Arrested Development

During the weeks following September the first, every single publication in the entire Wizarding press featured a moving photograph of Harry and Ginny engaged in full passionate snog on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Usually under such classy titles as, "Boy Who Loved?" or "He Who Must be Kissed."

Though it was deeply embarrassing, mortifying even, Harry decided it wasn't quite as bad as being called a spoiled attention seeking lunatic brat.

The one article that truly troubled him was published in the Weekly Moon. That lovely author had noted that as the girl in the picture was boarding the Hogwarts Express, "The Boy that Keeps on Living" would be sadly all alone for ten months. Plenty of time to be enticed away by other young attractive Witches.

Harry absolutely hated how Ginny might feel when she saw that. And he knew there was no point in trying to pretend it might escape her attention. A few of the Slytherin students from her year could be just as nasty as Draco Malfoy - and there was simply no chance Ginny hadn't been conveniently provided with a copy of that particular column. Or five.

He'd Owled her an apology as soon as he had seen it. She had merely written back, "Don't be stupid. I'm the one that attacked you, after all. I suppose it's a good life lesson though. Remind me never to rip your robes off in a public toilet."

Harry appreciated the fact she was trying to deal with the situation with a sense of humour, but he was also worried it was a pile of shite. He had started to realize that when Ginny was uncomfortable with something, she covered with a joke. It had taken an egregiously long time, and he was often still in the dark as to what precisely was wrong, but he had finally figured out that facet of her personality.

Harry had known from the second he had woken up from his coma that he didn't want the press invading the rest of his life. He had understood that he wanted to avoid Skeeter wannabes poking around the Weasley home while he was there. But somehow it had slipped his mind to consider how it all might affect Ginny at school.

Now that the issue had been brought to his attention, the memories of his fourth and fifth years gave him a pretty good idea of how she was likely feeling, suddenly thrust into the media spotlight. And he figured it probably wasn't fair. For the most part, he was safely secluded at the Burrow. Ginny was trapped in a castle teeming with gossiping teenagers - having to face mobs of people at every meal. All Harry had to contend with on a daily basis were the twins.

Although, Fred and George had made it their personal duty to make sure someone was taking the mickey out of Harry on a semi-regular basis.

One evening at supper, the pair had sat on either side of Harry, passing a magazine back and forth between them. This particular full-colour photo captured the moment from a particularly close angle.

"Never knew you were so photogenic Harry," Fred said, his arm around Harry's shoulder's.

"We especially love the part where we can actually see your tongue," George added, holding the cover in front of Harry's face.

Fred started to point. "See, there it is. And there. And there. Oh, wait a second."

"Don't worry, Fred," George said genially. "It will come back."

"Ah yes, there."

"Fascinating technique, Harry."

That wasn't the end of their fun. That night when Harry went to bed, he found his entire room plastered in various magazine and newspaper covers. Every wall and even the ceiling were covered in magically enlarged pictures of Ginny and himself, merrily snogging away. And the twins had been right, he could see a fair amount of tongue.

The one consolation was Fred and George probably hadn't imagined the actual result of their prank. Ginny had been gone a week, he was eighteen, and it was hard to lounge in bed, literally under such a frenzied onslaught of passion and not be affected. Needless to say, the pictures didn't come down until the next morning.

And he still secretly kept one in the journal he was using for his writing.

Harry had made a point of trying to write for at least a few hours a day. It had turned out to be a lot harder than he had originally thought.

He started at the beginning, with all the facts as he knew them, of the prophecy and the night his parents had been killed. That had seemed easy enough, but then he ran into his first roadblock - the ten years he had spent at the Dursleys.

Harry had no idea how far he wanted to get into that experience. He was acutely aware of how people might react if he presented himself as a suffering child. Poor, poor, famous Harry Potter, had to live with relatives that were mean to him. He didn't know how to present the truth of the situation without sounding like he felt sorry for himself and was begging for sympathy.

He was tempted to merely write the sentence, "I lived the next ten years with my Aunt and Uncle," and be done with it. But at the same time he wanted to tell of how he had been ignorant of the entire Wizarding World, and what it had been like to finally discover it. How strange it had been to learn that everyone knew who he was, but having no memory of the reason why. Finally he decided to just skip ahead to his first year. He would go back to the Dursleys later.

Then there was structure. He had no idea exactly HOW he wanted to tell his story. Should he cover each year or just the key events? Should he put in personal details or just the straight facts? How much should he include about Ron and Hermione? Should he tell of how they met and go into their friendship at all? How about the Weasleys? Ginny?

