Hello, there! Thanks so much to all you guys who like my story. I took a little break for the weekend to spend some time with my moms, and then Fanfiction wouldn't let me upload, but now I'm back!
Some of you have been saying that my story reminds you of another one that is similar but was never finished. Well, I'm certainly not meaning to copy anyone, and hopefully Against The Odds has taken on it's own personality from the other story, which I'm sure is phenomenal, and I'm sad was never finished.
However, dear readers, I will finish this story. This is a solemn promise to you. I've been, unfortunately, lax in the past with completing stories, but this one is completely finished in my head. I just have to put it to paper. Please bear with me. Thanks for reading, please review!
Ginny woke up to the smell of coffee. She groaned and rolled so that her face was pressed into the seam of the couch cushions. Her neck ached and her eyes felt dry.
That's what you get for not being able to sleep in your own bed. I little voice mocked her. She tried to block it out by burrowing closer into the cushions. Soon, she'd be apart of the couch, if she kept going at this rate.
"Good, you're awake." Harry's voice was obnoxiously cheery above her. She pulled her head out of the couch and squinted up at him. He smiled down, and behind him the kitchen windows were drawn, letting in an infuriating amount of fresh air.
"I made omelets." He said, still smiling at her. "They were the first thing that I ever learned to cook, my Aunt taught me." He whirled away to stand back over the stove, from which the smell of cheese and garlic was wafting.
Ginny followed him with her eyes, scrunching up the left side of her face. If she had to guess, she'd say that it was about seven. That meant that she had gotten, what? Four hours of sleep? Maybe five? Which meant that he had maybe gotten all of two or three hours.
She wanted to ask him how he was being so chipper, and if he could please stop, but stopped herself at the last second. Instead, she groaned and sat up, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
She'd had too many sleepless nights lately, and it was catching up with her. Dropping her hands, she eyed the blanket wrapped around her legs. He must have tucked her in sometime in the night.
"It's ready!" Harry called, and Ginny forced herself to her feet. When she was seated and looked down at her plate, she had to admit that it looked delicious. She reached greedily for the mug set at her place, and gulped down coffee, savoring the rich taste and anticipating the much-needed caffeine buzz.
"I learned to make them when I was about seven, because I was living with my Aunt and uncle, and their son, Dudley." Harry said, pausing to chew a bit of egg. "They didn't really have much use for me, but my Aunt taught me to cook so that I could pay them back for living with them."
Ginny turned to him, shocked over her coffee. What was he talking about? What's this about his family not having any use for him? That was sad, and all, but why couldn't he just let her enjoy her breakfast in peace?
"I know." Harry said, spearing a piece of strawberry with his fork and popping it into his mouth. "They were terrible. When I finally got a scholarship to a boarding school, I took it immediately." He swallowed. "That's the Hog's Head Academy for Boys, in case you were wondering."
Ginny frowned at him, taking a bite of her omelet. She remembered the good, old days, when he didn't talk and she could still look at him without wanting to tear his hair out.
"But then, if we're going to go chronologically, I should probably start with the car crash." He continued, looking up at her expectantly. She refused to meet his gaze. "That would be the car crash that killed my parents around the time I was one."
At this, she finally looked at him. Well, shit. She thought. If he's going to get into the deep stuff, he's forcing my hand, here. I can't just ignore him… Ginny sighed, giving up on her food and focusing on the important stuff. The coffee.
Harry's fork was poised above his plate, suspended in expectation. When she had drained her cup, he re-filled it. She sighed, wanting to plunge her head into the hot drink. Instead she looked at him, waving her hand in a get on with it gesture. Harry smirked at her.
"And that's the thing about dead parents. It gets you so much pity and attention. Half the time I don't even want it." Harry said. "Did you know that during the Riddle case, there were six articles on me, focused only on my lack of parents." He squinted at her. "Then, of course, when I want to get someone's attention, it's my go-to."
Ginny didn't respond, but then, she didn't really have to. He just kept on going, as if he were a toy and someone had wound him up. He didn't run out of momentum any time that day.
