Hello everyone! Sorry about the long wait!!! I'm managing to find some time to start writing again now, so keep on the lookout for more updates, hopefully soon! I have the rest of the story all planned in my head, I just need to write it out!!!

Thanks to all reviewers! And I promise we'll have a Harry 'n Ginny kiss very, very soon. ;-) Stay tuned!

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Walking the Tightrope

Harry stood at the common room window, glaring out at the grey horizon. If the truth be told, he was in no mood to organise six preoccupied, hysterical Quidditch players into a decent team, especially in the pouring rain. Ron was going to be late as usual, and he would have to bite his lip to keep back a cutting remark. The younger ones were always a handful, and Seamus would never keep quiet and let him think. And then there was Ginny, of course, who was the ever-present reminder that his life was pretty awful at the moment.

He was just trying to think about something else when Ron stormed through the portrait door, looking exactly as Harry felt, all wild eyes and tense muscles.

"Where have you been?" he asked, expecting to see the customary guilty flush creep onto his best friend's face.

"Nowhere," replied Ron, shiftily. He wouldn't catch Harry's eye.

"Are you OK?"

"No."

Harry raised an eyebrow. This was no 'Oops, I'm late for Quidditch' guilty flush. This was an 'I've just done a really bad thing' guilty flush. He was debating whether or not to inquire further when Ron saved him the trouble by launching into a stilted monologue.

"You remember that time when I told you Hermione was a nightmare and it was no wonder that she had no friends?"

Harry nodded, his eyes following Ron as he began to pace agitatedly around the room, nervously prodding the chair backs and gesturing with his hands.

"And you remember how I gave her a hard time about Vicky at the Yule Ball in fourth year?"

Harry nodded again. He had no idea where this was going, but evidently Hermione was the problem.

"And you remember that time I called her a bossy cow on the way back from Oberon's Well?"

Harry nodded again. "Ron, sit down, you're going to cause terminal damage to something if you keep flailing around like that!"

"I'm an idiot," said Ron, forlornly.

"I know you are," agreed Harry, pushing him back into a chair. "Tell me what you've done. I'll hazard a guess that it's Hermione, yes?"

Ron groaned and raked his fingers through his hair. "I'm an idiot. I'm a bloody idiot!"

The portrait door swung open again and Ginny stepped through into the common room. Ron's face, which had taken on an expression of utter terror as the door began to creak, instantly relaxed.

"Ron," she said, making straight for her brother and looking scarily like Mrs Weasley in a bad mood. "You're an idiot! What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't, that's the point," said Ron, gloomily. "Don't rub it in, Gin. I already feel terrible."

Ginny's eyes were flashing fire. She stood at the side of his chair, arms crossed and slender figure tilted slightly at an angle. Harry tried not to let his eyes sweep hungrily over her as she glared at Ron.

"You didn't say anything!"

"I couldn't think what to say!"

"ANYTHING would have been good, Ron. Women have thrown themselves into the arms of other men for less than that!"

Ron half rose out of his chair, facing his sister with an equal glare. "Has she?"

"Of course not, you idiot!" exclaimed Ginny, despairingly. "But I can't vouch for the future. You'd better square this before the Ball or else she might do just that."

Ron sank back against the cushions with a small sigh. Ginny knelt down beside him and squeezed his hand, tenderness flooding her wide eyes.

"Only you can make it better," she said. "Only you knows how to make it better."

Silently, Ron replied with a barely perceptible nod of his head, still staring into space.

Harry watched the touching tableau in front of him with mixed feelings. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened now, and he sympathised with Ron's predicament. He was grateful for Ginny's timely intervention, for he wasn't sure he could have said the right thing himself. Still, an annoying little piece of his mind kept reminding him that he would have given much to have that tender gaze turned on him. Was he even capable of an unselfish thought these days, he wondered, or had Ginny actually taken over his head completely?

She caught his eye and held his gaze, smiling, the same sweet tenderness still shining in her face. His heart turned over.

How am I ever going to get over this?

"Quidditch," said Ron, suddenly, and the magic moment was shattered.

"What?" said Harry, tearing his eyes away from Ginny's.

"Let's play Quidditch. Thinking hurts my head."

He picked up the scarlet Gryffindor robes lying across the back of one of the chairs and flung them into Harry's arms. "Come on. We need to win that Slytherin match."

***

Harry's soul came alive as the cool autumn air blew against his face and the earth shrank into miniature form below him. Nothing could relieve his feelings like flying. It was like being reborn somehow, leaving all one's troubles behind on the ground and giving oneself over to the sky and the wind. Exhilarating; thrilling. It was in his blood, and he had never felt so free. He often thought of his father, the infamous Gryffindor Chaser, and how proud he would have been to see him captaining the best team in all of Hogwarts. It was with a small but familiar pang of regret that he envisioned raising that Quidditch Cup after the Slytherin match, without being able to search the crowds for a cheering, grinning paternal face. But Ginny always said that his father could see even more of his life from where he was than if he had been walking the earth like everyone else. Ginny always said the right thing.

For the first time in a long while, he smiled at the thought of her, without the surge of envy and disbelief which had been with him ever since Malfoy's cruel, ambiguous statement in the Great Hall a week or so ago.

She looked up at him as she glided past to take up her position, and delighted surprise filled her eyes when she saw him smile unreservedly at her.

"What?" she laughed.

He shrugged, still grinning. "I feel better, suddenly," he said.

