GINNY:

It was going so well until Lucy slipped in the mud.

It wasn't even raining as hard as it had been in September, but she tried to take a muddy corner too fast and lost control, flipping head over paws before crashing into a tree.

Panic surged through me as I raced toward her. Had she broken a bone? Cut herself? Hit her head? Worse? She was lying on the forest floor, blinking, clearly dazed. I looked up at the sky, trying to determine what time it was, but with the cloud cover, I couldn't be sure. It was dark. And cold. And raining. And Lucy was hurt. And I didn't know what to do. Did I need to get Hagrid? Would we be able to find our way back to Lucy, if I did get Hagrid? Would Lucy be okay if I left her alone, if I did get Hagrid? And assuming I went to get Hagrid and we did find Lucy again and she didn't die in the meantime and she transformed back without dying and we were able to get her to the Hospital Wing without dying, what then? Would we be able to come up with yet another story to explain her injuries? Would we be able to keep protecting her secret? What if —

A grunt from below me got my attention, and I looked down just as Lucy got to her feet. She shook herself out like a dog, sending mud flying everywhere, then stumbled. I shot a hoof out to try to help steady her, but she righted herself without my help and gingerly walked forward. I trotted in a circle around her, trying to see the extent of her injuries, but the mud and the darkness made it impossible to determine just how hurt she was. She was limping a bit, but she was walking, so nothing appeared to be broken, but she was undoubtedly bruised and scratched beneath the mud and the fur, and if she had managed to scrape herself somehow, she would need powdered silver and dittany as soon as possible, and I didn't know what time it was, I didn't know how long we had to wait for sunrise, and I didn't know how to communicate with Lucy when she was like that, because I obviously couldn't transform back into a human until she was human again and I wasn't sure if she understood English anyway on full moons, not like I'd get the chance to speak even if she did.

So I couldn't communicate, so she just kept limping around, so I just kept following her until the moon was over.

The end of the moon was never quite the relief I expected it to be. For one, it was always so sudden. The howls of pain always caught me by surprise. And the way they morphed into screams was something I would never be able to just... accept. I hated it, I hated everything about it. Lucy deserved better. So much better.

The end of the moon did come. Howls, then screams.

I transformed back instantly and sprinted to her, sliding on my knees in the mud until I reached her.

"Where are you hurt?" I asked. "Did you cut yourself when you fell? How bad is it? Do I need to go get Hagrid? Do — "

"Ginny, it's okay," Lucy panted, eyes still closed as she reached a hand out and fumbled to find me.

I grabbed her hand in both of mine and held on tight. "I'm here, I'm here, what do you need?"

"It's okay," she said again. "Just scratched my leg a bit. Doesn't feel that bad." Lucy opened her eyes. "Help me up?"

"Of course." I set Lucy's hand down gently and looked down at her legs. I could see a red patch blossoming just above her right knee. "We'd get there faster if I transformed. C'mon."

In a tangled mess of muddy limbs, I managed to get Lucy on horseback, despite her protests that she was okay and she could walk. I hurried to the edge of the forest as fast as I dared and transformed back.

"Alright, I'll be your human crutch," I said.

Lucy shook her head. "It's alright, Ginny, I promise." And she trudged off through the rain, limping, before I could even protest.

The door opened immediately after she knocked to reveal Harry, who looked even more worried than usual as he tugged Lucy into a hug. I hurried forward and closed the door behind us, immediately crouching and reaching for the powdered silver and dittany Hagrid kept in a basket by the door for this very purpose.

"Ginny?" Harry asked. "What are you — oh, Merlin, Lucy, where are you hurt?" I turned around just as Harry spotted the spreading bloodstain on Lucy's jeans. His face grew even more pale. "No, no, no..."

"It's okay," Lucy insisted. "I'm okay. It isn't that bad, really."

I jumped to my feet and pushed Lucy onto Hagrid's sofa as gently as I could, severing the denim around her wound with a muttered spell so I could see the extent of the injury without Lucy needing to take her jeans off. She was right, it wasn't that bad, shallow and only about as long as my thumb, but it was still a werewolf wound, meaning it was bleeding like mad. I set to work on it with shaking hands.

