I present to you, the requested sequel to Chapter 16- Crossing off the List. The request came from Hinnymaniac ages ago.
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Crossing More off the List
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The Burrow had always been a source of comfort, from the first moment he'd arrived there he had been transported to a whole new world that had a caring mother, several teasing and loving older brothers and a reasonable numbers of household chores that resulted in the fair trade of food and games.
Now it still held all that, but there was a small discomfort to the home as well; that small discomfort was Ginny.
She'd hugged him in greeting when he came across her on the landing when heading into Percy's old room upon his arrival, looking as surprised to see him there as he felt to be there; neither of them had any warning about when he was going to show up, Dumbledore had operated on his own schedule. The hug was too short though; she'd wrapped her arms around him and held him tight for just long enough for him to draw in breath over the relief of having her in his arms again, but then she'd remembered she hated him right now and pulled away.
Hate might have been too strong a word for it, but he was already so gutted and depressed that hate was the word he was going to give for it.
And she had every right to hate him; he'd completely buggered up what could have been something great.
He was so stupid.
So completely bloody stupid.
First with letting Voldemort get in his head so much over the last year, then with what happened with Ginny.
Then with Sirius.
He'd spent the last month grieving hard over Sirius, and that grieving had been interspersed with the memory of Ginny's face when he'd made her on the edge of tears.
When Ginny pulled away from the hug she moved herself out of arms reach right away and simply told him Ron and Hermione would be excited to see him in the morning. She was taller now, and she'd grown a bit in other ways as well; something that he couldn't fail to notice.
He couldn't form any words then and there to apologize again for what he'd said to her. He wanted so badly for them to be… something. Not friends, well, yes, friends, but more than that. His life since finding out he was a wizard had all been about chaos, Quidditch and his best friends; he wanted to add her into that mix. He just didn't know how. But as he watched her head up the stairs, only in her pyjama bottoms and a tshirt, both of which had been worn and washed so many times that that they were incredibly thin, he knew he was desperate to have her in the mix in some kind of salacious manner.
He didn't recall their interlude in the closet involving him grabbing her bum much, but, Merlin, did she have a nice one!
The next morning he awoke to the sounds of his best mates bickering with each other and eager for him to awaken, it put a smile on his face to know some things never changed. There was no Ginny to greet him though. Fleur Delacour and Mrs. Weasley bringing him breakfast in bed was a surprise; he may have arrived late last night but he was sure he wasn't hallucinating the French Tri-Wizard champions presence. After Fleur and Mrs. Weasley went back downstairs he ate his breakfast while Hermione and Ron bickered some more, but Harry ignored them because he caught movement out of the corner of his eye through the window and saw that Ginny was outside, on her broom.
"When did Ginny turn into such a good flier?" he asked out loud, his words cutting through Ron and Hermione's spat.
"She's always been a good flier," Hermione answered, "you lot have just never given her a chance."
He turned away from the window then, a small panic settling in his chest as he regarded his friend. Had Ginny told her what happened? Thankfully, she was giving a small glare in Ron's direction, not his; so she probably hadn't been told about what an ass he'd made of himself.
"We should go out there and join her," he announced. "I've been restricted from my broom for too long. I've been dying for a proper fly."
Ron was ready to jump to his feet and race downstairs, but Hermione stopped him, essentially demanding that Harry tell them about how he'd been feeling since they last saw each other.
Ten minutes later and Hermione had given up on trying to get him to open up, for now, but he had told them about what he'd helped Dumbledore with last night.
Harry dressed quickly once his friends had left the room, then rushed down the stairs with his breakfast dishes in one hand and his broom in the other, then shot up into the sky as soon as he was clear of the house and raced over to where Ginny was practicing some moves.
"Not still hoping to be taking my place on the team, are you?" he teased her.
"No, I'm a much better Chaser than Seeker," she told him as she flew in a loop around him, effortlessly.
"Something you found out in one of the midnight games I was never invited to?"
"Yes," she answered shortly and shot off towards the goal posts, where Ron was playing with a Quaffle.
That was how it was going to be then, was it? He would manage to get a sentence in with her and she would run off? Well, they were playing a pick-up game of Quidditch now, he'd just have to make her pay him some attention.
