A/N: A few things. First, i know this chapter is much shorter compared to others, but I felt like it added more to the telling of the story by having this moment of just the two of them. The next few chapters are going to be heavily filled with content and conflict and so this is serving as sort of an interlude.
Also, this story has been nominated for the Shrieking Shack Society's honorary Marauder award. I'm over the moon about it, and if you would like to vote for LIAF you can find the link on my tumblr (alrightginger over there too). If you can find it, send me an ask to reblog it because I'm aware my tumblr is a mess lol.
And, as always, please review!
Chapter Eight
Or
And Give Him All of My Love
Day Eight:
If Harriet held still long enough - holding her breath and allowing her fingers to settle, tangling themselves in the fiery locks of George's hair - she was nearly certain that she could feel the beating of his heart thumping against her leg in the same rhythmic pattern as her own.
Their pulse points seemingly finding each other and mimicking each other in a natural sort of way.
They were hidden in Petunia's garden, laying underneath the shade of a tree that still did little to protect them from the humidity. The summer sun sitting high in the sky like a Ferris wheel, causing her cheeks to redden from the heat. A drop of sweat ran down her lips and she licked it away, the salty taste lingering slightly, and causing her nose to wrinkle.
But Harriet was happy.
For the first time in her life at the Dursley's home she was irrevocably, incandescently happy.
She felt as though she had been flying since she and George had gotten together, floating since last night, and a million tiny butterflies inside of her stomach fluttered, making her feel as though she was constantly walking on air.
"What are you thinking?" asked George.
He was sprawled out on her lap, lazily draping an arm across her legs, the other supporting his head as he flipped himself around. He was teetering the line that would draw him into sleep if he tripped, and Harry wondered if she should allow him to drift, or, perhaps, draw him back out for a bit of fun.
"Hmm," she hummed, leaning against the tree and looking upwards. The leaves looked nearly scorched, taking the brunt of the heat as they were. There hadn't been a proper rain since she'd been back, and it was looking as though there wouldn't be for some time according to the blaring news report her aunt had on every morning. "Jane is so quiet, so reserved. She never asks for much of anything. She never lets herself fully want anything. I guess I was just thinking about how much I sort of relate to that. Have related to that."
"She wants Mr. Bingley," retorted George, opening his eyes and gazing up at her. "She's just afraid to let herself show it."
The book was laying on the grass next to them, opened and placed face down on the exact page that Harriet had stopped reading aloud to him moments before.
"I suppose you're right."
"I always am," he grinned, a yawn slipping through his lips as he did so. "Besides, we aren't at the end yet. There's loads of time for her to show it."
"No," she agreed, "we aren't at the end just yet. We have miles to go before we're there."
"And plenty of days avoiding your aunt and uncle for reading."
Harry laughed, the sound of it starling a bird perched on her aunt's fence and causing it to flutter away. Even her laugh felt new, she thought. As though it was louder, bolder. Perhaps even brighter. As though it took up space here for once. No longer contained as she herself once was.
"I have to say, I'm rather surprised you're enjoying this book so much," she said, leaning back and stretching. "I didn't think George Weasley would be one for reading, let alone romance novels."
"Oi!" George protested, seeming a bit more away, and sitting upwards so that they were face to face now. He leanedin so she was even further pressed into the bark of the tree and they were nearly nose to nose. She could count his freckles, but instead she settled for crossing her eyes and watching them blur. "I'm plenty romantic, I'll have you know. And besides, the same could be said for you. I've hardly seen you with a book in your hand at Hogwarts. I didn't even know you liked to read, and I drove myself mad last year trying to find the perfect Christmas gift for you."
"Hey! I'll have you know that I loved my new Quidditch gloves. Even if I didn't get to use them for very long afterwards. And, anyway, I've told you," she huffed, feigning annoyance. "These books are needed here. Merlin help me if Peeves discovered them. I'd never get them back."
"I adore that poltergeist," said George, leaning in to press a quick kiss on her lips. "I adore you more though. I'd happily win back your books if something ever happened to them."
"Promise?"
"Of course."
It was easy to kiss him, she thought. There was no more distance between them, not even that of the space of a book, as she encircled her arms around his neck to draw him closer. Breathing him in, giving him all the air in her lungs, filling him up with all of her.
He was an eternity, she mused. Or rather, he was giving her an eternity. The thought of life outside of being the chosen one, a war brewing where she would have to play the end result, and a place in the world where she was - could be - loved.
It was a wonderful thought.
It was a terrifying thought.
And she never let it go further than the corners of her mind.
"I -" The words were there, just on the tip of her tongue, pressed tightly against his own lips, but she swallowed them back down. "I'm so happy."
It wasn't a lie.
Though it wasn't the full truth.
Harriet wondered if there was a space between a truth and a lie. If there were, certainly that's where that thought would be placed.
"Are you still sore?" he asked, a hand gripping gently at her hip, his thumb tenderly rubbing over a mole that he now knew of.
"Not really."
Now that was a lie, and he knew, she could tell, by the curve of his lips against hers. She was still sore. Of course she was still sore. How could she not be? Her very core was tightly knotted with the way they had been last night. Skin to skin, mouth to mouth, heart to heart. But there was a pleasantness in the way that she ached. In a way that she never knew she could ache before, in places that she didn't know she even had.
It was rather thrilling to feel such an ache that didn't affect her heart in a negative sort of way.
In a sort of way that kept it beating, even rapidly so, rather than feeling as though she had been gutted of it.
