Title: Late Night Shower
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG to be safe
Summary: Late night shower, Ginny in a towel, Harry's nightmares, H/G hug, wild and beautiful flaming red hair, and some Ron inserts too.
Categories: Fluff, Romance, slight Humour
Disclaimer: JKR owns HP, I only own this mindless plot.
A/N: I apologise for my very late update. I just want to tell my reviewers, people who added me in their favourite authors list, people who care when I'm going to update and also my readers; that I love you all. You bring out my motivation to continue writing. I know that I'm not a great writer and all (with my poor grammar etc), yet you all are there giving time to read my pieces, so I want to say: Thank you, very much. I'm sorry to say that this chapter is un-betaed again but I've looked through it at least 3 times, so I hope that any mistakes won't be glaringly obvious.
Part II: Harry's POV
"Harry Potter... The cursed one. All your loved ones had died in my hands, hahahahaha. They hate you for causing their deaths. They hate you... They hate you... They hate you!"
Harry jerked and sat up, his forehead wet with perspiration. He was surprised and glad that he had not wakened the entire Weasley household with his earlier thrashing in bed. Fortunately, he had come round before he started screaming, the last thing he wanted would be Mrs Weasley fussing over him in the middle of the night. The dream had come almost every night and fussing would not prevent it. He was debating whether to wake Ron up to soothe his own nerves before remembering he was staying in Percy's room. Come to think of it, even if he were to be in Ron's room, he would need a lion's roar to wake the heavy sleeper. With his breathe finally catching up, he decided to go to the kitchen for a mug of hot cocoa. He had learnt from Lupin that chocolate calms one's nerve. Lupin, Sirius... He shook his head and walked out of his room.
The next moment he knew, he was lying on the wood floor some distance away from his door, with Ginny sprawled on top of him. And it was a Ginny who was wrapped only in a towel, some part of his brain wittily commented as Harry took in the sight above his body. Her eyes were closed with her hair falling in wet curls onto her shoulders. Water droplets were dripping off her face onto him. Harry did not know why he did it but in these few short seconds, he counted her freckles. Eleven freckles on her nose. He never had the thought of counting Ron's freckles before. Ron. He froze. Ginny blinked. What would Ron say if he sees them like this? His cheeks burnt.
"Ginny? Er, sorry, I didn't see you out here. Do you mind... You're, er, I can't really breathe..." All previous thoughts of Voldemort by this time had vanished into thin air the way Snape used to empty Harry's potion cauldron.
All the rest happened in a blur and before Harry could take in what he was doing, he was sitting on the sofa, staring at the dying fire in the living room. The fire was crackling, flames dancing wildly and beautifully. The flames faded in his mind eye, reappearing as hair; red, wet, wild and beautiful hair. He shook his head. He had no idea why he had visualised Ginny Weasley's hair. He did not even look at Ron's hair that way! And they are all red, aren't they? Like the setting sun. Argh. Ron's hair is not like the setting sun! But Ginny's hair is, another voice in his mind spoke.
"I'm going mental." He spoke into the still air around him. He should not be thinking about Ginny but the image of her wrapped in a towel kept popping into his mind. 'Voldemort. Harry, Voldemort.' He reminded himself. He could not afford to have anymore loved ones; they would be killed by Voldemort. Loved one? Where did that come from? A few moments later however, Voldemort did fill his thoughts. He was almost into his "wallowing in self-pity and guilt" mode when Ginny's footsteps alerted him to her presence. A sudden image of Ginny lying seemingly dead in the Chamber of Secrets came into his mind. He inwardly shivered.
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah." 'And thinking about what harm I'll bring to you if you get too close to me', Harry thought to himself.
"You want to talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about. Nothing special, just the same old thing." 'I'm just worried about how all my loved ones will die. He just won't let me off. He just wouldn't let you off…' Instead of saying the later part of the sentence, he was suddenly alarmed by how much he would miss her if something ever happen to her. True, she was not as close to him as compared to Ron or Hermione. But with her, it was different. Much that he insisted that it was pure luck that he managed to save her in his second year; he had been replaying the incident in his mind during this summer break, after Ginny had reminded him of it last year. He would not want any harm to come to her again. In a way, it was his 'saving-people-thing', but in another way which Harry did not really understand, it had pained him to see her lying there on the floor. A vibrant girl like her, as she had shown herself to be, should never be lying on that cold, hard floor. No one should suffer like that.
Ginny's next statement sounded sad. And before Harry could register what she had spoken, she had risen from the armchair. He tried to stop her, but no sound came out from his mouth. He did the first thing that came into his mind. He crossed the room, wrapping his arms around her and tried to force the image of her unconscious form away. Voldemort and his latest nightmare came to him instead. The next thing he knew, he was sobbing into Ginny's shoulders. With random dreadful images flying across his mind, he finally broke down in front of someone.
At one o'clock in the morning, Harry was lying once again on his bed, thinking about what had happened in the past one hour. A large burden had been lifted off his shoulders. Even though he had been slightly embarrassed about breaking down emotionally in front of Ginny, the thought of her understanding relieved him. He also found it hard to believe that he had actually complimented her hair like that. He blushed and with a smile, he drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
That night, he dreamt of wild, beautiful hair and perhaps a towel or two too.
Fin.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed reading it. Review, please?
