The Wrong Shade of Red

by Zelz Saihitei

[complete] Three years is a long time. And yet that one shade of red is still haunting her mind... [femmeslash]

4. part four

Sorry for the delay of this chapter; it took me a long time to get through it, simply because I wanted it to be really, really good. I'm so ridiculously pleased with how this story has turned out. Seriously, you guys just have no idea. So, I hope you all enjoy what you've all been waiting for..

WARNINGS: obsessive-compulsive behavior, indecision, sex, eight pages long, a lot of lyrics.

But for the last time
You're everything that I want and ask for
You're all that I'd dreamed

And for the first time
I feel as though I am reborn
In my mind

And for the first time
I'm telling you how much I need and bleed for
Your every move and waking sound
In my time
I'll wrap my wire around your heart and your mind
You're mine forever now
Who wouldn't be the one you love and live for
Who wouldn't stand inside your love and die for
Who wouldn't be the one you love
- The Smashing Pumpkins, Stand Inside Your Love

The Wrong Shade of Red; Part Four

Thirteen.
Fuck.

The apartment building looms over me, almost egging me on to failure. It's early evening and people are leaving and entering the building, giving me weird corner-of-the-eye looks with raised eyebrows as I pace up and down the sidewalk, staring up at the tall building incredulously, brow furrowed in thought, concentration, and worry.

How did I let him talk me into this? That ridiculous dragon, thinking he can rule my life by his manipulative ways and his smooth talking. Irritation flares within me.

"So she kissed you, and you just let her go?" he squawked, mouth agape. "The woman you've been pining after for three years gets the guts to actually approach your entirely unapproachable person, and you walk away?"

"What else was I supposed to do?" I asked in my defense, folding my arms over my chest. "There could be numerous reasons why she did what she did, and while one of them could be that…"

"No, it is because she's still in love with you that she did what she did, you're just too afraid to see that you could work everything out again because secretly, you enjoy the misery that being apart caused you," he said harshly. "You know you want her, you know she wants you, but the thought of that potential heartbreak is making you freeze up from something that is going to be wonderful, for the both of you." He handed me my coat and forced a piece of parchment into my hand: her address scribbled in Harry's chicken scratch.

"Go, Hermione," he told me, a stern look to his greenish-silver eyes. "For better or worse, at least you'll finally know where you stand."

Currently, I'm standing in the lobby, staring at her call-up number for the billionth time – G. Weasley, 138. The phone is black and a little dirty. The door is glass and black metal and probably heavy. I could Apparate, but I don't know what her apartment looks like on the inside.

God, this is so stupid.

I walk out of the lobby, pushing the door violently to clear my path, and begin pacing the sidewalk again. I'm surprised no one has called the police yet on the psychotic messy-haired stalker mumbling to herself, but maybe this happens all the time in Ginny's neighborhood…

That's ridiculous. This is a nice neighborhood.

Okay, back to reality. This isn't about the quality of the neighborhood she lives in, or how tall her apartment building is, this is about the fact that she kissed me and I want to know why, and to know why, I need to call up to her apartment and ask her to let me in, and if she does that, then a plethora of events could take place, but I'm trying to not to think too hard about any of them, because by doing so, I'll talk myself out of doing anything in the first place.

Which is, in essence, what's happening right now.

God. I hate being so… so…

I huff in exasperation and pick up the phone, punch in her numbers. Half a ring later, she answers.

"Yeah?"

"Ginny… Can I come up?"

A pause. I can almost feel her grin through the receiver.

"Sure. I'll buzz you up."

I wait for the noise to start before hanging up the phone, and manage to pull the door open just in time. Triumph swells in my heart, but is quickly quelled by the nervousness churning in my stomach.

The elevator takes too long to get to the bottom floor. I fidget in the lobby, get too warm, take off my jacket. I put it back on when the elevator gets here. Take it off again when I get off. The hallway pans in and out in my vision. This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea…

Her door is in front of me.

I take a deep breath in and will my hand to knock.

Nothing happens.

This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea…

Just go, Hermione, I can hear Draco's voice chastising me. Just do it.

My hand balls into a loose fist, moves towards the door, my wrist flicks back a little…

And then the door opens before my hand, moved by motivation, can follow through, yet it stays in disappointed hope.

