Sundays at The Burrow are, usually, lighthearted endeavours, warm air tickling your face outside as you enjoy the best made treacle tart and some good company.

Now and then, however, a bottle is passed from hand to hand and, as the summer sun sets in the orchard, cheeks flush with merriment and chests bubbling with a different kind of laughter. It's like the war was never something they were forced to live through, stealing away their youth, their will, the joy inside their eyes.

Mollified by Firewhiskey and snuggled between Bill and George, Harry laughs the night away, cosy and comfortable for this one moment in time. Just them, the men, with one Weasley gone and another sprouting roots inside a different world, safe from all the troubles of their own.

And when the sun rose and the chill set, they were still sat happily on the front porch, blankets wrapped around their shoulders. It was bliss.

"Potter," Robards' bark cuts through Harry's cubicle. "Your suspect is here. Move," he adds when there seems to be no shuffling, no sudden clatter rising through the office.

"Harry!" Neville's head pops from the nearest cubicle, but Harry simply grunts, head nestling better in the crook of his arms. "Harry, wake up!"

"POTTER! Where the bloody hell are you?!"

Now Harry wakes up, icy chills and the urge to vomit shaking him out of his slumber; his head bobs into the desk, lightning bolt scar smacking into the hard surface as Neville's fingers lightly tap the crown of his rumpled head.

"What - ah, fuck. Fuck!"

"You better run, Robards seems livid," Neville whispers as he ducks his head, blonde strands of hair vanishing from Harry's vision.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck! He'd come in early to read through the file, ending up napping instead. Power napping, in fact - as if that ever works.

It is precisely the kind of thing that happens when you listen to George, Harry mentally kicks himself and starts to run.

Grunting, Harry trips his way out of the cubicle, thumbs rubbing at his eyes beneath his glasses as he sprints to the interrogation room, now fully out of breath.

"Being a star won't get you out off the shit list for missing your first solo interrogation, Potter," Williamson hisses, long ponytail swished pompously over his shoulder.

"You'd know about the shit list, eh, Williamson? Still warming the top spot after you held the Minister's mother in interrogation for forty minutes?" Harry shoots a fully formed stink eye at his fellow Auror as he passes by, enjoying the wanker's obvious disappointment that Harry had shown up.

"It was thirty five, Potter. And she didn't have appropriate ID."

"Had to find the file," Harry clears his throat as he enters, ignoring Williamson and bumping head first into a fuming Robards.

"And where is it?"

"Huh?"

"The file, Potter," Robards growls.

"Oh, erm - yeah, Williamson said he'd bring it," Harry offers, hand flying to the back of his head to ruffle his hair.

"Williamson!" Robards bellows thunderously.

Booted feet rattle instantly, tripping over themselves in panicked haste.

When Williamson returns, eyes pinning Harry down with a very filthy stare, he swipes it confidently out of his colleague's hands and nods at Robards, "I'll take it from here."

The Head Auror scans him curtly. "You better not mess this up, Potter. First leads aren't easy to come by after a cock up," he rumbles and steps aside, revealing their suspect, who'd been sitting quietly at the other side of the table.

Harry suddenly feels like he's been clobbered over the head.

"Hi, Harry. It's been too long."

His brain cells stop in utter shock, thoughts of it can't be, it has to be a joke, please let this be a joke written all over his face in what Harry can only assume are huge block letters.

"Ginny?!"

She purses her lips into a thin line, her expression more mature than Harry can remember, than he can even picture, frankly; the scrutinising look in her eyes almost alien to the surprised, at times terrified brown eyes he still remembers.

"Not too chuffed to see me, then?"

The mad thought that she can read his mind crosses him briefly.

Harry's head turns to Robards with a snap. "Where's Ron? Surely she's here to see Ron," he waves his hands in a frenzy, index finger pointed under Ginny's nose. "She's his sister," Harry adds lamely when Robards doesn't seem to balk and Ginny keeps pinning him down with the same bemused stare.

