Chapter Eight: Hogsmeade
Harry entered the Common Room the morning of their Hogsmeade visit still pulling his jumper over his head. He was late. Very late.
He'd told Ginny he'd meet her here in time to have breakfast before leaving, but his alarm hadn't gone off, and he'd woken half an hour later than expected, and by the time the others had been done with the shower, Harry was a good twenty minutes behind schedule.
Ginny was sitting in one of the huge armchairs, reading a book, when his head popped through the neck of his jumper as he approached her. Unfortunately, as his attention was focussed on Ginny, he hadn't noticed any other occupants in the room.
"Nice chest, Harry..." Lavender Brown smiled winningly as she walked past on her way to the portrait hole. She ran her fingernails across his bare chest rather suggestively before he had time to pull his sweater down. Harry felt his cheeks brighten.
"I..."
"Yes, he does have a nice chest, doesn't he?" Harry turned to see Ginny smiling up at him wickedly. "To go with all his other nice bits..."
The redhead's eyes turned on the pretty blonde seventh year and Harry noticed Lavender's cheeks pale. He couldn't see the expression on Ginny's face, as her back was to him, but from the look on Lavender's, it couldn't be pleasant.
Lavender quickly made tracks out through the portrait hole, not looking back, and Ginny turned to Harry, a happy smile on her face. Her brown eyes sparkled.
"Why on earth did you come down here half dressed?" she asked, shaking her head at him as she ran a hand over his now jumper-clad chest.
"I... I was late... and I didn't want to keep you waiting."
Ginny smiled and wrapped her arms around him. "I'll happily wait for you, Harry. Anytime."
"Sorry about that..."
"Lavender will be Lavender will be Lavender," Ginny laughed, taking his hand as he led her towards the entrance.
"What do you mean?"
"It means, Seamus had better start paying a little more attention to her. The girl is sex-starved, and it's becoming rather noticable that she's on the prowl."
Harry swallowed, glancing down at his girlfriend, and then back down the corridor. The thought of a sex-starved, predatory Lavender Brown was only minutely less frightening than an angry Voldemort. He didn't care to mess with either of them at the moment.
Ron and Hermione, Seamus, Neville and Dean Thomas were all sitting in their usual places at the Gryffindor table, eating breakfast as they approached and sat down.
"Thanks for waking me up," Harry grumbled at Ron.
"Hey, I tried," Ron shook his head and spoke, actually stopping to swallow first. Hermione was beginning to have an effect, Harry thought. "You said something about dead kittens and rolled over. After that, I figured you either needed to sleep, or I didn't want to be around when you woke up."
Harry flushed. Thinking of dead kittens was the only way he was able to control himself when his broom cupboard encounters with Ginny got intense. He'd had to resort to that method of cooling down repeatedly of late.
From the look on Ron's face, Harry thought he'd probably figured this out already. His blush probably just confirmed it. Harry glanced down at Ginny to find her filling her plate with fresh strawberries and a slice of toast.
"Want some?" she asked, looking up at him with innocent brown eyes and popping a strawberry in her mouth.
Oh, Merlin.
"I'll... I'll make do with toast, thanks, Gin," he swallowed. How on earth was he going to get through an entire day spent in Hogsmeade with her without doing something to either annoy her or get Ron fired up?
Looking to his left and across the table, Harry noted that Neville was eating a bowl of porridge between glances at the Ravenclaw table.
"Nev?" Harry said, thinking that he'd be a good distraction.
The round-faced boy turned startled eyes up at Harry, as though surprised to be noticed.
"What, Harry?"
"Okay?" Harry asked, glancing across at the Ravenclaw table himself.
"Yes," Neville nodded, looking down into his bowl rather self-consciously. "I told... I told Luna I'd meet her after breakfast to walk in..."
"Luna? Luna Lovegood?" Ron raised his eyebrows. "You're taking Luna Lovegood into Hogsmeade?"
Neville raised his eyes to the other boy, and nodded.
"Good on you, mate!" Ron crowed. "She's got a lovely pair of..."
"Ron!" Hermione and Ginny cried out at the same time, stopping Ron in mid-sentence.
"What?" Ron glanced between them, looking confused. "I was going to say she's got a lovely pair of eyes... what did you think I was going to say?"
Hermione and Ginny exchanged glances.
"Come on, then... are you two going to walk in with us?" Harry stood, having finished his toast and sausage, and Ginny, popping her last strawberry in her mouth, stood too.
"Coming, Harry," Hermione stood. "Anyone else?"
Perhaps only Harry noticed the rather surreptitious glance she threw at Ron, but he thought Ginny might have noticed, as well. Her hand tightened, almost hopefully, in his.
"We'll walk along, if you don't mind, Harry," Seamus stood.
"Right," Ron got up, grabbing several slices of toast from the platter and climbing over the bench.
"Ron!"
"Wha'?" he looked back at Hermione, hands full of toast, one slice sticking out of his mouth, and raised an eyebrow at her.
"Oh, honestly!" she huffed, pushing past him and towards the doors.
"Wha's wif 'er?" he mumbled around the slice of toast protruding from his mouth, and Ginny shook her head.
"Ron... show some manners!"
Seamus and Dean exchanged looks, then grinned at Harry.
"No Lavender today, Seamus?" Ginny asked, her arm wrapped around Harry's waist as they walked along.
"Nah... she and Parvati wanted to shop today, and I told her to go off and do it, then, but I wasn't hanging about in no bloody dress shops for the entire day."
Harry and Ginny exchanged looks. Neville threw a glance at Harry, then Ginny, and paled.
"Umm... I'm just going to go meet..."