Eventually he ended up bouncing around through his history. What he wrote about completely depending on what he felt like that particular day. He hoped that he would figure out how to tie it all together, and have it make sense, later.

That was how Harry spent the month of September: buried under an assortment of embarrassing kissy-face photos and realizing that he actually had no clue how to write a book.

There was also the tiny detail of trying to ignore the potential changes happening around him. Ron kept bringing up the suggestion of him and Hermione living together in their own flat. The way he rhapsodized about the whole thing, it was clearly a rather elaborate fantasy. And worse, Hermione seemed to be warming to the idea.

Then one day, the first week of October, Ron came home from work flushed with excitement. He pulled Hermione into his arms and danced her around the kitchen. He had found them a place.

One of the players on the team had recently found out his wife was going to have a baby. They had decided to move into a house and were willing to let Ron and Hermione sublet their old flat. They could go and see the place that night.

Harry was invited along, of course.

The second he stepped inside, Harry despised absolutely everything about the place. He hated the colour of the walls. The stupid, shoddy carpet that looked like it was ten years old, at least. He even hated the light fixtures.

The first words out of his mouth were, "It's a bit small, isn't it?"

Ron looked a little alarmed. "Well, it is only the two of us. How big should it be?"

Hermione beamed, "I like it, I think it's cozy."

Ron smiled, apparently reassured, and brought them into the kitchen.

Harry leaned against the counter and asked, "Do either of you even know how to cook? Aren't you worried you might starve?"

Hermione pulled her head out of the cupboard she was looking in, and weakly offered, "I'm learning."

Harry shrugged and moved over to the fireplace, absently running his hand along the mantel. "Blimey, this thing is tiny. Are you sure you can even fit in there?"

Neither Ron nor Hermione answered. They were both standing still, openly staring at him. Harry walked into the living room and they followed. He flopped down onto the couch. He couldn't stand how he was acting. He knew he was being a complete git. At the same time, he couldn't stop himself. He gestured to the window and the busy street below, "Rather noisy, isn't it?"

Ron quickly turned to his girlfriend and fretfully assured, "We can do charms to fix that."

For her part, Hermione's lip was trembling. She looked as though she were about to burst into tears at any moment.

"Oh great," Ron moaned, obviously noticing her distress. He suddenly rounded on Harry - a picture of absolute fury. "This is my first place! And I'm bloody proud of it, you stupid sod. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Harry had no clue how to answer, so instead he excused himself and hurriedly escaped into the pint-sized washroom.

He leaned against the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. He knew he was behaving like a spoiled child, but he couldn't help it. He loathed this place. He sensed it in his gut - this flat was evil. He felt sick. His throat hurt. Oh mother of Jesus, he felt as though he were about to cry. He took off his glasses, pinched his nose and swallowed it down.

Hermione was knocking at the door. "Harry? Are you okay in there?"

He coughed. "Yeah, just a minute."

Apparently deciding he didn't need his privacy in her brand new toilet, Hermione opened the door. She just looked at him for a minute, and then, before Harry knew what was happening, she was hugging him. "I'm sorry, Harry. We did this all wrong."

Ron was standing in the doorway. "What's going on?"

Hermione turned around to face Ron, taking Harry's hand. While he appreciated the gesture, it was doing nothing to alleviate his feeling like an enormous baby. "Maybe Harry's right. Maybe we should get a bigger place. With a second bedroom."

Ron looked dumbfounded. "We can't afford a second bedroom!"

"We could," Hermione prodded, "if someone else were chipping in for it."

And that's when it hit Harry square in the face. This was the moment when everything would irrevocably change. He and Ron would never again share a room. The three of them wouldn't see each other every day, let alone eat every meal together. His family was moving out, leaving him behind with nothing but a gaping hole in his chest.

He needed to sit down. He pushed past the two of them and found the couch again as quickly as he could. Ron followed him, seemingly mollified. Hermione quietly sat on the arm rest. The three friends sat facing each other. Harry felt decidedly uncomfortable under their gaze.

Finally, Ron spoke. "I thought you were happy at the Burrow. You keep going on about how great it is."

Harry shrugged. "It IS great. I don't get why you're in such a hurry to leave."

Ron thought about it for a minute. "I don't know. Maybe it's different. I grew up there - in a crowd. I can't wait to get out - have my own place."

Hermione spoke up. "We can figure something out, Harry, if you want."

