Of Princes and Princesses

Of princes and princesses...

"Ginny...

You probably wonder why the hell I'm writing to you when we're both sleeping under the same roof, but there's just some things that aren't made to be said out loud..."

"Ginny,

...I hope you won't hate me for writing this letter, but--"

"Ginny,

...I don't know what to say," Ron said aloud just as he wrote it down. He sighed in frustration and threw the third piece of paper to the garbage, then glanced fearfully behind him, checking that nobody else was in his bedroom. You never knew where the twins might be lurking, joke shop or not.

"Ginny,

I know it must feel weird to get a letter from me, but there's something I need to say to you, well, to write to you--"

He rolled his eyes up, amazed at how dumb h sounded every time he tried writing to somebody. His old letters to Hermione still made him blush and wish he could crawl under a rock, even though she had shown nothing but pleasure at receiving them. Unfortunately, this particular letter would sound ten thousand times stupider, he knew it. Not to mention criminal, insane, twisted, and a lot more words that he had listed in his head in the long hours of many, many nights.

"Ginny,

...There's something that's been eating me up inside for many years now, even though I didn't notice it at first. And I thought I had to write it down, y'know, because if I don't, it'll probably haunt me until I die...which given what's happening outside right now might be very soon, but just in case..."

"God that's lousy," Ron muttered, scratching the last sentence out.

"Remember when we were kids, we used to play prince and princess because all the others were at school, so we knew the twins wouldn't pull pranks on us anymore (or want to dress me up as a princess, just for laughs), and I'd always rescue you from dragons, or evil villains (isn't that a pleonasm?), and then I'd kiss you because that's what princes are supposed to do, but well it didn't mean anything because we were like, what? Eight? And I never thought twice about it, well, it felt a little gross to kiss a girl, to be frankly honest, but I didn't mind that you were my sister, because in fact you weren't, you were a princess, and I was a prince, and that's what princes do. And then I went to school and you weren't there, but in the end it was okay because there was Harry and Hermione there, y'know? And I did miss you, but I had new friends, and I..."

Ron stopped then and looked at the page for a moment, frowning.

"You never told me how you did, that year, alone at home with mom? I hope...I hope you didn't feel abandoned. I wonder if you continued playing the princess and...well, playing the prince as well! Or did you just dress a gnome up and force him to play the part?! I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have wanted to kiss him!"

A sudden image came unbound into Ron's mind and he gulped down, almost chocking on thin air. He felt his cheeks flushing, but continued writing anyway. He was forced to admit that this whole thing was getting easier with every word; he wasn't even thinking about what to write anymore, which was both very satisfying and scary. He was afraid he might end up writing even worse things than he had planned.

"And then there was my second year, and all the stuff-we-won't-mention, and then, remember one night, two years ago, when we had that fight about who you were dating and I came to your room later on to apologize, and remember how after we fought again (I suck a making apologies, don't I?), how at one point you said you missed the prince and princess thing and--"

Ron took a deep breath before writing the words down with a shaky hand, feeling strangely vulnerable:

"--you tried to kiss me and I asked you if you were mad, and you blushed...I can see you blushing...and you said with such calm that it wasn't a bit different from when we were eight, just a comfort thing, and it was so much different, and I know you knew it, and you know at first I just decided not to think too deeply about it, I thought it was the fight and everything and...I don't know. And then I started thinking about it, and I started...please don't hate me. I started wishing I had let you kiss me, and I know it's wrong, it's so wrong, but ever since the idea came into my head it hasn't left. And with everything that's happening I'm wondering if I'll have time to love somebody, and then I know that I love you and...it's all so confusing but...Sometimes I think about you and I think...I think about you as if you weren't my sister. Because you've grown so smart, and so witty, just like the twins really, except you're smarter than them, because you know were to draw the line and they don't always know that, and you've grown so...beautiful. Not that you weren't beautiful before, but now you're stunning Ginny, and I know everybody notices, because they'd have to be blind not to notice you. And I know I shouldn't notice that, I shouldn't notice the way your hair is so wavy and so blood-red, and the way your freckles are so much cuter than mine, and I shouldn't notice the way your--"

Ron gulped down again, feeling his heart bolting. Another part of his anatomy was getting interested, making him feel all the more mortified. Sick sick sick, he repeated to himself yet another time, not that he didn't believe it already, but it didn't change anything in the fact that he was very much attracted to his little sister. Sick sick sick sick sick!!

"...the way your breasts are just the right size compared to your body,--"

"...how can I even think that about her?! I shouldn't have noticed that!!" Ron unconsciously whispered in a strangled voice, feeling his palms getting drenched into cold sweat.

"--and the way your waist is so slim that even covered by your robes one can feel that you're thin. And the way your legs seem to stretch forever when it's summer and you wear those shorts...which are much too short for decency, if you ask me, and...and I shouldn't notice how your feet are so small. I shouldn't want to kiss them, and I shouldn't want to kiss your knees when you scrap them when we play Quidditch in the woods. And I shouldn't want to scream when I see you cry after being dumped by some stupid geek, and I shouldn't hate Harry when I start feeling that at last he may realize that you're somebody that could make him happy."

Ron stopped, sighed, and put the paper aside, not daring to read it through another time. Of course, he wouldn't send the letter to his little sister. He'd just have to...move away, or something. In a few months he'd be out of Hogwarts, maybe he could find himself a job in a foreign country, that way he would (maybe, hopefully, unlikely) get his sister away from his head. He wished there was a ward for people like him in St Mungo's, like there was a ward for people like Lockhart or Neville's parents, but he knew there wasn't. And even if there was, he knew he would never have the guts to go check himself in.

Ron took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. In the end, he knew exactly what he wanted to tell Ginny. It didn't need long letters or memories that didn't at all justify the way he felt. In the end, it all came down to one thing. He took another piece of parchment, stared at it for a couple of seconds, feeling sick to his stomach, then carefully wrote out the appropriate words.

"Ginny,

I'm sorry."

He very nearly jumped out of his skin when somebody behind him said, in a calm and firm voice:

"You shouldn't be."