Disclaimer continues as always…This is somewhat longer than usual and I am REALLY sorry about where this stops. More will be coming as soon as I can. Profuse thanks to those at Sugar Quill who bailed me out when I got stuck!
Checkmate
"Harry," she said, eyes alight with happiness, gazing deeply into his own. The sun shone warmly through the trees, their leaves casting a dappled pattern of sunshine and shadow across them as they stood closely together. Her hair sparkled in the light, hundreds of shades of copper and russet dancing so irresistibly. He could bear it no longer and reached out, sliding his hand into the silky thickness of it, feeling the back of her neck, warm and soft against his fingers as her face tilted up towards his, a smile playing across her lips. Gently, gently he bent his head to hers, felt her breath brushing across his lips as he slowly closed his eyes to kiss her.
His eyes flickered open to see, not Ginny, but the darkness of the fifth year boys' dormitory with Neville snoring audibly through the stillness of the room.
"No," he moaned to himself. "No, no, no. I don't want to wake up." He closed his eyes trying to recapture the dream, to hold Ginny again in his arms, but it was no use. It had vanished as elusively as summer mist.
It had been ten days since they had completed the spell in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, but Harry had got no further in developing any sort of relationship with Ginny. It wasn't because he didn't want to; it was quite the opposite. Now that there were no real obstacles in his path, he seemed to have developed a bad case of nerves. His mind couldn't focus on anything beyond her; this had started off with his chair changing colour in Transfiguration and had gradually got more embarrassing as the week went on, much to Ron's amusement. By now just the sight of Ginny was enough to make him blush profusely, break things, and he was lucky if he managed to string two coherent words together to say to her. Harry simply couldn't understand it. It made no sense. He had faced all sorts of horrors in his young life, but not even Voldemort had reduced him to pieces the way he was now. He rolled over onto his stomach and punched his pillow fiercely. "I will ask Ginny to the ball tomorrow," he told himself firmly, then he felt his stomach give a traitorous queasy lurch at the very thought of it. "I will," he insisted.
***
Breakfast found Harry sitting sleepily at the Gryffindor table, listening to Ron and Hermione talk. He yawned, and stretched over for a piece of toast, his insides suddenly somersaulting as Ginny entered the room and grinned at him. His eyes were glued to her. She'd done something different with her hair.
"What's up Harry?" asked Hermione suddenly.
"What?" he jumped, blinking stupidly at her as if she'd just apparated in front of him. "Nothing. I'm a bit tired, I suppose."
"Yeah, you must be," Ron burst out laughing. "You do realise you're spreading porridge on your toast?"
Harry looked down at his breakfast and turned red. This sort of thing was happening more and more these days. What was Ginny doing to him? To make matters worse, she slid onto the bench beside him, brushing against him as she did so and making him quiver.
"Are you all right, Harry?" she asked him, a flicker of anxiety showing as she gazed at him. He felt his stomach melt into a puddle on the floor. Little wisps of hair had escaped from her plait, curling around her neck, and that little place just below her right ear he suddenly felt a strong desire to kiss. Her lips twitched into a smile as she spotted his porridge-on-toast and Harry felt his face growing even hotter.
"Yeah," he said flatly, wrenching his mind away from Ginny and concentrating instead on the jug of orange juice directly in front of him. He successfully managed to pour himself a glass, and thudded the jug back down on the table, trying desperately to ignore the fact that his juice was the exact same shade as one of the colours running through Ginny Weasley's hair. He would behave normally. He would.
"Double Divination this morning," Ron said glumly to Harry.
"Mmmm," Harry replied, his elbow sinking slowly into the butter dish.
Fred and George paused to talk to them on their way out of the Great Hall.
"Quidditch practise tonight, Harry?" Fred asked brightly.
"Um..?" Harry responded blankly looking up at him.
"Quidditch," repeated George slowly. "You know, that game we play on broomsticks. Putting balls through hoops and that sort of thing?" Getting no response from Harry, he looked quizzically over at Ron. "What's up with him?"
