He finally grunts, deep in his throat, as his body spasms against me and then it’s mercifully over, until the next time he grins that goofy grin and tells me he loves me.  He rolls off of me; a quick peck on the cheek, a sincere “You’re the best!” and then he’s snoring before his head even hits his pillow.  I can feel his seed running down my thighs and I feel sick to my stomach as I retrieve my wand from the night stand and do a quick cleaning spell, hoping that the anti conception spell works one more time.

He is spent, exhausted and sated, drained of his vital energy, but I am none of those things as I lay by his side in our bed.  I haven’t been satisfied like he is now for years and tonight is no different.  My head is pounding and I’m a bit raw from the pounding he has graciously bestowed upon me; an act, Merlin help me, that I agreed to even though I felt as though rearranging my sock drawer would be more interesting and probably a more satisfying and rewarding endeavor.  It’s not his fault though, it’s mine and mine alone.  I agreed to this relationship, I accepted his proposal of marriage and in so doing condemned myself to a life of normalcy and familial acceptance. It was easier this way.   I feel the tears welling again, and I swear aloud in the darkness.  I had vowed that I wouldn’t cry any more.

I get out of our bed and pad across the room, fumbling a bit in the darkness as I find my dressing gown and slippers.  As I knot the belt at my waist I look down at the figure sleeping so soundly.  Even in the darkened room I can see the faint reflections off of his red hair and the paleness of his skin against the sheets.  He is a good man, a fine man, and at one time I had no doubts that I was in love with him.  I still love him, but I’ve changed; or maybe we’ve changed.  Was I ever in love with him?  Or, was he just the next best thing?  How do you tell the man you are to marry something like that?  How do you tell your fiance that it’s his sister that still fills my thoughts, my desires; that it’s her red hair I see on the pillow or her face I see sweating over me when we make love?  Gods, please! Let me forget or grant me the courage to do what I must!

I can see that sleep isn’t going to come so I retreat to the tiny bedroom I laughingly refer to as my office.  It’s the one room in the house that is mine and mine alone.  Even Ron won’t come in here anymore since we had that little row about personal space.  I flick on a candle and light a cigarette, drawing the acrid smoke deep into my lungs and fight back the choking cough that the first drag always causes.  From the small sideboard I take a brandy and sit in my favorite chair by the window looking out at the twinkling lights of the city.  So many lights and so many darkened windows. What secrets do they hold?  I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only woman in London who feels so adrift, so lost, so empty, sitting in a dimly lit room and pondering her future.

My friend at the Ministry, Ariel, was telling me an old Yiddish folk tale about a creature called a golem.  It was a construct, a soulless but living creature made of clay built to do his creators bidding.  Although the person who built it did it for altruistic reasons, to protect his people from persecution, his pride in his creation became too much and as punishment, the golem eventually turned on it’s creator and killed him. 

Is this what I have become; just a soulless construct, built of my own pride and fears, doomed to spend eternity carrying out the wishes of a husband that I neither want nor am in love with, but fear that I must have to fit into society? I always thought I was smarter than that.  Perhaps it is my pride, my sin of hubris that now dictates my future. But unlike the golem, I have free will.  The question is however, do I have the courage to change my life before I too turn and destroy the one who created me?  For in the end, am I not my own creator? 

Is it memory or the earthy fumes of the brandy that make the twinkling lights fade and blur?  It seems like a lifetime ago, but gods, it has only been two years since I finished my studies at Hogwarts. After the battle with Voldemort I wanted to finish my schooling more than anything else.  It would be a year of utter normalcy I thought; a year of study, a year of books to hide in while trying to put the past behind me.  It seemed strange at first, no Harry or Ron, no impending doom or threat of war and no more need of Dumbledore’s army.  In fact, most of the members were either dead or had gone on to their lives outside of school or had just not chosen to return.  I found myself missing Dumbledore and strange as it may sound, I even missed Snape.

Ron was more than a bit put out about my desire to return to Hogwarts as he thought it foolish and perhaps a bit selfish of me.  He wanted us to be together but I wasn’t sure I was ready to make that final commitment just yet, but eventually he came around when I promised that when I finished my studies we could get a flat together.  Maybe that is what I really wanted then; a simple life with Ron, a good job at the Ministry and a life with no complications and perhaps, in the future, children.  It all sounded so normal, so predictable and so utterly peaceful that when I finally left for Hogwarts it was with a certainty of my future that filled me with contentment. 

