a/n: OMG I am really sorry... it's been a very long while, but right now we're moving and cleaning both houses (old and new), and I'm babysitting as well as doing band camp at the moment. Worst of all, this chapter was done earlier, but my floppy corrupted on me and I couldn't update! Grr! Well, now that I've vented and am down on both knees begging forgiveness, I hope you are all still interested! Enjoy!

C H A P T E R S I X T E E N
Harry's eyes were wide open, his whole body seized up—Christine's hands still firmly gripping his shoulders as Ginny stalked up to them. Before she could attack Christine, however, a boy ripped Harry and Christine apart.

He edgily shoved a shock of russet hair out of his eyes. "Zut, Christine! Je ne sais pas au faire avec toi!"
"You do not know what to do with me, Jacque? I can't believe you 'eft me for dat skank Isabelle!"
Jacque looked bewildered. "Is theese what this is about? Christine—Isabelle est mon cousine!"
"Oh, really Jacque?!" Christine cried gleefully, looping an arm through his. "I'm so sorry…"
And they walked off without giving Harry or Ginny a second glance.

Harry turned to Ginny just in time—she was about to sprint after them, a fierce scowl on her face.

"Gerroff, Harry," she said, struggling against his grip round her waist. "What a little—ooh, I'll have her for that…"

"Ginny!" said Harry weakly, shifting her into a dancing position; people on the floor were starting to stare at them.
Ginny impatiently fitted herself against Harry for a rumba to appease the crowd.
"I can't believe she would do that," raged Ginny, "just to even the score with her prat of a boyfriend…"

"So you're not mad about the kiss?" he asked cautiously.
"Of course I am!" she replied indignantly. "I know it meant nothing to her! It was a ruse for Jacque to come crawling back! And she used you Harry! Doesn't that upset you?"
"I'm not all that fussed, to be honest," he muttered after an elderly man and woman stopped in to commend Ginny for her performance. "It didn't feel like anything we had…"
Ginny dipped back, her hair falling across Harry's arm. He watched the smooth column of her neck coil upward as she rose, surprise in her eyes.

"Did it feel like flying, what we had?"
"Yeah," agreed Harry, reminiscing.

"Harry," Ginny sighed, tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being scared about this…about us. The truth is, I want to be with you. This feels right, no matter how much I lie to myself about it. And if loving you feels this right, this good, then nothing will stop me from doing it.
"I know there will be risks, but if you're willing to face them…then so am I."

The song ended, and Ginny pulled back, dabbing her eyes. Harry slipped a strand of hair behind her ear.
"C'mon, let's go get a drink," he said, offering her his arm.

---

Ginny claimed two chairs at the table with Ron and Hermione as Harry fetched the punch. Ron was scowling about something, and Hermione was looking peeved. He extended his hand to her without looking and she took it, letting Ron guide her to the dance floor.

The night was really falling upon them now, causing the lanterns on each table to flicker shadows around the party's small clearing. Harry studied Ginny in the light; she caught him at it and abruptly set down her glass.

"Good things don't happen to me often, and when they do, I get scared." She willed him to read her mind, to understand.

And he did. Of course he did.

"Did you consider Tom to be a good thing?" he asked.
"At the time, yes," she admitted, biting her lip. "He understood me like no one else, was the one friend I could always count on to never judge me by my face, my status, my last name.
"And I guess I still do consider him to be a good thing. For what does not kill us makes us stronger," Ginny finished, smiling shrewdly and looking into his eyes.

Without warning, Harry heard Ginny's voice clear in his head, as if she was whispering in his ear.

"No one's ever understood me like you, Tom…It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket….I'm pale and not myself….R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over…"

Ginny lay flat on her back, deathly pale on a cold stone floor…

 A loud, shuddering gasp escaped him. He looked back at Ginny, whose watery eyes were lowered to the table.

"How…how did you do that?"
"I really don't know," she sighed, her lower lip quivering, and for a moment in the firelight, she looked almost twelve years old again. "I think I have a gift…I think I might be…clairvoyant…or something." She winced at how melodramatic the words sounded.

"So that's why you've been able to control stuff without a wand!"
"Yeah…I've kind of gotten the hang of it."
"So you can get in my head. Can you…read my thoughts?" he questioned, a bit worriedly.
"Sometimes…just bits of them, though. It comes and goes." She still had not raised her head. Harry reached across the table and lifted her chin with his finger.

