A/N: So sorry for the long wait on this chapter! Please, please don't forget to review. I can't tell you how much it keeps me going!

You can follow me on tumblr if you'd like as alrightginger! I tend to post snippets, answer questions, and will scream back at you if you scream at me.

Chapter Seven

Or

Higher Now Than Ever Before

Day Seven:

It was nearly one in the morning when Harriet and George arrived back to the Dursleys, careful to make sure that her relatives were tucked away in their bedrooms, and the sound of their snores filling the air. Harry hadn't expected them to lay awake concerned over their niece who never came back home, but she didn't want them to interrupt what was certainly turning out to be a heated snog fest that was heading to her bedroom.

She was certain her aunt would have more than a few words to say about that if she were awake.

It had started with a look.

Something as simple as Harriet's emerald eyes finding George's hazel and lingering as she combed her fingers through her curly mass of tangled hair as they walked back to the Dursleys. From there it progressed into a grin. Broad and mischievous was George. Somehow lopsided and face splitting at once. Soft and shy from Harry as it tugged at the corners of her mouth, her teeth finding her bottom lip to stop it from nearly splitting her face.

The ending, the catalyst, took place with the simple act of George doing something as tender as placing two fingers underneath her chin, tilting it upwards, and kissing her soft enough for Harry to feel flickering flames underneath her skin.

And then suddenly she didn't want to be flickering or soft. She wanted to be fierce and aflame. She wanted to burn in her desire for him, taking everything down with her in the process.

Which is how she found herself with her back slammed against her aunt and uncle's door, fumbling to unlock the handle as George's lips trailed lower to the jutting of her collarbone that was exposed, causing her to hiss and her back to arch.

Her whole body was aching by the time she managed to get the door open, nearly toppling over, and the backs of her heels finding the stairs, climbing up them backwards in a way that wasn't quite as graceful as Ginger Rogers as she stumbled. She would have nearly fallen if it weren't for the hand snaked tightly around her waist.

So secure around her that she felt as if she would never hit solid ground.

Kissing George Weasley was like a baptism. As though she had submerged herself in him, falling and sinking like that day in the pool until he brought her up for air, giving her his breath and filling her lungs. As though she were standing in the middle of some sort of holy ground, and Harriet herself stood before him as a sacrifice, willing to give him everything she had for the breath that left his lips and became hers.

"You're gorgeous," he whispered, his lips never fully leaving hers and catching her whimper and turning it into a groan. "Fucking gorgeous."

Time seemed to have trickled, moving forward so quickly that Harry didn't notice that they had reached her bedroom until moonlight spilled over them from her open window; catching the red of George's hair and making it look softer, rather like a sunset instead of it's normal fiery hues. Fists clenching into the material of his shirt, she took a step back to look at him. His eyes were darkened, making it impossible to spot the golden bits in his hazel eyes, but Harry felt rather golden herself with the way he was looking at her.

As though he were the seeker and she was his snitch.

Her heart was certainly fluttering as rapidly as a the wings of a snitch as his fingers grazed her waist slightly and, for once in her life, she came willingly. Allowing herself to be caught.

His hands tightened on her hips, and whether it was to steady her or keep her secured and grounded right in front of him, she wasn't sure, but she felt as though she would float away if not for it.

As though he was her only achor.

"Remember back at the pool when you promised not to let me go?" She stepped slowly away from him, the bottoms of her bare feet creaking softly across the floorboards as she backed towards her unmade bed. She grabbed him by the hand, lacing her fingers through his as she led him. He followed willingly. "I need you to make me the same sort of promise right now."

His feet followed hers in a perfect rhythm until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. "To not let you go?"

"To not let me go until I'm ready."

"How will I know that you'll come back to me? If I do let you go, that is."

"Well there's the fun," she said, grinning. "If I don't come back, you'll get to catch me."

"Hmm," he hummed. "I've chased after you for this long. I suppose I could go for a few more rounds."

She looked up at him, bouncing almost nervously on the balls of her feet, and tilting her head slightly.

"You've given me so much these past few days," she said quietly. "More than I could have ever asked for. And I was just - well, I wanted to give you something in return. Something I can't give to anyone else. Something I don't want to give to anyone else."

It was dark, but there, in the moon lit bedroom, she was certain she saw George swallow nervously, watching the bobbing of his Adam's apple with curious eyes and wondering what it would be like to place her lips on it. To kiss every inch of him, every freckle, every line that curved upwards in his features when he smiled would surely be an adventure unlike one she'd ever experienced.

"Are you - are you sure?"

She nodded, feeling impossibly brave and incredibly like a girl in the beginning stages of love. Crazy, foolish, a bit stupid.

"Though," she said, "I've never actually done anything before."

"We don't have to do anything right now," he said. He was honest and his voice made her eyes flutter momentarily. "Not if you're not ready."

"I am," she assured him, looking at him through her lashes. "I'm perfectly ready. After all, my instincts have never failed me before. Though they've led me some dangerous places." She paused before continuing. Not really sure if this was the proper time to ask something of this nature, but needing to know nonetheless. "Have you ever…"

"Once," he finished for her when she trailed off lamely. "Just once before."

"With Katie?" Her voice held no malice, no accusation. Just a simple question that needed an answer.

"Yes," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "It was before I knew I liked you. Before I even knew I had a chance. Are you disappointed?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not at all."

"I wished it had been you though." He paused, looking rather shy. " But now that I've got you here, I'm not quite sure how to start."