"Weasley, you mean? He's been briefed and sent home while you were napping, Potter. No next of kin allowed this early in the case. But you already know that, eh? You've clearly followed protocol and thoroughly read the file."

Harry has the distinct feeling that, in spite of Robards' calm tone and composed face, he's actually one minute away from biting his head off if Harry doesn't do something remotely professional soon.

"Right," Harry clears his throat in what he can only hope is textbook professional, "as I said before, I'll take it from here."

Robards smacks him with the sort of look that reminds Harry strongly of his old Potions teacher. "You sure you can handle this, Potter?"

"Yes, sir."

He holds on to a semblance of a straight face until the door clicks shut and it's just him and Ginny and perhaps millions of question marks left in the interrogation room.

"Okay," Harry then starts casually, "what the fuck?"

"Yeah, good to see you too, Harry," she smiles sweetly, flicking her hair back and, weirdly, his stomach somersaults.

"Does this seem somehow funny to you? Showing up as a suspect in a murder case?"

As soon as he says it, Harry knows he's already been highly unprofessional. Secretly, he hopes Williamson's ear isn't glued to the door and that no one had heard him inform his prime (and only) suspect they're under investigation for allegedly committing murder.

"I didn't show up," Ginny immediately scoffs, "I was brought here. From the other side of the world. But yes, it does seem really funny, thanks for asking."

The tips of Harry's ears flash scarlet. Vaguely, he remembers the girl who'd sent him a singing Valentine, embarrassed to tears and blushing like the setting sun, remembers the singing dwarves chanting the lyrics she'd written and the others laughing as they sang.

The person who's staring back at him now is, however, nothing like the girl he used to know. Nothing like the girl who woke up in the Chamber, clutching onto him. There's a fierceness in her eyes that sends chills down Harry's spine.

Quietly, he grabs the nearest chair, spins it and straddles it. Then, without much fuss, Harry elbows the file, belting it to the other end of the table before his green eyes settle back on Ginny. "Speak."

There, he's back in control, textbook and professional from here on out.

"It's all I've done so far," she lightly scoffs, her gaze following the file as it slides down the table, as it hits the floor with a faint thud.

"Indulge me," Harry replies with a calmness he doesn't feel, Summoning his quill with a smooth flick of the wand.

Ginny's eyes flutter shut, her hands now twisting nervously over the table top. "I was waiting for her -"

"Waiting for who?"

Her brown eyes open brusquely.

"Susan, I think her name was Susan. She was supposed to arrive early, but she didn't, so I waited for her after we'd finished training."

"State the name of the team, please."

"The Fitchburg Finches and this is ridiculous."

"No, this is professional. Who else was there with you as you waited?"

"Just me," Ginny starts, a little uncertain. She absent mindedly picks at her nails, letting them dig into the sensitive skin there as she seems to think.

Harry motions her to carry on, subtly checking that the quill is now recording her full statement.

"That's the thing, isn't it?" She draws in a breath and follows through, more confident this time. "It was just me there and that's why you'll never believe me, will you?"

"It's my job to gather information and draw the conclusions, Ginny," Harry says as he leans in, scanning her face. A strange whiff of flowers floats through the air for just a moment, the freckles on her face igniting briefly before she's Ginny again - just Ginny.

"Okay, Mr Professional," Ginny suddenly smirks, something like mischief glinting at the corner of her eye, "should you be really using my first name - nickname, actually?"

She leans back in her chair, proud, one hand raking through her hair before she crosses them over her chest, her chin pointed tauntingly upwards.

Harry exhales loudly.

"A girl is dead, Ginny - erm, Ms Weasley."

"And I'm the last person to have seen her, I know. I've been told multiple times. Also, eugh, Ginny's actually fine."

She seems to add it as a second thought, but Harry's under the impression that she's goading him, prodding him, trying him on for size. And this makes his blood flow faster, breath slightly hitched.

Tap-tap-tap, his fingers tap onto the table as he thinks, his eyes oddly trained on the way her long, red hair contrasts with the jet black of her robes. Her hair was shorter when he'd last seen her, shorter and braided simply on one side.