Harry rifled through the basket and appeared beside me a couple of seconds later with a bandage. He rested his hand on the knee of Lucy's uninjured leg. I noticed that he was shaking too.

"How was your night, Harry?"

"Oh... you know." His voice trembled the same way his hands did. Lucy's wound cleaned and sealed, Harry gently nudged me out of the way so he could begin wrapping the bandage around her leg. I got up to rinse the blood from my hands in Hagrid's sink before going to Lucy's side and stroking her hair with still-trembling fingers. Harry's hyperventilating was the only sound I could hear over the deafening sound of my own in the heavy silence of the hut. I mended the denim of Lucy's jeans once the bandage was secured, and Harry cleared his throat before speaking again. "Hagrid said he would go stand by the closest entrance to the castle with the dogs to make sure nobody was around so we could go sneak in. He told me to go fetch him there if you two needed anything but... I think we have it sorted here. How are you feeling now, Lu?"

"I'm alright. I promise. Thank you." Lucy let her eyes sink shut and sighed. "Help me up?"

We each grabbed one of Lucy's hands and hauled her to her feet. She tried not to wince, I could tell, but she did anyway.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked. "And don't say 'nothing,' please."

Lucy, to my surprise, flushed a bright red and stared down at her shoes. "I, er — my back is all scratched up. But I'll heal it myself."

"Lucy," I said, "I can just — "

"No." Lucy's head snapped up, eyes blazing. "I'll heal it myself."

"Why are you so defensive — "

"I don't want — neither of you need to see... the bite mark," she finished in a whisper, looking down at the floor again.

"Oh." I fought the urge to sigh. "Come on, Lucy, it's not that big of a deal, let us help!" I looked to Harry for help, but he was glaring at me, shaking his head. I blinked, then softened my tone as I looked back at Lucy, who was staring at Harry's shoes this time. "You can heal it. Sorry. C'mon, let's head to the castle."

The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and my adrenaline prevented me from feeling cold, but my teeth chattered violently the whole way to the common room. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop shaking. I felt like I was going to pass out. I felt like Lucy's blood was still on my hands.

I refrained from hugging Lucy before she climbed the stairs to shower, given the state of her back, but I wanted nothing more than to just hold her for the rest of time. One look at Harry's face once the door shut behind Lucy confirmed that he felt the same way.

"So what exactly happened?" he asked in a low voice.

"It was an accident," I whispered back, words tripping over each other as they rushed out of my mouth, "we were just running the same way we always do but she hit a muddy patch and she tumbled and she slammed into a tree and I was so scared, I didn't know what to do, and — "

"It's okay, it's okay," Harry said. He seemed desperate to calm me down, but unsure of how. He settled for resting his hands lightly on my shoulders. "I just wanted to make sure it was an accident — "

"You think I'd let that happen on purpose?" I snapped.

Harry's eyes widened. "No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that — "

"I know, I'm sorry," I whispered, deflating. "I understand. I'm just a little on edge."

"Thank you for getting her back to Hagrid's so fast," he continued anxiously. "She would have been bleeding a lot longer if you hadn't — "

"I'm scared, Harry," I confessed.

He nodded sullenly. "Me too."

"It wasn't that bad of a scratch."

"It really wasn't."

"So why did we panic so much?"

"I don't know." Harry sighed, and we fell silent for a moment. He cocked his head to the side. "Have you really not seen the bite mark before?"

I shook my head. "No, I've never seen it. When we were in the prefect's bathroom after the last full moon, Lucy was super cagey. I couldn't have looked at it if I had tried. Not that either of us were trying," I added hurriedly, "Hermione and I both let her have her privacy, but even Myrtle commented that she'd never seen anyone as body-shy as Lucy. Have you really not seen it either?"

"No."

Anyone else might have poked and prodded at him a bit longer, trying to get him to confess something that suggested he and Lucy were closer than met the eye, but it was clear to me that he was telling the truth.

"Do you want to?" I asked after a moment.

