A Slippery Sort of Love
Harry and Ginny From Books 4-7
He's not quite sure when his feelings for his best mate's sister start to change. He thinks it's somewhere around the time when she stopped being the red-haired girl and became Ginny. But the change creeps up on him, slowly and innocently at first- she talks around him and he laughs at her jokes, plays two-a-side Quidditch with her in the orchard. She's Ron's sister, but she's also a great Chaser and has the same dark sense of humor as Harry and is an avid fan of Honeydukes' Finest Dark Chocolate. She's also Ginny. And so it starts, on a light sort of ground at first.
She's not sure when at first, she sees Harry differently. Maybe a little after the Yule Ball. She went with Neville to the ball and had the best time of her life. She's only a little bit regretful that she can't go with Harry, but she knows Neville better than Harry, anyway, and Harry only sits there moping the whole time. It is only at the third task that she thinks about Harry, again, wondering is Harry scared? And then she is surprised, because she had always thought about the Boy-Who-Lived as Harry Potter. Never just -Harry. She brushes the thought away and goes to write to Michael Corner, the handsome dark boy who smiled at her in Potions all year, and forgets all about Harry. But the thought is there, in the little dark corner of her mind.
It is his fifth year, and amid all the turmoil and worry there are only a few thoughts of Ginny, as he is mostly occupied with Cho. She joins Dumbledore's Army and somewhere in the back of her mind he notices her fighting spirit. So the year passes, with smiles and chocolate in the library on Easter. But then Mr. Weasley is attacked, and it could be his fault and he can't face any of them right now, because he could be possessed and a danger to them all. He forgets about the little first year, that small girl who fought off Voldemort for almost a year and knows all about what it's like to be possessed, until she comes knocking on his door after the fifth day of hiding, and he realizes her name was Ginny Weasely and she's stronger than he thought. So he leans on her and smiles and he starts to slip, without knowing it.
She's in her fourth year, almost fifteen, and joins the DA. Harry is a wonderful teacher and she learns loads. Hermione asks her to cheer Harry up- he's in an awful mood- and so she tries, offering laughter and chocolate and abuse towards Umbridge. The year is going fine until Professor McGonagall wakes her up in the middle of the night and inform her that her father's been hurt. He isn't dead- thank God- but Harry thinks it's his fault, that he's possessed, and hides in his room. She is angry at him for a full five days, after realizing that he had simply forgotten. He had forgotten that scared little girl completely, and she knows he has been through so much but he had forgotten. She is angry until she realizes Harry is just as scared as she was, so she tells him in no uncertain terms that he's not possessed by Voldemort. He grins wearily at her and she feels a little glint of happiness inside, and she hopes that whatever has just happened between them has helped him understand her more. And maybe she knows it, and maybe she pretends not to, but she's slipping, just a little bit.
Sirius is dead and Harry is alone, and he goes back to school for his sixth year. He barely talks to Cho- she's always weepy around him, anyway- and soon he doesn't even notice her at all. The one thing he does notice, however, is Ginny- she's somehow never there but always there, flashing that infectious bright smile. When she brushes his arm at the dinner table- she's taken to sitting with them at breakfast- he is intensely aware of it, and when she accidentally bumps into him in the hallway their hands touch picking up the books, and he is aware of how soft they are, and wonders what it would be like to hold Ginny's hand. It is not until he finds her kissing Dean that the strange emotion he feels around Ginny finally comes into focus, sharp and clear, but he puts it aside and tries to forget the flowery scent in his Amortenia. He struggles to control his emotions, but he is slipping and sliding into love, quicker than he ever imagined.
Ginny is so conscious of Harry she could count his movements- he is always near her, making excuses to help her with DADA or to ask her about a birthday gift for Ron. He laughs and smiles and their gazes hold for a moment longer than normal whenever they meet, and Ginny is completely torn apart, because although she might be fighting with Dean, they're still together. Still, her imagination wanders sometimes, to a place where she is with Harry instead of Dean. She dismisses such thoughts firmly- she stopped the silly girlish crush a long time ago, and besides Harry isn't interested in her. Hermione firmly declares both items a lie, and Hermione is always right, but Ginny won't lose Harry's friendship to a stupid crush, so she says nothing, just digs her fingers in tight and pretends nothing has changed. But she will slip and fall, soon- or maybe she already did, years ago.