Suddenly, Harry decides to swerve left in his approach.

"Tell me how it happened." It's a request, but he makes it sound casual, smiling at her as she frowns at him. "Tell me how it happened and you're free to go."

Ginny's mouth forms into a pout, a small freckle above her upper lip shifting teasingly as she chews on his words. Finally, she picks up the ball he'd thrown her and Harry listens closely.

"I was alone, everyone had already filed out after training, half convinced the new recruit wouldn't show up. She hadn't shown up all day, right? We sort of decided she must've had some issues with her international travel documents or that the portkey from Britain had been completely fucked. Some of us laughed that she'd probably ended up in Alaska instead and I started to believe so too when I heard her."

Harry's stomach churns, but he doesn't interrupt her. It was never good to interrupt them as they talked.

So he keeps listening.

"I had to stay behind because Sutton - our manager, thought we'd bond over our shared Britishness or some pish. So I stayed and then there was this terrible scream coming from the other side of the pitch - I'd already had my bag on, pissed and about to leave. I can't be sure, but I think she was running from someone."

Ginny stops for a while, drawing in breath, her hands twisting again quickly, the many freckles peppering her skin dancing under Harry's eyes.

"She seemed so scared - nearly out of her mind, really," Ginny plows on, something hard and sad covering her eyes as her vision blurs and her gaze falls on a corner of the ceiling, searching through her memories. "I wanted to help her, I did. It's just - they'd cut her in half before I found my wand."

Harry doesn't allow any surprise to ghost over his face, doesn't push her. He simply carries on formally, matter-of-factly, distancing himself from the emotions she's reliving. It's crucial that he does so before the moment passes.

"Our American counterparts said you'd described 'a black jet of light whipping through the air'."

"That's what I saw," Ginny nods, still staring blankly. "It cut her in one go."

Thoughts of wildflowers lace with his thoughts and musings of what he'd heard, of what he already knows. In his mind's eye, Harry sees a young girl running for her life with flowers growing where she's dripping blood, and he has no idea why.

"You're free to go," he hears himself say and ardently hopes his instincts haven't failed him this time. That his professional instincts are in control rather than his other baser ones.

He spends a long moment alone inside after she's gone, turning her story on all sides, picking at the bits and pieces hanging in the air. His fingers dash over the scar on his forehead, tips lightly tracing the edges of the lightning bolt, of the old, damaged flesh.

Finally, he picks up the file, pockets the quill wearily and exits.

"Any particular reason you're giggling?" Harry drawls as he's met with a gloating Williamson posted right next to the interrogation room.

"I couldn't help but notice -"

"I'm sure you could've found a way to resist," Harry snarls without missing a beat.

Williamson clears his throat and puffs his chest, continuing in that silly, pompous tone that always has Harry's eye twitching, "I couldn't help but notice that you've let the murderer go."

Harry blinks at him, a sudden desire to strangle Williamson with the ends of his crimson robe washing over him.

When he doesn't reply, his colleague fills the silence for him.

"Not much of a thinker, are you, Potter?" Andrew Williamson taps his temple twice and practically prances away from Harry, a joyful little spring to his step.

Harry resists the urge to pelt him with a chair.

Hoo, hoo, hoo.

Light, feathery wings brush over the back of his head as the owl takes flight, a scroll tightly gripped into its talons. There's finally, blissfully silence, the sort of thing that brings forth your thoughts and lets you see them clearly, like pieces of a puzzle that simply need one good draw to fully make sense.

He'd been looking forward to this moment the entire day. This absolute mess of a day where Robards had been on his back every miserable moment of it.

Bang!

Harry's quiet stroll through the dark, damp streets of Knockturn Alley is interrupted by raised voices, a rattling and ruffling of dropped objects and pointed wands.

"Watch out, you filthy slag," a man growls, his throaty voice reverberating throughout the dim-lit street.

