A/N: Okay, so after about two years, I am finally here to pick this story back up. I can't tell you all how abjectly sorry I am that it went on hiatus for so long. I don't really have any reason, I just rather lost interest, and then life happened, and, well, I'm sure you all know what that's like. Anyway, I'm back, I'm a senior, and I'm less than a month from graduation! Woo hoo! Go me! Right, so, um, I'll try to keep writing longer this time. Yes… Here we are, and off we go!
Disclaimer: JK Rowling has a pent house, I have a pet house. Enough said?
Dedication: To any of my readers out there that have been waiting faithfully all this time, this is for you. You are the reason I write.
Chapter 8: Chippendale's? (And I don't mean the furniture!)
"You got to see Harry shirtless!" Shrieked Roxi, as we were whispering in the back of Transfiguration, an hour later. By the time I'd gotten back to Care of Magical Creatures, and when I'd finally figured out where I was supposed to be, Roxi had already escorted Marc to our next class, and Professor McGonagall had introduced him. As soon as I'd reached the classroom, I'd grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to a desk in the back. While we were supposed to be transfiguring a moth into a napkin, I had told her some of what had happened in the Common Room. "Do you know how lucky you—" I clapped a hand over her mouth, effectively silencing her shrieks.
As she stared at me, wide-eyed over my hand, I sighed. "Yes, I sat on his stomach and got his shirt wet, so he took it off." I could hear muffled cries of delight coming from underneath my hand. "Look Roxi, I don't fancy him. I just liked looking at his body… Why does that sound so dirty?" I could feel her lips moving under my fingers, so I removed them.
She grinned, "So? What was it like?" I groaned. "I'm serious, which was better, his arms or his abs?"
"Oh, Purple Merlin, both!" I croaked, dropping my head into my arms.
"More details, please," she said, deriving an inordinate amount pleasure from my pain.
"No. No more, I'm trying to get them out of my head as we speak." I began to bang my head on the tabletop. "Get. Out. Get. Out. Get. Out. Get. Out. Get. Out." I said, punctuating each word with a bang.
"Let me know if that works, Gin." Said Roxi, "If it does, you'll have to sell it to the masses and make millions."
"Shut up you." I said, raising my head and glaring at her. "Oh great, now I have a bump on my head. This day just can't get any more wonderful."
"Oh, I think it can." Whispered Roxi, and began concentrate furiously on our moth.
"Miss Weasley," Said Professor McGonagall, causing me to start violently as I looked up and found her standing next to me, "Why aren't you attempting the lesson? Look at your friend there; she has the right idea. You should really think hard about following her example." With that, she turned around and walked back to her desk. Luckily, she left before she could notice the daggers my eyes were shooting Roxi's way.
"Yes, Miss Weasley, look at your friend here. Notice how easily she creates perfection." She grinned at me, as the daggers became flames.
"Once again, shut up you." I turned away from her and indulged my inner pyromaniac by attempting to light a spare piece of parchment on fire with my eyes. Right before the lesson ended, I decided I should have something to show for the day, and quickly tried to transfigure my moth. Needless to say, it didn't work.
"Thank Merlin for lunch." I cried as Roxi and I walked towards the Great Hall. "Oh, by the way, whatever happened to Marc?"
"He was abducted by Slytherins." Said Roxi, just as a group of them and Marc passed by. "They're planning the brain-washing experiments as we speak."
"That's not fair." I said.
"What? You wanted to lead the experimentation?" Asked Roxi, looking shocked.
I pushed her and she giggled. "No. I meant I was supposed to look after him, and he's gone off with the Slytherins."
"Yes, well, I've always thought they were better company anyway." She said, as I pushed her again. "Would you stop shoving me?" She demanded as she pushed me back. I nearly fell on top of a group of first-years, but I managed to regain my balance at the last moment. Standing straight again, I smirked at her. "Ginny, don—" She said before I shoved her again. "Ok, that's it. Now you're just begging for it!" Before she'd even finished speaking, I took off down the corridor, heading for the Great Hall doors. Shrieking and laughing so hard I could barely see where I was going, I threw them open and ran inside, Roxi right behind me.
