Part two: Spent the Night
I blinked at the sudden light.
"Why did you do that?" I demanded rubbing my eyes; all I wanted was to remain in wonderful darkness for the rest of the night.
"Because you looked like you needed it and I don't mind you." she was smiling rather than grinning.
There was a slight pink tinge to the tips of her ears, but she still met my eyes. I didn't understand, I didn't need the light. Sure, I could see her better, but I would have rather continued in the dark than be struck blind.
"What, I'm sorry?" I asked, confused. She was laughing at my blinking befuddled expression.
"Oh! Well it's easier to navigate my floor with the light on isn't it." I glanced around.
It certainly looked like it would be. There were things scattered everywhere; bits of clothing and magazines, and innumerable old records, there was a great gap over to one side of the bed, I guessed that was where her drums usually would have gone, but other than that there was not a foot of clear space. I felt mildly overwhelmed.
"Sit down, anywhere is fine." She had picked her way over to the fire and set it blazing with a practiced flick, and was sloshing the kettle onto a peg over the flames. She looked nice her back bent in a perfect arch hair falling into her face, I looked back around anxious to do her bidding only to find that here was not a single chair anywhere. It felt more than a little forward to sit on her bed, so I settled for the floor. Chicken like I scratched a place for myself among the discarded clothes and sweats wrappers.
Silence, marked only by the crackling fire, began to feel oppressive. Out of habit I started clearing those things within arms reach, wondering where things would go from here. I picked my way though some discarded shirts, a magazine and bottle that had been hidden underneath them. Ginny was picking out cups from a precarious pile that adorned the mantle piece; they all looked somewhat used.
"I'll just go wash these." She said turning to a screened off portion of the room I had hitherto failed to notice.
"Ok, what should I do with this then?" I asked, indication the pile of dirty clothes I had gathered with the neck of the wine bottle.
"You found it. Would you like some of that instead?" Laundry? I asked myself.
"Er-" for the second time since I had walked into this room I didn't have a clue as to what she was referring. It was as if we were transmitting on different wavelengths. She was picking her way across the room and then dodged behind the screen and I could hear the slosh of water and the squeak of a sponge.
"Could you help me find the cork screw?" She handed me a teacup as she said this and took the bottle from me. Turning as best I could, I spotted the corkscrew on the bedside table. Oh well, I preferred wind over tea anyway, I wasn't nearly as drunk as I would have preferred after a night out and if she was offering why not just go along with it? I held up the corkscrew.
"Here."
"Thank you" she said turning and once again giving me that smile.
She uncorked it with an experienced hand, sliding the cork out carefully. Somehow I always manage to brake it in the bottle when I try. I picked up my tea cup, proffering it up for her offering. She could have been a girl for some classical drama pouring wine from an anaphora, some forest nymph, or animal sprite. I was enthralled. I took the wine, it was just some cheap red stuff, but I felt as if I had just been entrusted with the elixir of life.
"I thought you were still at the borrow." I said desperate for some conversation.
She sat on the bed, throwing the quilt over herself, almost upsetting her teacup as she did. I caught her hand just as she was about to spill.
"Thanks"
She felt warm, her hands still slightly damp from the quick washing up. Nervous, I let go, and stared at her, she was so clam, not at all ill at ease. As if it was as natural as breathing to have a man in her room at almost one in the morning. To kiss him. It hurt to think of the circumstances that had breed such a level of self-assurance, but I was still grateful.
"What are you doing with yourself these days? You mentioned that you were working at the ministry."
She sipped with all the delicacy that one would have expected at a garden party, an old ladies tearoom. Her legs were telling me another story, the short skirt revealing another side of her. I could feel the muscles in my stomach upsetting themselves. The surface of the wine in my teacup was a mass of shaky ripples.
"Er- work. It's pretty quite these days, just paperwork; I don't do anything exciting at all. What about you, your life must be much more interesting than mine." I swept my arm around indicating her messy cluttered room, a reflection of her, as if shoving the conversation in her direction.
"It probably is." She giggled and I laughed too, slightly hurt by her response.
"You met the band, we drive about from gig to gig and try are damnedest to keep our heads above water. Mum wasn't so pleased when I threw in my lot with them, but I wasn't about to give it up so it really wasn't her choice to make." She refilled our teacups.
"I thought you'd still be at the borrow." I had been worrying that we would have nothing to talk about; now however it seemed I must have struck a nerve. She frowned and I felt cowed. One wrong move and, well, those thighs that were still so visible, would never be known to me.
"So what if I'm not"
"No, no, I didn't mean that, I thought you should be staying at home, I just couldn't' think of you living anywhere else."