"I already said I'm sorry, I wasn't looking -"

"Not the best corner to get yerself lost, girl," another man's voice follows, this one higher, amusement latched onto it.

"Piss off, get your hands off me," the woman cries and, with a violent jolt, Harry recognises Ginny.

It's quite funny how life is sometimes, when one day you're feeling like you're starting a new chapter and the other - well, suddenly you can't turn a corner anymore without Ginny Weasley randomly crossing your path.

The fingers of his right hand curl around his wand, his feet walking as steadily, as soundlessly as they can over the muggly cobbles. He keeps to the walls of the dingy old shops spread across Knockturn Alley, dragging the hood of his cloak over his head.

"Bombardo!"

"Diffindo!"

"Crucio!"

"Protego! Impedimenta! Immobulus!"

Harry stops, blinded by the jets of light illuminating the street, bringing Ginny's face into focus. There's a kind of steely determination in her frown, in the tenacity of each swish of her wrist as she blasts spell after spell, binding the two men together, sending them sprawling on their knees.

Harry hurries to her, boots clanking as he runs.

"You alright?"

"Harry," Ginny draws her wand back, surprised. "Yeah, alright," she finishes, rather uncertain, as though she doesn't know how much to say.

Harry scans her, searching for injuries, eyes quickly assessing the situation. He hooks one finger over his shoulder, not yet leaving the two men out of his sight.

"Those two hurt you?"

"No, not really. I guess I got lost and stumbled into them. They weren't too pleased," Ginny shrugs, her gaze still trained on the kneeling blokes. One of them spits at her feet and Harry nearly spins round to kick him.

"Yer an Auror?"

"Yeah," Harry drawls with undisguised revulsion. "Are those dark objects?"

His wand points towards the heap of books, small cauldrons and vials scattered on the ground, positioning himself between Ginny and the men, the blood in his veins flowing faster with his growing rage. Harry can't explain why he's so angry - he simply knows he is, a storm brewing in his chest.

"No," the other one barks, careful to avert his eyes.

"Then you won't mind if I take a look, would you?" Harry says with a fake calmness, feet moving towards the heap.

Suddenly, the men burst into a panicked run, tripping over their feet, twin expressions on their bloated faces - that of a particularly ugly creature caught in the wand light.

Waving his wand around twice, Harry makes the bundle of things levitate. With a quick swish, he sends it flying through the black, soaring till they disappear in the distance.

"You're letting them go?" Ginny asks as she moves closer to him, her tone more curious than condemning. Flowers grow from the cracks in the cobbles, their scent lingering heavily on Harry's brain.

"Nah, I'll visit them tomorrow with a warrant," he says with a grin, shaking off the bizarre scent. Then, Harry frowns, his mind getting into gear again. "What are you doing here, Ginny? Thought you were supposed to be home."

"Already told you I got lost. Apparently, I'm no longer familiar with Diagon Alley, I haven't been here much, have I?"

"Suspects aren't allowed to walk around merrily, I thought you understood that."

"I'm not walking around merrily," Ginny volleys back with a heavy eye roll, "I wanted a pint. It's been a day."

Her hands are perched on her hips, her wand disappearing into the folds of her robe and Harry sighs.

"If any other Auror would've caught you, you'd have been in a lot of trouble, Ginny. Hell, even without the potential suspect bit, Ron would've had my head. You could be in danger."

Her eyebrows raise into her hairline and Harry's certain she'd suppressed a snort. "I was. It went alright, didn't it?"

"You don't really get how bad this is, do you?" His tone is more aggravated now, the tempest in his chest starting to boil again. How can she not understand, how can she so recklessly toy with her freedom, tamper with the credibility of her alibi and story?

"You're not any other Auror, though," Ginny starts, a glint of mischief passing fastly over her face. "Why don't you join me? You get to keep an eye on me and I get someone to chat with." She finishes coyly, with a square of her shoulders and a daring look in her brown eyes.

Harry stares at her as if she'd suddenly gone mad.