She leaped towards me and we crashed down onto a bench together. After a moment of gasping for breath, I started to shake the legs she was sprawled across. "Rox? I said, patting the top of her head. "Let's have some lunch. Come on, get up." When she didn't move, I tried a different approach. "Well, okay, I suppose I could feed you there, but I'm afraid, after all the excitement, that my hands aren't too steady." As I spoke, I stuck my finger in a bowl of pudding, and held it over her exposed neck. "I might…just…slip." The instant my pudding-covered finger touched the back of her throat; she was off the bench and screaming like a banshee.
Roxi turned bright red from all the stairs trained her way, scrubbed off the pudding, and sat down to glower at me. I was still laughing when the rest of our friends showed up.
"You know, you two seem more like brother and sister than Josh and I do." Roxi said quite a while later, after her embarrassment had worn off and my laughter had calmed to only a few chuckles every few minutes. Josh and I continued to toss blueberries into each other's mouths across the table.
"What makes you say that?" Asked Josh as he tossed one at me, "You and I fight a lot more than Ginny and I do. Besides, just to remind you, we are twins. That rather ruins your lovely theory."
"Yeah, Josh and I look nothing alike, I've got red hair, and his is dark brown like yours. Your eyes are even similar. Look, he's got gold ones with little green flecks," I told Roxi, "By the way; it's so unfair that you have prettier eyes than I do." I said as Josh caught a blueberry.
"I can't help being beautiful." He simpered, "It just comes naturally." He fluttered his eyelashes at me, and tossed an imaginary lock of hair over his shoulder.
"You are so odd." Said Roxi, "I still don't think we can be related. Ginny's as odd as you, she must be your sister."
"Well, you know, now you mention, I have always rather fancied the idea of not having a twin. They can be such a bother." He ducked as she threw a stolen blueberry at his head. "Honestly, twins are so violent."
Roxi merely rolled her eyes, and continued eating lunch. It wasn't until she felt the blueberry hit her in the side of the face, and begin sliding down her cheek that she looked up again. When we made eye contact, I meekly pointed a finger at Josh. An evil glint appeared in her eye.
"Uh oh," Josh said, trying to duck behind the jug of pumpkin juice on the table before him.
"That was a very, very bad idea, brother mine." Roxi said calmly, inching her hand towards the bowl of pudding I had wiped on her earlier.
Josh said nothing, but his efforts to shrink small enough to fit behind the juice became noticeably more frantic. Grinning, Roxi held the pudding bowl in her hand and raised it slowly. I watched sadly, as a perfectly good dessert went flying through the air, straight towards the head Josh had not been able to hide successfully behind the flagon of pumpkin juice.
Unfortunately, Josh chose that exact moment to dive completely beneath the table, causing the pudding to fly straight past his head—
And all over the two people that had just stepped up behind him.
Roxi gasped, and began to blurt out apologies as fast as her tongue could produce them, "OhbloodysoddingMerlinIamsoindescribablysorrypleaseforgivemepleaseforgivemeIswearitwasanaccidentIwasaimingforJoshpleaseforgiveme—"
Harry just laughed, and looked down at his pudding-splattered shirt. "That's alright, Roxi. I just don't think I'm meant to wear a clean shirt today."
Marc, too, was admiring the lovely new dessert motif now adorning the front of his clothing. "Please, mademoiselle, do not be upset. I know it was an accident."
I couldn't tear my eyes away from the scene that had been unfolding since Josh disappeared beneath the table, when suddenly his head popped back up. "Oh, hello, old chaps." His gaze moving down to the front of their uniforms, he winced. "Er, sorry about that, didn't see you there."
"I think they may have noticed that when you dove beneath the table like the coward you are, and they received what was meant for you." Roxi said, recovering slightly from her earlier abject embarrassment.
Suddenly, I broke free from the trance the projectile pudding had sent me into and burst into uncontrollable laughter. It took fully fifteen minutes before I'd recovered enough to wipe the tears from my eyes, and pull myself back up onto the bench I'd fallen from. "O-okay, I'm under control now." As soon as I said the words, another bout of laughter nearly knocked me from the bench again. After several deep calming breaths, mixed with the occasional giggle as images of Roxi, Harry, Marc and the pudding flashed across my brain, I finally stopped laughing long enough to look up at the two dessert-covered forms standing behind Josh.