Ron snorted with laughter so much that he began to choke. Hermione obligingly banged him on the back, and eventually he drew breath, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Oh, it's got something to do with our little sister," he gasped, beginning to chuckle uncontrollably again. "You should have seen what he did to the teapot in Transfiguration yesterday." He put his head on the table and began to howl hysterically. Harry made a mental note to kill Ron as soon as he got the chance. It wasn't his fault his teapot had freckles.
"What?" Fred and George yelled in unison, as Harry turned puce and buried his head in his hands. "No way!"
"Leave him alone," he heard Ginny's voice say with a trace of amusement.
"Oh yeah? Don't want us upsetting your boyfriend then?" Fred teased, grinning at her and tugging her pigtail gently. "And is that what this new hairstyle is all about?"
"No, actually it's not, and Harry's just a friend anyway," she giggled, whilst Harry's heart sank. " I've got Care of Magical Creatures first thing this morning and Hagrid's got some salamanders for us. I thought one fire in my hair was more than enough this term, thank you very much, so I decided to tie it up."
"Yeah, right," George said disbelievingly, staring hard at Harry through narrowed eyes. "We'll see you at Quidditch later," he added meaningfully and strolled off with his twin.
"More toast anyone?" offered Ginny, smiling sweetly at Harry, her hand nudging against his. He swallowed.
"Erm, no," he managed to say, trying not to look at Ron who was still sniggering away. "Gotta go." He virtually leapt out of his seat and fled out of the room before anyone had a chance to say anything.
In the coolness of the hallway, he breathed deeply trying to pull himself back together and focus his mind on anything other than Ginny Weasley. He couldn't keep staring at her like a deer caught in car headlights, and Transfiguration lessons were becoming a joke. Ron's teasing was merciless and Harry wasn't sure if he didn't prefer the overprotective big brother version of his best friend better. Thinking about it honestly, he had to admit he was currently far more of an embarrassment for Ginny than she had been for him, even way back in the days of dwarves with singing Valentines. This couldn't go on. No. He'd have to do something about it; that was all. He'd ask her to the Christmas ball.
He turned as footsteps clattered into the hallway, and found his eyes instantly connected with a pair of soft brown ones, tinged with an expression of sheer amusement. Ron had almost certainly told her about the teapot.
"Harry, are you sure you're all right?" she asked him gently, stretching her hand up to feel his forehead. "You're all clammy and shivering," she remarked. "Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey?"
"I'm fine," he lied, feeling as if he was about to part company with the little breakfast he'd eaten at any second.
"You don't look it, but if you're sure..." She smiled at him and his heart tried to escape through his ribs. "By the way," she added, with a deadpan expression, as she turned to leave. "I'd clean your robe elbow quickly if I were you. Butter leaves a stain."
***
Harry survived the morning's lessons relatively unscathed and was just heading down for his lunch when Ron suddenly grabbed his arm and forcibly hauled him into an empty classroom on the right hand side of the third floor corridor. Hermione followed them, closing the door quietly.
"What's up?" Harry asked in bemusement at this strange behaviour. Ron leaned against one of the heavy wooden desks, folded him arms and grinned at Harry.
"I want to know what your intentions are towards my sister, honourable or otherwise," he chuckled, then on reflection pulled a face at Harry. "Actually, I'd rather not know about the dishonourable intentions, if you don't mind. It doesn't bear thinking about." He shuddered at the very concept.
"I told you months ago, Harry said slightly awkwardly. "If she was safe from Voldemort, then I'd… then I'd ask her if she wanted to go out with me."
"So why haven't you asked her to the Christmas ball?" Ron roared. "We've done the charm, and you're still not doing anything about it. The ball's tomorrow night and you're making the poor girl miserable."
"Me? Making Ginny miserable?" Harry echoed in surprise.
"At last! He's got it!" Ron sighed. "Yes, you are making her miserable. I don't know why you'd ever want Ginny as your girlfriend, to be perfectly honest. All she ever does is wind us all up, pinch our t-shirts and block up the shower drain with her hair…"
"Ron!" Hermione said warningly.
"Oh, all right," he grinned at her. "Still, if you're mad enough to want to Harry, you're going to have to do something about it."