"Or I can go alone," Ginny prods further, her head turning to scan a dismal old pub, its windows broken, slime crawling up the walls. Harry quickly weighs the outcomes.

"Yeah, alright," he huffs with a scowl, "just one pint. You remember the Leaky Cauldron, yeah?"

"Sure, but we're not going there."

"I'm sorry?"

"We're not going there," Ginny enunciates as though he's rather daft, "I'm in no mood to bump into my family and they're bound to be there. Or someone who knows them."

"Not too close, are you," Harry observes, making a mental note to goad Ron about this. Ginny was never round the Burrow during summer - or any other holiday for that matter, but Harry always supposed Ilvermorny had a different schedule from Hogwarts and, later, that she'd been away for her own safety.

She simply shrugs, her gaze hitting the cobbles and Harry doesn't miss the cross expression resting briefly on her face.

"Let's go, shall we," she says a beat later, face now perfectly composed.

Harry nods. "I know a place."

He takes her to a small pub at the juncture between Knockturn and Diagon, the one he chooses when he wants to be left alone. With a healthy tip, the bald barman never asks him anything and there's almost never anyone in there. The barman must line his pockets with contributions from patrons like Harry - likely many less law abiding.

They walk in a heavy sort of silence, only the sound of their shoes dragging over the dewy cobbles accompanying them. An owl's hoot, perhaps the same one as before, echoes above them, a faint breath of air hitting their faces as the bird flaps its wings faster, soaring higher - up the rooftops, up the chimneys, to the stars.

An irksome thought nudges at Harry's mind with every step, a weary voice screaming inside his ear that he might be walking into a trap, that this is not alright, that he should be following protocol.

Why isn't he following protocol?

She's Ron's sister.

No, right now she's not Ron's sister at all. Right now, she's a suspect in a murder case.

But you let her go.

What if that was wrong? And, at any length, what are you going to catch up about?

The happy memories of the Chamber, probably, Harry thinks dejectedly.

At the very least, if the murderer doesn't show up to do it, Robards will murder him if word gets out about this night-time jaunt. He can't help but want to give her this though, a pint's worth of time to forget what she saw today. It'll take a lot more to get it out for good - he's still not figured out what the timeline is exactly.

"In here?" Ginny's voice chimes and he shakes his head, shakes off all the troublesome thoughts.

Harry taps the door three times with the tip of his wand. For a second, there's nothing, just the night and the two of them standing next to each other in this weird twist of fate.

Then, the door opens with a deep, loud creak.

"After you," Harry nudges her with a raise of his chin, his hand pointing vaguely to a table in the corner, the one he always chooses when he wanders in.

The table is sticky, rings upon rings tattooed on the wooden surface. The barman stoops over, cloth in hand, and wipes the table in three circular motions before two pints rattle on the surface.

Harry tugs one near, the slog, cold and wet, sliding down the side of the glass. His eyes follow one droplet till it spills on the table, glides the tip of his index finger through it, spreading it over the slight creases in the wood.

"Remember the silly crush I had on you?"

His head bobs up, almost startled by her voice, her eyes lingering as though she's silently comparing this version of himself to the boy she'd left behind.

He takes a long swig of his ale before he answers, short. "I didn't think it was silly."

Ginny's eyes widen, lips tugged in a small smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. I was, however, twelve and didn't give girls much thought."

"What about now?" She leans towards him as she says it, her long, red hair twisted messily over her shoulder. The way she gazes at him, somehow blazingly with her deep, brown eyes, her freckles strewn across her face - Harry exhales, gaze dropping to her lips, where her teeth briefly sink.

Must be the ale, he waves the feeling off.

"Do you give them much thought now?"

He spins the liquid once inside his pint, spins the conflicting thoughts inside his mind. Her ankle touches over his calf in quick, light brushes as though she's not aware she'd done it.

"I try, but they don't give me that many options," he finally settles on an answer.

Ginny laughs, their legs touching again under the table. Strangely, Harry doesn't pull away.

"Hard to date when you're The Boy Who Lived, eh?"

