Sage opted to sleep in the next day and skip breakfast, basking in the fact that it was a Saturday which meant she had no classes to get to. She had vaguely remembered waking up and sleepily looking up to see Hermione get ready for the day, but she had just buried her head back into her pillows and floated back into the fluffy warmth of sleep.
"Sage," she heard a soft voice say while gently nudging her into consciousness. "Saage."
"Mmph," Sage grunted into the pillows and rolled over to further bury herself into her bed.
"Sage," Ginny said, more impatient this time, and shook her less gently.
"What," she mumbled, voice muffled by the feathers in her pillow.
Ginny huffed and laid down on her back next to her on the bed, nudging her again with her elbow.
Sage opened her eyes, a frown set on her face as she looked at Ginny whose head was tilted to the side to look back at her.
"I'm bored," Ginny said.
Sage groaned and rolled onto her back to look up at the ceiling, rubbing her eyes awake after realizing that she wasn't going to be able to fall asleep again.
"Don't care," she grunted.
"C'mon, let's do something today," Ginny pleaded and practically rolled half on top of Sage, her chin resting on her chest to look up at her face.
Sage yawned. "Let me wake up first at least."
Ginny smiled and rolled back to the other side of the bed, fingers twiddling restlessly over her stomach. "Where's Hermione?".
Sage shrugged. "I dunno, I think she said something about going out with Harry and Ron this morning, but I was half asleep so I can't be sure," she said and got out of bed to walk into the bathroom, deciding that she might as well brush her teeth and get ready for the day if she wasn't going back to sleep.
Ginny was quick to follow, standing by Sage at the bathroom counter while she started to wash her face. "So how's it going with my brother?".
Sage grunted, something that she seemed to be doing a lot of that morning, and bent down over the sink to splash water onto her face, ringing off the foamy residue of her face wash. "Don't wanna talk about it," she said after her face was clean and patted her face dry with a towel.
She really didn't want to talk about him, mostly because she didn't know what to say. She hadn't only been avoiding him, she had also just been avoiding the thought of him. Every time he graced her thoughts, she was filled with a mix of anger and something else. Something foreign. She didn't want to put her finger on the other feeling, scared that she wouldn't like what she would find. So she didn't try.
"What the hell are you even doing though? He's been acting weird lately - every time I bring you up he goes all quiet. Did you finally 'get back at him' or whatever?".
Sage could feel herself blush, but it was luckily covered up as she rubbed lotion over her face. She shrugged again. "Not really, I kind of gave up," she lied, not wanting to explain the way she and Ginny's older brother were evilly toying with each other's emotions. "I don't know why'd he be acting weird."
Ginny chuckled. "Maybe he has a crush on you," she teased. She had been teasing Sage about that for years, always blaming her brother's antics on a schoolboy crush. Sage was pretty sure she was joking though.
"God no," she scoffed as if Ginny couldn't have said something further from the truth.
Ginny shrugged with a smile and it was apparent that she hadn't given up on the idea.
"Speaking of crushes," Sage started as she lined her toothbrush with toothpaste and ran it under the water. "Any girls caught your eye?".
Ginny shook her head and said, "Not really," but Sage could see the way Ginny looked down at the ground.
"C'mon," Sage teased and kicked Ginny's leg with her foot that was clad in a fuzzy sock. "I can tell there's someone you fancy, you're just not telling me."
Ginny chuckled nervously, still looking down as her foot nudged something on the ground. "There's not, I swear."
Ginny had known she was gay ever since her second year. It all became clear after her first kiss with a boy, an inexperienced peck on the lips that lasted far too long after an awkward date in Hogsmeade. When their lips touched, she immediately knew she didn't like it, wouldn't like it with any one of the opposite gender, and everything started to fit into place after that. Everything suddenly seemed to make sense The way certain magazines caught her eye, how she wanted to be 'friends' with the prettiest girls she could find, how practically obsessed she was with one of Charlie's girlfriends when she was younger.
She had immediately told Sage, and Sage couldn't have been more accepting and encouraging. Sage was the real reason she had dated her first girlfriend, Megan Jones. She had convinced Ginny to talk to her after months of intense eye contact, had assured her that she didn't need to worry about being rejected and that if she had been, Sage would have been waiting right behind her to comfort her.
Sage had known Ginny for 3 years now and had known of her sexuality for 2, and she knew when Ginny had a love interest in mind. She knew the way Ginny would look down to her fidgeting hands or the ground whenever she was smitten - her tell signs were not at all subtle. Why she didn't want to tell Sage about a love interest she didn't know, but she wasn't going to push it. Instead, she just continued to brush her teeth and looked to the mirror.
"You want to go into Hogsmeade and get lunch?" she asked with a foamy mouth, realizing she needed to actually eat food to rid the pang of hunger from her stomach.
Ginny nodded as she rearranged Sage's products on the countertop. "Yeah," she said and paused, seeming to contemplate saying something. "We should invite Hermione if she gets back from whatever she's doing."
Sage was confused for a moment, her toothbrush halting in her mouth. "Why? We never invite her along unless it's with the whole group."
Ginny didn't have an answer right away, just shrugged and looked down at her intertwined fingers.
Sage continued obliviously brushing her teeth, but the brush was soon coming to a stop in her mouth again as her eyes widened.
"Wait," she said and bent over the sink to spit her toothpaste out. She turned to Ginny, a slight smile on her wide-open mouth. "Do you like Hermione? Is she the girl you've been crushing on recently?". Sage couldn't believe that she hadn't seen it before. "Don't lie to me."
Ginny rolled her eyes but knew she couldn't further hide it from her best friend. "Maybe I have a small cru-".