"But I don't want to make her unhappy," Harry said, completely horrified at the idea.
"Harry," Hermione said gently. "Have you any idea how many people Ginny's turned down to escort her to the ball this year?" He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. "She wants to go with you, I'm certain of it."
"Hermione," Harry objected. "You heard her at breakfast this morning. I'm just a friend as far as she's concerned."
"Don't be ridiculous," she retorted briskly. "Harry, just look at that scar on her wrist. If nothing else convinces you of how much she loves you, that should."
Hermione had a point, Harry thought ruefully to himself, as he glanced from her to Ron. Maybe, just maybe, asking Ginny to the ball wouldn't be quite so difficult to do after all.
"Harry," Ron said firmly. "Go and ask her now before you find another excuse not to. She'll be in the library looking for project books I'd reckon."
"Right then!" Harry spoke decisively, and strode towards the door, his heart in his mouth. "See you two later."
***
A few tiny groups of students were huddled around tables in the warmth of the library when Harry hurried in. No sign of flaming red hair was immediately visible, so he zigzagged up and down through the book lined rows, frantically trying to find her. Rounding a corner, he came to an abrupt halt as he almost fell over her. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, head tilted sideways as she read the spines of the volumes in front of her.
"Hi there," she whispered as he crouched down beside her. "Are you feeling any better now?"
"Ginny," he said, keeping his voice as low as he could so Madam Pince didn't overhear them, and pressing on quickly before he ran away altogether. "The ball…are you? With anyone? Or…?" She struggled visibly to suppress a giggle at his eloquence.
"Do you want me to go to the ball with you, Harry?" she asked. He nodded mutely, seeming to have lost the power of speech for the moment. She regarded him carefully, and then grinned, twinkles of impish mischief playing in her eyes.
"I'll play you at chess for it," she remarked unexpectedly.
"Chess?" Harry echoed blankly.
"The game on a chequered board with little wooden pieces," she giggled, unable to bear it any longer. "You know the one, Harry. If you can beat me I'll go to the ball with you."
He looked at her curiously. Chess? On the one hand it was something he could focus his mind on, a problem to solve, and that could well help to prevent him from behaving like a startled sheep every time he saw her. On the other hand, he knew he wasn't a very good chess player. He had no idea of Ginny's talents in that area, but Ron was formidable at the game, and if she was even approaching Ron's level of expertise, he'd have no chance. Still, at least she hadn't refused him outright.
"You're on," he said, rising to the challenge and grinning at her, suddenly feeling a lot happier about everything.
***
Herbology was last lesson of the day. He, Ron and Hermione were grouped around a small potting bench at the back of Greenhouse Five carefully removing the winter blossoms from Prussian Abriette shrubs.
"Ron," Harry said thoughtfully, as he snipped away at his shrub, collecting the miniscule lime green flowers into the tray at the centre of the table. "What's Ginny like at chess?"
"Pretty good actually," Ron commented, accidentally severing a large branch and looking at it in alarm. "What are you two up to anyway? She's asked to borrow my chessmen tonight."
"She's challenged me to a game," admitted Harry. "I can take her to the ball if I beat her."
"I don't fancy your chances," her brother remarked, grinning across at Harry. "She's beaten me before."
"Great," Harry said heavily. "So I'll make a complete prat of myself on the chessboard as well as everywhere else."
"Not necessarily," Ron said slowly, laying down his secateurs. "Ginny's got a tendency to follow the same game plan in chess, and if you know what you're doing you should be able to win. If you can manage to keep your mind on something other than snogging my little sister for five minutes, I could show you."
Harry reddened at the thought, and knocked into his plant, sending it crashing to the floor; shards of terracotta pot flying everywhere. Ron sniggered.
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed crossly as she bent to help Harry salvage what he could out of the debris. "At least he's finally got round to asking her. You should be pleased about that."
"What happened to the protective big brother routine anyway?" Harry teased, regaining a bit of his composure. "Shouldn't you be wanting to break my legs or something?"
