AN- Guest request of Harry asking Ginny to the Yule Ball, which get's the ball rolling on the Hinny-ness.
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Compulsory Date
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"Must be accompanied. Why is it bloody mandatory that we have dates for this thing?" Harry complained to Ron again. They'd been taking turns over who got to be the most upset about it; and considering that the spotlight was going to be more on him than on Ron, Harry felt he had the right to take more turns being the one most upset about it.
Ron was frowning about this too during their study hall.
The Yule Ball was a month away, but they needed to work up the nerve to get on top of finding a date now before there weren't any girls left to ask.
Harry could tell who Ron was interested in asking, and he didn't think that Ron would ever work up the nerve to ask her. He didn't know if Ron was aware that he did it, but every time the compulsory date thing was brought up, his eyes would shoot over to Hermione first. That to Harry meant that he could absolutely not ask Hermione to go as just friends, though that would have been ideal. He'd heard that Cho had already agreed to go with Diggory, so that was that. There had been a few girls that had asked him to be their date, but he didn't know any of them and didn't want to spend the evening giving these girls the wrong impression.
They were sitting at the Gryffindor table and it was breakfast time, and right now he was keeping an eye on the entrance and giving a looking over to each of the females that walked in, seeing if maybe there was someone he had overlooked that he might potentially want to go with. This was when he realized that unless they were on the Quidditch Team with him or in his year, he really didn't know the names of any of these girls he went to school with.
Then she walked in with her friends; someone he did know the name of.
There were a few minor issues with this option though, not the least of which was how Ron might feel about it.
"Er, I've had a thought," he started gently, doing his best not to cringe as he got the words out.
"About what?" Ron asked miserably as he took more bacon for his plate.
"I've realized there is someone I could ask who does kind of know me and might not read too much into my asking her…"
Ron looked up at him sharply. "You're not talking about…" he leaned over closer to him, "Hermione."
"What? No!" Merlin, Ron really was unaware of how obvious he was being about his growing fancy for their friend. "No, I'm talking about," he jutted his chin in the direction of Ginny and her friends rather than saying it out loud.
Ron looked in the direction, but clearly wasn't catching on about which of the girls in the group Harry meant. "What, getting Ginny to introduce you to some of the third years?"
"No, Ron," Harry exasperated. "I'm talking about asking Ginny to the Ball." Ron turned to look at him sharply. "Not because I fancy her!" he stated quickly in his defense. "I just can't think of anyone else that I want to ask since Cho is already going with Diggory. I'm not friendly with any other girls, save for Hermione, but that's not an option. I at least know Ginny a bit. I'll explain to her that it's just because I need a date. Maybe she'll be okay with it because it at least means that she'll get to go. You know, because it's fourth year and up."
"Mate, I think she's still got a crush on you. Won't that be, sort of, leading her on? I know the crush is ridiculous, because you're a specky git and I'm the better looking of the two of us, but who knows what goes on in these girls minds."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he deadpanned. "Look, I'll be very clear with her, I promise. I just… need a date and I know her, that's the long and short of it."
Ron looked between him and his sister a few times before giving his shrug of approval.
"Thanks," he grinned, feeling the weight lift off his chest. Battling a dragon had been difficult, but this whole 'finding a date' thing had been equally as hard a task.
It was a few hours later that he managed to find her on her own in the library, she'd been studying with her friends and branched off on her own to find a book.
"Ginny," he greeted her as they approached each other.
"Hi," she nodded easily, then kept moving past him in search of her book.
He found himself a bit thrown off by how she clearly hadn't been expecting him to want to talk to her and paused rooted to his spot for a second before turning around to follow after her. "Er, I have a favor to ask." That got her to stop and turn around to look at him properly. "Erm, it's in regards to the Yule Ball." Her eyes went a little wider as surprise and disbelief. "Er, yeah. Um, so it's kind of compulsory that I have a date for this, and well, the person I wanted to go with already said yes to someone else, so I'm kind of stuck. And, you know, I know you… a bit. It wouldn't mean anything other than, you know, needing to sit near each other for the meal portion, probably a dance too; although I'm crap at dancing." He gave a small chuckle of self-deprecation. "I promise, if there was anyone else I could think to ask I wouldn't be bothering you with this, but I figured that since you couldn't attend because you're a third year, you might like to go? So, how about it?"