"Sev offered me the room; they were taking on a border anyway, so it was ideal. Ron didn't mention it to you?" she was pacified again, a fluctuation of feminine smiles and remonstrance. I felt queasy on this uncertain and ungluing sea.
"No, he might have, but I don't remember."
"Really? He didn't much like it, he's always been a bit overprotective. He thought I should have stayed at home." Obviously Ron's opinions had on been met to favorably in her eyes. Now that she reminded me I remembered Ron saying something. I didn't think it was appropriate to say that at the time I had agreed with him.
"I guess I can understand." I said noncommittally.
"It's quite nice around here, there's a little wood in the back. I take walks in it some times, it's one of my favorite places, just to sit in the trees some times. You can't do that much in London."
"No you can't" I agreed, I don't think I had ever missed the trees myself, but now that I was reminded of them nature did have a certain allure.
It suddenly occurred to me how very odd my current position was. Here I was in a room with a girl, myself a single man, and we were only talking. Why was I here? Had she only wanted me to catch up on old times, but then she had kissed me and now here we were again taking like old friends. I felt mildly disappointed. Why was I not pushing her in some way?
I looked over at her. Sitting there on the bed, a quilt covered queen of Sheba, I guess any woman would look beautiful if you're in the right frame of mind, and mine was definitely leaning in that direction. Yet, the fuzz of alcohol was happily clouding my mind and I could only sit and appreciate her. I did nothing, Harry the Hero had learnt his lesson; don't just rush in.
She was enthralling, she must have noticed me watching her for she moved her legs slightly, as if to cover her self more. Her skirt slid lower on her thighs, was that premeditated, or did she mean to push me away. I was torn between an action that might brake me out onto a new plain, or a passive continuation of the present. I wondered briefly what Ron would suggest, surely he would have urged me on in his characteristic need for action, yet then again this was his sister. Annoyed at feeling like I was being denied something promised to me, my judgment seemed clouded and realized I had to take a piss.
"You haven't asked me out yet." I was startled by her grin, a naughty grin.
"All good boys are supposed to ask good girls for a date before they start looking at them like that." Her thighs appeared again this time accompanied by a slight fingernail crescent of milky belly as her shirt rose why an upward stretch.
"You w-ant me to" I stammered, not sure of what to do.
She was unimpressed. I'm aware that I'm no Mr. Suave, but I felt common and ashamed all the same. The heady air in the room, the scatter of a life in disarray; it dulled my senses more than any drug. I was out of my element. Women aren't easy like evil; then you just go. There you have the clarity of adrenaline, here there are so many more small subtle factors, the way isn't clear-cut.
"Well?" she pushed. I was unsure, I was also a fool.
"I don't know how to do this." I answered lamely. I had had the intention of finding someone earlier that evening, hadn't I. Was that not the point of this whole evening. I had sat it out, biding my time, hoping to get swept off my feet and here I was tongue tied.
"Do you want to go some where some time?" I faltered, hoping that would surface.
"Harry I would love to. You're such an innocent, aren't you."
She smiled and I was elated, but what did she mean. I don't usually count innocence as one of my prime characteristics, I always think of myself as jaded more than anything does. Tonight I could let it go. I moved to stand up and was struck with a wave of tiredness and an increased desire to use the loo.
"I think it's time for bed." She laughed, I must have looked in a right state, my hair never agrees with me for long.
"What? What's so funny" I demand, childish reflex.
"I promised I wouldn't do this anymore." She said, I was feeling very sleepily, but I could still hear the evasive vagueness in her voice.
"Do what?"
"Stay up this late when I have work the next day." She trailed off, her voice light, content.
I don't usually stay up past midnight, but even in that state I could still hear that she meant something more, I remembered that it was something Hermione used to do. I had never understood it. I probably never will. What they meant why they alluded to a thing then let it go.
"Well I'm about to conk out. If you don't mind, unless…"I let my words float suggestively though I didn't mean what I had implied. Secretly I hoped she wouldn't demand it of me.
She rose, the quilt falling away from her, in the dim light, I wanted to reach out and touch her, though I didn't. My eyes fluttered shut snapping the image, as another wave of sleep engulfed me.
"Where's my bed?" I asked, she looked mildly surprised. She flapped her hand a moment over her bed; I felt myself yawn.
"You can sleep in the tub, just transfigure a few of the shampoo bottles and you'll be perfectly comfortable." I nodded, turning in labored steps.
Doddering like an old man, I made my way to the screen and reprimanded my body for its prim and proper demand for bed. I am no bad boy, I can't share their sex-appeal any more than I can posses all their nightly gallivanting prowess, I was so glad that Ginny wasn't going to demand it of me, I truly loved her for it.
"Good night then" I said as I turned leaning on the screen, it creaked complainingly as I reached for my wand.
