Hey, guys! Sorry, this one might be a bit slow again. It'll pick up next chapter, though, I promise! Thanks, enjoy!
For the next few days, Harry and Ginny found themselves in an odd parody of their earlier situation, only now she was refusing to speak to him.
She barely even looked at him and she felt him becoming exceedingly frustrated. Good. She thought. Serves him right. She was tired of not being the one in charge. Not in charge of her life, her schedule, or even her own mail. This one thing, her voice, she had complete control of.
On Friday, when she was finally allowed to return back to her own apartment, she'd been nervous as she'd walked up the stairs, but refused to show any sign to Harry. She didn't want to show any sign of emotion or weakness, he'd gotten enough emotion out of her to last a lifetime. Her nerves eased suddenly, though, when she saw who was in the chair by her door.
"Seamus!" She was so happy to see him. His was the first face other than Harry's she'd seen in a week. She was quite sick of Harry's face. The man smiled sheepishly and rose to meet her hug.
"Good to see you, Miss Weasley." He told her, but released her quickly. She could only imagine the look that he was getting from Harry.
"Don't mind him, Fin!" She said cheerily, unlocking her door. "He's just cross about some soccer balls." She disappeared inside her apartment, taking in the familiar sight of the muted blue and brown of her living room, the spacious warmth of her kitchen. It was good to be home.
"Cross because of some soccer balls." Harry told her, letting himself in behind her. She ignored him and skipped to the phone, dialing Hermione.
Within the hour, Hermione was perched on one of the bar stools watching Ginny cook, and Harry was slumped moodily against her refrigerator.
"I don't understand, did you fight?" Hermione asked, stealing a carrot from the mixing bowl in front of her. Ginny frowned.
"Yes. And that's all I'll say about it." She stepped to the fridge and unceremoniously yanked it open, hoping to catch Harry off guard. She didn't, and frowned when he simply stepped out of her way, stumble-free.
"It's over something stupid." Harry told Hermione, stepping back against the stainless steel door and elbowing it closed before Ginny was just quite out of its way, causing her to drop the limes.
"It's not stupid, he's stupid!" She fumed, rinsing the limes and reaching into a drawer for her zester.
"I'm sorry." Hermione frowned, at a loss for what to say. "You seem so upset." At this, Ginny scoffed.
"Yes!" She exclaimed dramatically, holding the zester up to her chest. "It's as if a rough, callous hand has started peeling my heart away using only this!" She held up the sharp instrument, "My mother's patented Lime Peeler." Both Harry and Hermione frowned at her.
"Well, if I knew what you'd fought about…" Hermione wheedled, making Harry turn pale. Ginny scowled at him, but turned back to Hermione.
"I don't really want to talk about this anymore." She said reaching for her glass of wine. "I just want to celebrate being home, out of the smallest apartment known to man." She grinned when Hermione picked up her own glass and clinked it with Ginny's.
"Besides," Ginny added. "I'm sure it's not appropriate for us to be talking about this anyways. You know," she raised her eyebrows mockingly at Hermione. "for professional reasons."
Harry growled and Hermione looked confused, but Ginny just toasted her again and set down her glass.
The obvious hurdle Ginny had to face in ostracizing Harry was her bedroom. There was no way that she'd stoop as low as going back to the guest room. She'd noticed that Harry'd had his cot placed back in the hall, in hopes of returning to their previous sleeping arrangements.
When Hermione had said her goodbyes, a longer goodbye for Harry than Ginny would have liked, she started down the hall to her bedroom, balking a bit in front of her closed door.
"You're being ridiculous." Harry said behind her. "Just let this go. What you need is to have a nice cup of tea and-"
Ginny yanked open her door and slammed it shut behind her. What she did not need was his patronizing advice.
Fuck him. A vicious voice in her head declared. Let him see how it feels to be kept out of the loop, to be blatantly ignored for weeks while the other person harbors a long-term, secret attachment to them.
Right. She glanced around her room after she'd hurriedly flicked on the lights. She needed a bath. A nice, hot bubble bath to calm her down, and then straight to bed.
Right.
She turned on every light and lamp, lit every candle between the two rooms while her bath filled up. She hadn't been in her own shower, door closed, in weeks. Even while Harry had been gone, she'd used the guest bathroom. Seamus had been very understanding about this.
She jumped when she heard the air conditioner kick on. She breathed and mentally hit herself in the head. Stupid.
Her eyes caught on the curtains. They were drawn. She approached them carefully, weighing the pros and cons of opening them to look out, or to keep them closed and not know if there was a psycho killer on her balcony.
She reached her hand out with trembling fingers and on the count of three, flung the curtains back. Nothing.
