Fun and Games

Harry wandered through the empty corridors, trying not to make any sound that may alert Filch or his blasted cat to the fact he was out of bed. This day had been bad enough already thanks to Snape and Malfoy. Midnight strolls through the deserted castle helped Harry to gather his thoughts. He enjoyed breaking rules – it felt familiar – and he thrived under the pressure of evading being caught.

He was nearly back at the common room now though. He turned left and the large portrait of the fat lady came into view.
"cordis desideriis" said Harry from under his invisibility cloak.
The portrait swung forward to admit him entry without the fat lady even caring to open an eye. She was all too used to Harry's late prowling by now.

He climbed through the hole and in to the common room. The fire had almost burnt out and it was silent in there. He thought for a moment that he was alone, but then he noticed a certain red-headed girl curled up on the sofa staring confusedly through him and to the common room entrance that had seemingly just opened for nobody.
Harry threw the invisibility cloak off himself, giving Ginny quite a start.

"Harry!" she exclaimed, "How did you do that?" She was staring wide-eyed at him, trying to comprehend the situation.
"With this" he grinned, throwing his cloak at her. She caught it and examined it.
"An invisibility cloak?!" she asked, failing to keep the excitement out of her voice. "These are really rare! Where did you get it?"
"Dumbledore gave it to me. It was my Dads." Harry replied as Ginny handed it back to him. "What are you still doing up?" he inquired.
"The other girls in my dorm were being annoying. I came down here to get away from them and never felt tired enough to go back to bed. I enjoy having time alone with my thoughts I guess."
"Tell me about it."

They remained in silence for a moment – both desperate to talk to each other but struggling to think of anything intelligent or witty enough to warrant being said.

"Tired yet?" Harry asked, breaking the silence.
"No, not yet. Why?" said Ginny
"Want to play a game?" Harry proposed tentatively
"Sure, what did you have in mind?"
"Chess? Or exploding snap?"
"Don't have my set for chess and exploding snap's too loud. Everyone in the dorms will think we're under attack!" laughed Ginny. Harry laughed too. He also noticed how pretty she was when she laughed. Not that he didn't always think she looked pretty.
"Do you know any muggle card games?" asked Harry, spotting Dean's pack lying on a nearby table.
"Sorry, have you met my Dad or not?" she laughed again. God, he loved hearing her laugh.
"I should have known" he said chuckling as he sat down at the table and began to shuffle. "Do you know pontoon? It's the only one I really understand. The Dursley's never bothered to teach me card games."
"Yeah, I know it. But..." Ginny trailed off
"What?" Harry asked
"Well it's a bit dull isn't it? Unless you're playing for money it just gets boring very quickly"
"How about strip pontoon then?" The words had come out of Harry's mouth before his brain could fully process what he was saying. He couldn't even begin to stammer out an apology before Ginny took a seat opposite him and said,
"Ok." She looked incredibly calm Harry thought, although she was trying to avoid eye contact, staring down at her hands as if she'd never noticed them before. She seemed as calm as if she had just agreed to help him tidy his books away – not play a game that could result in one of them being totally naked in front of the other. Harry hoped he looked as relaxed as Ginny. He knew better though. The girl he'd fancied since the previous summer may soon see him naked and he wasn't certain she would like what she saw. He was quite skinny and had a fair few scars from all his misadventures over the years. Then there was the thought of seeing Ginny naked. This seemed somehow worse. He wanted to see her naked – but if he'd learned anything about himself during puberty: it's that he shouldn't ever get what wants because it's invariably going to end badly. Look at his relationship with Cho.

"Deal the cards then" said Ginny impatiently. Harry snapped back to the present and realised he'd been shuffling for nearly five minutes while he was lost in his own thoughts. He dealt the cards and they began to play.

Things started off innocently enough. They talked and joked while they played and Harry felt an enormous amount of pride each time he made her giggle.
For the first few rounds when they lost, they removed items such as watches, bracelets, hair bands and socks. As their game went on however, they approached the point where flesh would be placed on show.

Harry wasn't sure how much Ginny was wearing. He could see that she had pyjama top and bottoms on under a dressing gown and assumed she had underwear on – but couldn't be sure. He himself was wearing some pants, pyjama bottoms and a pyjama top. Dangerous territory.
He looked at his cards, he had a seven and a nine. Sixteen was always tricky: surely not enough to win, yet any higher than a five next and he'd be bust.
"Twist" he said and swallowed hard. He took a card off the top of the pile and turned it face up. It was a two. That meant he had eighteen. He was about to stick when he looked up at Ginny and noted the confident expression on her face. He was going to gamble.
"Twist" he said again, taking another card. Disaster, it was a King! He was bust.
"Bust" he declared throwing his cards down.
"Fifteen" smiled Ginny laying her cards out on the table.
"Only fifteen?!" exclaimed Harry
"You never could resist attempting the extraordinary. Now; clothes: off" she winked at him and laughed heartily at the uncomfortable look on his face.

Harry slowly unbuttoned his pyjama top and threw it on to the pile of discarded clothes on the floor next to him. Ginny made no attempt to hide her thorough examination of his torso, getting a nice long look at the body she'd dreamed of for so many years.
"Nearly done?" asked Harry, who was starting to feel incredibly self conscious.
"Nearly" said Ginny, smiling seductively at him. Harry felt his body shiver under this look. "Go on then. Deal the cards."

This was a more successful hand. A king and a Queen: twenty. Harry pretended to ponder for a moment before announcing that he would stick. Ginny also decided to stick and showed Harry a Queen and a nine.
"Close" said Harry, "but no cigar" he said, dramatically revealing his hand.
Ginny took off her dressing gown and laid it neatly with her other discarded clothing, then returned her attention immediately to the game without saying a word.

