Chapter 7: Tease
In which Ginny explains about the Italians.
…
I keep reading over the notes I'd taken that year. If I just threw these rolls of parchment onto the fire no one would ever know the way she talked. Every witch and wizard knows how this story ends: Harry Potter kills Voldemort and lives happily ever after with his blushing bride.
Does anyone need to know the way it happened? Anyway, that's what I should do. Burn it all.
Of course if I did I wouldn't be able to remember every word she said to me. Forgive me Ginny, for not being able to do this just yet. And for what I'm compiling all of this for.
Now that the war is over and won, my place in the Wizarding World is undefined. I can't keep pretending I have a skill worth two knuts. When I send this to the Writer's Academy McGonagall badgers me about, that can finally change.
…
Colin had taken all control of organizing Dumbledore's Army after he blew up in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement. Luna was upset over this for a day but recovered quickly. There were still plans to be made, after all. And while not leading the efforts, I wasn't going anywhere during meetings either.
As soon as it was known Colin was in charge, he set the date for his walk-out of Carrow's Muggle Studies to be in a week's time. Ginny, who had startled everyone by turning up to the meeting with her short hair dyed bright orange, told Colin she was in.
The only way we can make this work is with numbers. So I'll walk out with you on Tuesday.
The rest of the D.A. was hardly as supportive. But it wasn't in my hands any longer. Without the D.A. weighing so heavily on my free time, I'm able to help Professor Sprout in the greenhouses more often.
She even gave me a key to Greenhouse 5, to make sure the Hellebore I'd brought her from Hogsmeade was being pruned on a regular basis. I'm not sure what I'll do when she asks for the key back, because I might have maybe misplaced it.
I'm able to break into the greenhouse through a broken panel on its far side when I visit on Saturday morning. Immediately I can hear that Ginny is hiding somewhere, because she's left her Wizards Wireless playing.
Ginny?
Beat on the Brat. Beat on the Brat. Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat, Oh Yeah, Oh-oh.
No one else would be listening to the Ramones.
Neville? Is that you? Ginny peaks out from behind a potted fern.
Yeah it's me. What are you doing here?
I found a key labeled Greenhouse 5 outside the Charms classroom. She points to the corner where her wireless, a towel, and what looks like a bottle of suntan lotion are. I was trying to get a tan. Carrow is always talking about how noble my skin is, and it creeps me out.
But it's almost December. You'd never tan, even in the greenhouses.
I know. But all the tanning spells turn my skin orange. Ginny resumes her place on the towel, lying with her stomach to the ground. Now that the fern isn't covering her anymore, I can see how she's barely dressed in cotton shorts that end at the tops of her thighs and hug her mid-hip.
It would match your hair.
Ha-ha, she says rather than laughing. I did that for the Carrows too. And it's a little ironic, to dye your hair unnaturally orange, given my brother's hair color. Her top also covers little. It looks like an undershirt she had trimmed most of the bottom off, but hadn't done it perfectly even.
Oh. I find the cutting of Hellebore without difficulty and begin to examine it. I've got the enhanced receivers you lent me. Thanks for that.
Keep it, the twins already sent me another pair. You can sit down. Take your sweater off if you want, it's warm enough. You have olive skin.
I look down to my own forearms, and resist her urging to take off my own shirt. Olive what?
Skin. Like olive oil. Like they have around the Mediterranean.
You like olive oil skin?
Yes I do. Would you mind putting some lotion on me?
She hands me her bottle and I begin to smooth the lotion onto the small of her back, her shoulders. My hands slip under the back of her shirt, and find no bra strap. How easy would it be to reach around under that undershirt and take hold of her breasts? Would she stop me?
Like that? She nods. Now can you do me a favor? I ask her, my hands still under the back of her shirt, undecided.
Please stop trying to change how you look. No matter what you do to yourself you're still gorgeous underneath, and the Carrows can see that as well as I can.
Are you saying I should go back to normal?
No. I think a lot of the students look up to you because of what you've done. Just promise me you won't set yourself on fire in protest or anything, okay?
She doesn't answer. I want to hold her, all of her in my arms. Hand her back the bottle and return to the cutting of Hellebore.
I have an idea for the D.A., she tells me.
Ginny, you know Colin's been organizing things for the past few days. Shouldn't you ask him?
Don't be silly, Nev.
What do you mean?
We all know who's really in charge. No matter what Colin does.
Oh. I hadn't known that everyone was taking Colin's efforts as seriously as that.
I want to start a graffiti campaign. I can paint DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY on the wall. All I have to do is cast the same spell I used on my hair and no one will be able to remove it. McGonagall, maybe.