They wound up playing him against her, with Ron acting as the Keeper for both of them, and things got a little brutal; they gave each other hard knocks to get the Quaffle, he said things along the lines of how she'd need to play better than that to get on the Gryffindor team 'for real' this year, she bit back that all she needed to do was wait for him to get kicked off or wind up in the hospital wing 'again' if she didn't make the team.
Despite all of their back and forth, it was impossible not to notice how bloody good a player she was! She was quick and swift, and had used more than just her hands to get the Quaffle away from him, one time she kicked it out of his arms and did a move he didn't think there was a name for where she swooped down to catch it, then flew up over his head in a loop, then pulled up in front of the nets and threw the Quaffle behind her back through the hoop that she wasn't even pointed at.
She was fucking amazing!
By the time she'd gotten to a hundred points ahead of him they all touched down for a break and he could do nothing but gape at her.
"When the bloody hell did you learn how to do all that?!" Ron asked her.
"I've been stealing your brooms in the middle of the night since I was six, I read every Quidditch magazine I can get my hands on and I've been listening to the games on the wireless from the second floor landing for years. Plus, I was on the team last year; you might have noticed had you not been such a miserable sod the entire time," she told him off. "Boys don't have a monopoly on the game, you know. I'm better than the lot of you and I've no shame about telling you so; or showing you."
"That was incredible," Harry told her in amazement. "You are absolutely going to be on the team this year." He turned to Ron, "we're going to win the cup for sure. With her as Chaser and me as Seeker we'll win every game!"
"Hey, what about with me as Keeper?" Ron asked in offence.
"So long as you keep your head about you," Hermione said as she joined them in the middle of the field. "You're an excellent player here, but you let it effect you far too much when you miss one during a real practice or game."
"And that's coming from Hermione, who doesn't give a toss about Quidditch," Ginny teased him with a big smile.
She had such a nice smile. Harry couldn't recall seeing her smile like that before. "Let's get some water and play another round," he suggested.
"Maybe later," she told him and tossed him the Quaffle she still had under her arm. "I have a letter to write and an essay to do before I can allow myself any more fun."
Offer to help her with her assignment, his brain shouted at him. He went to open his mouth and say that to her, but Hermione spoke first.
"Send Dean our best," Hermione teased gently.
Harry snapped his mouth shut quickly then.
She was dating Dean. Which meant she was putting off playing another round of pick up with him so that she could write Dean a letter.
And she wasn't making any eye contact with him. Was she intentionally not meeting his eye? Ginny slung her broom over her shoulder and turned to walk to the broom shed while the other two started arguing over whether they should be working on their assignments too. On her way back to the house from the shed, she needed to pass them again, and he wanted her to meet his eye. It wasn't that he was trying to hurt her, but if she did meet his eye and he saw something, anything, letting him know that she would rather be out here with him than inside writing a letter to her boyfriend it would make him feel like there was still a chance he hadn't buggered things up past the point of no return.
Ginny kept looking at the house, or at the grass, but then as she was passing nearest to them, she finally looked at him.
He tried to somehow emote then how sorry he was for what he'd said, how he hadn't meant any of it, that he'd just been confused and didn't know what to think.
She didn't stop though, or even slow down, and he didn't know what to make of anything she might be trying to say with her eyes.
Then she was gone.
Several days passed after that where his only interaction with her was surrounded by other people that she could use as a distraction.
She was hiding from him in plain sight; sitting on the other side of the room from him and conveniently disappearing before it was her turn to play him in a game of chess, or opting to be on the other side of the table from him at mealtimes and pretending she was simply being willing to help her mum with the clean up after. They still played Quidditch every day, but Ron and Hermione were still there, and Ginny always took off after the game so that the three of them could get to their 'plotting', as she called it.
It wasn't entirely clear to him why he wanted to get her alone; the moment they'd had in the broom cupboard didn't mean that they had go be together now; he just wanted her. He wanted her as a friend too, not just to be something more, something they could have been by now if he'd just kept his stupid mouth shut. He knew he was still dealing with his grief over missing Sirius, but that grief had been occupying his brain for nearly two months now, it was a relief to have something else to focus his energies on, like his relationship with Ginny, or lack thereof.
