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tatirena · 2 years

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The ink fell over the parchment. Ginny looked at the black dot with a frown before resting the quill. Words hadn’t come for the last ten minutes and she doubted she would feel inspiration any time soon to write back the letter.

And if there was something that Ginny hated was doing things because she was supposed to. She would write to Dean when she felt like it.

But without the letter to distract her, there wasn’t anything else. Not for the first time that week, she wished summer would be over already; at least at Hogwarts she would have things to distract her, and she would be far away from prying eyes—

“There you are,” a voice said, and she raised her head to meet Harry. He was grinning at her; his black hair was windswept as if he had just gone down from his broomstick—which he had, she realised, noticing the Firebolt that Harry let rest against the tree trunk. She couldn’t help but think that Harry should fly more; there was something charming in the way he looked afterwards, and he shone as if he were bringing all the warmth from the sun with him. Or, at least, the scent of his cologne when he sat next to her on the ground. “Not fancy flying today?”

Ginny shrugged.

“Hermione wasn’t up to it.”

“She never is.”

“I wasn’t either.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sick?” She shook her head, and Harry let out a breath, as if he had been truly concerned about her health; Ginny almost smiled with it. “Then—” He lifted his hands as if to get away from her. “There is only one explanation for that. You are not Ginny.”

The corner of her lips trembled. “Is that so?”

“I have everything figured out. Polyjuice Potion.”

“Oh, no, nobody grabbed any strand of my hair.”

“They might have taken while you were distracted—you lose a lot of hair, did you know that?”

“I do not!”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry to break this to you, but—” He jerked forward, his hand running through the extension of her hair, fingertips brushing her face; she couldn’t help the goosebumps that arose on her skin, jumping to get away from him.

“Oh, sorry.” He looked suddenly embarrassed. “I just—look, hair?”

It came out more as a question than anything. Ginny looked down to see Harry was holding a few strands of her hair that had fallen from her head indeed. Her skin still felt too raw, but she forced herself to ignore this.

“Fine, maybe someone could have taken my hair,” she said placatingly. Harry breathed out evenly now, clearly glad that she wasn’t mad with him. “I guess you need to ask me the security question we previously agreed upon for situations like this.”

“Oh, that question,” Harry agreed, nodding with a fake somberness that almost made her laugh. “I remember the question, of course.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Oh, right—what’s your signature spell?”

“That’s a terrible question. Draco Malfoy could answer you this question, trust me.”

Harry smirked for a moment, as if imagining that scene. “Fair enough. Wait, let me think—at least there isn’t a pet secret name—”

“What—oh, no.” She threw him a sympathetic glance. “You heard Mum’s security question from Dad?”

Harry gulped. “Yeah, and I would trade anything in the world to forget it.”

“You and I, Harry, you and I.”

He smirked suddenly. “No fun of pet names, are you? Dean never called you Gin-Gin?”

“Only if he didn’t want a girlfriend anymore,” she snorted, eyes narrowed, which only made his smirk increase. “Ginny is all I can accept.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Ginny is already your name, that doesn’t count.”

Ginny sighed heavily. “No, it’s not, prat.”

“What is it then?”

“Ugh. It’s Ginevra.”

“Ginevra,” he repeated, the word sounding foreign in his voice as it always did when someone would say it aloud. “Ginevra,” he tried again, a smile curving up his lips now.

Annoyance flooded her. “I need to remind you I have a signature spell—”

Harry raised his hands in defence. “I wasn’t making fun of you! It’s—it’s nice, actually.”

“No, it’s not,” insisted Ginny. Harry was frowning now, not looking as if he agreed with her. “You still owe me a security question, come on.”

He mouthed her name once again, smiled once again, but relented. “Er—what did Fred and George send you before you started Hogwarts?”

She laughed with the memory. “A toilet seat. Mum confiscated it, though.”

“Madam Pomfrey confiscated mine, they tried sending me one also.”

“Repeating the same idea? Tsch tsch.”

Harry was still smiling; it was a nice smile, carefree and easy, the kind he has most favoured ever since coming to the Burrow. If anyone would ask her, Ginny would sincerely say that Harry was made to smile like that, without any gloomy cloud over his head.

If he had smiled in her presence like this, a few years ago, she’d have taken it as a sign of fate, certain that Harry was finally starting to reciprocate her feelings, and then—then Ginny would have done nothing, because she would blush and her ability to talk would be gone.

She sighed. She had moved on, and if Harry’s smile was a sign of anything, it was of how great they worked as friends.

“Ginny?”

She glanced back at him. The concern was back at Harry’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but notice how more attentive he was, especially to her; last year she had talked him down when he’d forgotten about her possession by Voldemort, unable to look past his own problems. In a way, Harry had really matured since then.

“What’s wrong?”

If they were friends — and they were, Ginny told herself sternly, just friends and she was glad about this, she was —, she knew like she ought to be honest with him.

“I’ve been feeling a little down since the letters from Hogwarts came,” she admitted, biting her lip.