"You said that night made you stronger. How?"

"Ron!" Harry yelled, speeding up. "Ginny's okay! I've got her!"…. "You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?"

"It was you," she said simply, scooting over a chair so they were sitting next to each other. "You made me believe that even after all the deceit Tom put me through, there was still some good in the world. You saved me, Harry."

He blushed. "You saved me, too. You're the only one who refused to let me fall, even when I tried to throw myself."

"Let me thank you," she whispered, and kissed him sweetly. He grinned against her lips.
"I could definitely get used to this system of gratitude."

"Oh, pardon! I deedn't know you 'ere the type for sloppy secon's, Gin-knee," said a honeyed voice behind them.

"Christine," replied Ginny, with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Potter," acknowledged the tall boy.
"Jacque," sneered Harry.

"I do not know why you are fooling yourself, Gin-knee," simpered Christine. "Why would the most 'amous boy on Earth want a little notsing like you, when he could 'ave someone like moi?

"She is not nothing!" Harry roared. "She's the best thing that's ever happened to me!"

"You base your beauty on your face, Christine," Ginny spat, placing a soothing arm on Harry's. "But Harry sees the soul within."
"You can see it in her dance," Harry supplied viciously. "You're concerned about looking good, Christine—Ginny's concerned about feeling good."

"Enough cheet-chat," demanded Jacque. "Prove it. Take it to zee floor."

Harry got up out of his chair and roughly shoved it aside. He stretched out a hand to Ginny, who poised her legs like a ballerina and lifted herself out of her seat. Jacque and Christine were already ahead of them.

"If their noses stick up anymore they might inhale each other," Ginny muttered.

Harry laughed. Things were about to get dirty.

---

Fred and George Weasley were stunned. Completely befuddled, to be precise. Their DJ-ing abilities were being put to the test.

"Pull out all zee stops," murmured a boy as he passed them a wad of French currency.

There was a knot of people surrounding Ginny and Harry, Christine and that boy, swaying to the music as they watched the two couples dance.

No, perhaps dance was the wrong term—it was more of a…a war….Yes, a war on the floor.

Ron sidled up to the music equipment, one hand in his pocket, the other around Hermione's waist. "So, you want in on the action, or what?"

"Ten Galleons on Harry and Ginny to massacre them."

---

Harry's fringe clung to all sides of his face, flat and damp with sweat. Fred and George were switching up the beats so rapidly—he had never danced so hard in his life. But it was all worth it, especially to see Ginny move.

She and Christine had their backs to their partners, grasping the hems of their dresses above knee-height and swishing them from side to side to reveal the fancy footwork below. The swinging tune shifted to mambo—Harry took Ginny's hand and let her twirl. Jacque had grabbed Christine round the middle, allowing her to cartwheel backwards.

Next techno, then samba, then rock—

Then a fast tango. Harry's kind of music.

The mob around them was on fire, clearly impressed with the efforts of the rivals. Christine and Jacque had gone into a traditional sort of step, while Ginny took a deep breath, swung her leg upward, and rested it on top of Harry's collar bone.

He gripped her ankle and began to turn slowly, guiding Ginny's foot all the while. The crowd hooted its approval. And very suddenly, her foot hit the floor—Harry and Ginny swept Jacque and Christine apart, pounding out footwork. They seemed too stunned to react.

Just before the music ended, they twirled the two Frenchmen away, and gathered into a pose: One of Ginny's arms wound around his neck, the other extended to the side; Harry, one arm around her waist, the other supporting two legs—one horizontal, the other angled towards the sky.

Celebratory whoops filled the air as Harry let Ginny down gently and they took their bows. He kissed her hand, not at all fazed as Christine and Jacque spat bitterly on the ground before them.

Watching the throng trickle away, Ginny intertwined her fingers with Harry's. "You did it. You found your escape."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I found you."

And, angled towards the sky, they tilted back and kissed.

--Fin--

a/n: well, so ends the actual story. Epilogue soon to come, which is about Ginny's Quidditch tryout. Thank you all SO MUCH for putting up with my sporadic updating—that's life. I hope I have made reading this story worth it.

Muchos besos,

HiSpAnIc PaNiC