"Yes. No. Well. Yes, but — I wish this wasn't even — she should never have to — this is so unfair, more so her for than for us, obviously, but... for us too."

"Yeah. Yeah, I understand." I tried and failed to stifle a yawn. "I'm going to go take a nap. I'll make sure she healed up her back. Her bed is always more comfortable than mine anyway."

Harry kept his face a very careful blank. Poor bloke had only experienced sharing a bed with Lucy once, and here I was, rubbing the fact that I was about to go cuddle up with her for several hours in his face.

I patted his arm sympathetically. "Maybe you can be her designated bed warmer once you finally tell her you fancy her. But in the meantime, see you later, Potter!"

His chuckle in response was weak, and I noticed as I left that his face was contorted like he was in pain. Poor hopeless Harry. He'd work up the nerve soon, I was sure of it.

I showered in record time and climbed into a warm set of pajamas before heading to Lucy and Hermione's dorm. Lavender and Parvati wouldn't think twice about seeing me in Lucy's bed when they woke up, because they knew about my nightmares and they knew Lucy helped me on the bad nights. Similarly, my roommates never questioned my absence from my own dorm for the same reason. They always just assumed I was with Lucy; I was always careful to disappear from the dorm a few nights a month so they never realized I was always gone on the night of a full moon. When I reached their dorm, Hermione was sitting on her own bed with a book, the sound of running water informed me that Lucy was still in the shower, and their other two roommates were still asleep.

Hermione glanced up from her book, and she didn't look at all surprised when I made myself cozy in Lucy's bed. "Rough night?"

I nodded and buried my face in Lucy's pillow, the exhaustion catching up with me all at once. The turn of a page told me that Hermione had returned to her book.

I was half-asleep by the time Lucy gingerly lowered herself into her bed beside me. I forced my eyes open and pushed myself up to my elbow.

"Are you alright?" I whispered. "You healed up your back, right?"

"I'm fine," Lucy whispered back, snagging me around the ribs with a surprisingly swift and strong motion and pulling me back down. She held so tightly to me that I could feel the rise and fall of her chest with each breath against my back for the several long seconds I laid there frozen in place, too stunned to string together a coherent thought. "Relax, Ginny," she murmured, arm around me loosening slightly, "I'm okay. I promise."

I nodded. "Okay. Okay."

I wasn't sure how much time had passed before I realized I should be the one holding Lucy, not the other way around. Surely she needed the comfort of being held more than I did. But the soft slow breath on my neck informed me that she was already asleep.

I finally closed my eyes, and I was asleep mere seconds later. I doubted I'd ever felt so safe in my life.

When I next opened my eyes, I immediately wished I hadn't. I had a raging headache, and the weak rays of afternoon sun filling the room were too bright. I remembered after a moment that I was in Lucy's dormitory, and a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that it was Lucy whose arm was still wrapped around my waist. She was asleep, but I was still very careful as I extracted myself from her grip and slipped out of her bed. I carefully tucked the blankets around her and made sure the goblet of water by her bed was full before I headed down to the common room.

Dean was there, with a sofa to himself. I assumed it was because the day was a little bit sunny, and most people were trying to make the most of it.

"Hi," I said quietly, careful not to bump him at all as I lowered myself onto the couch beside him. He was sketching, but it appeared that he had only just started it, because it just looked like a bunch of lines and curves to me. "What are you working on?"

Dean smiled at me, setting the drawing aside at once and pulling me into a side hug. I couldn't help but wince, since my head was jostled, and his brow instantly furrowed with concern. "Hi, are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, I just have a headache," I explained.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know."

"I know, it's alright." I looked down at his drawing. "What's that going to be?"

He reached for the paper with his left hand while his right hand moved to the back of my neck. His fingers massaged my tense muscles, and his voice was softer when he spoke again. "It's my sister's birthday in a couple weeks. She really enjoys looking at my Care of Magical Creatures textbooks over holiday, so I figured I'd bring the magical creatures to her. This one's going to be a unicorn."

"That's really sweet," I said with a smile. I let my eyes sink shut and leaned into his touch. "And that feels really good, thank you."