After the shower, he started in on his Aunt and Uncle, with a few stories about his cousin, Dudley, thrown in. When she'd been truly and thoroughly horrified (Internally, of course. There was no sense in giving everything away when he was just getting started), he'd switched to his years at Hog's Head.
By about that time, she'd figured out what he was doing. She couldn't help herself. She lowered the sports section and gaped at him. He grinned back.
She'd thought that he was just talking this morning to get a reaction out of her, to goad her into talking. But the more he opened up about really personal things, it finally clicked in her head about what he was doing. Leveling the playing field.
From then on, she started paying more attention. She had to stop herself from laughing when she'd been making lunch when he told her about his on-going war with one of his teachers, Professor Snape. He'd been convinced that Snape had been involved in an illegal drug-smuggling ring.
Harry, along with a few friends, had investigated and spied on Snape for over seven years. It was only a few months before he graduated that Harry learned that Snape was actually an undercover agent, and had been investigating another teacher at the school.
Harry was laughing at himself for most of the story, telling Ginny in painful detail about the lengths they went through to try and corner the man they believed to be a drug lord.
"At graduation, Snape took me aside," Harry chuckled, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "and handed me an entire box of listening devices. There had to be about twenty that we'd planted on him or in his rooms, and every single one was there!" Harry sighed and his face straightened.
"Snape was so good about it, too. He clapped me on the shoulder and said that I'd done a good job. Told me I should consider going into law enforcement. It was his recommendation that got me into academy. God knows, I didn't have the grades for it." Harry looked up at Ginny. "He's the reason I'm here today. He's the one that got me through academy, even when I was making more trouble than I was learning. He was…the officer on the case for my parents' death."
Ginny's eyebrows rose. Well, that was quite a story. Quite a story about quite a man. This Snape was clearly someone that meant a lot to Harry. Ginny felt strangely honored that Harry was telling her this. Is this what Harry had felt all those weeks ago when she'd just talked at him nonstop? She hoped so.
"And then, once I was out of academy and actually started working cases with him…I guess you could say that he's my mentor. Him and his best friend, Sirius. Yes, that's Sirius Black, the lawyer." Harry grinned at her. "He and Snape are hilarious together. We make it a point to get together at a bar at least once a month. I haven't seen them in a while, though." Harry sobered quickly.
"I really miss them. Snape in particular. I just…Sometimes I feel like I need some guidance, and he's the only one that's ever really been there for me, you know. I think you're crazy for not appreciating your family more than you do." Harry held his hands out, halting her scowl. "I know you love them, but I would kill to have that many people to talk to. You're so lucky."
Ginny blinked at him slowly. He was being so…real, candid, uncensored. She could feel the knot of tension in her chest slowly loosen. She'd been so frustrated at him this past week, so sick of him and his superiority. It was nice to see that he was a real person, with flaws and feelings and stuff.
Maybe she'd blown the whole poster debacle out of proportions. She'd just been so angry and frustrated. She'd felt that their relationship was so one-sided, and had been beating herself up for weeks over this attraction she felt for him, only to find that he'd, presumably, felt the same?
Okay, so some reaction had been necessary. But maybe she was taking it too far…
"And then from the academy, I went straight into the FBI's agent training camp. It was the day before I was going to leave, and I had my bags all packed and I was nervous as Hell. I was at Sirius's place, and he, Snape and I were watching a game of Sirius's favorite team, the Western New York Flash."
Ginny's head snapped up from her reverie, and she smiled in spite of herself. It was always good to hear stories about her team, and to know that they had fans.
"Yes, yes. It's very exciting." Harry said, shaking his head at her. "So, we were watching all the game, and the flash is down by, like, three points, and all of the sudden, the striker, Katie, goes down, hard."
Ginny suddenly straightened in her chair, realizing where this was headed. Harry grinned at her and continued.
"And all of the sudden, there's an ambulance and stretchers, and its mayhem. And in the middle of all the chaos, who should be called onto the field?" Harry smirked at her, and Ginny tapped her nose. "That's right, the little, red-headed, second string striker, Ginny Weasley."