"Yeah," Ron added. "It would be fun, the three of us. I just thought you were waiting for Gin. I mean, it's only nine months." There was a pause before he added cautiously, "You do want to live with her, don't you?"

"Yeah." He did. He had been imagining the layout of their little cottage for two years. With an enormous garden, teeming with gnomes. He felt like a prat. "You guys should take this. Don't worry about me, I'm being stupid."

Hermione seemed uncertain. "Are you sure?"

Harry nodded - he didn't trust his voice.

First thing the next day, Harry sent Hedwig to Ginny with a note asking her to wait up till midnight in the common room.

He had been holding out as long as he could. If they were going to be apart for ten months, Harry had felt the need to pace the more desperate measures. And he wasn't even sure why he could visit her via Floo. It went against everything people claimed about Hogwarts' security. But Sirius had managed it, so it must be possible. Then again, why had Sirius needed the password in Harry's third year - if he could have just Floo'd in whenever he felt like it. Really, the whole thing made no sense.

Maybe it was somehow restricted to talking heads.

Whatever the logic, after the debacle the night before, Harry needed to try.

He tried to set himself up comfortably with a pillow for his knees and a small step-stool in front of him to balance his arms. Nothing else for it, he tossed in the powder and hoped for the best.

Ginny was sitting in one of the large arm chairs, reading her Transfiguration textbook. Not sure if there were any other students still up, Harry started with a quiet, "Hey."

Ginny looked up and smiled. It was one of the best, warmest smiles he had ever seen. "Hey."

As she pulled her chair closer to the fire, Harry tried to get a look behind her. "It's alright," she said. "No one else is here."

But something else had caught his attention. "Is that what I think it is on the bulletin board?"

Ginny flew around to look. She then launched herself out of her chair, muttering, "Stupid, sodding gits. You would think they would get tired of this." She pulled the picture down, crumpling it in her hand.

As she sat back down, Harry offered another apology. "I'm sorry." This wasn't how he had hoped their conversation would start.

Ginny shrugged. "It's alright. It hasn't been all bad."

Harry glowered. "What could possibly be good about it?"

Ginny bit her lip, then looked at him mischievously. "Colin Creevy was on that platform, you know."

"Oh God," Harry groaned. "Don't tell me he snapped a few for his private collection."

Ginny smirked. "Though I can't confirm what he may or may not have kept for himself, he gave me a framed portrait. It's a really nice black and white, and classier than all the others somehow, kind of romantic." She frowned, thoughfully. "He has come a long way with that camera."

Harry snorted. "Well, he's had enough practice."

"I like it," she continued. "It's going up on our mantel one day. He said it was for you as well, to make up for what a pain in the arse he used to be."

There was something Harry had been thinking about since his late-night conversation with Mrs. Weasley. He wanted to do something for her, without betraying her trust. And he thought he had come up with a possibility. This seemed like as good an opportunity to broach the topic as any. "Gin, do you think your mum would like a portrait?"

"Of us kissing?" she laughed.

"No," Harry answered, softly. "I mean of Percy."

Ginny appeared a little taken aback. She thought about it for a minute before she asked, "Did you know Mum's brothers were killed in the first war?"

He'd had no idea. "No."

Ginny nodded. "It's not exactly something we talk about much. They died just after I was born, so Ron and I don't even remember them."

"Does your mum want portraits of them?"

Ginny shook her head. "When Ron went away to Hogwarts his first year, I really missed him. I was all alone in the house for the first time and I didn't have anybody to play with." Harry had no idea what she was getting at, but she continued. "I fancied that I might like to have a portrait of him around to talk to. And I asked Mum why we didn't have portraits of her brothers. She said, while it might be nice to have portraits of her family somewhere else, where she could see them from time to time, she wouldn't want them living in the house with her. I didn't really get it, so she tried to explain that portraits have the main personality traits and opinions, but they lack the full essence of who the person truly was. There aren't any layers, and as a result they often end up more like caricatures than true representations."

"Oh," Harry said, trying to understand. He'd also been thinking about commissioning a portrait of Sirius, and he hadn't considered that it might be confusing. He'd just liked the idea of having a piece of him back.

Ginny went on. "And now I agree with her. I don't think I would be comfortable with something that wasn't really my brother hanging on the wall." A surprising grin lit upon her face. "Especially Percy. Could you even imagine it? He would sit up there like a big stiff snobby prude and complain about the noise all the time. And that's not really who he was, and not how I want to remember him."

Harry wasn't sure if he agreed or not, but clearly it wasn't what Mrs. Weasley would want. He sighed. It had seemed like such a good idea.