Two weeks after he'd arrived at The Burrow he was lying in bed, tossing and turning and completely incapable of falling asleep, then he gave up on it and quietly went down to the kitchen. He'd watched Mrs. Weasley make them hot chocolate plenty of times, he knew where all the supplies were and could make a mug for himself before attempting to get sleep again.
But when he got to the kitchen the sauce pan he needed was already on the stove with milk warming in it that was the right color of hot chocolate, and Ginny was the one stirring it.
They watched each other for a moment and her hand had gone still, then she gave him a nod of her head in the direction of the table and added another cup of milk and powder to the saucepan.
"Trouble sleeping?" she asked.
"It's the first time it's happened since I've been here," he told her. "Normally I'm completely wiped by the end of the day because of all the fresh air and chores. When I was at Privet Drive I didn't have anything to wear me out, so being unable to sleep at night was just part of the deal."
"I've heard stories second hand about what it's like for you there," she said as she continued stirring.
"It makes Grimmauld Place feel cozy."
She chuckled and turned the stove off, then pulled down two mugs from the cupboard. "Despite the terrible state that house was-is in, I still like it. It has potential to be cozy again. Of course, first thing you need to do is figure out how to get that miserable House Elf to cooperate."
She set the mug down in front of him and took up directly on the other side of the table, not at the other end, just the opposite side from him so they were facing each other.
"First thing I need to do?"
"How is it possible that I can still surprise you with my resourcefulness?" she almost teased. "I have ways of eavesdropping on any conversation around here that I might find interesting. I know that Grimmauld Place belongs to you, and so does Kreacher. It's yours to do with as you please."
He took a cautious sip of the hot chocolate and judged that it was still too hot to drink. "I don't know if I'll ever want to go back there; too many memories."
"That's what Sirius said about the place too. Though he hated it because of the memories of his parents. I would have thought that you might like it because you have memories of Sirius there."
He observed her thoughtfully then and recalled what she'd said to him at the start of that awful night at the Ministry. "You said you were friends with him too."
Ginny gave him a hard look then. "I was. This time last year it would have been him I was sitting across from at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, not you."
"Really?"
"Sirius had trouble sleeping because of bad dreams, same as me. We commiserated together and shared anecdotes about our times at Hogwarts. He was the one that suggested I figure out how to break all those rules that were coming into place and get away with them."
"Sirius told you to do that?" Harry grinned.
"The last letter I got from him he called me an honorary Marauder and told me that since great minds think alike, together he and I could take over the world someday, but that he would still be King, I could just make do as a Knight."
He let out a laugh then. "Yeah, that does sound like Sirius." A wave of sadness came over him then. "I'm sorry, I never knew how close you two were."
"No one did," she frowned and traced her fingers along a groove in the wooden table. "I didn't want my parents or brothers worrying about me, and he didn't want to worry you or Professor Lupin about how he was truly getting on."
He didn't know what she meant at first about her family worrying about her, then it hit him all over again, about how he'd completely forgotten about her involvement in the Chamber of Secrets.
"You still have dreams about him then? Tom Riddle."
"Dreams, nightmares. I still get a shock of deja vue when I'm in one of the corridors I came out of my possessed state in; it's like getting hit with a bucket of cold water every time."
He felt incredibly sad for her then. "I'm sorry I never talked to you about it. I really should have." How self involved had he been that he hadn't ever thought to check in on her after all she'd been though? She'd nearly died. And, when she woke up, it was to find that he was seconds away from potentially dying too. "Do you think we're two of the only people that have had him in our heads like that?"
"Probably not, but woohoo for having something in common besides Quidditch," she said sarcastically.
"We've got plenty more in common than that!" he protested. She raised her eyebrows in challenge, asking him to list off a few more things. "We… we're both Gryffindors."
"Well done," she rolled her eyes.
"We both like a good laugh, we can both tolerate Hermione and her endless nagging, we both choose hot chocolate as a midnight treat when we can't sleep. We…" he was running out of possible comparisons, then he decided to be a little reckless, "we're both really good snogs."
He'd timed that perfectly so she was taking a sip of her drink when he said it. She snorted a laugh into her mug and sputtered a bit as she tried to swallow the drink in her mouth.
"Excuse me, what?" she asked as she wiped her chin.
"There's no way either of us would have gotten carried away like that that night if it wasn't the case," he grinned cheekily.