"Well, I'd think I'd start by placing a kiss on your jawline," she said, raising up on her bare tiptoes to kiss the freckle scattered skin, feeling his breath hitch as her lips lingered, drifting towards his ear. "Then I'd take my hands just like this," she said, sliding her still wrinkled fingers under the material of his shirt, feeling the tightness of his skin from underneath as she drug her nails upwards towards his chest, "and I'd stop just here to feel the beating of your heart."

His skin had gotten hot, just as her own had moments ago, and she had to wonder - there as she trailed kisses down his arched neck, stopping at his Adam's apple as she had promised herself - if she had engulfed him in her flames. He was positively on fire, but Harriet's hand remained steady on his chest, being made of fire herself and able to withstand it, and feeling the rapid rhythm of George's heart fluttering against her fingertips.

If she curled her hand just so, she could reach in and grab it with the way he was melting under her touch. Though she suspected he would hand it right over if she simply asked.

"What would you do next?" His voice sounded a bit raspy. Almost pained. And it sent a thrill down Harriet's spine to know that she was the one driving him towards insanity.

"Next," she said, lifting his shirt slowly, "I'd get rid of this."

She had never undressed a man before, her hands trembling as she tugged the cotton material over his head, but finding that they grew steady as she successfully watched it hit the floor.

This was perhaps the bravest thing she had ever attempted, she thought.

"I was never too fond of that shirt anyway," he said, making her laugh.

He was incredibly fit and, though she had just spent a good portion of the night swimming with him in nothing but his boxers, she still found herself admiring him, giving into the temptation to allow her hands to drift towards his biceps. She hadn't noticed the way a boy - a man - was shaped and molded before him. The way muscles could sculpt a person. Not properly at least.

"Your move," she said, leaning in so that their lips were barely brushing, his head tilted to the side and his lips parted ever so slightly so that her words bounced against them.

It was a game unlike any she had ever played before with rules that seemed to be made up as they went along. A kiss here, a touch there. See who could burn the other with their fire. She had played her move first, and George, who was a fast learner, closed the small gap between them, catching his name in his own mouth and trailed his fingers up her ribcage, past the curve of her breast and hooked two fingers underneath the strap of her sundress that rested on her shoulder.

Wordlessly, he tugged it downward, the elastic stretching easily so that Harriet was able to slip her arm out of it, the other following suit as George bunched the dress down her torso, exposing her still slightly soaked bra, stopping at her ribcage where it fell to the ground on its own accord. His hands resting underneath the wire of her bra, his fingers broad and spread out, gripped her almost roughly, pulling her in impossibly closer so that her back arched, his calloused thumbs sliding along the prickling of her skin.

A million kisses seemed to pass between them. All hungry and fierce. All puffs of shallow breath and teeth against bottom lips. All seemingly the first and treated like the last.

And there, in the passing of breathes between their tightly pressed lips rested everything good in a world than had often dealt Harriet nothing but cruelties.

A world of possibilities were between their lips, and she could die happily by simply kissing George Weasley. Possibly produce a patronus for the rest of her seemingly short life on just this memory alone. And yet a more selfish, primal part of her wanted more. Wanted more than just good within this moment. Wanting to take the happiest she had ever felt and drag it towards the edge of madness. For weren't happiness and madness meant to go together. She could feel it, there in her core. That aching, burning sensation. The source of her fire laying just between her legs where no one else had ever been.

A step forward was all in took for George to push her over the that edge, allowing her back to hit the mattress, and arching as he slid a hand underneath to lift her further up, never once taking his lips from her own. Her hips tilted upwards into his during their movement, a thrill shivering down her spine at the stiffness that she was met with along with the groan that left his mouth and vibrated into her own.

"God dammit, Potter," he hissed, pressing his hips back down against hers.

Every touch, every movement was an experiment. An exploration of the other. Hips tilting to see how they molded together. Lips grazing to see what each other's skin tasted like. Hands brushing jawlines, shoulders, thighs.

"My heart is pounding," she said, each beat reaffirming that she was alive and within this moment.

It was so loud, thundering in her ears like a drum, that she wondered how he could not hear it.

How he couldn't possibly be deaf from it.

As if to prove her point - as if to to make him every bit as mad as her - she unhooked her bra, tossing it carelessly off the side of the bed before grabbing the hand cupping her face, and placing it over her left breast. Feeling it squeeze her with more confidence than it held just hours before. Feeling the brushing of Quidditch calloused thumb over hardened nipple.

"God, Potter," he groaned. His voice seemed to be lodged somewhere in his throat. Deep and low as it was. "You weren't kidding, were you?"

"I like it when you call me Potter," she said, though her voice sounded like a whine to her own ears.

"I like you," he said, making her heart flutter. "I like you so, so much."

It wasn't a great confession of love.

Nowhere near as poetic or eloquent as the words in her mother's old books.

But in his words there was something like a promise. Something that told her it was okay to let go. To jump without looking. To feel. At least just this once.

"Are you certain?" he whispered, his lips hovering just above hers. She nodded, her eyes rolled back in her head, not trusting herself to speak, and then felt his thumbs hitch onto her knickers. Dragging them downward. Leaving her completely bare before him in a way that was far more symbolic than the day she had dropped her towel to her feet. Felt him discard of his bottoms, and the prodding at the warmth between her legs. Felt the pounding of her heart all over and realized it was joined by his own. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She believed him.

And then she let go.