A minute later, Ginny was trying to decide whether eighteen would be enough. Deciding that it wasn't worth the risk, she stuck.
"Unlucky, Ginny" said Harry, putting down a two sevens, a three a two and an ace.
Ginny merely smiled up at Harry and began to unbutton her pyjama top, never once taking her eyes off him.
He didn't mean to, but Harry couldn't help but stare. Ginny's bra was almost slapping him in the face and his eyes were stuck on them. All he could think in that moment was 'Nice tits. Bigger than I realised'.

"Harry. I'm up here" came Ginny's playful voice, shaking him from his reverie.
"S-sorry, Ginny" said Harry, turning red. How had he ended up embarrassed because she's taken her clothes off? This wasn't fair. Not wishing to dwell on how much of a struggle it was not to take another peek, he dealt the cards.

Fortune really seemed to favour him right now. A Jack and an ace. As ace could be a one or an eleven – this meant Harry had twenty-one.
"Stick" he said, grinning up at Ginny. She seemed unfazed by his confidence, but as Harry had already learned: Ginny could hide her emotions well.
"Twist" she said. Harry took the top card off the pile, turned it round and handed it to her. It was a five. "Hmm". Ginny screwed up her face in concentration. Harry thought she looked really cute. When didn't he though?
"Twist" she said again. Harry turned the top card over and passed it to her. A smile worked its way across her face.
"Stick" she said, still smiling.
'I really don't want to wipe that smile off her face', thought Harry dejectedly. 'But...'
"Twenty-one" he announced, laying his cards on the table for her to see.
"Twenty" said Ginny putting hers down. To Harry's surprise however, she was still smiling.

She stood up and turned her back to Harry. For a split second he thought she had decided to leave before she became too humiliated, but then she put her thumbs under the waistband of her pyjama bottoms, one either side of her hips and pulled them down, bending over to push them right down to her ankles (and staying bent over a little longer than Harry thought was strictly necessary when he reflected on it). Her cute little bum was at Harry's eye level and only a thin piece of material prevented him from seeing her vagina. Harry had to fight hard to stop himself reaching out and touching her.

'I mustn't lose this next round' he thought to himself. 'I'm pretty sure my boner'll be visible through my pants'. He cursed himself for his inability to control his member and asked Ginny if she was ready for the next round.

Ginny sat back down opposite him, now only wearing bra and knickers and blushing slightly – she seemed to have lost her nerve somewhat. Harry couldn't help but admire her figure. She didn't look like she had an ounce of fat on her, yet she wasn't skinny and bony at all. Harry was completely transfixed. He could've spent hours appreciating her body had he not been jerked back to conscious thought by the feeling that he was being watched. His eyes darted up, automatically drawn to the source of this feeling. Ginny was watching him look at her. She didn't look angry; rather, curious as to why he was so eagerly tracing her body with his eye line.

"Sorry" Harry muttered in a barely audible whisper, before dealing out the freshly shuffled cards again.
He looked at the pair of cards in his hand: an eight and a four. Twelve wasn't too bad, he had plenty of room for manoeuvre when it came to his next move. Ginny went first this time.
"Twist" she said. Harry turned over the top card on the deck and handed it to her. "Stick" she said, the moment that she'd seen her new card.
Nine away from the target of twenty-one, Harry decided to twist. As he turned over the card though, it became apparent that his luck had changed. It was a Jack. He was bust.
He dropped the cards on the table, allowing Ginny to see them, not even bothering to voice the outcome of his decision.

This was going to be embarrassing. He stood up and dropped his pyjama bottoms to the floor. He knew immediately that he'd been right in thinking his erection would be visible. Ginny's eyes suddenly opened wide and Harry could feel the tugging lower down where his penis was trying to escape its prison of cloth.
"I'm sorry" Harry said, "I can't control it. I know it's not... needed" he eventually supplied. "But what did you expect? I'm not to blame if I get a hard-on because a beautiful girl is sat opposite me, barely clothed."
Ginny had been gawping wide-eyed at Harry's midriff until this last comment, when she instantly lost interest in Harry's poorly concealed appendage and looked him dead in the eye.
"You think I'm beautiful?" she asked, trying to keep her tone of voice casual.
"Well of course I do Ginny" muttered Harry awkwardly, trying to avoid her gaze. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen" He chanced a glance at her at this point and was glad that he had. She was fixing him with a stare that made his brain feel like it was melting. She looked happy. Really happy. There was something else there too though, a more subtle emotion. Before Harry could even begin to try and figure out what it was, Ginny had leaned forward, bridging the small gap between them and brought her lips to his.

This was heaven. It was the most wonderful thing Harry had ever experienced. At last; at long, long last he was kissing Ginny Weasley. He'd dreamt of this moment many times before but none of those dreams compared to this moment. Harry tried to put all of his emotion for Ginny in to that kiss; willing her to realise how much he had come to love her in the last few months.
All too soon though, Ginny pulled away, gasping for breath. Her lips brushed his as she spoke:
"I've wanted to do that for a long time" she admitted
"So did I" Harry replied. "I thought you were over me though"
"There's a difference between giving up hope of ever being with someone and getting over them" she said.
Harry stood up and walked round the table to Ginny's seat. He offered Ginny his hand and she took it, feigning obliviousness to the erect penis that was only inches from her face. When she was standing, Harry pulled her in to a tight embrace.
"I love you" he whispered in her ear.
She pushed herself away from him so that she could get a better look into those green eyes that she adored so much.
"You mean it?" she asked
"Always" Harry smiled
"I love you, too" she whispered, and kissed Harry again.

Apart from the obvious lack of clothes, Harry wouldn't have changed a moment of that evening. Everything was perfect.