"Of course. Gin, did you have nightmares again last night?"

"Yeah," I lied.

"I'm sorry." He removed his hand from the back of my neck and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "I'll be right back. I have something for you."

I settled back against the sofa, eyes still closed. "Alright."

Surely enough, he returned two minutes later, a canvas about the length and width of a textbook pressed to his chest.

"This is for you," Dean started. "I — well, I painted it for you about a month ago, for the next time you had a bad night. I thought maybe you would benefit from being reminded of how brave you are."

He turned the canvas around to reveal a beautiful painting. I reached forward and pulled it close to see better.

A figure occupied most of the space, and it was clear that it was me even though the face wasn't visible. Red hair cascaded down over a shiny suit of armor, about the same length as the gleaming sword the figure was holding to the sky. All around the figure were chunks of what had once been a basilisk, that much was obvious. She — I — was standing in the midst of the carnage, triumphant. I noticed a glowing white horse had been painted onto the shield on the ground beside her — my — feet.

"This is incredible," I breathed, stunned. "Thank you."

He smiled. "Of course. I'm sure it's quite self-explanatory, but, well, can I explain it anyway?"

I nodded.

"Well, this is obviously you," Dean said, pointing to the figure, "wearing a suit of armor because you're brave and you're chivalric and all of those good old-fashioned knightly Gryffindor qualities. You've got your sword held high because you won the fight and you're celebrating, and your shield is on the ground because you're safe now and therefore don't need it anymore. And your shield has a white horse on it because that's your patronus."

"You remembered that from the D.A. last year?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah! It was wicked! Of course I remembered! Anyway, I think the snake is self-explanatory too. I know slicing the snake into chunks with a sword might seem like overkill, but, well, I thought it might be better symbolically to make the basilisk smaller than you, in a sense? Like, all together, it was bigger than you, but you killed it and then broke it apart so now you are bigger. Like facing it is much more manageable now, you know? I just thought — well, I know you still have nightmares about what happened your first year, and it still haunts you, but it's dead. It's the past. It can't hurt you anymore. You're bigger now."

"I wish it had actually happened like this," I confessed, eyes fixed on the painting.

"What do you mean?"

"It was Harry who saved me. You know that, everyone knows that."

"Down there in the Chamber of Secrets, maybe, but everything else? That was all you, Ginny."

I swallowed hard. "Lucy, too. She helps."

"I know, but needing help doesn't make you any less brave." Dean rested a gentle hand on my thigh. "You are still the one brave enough to pull yourself out of bed and ask for it, on the bad nights. You're brave for never letting it defeat you." He pointed to the painting. "Each brave choice you make cuts the snake into smaller and smaller chunks."

"Oh."

Dean grinned. "Does that make sense? I was completely improvising there, how'd I do?"

"Perfect, it's perfect," I whispered. I set the painting on the table in front of us and launched myself into his arms. "You're so sweet. Thank you."

He hugged me back gently. "You know you're welcome to come to me any time you have a bad night too, right? I won't mind at all."

I pulled away and nodded. "Okay. Thank you," I said. But the thought of going to Dean instead, spending the night with him instead of Lucy, made my stomach twist uncomfortably. I shoved the uncomfortable feeling aside and smiled at Dean. "I love you."

Dean grinned. "I love you too."

"Can I just watch you work on your drawing for your sister?" I asked. "I don't have much else in me right now."

"Of course, Gin."

So I placed my painting on my lap and rested my pounding head against Dean's shoulder. I went back and forth between looking at my painting and watching Dean sketch for his sister with his left hand while his right hand massaged my headache away one minute at a time.

I really did love him. I had no explanation for the squirming creature in the pit of my stomach that refused to just let me enjoy the moment, the one that refused to just let me be happy with Dean even though I had no reason not to be. He was everything, he was perfect, so why didn't it just feel right? I forced the discomfort and uncertainty away and just tried to bask in the glow of being loved, and loved well. It was so very warm in the spotlight.

