Disclaimer: Phaerie doth not owneth Harry Potter and Co. Phaerie wants to talketh some Shakespearian smacketh, but is at a loseth for words…eth.
My Knight in Shining Armor
A Harry/Ginny One-Shot
By Phaerie
"Having fun?" a teasing voice asked out of seemingly nowhere, startling Ginny out of her dazed state and causing her to fumble her grip on her broom handle. With a yelp, Ginny practically scrambled to roll her broom over right-side up while hugging the handle tightly.
"Careful there," came the voice again, its tone brimming with laughter. Ginny, who had been peacefully flying around the pitch without a care in the world just moments before, glared viciously down at the invader of her Me Time.
"Potter! How 'bout I let you explain to my brothers how you stood by and laughed as I almost fell to my doom?" she hissed as she floated down to the ground slowly, still hanging onto her broom for dear life.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Harry apologized, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.
"Don't give me that rubbish! It was premeditated!" she grumbled while sliding off her broom to flop graciously onto the green field.
"I was planning on catching you before you hit the ground, if that's any consolation," he said offhandedly. Harry walked over to her, his broom slung over his shoulder, and plopped down beside her.
"Is your ego really so ignored that you have to go and create scenarios where you get to play the knight in shining armor?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Regretfully, yes," Harry said with a mock-dejected sigh.
"Well isn't that too bad?" Ginny spat, turning away from him in a huff.
"I said I was sorry Gin," Harry nearly whined. Ginny crossed her arms haughtily. Sighing, Harry pulled his wand from a pocket of his robes and, with a quick swish and flick, conjured a white rose. He leaned over and reached around her to let the petals tickle lightly across her nose. With a giggle, Ginny grabbed it and batted his hand away, turning to regard him with a small smile.
"My, when did you become such a gentlemen?" she amusedly inquired, unable to resist adding on in a murmur, "Though I would have preferred chocolate."
Harry frowned and narrowed his eyes, though not enough to hide the amusement apparent in them from Ginny as he muttered, "Some people are so ungrateful." She punched his arm playfully, though with apt amount of force to get her message across.
Harry smirked, "I know you would've like chocolate a great deal more, but even I'm not so much a gentlemen as to give my last chocolate frog to you with the next Hogsmeade visit two weeks off." This time Ginny didn't even bother to hold back as she whacked him upside the head. "Ow! Alright already, you overly-violent woman!" He reached into another pocket of his robes and pulled out a chocolate frog, the edges of the wrapper bent and crinkled from being jammed into the pocket. "I'll play you for it. We'll pretend it's the Snitch. First one to catch it wins."
With that, he cast a charm over the chocolate frog and it began trying to tear itself out of his grasp. Standing up, he grabbed his broom and waited for Ginny to rise as well. "Ready?" he asked, receiving a quick nod from Ginny whose full attention was already on the frantic wrapper. "Go!" Harry shouted, releasing the chocolate frog and mounting his broom just as Ginny followed suit. They pushed off the ground and flew off after the elusive sweet.
Ginny, of course, was at a disadvantage, seeing as how Harry's broom could sweep up dust clouds on hers any day and Harry was the best seeker that Hogwarts had seen in years. Though, with the stake being chocolate instead of just winning a silly Quidditch match, Ginny was much more motivated than Harry to win. Clearly, Harry had yet to learn not to come between a girl and her chocolate if he thought he could win.
The chocolate frog was zipping from one wooden stand to the next, trying to hide behind the house banners. Harry and Ginny were weaving in and out of the stands in pursuit, Harry in the lead. Ginny was flat against the handle of her broom, whispering to it: faster, faster, faster.
The colorful, charmed wrapper changed course, shooting upwards and then cutting across the pitch to the stands on the opposite side. Ginny pulled her broom to a stop quickly, turning it sharply and busting through a Hufflepuff banner as she shot after it, Harry still ahead of her, but now merely by a meter.
The handle of her broom jerked and she started to lose speed, but she pushed it to keep going - faster. Don't quit on me now, she thought. Between keeping an eye on the chocolate frog, keeping up with Harry, and keeping in control of her broom, Ginny barely had time to notice and register the box of seats she was headed straight toward. But she did, and she pulled the handle of the broom to the left to swerve around it, but the broom wouldn't respond, not even when she attempted to get it to slow down; it kept straight for the stands at an alarming speed.
"Watch out!" she heard Harry shout from somewhere beside her as she shut her eyes and braced for the impact. Suddenly she was being torn from her broom, an arm secured around her waist, and held against Harry's chest. They tumbled off into the box. Harry's back slammed against the first row of seats with a painful THUD and the two of them rolled off onto the floor of the box.
Ginny, gasping for breath, opened her eyes and blushed at how close there faces were. Harry had pushed himself up a little, supporting himself with his elbows as he winced at the pain shooting up his back. Their legs and robes were tangled together. "You alright?" he asked, slowly opening his eyes to look at her worriedly.
"I'm the one who should be asking you that," she whispered distractedly, noting dully to herself that his eyes really did resemble a fresh pickled toad in relation to their color. Then she blinked and smiled at him. "My knight in shining armor," she whispered as she lifted her head up and pressed her lips against his lightly. Dropping her head back, she was glad to note that she wasn't the only one blushing now.
"What was that for?" Harry asked after a moment of just staring at her in a numb shock.
Smiling sheepishly, Ginny averted her eyes and turning her head, mumbling, "For saving me. The knight in shining armor always gets a kiss from the damsel in distress to express her gratitude."
When he didn't respond, Ginny blushed even redder, knowing he was still staring at her and feeling his breath rush out across the side of her face and tousle loose strands of her pulled-back hair. Then he smirked and remarked teasingly, "You know, for all the trouble I went through to help you, you could show a little more gratitude, don't you think? It wasn't even premeditated, it was purely instinctive."
Ginny smirked in return and turned her head back to face him, wishing her blush would disappear already. "Your ego's still not satisfied?"
"Not quite," Harry admitted, his lips already dropping down to meet hers.
"Some people are so ungrateful," she mumbled with an eye roll before lifting her head up again to reach Harry's lips with her own. And as she was coaxing Harry's teasingly closed lips open she couldn't help but feel like they were still floating high above the Quidditch pitch, the wind drifting by them in their blissfully dazed state.
A/N: So, what do you think? This whole one-shot totally came out of nowhere. I started writing it during the commercials of the MTV Movie Awards. And now I feel that I should really work on either Snapshots or The Secret Assignments, but I need to go pack for the weekend. I'm going to a balloon rally:D I'm going to post this un-beta'd, since my sister is nowhere to be found. I read over it once, so hopefully there aren't too many mistakes. Anyway, ciao for now, and don't forget to review!
-Phaerie
