Ginny unlaced her Quidditch boots wearily and tugged them off her feet. She winced slightly as her arm brushed against the door when she threw her boots into her locker.
"Smarts, does it Weasley?" Gwen Smith smirked as Ginny sucked in a breath and rubbed her arm. It was Gwen's fault she was in this mess since she'd been the Beater to send that particular Bludger Ginny's way during training.
"Not like you to take more than one Bludger," Glory Davis said, sitting down on the bench opposite and tugging at her gloves. Ginny grunted non-committally. She'd been hit by Bludgers before. It really wasn't that big of a deal. It was being hit five times that was the killer. Almost literally, she'd fallen off her broom and hit the goal post and it was lucky she'd managed to slide gracefully down while her broom did a spiral dive into the sand at the bottom.
Gwenog had chewed her out on the pitch enough; Ginny wasn't in the mood for an inquisition from the Beaters after that tongue lashing from their coach. She peeled off her socks and inspected the bruise on her left calf.
"Lucky that didn't hit the bone," Glory commented. Ginny glowered at her team mate.
"Yeah, I'm not a fan of skelegro," she muttered, pulling her trouser leg down over the offending limb and searching her bag for her street shoes. Normally Ginny loved Quidditch training but today she'd just felt out of sorts and struggled to focus.
She blamed Ron. It was his fault he had an idiotic Git for a best mate. Although Ginny had left Harry at The Leaky Cauldron on Friday night and gone home to her empty flat and washed the curtains for something to do, she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he'd vaguely alluded to the fact that she was pretty. Was he drunk, or was it a pity thing? Julian Penngrove has referred to her eyes as shiny once, but it was a sure bet he was only saying it because he read it on the script George gave him. Ginny knew because she found it tucked between the couch cushions in his flat.
But unless Neville had slipped Harry a note and several hundred Galleons to do it, Harry might have actually said she was pretty, and he might have actually thought it, at least once, un-coerced by Other Males in Ginny's life. Since Harry didn't need several hundred Galleons, Ginny found this scenario entirely unlikely and had to come to the conclusion that Harry, at some point found her pretty. Which was all around disconcerting and definitely indicative of the fact that she had thought too much about it.
So Ginny definitely didn't think about it on Saturday. She didn't spend the entire day reading Hermione's biography of Harry Potter that had been sitting on Ginny's shelf being carefully ignored for the last two years. (It was two half days and the Quidditch was on the wireless in the background, so she wasn't really paying attention.) And she most certainly did not spend all evening staring at her Harpies uniform and thinking how it was the same colour as Harry Potter's eyes. Well sort of, because the Quidditch robes didn't gleam and sparkle the way Harry's eyes did when he laughed. Nor did the uniform light up the way Harry's eyes did when he was greeting someone. Except that Adrianna person who he'd stared at in horror at the Lion's Breath.
Harry had been at Seamus' pub the same night Neville dragged Ginny there to try the new Fizzing Firepop which was a cross between Muggle soft drink and Firewhisky and only ended up blowing the toupe off the man sitting three tables away — it certainly didn't blow away your tastebuds the way Seamus claimed. At least Ginny didn't have to leave early that night the way she usually did when Harry Potter turned up (inexplicably) at the same place as her. If Ginny wasn't mistaken Harry had convinced Neville to distract Seamus and had scrambled out the side parlour window. Harry's eyes had been a sort of stormy green that night, kind of the way the mould in George's bathroom looked the day before he had a girl over and paid Ginny to clean it for him. Harry's eyes usually, on a good day, matched the Harpies robes though. Bright and impossibly green.
So Ginny made sure that she didn't think about Harry Potter at all on Sunday morning. Except for that hour or so (it might have been more) she hung out in Diagon Alley wondering if he was going to leave the pub or not and if she should just leave or was safe to stay — innocently doing her ... um ... cauldron shopping. Because one couldn't take too long choosing a cauldron. Percy had been very clear on that. Ginny had every right to spend nearly 4 hours shopping for a cauldron near The Leaky on a Sunday morning.
When Ginny turned up to The Burrow for tea on Sunday she noticed that Harry's eyes were indeed that very clear and bright green that was a cross between Harpies robes and the green bits on a Portable Swamp.
And none of this would have happened if Ron hadn't had a Git for a best mate. So it was Ron's fault Ginny had to avoid the sitting room (and Harry Potter) the night before and ended up listening to Audrey and Fleur discuss lewd acts involving her brothers. She'd probably been traumatised for life. It had almost killed her today. She couldn't wait to get home and have a long, hot soak in her bath tub with a hot chocolate.
"Smith, good work today, next time try not to kill Weasley with your enthusiasm, Davis!" Gwenog barked as she swept into the changeroom. "See you all here bright and early tomorrow — and Weasley?" Ginny looked up.
