Chapter 8: Unguarded

Harry couldn't help but admire the courage Ginny showed in tearing her eyes from the floor to look at him directly in the eyes, waiting for him to continue.

He fought the urge to smooth out the shadows on her face as he softly said, "I saw this spunky and adorable bundle of fleece with flowing red tresses, sneak into Ron's room just before midnight. She hesitated for a tiny moment at the door, but once determined, walked boldly to my bedside, sat down stealthily on her knees and gave a soft kiss on my scar and caressed my head by running her soft fingers through my hair a couple of times."

Ginny's eyes became misty as Harry described to her in painstaking detail, the most emotional event of her young life. It had taken enormous courage on her part to take those few steps from the door to Harry's bedside, and reach out to realize her dream of hugging Harry, wishing away all the troubles his young life had seen. She knew Harry would never realize that the empathy in that one kiss was enough to cure an army of battered souls.

"And this kissing.. ahmm ... ritual repeated every year for the next three years, the hesitation fading away each progressive year until the beginning of my sixteenth birthday when the said red head did not stop at merely pecking on my scar innocently. This time she thoroughly ravaged me and gave me a smacking toe curling kiss on my lips." Harry was thoroughly enjoying the sight of a profusely blushing Ginny as he kept adding more colours to the picture.

"Harry it was nothing like ravaging...", Ginny immediately glared at him for suggestively turning her innocent kiss into a blatant seduction scene.

"And gave the lamest excuse one could give for snogging a bloke one fancied in a nightdress revealing tons of enticing freckles…" Harry continued relentlessly.

"That kiss would hardly qualify as snogging, Harry… and my…" Ginny pleaded but to no avail.

"I am sorry Harry. I want my first kiss to be yours. I know Dean will kiss me at the Christmas Ball this year and I don't want him to be my first. I am sorry for stealing this kiss from you. I hope you will not mind," Harry mimicked in a girly voice.

Ginny turned red at Harry's crude imitation of her heartfelt little speech; she gave him one of her angry stares.

"Do you know how impossible it was for me to see you with Dean after the day I learned about this yearly tradition of yours … especially after seeing those freckles all over your body?" Harry egged on devilishly.

"Harry! For your information I really like that night dress and it would have been so un-sexy to get my first kiss bundled up in fleece!"

"Oh yeah! I like it too. But wouldn't it be more sexy if you didn't bother with the night dress at all."

"HARRY!"

"All right, maybe not… or later, but Gin, there surely was no fun in realizing that I had already lost the one thing that I most wanted before I even knew it was mine to take."

There was shadow of seriousness on Harry's face.

"There was a the painful realization of what I had wasted away unknowingly, and there was no hope of a second chance."

Despite her own embarrassment, Ginny blanched as Harry narrated the tough undoing of his innermost demons.

"I broke up with Cho the very same day I performed the spell, and waited and waited for that one stroke of luck which would make you break up with Dean and give me my second chance. But I just couldn't get away from those dreams I had about being lost in the flowery fragrance of your hair falling on my face and that blasted amortentia worsened the matters by sealing my fate by proving to me that I was inherently attracted to you in real life."

"But you still waited for a month, after Dean and I broke up, to let me know how you felt!"

"Because I wasn't sure if you held the same feelings for me as you did when you last kissed me on my birthday."

"Generally speaking people don't need to know these things beforehand, Harry. Everyone takes a chance…. and what was your plan to find out about my feelings?"

"The grand plan was to wait for another year until my next birthday and wait for that yearly kiss…err…ritual …."

"Harry! You can't have seriously considered that!"

"I did. I had no other option. I was too scared of rejection to come right out and ask you out without knowing for sure about your feelings."

"So then what changed today? Why did you kiss me like you did, in front of the whole Gryffindor House, without knowing how I felt about you?

"Ah, a tiny correction there; I did know how you felt about me."

Ginny's eyes grew wide in surprise but the surprise was replaced by a mild suspicion that Harry was fibbing to get her waylaid.

"How? When?"

"The moment you came running at me with that hard, blazing look on your face..."

"I don't understand…"

"I saw a promising glimpse in your eyes…"

"A glimpse!"

"And confirmed it with Legilimens."

Ginny gasped.

"WHAT?"

"Yes, I can do Legilimency errquite proficiently now – which means that when you hugged me after the match with that hard blazing look, I knew exactly how you felt for me deep in your heart."

Ginny was too shocked to react. Her mind was in deep freeze subconsciously going over the events of the entire evening.

"Say something."

Ginny merely shook her head and kept blinking.

No wonder he was behaving like a cocky bastard the whole evening.

"Gin, I am sorry. I should have not done Legilimens on you and I never pre-meditated about doing it on you even though I learned it more than a week ago."

"Then why did you…?" Ginny croaked.

"It just happened involuntarily. I didn't even realize I was doing it… and the next moment I was kissing you and you were kissing me back and…"

"Bloody hell Harry! That's just not fair."

"Don't be so upset, Gin. I couldn't help it. You invaded my dreams day and night and I agonized miserably for you all those lonely nights in this very chamber…I was going crazy with my dreams about your hair. Every time you sat next to me or even passed me by, my senses were captivated by the fragrance of these very red and gold tresses. And every time I saw your freckle…"

"The deuce…don't…did you stop doing it or you are still doing it?"

Dang! She had hit the nail right on the head.

"Err…I don't even need to do it now. It has become kind of involuntary and … persistent."

"So then you do know that I am going to murder you in this next instant…"

"And plead for involuntary manslaughter…"

"Harry!"

"And that you don't care if you don't get to bear the cocky bastard's children – the tiny adorable green-eyed and redheaded Potters…"

"Harry! Stop it!"

"I can't!"

Ginny continued to give him the death glare.

"Gin, at least I owned it up. That's more than what you can say for yourself." Harry's smile was a far cry from any remorse that Ginny might have expected to see after a confession as grave as his.

Ginny was looking at him with guarded emotions although it was not too effective towards the cause.

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