"I figured it would take you a while to knock, so I just thought I'd get you inside now, before it gets too late," Ginny Weasley says to me, standing there in a green t-shirt and dark blue jeans. "So, come on in."

"Oh." I blush and follow her inside.

Fourteen.
She wordlessly takes my coat from me and hangs it on a hook by the door. We move into the living room and she gestures for me to take a seat; I choose a comfortable position on the squishy, chardonnay couch. She sits in a chair across from it.

"So, what brings you here to my humble abode tonight, Hermione?" she asks pleasantly, as if we're old friends catching up. Her mood is strange, but I know it. She's trying to make the ambiance light so, when things get serious, they become more dramatic.

"I just wanted to see you," I tell her, repeating what she told me on the train.

She quirks an eyebrow. "Why's that?"

I smile in a secretive way, trying not to give her too much. "Just because…"

She waggles her finger at me. "Not a good enough answer. Try again."

"Well, what would you expect me to do after you kissed me like that?"

"You mean, after three years of nothing?" she asks, and I nod. She shrugs again. "I don't know what came over me, honestly."

She says it so nonchalantly; I can't help but catch the lie. "You've been thinking about it for months," I say softly, after a short pause.

Ginny just smiles at me, mocking my accusation. "I don't know," she replies.

"You don't know?" I dislike this game.

"Nope. Not at all."

I sigh audibly, making her half-smirk grow into a gloating grin. I frown to offset her cockiness, trying to figure out a way to win this without sacrificing too much of my own pride. Even though I came to her, I still have to pretend that this is something I'm not sure about. In all honesty, I think I've been sure about this since right after we broke up: I want to be with her. So how many moves will get us to that point again? I was never that good at chess, but I know the Weasley family breeds champion players; Ron is the only person in known history who has ever won a life-size game. Ginny's putting her pawns into place to distract me from the royalty; her rooks and bishops are guarding the slips of tongue that could get me to checkmate.

"Then why'd you let me up here?" I ask, trying a new angle.

"Because though watching you debate about it for half an hour was mildly entertaining, I decided it was time to end your emotional turmoil," Ginny says, and I feel my face get hot. "Besides, I told you before – I want to see you again."

"But what does that mean?" Desperation creeps into my voice against my bidding. "There's a big difference between going out for tea every once in a while and…"

"And having a relationship?" Ginny finishes for me.

I nod. "Precisely."

Ginny crosses her arms over her chest and leans forward, false arrogance oozing from her demeanor. It's this arrogance that I find so annoying, and yet have also found so attractive about the redhead. The way she can hold herself, make people believe in her self-confidence and that cocky grin, and then let it, as a mask, slip on and off at will…

"The question is, Hermione," she says to me, voice slightly huskier than before, "what do you want out of this?"

I'm not surprised by the question, but more surprised by the timing. I wasn't expecting that blow on my rook until much later in the game, but I see she's willing to go straight for the king – it's always been instant gratification for her.

"That's not what I came here for," I answer, a little indignantly. "I came here to find out what you wanted."

Ginny's eyebrows raise and she doesn't speak for a few moments. I wonder if I actually captured one of her key players with this move. But then, she surprises me again. "I should think it to be obvious." Her voice is low, soft, honest. Her eyes are suddenly cloudy blue and fixed upon me, unblinking, daring me to challenge her, demand of her an explanation.

But I'm tired of these games. Waiting has made me weary, and three years is a long journey. Here she is, unreadable, when I need her to be an open book. Here she is, unyielding, when I need her to give me some ground. Why can't I simply take what I want, as she does? I wanted her, but she's the one who first plucked me from my closed petals, opened my flower to her golden sun, and kept me in constant spring. I need to be open again, feel that warmth again.

"But it's not obvious," I cry out, standing, an action I don't remember taking. "You're so goddamn sure of yourself, you lead people on, take what you want from them and then leave them, make them hang on your every word, watch your every move, yet you never, ever display what you really want, from anyone." I'm in front of her, and she's standing too, a surprised look on her beautiful features. "Why can't you just tell me? Why must you always play games with people, with me? Why has it always been about manipulation and hiding the truth? Why can't you just tell me?"

Fifteen.
Our bodies are so close; I just realize this. Our bodies are so close I can feel the heat of her breath softly tickling the tiny hairs around my ears. The electricity of her skin is crackling, testing against my flesh. I look her in the eyes, breath now hard to come by.