Eerily, uninvitedly, he feels as though he's naked, his mind on display for her. But then she smiles and it makes him ruffle his hair, making it stick haphazardly at the back of his head and Harry chuckles, "Impossible."

"That's sad, Harry," she grins, purses her lips, takes a deep swig, her head tilted back.

Something warms inside his chest, under the scorching of her gaze.

"Yeah, well, cheers to that," he grins back at her, his pint raised before he downs it.

Cheers to his lonely, bleak life.

Cheers to the press, the blinding flashes, to his life torn apart in black ink dried on newspapers and magazines.

Cheers to having won the war but still finding no closure.

Her knee slides between his thighs, the folds of his crimson robe bracketing the black of hers. There's a fog in Harry's mind, a reckless, rash urge to grab her hand.

Would it really matter if he asked her about her life abroad, if, for one night, they talked as old friends do? Would it really tinker with his case? He can keep things separate, right?

Her red hair twiddled between her fingers, Ginny is quiet as she seems to ruminate on something, her gaze far away somewhere, her knee now resting against his thigh. The closeness is intoxicating, but Harry doesn't want it to stop. Old friends sit like this sometimes, don't they?

Suddenly, her chin dips, her lips pursing for a beat before her small mouth opens and she speaks again.

"Don't you ever wish you could have something - just one night of something?" she starts, a little cautious and uncertain. "No strings attached, away from the public eye, with someone who knows you and would keep your secret safe?"

When she's finished, her tone is determined and there's no trace of blush heating her cheeks, the blazing look on her face hitting Harry like thunder to the back of his head.

At first, he simply stares at her. But then, when his mind grinds into motion and he catches onto what she'd just proposed, Harry forces himself to do two things: one - he stifles the growing warmth inside his stomach, steadfast and resolute; and two - he offers her the frown he had perfected ever since he'd joined the Auror Department, pulling his legs away from hers.

"You're a suspect, Ginny," he states, words clipped. A very tempting one, he thinks and instantly hates himself.

Ginny's eyebrows rise.

"You let me go."

"You're still a suspect."

"It must mean something, though," she drawls cooly, eyes suddenly colder, "that you decided I could go."

Harry's quiet for a long moment, the sound of his breathing filling his eardrums, the tang of stale, old ale mixed strangely with wildflowers filling his lungs.

Had he ever wished for something like that, a night of reckless abandonment? A night where he's not Harry Potter, war hero, The Boy Who Lived?

Had he ever not wished for that?

"You're Ron's sister," he rolls down the words, slowly, carefully as they come unfiltered from the darkest corners of his mind.

Ginny scoffs, both hands pressing onto the surface of the table, facing him.

"I won't tell if you won't."

Harry's eyes roam over her again across the table, the freckles peppering her skin, vanishing beneath her dress where her robe slides open, the mischief etched into her smile, the ginger hair he'd once followed until it disappeared in the distance while the Hogwarts Expressed rolled through valleys, between mountains till it took him home. To his first ever home.

She'd run after them that day, calling for her brothers. Harry'd watched her as she did so, green eyes glued to the girl until he could no longer see her in the distance.

The scraping of her chair's legs across the floor wakes him from his reverie, the blur of the old memory sliding out to bring back the present.

Her palm is still on the wooden surface of the table as she sits up, freckled face scrunched, then quickly hidden behind a wave of hair as her body turns to leave. He watches her and, weirdly, his heart leaps and it picks up speed.

Ginny's skin is soft and warm under his palm when his hand lands on top of hers, catching it as she's about to pull away.

"Let's go."

The ground is dappled with pale moonlight when the world stops spinning and their feet hit the concrete in front of a tall building.

Harry's chin dips as he takes her in, frazzled but somehow composed, nervous but determined.

"It's a bit of a climb."

Ginny nods, her eyes traveling up the red bricks peppering the building. "Lead the way, then."

They take each step in silence, seven flights of them, ten steps after ten after ten, Harry's mind bombarded by conflicting thoughts, clawing at each other viciously. What do you say to the other person in moments like this?