“The booklist annoyed you?” he tried, looking at her to gather her reaction. Ginny gave him a small smile.

“No, not exactly. I’m just… a little disappointed, I guess.”

“Then—” He glanced at his broomstick, suddenly flustered. “You wanted to be Quidditch captain?”

Mortification filled her. “No, I mean, yes, someday, not—I knew you would be the captain, of course, it was you or Katie, there was no way it could be Kirke or Sloper, and Angelina and Alicia have graduated so the only reasonable choice was—”

“Ginny?”

She pressed her mouth shut for a moment. “I’m babbling, right?”

He nodded somberly. Ginny fought an urge to hide her face between her hands.

“Anyway, no quarrels about captainship, you truly deserve it.”

Harry frowned. “I didn’t even play last year.”

“You did, you won a match, and I told you that your ban would lift as soon as Umbridge was out.”

He tried for a smile. “I guess Professor McGonagall doesn’t care for Umbridge’s decrees.”

“No,” she agreed, but the mention to Professor McGonagall sent that doubt through her anyway. Harry probably saw in her face, for he sat closer, watching her intensely. He was really close, his pinky finger touching hers; it was only a brush, not really as if he was aiming to hold her hand, but Ginny felt warmth spreading through her cheeks anyway, and she found herself blurting out: “I’m upset over not being made a prefect.”

“Oh.”

He straightened his back, pushing himself a bit far from her; Ginny let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

“You wanted to be a prefect?”

“That’s it—no. Fred and George would tease me non-stop, it seems a bit boring from what I’ve seen from Percy and Ron, and I swear I can deal with Mum’s obvious disappointment, but also—Bill was one, so prefects can be cool, right? And I may get in a little trouble because of my temper, sure, and I’m not a perfect model student like Hermione, but then—”

“Then neither Ron nor Hermione have a clean record and yet they were both made prefects,” Harry finished for her with a strange smile.

“Yeah,” she agreed, a little baffled. “How did you know?”

“It’s what I thought last year,” admitted Harry. “I never knew whether I wanted to be prefect or not—never really thought about it—until I saw the letter and there was no badge for me.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“It was one of the few things I didn’t yell about last year.” His attempt at self-depreciation was met with a hard unimpressed stare by Ginny. Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t be a good prefect. I usually have… other things in mind."

"So you are okay with it now?"

"Yeah." Harry nodded, watching something she couldn’t. “It helped to find out that my father wasn’t one.”

“Well, Dad wasn’t either.” Ginny bit her lip for a moment, hesitating for a heartbeat. “From what Sirius told us, I got the idea that he and your father were like Fred and George.”

“That’s a good definition.”

She glanced at him; Harry looked wistful, but not unwilling to discuss the subject as he always seemed to be when Hermione mentioned Sirius around him.

“Pranks, detentions and just making everyone laugh?”

“A little bit, though I saw… I heard they could get a bit carried away sometimes. But they got over it, they became… better people.”

“So there is hope for Fred and George also?” she teased.

“They are not that bad.” Harry looked at his Firebolt for a moment, and Ginny suddenly remembered it had been Sirius who had gifted it to Harry. “He was a Quidditch player also. My dad, I mean. Sirius—Sirius once said I fly as well as my father did.”

“Well, Sirius always said you look just like him.” She smiled, waiting until Harry returned it. “Was he a Seeker also?”

“I—I know he played with a Snitch, but no, I never… I never asked—”

“That’s okay,” said Ginny reassuringly. “When we get back to school, we can search through the records.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Hermione we are planning to go to the library before school has ever started.”

Harry joined her conspiracy. “Only if you don’t tell Ron, he would never forgive me.”

Ginny laughed heartily. Harry’s eyes sparked as he watched her reaction, his fingers twitching as if he were refraining a movement.

“I think my dad would have liked to meet you,” he said, voice warm, and then there was a flush in his cheeks. “Not just you, I mean, Ron and Hermione, and certainly Fred and George.”

“They would be best pals,” agreed Ginny. “Mum might not approve, though.”

“She seems to be okay with the twins now.” He bit his lips. “Between us, they are the kind of example I wanna follow.”

“Fancy opening a joke shop?”

Harry laughed. “Maybe not, but they are doing what they love, right? They didn’t care about grades or badges at Hogwarts, and I guess it doesn’t really matter afterwards.”

“Hmmm.” She thought about it for a moment, strangely aware that Harry was watching her. “I’d rather be the girl sending toilet seats than forbidding others from doing it.”

He grinned, satisfied. “You and I both.”

They fell in silence then, but Ginny thought it was a nice silence then. For some reason, when she was with Harry, there never seemed to be any tension in the air, nothing heavy between them.

She let her gaze wander to the garden, enjoying the peacefulness of that summer day, and regretted ever wishing that the summer would end sooner.

“Do you wanna fly?” she asked.

Harry nodded eagerly. “Always.”

“Good. You better watch out. I might not want to be a prefect — but I'm setting my goals to steal your Captain badge next year."

Harry winked at her. “I will try my best."

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