"Oh, we're on to laughing about this now?" She was smiling back at him, that mischief and light back in her eyes. "Am I to take that to mean you didn't find it 'wet'?"
"No," he laughed. "It gave me a whole new appreciation for snogging, actually. Kissing Cho was a wholly unpleasant experience in comparison."
She shook her head with laughter. "Then she and Michael are meant for each other, he wasn't all that great either."
"Ah yes, I seem to recall reading a note about how he doesn't know what to do with his hands and that you would have preferred a better 'partner' for that activity."
Ginny offered a shrug. "He was a way to pass time until my time with him passed. It was no great romance, no matter how much he told everyone I was 'in love with him' and 'devastated' about our breaking up."
Harry chuckled. "Right, and it was how many nights later that we wound up… anyway, you'd certainly not been upset about him then."
"No, I wasn't. I was annoyed that I'd wasted time with him for about an hour after we officially split up, then I just focused on getting through my list."
"It was so much fun," he reminisced.
"Yes, I can be fun."
"Do you think the twins feel like that all the time?" he wondered. It had been exhilarating to get up to that much mayhem in one evening. Had things between them not ended how they did he probably could have ridden that high for several days following.
"Not all the time, but after the way they made their grand exit from Hogwarts, most certainly then."
He turned serious then. "I'm really sorry about what I said."
The smile slipped off her face then. "Good."
"But you don't forgive me yet," he pressed on.
"I may forget about it from time to time, but I don't think I'll fully move passed how you essentially called me a slut after the most intimate moment I'd ever been in. Hard to forget feeling so high at one moment then crashing down and feeling like dirt the next."
"I never called you a… that," he protested weakly.
"You may as well have."
"Ginny! I was upset. I thought you'd been talking about me!"
"I know that."
"Yes, well, finding out immediately after we'd, you know, that you fancied someone else, it wasn't exactly a good feeling for me either."
"You'll note how I didn't immediately start asking about if you'd done that with anyone else before, or point out that it had been all of, what, two days since you realized I was more than just someone who hung around at your beck and call? Just how long had it been between when you kissed me and when you realized you might have less than friendly feelings for me? Was it that day? At least I put some consideration into who I might fancy."
"It… I wasn't…" He had no defense to that. She was right, he'd started liking her, noticing her, after he'd found her journal. He certainly hadn't thought through whether there might have been any serious repercussions to them doing what they did, not about whether it would lead to them dating or if Ron might even be okay with it. "I hadn't thought," he admitted. "It wasn't fair what I said, or what I did. I was the one that kissed you, not the other way around. It wasn't fair of me to say you were treating guys like your playthings."
She said nothing, and he took that silence as a moment to think over what he wanted from her now. All he could think about was how he wanted to kiss her again though. It had felt so good. But nothing had changed, save for her dating status, which made him wonder, "do you still fancy me?"
Her head shot up and she gave him a bewildered look. "Excuse me?"
"It's just, I'm sitting here and trying to figure out how I feel about you, but it doesn't really matter, does it? You're dating Dean now."
"Yeah, I'm dating Dean now. So why do you care if I still fancy you?"
"But, if you're dating him, but you still fancy me, it just boggles my mind a bit, that's all. You had said something about how you 'would have' started dating him in the hopes that it'd grow into something real. But I'm real, and we still spend all this time together, so I'm truly curious, and not at all trying to be offensive, about how you can date someone and fancy someone else."
"You went to the Yule Ball with Parvati and drooled all over Cho the entire night, when you weren't sitting down and being miserable with Ron anyhow. If she'd have kissed you that night, do you think you would have kissed her back?"
The question took him by surprise, he'd completely forgotten about the Yule Ball. "I don't know. Maybe."
"And if she asked you to Hogsmeade for the next visit?"
He hadn't really thought of dating anyone seriously, save for Cho, but look how that turned out. If he was asked though, it could have been rude to say no, not after she'd done him the favor of being his date to the ball when he'd been desperate for one. "I… guess?"
"So, you would have dated Parvati, even though you fancied Cho?"
"Yeah, but I don't fancy Parvati."
"But you would have dated her, had she asked."
"Er, not intentionally," he answered this as more of a question. "But Cho wasn't available then, she may have liked me back, just a little, but she liked Cedric more, that's why she was dating him. So, by your logic, you like Dean more than you like me?"