How was I to know that my dreams would all get turned upside down by one ninety pound girl with blazing red hair, whiskey colored eyes and a gamin grin that could make me laugh no matter how foul a mood I was in?  The ultimate cosmic joke of course is that she is the sister of my boyfriend, a girl I have known for seven years and at who’s side I fought in the Battle of Hogwarts.  Ginny Weasley, you are truly my undoing, and to this day my face burns in shame when I think of how I treated you on that fateful night two years ago.  Someday perhaps I’ll work up the courage to ask her forgiveness for not a night has past since that time that I haven’t cursed myself for a fool; a prideful, cowardly fool at that and certainly not one worthy of being a Gryffindor.

My last year started out with a few surprises when Mcgonagall named me as Head Girl, even though I had missed my entire seventh year.  This entitled me to a private bedroom in the Gryffindor tower, one a bit larger than I had enjoyed as a Prefect, and it had, to my great delight, a private bath.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven!  It is a sad fact that I was never comfortable showering with my House mates, not because of my own nakedness, but because of theirs.  I had always found the female form more esthetically pleasing than the male, not necessarily more erotic but more pleasing.  I would often find myself covertly staring at the naked forms of my House mates as they showered, lost in the soft symmetry of their bodies and the luscious curves of their breasts and legs, the curve of a tight pair of buttocks or the shadowed apex between their thighs.  It took Ginny to show me that my appreciation of the female form went a bit beyond esthetics. I can still see her form in my mind, lithe and compact with deceptively powerful muscles playing beneath her pale freckled skin, that lion’s mane of red hair as it lay wet along her back after she had washed it, and so matching in color to the smattering of fiery curls between her legs that hid from my eyes that which I wanted to see most of all, but was too scared to admit.

I suppose it was natural for us to seek each other out having been friends for so long and having spent so many long summer nights in her room at the Burrow.  If only I had allowed myself to see her then as I did during my last year perhaps none of this would have happened as it did, but again it was my pride, my longing to be normal that prevented me.  Gods, I was such a little fool in those days, and to be truthful, not much better now. 

I think it all started out innocently enough with a shoulder rub.  We were all studying like mad for our NEWT’s which were coming at the end of the year and since I had a private room I mostly studied alone.  It was about three weeks into the year when she came knocking on my door and asking if I had the time to help her on her with some class or the other, I really don’t remember which one now. After that, studying together became a regular thing for us as we both enjoyed the company as well as the mutual help.  Ginny and I had always been close but despite what people whispered about us, we had never even kissed let alone some of the more lascivious things she told me she had heard about us.  It gave us a good laugh really for here I was almost engaged to Ron and Ginny was in the same position with Harry at that time. 

Of course Ginny was playing Quidditch as well as trying to prepare for her NEWT’s so she was stretched really thin for time.  That year she was not only the captain of the team but playing seeker as well both of which demanded much of her attention which resulted in many hours of me drilling her in her studies.  It was very late one night, we had both been beating the books for hours when she stood up, stretched and moved behind me.

“You look tighter than Ron’s wallet,” she said as she started to rub my shoulders.

Normally I would have told her to get back to her books but there was something that felt so good about being touched that night that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to stop.  Instead I leaned back into her touch and let her tiny strong hands massage my neck and shoulders.  I remember the room being deathly quiet while she worked on me.  All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears and the sound of her breathing behind me.  As her fingers dug into my tight muscles I felt something I hadn’t felt for quite a while; the touch of someone who actually cared more about what I was feeling than what they did. 

“I’m sure,” she whispered,” that Ron is better than this than I.  Sorry if I’m not doing it right.”

“Your brother doesn’t touch,” I sighed, “he paws.  If Ron ever touched me like this I wouldn’t have come back to school.”

Ginny snorted her little laugh.  “It’s impossible for blokes you know.  They all paw.  I reckon they mean well, but they can’t get past the idea of getting their willy wet so they rush through all of the stimulating bits so they can get to the final act.”

I could feel the languor creep over me as she dug into my shoulders.  My body was singing a song, a new song, one that it had never sung before; that must be why I said what I said.  I leaned my head back further until I could feel her breasts against my neck and sighed from somewhere down near my toes. “By the gods Gin.  If I knew you could make me feel like this I might have tried to kill Harry and taken a run at you myself!”

I had expected a laugh but what I received was far different than my expectations.  “Oh really?” she purred.  “Well, it’s never too late you know.” 

Her answer had barely registered when I felt her lean forward and a cascade of red hair obscured my vision; I felt her lips press a feathery kiss against my forehead then the tip of my nose as her hands left my shoulders and started downwards across my chest.  I opened my mouth to say something but my words died in my throat as I felt the warmest, softest lips I had ever felt press against my own.  I should have stopped her straight away, I really should have, but I couldn’t.  Gods help me, all I could do was return her kiss with the same fervor.

