He was kissing her, both their mouths opened wide so they could kiss as deep as possible, their tongues intertwining moistly, slicking over each other, pushing at palates, teeth.
He slid a hand up her arm and she felt it tingle, the sparks diffusing pleasantly through her.
His teeth just grazed the inside of her cheek, and that combined that with the thought he was exhaling air that’d just been inside his body into her mouth made her moan, the sound quickly swallowed up in their mouths.
She arched her neck up, eyes squeezed shut, as he moved his mouth down, trailing wet, open-mouthed kisses over her jawbone. She slid her hand slowly up his thigh in response.
“Oh, Merlin, I… ” he let out a breathy moan.
She frowned slightly; something wasn’t quite right.
Eyes still closed, she bent her head to snuggle at his neck; he’d always liked that. She breathed him in deeply, then gently blew in his ear.
He froze, obviously concentrating on the sensations at his ear.
She stuck out her tongue, gently touched just the tip of it to the shell of his ear; she could always make him twitch with that.
He moaned.
She frowned again and opened her eyes.
“Harry!”
“Oh, Ginny,” he breathed, his hair and eyes failing to turn back to the gold and silver they’d been in her mind’s eye. Now she realized why her eyes had shut of their own accord, although when she kissed Draco, both their eyes were always opened, fixed on each other’s faces.
She gave her head an imperceptible shake, to clear it of its images, before leaning in again.
‘Harry,’ she thought as she flicked her tongue over his lips, ‘This is Harry.’
His hand slid from her shoulder to cup the side of her face, to bring her closer to him.
Her mind was blank, but not in the pleasantly comfortable way it got after she’d had a satisfying snog. It was just… empty.
He moved up one hand to undo the clasp of her robes.
She sighed and gently removed his hands, pulling away.
“Um, Harry.”
He looked so endearing, sitting there with this hair even more mussed than usual, face slightly flushed, eyes heavy-lidded.
She resisted the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair.
“Harry, I’ve got a headache.”
Which, horribly, terribly clichéd as it sounded, was at least true; since she’d opened her eyes, the most awful throbbing and buzzing had started up between her temples and her stomach had started turning over.
He was instantly concerned, and she felt even more awful.
“Is it a side effect of the… spell-thing? Shall I bring you to McGonagall?”
He’d already almost risen from his chair.
She smiled weakly and pressed his hand.
“No, Harry, it’s okay. I think I just need to sit here for a bit, okay? And, um, you should probably take care of that.” She gestured vaguely in the general direction.
He blushed bright red.
“Right,” he coughed, “I think I’ll just go to the loo for a bit then.”
She nodded, face buried in her hands.
He came back no more than three minutes later.
She peered up at him, feeling a little better now, wondering how he could have taken care of it that quickly.
“Harry?”
“Hmm?”
“How did you deal with it?”
He blushed again.
“You didn’t… Um. Did you?”
“Ginny! Of course not! That would be disrespectful! You’re right here.”
She gestured for him to continue, not mentioning that, at her behest, certain other people had taken the opportunity more than once to do that for her, right in front of her. His blush was spreading from the tops of his ears and his cheeks to the rest of his face.
“Well, I just… I just think awful thoughts.”
She perked up, looking curious.
“Like what awful thoughts?”
He looked away. Even his nose had a reddish tinge to it by now.
“Well…”
“Oh, go on, you can tell me.”
“Um, once. Once I thought of you kissing Malfoy,” he said quickly.
She raised an eyebrow, managing to quell the unavoidable leap her heart gave when his name was mentioned.
“It’s really disgusting and it makes me really angry, you see, and then, er, it goes away.” He supplied helpfully.
It was her turn to blush.
“Oh. Right.”
She tried to stand up, but her stomach chose to turn over again at that very moment and she almost fell.
He ended up carrying her back to the dorms, despite her rather vehement protests.
She buried her face in his neck, praying they wouldn’t meet Malfoy along the corridors and yet somehow half-hoping they would.