🩵💛❤️💜🩷

Because of the events of the weekend, I completely forgot to study for the Herbology exam that would be happening on Friday until Professor Sprout reminded us on Monday morning. The class let out a collective groan, but my vocal cords constricted so much that I instead emitted a quiet squeak of terror.

I was awful at Herbology. It was my worst subject.

It was ridiculous, really, the fact that I struggled so much with Herbology. Lucy Diggory and Neville Longbottom were two of my dearest friends. All I needed to do, all I had needed to do for the past four-going-on-five years of struggle, was just walk up to Lucy or Neville or both and screw up my courage and open my mouth and say, "Hi, Herbology is impossible for me, please please please please please help me."

But I had never really been compatible with the whole "asking for help" idea, so I had just suffered in silence. I'd always passed Herbology, barely, and that was just going to have to be good enough. Professional Quidditch players didn't need to know anything about Herbology, anyway. It's not like I was ever going to grow the trees for my broom or for my bat. I was off the hook, once I graduated.

I just needed to graduate first. And to graduate, I needed to continue passing Herbology.

I agonized over the upcoming Herbology exam for all of Ancient Runes, and as soon as it was over, I rushed to the library. It was there that Lucy found me later in the day.

"Lucy Diggory, in the library? Surely the world is ending," I quipped, only glancing up from my book for a brief second.

"You're hilarious," she replied dryly.

"I know, it's a gift." Silence fell then, and I glanced up from my book again to see that Lucy appeared troubled as she looked at me. "What brings you to the library, Diggory?"

"I just wanted to ask if you were okay, after yesterday. I — I wanted to make sure you weren't avoiding me or anything."

"Oh. Oh, Lucy, no, not at all, I just have an exam this week and I need to study."

She nodded. "Okay. I just — you seemed really worried and — you get quiet and distant when you're worried and — I wanted to make sure you're okay."

"As long as you are, I am," I replied with what I knew was a tight smile. I was doing my best.

"I am," she confirmed quietly.

"Good. Then I am too."

Lucy looked for a moment as if she had more that she wanted to say, but she looked down at the open textbook in front of me and back up at my face. "Herbology?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"I'll leave you to it, then," she said in a fragile voice, getting up from the table and slipping out of the library as quietly as she had slipped in.

I sighed as soon as the door closed. I wasn't sure what exactly had just happened in that anxious mind of hers, but it was nothing good. I knew I ought to get up and chase her and assure her that she had done nothing wrong, but my fear of Friday kept me rooted (no pun intended) to my chair.

I was startled by Madam Pince an unknown amount of time later telling me the library was closing for the night. I planned to study more in the common room, but the call of my bed was simply too strong since I was still recovering from the sleepless Saturday night. I promised myself I'd wake up early to study a bit before breakfast, then collapsed into bed with a yawn and a sigh simultaneously, falling asleep within a minute.

Morning came altogether too soon, but, true to my promise to myself, I hauled myself out of bed and got ready for the day. To my surprise, I wasn't the only person in the common room at 4:00 in the morning.

"Harry?" I asked incredulously.

He blinked, staring at me with wide eyes. "Ginny? What on earth are you doing awake?"

"What are you doing awake?" I started marching over to him, curiosity piqued despite my frustration. "I was going to study for Herbology, but you're taking up the whole bloody table with your..." I leaned closer, but Harry shot an arm out to cover up whatever he was working on. "...arts and crafts project? Hang on — " I grabbed Harry by the wrist and yanked it upward to discover many, many, many, many, many pictures and scraps of parchment with Lucy and Harry's handwriting. "Harry, why are you making a Lucy collage? Are you finally going to tell her — "

"No." He tugged his wrist away from my grip and clutched his head in his hands, sighing heavily. "This was supposed to be a secret, I napped on the sofa and asked Dobby to wake me up once the last person left just to make sure this was a secret."

"Well, I'm sorry for being awful at Herbology and needing to study for it at this hour of the morning," I muttered. "You didn't answer my question. Are you finally going to tell Lucy you fancy her? And don't you dare try to deny it, Potter, I know you do."

Harry shook his head. "Please don't make this about that. Not today."