That one little kiss may have lasted for five seconds or five hours, I’ll never know really, but something inside of me, something deeply hidden inside of me snapped at that moment, and all rational thought was swept from my mind as the waters from a burst dam sweep away anything and everything in it’s rush to the sea. I didn’t care that I was kissing another girl and I didn’t care that I was almost engaged to her brother, all I wanted was for that kiss to last for eternity and for her touch to never leave me.

It’s such a simple thing, a touch, the feeling of skin not your own caressing, lingering on yours, but when you have yearned for it, wished for it, prayed for it and then the perfect touch happens, there is nothing in this world that can compare with it.  Warm fingers tracing your curves, exploring down the side of your neck, lingering in that little hollow above your collarbone before languidly moving on to explore new territory and leaving behind only burning nerve endings that yearn for more.  The silky smoothness of a tongue following the same path that turns your insides to porridge and strips from you any ability to resist or to help or hinder.  Intellect, caution, fear, they all flew from me in that first kiss, that first touch, and when she drew me up to my feet and embraced me it was everything I could do to stand erect when all I really wanted to do was to throw myself on my bed and pull her on top of me.

I stood there within the circle of her arms, my body shaking with emotion.  In a scant few seconds all that I had known or had wished for had changed; these new emotions, these new feelings are what I had most wanted but never felt with Ron, instead I found myself guiding his sister to my bed.

“Are you sure?” was all she asked.

“I’m not sure about anything anymore,” I whispered, “but I know I want you.”

“I’ve waited a lifetime to hear those words from you,” she said and gently lowered me to the bed. 

She laid me on the bed as a mother would a sick child, never urgently or selfishly like her brother.  She must have seen something in my eyes because she said as she lay next to me, “It’s your first time isn’t it.  With a girl I mean?”

I could only nod. I felt my face blazing, but whether from shame or lust I wasn’t sure.

“We’ll keep it simple then,” she said with that grin I love so, “just let me do all the work.  Your job is simply to enjoy.”

I must have started to protest but she shushed me with a finger to my lips.  “For once Mione, just this once, please try to experience rather than analyze everything,” she said with a laugh.  It only took a couple of more kisses to make analytical thought impossible.  It was when she started to undress me that my mind simply checked out and went on holiday leaving behind only a body of quivering nerves capable of only the most basic grunts by way of communication. 

I say she undressed me, but that is not a fair description by any means.  Believe me, until you’ve been stripped bare by a woman like Ginny you have no idea what being undressed entails.  I was used to Ron’s fumbling great hands pawing at my buttons but Ginny’s were so nimble and strong she was like a pickpocket that slips your wallet away without you being remotely aware. I never felt her unbuttoning my blouse but suddenly there was her bare hand running over the skin of my now naked tummy, moving up to caress the outside of my breasts though my bra and then moving back down to the waistband of my skirt.  Before I was conscious of what she was doing I found my blouse and bra gone as well as my skirt leaving me only in a very wet pair of white cotton knickers. I was fairly sure that none of this involved any use of magic, but then I could be wrong. 

It was after she had drawn my knickers down and tossed them to the floor that I first felt embarrassed.  Not embarrassed as in a, oh my gods I’m naked and you’re still dressed sort of way, it was that I was totally naked; not just in body but by undressing me in her tender loving way she had stripped me to my soul.  With every garment she removed, a bit more of my reservations, my fears and my hesitations followed until I lay there, uncovered to the world both in body and in spirit, and in her gaze, for the first time in my life, I felt beautiful and wanted and loved.

That night she never did take her clothes off nor did she let me try to remove them.  She whispered that tonight was for me, and me alone, and then she set out to prove it. With nimble fingers and a soft warm mouth, she played my body as if it were a fine instrument and she was the bow to my strings. She knelt on the bed by my side for a long time just talking to me as her hands ran over my skin.  She knew where I was sensitive and avoided the few spots where I am ticklish, although how she knew about those I’ll never know.  The first time her hand caressed my breast, gently cupping the flesh and lightly brushing my nipple I thought I would die from the shock.  When her mouth followed her hands I knew that I would never be the same again.

A man, I believe, isn’t capable of the tenderness of a woman’s touch towards another woman.  Ron grabbed at my breasts with his rough hands as though they were a prize to be taken by force.  Ginny caressed them, almost worshiping them, as her tongue drew slow lazy circles around my nipple until her soft lips closed around it while her other hand traced patterns of fire across my belly and down my inner thighs.  When at last, her fingers brushed lightly over my sex I jumped and found myself thrusting my hips into her touch.  I had never felt this wanton ever before nor have I since.

