaguely.

“Blasted bet,” Harry said. It was a reflex now – every time The Bet was brought up, he said that.

Ginny giggled slightly. “That’s right,” she said. “Damn blasted bet.”

The song, Harry noticed, was coming to a close. “I know we have to stay out here for a little while longer, but how about we… visit that bathroom for nostalgic purposes,” he murmured into Ginny’s ear.

Ginny smiled. “You want to row in the bathroom again?” she asked. “I was kind of hoping that our first married fight could be on a day that wasn’t our wedding date.”

Harry rolled his eyes and pulled his head back, looking at her in the eyes.

“All right,” Ginny said, still smiling. “We’ll stay for the next three songs and then I’ll meet you in there.”

Harry grinned. The song had just ended and the next song began shortly, other people rising and filling up the dance floor. “Wait,” Harry said. “I’ll be right back.”

He ran off towards the band, leaving Ginny standing in the middle of the dance floor, bewildered. Within a minute, he was standing next to her once more, saying, “The band’s making the next three songs short.”

Ginny grinned at him, putting her arms around his neck to begin dancing. “Good thinking,” she said.

She thought back to Ron’s speech at dinner, just before. “Their story of how they got together… well, I’m sure you all know it by now,” he had said. “Just last year, they had struck a deal, a deal between friends. And now, they’re married!”

The speech, of course, had gone on much longer, with hilariously funny moments and other moments that made Ginny want to hex Ron into oblivion. But that moment, when her brother had said that, remained her favorite statement of the speech. After all, it was true – this had all just started as an innocent deal made between friends.

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A/N: So, this is the end, then. Hope you all enjoyed it while it lasted. I know that I said that I’d put the chapter up by Thursday, but I’ve been unbelievably busy – I moved just this weekend. But, still, I could have at least wrote it last week. I wasn’t moving then, after all.

Truth is that the story kind of took a turn away from what I had originally envisioned, mainly because I couldn’t remember all of the plot I had thought up at the beginning of this whole story (I lost the paper I wrote the whole thing on…). But it still worked out, I think.

Anyway, I was feeling particularly guilty about not updating because you guys reviewed so much and I had promised. But I couldn’t decide how I wanted to end the whole thing. And then, today, I just sat down and wrote the whole thing in one go. And that was that.

Now, about future stories…

The Sirius one-shot is…well, it’s not quite working out. I have to take a break from it and then go back to it when I get a good idea. It needs some serious tweaking. And finishing, at that.

Before, I’d said that I’d write another James and Lily story. And I am intending to do that. I don’t think I’ll be posting until it’s done. I’ve come up with a plot (kind of) and various lines that I want to use in the story. When I’m finished figuring everything about the story out (or, rather, coming up with it), I’ll start writing it.

Here is what I can tell you about the story: It’s James and Lily’s seventh year of Hogwarts. It will be written in third person entirely (much like this story) but will include some notes between the Marauders, most likely. It won’t have any diaries or anything like that – so not like As Told By (or Realizations, at that). Also, it won’t be like those two stories, plot wise.

This story, I think, will be much better than the other two. Or at least, I hope it will be. I think that there will be more character depth in this one. Also, the plot is wholly different from my other stories. I won’t go into anymore there – don’t want to ruin it or anything.

Anyway, my plan up until I post that story is to write some one-shots or something. I will definitely still be writing. As I said before, I won’t be posting while I’m in college. There’s a chance that I could be, but, as of right now, I probably will not be posting anything. We’ll see, I guess.

Right, so I hope you liked the chapter and the story (you can tell if you did or didn’t in a review!). Anyway, until the next posting of a one-shot!