There was a bit of an awkward silence, which Harry felt the need to fill. "How is school?"

Ginny suddenly looked at her toes. "Alright."

Harry could immediately tell that she was holding something back. "What is it?"

She seemed a little nervous. "McGonagall is taking me on for private lessons."

"Why?"

"She thinks..." Ginny huffed a sigh and looked at him. "You have to promise not to laugh."

Harry gave a wide grin immediately, he couldn't help it. "I promise not to laugh at you."

Ginny appraised the look on his face warily. "Not exactly encouraging. Alright. She thinks I could be an Animagus."

Harry was stunned. He stared at his girlfriend in awe. "Why would you think I would laugh?"

"I don't know." Ginny shrugged awkwardly, looking down into her hands. "I guess I'm feeling a little shy about it. I haven't told anyone here yet. And the last time I Owled you, I couldn't even put it in writing. It's this huge thing and I don't really know if I can do it or not."

Harry was reminded of the time George had made an offhand comment about Ginny's power. "You'll do it. You'll be amazing. What kind of animal are you going to be?"

"Well," she said, "there is no way to know for sure until I start training, but I think I might be a cat. My inner animal feels very cat-like."

He completely agreed. "Definitely."

Apparently deciding it was time to talk about him, Ginny asked, "How is the writing going?"

"It's hard." Harry rolled his eyes. "A lot harder than I thought it would be. Especially some parts. So I skip around a lot. The other day I wrote about the first time we, you know, kissed and stuff."

Ginny sat up in her chair, and nearly choked. "You are putting THAT in your book?"

Harry grinned evilly. "Oh yeah. It's Chapter Twenty: My Sexual Journey as a Boy Hero - From Snogging to Shagging."

She crossed her arms. "Except that we haven't shagged yet."

"Well," Harry smirked, "it IS still a work in progress."

She wasn't appeased. "Do I even need to tell you that if you were to include anything close to that about me you wouldn't survive to see the royalties?"

"I know." Harry wished he could hold up a conciliating hand. "All the same, you should take a look at it sometime, it's kind of sexy."

Ginny graced him with full-on glare. "Or maybe you should burn it immediately, before anyone hilarious like one of my twin brothers gets a hold of it."

"I'm not going to show it to anyone." He added faintly, "I just wrote it for me, because I missed you."

Her whole demeanor softened as she gazed at him. "Well, it was pretty amazing." She picked up her wand and nervously fidgeted with it for a moment. "Do you think I can kiss you this way?"

Harry looked around at the fireplace. "I have no idea."

Ginny got down on her knees and moved towards him slowly. She pointed her wand and muttered a Flame Freezing charm.

"Where did you learn that?" Harry asked, a little surprised at the new skill. He had read about the spell when studying burnings at the stake, but they had never covered them in class.

She blushed. "I looked it up when I got your Owl this morning." She rested her hands on the hearth and leaned in to kiss him.

At the last minute Harry felt compelled to warn, "Be careful." He was serious. He had no idea what would happen if she touched his face with her hands. If she accidentally pulled too hard would his whole body come through or would she just get his head?

"Don't worry," she breathed just before her lips met his. The kiss was awkward and frustrating and amazing all at the same time. The desire to lean into her was upsetting his whole sense of balance and the fact that he couldn't reach through and touch her was nearly driving him crazy. But her mouth was soft and just as insistent as ever and she tasted, well, she tasted like Ginny, and he could never get enough of her. As her tongue slid over his teeth and up against the roof of his mouth, he gave into the urge to capture her fully, sucking on her hard, practically swallowing her, and he wished it could go on forever.

A minute later Ginny pulled back, licking her lips. She smiled at him wickedly, "Chapter Twenty-One: Snogging as a Disembodied Head."

Author's Note: Well, there you have it, a nice fluffy send off before I break for Half Blood Prince. I will start posting again with Chapter Six - Wild Animal Kingdom, the first week of August.

Happy reading and good luck to everyone with their ship!

It's funny - I recently read a comment saying that shippers were the LESS serious Potter fans. Heh - I am VERY serious! And if I were still in the land of academia I would definitely find a way to write a paper on some more "intelligent" topic. But sadly I know when I get my copy I will read the last page first. Not to see what happened with Voldie, or to find out who died. But rather to see if we find out who Harry Freaking Potter's girlfriend is going to be.

Extra thanks to Loony Phoenix for suggesting the flame freezing charm - Ginny's head was nearly burned off during the making of this chapter.