I put down the Hellebore and consider what she'd said. And Snape would have no way of knowing it was you doing it unless he caught you red-handed.
Yeah. The only thing is it lets Snape know the D.A. is back.
They're going to find out eventually. Colin plans on announcing it at the walk-out.
I'd forgotten about his walk-out. I shouldn't have said I'd do it. Ginny stretches, arching her back and resting on her elbows.
I haven't. It's going to be a disaster. But this graffiti thing, I think it could help. Almost like how you're dressing now, but it wouldn't be all you. Give them a bit of hope.
Hope is a powerful thing.
It would be a reminder to everyone that there is an underground movement. Something they can be a part of quietly, instead of how the walk-out will let everyone and the Carrows know just who we are.
Ginny grins at me. This is why you're really leading Dumbledore's Army, Nev. Because you're amazing.
She picks up a book that had been next to her towel. The cover was in a different language, but from my distance I couldn't tell Ancient Runes from English.
It's in Italian, she says when she sees me looking
Can you speak Italian?
No. It's mostly pictures. Have you ever heard of the ruins of Pompeii?
No.
They're beautifully romantic. They've the most graphic paintings, you wouldn't believe.
What were you doing in Italy?
I spent the summer.
Did you like it?
There was this boy, a muggle. He used to work moving the rubble for the muggle archeologists. Imagine, all he would do all day long was push rocks half his size. One day he brought me breakfast on a tray, with grapes still warm from the vine. He snuck it right up the ruins.
And then?
Then he came in.
And then?
Then we ate.
And then?
Neville… Ever been laid in an Italian ruin?
When would I have done that?
She nodes. The Romans painted frescos. Of themselves, I think. Naked as the day they were born, fucking. The pictures don't move, of course, but the people making love are bent into all kinds of positions. It's like the Kama Sutra, but life-sized, all around you.
They painted orgies, man-on-man, and… I wish you could see it. Being there with someone… It's like you're a part of it and can be every bit as inventive as they were.
You met a lot of Italians?
Yes.
And they like the English?
They ask fewer questions. Have you finished with your plant? Lie down if you want.
When she sits up I can see her nipples defined through the thin cloth of her undershirt. I have a seat next to her on the towel.
Ginny?
Hmmm?
You saw what happened at the first D.A. meeting. How Luna cursed me with the Full Body-Bind. She told me she did it because she didn't want to lose both of us. Have you said anything to her about us?
No. I haven't told a soul.
And she knows? I ask.
Ginny turns around and sits on top of me so her legs straddle my waist. Her hands reach for mine. About this? Ginny's shorts are just cotton and I've never known her to wear knickers before.
If she did know?
This is going to make me sound stupid. Who besides myself would be able to ask this when they had Ginny Weasley a few inches from the sack?
Has Luna ever liked me?
Like 'liked you' or just plain old liked you?
The first one.
Ginny plays with a bit of my hair and avoids my eyes. Oh, Luna has been wet for you for ages.
WHAT?
How could she not be? You've got the most adorable chestnut mop of curls. You have brown eyes that are always shining, fingers that deftly handle the most fragile of plants, and a heart the size of a dragon's.
Really?
Why? Do you fancy her?
I-errr.. No. I don't know-, confused, I don't know what to tell her. I don't fancy Luna, I never had, and how could she ask me that while sitting practically on my cock?
Ginny comes a moment closer and kisses me on the mouth, her lips closed but warm from the sun through the greenhouse roof.
I'm kidding. She laughs, I'm sorry, you're just so lovely when you're flustered. Of course Luna doesn't like you like you.
Huh?
Didn't you know about her pen friend in Norway? She hasn't mentioned Rolf?
I don't think she has, but she does talk an awful lot.
I help her write her letters sometimes. Now that all letters coming and going are being read by Snape, Luna's had to get creative with how she phrases things.
Like the resistance efforts?
More like, instead of:
"I want you to pin me down by the hips. Grab my arse for all it's worth and when we kiss…When we kiss I'll bite onto your lip so you can't get away."
I would rewrite as:
"Don't be afraid to take a firm hand, holding the imp around the hips. If it writhes, hold if from behind. If done improperly, when you administer the draught the specimen will clamp down on your finger with its razor teeth and sucker you with its venomous saliva."
I can rack my brain trying to remember how I felt then. Her voice, her hair, her breathing as if she were about to faint. I didn't know whether I should have gotten angry or whether people are supposed to talk like she did.
I have no story to tell her.
...
A/N- I changed the title again. I think I'm going to stick with this one, lemme know what you think :)