"Oh? Are you saying that you're an available choice to me now?" she countered. "Care to wander upstairs and wake up Ron to let him know?"
"I can't do that! Not if I'm not sure…" he stopped himself again.
Ginny sighed and looked up. "You know what, Harry. I'm not wasting my time with all this back and forth anymore. You've apologized for what you said and maybe I'm over it a bit, but I still hold the right to be angry about it from time to time. We can be friends if you want to be friends, but I'm with someone else and I'm not a cheater, so if you're looking to get in a few more secret snog sessions until you make up your mind as to whether you might fancy me, I'm unavailable." She stood up then and took her mug to the sink. "And now, I get to go upstairs and toss and turn a bit more in discomfort because I'm stuck sharing a room with Fleur and Hermione; neither of which are not my invited guests. I hope you're enjoying the room you have to yourself."
He watched her disappear around the corner and then spotted the saucepan on the stove. He was going to need another mug before attempting to get any sleep himself.
As he was making it he wondered why it was that he wasn't in Ron's room this time when there were three of them squashed into Ginny's room.
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Admittedly, his feelings toward Ginny hadn't always been at the top of his mind. She was being more friendly toward him as the days leading up to their trip back to Hogwarts approached. He was enjoying being friends with her. There were a few times where he'd daydreamed about what it had been like to snog her, and a few times he caught himself staring at her, but he still didn't know if he wanted to pursue anything real with her; so he kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself.
Then they were back at Hogwarts; with Ron and Hermione busy with being Prefects, him trying to figure out all that being a Quidditch Captain entailed, try and make sense of these lessons he was going to be having with Dumbledore, and learning how to avoid being anywhere near Dean, particularly when Ginny was around.
So far he hadn't seen them doing anything other than sitting near each other, once he caught them holding hands in the hall. But he knew better than anyone what she was capable of doing to a guy when they were alone together.
As the weeks drew on through September he would get a sinking feeling in his gut when he noticed that Ginny or Dean weren't in the common room. He would make a point of staying in sight of the portrait until one or the both of them came in in the evening, and almost let out an audible sigh of relief when they came back separately.
Hermione was beginning to notice, and he didn't know how to stop.
Then came the faithful night when he and Ron came back from Quidditch practice and caught Ginny with Dean in the passageway; his stomach didn't sink then, it got punched so hard that his heart nearly stopped.
Enough was enough.
Hermione knew, Ginny probably suspected, now he knew for sure; he was well beyond simply fancying her.
And Dean's stupid face was so close to getting punched too. Who did he think he was? Giving that little commiserating smile to Harry after his lips had just been where they'd been. Dean should be apologizing and swearing it wouldn't ever happen again.
Ron was raging at Ginny, Ginny was raging at Ron, but Harry couldn't hear any of it, he was too busy glaring daggers at Dean until he scarpered, not before giving a peculiar look at Harry.
Then Ron left and he wasn't entirely sure why. All Harry knew was that he and Ginny were now alone in the corridor.
They hadn't been alone together for several weeks.
She looked gorgeous; her hair was a mess, the way it usually is after Quidditch practice, and her cheeks were red with anger. "I know I shouldn't have said that to Ron, but honestly, where does he get off?"
"I didn't like that," Harry told her through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, well, he had it coming to him. I'll apologize to him later, but I'll expect him to apologize to me first."
Why was she talking about apologies?
"What?" he asked.
She cocked her head at him. "I'm talking about the fight I had with Ron, what are you talking about?"
"Seeing Dean pawing at you like that!" he said viciously.
"What?!"
"I don't like that you're dating him, okay? There, I admit it. I hate that you're dating him and I wish that you were dating me. I hated walking in here and seeing the two of you like that and I seriously considered hexing that look off his stupid face when we caught you. He had the audacity to smirk! At me! As though I was supposed to be completely fine with it that you and he were snogging. Well, I'm not fine with it."
She gaped at him for a moment, and in that moment he had a scenario forming in his head of her forgetting all about Dean and throwing herself in his arms and they would set about recreating their last truly private moment they'd had at school.
He was sorely disappointed though.
Instead of throwing herself at him, she took a step back. "Wow."
"Wow? That's it? That's all you have to say; wow?"
"Well, I mean, what am I supposed to say?" she asked.