"No," Ron retorted cheerfully. "I'll leave that to Fred and George. Besides, this is far more entertaining."
Harry laughed.
As soon as the lesson had finished, Harry and Ron abandoned Hermione and sprinted up to their dormitory, slamming the door behind them.
"We've not got long," Ron gasped for breath, and frantically began setting up the chess board on his bed. "We've got that Quidditch practise in a couple of hours and we have to eat as well. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
Harry swiftly set out his own chessmen opposite Ron's and settled himself on the end of the bed, listening intently to Ron's advice.
"Like I said, Ginny usually plays in a certain way, so I'll show you her moves and work through what you need to do to unsettle her. OK?"
Harry nodded, pushed his glasses up his nose, his forehead wrinkled in concentration as he stared at the pieces.
"She always starts off moving this pawn to this square, and then from there she starts to implement to Kaznikov attack formation," Ron explained quickly. "Show him," he instructed his chessmen, who immediately leapt into action and began performing a set of complicated manoeuvres without complaint. "Now, this is what you need to do Harry." As Ron demonstrated the step-by-step defence against Ginny's typical game, Harry understood what he had to do, although he seriously doubted that his brain could focus for long enough when faced with Ginny herself. He watched and learned, marvelling at Ron's skill.
"I think I've got it," he said, looking steadily at Ron. "Then if I get the knight to move there." he pointed to a square with his wand and his piece obligingly hopped across. "She'd move her rook to that spot for my queen?" He looked at Ron, who nodded. "Which means that same knight can shuffle across that way, and it's checkmate and a date for the ball!" He grinned happily.
"Yeah," said Ron, laughing at him. "You owe me big time for this, Harry."
Harry looked down at the chess pieces, who stared innocently back.
"If any word of this gets out to Ginny," he said, shaking his finger sternly at them. "I will personally spellotape your mouths shut...permanently!"
The chess men whispered and giggled. Harry didn't trust them an inch.
***
It was late when the Gryffindor Quidditch team made it back to the common room after practise. It had been quite a gruelling session, implementing some new play for the forthcoming match against Slytherin. Harry was focusing on skill and speed to defeat the sheer brute strength of the opposition. Fred and George hadn't been as bad as Harry had feared, although they were teasing him relentlessly about Ginny. Yells rebounded around the stadium.
"You do remember what the snitch looks like, Harry?"
"Keep hunting for the little gold ball, not our little sister."
"Hey, Harry! Look, there's Ginny."
Harry had continued flying, cringing with embarrassment, but relieved that at least Fred and George didn't really seem to object to the idea that he liked Ginny. Having said that, Harry reflected as his eyes scanned the common room, there did seem to be suspiciously more bludgers being whacked towards him than usual, and one had caught him before he's had a chance to swerve, causing a nasty graze from his elbow to his wrist.
The team dispersed across the room, and Harry wove his way across to the place where Ginny was curled up in a chair, completely absorbed in a book. Her hair had broken free from the constraints imposed upon it for the Care of Magical Creatures lesson, and was now glowing softly in the candlelight, slowly falling over her shoulders and framing her face. It was unusual to see Ginny so still, and he was entranced. Finally he found his voice.
"Anything good?" he asked casually, nodding at the volume in her hands. She looked up at him, and smiled.
"Yes," she said, her eyes lighting up with real enthusiasm. "It's some muggle poetry. I'm doing a project on it for Muggle Studies, and it's wonderful. I think I might even owl some to dad; he'd be fascinated."
"Yeah he would," Harry grinned, knowing full well Mr Weasley would be so excited about anything muggle from his daughter that he wouldn't be able to sleep for a week. He propped his Firebolt up in the corner and sank into the chair opposite Ginny. As he did so, Ginny caught sight of the blood oozing through his Quiddich robes.
"What happened?" she gasped.
"Oh, it's just a graze," Harry replied, lifting his sleeve and showing her. "It looks worse than it is. Fred was a bit enthusiastic with a bludger. Either that, or he was upset about what Ron said at breakfast this morning."
"Oh, was he now?" A dangerous note had crept into Ginny's voice as she surveyed the room for a particular brother.