"Hello, everyone," Luna Lovegood approached them in the Great Hall as they were about to exit into the October sunshine. "Hello, Neville."
"H-hello... um... Luna..." Neville stumbled over his tongue. "You're... you look awful pretty..."
"Thank you," Luna smiled at him, taking his hand and leading him from the castle. As she took his hand in hers, Neville threw Harry a look so happy that he might well have been told he never had to attend another Potions class. Ginny grinned up at him after catching the other boy's look.
The walk into Hogsmeade was accomplished amidst joking and teasing. The eight of them moved together along the road and, when they reached the village proper, split into groups.
"Dean and I are heading to Zonkos... Ron? Coming?" Seamus asked casually as he moved away from the group.
"Um..." Ron looked at the others. "Not right now, I think. We'll meet up later for a butterbeer, maybe?"
"Suit yourself," Dean said. "We'll be around."
He and Seamus moved off, already talking about the relative merits of dungbombs over the twin's invention of the "pocket swamp", a smaller version of their "portable swamp" that had shown such success during Harry and Ron's fifth year.
"Well?" Ginny said. "Where to?"
"Umm..." Harry glanced around. "I thought..."
"Well... I'm off to the book store. I have a couple of books on order, and I'd like to see if they're in yet. And I want to see if they have any books on old spells..." Hermione said in an undertone, glancing around. "I'll meet you later at the Three Broomsticks?"
"I'll... ummm..." Ron began to move off after her. "I'll just go and..."
Ginny smiled, shaking her head at her brother. When would he admit that he had feelings for Hermione? Or more importantly, when was he actually going to do something about those feelings?
"Well?" Harry looked down at her when the others had gone, Neville and Luna having drifted away without saying much of anything.
"Well?"
"Where to first?"
"Hmmm..." her teasing eyes turned up at him. "I know! How about Madame Puddifoots?"
Harry sighed. Not his favorite place. Not even in the top ten. But if it's what Ginny wanted...
"Okay..." he dutifully turned in the direction of the sickly pink painted cottage at the far end of the village. Ginny began to laugh.
"Relax, Harry, I would never ask that of you."
"But..." he looked at her, noted her mischievious eyes, and grimaced. "Witch."
"I hate that place," she giggled. "I really, really hate it."
"Me, too..." Harry shuddered. "Too many..."
"Memories?" she asked softly.
"Memories?" He looked at her, mildly confused.
"Well... you took Cho there..."
"I was going to say too many pink things... not to mention the open snogging going on all about you when..."
"Oh," Ginny said. There was an odd tone in her voice that Harry couldn't place. She didn't sound much like Ginny right now.
Harry sighed. "Is Cho Chang and my hormonal stupidity from three years ago going to be an issue, Gin?"
"No, of course not, Harry..." she said softly. "But you really..."
"I really liked her, yes," Harry nodded, then began walking down the street, her hand in his ensuring she would keep up. "I was fourteen. You can't hold something like that against..."
"Of course I don't!" Ginny said, apparently horrified at her own teasing.
"I mean, I don't hold Michael Corner against you..." Harry grinned down at her. She looked up at him, a rather dangerous look on her face.
"And what, exactly, is wrong with Michael Corner?" she asked in a dangerously quiet voice.
"Just that he's a git," Harry said softly, ignoring her tone. "And an ugly one, at that."
"Are you sure that you and Ron didn't change bodies for the day?" Ginny snorted. "Ron's views on Michael Corner have been made very, very clear to me."
"No..." Harry denied, smiling. "I've always thought he was a git."
"But 'ugly' is a relatively new discovery?" Ginny asked pointedly.
"No, he's always been ugly, too."
"As opposed to the Greek God I'm seeing now, hmm?"
Harry flushed, suddenly uncomfortable with the way this bantering was turning. "Ummm... no..."
"Harry?" Ginny stopped, tugging on his hand, and forcing him to stop and turn to her. "I don't like Michael Corner. I never really liked Michael Corner, and the little hissy fit he threw after we kicked Ravenclaw's arse at Quidditch just proved to me how much of a git he really is."
"Then why...?"
"Several reasons. He asked me, you didn't. I was trying to get over you. He's a damned fine Quidditch player, and he let me ride his broom..."
"He what?"
"Harry!" Ginny flushed. "He has a Cleansweep 300!"
"Oh..." Harry looked away, embarrassed.
"And it ticked off Ron every time he saw me with him. I was getting Ron back for years of baiting me..."
"You're positively evil, Ginevra Weasley."
"A girl has to use what she's got," she shrugged. "Besides, you were with Cho. What what I supposed to do?"
Harry colored. "Cho was..."
"I know what Cho was," Ginny scoffed. "She was your Michael."
"Right," Harry nodded, realizing it was true. Cho had been the first girl, who wasn't related to a close friend, to show any real interest in him. She was pretty, and for a hormonal fourteen year old, a perfectly understandable aberration. One he had some difficulty understanding now.
Wrapping an arm
around Ginny, he pulled her along as they moved down the street.
"So, I won't bug you about Cho if..."
"I still think he's a git."
"And an ugly one," Ginny sighed. "I know. But..."
"But?"
"He was the first guy who didn't look at me like I had three heads after..."
"After?"
"The Chamber," she said softly, not meeting his eyes.
Harry considered this for a moment. "Not easy, huh?"
"No," Ginny looked up at him. "I know that Dumbledore tried to keep it quiet, but..."
"Nothing stays a secret for long around here," Harry confirmed with a sigh. "Tell me about it."
"No," she confirmed. "Okay, enough of this... let's go to Zonko's and do some spying for the twins..."