But they made it back without much mishap, except for wild catcalls and Ron’s indignant yelp when Harry climbed through the portrait hole.
Their exams started to loom alarmingly on the horizon, so Ginny thankfully threw herself into studying and tried to avoid snogging sessions with Harry.
Why was it that after dreaming she was still with Draco, kissing him enthusiastically, she’d wake up, remember she was with Harry, and feel guilty about betraying Draco? But she stopped dreaming so much after she started pulling her curtains closed at night, shutting out the moonlight.
It must be her damn hormones; she’d also been snapping at everyone quite a lot lately. The other day she’d lost her temper with Colin and almost hexed!... Alright, truth be told, that’d happened many times before. But she’d almost cursed him with the Bat-Bogey Hex!
But Colin, dear Colin, hadn’t said anything. He’d just given her an infuriatingly understanding look, turning around to glance at Draco and Pansy cooing at each other in the corridor for some unknown reason of his own (why would they have anything to do with her bad temper?), and dragged her off to the Common Room to study.
Her nose was buried determinedly in the Potions Book (though she’d always been surprisingly good at Potions) when Harry flopped down beside her. She smiled at him.
“Had enough of studying for today?”
He shrugged, lower lip pushed out a bit.
“Hadn’t had enough of you lately,” he moaned, burrowing his head into her hair.
She laughed as he hugged her, but felt more than the faintest twinge of unease. This relationship was obviously not going to work, at least not now, and if Harry were like this after not even a week of not-having-more-than-ten-minutes-of-each-other, what more when she broke it off?
Face buried in her hair, he whispered, “I love you, Gin-gin.”
She hugged him tighter, barely trusting her voice not to give out and betray her.
“I love you too, Harry,” and at least that was true.
She put her quill down as Snape told them to stop writing and sighed, flexing out the ache in her wrist.
It was all warm, summer daisies and Quidditch match-perfect weather outside and they were stuck inside, with another paper still to go. She’d been cramming constantly the last few days (the dark circles around her eyes bore testimony to that) and really couldn’t wait to just shed her robes and run outside.
She grabbed her bag from under her table, sliding out her Transfiguration notes as she filed out of the classroom with the other students.
“Hey, did you get question nine…”
“What was your answer for…”
“I’m sure that it’d turn purple when…”
Colin joined her, slinging an arm over her shoulders.
“Let’s get away from here,” she said sharply; the press of people and the constant chatter was annoying her. Did they have to discuss it when it was obviously already over?
Colin laughed, and they made their way to their usual table in the Library.
Parkinson was sitting there, at their table, books piled high around her, bent over a piece of parchment. She had an old pair of spectacles, perched on her nose, disgustingly cute against her blue eyes.
Ginny scowled.
Throwing off Colin’s restraining grasp on her elbow, she marched up and slid into a chair opposite Pansy, taking out her notes and textbooks with studied nonchalance.
Pansy looked up slowly.
“What, pray, are you doing here, Weasley?”
Ginny couldn’t help but feel a twinge of admiration for Pansy at managing to keep her cool.
“Studying, obviously. I would have thought that that would be apparent even to you.”
Pansy laughed, lip curled in a smirk.
“Oh, I forgot, some people actually have to work for their money.”
Ginny’s blood boiled, but she simply took out her best quill and focused on her notes.
Colin approached the table slowly. Pansy gave him a death glare and he froze.
Ginny turned around and scowled at him, and he slid into a chair at the table as well.
“You too? What was your name again? Oh, Creevey.”
Pansy’s tone indicated she didn’t think very much of that name.
“And you must be the infamous Parkinson, of course. There aren’t many other pugs studying at Hogwarts, are there?” Colin looked surprised at what’d just left his mouth.
Pansy glared daggers, and Ginny gave him an approving nudge under the table with her foot.
All three of them bent over their work again, neither side willing to back down and leave.
There was still an hour left to the exam, and Ginny’d finished going over her notes, so much so that she didn’t want to look at them again. She’d be surprised if she got anything less than an Outstanding for this one.
She looked up to see Draco homing in.