"Maybe something like; I'll chuck Dean the next time I see him."
She laughed at that, not a full blown laugh, but it was as though she found his answer so ridiculous that she truly though the might be joking. "Sorry, but that's not going to happen."
"What? You told me that you still fancied me, but that I had to figure out if I fancied you too. And I do. I'll go up to Gryffindor right now and tell Ron if you need me to prove it to you."
"Don't do that!" she said in a panic.
"Now you're concerned about whether Ron knows? My, how the mighty have fallen."
"Oh, now I'm the mighty one. Since when did that happen?"
He took a few steps closer to her so she could properly see his face, so he could reach out and hold her arm if she tried to step away from him again. "Since you made me notice you. Now I can't stop thinking about you. My first day in potions class I had to walk passed a cauldron full of Amortentia, and do you know what scent I picked up on? Yours! You managed to talk me down when I thought I was going mad and having visions last year, so tell me I'm not mad now, or on some kind of love potion, because I'm sure you couldn't possibly be that cruel to me."
She came closer to him now, a centimeter closer and they would be touching, she was right in his face, but she didn't look like she was at all flattered by what he'd said, she looked as angry as he felt.
"You, you, you; that's all I just heard. But the summation of it? You're asking me to do exactly what you accused me of after our little 'interlude'; you want me to toss Dean aside like he was a plaything so that I could finally give up waiting for you."
Her scent was washing over him now and because of it, he was losing his anger.
"And you outright admitted that Dean, and Michael before him, were playthings to you," he said, and reached up to take a strand of her hair and twirl it around his finger. Her hair was so soft, he wanted to pull out her ponytail and run his fingers through it all, preferably with her lips against his. "You said they were playthings to pass the time with until I finally realized that I fancied you."
She was caving, he could see her determination drifting away. His arm came around her waist and he pulled her closer to him so their chests were pressed up against each other.
"I'm not cheating on my boyfriend with you, Harry," she told him, not sounding entirely convinced.
"But I've got you considering it at least, haven't I?" he grinned.
"Yeah, Ginny. Has he?" came an angry voice from the end of the passageway.
They both turned their heads and saw Dean standing there, likely come back to check on her.
Harry had no idea how long he'd been standing there, how much of that he'd overheard. It was enough to put a murderous look on his face though.
The discomfort of the situation didn't last long, because Dean turned heel and started stomping away, and Ginny went rushing after him, turning back for only a moment before she was out of the passageway to offer a quick 'sorry' to Harry.
Harry wanted to stay there for a few more minutes and collect himself, but the more logical thing to do would be to go and find Ron first and let him know, before Dean had the opportunity to find him first and blow the whole thing out of proportion.
He raced up the stairs through every possible secret passage that would make the journey as short as possible, getting into Gryffindor Tower and seeing only Hermione, not Ron, in the common room. "Has Ron been through here?" he asked her quickly.
"Yes," she answered in surprise at his presence. "He stomped through here a few minutes ago and went straight upstairs. Why?"
"What about Dean? Or Ginny?"
"Dean was here, but he left again right after Ron came in."
"And he hasn't been back yet?"
"No."
"Good. Come with me." He didn't wait for her to agree, and didn't listen to her protests about leaving her homework out on the table unguarded, he needed her to confirm to Ron that she'd noticed his growing fancy of Ginny.
"Ron," he called out as he came through the dorm.
"What?" Ron grumbled from his bed.
"I know you're mad right now, but I have to tell you something before Dean does."
"What?" Ron asked in an entirely different tone of voice. He rolled over and noticed Hermione was there, then he sat up and tried to unruffle his clothes and hair. "What were you saying about Dean? Smarmy git."
"I stayed back and was talking to Ginny after you left, then Dean found us talking and he… didn't like what he heard," he said in a hurry.
"What?" Ron asked again.
"Harry, what are you trying to say?" Hermione asked. "And why do I need to be here?"
"Because I need a witness, or a character reference at least, in case he tries to kill me."
"Why would I try and kill you?"
"Oh," Hermione nodded in understanding. "So you and she were talking about… things."
"What 'things'?" Ron asked in exasperation this time.
The door to the room opened and Harry tried to stop it but the person on the other side was putting up a fight.
"Potter! I know that's you! Too scared to face me now? I thought you weren't scared of anything," he mocked.