"What do you want, Ginny?" I whisper coaxingly, longingly. My hand reaches out and touches the bare skin of her forearm; goose bumps rise, on both of us. "Why can't you just tell me what you want?"

I don't, I can't wait for an answer. My eyes stay open as my face moves closer to hers to watch her reaction; her eyes glaze and become out of focus and her lips part slightly. I find her to be so beautiful in this moment I want to cry, but I will them back, for now, and focus now on my own lips, touching hers, gently, a soft kiss. Her response is immediate and just as gentle. Everything else happens automatically; her arms wrap around my body, one around my waist, the other around my shoulder blades, pulling me closer. My hands cup her face, move to her hair, remembering every small detail that I had almost forgotten.

She pulls away first, fear mingled with pleasure, astonishment evident in her expression. Her eyes are still glazed and now a light blue-grey with specks of green. I stay close to her and simply stare, waiting for her to speak, aware of my heart beating hard and fast in my chest and heat spreading in my abdomen, like a hand outstretching fingers to the rest of my body. I feel so vulnerable and I don't want her to see, though I know she can. She could always tell.

"Hermione," she says, and her voice is low and husky. "I…" She swallows, tries to look away, but her eyes gravitate back to my face almost immediately. "You," she admits, "It's always been you."

I smile faintly in triumph and relief. It's all I wanted from this encounter, her confession, to hear the need in her voice that would match my own.

And yet there's nothing else to do. It's all I came for, but now, what do I want from her? What does any of this really mean; the renewal of our relationship, or a simple acknowledgement to the fact that we're still in love… but nothing will come out of it. I don't know or understand any of it, and it's making me feel anxious, as if there should be something else to catapult us into the future, wherever that future may be.

I want to ask her, but I can't get my voice to work. I know that we're being driven to something else by a force of our own, yet not our own. The responsible adult in me says that where we want to go is not somewhere we should go; at least, not yet, not right now. But there is a hopeful heart residing in my chest saying that it wouldn't be that bad, the consequences will be minor.

I listen to that and throw caution to the wind.

"Ginny," I whimper, and I'm surprised at the sound of my voice, the change to it. I recognize the tone: there is desperation and need, but it's different, unfamiliar except in my memories. I feel seventeen again, with our "first time" hovering over our heads like an anvil waiting to drop. The expectancy and anticipation is heavy and nearly unbearable. I want her to kiss me and lead me to her bed.

She easily slips into the role of the experienced, that cocky half-smirk residing on her face, teasing me with her control over my emotions. She puts her hand under my chin and tips my head upwards, moves like she's going to kiss me – then pulls away when I part my lips to let her in. I try again, leaning towards her, trying to capture her mouth in a kiss, but am constantly let down. I whimper again.

"Hey," she says to me, like she used to in the past, "This is what we both want, right?"

I nod without hesitation. "Ginny, I've been waiting for you."

Ginny frowns a little. "What do you mean?"

I sigh and rub my cheeks with my hands: a habit I have when I'm asked to explain myself. "I mean that I've never stopped thinking about you," I explain. "I tried so hard, believe me… But every time I tried to fall in love with someone else, or have sex with someone else, there was always a mental block, because I knew, all this time, you were the only person who I could ever be in love with."

I've gotten myself so worked up I can feel the tears stinging in my eyes. One falls from my eyelashes and starts trailing down my cheek, but Ginny is there, rubbing her thumb over my sensitive skin to wipe the salty traitor away. I smile a little, but am so moved by the small gesture in the first place, that more tears start falling.

"Hey, hey, hey," she tries to calm me down, stooping her head so her face is level with mine. "Look at me." I do so, biting my bottom lip. "I never fell out of love with you." She's speaking slow and soft, to make sure I understand every word. It works; I try to focus on what she's saying, the connotation, the way her mouth moves when she talks. "I never… I thought about you everyday. I thought about calling you countless times. I've always asked Harry about you. It was pride and stupid anger that kept me from you but I know that everything's going to be okay now."

Sixteen.
I breathe in deeply and then we're kissing again, hands roaming freely over cloth and bare flesh, skimming underneath the surface to tease and make dirty promises. Somewhere, our minds went blank and became overwhelmed by the reign of passion, but the sudden feeling of cotton sheets and a squishy mattress wakes both of us from our endeavors. Our bodies are twisted awkwardly, my arm squished between our bodies at an angle and her hip resting a little painfully on my thigh, where her leg is keeping my legs slightly parted.