She scrunched up her nose and turned in the opposite direction.
“Pansy.” And he leaned down and kissed her.
Wetly, Ginny noticed distantly. And with a lot of tongue. And little squelchy noises.
Then she smirked as Madam Pince gestured violently for them to Stop Making A Public Spectacle Of Themselves.
Pansy broke apart, and pulled him down into the seat beside her.
A table for four, two Slytherins on one side, two Gryffindors on the other.
“How’s the studying going, Weasley?” Draco asked, malice curling in his tone.
“Better than yours.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.”
“Well it’s a good thing that you aren’t me, then.” Their banter was starting to remind her uncomfortably of how it’d been before that first kiss.
Pansy looked from one to the other. She obviously had more than an inkling of what was going on, but didn’t bother to stop it.
“Fine, Weaslette, I’ll make you a bet.”
“But to make a bet both sides has to have something that the other wants. And you don’t.” Ginny said, not bothering to look up from her notes where she was doodling.
It wasn’t easy sparring with someone who met rapier thrust with a blow of the cudgel.
“Oh, I think you’ll find I do.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Pansy was looking at the entrance of the Library, where Blaise was coming in, with an odd look on her face. Colin’s head was still bowed over his textbooks, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.
“Oh, do you?”
“Yes.”
She waited, then snarled mentally when she realised that she would be forced to inquire as to what his idea was.
“Good for you, then.”
He smirked, not wanting to let himself be drawn out.
“Go on, then, since you obviously can’t wait to enlighten me as to what your stroke of genius is.”
Catching the look in her eyes, he quelled the urge the remark that his strokes were actions of genius indeed, as she well knew, saying instead, “Alright. If you do better than I do in our next respective papers, I’ll buy you robes for the Leaving Ball. To which, I can safely assume, you’re going with Potter.”
It was just barely a question. She ignored it.
“And if I lose?”
“Then you dance the first dance of the Ball with me.”
Pansy turned back, a look of protest on her face, but Ginny laughed before she could say anything.
“I’m not that cheap, Malfoy. A dance with someone like you for a price of a set of dress robes? I’d rather go naked.”
Draco opened his mouth.
“Shut it, Malfoy. And besides, Harry’s already getting me a set.”
Which was a complete, bald-faced lie; Fred and George had gotten her a set for Christmas, with the gold from their joke shop.
She saw anger flash in his eyes as he looked up at someone behind her.
Colin nudged her foot as she heard Harry’s voice.
“Hey, Ginny. Being bothered?”
She turned and smiled at him.
“No, Harry, of course not. I doubt some present would forget the rather unfortunate Bat-Bogey Hex they suffered from in Fifth Year. They wouldn’t dare try anything again.”
Harry laughed.
“Alright, then.”
“Besides, Potter, what could you possibly do to me that she couldn’t?”
Ginny felt Harry stiffen at Draco’s tone.
“Oh, Malfoy, lots. But he knows that I can take care of myself, which is more than I can say for your girlfriend.”
They all glanced at Pansy. She was at that moment, unfortunately for her, staring vacantly at Blaise, mouth hanging slightly open.
Malfoy scowled.
“Well I think I’ll be off now,” Ginny said brightly, gathering up her books, “Coming, Colin?”
They were off, Ginny hand-in-hand with Harry, before Malfoy could even have time to formulate an appropriate retort. He had to settle for a quiet ‘damn’ under his breath instead.
After the exams ended, they ended up having an informal Quidditch Match.
Everyone had been lounging around in the sun, reading books drowsily or chatting, just winding down after the pressure of the exams.
“I wish Quidditch season was still on,” Ginny said sleepily, fingers scritching at Harry’s scalp.
“We won anyway,” he smiled up through her curtain of long hair, head pillowed in her lap.
“Yeah. But I wish we could play some more,” she sighed, then closed her eyes in contentment as a breeze blew past.
Harry climbed to his feet.
“Harry! You don’t have to.”
“You want to play,” he grinned, and disappeared to confer with the group of students under the neighbouring tree.