"What?" she almost growled.
"Tell your boyfriends not to hang around like a bad smell," Gwenog grumbled. "They can wait somewhere else, not where the office staff fawn all over them like sick little puppy dogs."
"What boyfriend?" Ginny asked with a frown, but the only answer was the door banging shut on Gwenog and a snicker from Glory Davis. Ginny silenced her with a look.
"Was beginning to think you played the Game of Flats," Gemma Biggsworth, the new Keeper said as she slammed her locker shut and swung her bag onto her back. "If there's a bloke out there waiting for you, this I need to see."
"What are you talking about?" Geraldine Willows, the Seeker asked, swinging her tiny frame around the pole in the middle of the room that Ginny had always found a vaguely uncomfortable reminder of Audrey's hen's night. "Ginny plays the game of Quidditch, like the rest of us." Geraldine was the most annoying sprite-like creature sometimes and just a little bit dim, really. Brilliant Seeker though.
"Oh, you're so cute," Gwen said. Geraldine looked puzzled and flicked her blonde hair behind her shoulders. Gwen shouldered her own practice bag and patted Geraldine on the head. "I admit I was starting to think you were a todger dodger, Weasley. I'd like to see this bloke for myself as well."
"It's probably just one of my brothers," Ginny said dismissively, latching her locker door and collecting her things. "Lord knows I've got too many of them and a sizeable portion of the female population finds them inexplicably attractive." Ginny rolled her eyes at Gemma's suggestive smirk and headed for the door.
"What do you do in your spare time?" Garnet Murphy, one of Ginny's fellow Chasers asked as she climbed onto the bench that ran between the lockers. "We never see you in the papers — not like Ghislane here who is in the society pages with a new fellow every week."
"I am not!" Ghislane Dubois protested. The third Chaser was a rather large woman with a statuesque build and long blonde hair. Ginny was sure she was part Veela and if anyone should be reprimanded for having boyfriends hanging around it was her. "Eet iz not my fault zat zey follow me." She also had the rather unfortunate luck to be just a little bit like Fleur. Gwen and Gemma turned at the door.
"Oh rubbish," Gemma said. "You give the entire team a bad reputation!"
"All on your own!" Gwen added. "I couldn't go out with Jack the other night without a photographer following us. Bloody annoying."
"Oh Jack loves it," Ginny said dismissively with a wave of her hand, shuffling to the door. "You're only playing with Jack anyway. It's not like you're madly in love. Speaking of hot chocolate though — "
"Oh I want to be in love one day." Geraldine interrupted, still swinging on the pole dreamily. She looked a little like Trelawney with her riotous blonde hair swinging lose and a dreamy expression on her face. "He's going to sweep me off my feet and we're going to live happily ever after in a lovely little cottage in the woods far away from everyone ..." Ginny wondered for the millionth time how Geraldine was possibly focused enough to catch the Snitch when she couldn't even stay on track for a simple conversation most of the time.
"I don't think it works like that, Sunshine," Glory said with a sigh. "I thought Everard was the one but I'm starting to realise that the man is bloody married to his job."
"Bob ain't much better," Gemma grumbled. "Bloody Hufflepuffs."
"Oi!" Gwen said, glaring at the Keeper. "Nothin' wrong with Hufflepuffs!"
"My best friend married a Hufflepuff," Ginny inserted helpfully, hoping to avoid a repeat of The Great Hufflepuff Argument of 2001. "She's lovely." Gemma and Gwen kept glaring at each other and Geraldine kept swinging on the pole. Ginny and Glory glanced at each other uneasily while Ghislane inspected her nails. Garnet broke the standoff by leaping lightly off the bench and landing between her team mates.
"I say we go find out who Ginny's boyfriend is," she said with a mischievous grin that reminded Ginny of Fred and George.
"Yeah," added Glory, "it's time to find out what — or who — Weasley does with her time!" Ginny threw up her hands.
"I don't have a boyfriend," she said, "and I spend most of my time with my family listening to my mother criticise my wardrobe and my father talk about Muggles! I haven't got plans to meet anyone and I'd really rather go straight home, so if there is actually some bloke out there he's going to owe me a hot chocolate!"
She pushed her way between Gemma and Gwen, shouldered the door open and limped towards the reception area of the training ground. Ginny turned to see the rest of the Harpies trailing after her and shook her head slightly. They were going to be in for a mighty disappointment when all they saw was Percy waiting to tell her that her Floo licence renewal was overdue or George begging her to test a new why he continually tried to get her to do it after the time he accidentally turned her into a budgerigar and couldn't change her back for a week was surely a mystery for the ages. Ginny swung back around with a snigger that died on her lips when she saw exactly who was standing in the reception area.
That was no brotherly redhead standing by the counter flirting with the receptionist who was about to drool all over the new training schedules.