"Oh my god!" Sage interrupted with a squeal. "That's so great, you guys would be so cute."
Ginny shook her head amusedly. "Slow down, we don't even know if she likes girls yet."
Sage shook her head. "She totally does. I can tell."
"Whatever, we'll see."
A devious smile took over Sage's face. "We will," she said and walked back out of the bathroom.
"Sage," Ginny warned. "Do not do anything."
"I won't," Sage said, but the smile that was on her face said otherwise.
"Sage," Ginny warned again.
Sage knew that Ginny could fuck her up if she wanted, so she put her hands up in defeat. "Alright, alright. I won't, I promise." Ginny nodded her head, seemingly satisfied. "Unless the perfect opportunity arises and I-"
"Sage!" Ginny scolded.
Sage just giggled and walked into her closet to find some clothes for the day. She looked around for a moment but soon decided on some loose jeans and a thin, tighter sweater, seeing as Spring was nearing and the weather was beginning to show it.
Right when she walked out of the closet, ready to do her hair and throw on a bit of makeup, Hermione walked in the door.
" 'Mione!" Sage cheered when the door shut behind her. Hermione looked at her with a confused look, probably wondering why Sage was greeting her so much more enthusiastically than normal. Sage could practically feel Ginny's warning glare from where she sat on Sage's bed. "We were just about to head into Hogsmeade for some lunch and were wondering if you wanted to join us?".
Hermione smiled, pausing in the process of toeing off her shoes and choosing to leave them on. "Yeah, that sounds great actually. Harry, Ron, and I were just out on a walk and I'm famished."
"Great! I'm just going to do my hair," she said and walked into the bathroom, leaving the other two girls in the bedroom.
As she pulled back the front of her hair and clipped it behind her head, she heard a bit of small talk, but unfortunately, there was nothing too saucy. After making sure that all of her makeup was good, she exited the bathroom.
"Okay, you guys ready?" she asked.
They both nodded and the three girls left the room together.
Once they sat down at the Three Broomsticks, Sage was hoping that there could be a bit of flirting and progression in 'Hinny', the couple name that she had already come up with, but the conversation was immediately steered towards her.
"So, Sage, how's it going with Theodore?" Hermione asked. Her crush wasn't a secret to anyone, years of unrequited staring and lusting was hard to go unnoticed.
"It's not going," Sage replied with a discouraged look.
Hermione chuckled. "Well... what can we do?."
"We?" Ginny asked, looking as if she would rather not be a helper in the task of getting Sage together with Theodore. She had always had a weird feeling about the boy, something told her that her best friend shouldn't get too involved with him.
"Yes. We are going to help her," Hermione said with no room for argument, and it looked as if Ginny wouldn't want to argue with her anyway. She just nodded her head and gave in, much faster than she ever would have given into one of Sage's requests.
"Seriously, I've tried with him, there's nothing that you guys can do to help," Sage said and took a sip of her water.
Ginny scoffed out a laugh.
"What?" Sage asked.
"You haven't done shit!" Ginny said with a shake of her head, leaned back in her chair with her legs spread out in front of her. Hermione nodded her head, seeming to agree with Ginny in an almost apologetic way.
"Yes, I have!" Sage said exasperatedly, which rewarded her with two very unconvinced and unamused looks. "Okay, I haven't done much. But it's hard!".
Hermione nodded her head. "I know, but it's been what, two years now?". Sage nodded her head shamefully. "You have to do something. Otherwise it's just going to continue to be painful."
"I know, I know, you're right," Sage said. "I just don't know what to do. I'm not very good at this stuff."
"That's where we come in!" Hermione said, looking at Ginny one more time to make sure that she was in on it too. Ginny nodded her head, but it was accompanied by an eye roll.
For the rest of lunch, they discussed their 'plan of action' which mostly consisted of making more efforts to talk to him in their shared class, seeking him out at quidditch games, and finally, the big one, asking him to study with her. Hermione had originally just wanted Sage to ask him on a date, a real date with food and stuff, but Sage had immediately shot it down, claiming that that was much too big and too scary.
"But why? Then you'll just know if he likes you back or not. I don't understand why people don't just straight up ask instead of dancing around the topic for so long," Hermoine had said to her.
Sage then proposed asking him to share his textbook in class, her logical 'big next step', and they then compromised with asking him to study. It was still scary for Sage, but then she could at least play it off if he said no, could claim that she just needed help in transfigurations.
Once they finished their meal, they leisurely walked through the town before heading back to the castle, none of them needing to go into any of the stores to buy anything. She really hoped that she wasn't imagining the way Hermione and Ginny's arms brushed together as they walked and she also hoped that they didn't see her smile as she watched them.
The rest of the day passed quickly, filled with laughter as Sage and her friends enjoyed their Saturday sitting on the common room couches, most of the people they knew in Gryffindor also having chosen to hang out in the common room that day. Someone had whipped out exploding snap, and from then until dinner was a blur of flying cards, sparks, and laughter.
After dinner was finished, everyone delightfully full from the delicious roast chicken that had been served that night, Sage had decided to go back to her and Hermione's room to finish her and George's paper. She didn't have any plans that night and was feeling productive for some reason, and she wasn't going to waste that.
She finished it in only a little more than an hour, the clock reading only 9:00 by the time she was finished. She went to place the papers in her book bag so that she wouldn't forget them on Monday, and when she opened the bag she found that she had accidentally packed a couple of George's books in her bag the other day as she was leaving.
She picked up the books and left her room, deciding to just go give them to him then in case he needed them for something.
She left the room, books in hand, and hoped that Fred wouldn't be there when she arrived.