"Forget it," he said swiftly, watching her glaring daggers at Fred's back. "It really is nothing. Now how about that game of chess?"
Reluctantly she put her book on the table, and swung her legs back down to the floor, sitting up straight and shaking her hair away from her face. Harry's stomach filled with what felt like insanely leaping Cornish pixies as he watched her; yet, for a second, he could have sworn he saw the merest trace of a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. Perhaps he had imagined it.
An atmosphere of tension was building up on the chessboard as the two opposing armies faced each other, preparing to do battle. Horses whinnied and champed at their bits, pawing nervously at the ground whilst their knights reined them in, trying to calm them. The lowly pawns whispered anxiously to one another, knowing they would be the first line of attack and the casualties amongst their numbers would be high. Harry's king paced restlessly around his square, hands clasped behind his back, casting his eye up and down his rows of troops at regular intervals and then surveying the enemy who stood in regimented rows of marble-white livery.
Ginny moved first. On her command, a totally terrified pawn edged his way two squares forward, and stood there, isolated and vulnerable in the middle of the battlefield. Harry knew what he had to do, and responded accordingly, his mind still surprisingly well focused on the game. More moves followed in rapid succession, and Harry was relieved to see Ginny playing exactly as her brother had predicted. He just needed to maintain his concentration, and all would be well.
As if reading his very thoughts, Ginny looked up from her manoeuvre, her warm brown eyes dissolving into his, making his heart pound erratically in his chest.
"Your move," she said softly, as the colour rushed into his face. His bishop was directed two diagonal squares to the left, and as Harry tried to catch his breath, he realised that he had made a mistake. Her ivory knight pounced with relish, dragging the black bishop viciously from the board and leaving him in a crumpled heap on the edge of the chequered battlefield.
Harry bent his head over the board, furious with himself and trying desperately to work out how he could salvage the situation. The black pieces turned their faces questioningly towards him; they knew they were now in mortal peril because of his blunder. He thoughtfully touched the pawn at the extreme right of the board. That looked promising. He was just about to make the move when he was startled by Ginny's hand brushing against his own as she reached across the table for her book of muggle poems. He swallowed; concentration shattered once more, and moved another piece instead. She smiled adoringly at him, making his insides disintegrate in sheer pleasure, and his brain completely oblivious to the chess move she'd just made.
He played on, thoughts elsewhere, and Ron's carefully prepared tactics completely forgotten. The pile of ebony bodies grew steadily, as her pieces began to dominate the field, jeering comments at the opposing army. As if transfixed, he gazed at her again, watching the titian tones of her hair glint in the candlelight, and then he noticed it. Almost imperceptibly, her mouth twitched in the corner as it always did when she was trying to suppress a giggle. Harry was certain of it. Ginny Weasley was undeniably up to something. Her eyes met his again, soulfully searching his heart, and as he tore his attention away from her and back to the game, he realised exactly what it was. He felt like bursting out in fits of laughter himself. She was deliberately making him go to pieces, and he had a sneaking suspicion she'd been doing it all week.
Harry thought quickly, feigning concentration and covering his mouth with his hand to hide his grin. Why not play her at her own game? Ginny had spent a large proportion of her first two years at Hogwarts blushing furiously and hiding from him, and if she felt the way Hermione thought she did, then there was a good chance he could reduce her to that again.
He directed his solitary remaining pawn forward, then lifted his eyes directly to hers, giving her a devilish grin. To Harry's delight, she turned crimson, and as he held her eyes captive, he became aware of the unsteadiness of her breathing. She moved her rook forward, hardly glancing at the board.
The tide had turned, and the snowy-white figures dwindled from the board. The common room gradually emptied for the night, but they took no notice and played on. Ginny's hand trembled as she directed her queen across the squares, and Harry's smile widened. His castle strode forward to capture her knight, who struggled valiantly for his lady, but was subdued and finally conquered. Her eyes looked tremulously into his as she whispered a final single pace for her king, knowing what was to come. A final charge from Harry's knight finished it all.
"Checkmate," he said softly.