They turned out to be Slytherins, so Harry only managed to rustle up enough players for a game of two-a-team; a Seeker and a Beater on each team. (Ron and Hermione were off somewhere; snogging passionately, as Ginny and Harry decided privately, to much quiet laughter).
Terry Boot and Draco Malfoy were those two, unfortunately.
She’d sat there with her back against the tree, watching Harry walk over to them. She could see him strain to be polite.
Then two blond heads had looked up, looked over at Ginny, where Harry was gesturing, and agreed at once. The rest of the Slytherins jeered, immediately offering to referee and oversee the match.
Competition had been written in the lines of their bodies as they took up the offer, but hey, Harry and Ginny made a good team.
They Accio-ed their brooms, smooth polished wood flying into their grasps, before going to the Quidditch locker rooms and getting out their kits and the practice Snitch and the Bludger.
The rules of two-a-team were very simple, really. The Beaters would compete to manipulate the single Bludger, while the Seekers would try to find the Snitch. The first one to the Snitch, won.
It was quite a common game among Wizarding children, since four players were so much easier to find than the usual full complement.
They let the balls go, waiting the usual minute to allow the Snitch ample time to fly off, before kicking off.
Draco and Harry were Seekers, of course, while Ginny and Boot were the Beaters.
She hefted the bat in her hand; it seemed a long time since she played and she was suddenly overwhelmingly happy.
She zoomed up towards the Bludger, took aim, hit it as hard as she could.
It zoomed toward Malfoy, missing him by an inch when he was forced to do an ungainly wriggle to avoid it.
He glared, Harry grinned, Boot smirked, and the game got on in earnest.
They soon settled into a routine; Ginny would aim the Bludger towards Malfoy, Boot would block it and swing it toward Harry, and Ginny would intercept it and aim it at Malfoy again.
Her arms had just begun to tire when Harry swung into a vertical climb, aiming for something high up.
Draco threw one panicked look at Ginny before nudging his broom up, bending up over his broom to go as fast as possible.
Draco had just begun to catch up when Harry turned into a dive.
Ginny let go of the Snitch she’d caught in her glove just before Harry had feinted, allowing it to flutter in front of her before she smacked it toward Harry.
He caught it neatly in his glove as Malfoy only just managed to turn into a dive.
Then Ginny zoomed up to Harry, laughing, and they hugged each other hard, the Snitch clutched between her left hand and his right, clasped tightly together.
The audience below, now swelled to include Dumbledore, McGonagall, and many students from all four houses, whooped or boo-ed in delight.
Draco frowned at Ginny and Harry as they laughed their way up the steps, now joined by Colin, Ron and Hermione, but Ginny’s back was turned and she didn’t notice.
“Colin,” Ginny began, munching her way through the chocolate truffle laid out in front of her, “I’ve got something I want to ask you about.”
“It’s not Malfoy, is it? Because a week ago in the library the sexual tension was so thick you could have cut it with a… er…”
He trailed off, noticing that Ginny’d started to raise the very implement he was about to mention.
“No, it’s not about that. Honestly, Colin!” she brought the knife down through the cake rather viciously.
He shrugged.
“It’s Harry.”
“Ach, well if it’s not one it’s the other.”
“Shut up. Well, I… I don’t really feel as attracted to him as I do to Draco.”
She winced.
“Did, I mean. Slip of the tongue.”
“That’s perfectly understandable right? They’re both perfectly shaggable blokes; maybe Draco’s just more your type.”
Ginny snorted at that description. The house elves, interrupted in their nightly activities by Ginny and Colin’s kitchen raid, immediately rushed forward with water.
“Yeah but… Look, I can just tell, it’s not that. The thing I was going to ask you, is… well, do you think I should break it off?”
“The alternative being?”
She shrugged.
“There isn’t really another choice, is there? I think you should just do it. For both your sakes.”
“But he’s Harry!”
“Still.”
“But I do love him.”
“But not like you love Draco,” Colin commented shrewdly.