Ginny settled back in her seat, enjoying hearing about her first game from someone else's point of view. It had started her career, that game. She'd been the game-changer, and had gotten the Flash through to the finals.
"Needless to say, all three of us were completely entranced. I remember thinking that you'd gone out on the field and just done it, no previous field experience at all, and that if you could go and turn a whole game around in front of millions of people, I could at least go to training and do some drills." Harry said.
"I went out the next day, before my bus to camp, and bought a fairly scandalous poster of the Flash's second string striker." He leveled his gaze at her and she froze, not sure what to expect. "And it hung in my bunk for about two years, and then it moved to my room at command, and I can't find it in my heart to get rid of it."
Ginny was touched. She shook her head at him in amazement, feeling all the fight leave her body. She didn't think that anyone had ever been so honest with her, and Harry was just staring back, unblinking.
"That was a really good story." She whispered. He looked surprised.
"Good enough to talk to me again?"
Ginny shook her head. "It's good enough for an exception to the not talking." She said, wanting to keep him talking. She wanted to know everything about him. It was only fair. And, she got the feeling that he needed to tell her these things.
She turned away from the intensity of him. It wasn't good for a girl to get too wrapped up in a guy. She needed some space, needed him to keep talking about himself. Harry waited a beat, and she felt him follow her with his eyes as she got a glass of water.
"Then, of course, I got to training camp and met my drill sergeant, Moody, and my life was never quite the same…" He smiled and continued on.
By that night, Ginny knew more about Harry than she did about her own family. They were sitting in the living room, lights low, with another movie on, but neither of them were paying attention to it.
Harry was telling her, in horrifying detail, about his time spent on the Riddle case.
"Tom was a textbook psychopath." He said. She was curled up in her favorite spot on the couch, and he was in his usual armchair. "From the beginning of the murders, anyone could see that. He was brutal with the bodies, like he literally didn't have a scrap of human emotion.
"When I was put on the case, there had already been three people killed. Before I caught him, there were another fifteen bodies in the morgue." Harry cleared his throat, obviously getting into some sensitive territory.
"I got so involved in the case. I stopped sleeping, eating. Every time we found a new body, it was like Riddle was baiting me, like it was a personal failure every time he got to someone and I couldn't stop him. Thank you." He said, accepting her own mug of chamomile tea and taking a sip before returning it back to her. When he began talking again, his voice was a little less gravely.
"Snap and Sirius kept telling me not to take it personally, but in that situation, it is personal. I was the lead agent, and it's easy to let the pressure get to you. Before I took you on, I was on a mandated leave of absence from the Bureau, because I'd gotten so wrapped up in the case they were worried about me." Harry sighed and looked at her wearily.
"Which, pretty much leads me to you. And you've been there for all of it, so there's not much to say is there?" He asked. Ginny frowned at him, handing back her mug. He chuckled at her. "Okay, I guess there are some missing pieces there." He finished the tea and sat for a few minutes, rolling the mug between his hands.
"If I'm being perfectly honest…" His eyes dropped to the cup between his fingers. "which is hard to do, because this is the hard part." He swallowed thickly before looking back up at her. "I knew from the very first day that you were different, Ginny. I knew that I was going to have a hard time with this case." Harry sat forward on his chair.
"I crossed the line from day one, ok? And all the time since then has just been me trying to get a hold of myself. No one should have the effect on me that you do, and I'm not sure if it's just that you challenge me, or infuriate me, or the fact that I've been lusting after that goddamned poster for close to five years.
"I don't know, and I know that I should not be saying these things, and I know that I could get in big trouble for saying it, but…I think that I've also gotten in trouble a lot for things that have been worth it."
His eyes bore into hers, and Ginny felt herself growing hot. She didn't think she'd ever felt so vulnerable in her life. Yeah, vulnerable and turned on. The things he was saying to her had a direct effect on her body, and her whole self was tingling. She wanted him to keep talking, but at the same time, she wanted him to shut up and close the last few inches between them and kiss her until she stopped breathing.