She grinned as I jumped, telling me to slow down and relax as her fingers ran lightly through my curls and a slim finger invaded my cleft just brushing my clit with the softness of a fairy kiss.  “You're so damn beautiful,” she whispered.  “I’ve wanted to see you like this since the day I met you.”

I tried to reply but there was no getting around the fact that speech had left me.  All I could do was pant for air and utter little incoherent cries so my reply was a bit less than eloquent as I pulled her hand tighter to my pussy and pleaded with my eyes.  When her finger first entered me I screamed in half crazed lust and by the time the second finger joined the first I was incapable of any but the most basic reflexes.  Through the blood haze that swept across my vision I saw her head moving downwards and then the most exquisite sensation as her tongue laved my clit while her slim fingers pumped inside of me. The room, the school and the world slipped from me as her tongue and fingers caressed me, penetrated me, dragging out of me feelings that I didn’t even know existed let alone know the names of, until I was reduced to nothing more than a throbbing pussy whose pressure was building...building.

I prayed that these feelings would go on forever, but my body betrayed me by showing me what an orgasm was supposed to feel like.  I thought I knew, but until that moment, I had no idea of what my body was capable of.  I screamed, I bucked like a wild horse, I cursed and sweated and my back came off of the bed until I was only being supported by my heels and shoulders.  I wept like an infant as I pulled Ginny to my breast as the waves of pleasure surged throughout my nerve wracked body.  She held me as the waves past over me, cooing to me, telling me how much she loved me, and as darkness finally swept me away I remember only the feel of her slim body holding me, the taste of my own juices on her red lips and her words of unending love and devotion. 

Wen I awoke in the early dawn I was alone and found only a note on the pillow next to me.

Mione, it said in Ginny’s flowing hand, I thought it best to let you sleep.  I have an early class this morning that I shouldn’t miss.  If you’re still talking to me I’ll see you this evening.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have said some of the things I did last night, but say them I did and I can’t, nor do I want to take them back.  I do love you and always have.  We should talk about this as it’s obviously going to complicate things a bit for us.  Love, Gin

Later that night, much later we did talk but not until I had returned the favor she had bestowed upon me.  When we were both sated and too swollen and sore for any more lovemaking we did talk of many things.  None of them were easy and some were downright painful.  Like Harry and Ron.

“Bill told me he saw them buying rings Mione,” she said that night.  “Engagement rings.  They are both going to propose to us at the end of school.”

“That might be a bit awkward, considering,” I said as I nuzzled her neck.  “Turning them down is going to cause a lot of embarrassment for us and them and for our parents.”

She turned to me with the most earnest look in her eyes that I have ever seen.  “I can’t marry Harry Mione.  Not just because of this, of you and me, but Harry has some...problems, not to mention the fact that I’ve discovered that I’m queer as a three Galleon note.  I do love him, but it’s become more like the relationship I have with my brothers.”  She took a deep breath and looked deeply into my eyes.  “If you want to marry Ron, if you really love him that much, please Hermione, tell me now so we can end this, whatever it is we’ve started, before it gets out of hand. You will always be my best friend Hermione.  To have you as my lover is a dream that I thought would never come to pass and to lose you would hurt beyond measure.  But if I am to lose you, I want to know now, not later when I’ve fallen so deeply in love with you that loosing you would be the death of me.”

“Never fear Gin,” I said in all earnestness.  “I’ll never leave you!”

Six months later I stabbed my lover in the back when I accepted Ron’s proposal.  The look of shock and pain and humiliation on her face haunt me to this day.  I am truly dammed for that cowardly act of betrayal.

I can see the early morning light breaking over London as I finally leave my chair by the window.  Ron has long since gone off to work at the Ministry and the flat screams at me in it’s silence. 

It’s been awkward with Ginny for the last couple of years.  After we left school she went off to play for the Holyhead Harpies which means she traveled a great deal and therefore missed quite a few family gatherings. The Holidays at the Burrow were the hardest part, trying to remain friends but always having that two headed dragon in the parlor.  Every time we hugged hello or goodbye my heart would break and I would feel like utter shite, and every time I saw that hint of sadness and hurt in her brown eyes it made me feel even worse.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why it took me so long to finally acknowledge that I made the worst possible choice I have ever made.  It is Ginny Weasley that I love and I would do anything, literally, to get her back and damn the consequences.

I don’t know if she’s willing, or if she can ever bring herself to trust me again, but I have the will to make it happen. It’s far past the time for the golem to develop some bollocks.

I also have a plan. 

End of Part One...