I don't know what's happening.

I try to hide my face, bury it in sheets, but I can't get enough cloth in my fist to bring it over my eyes. We're both breathing heavily in short spurts, realizing just how much we had been kissing, how hard our unyielding passion had driven us. Of course, we agreed that this was what we both wanted, but it suddenly there took us both by surprise. I'm not sure where to put my hands, how to hold my body under hers, because it's been so long since last our puzzle piece bodies fit together. The picture wants to be whole, but the contours of our separate bodies must come together correctly.

I reach my free arm around until my hand is at the small of her back, fingering the seam of her t-shirt delicately, before tugging up a little, hoping she'll catch my drift. We start kissing again, almost on cue, but her body is so pressed into mine, I can't get her shirt past her rib cage.

"Is this still okay?" I ask meekly, as she contorts her body to accommodate my ministrations.

All she does is nod anxiously and helps me take off the shirt, then pulls me into a half-sitting up position to pull off mine. She has difficulty with my bra clasp; she swears softly before she finally manages to unclip it completely, and I can't help but giggle.

"What?" she asks, mock-defensively. "It's been three years."

"It's cute," I reply, grinning at her. "You still can't get it unclipped. I thought maybe you would have been practicing in my absence."

"I didn't really think about it, I guess," she says begrudgingly, and she opens her mouth to say more, but I cut her off with a kiss, and we quickly forget about the conversation.

The rest of our clothes come off with little difficulty. Our hands become more adventurous as our bodies begin to remember all that had lied dormant for years. My fingernails claw her back to make her gasp; her fingers press into my hips; our mouths move to taste sweet necks and breasts, remembering and creating new memories.

Her hand moves slowly over my stomach, stroking her fingers to tickle the flesh over my rib cage and belly button. I swallow with a dry mouth and look at her, everything feeling so slow again. Her eyes are shining and alight with desire and love, her lips parted with anticipation, as our mine. She's hovering over me, her other arm wrapped under my back to keep me closer, to make me feel safe and loved. Her other hand is coming dangerously close to the point of no return, teasing my inner thighs and hipbones with her fingertips. I gasp and whimper, whine and moan in my throat, move my hips to make her go closer, make her touch me…

"Please," I beg into her lips. "Touch me."

She grins against my mouth and chuckles a little at my impatient insistence and only teases me more, skimming the slick skin without actually touching anything.

"You're still so mean," I whine.

"You're still so impatient," she replies mockingly. I ready a protest again, only to forget everything – my name, hers, the past week, the past three years, as her fingers begin stroking the honey-soaked flesh between my thighs.

My fingers curl, clutching at the fabric of the sheets and her back, scratching, clawing, I am a wild beast let loose in a valley of ultimate bliss. Pleasure rolls through me like waves and ripples, changing depending on the wind, the desire of the moon. Our eyes are locked, magically, though mine continue to go in and out of focus, closing when it feels like too much, just to be let down, taking two steps forward and one step back to the top of the mountain.

"You're a goddess," she murmurs in awe. "You're so beautiful."

I blush but have no time to make a returning volley. An orgasm crashes on my body, making me cry out her name. "Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh Ginny…"

Even as my body's quaking beneath her, her fingers suddenly move and slip inside me, making me inhale sharply. Her fingers thrust in and out, the friction making my hips buck into her hand, my legs trembling, my whole body trembling; I am at her mercy.

"Ginny," I whisper, moan in a strangled voice. My hand, shaking, reaches to cup her face, her sweet skin under my fingertips. I know what I want to say, but even now, at this moment, I can't find the strength to say it.

She knows. She smiles, brushes hair out of my face, and kisses me again, long and passionate, her tongue dancing with mine to the beat set by our conjoined bodies. I want to say I feel complete like this, wrapped around her body, our mouths locked together, touching me. I love it when she touches me. The puzzle pieces are finally put together.

I break out kiss to let loose the scream I can't hold in my throat, its magnitude choking me. Her fingers pause and press into me as my hips buck into her, as my fingernails dig into her skin, as my entire body rises off the bed, like I'm possessed by a devil. When I am finally able to settle back down, I cannot speak. I cling to her and bury my head in her neck and gasp when I feel her pull her fingers out. She pulls away to lick her fingers clean, eyes closed contentedly.

