Author's Note: Right, now that the introduction to the story is out of the way, we can finally have some action. As always, advice is nice and reviews amuse, so review please!
- - - - - - -Ginny walked quickly toward portrait hole past some third-year insomniacs, who were playing Gobstones with some fifth-years.
"Where're you going this late?" her friend Isabelle Algovale demanded as her opponent got sprayed in the face with something smelling very nasty.
"Never you mind," Ginny replied lamely, unable to think of a suitable excuse. "Well, I, er, left something important in the classroom," she said hastily to avoid suspicion. Too late.
"Oh," Isabelle said, raising an eyebrow. "Right. Well, don't get caught. Say hi to Harry for me."
Ginny grinned and clambered out of the portrait hole after looking carefully both ways. She slipped, successfully undetected and unhindered, down several flights of stairs and through two corridors. There was a tense moment when Peeves was singing, "Oh, his eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad . . ." in the trophy room, but Ginny scampered lightly past and found the statue of Boris the Bewildered. She began to count the classrooms. "One, two, three . . ."
Glancing at her watch, she noted that she was fifteen minutes early. Grinning with the thought of surprising Harry, she reached her destination, turned the handle, and stepped into the dark classroom.
She let out a small yelp, but then realized she had stepped into Harry's arms. She laughed quietly, then shut and locked the door softly behind her and met his silent kiss.
Sometimes she had to guide his hands back to her back, but his kisses were gentle and passionate. She sensed a need, an aloneness, which she had never felt from him before. Maybe he was opening up to her, showing her his true heart and feelings. She kissed tenderly back, offering him her love, trying to tell him through her kiss that she would always be there for him.
After a while, they stopped kissing and held each other without a word, side by side on the floor on their cloaks. Ginny had informed him at the beginning of their relationship that she refused to do anything further than kiss him, and she trusted him implicitly. His arms felt warm and protective around her, as if to tell her right back that he would always be there for her.
Still she felt as if he was expressing some sort of need for her, a loneliness, an insecurity, and she longed to make him feel better. Ginny hoped he had finally opened himself to her fully, showing her the person beneath the reluctant hero. She clung to him, listening to his deep, rhythmic breaths, and felt her own heart beating in synchronization to his. She knew that this memory would last her a thousand lifetimes. Taking in his spicy smell and burying her face in his chest, she felt his head move close to her ear, sending a warm tingle down her spinal cord.
"I love you," he whispered, so quietly she could hardly hear him. "I love you, love you, love you."
Ginny's eyes nearly filled with tears at his sweet proclamation of love. He was such a gentleman, she thought. So romantic. And while Harry had certainly shown her that he loved her, he hadn't told her straight out until now.
"I love you, too, Harry," she breathed, hoping he would hear her.
Suddenly she felt his muscles stiffen and heard a sharp intake of breath. "What did you call me?"
"I said I love you, too, Harry," she said louder, confused. "What, you want me to call you Scarhead like the Ferret?"
Immediately his arms left her waist and she felt him scrambling to stand up. "What is it?" she asked worriedly, afraid she had offended him in some obscure way. "What?" she demanded, louder, when silence answered her the first time.
"Weasel?" spluttered an all-too-familiar voice.