A rosy flush stained her cheeks and she dropped her eyes. Elation swept over him like a tidal wave, and he knew that blush was for him.

"I still can't believe Malfoy managed to stay on as Quidditch Captain when Dumbledore made him Head Boy," Seamus was saying to Alex Wright, a sixth year Beater. They came to a gentle stop beside Harry and Ginny, followed by the rest of the team.

"He's the only one of the upper school Slytherins who can sit on a broomstick, let alone play Quidditch on one," replied Ginny, tying her flaming hair back into a plait.

Ron snorted and looked mutinous. Grudgingly, Harry was forced to admit that she was right, but his insides writhed at hearing Ginny defend Malfoy.

Focus, Potter. Quidditch!

"We'll show him!" said Seamus, sporting a glare that rivalled even Ron's. "I wouldn't mind knocking him off his broomstick from a great height!"

"That's Harry's job," laughed Sarah Price, the only fifth year on the team.

Harry tried not to catch Ginny's eye for fear of what he'd see.

"Come on, get into your places," he commanded, rising higher to look down at the formations. "Same warm-up as usual." He glanced up towards the dark, gathering clouds. "It will rain soon, so we need to get started."

Ten minutes passed before Harry realised that neither Ginny nor Ron were paying any attention to what he was saying, or anything else for that matter. Ron managed to miss four saves in a row and Ginny was plainly distracted by something. The rain had started coming down too, heavy enough to make visibility rather poor. The faint rumble of distant thunder rolled around the stadium, as though a giant somewhere in the hills had let loose a huge steel ball in the sky.

"Sorry," mumbled Ron, as the Quaffle sped through one of the hoops for the fifth time.

"Do you want a break, Ron?" asked Harry, concernedly. He knew better than anyone that Ron had a habit of losing confidence if he played badly at practice. Besides, he was in no fit state to be practising at the moment.

"Nah, I'm fine," was the gloomy reply.

If Ron was trying to keep his mind off Hermione by playing Quidditch, it plainly wasn't working, thought Harry. Still, he was hardly able to comment, his eyes often straying towards a certain red-haired vision gliding around the stadium, graceful despite the heavy rain that soaked her robes.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry noticed a small, dark figure stroll along the edge of the pitch, wrapped in scarves and a large duffel coat. Even from such a height in the murky rain he knew immediately who it was, and he looked across at Ron.

"Oh no," came a soft voice beside him. Ginny was hovering at his shoulder, her eyes fixed on the distant form of Hermione.

Ron had also seen her. Harry could see the flash of his blue eyes as he stared down at her.

"Oh no!" gasped Ginny again. "Harry!"

"What?" He turned to look at her in surprise.

He saw what she had seen two seconds too late. Just as a stabbing pain lanced through his ear as she shrieked out her brother's name, the heavy, speeding Bludger crashed into the side of Ron's head.

***

Instinctively Harry's fingers tightened around his Firebolt. Ginny's wild cry was still echoing through his head as he sped down after the heap of red robes and tangled limbs that was dropping like a stone towards the hard ground.

With inches to spare, Harry reached out his arms and clutched at whatever part of Ron he could reach, breaking his fall. They landed side by side on the damp grass, with Harry's Firebolt between them.

Shaking his head to bring himself to his senses, Harry crawled over to Ron, dreading what he was about to find.

"Don't move him!" yelled Ginny, landing a little way off and flinging her broomstick aside. "Don't touch him!"

She practically shoved Harry aside as she fell to her knees beside her brother, fumbling for his wrist to find a pulse.

"He's OK, he's OK," she muttered under her breath. She tore his sodden Quidditch robes apart and flung them away, running her hands gently over his arms and legs searching for broken bones. Already a dark, bloody bruise was spreading across Ron's jaw and neck, spattered by rain and staining the grass below.

"Is he - is he - ?" Hermione was shaking from head to foot, as white as a ghost.

"He's breathing," replied Ginny, simply. "Lend me your wand, 'Mione, quickly!"

Trembling, Hermione handed her the wand.

Harry watched numbly, his arm around Hermione, as Ginny ministered to her brother as calmly and efficiently as she had ministered to Charlie on the night of his attack. Something in her confident, capable attitude set off warning bells and red lights in his mind. Something was not right.

"Ginny - ?" began Hermione, weakly.

"He'll be OK," replied Ginny, straightening out Ron's arms and legs. She stripped off her own Quidditch robes and bundled them up, laying them underneath his head. "We need to get him up to the Infirmary out of the rain."

A flash of lightning forked through the grey clouds, followed closely by an ominous rumble of thunder.

"Quickly!" ordered Ginny, sweeping damp tendrils of hair out of her face and blinking away the rainwater.

He'll be OK. He'll be OK, thought Harry over and over again as the team filed through the castle corridors towards the Infirmary behind Ron's levitated form. Oh, Ginny could smooth over the roughest waters in all the world every time. She was amazing - utterly, wonderfully amazing.

It was then that it hit him, and he knew at last what she had been keeping from him for so long. A brief conversation some months before in the lounge at The Burrow came back to him, and realisation dawned.

I'm an idiot! Why didn't I see it before?

He stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, stunned by the sudden revelation.

"I might have known she'd do something like this!" he muttered, aloud. "If you want Ginny Weasley to do something, tell her not to do it."

In a matter of minutes, frustration, relief, terror, and infuriation had all passed through Harry's system like wild fire, and his forehead furrowed.

I think Ginny and I need to have a little chat!