She opened her mouth to protest, then sighed and turned her attention to the walnut brownies.
He slid a hand up her arm and she felt it tingle, the sparks diffusing pleasantly through her.
His teeth just grazed the inside of her cheek, and that combined that with the thought he was exhaling air that’d just been inside his body into her mouth made her moan, the sound quickly swallowed up in their mouths.
She arched her neck up, eyes squeezed shut, as he moved his mouth down, trailing wet, open-mouthed kisses over her jawbone. She slid her hand slowly up his thigh in response.
“Oh, Merlin, I… ” he let out a breathy moan.
She frowned slightly; something wasn’t quite right.
Eyes still closed, she bent her head to snuggle at his neck; he’d always liked that. She breathed him in deeply, then gently blew in his ear.
He froze, obviously concentrating on the sensations at his ear.
She stuck out her tongue, gently touched just the tip of it to the shell of his ear; she could always make him twitch with that.
He moaned.
She frowned again and opened her eyes.
“Harry!”
“Oh, Ginny,” he breathed, his hair and eyes failing to turn back to the gold and silver they’d been in her mind’s eye. Now she realized why her eyes had shut of their own accord, although when she kissed Draco, both their eyes were always opened, fixed on each other’s faces.
She gave her head an imperceptible shake, to clear it of its images, before leaning in again.
‘Harry,’ she thought as she flicked her tongue over his lips, ‘This is Harry.’
His hand slid from her shoulder to cup the side of her face, to bring her closer to him.
Her mind was blank, but not in the pleasantly comfortable way it got after she’d had a satisfying snog. It was just… empty.
He moved up one hand to undo the clasp of her robes.
She sighed and gently removed his hands, pulling away.
“Um, Harry.”
He looked so endearing, sitting there with this hair even more mussed than usual, face slightly flushed, eyes heavy-lidded.
She resisted the urge to reach out and ruffle his hair.
“Harry, I’ve got a headache.”
Which, horribly, terribly clichéd as it sounded, was at least true; since she’d opened her eyes, the most awful throbbing and buzzing had started up between her temples and her stomach had started turning over.
He was instantly concerned, and she felt even more awful.
“Is it a side effect of the… spell-thing? Shall I bring you to McGonagall?”
He’d already almost risen from his chair.
She smiled weakly and pressed his hand.
“No, Harry, it’s okay. I think I just need to sit here for a bit, okay? And, um, you should probably take care of that.” She gestured vaguely in the general direction.
He blushed bright red.
“Right,” he coughed, “I think I’ll just go to the loo for a bit then.”
She nodded, face buried in her hands.
He came back no more than three minutes later.
She peered up at him, feeling a little better now, wondering how he could have taken care of it that quickly.
“Harry?”
“Hmm?”
“How did you deal with it?”
He blushed again.
“You didn’t… Um. Did you?”
“Ginny! Of course not! That would be disrespectful! You’re right here.”
She gestured for him to continue, not mentioning that, at her behest, certain other people had taken the opportunity more than once to do that for her, right in front of her. His blush was spreading from the tops of his ears and his cheeks to the rest of his face.
“Well, I just… I just think awful thoughts.”
She perked up, looking curious.
“Like what awful thoughts?”
He looked away. Even his nose had a reddish tinge to it by now.
“Well…”
“Oh, go on, you can tell me.”
“Um, once. Once I thought of you kissing Malfoy,” he said quickly.
She raised an eyebrow, managing to quell the unavoidable leap her heart gave when his name was mentioned.
“It’s really disgusting and it makes me really angry, you see, and then, er, it goes away.” He supplied helpfully.
It was her turn to blush.
“Oh. Right.”
She tried to stand up, but her stomach chose to turn over again at that very moment and she almost fell.
He ended up carrying her back to the dorms, despite her rather vehement protests.
She buried her face in his neck, praying they wouldn’t meet Malfoy along the corridors and yet somehow half-hoping they would.
But they made it back without much mishap, except for wild catcalls and Ron’s indignant yelp when Harry climbed through the portrait hole.