She is watching the game when Harry is struck by that idiot McLaggen, and someone declares her reserve Seeker as he is carried away on a stretcher. She goes into the game eagerly, but still unsure, until she lifts off the ground as has that familiar sense that everything will be all right that so often accompanies her on her Striker 1005. She watches the ball, fast and quick, and when she sees the flash of gold she dives for it and Gryffindor wins, three-hundred-sixty to a hundred and fifteen. And when Ginny whoops with happiness, the fluttering golden ball clutched in her hands, it is not Dean's proud face she thinks of but Harry's, lit up with a grin, and she is falling, falling, falling.
Gryffindor has won, and Harry feels happy for the first time in ages. And there is Ginny, the cause of so much of this happiness, and there is a hard, blazing look in her eyes and before he knows it they're kissing, because all there is Ginny, and her soft lips and the scent of her hair and he knows that he's gone, that he's slipped and slid and tumbled headfirst into love.
Their first kiss isn't like she imagined, as a foolish little eleven-year-old. Harry hasn't swept in and saved her from a raging dragon. He hasn't professed his undying love at the sight of her. No, she's won a Quidditch final, and it's taken him years to come to his senses. But he has and it's better than her childish imaginings because it's real and because she knows Harry now, knows that he likes treacle tart and flying and she knows that she's in love, and it's too fast and too far to stop now.
It's been over a year since that kiss and now it seems worlds away, as has the one Ginny gave him on his birthday. Instead she's dueling someone and he has to go die and it seems unfair that right as they slid into love, he's wrenched away from it. But someone has to defeat Voldemort, so he continues walking to where he is going to die, and Ginny is looking straight at him, even though he's wrapped in the Cloak, and she knows what he's going to do, he is sure of it, and the last thing he thinks of before Voldemort's spell hits him is Ginny.
The moment is crisp, clear, sharply defined around the edges, but blurry in the middle. There is that horrible cruel voice, and for a second she thinks it's another nightmare because there is Harry, limp in Hagrid's arms, as he appears in her dreams. She hears a scream- Hermione- then a yell of "NO!" from Ron, and dimly, as if in a fog, she hears her own voice shouting "Harry- Harry-" because he is dead and gone and those emerald eyes will never open again, and she feels like sinking to the floor. It is only the grip of her mother's hand in hers that keeps her standing, and rage fills her, because she has fallen in love and now she has tumbled into death and the fury at Harry's loss consumes her whole spirit. She wants to kill, to inflict on someone the pain they have inflicted on her, because her heart actually hurts and she will never forgive any of them for what they have done to her and Harry and Fred.
Bellatrix Lestrange aims a curse at Ginny, and Harry watches, frozen, as the green jet of light whizzes past her by a hair. For a second, he feels as if his heart stops in his chest and the world is cold because Ginny can't die, she can't. She's what he's fighting for, Ginny, and Bellatrix almost killed her. His anger is sharp and ice-cold and he is turning towards Bellatrix. This is what he was afraid of, in the end- that if it was a choice between saving Ginny and killing Voldemort there wouldn't even be a choice. He is ready to kill, to strike Bellatrix down, when suddenly Ginny fills his head and he imagines her voice, saying I'd rather die than let Voldemort live. It is the hardest thing he has ever done, and he wouldn't even be able to do it if it wasn't for Mrs. Weasley cutting in. All the same, there is a shadow in his heart and he hates himself because he has left Ginny once again.
He has lived, and it's over, and there is finally time in which to talk, and he nervously approaches her as she sits alone in the crumbling ruin of the Astronomy tower. She gives him a little half-smile as he approaches and he opens his mouth and is distracted by Ginny kissing him as she's never kissed him before and it is fiery oblivion. If he was falling before, this must be floating, because he feels as if he could touch the stars. He would, in fact, but really. Kissing Ginny is so much better.
A/N: Please review? I have a ton like these sitting away in storage, and if anyone likes these I'll post more.