AN- A guest reader asked for something with Cho and Romilda giving Harry a love potion, but it not going as planned, thanks to Ginny.

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Counteracting

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Two days after coming back from the Ministry of Magic and he was counting the days until he could go to Privet Drive and hole himself up in his room for the entire summer.

He'd never wanted to go to the Dursley's before.

But he did now.

Sirius was gone and all he wanted to do was morn, and yet now everyone finally believed his and Dumbledore's story about Voldemort being back, so the other students were clamoring for his attention. And it was all just too much. He wanted to be left alone.

He'd been sitting down by the lake with Ron and Hermione, but then other students started slowly encroaching on their space, so he left and went back to Gryffindor Tower and his dorm room.

There was a stack of cards on his table and some sweets that people had given him, the usual fare that he had whenever he was stuck in the hospital wing, except they'd shown up at his bedside this time.

He flopped himself on his bed face down and looked out the window.

After a moment of laying that way he rolled over and stretched out his arm, grabbing two different sweets off the table and unwrapping both at the same time, then shoved both in his mouth. He didn't care what they were or whether they might compliment each other, he just wanted a sugar rush to help him get through the next few hours.

They tasted like salted caramel or taffy or something. One or both of them had a liquid center too.

He chewed on the sweets for a while before he was able to swallow them, then lay back against his pillows and closed his eyes for a moment.

His body started feeling tingly and light near immediately, subconsciously he knew that meant something was wrong, but before he could mentally acknowledge that he was on his feet and unsure about where he wanted to go first.

He had to see her.

Both of the her's.

Cho and he had ended on bad terms, but surely she actually loved him too! Because he loved her. He had for ages… hadn't he?

That whole thing with her being jealous of Hermione, it had just escalated and gotten out of control.

And that friend of hers, she didn't matter. It wasn't Cho's fault what her friend had done!

But the other one… the other perfect and wonderful 'her'.

Bugger, he couldn't remember her name!

He'd seen her before, she was a Gryffindor.

… maybe in the year below him?

She had lovely curly brown hair and a small, nervous smile.

She was the year below him! Yes! He'd remembered it for sure now.

Well, the Gryffindor girl was closer, surely. He could just… pop in on her.

But boys couldn't go up the girl's staircase.

What he could do though was fly up to the right dorm window.

He'd gotten his broomstick back now that Umbridge was gone, it was tucked under his bed.

Harry snatched it up and opened his window, flying directly for the windows in the tower opposite. He wasn't sure which one was the fourth year girls dorm room, so he looked through three floors before he caught sight of Ginny in one of the rooms, she was packing up her trunk.

He tapped on the window and she turned towards him, giving him an incredulous look.

She came to open the window never the less.

"Harry, what are you-"

"Is she in here?" he asked desperately.

"What… who?"

"Erm… I don't know her name. She's in the same year as you though, and I have to see her. I feel like I'll burst if I don't."

Ginny's brow furrowed, but Harry wasn't looking at her anymore, he was searching the bedside tables belonging to the other girls and saw a picture of her.

"There!" he pointed, "That's her."

"Romilda?!"

"Yes! Romilda, I'm in love with her. I have to see her."

Ginny was speechless for a moment, then nodded slowly and took a step back from the window. "She should be back in a moment. Why don't you come in and I'll tell you a bit more about her."

"Really! That's great, Ginny. Thanks!" He flew in through the window and landed, dropping his precious Firebolt to the floor and going straight for the picture in the frame on Romilda's bedside table and picking it up. "Isn't she beautiful? I just love her hair and how shiny it is. I love Cho's hair too. Both of them. Do you think they'd both be okay with how I'm in love with both of them?"

He didn't even bother listening for Ginny's response, he was just staring at the picture of Romilda and memorizing her face. How had he not noticed her before now and done something about it?

"I should have invited her to the ball with me last year, you know, the Yule Ball."

"I do know," Ginny said, now standing beside him. "I also know she'll be back any minute and you've got terrible breath, so I think you should drink this; it'll freshen you up."

He looked down at the small green vial she was holding and didn't think twice about it. He couldn't have terrible breath for Romilda, he wanted their first kiss to be perfect. He drank it down, thinking it would taste like Listerine or Crème de Menthe, but it tasted like neither and he made a cat face, then went to spit it out.

Ginny stopped him though; she jumped on him and pinned him down on the bed, putting her hand over his mouth while he struggled. He hadn't realized Ginny was this strong! He kept trying to move her off of him, but her thighs were clamped hard on either side of him and she seemed impervious to how his arms were grasping at her to try and move her away. But then swallowed the potion down and slowly stopped struggling as the film over his mind was pulled away and his eyes went wide.

Ginny got off of him once both of his arms hit the bedspread beneath him, and she stood back with her arms crossed looking like she was waiting for him to pounce on her in retaliation.

"What just happened?" he asked slowly, horrified with himself.

Ginny's stance relaxed at the question and she gave a smile of relief. "Well, I just found out that all that rough-housing I did with my brothers when I was a kid turned out to be good for something," she joked.