Their exams started to loom alarmingly on the horizon, so Ginny thankfully threw herself into studying and tried to avoid snogging sessions with Harry.
Why was it that after dreaming she was still with Draco, kissing him enthusiastically, she’d wake up, remember she was with Harry, and feel guilty about betraying Draco? But she stopped dreaming so much after she started pulling her curtains closed at night, shutting out the moonlight.
It must be her damn hormones; she’d also been snapping at everyone quite a lot lately. The other day she’d lost her temper with Colin and almost hexed!... Alright, truth be told, that’d happened many times before. But she’d almost cursed him with the Bat-Bogey Hex!
But Colin, dear Colin, hadn’t said anything. He’d just given her an infuriatingly understanding look, turning around to glance at Draco and Pansy cooing at each other in the corridor for some unknown reason of his own (why would they have anything to do with her bad temper?), and dragged her off to the Common Room to study.
Her nose was buried determinedly in the Potions Book (though she’d always been surprisingly good at Potions) when Harry flopped down beside her. She smiled at him.
“Had enough of studying for today?”
He shrugged, lower lip pushed out a bit.
“Hadn’t had enough of you lately,” he moaned, burrowing his head into her hair.
She laughed as he hugged her, but felt more than the faintest twinge of unease. This relationship was obviously not going to work, at least not now, and if Harry were like this after not even a week of not-having-more-than-ten-minutes-of-each-other, what more when she broke it off?
Face buried in her hair, he whispered, “I love you, Gin-gin.”
She hugged him tighter, barely trusting her voice not to give out and betray her.
“I love you too, Harry,” and at least that was true.
She put her quill down as Snape told them to stop writing and sighed, flexing out the ache in her wrist.
It was all warm, summer daisies and Quidditch match-perfect weather outside and they were stuck inside, with another paper still to go. She’d been cramming constantly the last few days (the dark circles around her eyes bore testimony to that) and really couldn’t wait to just shed her robes and run outside.
She grabbed her bag from under her table, sliding out her Transfiguration notes as she filed out of the classroom with the other students.
“Hey, did you get question nine…”
“What was your answer for…”
“I’m sure that it’d turn purple when…”
Colin joined her, slinging an arm over her shoulders.
“Let’s get away from here,” she said sharply; the press of people and the constant chatter was annoying her. Did they have to discuss it when it was obviously already over?
Colin laughed, and they made their way to their usual table in the Library.
Parkinson was sitting there, at their table, books piled high around her, bent over a piece of parchment. She had an old pair of spectacles, perched on her nose, disgustingly cute against her blue eyes.
Ginny scowled.
Throwing off Colin’s restraining grasp on her elbow, she marched up and slid into a chair opposite Pansy, taking out her notes and textbooks with studied nonchalance.
Pansy looked up slowly.
“What, pray, are you doing here, Weasley?”
Ginny couldn’t help but feel a twinge of admiration for Pansy at managing to keep her cool.
“Studying, obviously. I would have thought that that would be apparent even to you.”
Pansy laughed, lip curled in a smirk.
“Oh, I forgot, some people actually have to work for their money.”
Ginny’s blood boiled, but she simply took out her best quill and focused on her notes.
Colin approached the table slowly. Pansy gave him a death glare and he froze.
Ginny turned around and scowled at him, and he slid into a chair at the table as well.
“You too? What was your name again? Oh, Creevey.”
Pansy’s tone indicated she didn’t think very much of that name.
“And you must be the infamous Parkinson, of course. There aren’t many other pugs studying at Hogwarts, are there?” Colin looked surprised at what’d just left his mouth.
Pansy glared daggers, and Ginny gave him an approving nudge under the table with her foot.
All three of them bent over their work again, neither side willing to back down and leave.
There was still an hour left to the exam, and Ginny’d finished going over her notes, so much so that she didn’t want to look at them again. She’d be surprised if she got anything less than an Outstanding for this one.
She looked up to see Draco homing in.
She scrunched up her nose and turned in the opposite direction.