Marc looked a bit concerned for my sanity, and truthfully, I couldn't blame him. I don't think I'd ever laughed so hard before in my life.
Harry, however, was smiling at me, his eyes laughing along with me. I could tell that he wanted to laugh just as badly as I had, but he didn't want to embarrass Roxi any more. This set me off again, and while I was laughing with my head on the table, I heard Josh ask Marc and Harry if they were here to see someone.
"Yeah," Harry said, just as Marc replied, "Oui,"
"Ginny." They both responded at the same time. This brought my head up off the table so quickly I nearly gave myself whiplash.
"Ow. Do you guys need something?" I asked, smiling, but rubbing my rather sore neck.
They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time, then shut them, then opened them again. "You first," Harry said, gesturing for Marc to speak.
"Merci." He nodded at Harry in thanks, and turned back to me. "Ginny—may I call you Ginny?" Considering the fact that he pronounced it Jeenay, and made the syllables drip off his tongue like honey, I was willing to let him call me anything he wanted. And then I was going to take a cold shower.
"Oh, o-of course," I stuttered a moment later, after I managed to wrench my mind away from thoughts of honey and showers.
"Again, merci," He said, smiling at me, "I have come over here to thank you for your assistance this morning, and your willingness to escort me today. It was very kind of you." I could do nothing but nod dumbly until he lifted my hand off the table and kissed the back of it. "I hope we will become great friends, Ginny." He told me as I stared, frozen in place, at my hand in his.
"Wh—oh, yeah, me too, er, moi aussi." I replied, the years of French television I used to watch kicking in.
He smiled at my attempt at his language, and I nearly had to physically detach my eyeballs from his mouth in order to look at Harry—
Who happened to be staring at Marc with an expression in his eyes that disappeared too quickly for me to read it. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought it was anger.
Banishing that thought from my head as Harry started to speak; I forced my wayward mind to pay attention. "—So I've decided to hold tryouts this Thursday, since we need two new Chasers and a Beater, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind—"
I interrupted, waving my hands through the air, "Wait, wait, hold on, what are you talking about?"
"I just told you, I was made Quidditch Captain and I—" He broke off as I launched myself across the table, stopping just short of throwing my arms around him.
"I—ah, that's excellent, Harry! I'm so happy for you, but, ah, I'd rather not, er," I gestured to the pudding still on his shirt. He laughed.
"No problem, Ginny, and thanks." He laughed again when I reached up and grabbed him on either side of the head, pulling him towards me for a smacking kiss on either cheek.
"There!" I said, satisfied, "That'll have to do until you put on something clean and I can hug you properly."
"Right," He grinned at me, "So, I was wondering, as the only Chaser left, if you wouldn't mind helping me out with tryouts. I was thinking Ron could work with the Beaters, you could do the Chasers, and I could take the rest, since I'm thinking I'd like to create a reserve team this year."
"Absolutely, Harry, that's a fantastic idea." I told him, grinning with excitement at the thought of beginning the Quidditch season. "Count me in."
"Great." He grinned back, "Now, I'd better go find something else to put on." He said, looking down at the sad state of his shirt. "I'll see you later, then."
As he turned away, following Marc who had left the table only moments before, I watched with mingled horror and awe as both boys, one after the other pulled their shirts off, right over their heads. The horror was due to the fact that I knew it would be ages before I could remove yet another image burned into my brain, and the awe was at the simple fact that both blokes could not have been better made than if they were Greek gods, come down from Mount Olympus to grace us with their presence.
At the sound of the gasps around me, I realized that I wasn't the only one to notice the suddenly shirtless Marc and Harry. Groaning, but unable to tear my eyes away, I smacked myself on the head. "Polka-dotted Merlin! This is not bleeding Chippendale's!"
A/N: Yay! That was fun! I'd forgotten how much I liked this story! Okay, so now that I'm done, those of you that don't hate me too much for taking so long to update, Please Review! That's right, it's capitalized, baby!... Oh, dear, I've never used the word baby quite like that before, whatever is my diction coming to?... Oh, I don't care, go on and review!