"No, seriously… what was it that you just gave me?"

She picked up the bottle from off the floor where it had fallen. "It's a potion that counteracts Love Potions. I suspected you'd been given one by Romilda considering how you were going on. Plus, she's been talking about you non-stop; keeps asking me questions about you and Hermione."

His gut twisted at how he'd behaved. "That is so wrong! Those should be banned! It's taking away a persons free will, just like the Imperious Curse."

"Difference is, the Imperious Curse only needs to be applied once, whereas a Love Potion will die off eventually and it's pretty obvious when someone's been given it."

He didn't know what to say.

Thank Merlin it was Ginny who he'd bumped into, who knows how long some others might have let him go on like that for.

"Thank you," he told her sincerely.

Ginny shrugged. "I'd still say we aren't close to even yet." She turned back to continue with her task of packing up her trunk, likely because she hadn't meant to bring up the Chamber of Secrets, it had just slipped out.

His mood was starting to return to it's morose state as he stared at her back. "I'm not keeping score, you know. You filled in for me as Seeker, and came with us to the Ministry, so even if I was keeping score, we'd be even now."

Ginny scoffed with her back to him. "You shouldn't have been kicked off the team in the first place, and I was only a half-way decent Seeker. Plus, you tried everything you could think of so I wouldn't come with you lot to the Ministry, and I'm not sure just how much help I was anyhow."

"Don't say that," he said as he got up off of the bed. "I never know what I'm doing half the time I'm thrown into these situations, but having you lot there, it did make a difference."

She didn't say anything, but he thought he saw her head bob once in acknowledgement.

Ginny had set the green bottle down on her bed and he stared at it curiously. "Why do you just happen to have the counter potion for a Love potion at the ready?" He walked over to her bed and picked it up to examine it closer. There was a small symbol that looked like three W's on the label.

"Fred and George gave it to me before they left. They put it in my school bag with a note saying they wouldn't be around to keep stopping the boys from sniffing around me, but they could give me that."

He couldn't tell if she was embarrassed, or found it funny.

"So, it isn't in case you slip someone a Love Potion and change your mind?" he teased.

She gave him a half-hearted glare then, "I'd like to think that I wouldn't need a potion for someone to decide they love me."

"Right," he put the bottle back down on her bed, feeling ashamed of himself for thinking she would do such a thing. "Sorry. Besides, you've been seeing Michael for long enough that-"

"We broke up," she cut in. "And he's seeing Cho Chang now."

That was news to him!

"If she's seeing Corner, what's she doing slipping me a love potion?!"

Ginny's jaw dropped. "You mean you aren't in love with her?"

"What?! No! I never was, I just fancied her was all. Now I know better. No, I had just been in my room and was feeding my misery with two sweets, next thing I know I'm over here and thinking I'm in love with Cho and some girl that I'd never learned the name of until now. Thank Merlin I figured out that Romilda was in Gryffindor, which meant she was closer than Ravenclaw, otherwise it would have been a hell of a lot more people seeing me behaving like a lunatic."

"Oh," Ginny laughed. "I just though…" she shook her head, "never mind. School gossip is never that reliable."

"No, it definitely isn't," he ground out through his teeth. "Anyway, thanks for helping me."

"It's what I do," she said dismissively as she folded one of her shirts and added it to her trunk.

He picked up his broom and looked back at her, properly taking in the sight of her for what was possibly the first time ever. She had been really brave this whole year, and probably would have been a great person to talk to about all that had gone on in his head, knowing that she had the same kinds of concerns of possession by the same evil man those so few years ago.

And she was becoming a very pretty girl.

Actually, as he stood there taking her in he realized she wasn't just becoming a very pretty girl, Ginny is a very pretty girl.

When did that happen?

He'd been standing there for so long, staring at her, that she looked up at him and quirked her eyebrow.

"Sorry," he excused himself, "just lost in thought for a moment."

"It's alright," she told him quietly. "And Harry, I meant what I said before we… the other day," she stopped herself from mentioning the Ministry. "I care, cared, about Sirius a lot. And I'm really sorry you're hurting so much."

A stinging sensation was starting behind his eyes, but he didn't want to let any tears fall in front of her. Harry tried to open his mouth and respond, but he had no words.

Before he knew what was happening, she'd come over and engulfed him in a hug.

Safe. Hugging Ginny made him feel so safe. Safe enough to let a few tears fall and tremors run through him as he did battle with his emotions.

He didn't hug many people; hugging Hermione had always felt so awkward, hugging Sirius or Mrs. Weasley had been the closest to loved he'd ever felt, but even those hugs hadn't made him feel safe.

Ginny stayed there with her arms around him until his trembles died away.

"Thanks," he told her again as he pulled away.

"Any time." She let him go and backed up to rest against the corner post of her bed. "You should probably get some sleep. And mind you don't eat any more sweets that you find just laying around."

His crooked smile found a way to his face and he finally mounted his broom and kicked off.

He didn't realize that he'd just started falling in love with Ginny Weasley, that realization wouldn't occur to him for another two years yet.

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