“Pansy.” And he leaned down and kissed her.
Wetly, Ginny noticed distantly. And with a lot of tongue. And little squelchy noises.
Then she smirked as Madam Pince gestured violently for them to Stop Making A Public Spectacle Of Themselves.
Pansy broke apart, and pulled him down into the seat beside her.
A table for four, two Slytherins on one side, two Gryffindors on the other.
“How’s the studying going, Weasley?” Draco asked, malice curling in his tone.
“Better than yours.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you.”
“Well it’s a good thing that you aren’t me, then.” Their banter was starting to remind her uncomfortably of how it’d been before that first kiss.
Pansy looked from one to the other. She obviously had more than an inkling of what was going on, but didn’t bother to stop it.
“Fine, Weaslette, I’ll make you a bet.”
“But to make a bet both sides has to have something that the other wants. And you don’t.” Ginny said, not bothering to look up from her notes where she was doodling.
It wasn’t easy sparring with someone who met rapier thrust with a blow of the cudgel.
“Oh, I think you’ll find I do.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. Pansy was looking at the entrance of the Library, where Blaise was coming in, with an odd look on her face. Colin’s head was still bowed over his textbooks, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.
“Oh, do you?”
“Yes.”
She waited, then snarled mentally when she realised that she would be forced to inquire as to what his idea was.
“Good for you, then.”
He smirked, not wanting to let himself be drawn out.
“Go on, then, since you obviously can’t wait to enlighten me as to what your stroke of genius is.”
Catching the look in her eyes, he quelled the urge the remark that his strokes were actions of genius indeed, as she well knew, saying instead, “Alright. If you do better than I do in our next respective papers, I’ll buy you robes for the Leaving Ball. To which, I can safely assume, you’re going with Potter.”
It was just barely a question. She ignored it.
“And if I lose?”
“Then you dance the first dance of the Ball with me.”
Pansy turned back, a look of protest on her face, but Ginny laughed before she could say anything.
“I’m not that cheap, Malfoy. A dance with someone like you for a price of a set of dress robes? I’d rather go naked.”
Draco opened his mouth.
“Shut it, Malfoy. And besides, Harry’s already getting me a set.”
Which was a complete, bald-faced lie; Fred and George had gotten her a set for Christmas, with the gold from their joke shop.
She saw anger flash in his eyes as he looked up at someone behind her.
Colin nudged her foot as she heard Harry’s voice.
“Hey, Ginny. Being bothered?”
She turned and smiled at him.
“No, Harry, of course not. I doubt some present would forget the rather unfortunate Bat-Bogey Hex they suffered from in Fifth Year. They wouldn’t dare try anything again.”
Harry laughed.
“Alright, then.”
“Besides, Potter, what could you possibly do to me that she couldn’t?”
Ginny felt Harry stiffen at Draco’s tone.
“Oh, Malfoy, lots. But he knows that I can take care of myself, which is more than I can say for your girlfriend.”
They all glanced at Pansy. She was at that moment, unfortunately for her, staring vacantly at Blaise, mouth hanging slightly open.
Malfoy scowled.
“Well I think I’ll be off now,” Ginny said brightly, gathering up her books, “Coming, Colin?”
They were off, Ginny hand-in-hand with Harry, before Malfoy could even have time to formulate an appropriate retort. He had to settle for a quiet ‘damn’ under his breath instead.
After the exams ended, they ended up having an informal Quidditch Match.
Everyone had been lounging around in the sun, reading books drowsily or chatting, just winding down after the pressure of the exams.
“I wish Quidditch season was still on,” Ginny said sleepily, fingers scritching at Harry’s scalp.
“We won anyway,” he smiled up through her curtain of long hair, head pillowed in her lap.
“Yeah. But I wish we could play some more,” she sighed, then closed her eyes in contentment as a breeze blew past.
Harry climbed to his feet.
“Harry! You don’t have to.”
“You want to play,” he grinned, and disappeared to confer with the group of students under the neighbouring tree.