"Liar," he said, pulling away to place a kiss on the scar that marked her forehead. It was becoming a signature move of his, kissing her scar. And she could hear Ron calling her pathetic in the back of her mind as she swooned. "You can't lie to me, Potter. I've got you all figured out."
He nearly did, she thought. He seemed to know her just as well as maybe even Ron and Hermione. Maybe even better in particular ways as he had demonstrated the night before.
He seemed to know her very skin as though he had spent hours studying it. He knew the things to do to make her whine, to make her moan. He could simply graze his fingertips against her ribs and she would stretch, her back arching. She wanted to go the whole of her life with his fingertips prickling her skin.
"Been watching me, have you?"
"You have no idea."
And Harry probably didn't if she were being perfectly honest. She had been so busy, so entirely focused, on other aspects of her life that she hardly had time to notice anyone watching her. Noticing her. She had to wonder how many passing glances had gone unseen. How many times he had purposely sought her out and she thought nothing of it.
It's hard to see what's in front of you while constantly looking over your shoulder, she thought almost sadly.
"How long?" she asked, not certain she could explain her query any further than those two words.
"I've known for nearly a year now," he said. "But honestly it's been longer than that. I've been watching you for longer than I actually realized I was."
Harriet blinked. "How do you figure?"
"Well," he said, leaning back on the palms of his hands and thinking. It was a sight, to see him actually thoughtful without the possibility of a prank being produced. The way his brow furrowed, the way his mouth became a thin line. It was like watching something that no one else had ever witnessed before. A side to him reserved for her. "I noticed your change...for lack of better word when we picked you up for the World Cup. How tall you had gotten, how you seemed to have grown into yourself. The way you grinned at me when we got back to the Burrow after pranking your git of a cousin, Merlin, I wondered what it would be like to kiss you."
Harry swallowed, trying to get her thumping heart back down her throat. "When did you know for sure though? That it was...more?"
"When you knocked out Malfoy after that match where we both got banned," he grinned. "Fucking hell, it hit me harder than you hit that git."
"That was not my finest moment," sighed Harriet, though a half smile was tugging on her lips.
"He made a comment about your mum. I'm honestly a bit surprised you didn't curse him, but then abandoning your wand is a bit more your style, isn't it?"
"Hush," said Harry, though she couldn't help the small laugh escaping her lips. "When you grow up with a cousin like mine, you have to know how to defend yourself a bit."
"Honestly, I have half a mind to give your cousin a bit more than a sweet to cause his tongue to grow. Though, I have to admit, it was extremely hot to watch you slug Malfoy."
"You're ridiculous!"
She was belly laughing now, the thought of the game, Malfoy's bloody nose, and George's confession all tumbled into one confusing knot in her stomach that ached as she doubled over. George Weasley had her all twisted up in the best possible way.
"I was honestly never more proud of you than in that moment," he said through her laughter. "I almost wished you would have hit me afterwards."
"You're mad," she said, nearly squealing with laughter in a way that only he could make her do. "Completely mad."
She stood, the pads of her bare feet itching against the blades of grass as clung to the tree in all her giggling.
"I'm not mad," he said, standing to his full height so she had to peer up at him, placing his hands on either side of her head as it rested against the oak tree. "I'm just your problem."
And he was, she thought, drawing him down for a kiss by tugging on his shirt. He was hers. Chaotically, madly, impossibly hers. But at the same time - in the back of her head, a million miles away, tucked away securely - he was a problem. A resistance was building in her, rooting itself in the way George Weasley made her feel when he kissed her, and telling her that he would interfere with her place in the brewing war.
The sudden thought dawned on her that she ought to tell him. Should tell him what he was involving himself in. But telling him, acknowledging it, would mean admitting to herself that their time would possibly be short. That her time was possibly limited with everything.
"What's wrong?" asked George, pulling away after sensing her stillness.
"Nothing," she said, shaking her head. "Just an odd thought entered my mind, that's all."
George frowned. "Odd thought?"
That we could lose each other in all this madness, she thought.
"Hmm," she hummed instead. "I think I am still sore, that's all. My legs are feeling weak."
He seemed to buy it, rolling his eyes and grinning at her. He was too handsome, she thought. Certainly too handsome for her. Reaching up to thread her fingers into his hair, she smiled shyly at the way he leaned into her touch.
Push and pull, you and me, she thought to herself, but always somehow in the same direction.
"I told you that you can't pull one over on me, Potter." His hand drifted down slowly, pulling slightly on the hem of her skirt before grabbing her and lifting her bridal style, causing her to nearly shriek. "I've got you all figured out."
"You're just my problem, eh?" she grinned, clinging tightly to his neck.
"More than you'll ever know."
He spun them, sitting so his back was against the tree this time and positioning her so she was sitting on his lap, his legs crossed underneath her.
"I still think you're mad," she said, grinning at him. "But I rather like it."
"How much time do we think we have left until your aunt discovers us out here?" he asked, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.
"Probably another twenty minutes," she said. "But you're not shagging me out here by this tree. I still am quite sore."
"Fair enough. How about some Austen then?"
Harry regarded him, though not nearly in the same manner as she did the first time he asked her to read to him. This time she tried to memorize the way the golden bits stuck out in his hazel eyes and the way his lips curved into a half smile when she touched the corner of his mouth the her thumb, tracing it slightly. She was certain that one day she would need this image of him though she didn't know why or how.
She bit her lip to keep herself from smiling fully, certain she would split open from her happiness if she allowed herself. She wordlessly motioned for him to give her the book, letting her fingers linger slightly on his when he handed it over.
And then she cleared her throat.
And began to read.
"He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began : 'In vain have I struggled…'"