Something in his voice made me pause. I pulled up a chair and sat down next to him, still skeptical as I asked, "Alright, what's this about, then? Why isn't it about that?"

"Today's the day she was bitten all of those years ago," he whispered. "I just wanted to make something for her that she could carry with her today and remember she's not alone."

"Oh." I felt a prickle of embarrassment creep up my spine. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"It's alright."

I inspected the contents of the table more closely. The pictures all had Lucy, but they weren't all of Lucy. She was always with other people in the pictures, smiling or laughing or dancing or playing a game or just existing in their presence. And the scraps of parchment were all excerpts from the diaries she and Harry had used to remain in constant contact over summer holidays for years.

"Harry, when you say you want her to carry it with her...?"

"Obviously I can't use everything here, but I'm having a hard time narrowing down what I want to use."

"Where did you even get all of these pictures?"

"Colin Creevey," he replied. "I made up a story about wanting to make a scrapbook for Lucy for Christmas, and he was all too willing to give me every picture with her in it that he had."

I pursed my lips. "Since that story you told him is fictional, mind if I steal the idea?"

"By all means," Harry said with a small, amused smile. "Anyway, you can get on with your Herbology now, I have to sort through, well, all of this in the next couple of hours and try to find a combination that I hope will make her feel better about today."

"Herbology can wait." I thought back to the night before, how I'd accidentally hurt her feelings because I had been so focused on Herbology, not knowing it was the night before the horrible day that was upon us. "Lucy's more important. I want to make one too. We can work together, cover more bases that way. This can be a practice run for the absolutely smashing scrapbook I'll give her in two months, since you apparently have other plans."

Harry nodded. "I do."

I stared at him for a long moment, thinking about saying something, asking something, pushing, pressing, demanding to know why exactly his eyes were so bright, but I refrained. Not the day for that.

Harry was right — trying to choose what to use was a herculean task, even though I wasn't using any of the diary messages.

In the end, I naturally went for a collection of Lucy's greatest Quidditch hits, both before and after I was on the team. It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to five pictures, and it was impossible to narrow it further, so I stopped at five. I arranged them in the best approximation of a circle I could manage, then attached the formation to a piece of parchment like a wreath of pictures. In the middle of the circle, I wrote Lucy a message of my own, since I obviously couldn't use any of the messages she and Harry had sent each other.

Dearest lovely Lucy,
   I've been SEEKing a friend like you all my life. Being friends with you is worth the CHASE. You simply can't be BEAT! You're a KEEPER, did you know that? You may not be a snitch, but you sure are GOLDEN to me. Okay, I'm out of Quidditch puns, I love you and I am so very glad you exist.
   Love, Ginny

I slid my creation across the table to Harry for approval.

As his eyes skimmed my note, he started laughing. "This is perfect. You're brilliant. She's going to love it."

"What's yours looking like?" I asked, straining my neck to see his.

"I just finished too," Harry said. "Do you want to see?"

"Obviously."

He passed his to me, and I studied it with a most critical eye.

He had chosen five pictures too, stacked into a column of five, and each was captioned, so to speak, with a snippet of a diary conversation.

The top picture was of Lucy casting her patronus in the common room. Someone had asked her to do it, I remembered, a couple of days after she had first done it on the Quidditch Pitch. Her face was bright red with embarrassment, but she smiled as the silvery blue bear charged around the room over everyone's heads. The diary snippet below had both sets of handwriting. Harry's read I simply couldn't BEAR it if we weren't friends, and Lucy's read Aw, Harry, you're DEER to me too.

I raised my eyebrows. "I see we both went the pun route."

"Great minds think alike," he said with a shrug and a grin.

The picture below that one was a very recent one, from just a few weeks ago, when Lucy had said something (I couldn't remember what she had said, though I certainly remembered the event as a whole) that sent both Lucy and Harry into fits of hysterical laughter. This picture was captioned only by Lucy's handwriting, reading I bloody LOVE inside jokes.