She sighed and walked back to her bathroom, peeling off her clothes and turning the faucet off. She eyed the bathroom closet as she stepped into the warm bubbles, but decided that the curtains had been enough excitement for now.
By eleven, she'd dawdled enough, and resolutely turned off all of her lights except for the lamp next to her bed.
Nothing wrong with reading a bit, before bed. She rationalized, picking up a book she'd been reading on and off for a few weeks. Soon, however, she found herself staring at her closet more than the page in front of her.
Then, her eyes would fly to her dresser, which someone could easily hide behind. Then to the curtains, her bathroom, and back to the closet. When she chanced a peek at the bedskirt, wondering if there was enough room for someone to hide beneath it, she made a disgusted face and threw her book at the door. It landed with a satisfying thump, and landed with the pages splayed and bent.
She hadn't even acted this frightened when she was a little girl, and now she was thinking about monsters under her bed? Pathetic. Her thoughts stilled, however, when an answering thump came from the other side of her door.
She stared at it, keeping her face still.
Harry was on the other side. He'd been letting her know that he was, by knocking back on the door. That knowledge was enough to make her creep under her covers and turn the lamp off, before snatching her arm back under the blankets.
She'd sleep a lot more soundly when the crazy stalker was caught.
oOo
Harry stared at her door and considered knocking again, just to see if she'd let him in, or come out.
He restrained himself, instead sliding down the wall and getting comfortable on the hard wood of her hall floor. Sacrificing his own comfort was the least he could do. While keeping the poster from him hadn't exactly been wrong, it certainly felt that way.
They had created a relationship that depended on honesty and trust, and he'd broken that trust. He drew his knees up and felt his tailbone smart and being ground into the floor.
Suck it up. He told himself. She needs you to stay close right now. No cushy bed for you, not for a while. He settled into his seat, bracing for a hard, uncomfortable night.
The clock in the living room had officially chimed fifteen past two when Ginny's door squeaked open. Harry raised his head from where he'd been examining his hands. Ginny leaned in the doorway, and pursed her lips at him.
"Not a single word, Potter." The warning came out softly, almost like a plea. He pressed his lips shut and she looked at him in silence before stepping out into the hallway, making her way to the living room.
Harry rushed to get up and winced when he heard his joints pop. You're getting to old for this, Potter. He thought to himself, wincing as he followed Ginny and tried to pop his back as he walked.
She flipped on the soft, inset lighting and hurled herself into the corner of the couch. She reached for the remote and clicked it on, surfing until she found an old movie, The Philadelphia Story. Harry sat down on the armchair beside her.
"This is your favorite movie." He said, looking at her instead of the screen. She kept her eyes forward. "I've never even seen it, and you quote it all the time." He watched as her face flushed and she closed her eyes for a second. When they opened again, she did nothing but press the volume on the remote, turning it up loud enough to fill the silence around them.
The scenes passed by in flickering succession, but Harry had no interest in it. He kept up with the dialogue as much as he could, but kept an eye on Ginny more intently. During a scene involving a massive party, her eyes started to droop, and by the scene set the next morning, she was out like a light.
He stopped pretending to watch the movie, and his eyes flashed to her prone form. She was curled into the couch, resting her head on the arm and hugging a pillow. She looked very vulnerable, which was a word that Harry would never have used to describe Ginny to her face.
He rose and pulled the quilt from the back of the couch over her, making sure her feet were tucked in just the way she liked. He grabbed the remote and turned the volume down to its lowest level, almost to mute, but not quite.
Ginny liked to sleep with white noise, and always had a fan or noise machine running when she slept.
Harry settled back in his chair, thankful to have found a more comfortable spot than her hall to spend the night. He ran his eyes over the little bump she made under the thick blanket. Her mother had made it for her as an apartment-warming gift when she'd moved in here: the first place that she'd bought with her own money.
Harry's head was crowded with these mundane facts about her. Before he'd met her, he would have thought that all these useless bits of trivia were annoying. But Harry enjoyed them, now. They made Ginny a real presence in his life, connecting her to all the little mundane facts about himself.
And the problem with that, Harry thought, is that she doesn't know any of those mundane facts about me. This whole thing is completely one-sided.
He knew what he had to do. It may not have been the best choice, seeing as he would be putting his relationship with the subject before her case, but he'd "be careful" as Kingsley had warned.
Even the handbook said: The number one component of a guard/charge relationship is trust. And if she didn't trust him today, well maybe he could persuade her to trust her a bit tomorrow.
Harry slumped further in his chair, sinking into the soft cushions and letting his eyes close, if only for an hour or two. He felt like he'd been sent through the emotional ringer, from panicked to horny to angry, frustrated to upset with himself, back to horny again.
Now, he felt a quietness settle over him. He allowed himself to consider the option that, maybe in this one case, the charge was more important than the rule book.