You'll ruin your career.

She's telling the truth.

You can't know that.

She's not involved, her story feels genuine.

It's your first big lead. You'll never get a second chance if you cock this up.

She must be telling the truth, fuck Williamson and his gloating.

You're an idiot, she's Ron's sister!

You'll never have something like this again, a chance to live something without its consequences coming back to haunt you.

"Fuck it," Harry swears under his breath when Ginny looks at him with eyes that seem to understand him, her hair pushed wildly back over the crown of her head. He unlocks the door and, forgetting everything he'd ever learned, tugs her inside his home.

Ginny's mouth crashes with his as soon as the door bangs shut, no words uttered between them, the same funny feeling that she's reading his thoughts fiddling at the back of his mind. Her fingers twist through his hair, her body pressing into his and Harry can just make out each curve, the sway of her hips through her robe, through her dress beneath it.

"Don't," he tears his mouth away from hers enough to whisper, fingers curling around her arm as she'd lifted her wand.

"No light?" Ginny follows, a little breathless.

"No light," he answers and kisses her again, reveling in the taste of her lips, of her tongue as it darts shortly over his bottom one, as it electrifies his senses the way no kiss had done to him before.

She steps away enough to push her robe down her shoulders, ankles locking with his as Harry walks them backwards to his bedroom, one hand squeezing at the back of her thigh, under her dress, the other tangled in her hair. All thoughts fade away, his mind a blank canvas as they kiss and touch and tug at clothes, bathed in the moonlight.

The back of his knees hit the bed with a thud, trousers pooled around his ankles, crimson robe strewn across the room as her breath hits him and his vision darkens. Her tongue darts over him, ripping a moan from deep inside his throat.

She takes him in her mouth and Harry sees stars growing bigger behind his lids, his stomach boiling with the heat.

He quickly bends, palms cupping her face, under her jaw, the flush on her cheeks and the way she looks up at him making Harry moan again. He wraps one hand around her torso, heaving Ginny up and over him. He rolls them over.

Their lips crash violently together, her teeth biting into his bottom lip as his fingers clumsily search for the zip sewn to the side of her dress. He doesn't find it, fists bunching her dress up instead, flustered.

Ginny guides his hand between her legs and Harry takes her mouth again, feels the pungent tang of ale as he kisses her with hunger and she moans against his lips. Through the dark, he can see her sprawled on the mattress, eyes closed and hair tangled around them as she arches into him, his hand moving now between her thighs.

"Faster," Ginny moans into his ear and Harry's fingers pump with increasing speed, his other hand dragging her knickers off her hips, down her legs, to the floor.

Her legs spread a little wider, the heels of her feet pushing hard into the mattress. Her hands grip for his shirt, fisting it and twisting it tightly as Harry works, green eyes watching her.

Unwillingly, he memorises her - a snapshot he can remember when she's gone. And she'll soon be gone, back to America forever.

Ginny's hand falls on top of his, pushing it further into herself and Harry groans. The feel of her soft palm over the back of his hand, taking control, showing him exactly what she wants and how she wants it - it nearly drives him over the edge. She presses harder onto his hand, sighing deeply when his thumb flicks over her clit.

Harry's fingers are wet and dripping when she comes, her thighs warm when he brushes his palm involuntarily over them, bending low to drag his mouth over her skin there. He stops when he feels Ginny's hand press against his shoulder.

"Lean back."

And he does, his rumpled head hitting the pillows as her dress hits the floor, the clasp of her bra breaking loose with a loud pop, her breasts perked up on her freckled chest and Harry grasps for them, kneads them, feels them as they fill his palms when Ginny's knees shuffle forward, straddling him.

"Shirt off, Harry."

Bridge of her palm pushing into his naked chest, Ginny lowers herself onto him and he can hear his own gasps cutting through the black as she adjusts herself.

"Hold onto me," she says, pulling his hands, placing them over her hips. Then, Ginny starts to move and his mind blows.

Harry'd never been fucked before;