They turned out to be Slytherins, so Harry only managed to rustle up enough players for a game of two-a-team; a Seeker and a Beater on each team. (Ron and Hermione were off somewhere; snogging passionately, as Ginny and Harry decided privately, to much quiet laughter).
Terry Boot and Draco Malfoy were those two, unfortunately.
She’d sat there with her back against the tree, watching Harry walk over to them. She could see him strain to be polite.
Then two blond heads had looked up, looked over at Ginny, where Harry was gesturing, and agreed at once. The rest of the Slytherins jeered, immediately offering to referee and oversee the match.
Competition had been written in the lines of their bodies as they took up the offer, but hey, Harry and Ginny made a good team.
They Accio-ed their brooms, smooth polished wood flying into their grasps, before going to the Quidditch locker rooms and getting out their kits and the practice Snitch and the Bludger.
The rules of two-a-team were very simple, really. The Beaters would compete to manipulate the single Bludger, while the Seekers would try to find the Snitch. The first one to the Snitch, won.
It was quite a common game among Wizarding children, since four players were so much easier to find than the usual full complement.
They let the balls go, waiting the usual minute to allow the Snitch ample time to fly off, before kicking off.
Draco and Harry were Seekers, of course, while Ginny and Boot were the Beaters.
She hefted the bat in her hand; it seemed a long time since she played and she was suddenly overwhelmingly happy.
She zoomed up towards the Bludger, took aim, hit it as hard as she could.
It zoomed toward Malfoy, missing him by an inch when he was forced to do an ungainly wriggle to avoid it.
He glared, Harry grinned, Boot smirked, and the game got on in earnest.
They soon settled into a routine; Ginny would aim the Bludger towards Malfoy, Boot would block it and swing it toward Harry, and Ginny would intercept it and aim it at Malfoy again.
Her arms had just begun to tire when Harry swung into a vertical climb, aiming for something high up.
Draco threw one panicked look at Ginny before nudging his broom up, bending up over his broom to go as fast as possible.
Draco had just begun to catch up when Harry turned into a dive.
Ginny let go of the Snitch she’d caught in her glove just before Harry had feinted, allowing it to flutter in front of her before she smacked it toward Harry.
He caught it neatly in his glove as Malfoy only just managed to turn into a dive.
Then Ginny zoomed up to Harry, laughing, and they hugged each other hard, the Snitch clutched between her left hand and his right, clasped tightly together.
The audience below, now swelled to include Dumbledore, McGonagall, and many students from all four houses, whooped or boo-ed in delight.
Draco frowned at Ginny and Harry as they laughed their way up the steps, now joined by Colin, Ron and Hermione, but Ginny’s back was turned and she didn’t notice.
“Colin,” Ginny began, munching her way through the chocolate truffle laid out in front of her, “I’ve got something I want to ask you about.”
“It’s not Malfoy, is it? Because a week ago in the library the sexual tension was so thick you could have cut it with a… er…”
He trailed off, noticing that Ginny’d started to raise the very implement he was about to mention.
“No, it’s not about that. Honestly, Colin!” she brought the knife down through the cake rather viciously.
He shrugged.
“It’s Harry.”
“Ach, well if it’s not one it’s the other.”
“Shut up. Well, I… I don’t really feel as attracted to him as I do to Draco.”
She winced.
“Did, I mean. Slip of the tongue.”
“That’s perfectly understandable right? They’re both perfectly shaggable blokes; maybe Draco’s just more your type.”
Ginny snorted at that description. The house elves, interrupted in their nightly activities by Ginny and Colin’s kitchen raid, immediately rushed forward with water.
“Yeah but… Look, I can just tell, it’s not that. The thing I was going to ask you, is… well, do you think I should break it off?”
“The alternative being?”
She shrugged.
“There isn’t really another choice, is there? I think you should just do it. For both your sakes.”
“But he’s Harry!”
“Still.”
“But I do love him.”
“But not like you love Draco,” Colin commented shrewdly.
She opened her mouth to protest, then sighed and turned her attention to the walnut brownies.
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