The picture below that one was from what I could only assume was from their second year, based on how little everyone looked. Lucy was holding a salamander up to Percy, her face perfectly sweet and innocent. Even just in the loop of the picture, Percy's anger melted away the longer he looked at Lucy, and the twins' grins behind him stretched ever wider. This picture was captioned only by Harry's handwriting, which read Even magical creatures love you, it's crazy how much people and creatures alike just gravitate to you.

The picture below that one was of Lucy and Harry sitting together in the window seat Lucy loved so much. I couldn't tell how old they were, but Lucy's hair was in two braids and their two bodies occupied most of the space, so it had to have been from their third or fourth year. The picture wasn't captioned with any handwriting, but there were two sets of stars, drawn on parchment. If my Astronomy knowledge served me correctly, the one on the left under Lucy was the Gemini constellation, and the one on the right under Harry was the Leo constellation.

The bottom picture was from a Quidditch party the year prior. It was quite the chaotic looping image, truly, because the Exploding Snap kept exploding over and over again just as Lucy joined the circle over and over again. Lucy's handwriting read Have you ever tried writing with your eyes closed? Harry's replied Merlin, no, I can't even do anything with my eyes OPEN if I don't have my glasses on. Eyes closed? Forget it.

I smiled at Harry. "I think she's going to enjoy this."

"Merlin, I hope so," he said with a small shaky exhale. "I think I'm going to shrink mine down a bit so it can fit in the front pocket of her bag more easily. She can enlarge it if she wants."

"Good idea, I'll do that too." I surveyed the table. "Okay, so are you sure I can take the pictures? You're sure you don't want any?"

Harry shrugged. "I already have a plan for Christmas. If there are any photos you think I should have, just make duplicates for me?"

"Sure thing. Thanks for letting me crash your party."

"Thanks for always being there for her," he said. "Merlin knows she deserves all the love she can get. And — well, I'd wish you luck on your Herbology exam, but it's just Herbology, you don't need to worry about that class."

I nodded so I didn't have to reply aloud, wasting no time scooping up all of the photographs while Harry gathered up the scraps of diary messages. We ran our respective collections up to our dormitories and returned to the common room to wait for Lucy, Harry reading his Potions textbook and me reading my Herbology textbook with my little gift for Lucy in my pocket.

She was one of the last people to emerge from the dormitories, and my heart shattered at the sight of her. It was hard to breathe. To say she looked upset would be an understatement. I hadn't seen her look so devastated and withdrawn and defeated since the first days after Cedric's death.

Then again, maybe for her, being bitten was like dying, in a way.

"Good morning, Lu," Harry called as cheerfully as he could manage. "Hey, I was wondering, do you have a different recipe for this potion in your textbook than I have in mine?"

Lucy wordlessly shuffled across the room, brow furrowed in confusion. She lifted Harry's book off the table, and Harry's project slipped out. Harry snatched it out of the air and handed it to her with a small smile.

"Don't worry, I wasn't actually asking you a question about Potions this early in the morning. I just needed an excuse to give this to you in a more subtle way."

"What?" Lucy took the pictures from his hand and studied it, fresh tears glimmering in her eyes. "That's really cute, thank you." Her eyes snapped up to me in a panic, then looked back down at Harry. "Why...?"

"I know what today is," I said softly. "I, er, accidentally woke up really early and found Harry working on it and I bugged him until he told me." I slid my creation across the table to her. "I made you one too. I'm not as smooth as Harry, though, I've never been one for subtlety."

"No, subtlety isn't your strong suit," she replied with the slightest hint of teasing in her tone. A tear slipped down her cheek as she studied mine. "This is adorable, thank you." She glanced at Harry. "I didn't know you knew."

"You never told me the date directly, but I did sort of overhear it when you were shouting the night of the storm, last December."

"Oh," Lucy said quietly.

"Oh?" I repeated.

Lucy shook her head. "I'll tell you later. I, er, stayed in bed as long as possible this morning, so we ought to head down to breakfast. But thank you for the — "

I jumped up and hugged her before she could even finish her sentence. "We love you, Lucy Everlin Diggory. Please never forget that."

"I'll do my best," she whispered, hugging me back.