"I'm working tomorrow. Do you need me to wake you up too?"
"No, it's fine" I had transfigured a bar of soap and a bathmat into a pillow and blanket, but was aggravated by the fact that the blanket was the size of a face cloth while the pillow filled the entire tub. McGonagall would have been shamed. Taking off my pants and sweater, I thankfully relived myself.
Exhausted, I crawled into the tub tossing the blanket aside, nicking a towel form the nearby hat stand. My body stank onto the pillow which still smelt slightly of pears soap and I felt myself drifting. I could hear the scuffle of Ginny moving around on the other side of the screen. She was mine; I couldn't keep myself from smiling.
She may have given me a goodnight kiss or maybe I dreamed it, for I was asleep before she shut the lights off. I might have mixed it up with the morning kiss, then again they both might have been my morning fantasies.
I woke up surpassingly free of any stiffness, the bath must have been enchanted to accommodating any size of person. I had noticed the adverts for them a couple of years back, but never really paid much attention. They were handy, the glossy billboards hadn't lied. I wonder if the manufactures had ever thought they would double as a great bed, the cushioning charm had made the ceramic surface warm and comfortable as any mattress, not quite up to the level of the one on my old Firebolt but pretty close. The soap I had transfigured had turned back in the night and was now leaving waxy residue in my hair.
I got up glancing at my watch, shocked to find it was almost a quarter past ten. My clothes of last night were wrinkled beyond anything I had ever worn even at the Dursley's, but I had a girl. I figured the undignified shirt was worth the sacrifice. I was aglow, like a rooster, filed with the need to share the morning news. Taking out my wand I flared up the fire. Kneeling down before it in my wrinkled white collar shirt and gray slacks, I threw in a pinch of floo powder.
"Ron Weasley, please. The Dingle"
I was wiped though the whirling fire my body still in Ginny's room but my head finally emerging in the drawing room fireplace of Ron and Hermione's abode.
"Ron? Any one up yet" I called.
There was a moment of silence then padding sounds as Ron's feet appeared in my line of vision thought the drawing room doors. He entered still in his dressing gown, a piece of toast in one hand, the daily prophet in the other.
"Good Morning Harry just caught me at brunch. What is it? You look like you just got up." I decided that with Ron it would rather just have it out. I truly doubted he'd mind, but I still felt compelled to ask him.
"Ron, I hope you don't mind, but I fancy your sister."
I waited, on edge, feeling suddenly the rise of nerves. There was a second's pause and I felt my face turn red, then he grinned.
"About bloody time she found some one respectable. Have her! She'll drive you nuts. She has to be the biggest mess-pot I have ever seen." I grinned at him in return.
"I can clean up. I don't think I'll mind, you don't seem to after all. Oh and by the way, again congratulations. Don't celebrate too much too soon." I said nodding towards the couch that lay in shocking disarray a rather lacy piece of fabric peering form where is had been worked in between the cousins.
Ron looked stricken. I popped my head out before he could reply. One up on you Ron! I thought. Life was good and I fancied a walk, hadn't Ginny mentioned something about a wood last night. I decided to go and investigate.
I descended the stairs as quietly as possible, though no one seemed to be about, in the yard a few chickens and a rooster strutted pecking at the earth, it was still chilly but the sun was warming fast. The rooster crowed and strutted, I couldn't help feeling some affinity to the bird, at risk of falling pray to a sly fox.
Wasn't that what had happened to me. She was my little orange fox. She had stolen me. She would chase the hounds and be damned before she'd let them catch her.
"Really mate, it isn't all that bad." I told the bird as he continued to peck at the dirt.
***
Well, there you have it. The end of my My Socially-inept!Harry POV. This really started out as an experiment in re-characterization. Your feed back, good and bad is really appreciated, this is after all a learning experience, criticism is an essential part of it. *Hint Hint*
Random Minion's Reviewing Made Easy™
( ) Good, Great (blah blah blah).
( ) Man… it's finished… finally.
( ) You lazy ass, get working on its sequel while I still care.
( ) Harry is really lame.
( ) It was nice, even beautiful in places.
( ) Ginny was fun, can't wait to get her perspective.
( ) It dragged a bit and the emotion didn't come though as clearly as it might, may I suggest you (enter suggestion here).
( ) A good ending. I especially liked (enter part here).
( ) Man I wish some boy/girl would take me to their place, Harry gets all the action.
( ) Hell! Harry doesn't even DESERVE the action.
( ) Ron and Hermione, getting' it on… dirty pool!
( ) Let me know if you ever post your sequel.
( ) I'll beta if for you if it'll make you finish any faster.
( ) get back to me with your comments about my comment.