"Why is Dean so mad at you? We should be the one's mad at him!" Ron said.
"That prick told Ginny to ditch me!" Dean said through the door.
"Oh, Harry, you didn't!" Hermione sighed.
"Good on you," Ron added.
"He did it because he bloody fancies her himself!" Dean shouted.
The truth was out now, so Harry stood back from the door and let Dean crash it open. He stumbled before he found his footing, but then he was right in Harry's face. "You think you're so special, don't you? I knew I was taking a risk going out with her because she'd liked you for so long, but then you realized you wanted what you couldn't have and just had to convince her to try and cheat on me."
Hermione gasped and covered her mouth.
"Wait a minute," Ron stood up. "Are you telling me you guys are fighting over my sister?"
Harry turned to Ron, he was the one that he was worried about destroying a friendship with over this. "I was not trying to convince her to cheat. But… I was trying to convince her to… not… cheat."
"Eugh, why does everyone want to date my sister?" Ron asked while making a face.
"Ron, really," Hermione's voice cut across the room. "Ginny is smart and funny and pretty, you must have realized that at some point boys were going to want to date her. Harry's been growing to fancy her since… well, I first noticed over the summer."
"What? I didn't notice that!"
"Good," Harry said, "I didn't want you to. And I'm sorry, I didn't want it to affect our friendship."
"Shut up!" Dean cut in. "This is not a heart-felt bonding moment for the two of you. You just got me dumped, and you don't care in the least, do you?"
"Wait, so Ginny did break up with you?" Harry asked brightly.
"Well, I mean, better you than him," Ron shrugged. "Sorry Dean."
"This is ridiculous! The three of you don't care about anyone but yourselves, do you?" He went to his bed then, grabbed his bag and then turned around and left the three of them still standing there.
"So, you want to date Ginny then," Ron asked him again. Harry nodded. "And you think you've got time for something like that? With Quidditch and classes and these lessons you're starting up with Dumbledore soon? I mean, I don't really like the idea of her dating anyone, but if she's going to, well, yeah, you're who I'd prefer, but if you haven't got the time to pay her proper attention and are just going to be getting her upset all the time, then I don't want that for her."
"Awe, Ron," Hermione crossed the room and took his hand. "It's really nice to see you care so much about her."
Harry looked at how his friends hands were interlocked now, and how they were both blushing, and had the feeling that soon it wouldn't just be when they were on Prefects rounds that they'd be too occupied to hang out with him. "Yes," he assured Ron, "I swear I'll treat her right."
And with Ron's blessing, Harry went to his trunk and checked the Marauders Map for where Ginny might be. It turned out that she was in a broom cupboard, by herself.
And had it been any broom cupboard but that one, he would have found it entirely strange.
But they had history in that broom cupboard.
He pulled out his invisibility cloak and tucked it in his pocket.
"Where are you going?" Ron asked.
"Where do you think? I've convinced you, now I need to convince her!" Harry told him. "Hermione, you should stick around here, maybe cheer Ron up a bit," he suggested with a grin.
It felt much faster getting down the stairs to where Ginny was then it had been climbing up to get to Gryffindor Tower less than thirty minutes ago.
He paused outside the door, trying to think of some kind of opening line, or whether he needed a line at all; maybe he should just start kissing her and make her forget all about Dean. He didn't need a line or a move though, because Ginny opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind her, not looking at all surprised to find him standing there.
"I take it from the look on your face that you got Ron's blessing."
"I take it from the look on yours that you don't like that I felt I needed his blessing," he countered. He couldn't help smiling though, she seemed to be struggling with the same thing. "So, are you okay then?"
"Are you? Dean seemed hell bent on doing a number on your face after our brief encounter."
"He looked like he was tempted to hit me, yeah."
"I'm glad he didn't follow through."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I wouldn't imagine you'd have been up for kissing me at all if you had a fat lip," she shrugged coquettishly and started walking down the hall.
"Wait, where are you going?"
"You mean, where are we going," she smiled over her shoulder.
"Okay." He rushed to catch up with her and took her hand. "Where are we going? I thought we were going to go back in that broom closet and pick up where we left off."
"Oh no, we've already been in that broom cupboard. This school is full of other broom cupboards we can cross off the list."
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