Chapter 9: The Confrontation
The silence after Ginny pulled her jersey back on wasn’t quiet. It was a roaring, hollow thing, filled with the phantom imprint of what they’d all just seen. The memory of her in that white bra was a brand on the inside of Harry’s eyelids.
He broke it. The words came out low, gravelly, stripped of any pretense.
“Fuck, Ginny.”
She didn’t look up from The Quibbler. “Problem, Potter?”
“Those tits in that bra,” he said, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. The image was crystalline. The freckles. The practical cotton straining just enough. “That’s a fucking hell of a baseline.”
Across the table, Hermione’s face was a mask of pale, furious stone. Ron had gone beyond red; he was a plum colour, his mouth working soundlessly.
Ginny finally glanced up, a corner of her mouth quirking. “Glad you approve. They’re functional. Now can we functionally discuss how to find a piece of Voldemort’s soul?”
“Functional,” Harry repeated, the word tasting absurd. He leaned forward, his chair scraping loudly in the hush. “Right. Sure. If that’s what you call it.”
“Harry,” Hermione whispered, a warning.
He ignored her. His blood was up, a hot, restless beat pulsing in tandem with the scar on his forehead. Ginny’s stunt had torn a hole in the careful, tense fabric of their world, and he was staring right through it. “No, seriously. You just… whipped them out. As a point of order.”
“I established a fact,” she corrected, but her eyes were bright, enjoying his reaction. “You’re the one having a crisis about it. Seems a bit simple, even for you. See a pair of decent boobs, brain empties out. Should I be flattered or worried about our chances in a real fight?”
“Decent,” he snorted. “They’re a lot better than decent.” He turned his head. “Ron.”
Ron flinched. “What?”
“Your sister’s tits. Rate them.”
The table seemed to drop ten degrees. Hermione made a small, wounded sound. Ron looked like Harry had just suggested they torch the Burrow.
“Are you mental?” Ron choked out.
“Why not?” Harry pressed. The cruelty of it felt necessary, a valve releasing a building pressure. “We’re all being honest, right? That’s the new rule. Ginny set it. So be honest. You saw them. What did you think?”
“I didn’t—I wasn’t—” Ron’s eyes darted to Ginny, who was watching him with an unnerving, analytical calm, then to Hermione, whose expression had shattered into pure betrayal. He was trapped. The guilt over Lavender, the confusion over Hermione, the visceral shock of his sister’s body—it all collided in him.
“I think,” Ron spat, his voice trembling with rage and shame, “that you’re a sick bastard, Harry. She’s my sister.”
“And I’m right here,” Ginny interjected, her tone dangerously light. “And oddly, I don’t feel sick. I feel clear. You, on the other hand, look like you might vomit. Which is honestly more offensive than anything Harry’s said.”
“Ginny, please,” Hermione said, her voice thin. She was staring at the table, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. The intellectual, the voice of reason, had no framework for this. Her own calculated reveal to Harry felt cheap and tawdry in the face of Ginny’s brutal, dispassionate exposure.
“No, Hermione, let’s have it,” Ginny said, closing her magazine. “Ron’s disgusted because he’s been thinking about everyone’s breasts except mine, and now he’s been forced to. And it’s messed with his tiny, fragile worldview. He can’t compartmentalize. Can’t put ‘sister’ in one box and ‘girl’ in another. It’s all just… bodies now. And it scares him.”
“That’s not true!” Ron roared, standing up so fast his chair tipped over with a crash that echoed through the stacks.
Madam Pince’s shrill voice called out from the shadows. “SILENCE! Or I will evict the lot of you!”
They froze. Ron stood there, heaving, the crash of the chair still reverberating in the sudden, attentive quiet of the library. All the other students had turned to stare.
Ginny stood up slowly. She walked around the table, righted Ron’s chair with a calm click, and then stood very close to him. She spoke softly, for him alone, but Harry and Hermione caught every word.
“You snog Lavender Brown in public corridors,” she murmured, her voice like steel wool. “You gawp at Hermione’s chest when you think no one’s looking. You live in a world of bodies, Ron. You just want to be the only one allowed to acknowledge it.” She patted his cheek, a gesture that was somehow more mocking than a slap. “Grow up.”
She turned back to the table, gathered her things. “This was productive. I think we’re done for today. The Horcrux can wait. You lot have some thicker barriers to tear down first.”
She slung her bag over her shoulder and left, her red hair a flag of defiance retreating between the dark shelves.
The three of them were left in the wreckage.
Hermione stood. She didn’t look at either of them. Her face was composed again, but it was the composure of a fortress under siege. “She’s right,” Hermione said, her voice hollow. “This is pathetic.” She looked at Ron, and for a fleeting second, the raw hurt was unmistakable. “You should go find Lavender. I’m sure her… perspective… is less complicated.”
She walked away, her footsteps precise and quiet on the stone floor.
Ron stared after her, agony written in every line of his body. Then he turned on Harry, his fists clenched. “Happy now?”
Harry looked up at his best friend, the fever in his blood cooling into something harder. “No,” he said, honestly. “But at least we’re not lying about it anymore.”
He stood, leaving Ron alone amidst the ancient books and the crushing weight of the truth. As he walked out into the corridor, the ghost of Ginny’s sports bra taunted him, a perfect, perky symbol of a war that was suddenly, terrifyingly, fought on two fronts.