Ginny settles back next to me, arms wrapped around me comfortably. I always loved this about our love-making; after we each came a satisfying amount, we'd simply hold each other while the other regained her strength, talk a little. Sex was never just sex with her. It was always something more.

That epiphany hits me squarely in the chest. That's what I was always trying to look for in other partners: that feeling of something more. I never found that until her, and I ever found it after her, and now that I've found it again…

Don't think about letting go.

I kiss her neck softly, then flick my tongue across the sensitive flesh. She gasps and I can't help but grin to myself. She pulls away to look at my face.

"Still pulling the same tricks," she chastises, and I shrug. "So predictable, Granger."

I grin again, a replication of her seductive half-smirk, and firmly press her onto her back, climbing up on her at the same time. As I lean over her, my hands holding her arms down, she blinks in surprise, but doesn't do anything to protest.

"Predictable?" I ask smugly.

She shrugs her shoulders a little. "Maybe not all the time," she mumbles, before I capture her lips with my own.

I feel clumsy and uncertain, but I try not to show it as I let my hands roam over her body, examining every curve that I had almost forgotten. My fingertips trace the swell of her breast and stroke her nipples, enjoying the feeling of them hardening under my ministrations; down her side, with just a hint of nail to make her moan, to make her anticipate; over her lips and down her thighs, hoping I'm still doing this right, that I haven't lost my touch.

(I'll admit it: I love the feeling of her skin. If I could, I would do nothing but run my hands over her body, over and over again, until the day I die.)

She bites her bottom lip when my hand hovers over her slick and heated flesh. She's never liked being teased, but has never liked asking for anything, either; it usually means a longer time for her to wait for what she wants. But I can't stand to wait any longer either, and as I lean over and press my lips gently to hers again, my fingertips dip inside her, testing the wetness, the warmth, the feeling of completeness that washes over both of us at the same time.

Ginny moans into my mouth and continues kissing me as I move my fingers inside her, everything falling back into place. My body remembers how to make her cry out, how to make her moan and cum and scream and call out my name. My mind remembers what they all sound like; they haven't changed. That's what's so amazing about right now: it feels like we've been transported back three years ago, when everything was perfect and we made love on a regular basis and still got embarrassed around each other. When she would scratch my head and call me her kitty-cat; when she would caress my cheek and call me her pretty girl.

God. Everything is wonderful.

She chokes out monosyllabic words and pleasure-clouded commands; fuck me, harder, oh, please, faster, oh Hermione --. I oblige, pressing harder into her, pulling in and out, occasionally pulling out altogether to play with her super-delicate clit, making her cry out in simultaneous surprise and pleasure. When she comes, she comes hard, her muscles clamping down hard on my fingers and her arms holding me just as tight to her body. And oh, she's crying out loud as a siren, an unbridled sexual scream of pleasure that I can't even comprehend with my brain, but I can feel my body reacting, the heat that's between my legs again already from what I was doing to her.

She loosens her grip and falls back on the bed, panting heavily. I push her hair away from her sweat-dampened forehead with my free hand and we smile at each other softly, as lovers do. She nods once, an old signal, and I slowly pull my fingers from inside her, putting them to my mouth to taste her again. She watches me, but says nothing. It's so quiet in this room I can hear our heartbeats pounding almost in rhythm.

"That was wonderful," Ginny tells me, and leans up to kiss me. I kiss her softly and then settle to rest my head on her chest to better listen to her heartbeat. Her body is hot, as if fever-stricken, but, then again, so is mine. I love this.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," I murmur sleepily, nuzzling into the softness of her breasts.

She giggles a little as my hair and eyelashes tickle her skin and she makes a noise of affirmation. "I really missed you, Hermione," she says into my hair, her voice resonating through her chest, like talking in a cave. "I don't think you could ever know how much."

"Oh, I understand," I reply softly, kissing her breast once. "Trust me; I think I know."

We don't talk for a while, but the silence doesn't seem forced or awkward. I try to analyze the situation and how I'm feeling, but there's nothing to think about; or, at least, I can't get my brain to think about anything besides the softness of her skin, the warmth she's radiating, and the happiness I feel in my heart. It's in this warm glow that I drift off to sleep.