She had been staring at him as he prattled on, his gaze had been darting to the stacks of books and intermittently meeting her eye. He couldn't read her expression.
"It's probably for the best, for my gender, that you didn't try that speech out on anyone else," she said finally.
"What?"
"It's kind of insulting actually. You're saying that the only way in hell I'd be able to go is because you realized that no other girl in the entire school, or at any of the other two visiting schools, would think you could possibly just be asking them to be a plus one, for a night; and that's because your world of friends doesn't extend past two people. And, there's no way anyone else might think me a viable option for them to ask?"
"That's not what I-" he started.
"That's exactly what you just said to me," she cut him off in an angry whisper. Her jaw clenched and she closed her eyes tight, then gave her head a single shake before looking at him again. "But fine, your social skills may suck, but I do owe you a life-debt, so I'll be your plus one and give up on the chance of actually going with someone that might want to go with me." With that, she turned back around and kept on in search of the book she'd been looking for.
Harry gaped at her retreating form and tried to figure out what the hell just happened.
She'd said yes, but had he really been that rude?
Ron had been wrong, completely wrong, there was no way that the Ginny he thought his sister was and the Ginny that Harry had just encountered were the same person. Because the Ginny Harry had just encountered most certainly did not still have a crush on him.
Despite her less than warm acceptance of his offer, Harry was still glad to have his date for the Yule Ball settled. That was, until she came and found him a week before Christmas.
"Parvati just told me that, besides Ron, you are the worst student at McGonagall's dance lesson."
He scoffed a laugh, "yeah, probably. I've never learned to dance, why would I need to?"
"Harry," she groaned, "I'm not going to be made to look a fool when we have to open the dance floor because you can't manage to at least fake like you know what you're doing."
"What do you mean 'open the dance floor'?" he panicked.
"The Champion's are the ones that open the dancing, by dancing. Then the Heads of the schools, then the rest of the students are invited on. That means that for at least one song, you're going to need to know what you're doing."
"How do you know that?" He thought back over whether anyone had mentioned to him that he needed to open the dance floor and couldn't recall anyone mentioning it.
"Because I have ears and I tend to use them!" she sighed and sat down next to him on the couch. "Can you at least consent to doing a trial run with me once or twice before this time next week?"
"What do you mean by that?"
She looked thoroughly unenthused about needing to spell this out for him, but he really wasn't sure what she was asking. "I mean the two of us finding an empty classroom so that you can actually learn the steps for one dance."
He made a face at that request, and she narrowed her eyes at him, to which, he rolled his and resigned his protest. "Fine. Let's go now and get it over with."
"So magnanimous of you," she grumbled and led the way to an empty classroom, standing in the middle of it and waiting for him.
"You know how to do this? Because as you just pointed out, I don't."
"Yes. I've been helping Neville practice, so I've got it down now."
She walked him through the same steps that McGonagall had done and he managed to stumble through the moves three times before he started getting the hang of it. By the fourth time he thought he had it down well enough.
"There, are we good now?" he asked after the fifth time.
Ginny rolled her eyes at him and muttered something before shaking her head and letting him go. "Yeah, fine."
It bugged him that she was still so angry with him. "What's your problem?"
"My problem is that after I agreed to go with you, I had three other guys asking me to go with them and I had to turn all of them down, and you don't even want to go with me."
"What? Who?"
"What do you care? Going to follow up and fact check?"
"Do you want me to release you from your obligation so you can go and say yes to one of these other guys?" he asked angrily.
"Too late for that now! They've all found other dates."
"Well then they can't have been that interested in you, now can they?!" he nearly shouted at her.
The glare she gave him then could have rivalled her mother. "You know, when this ball was announced I didn't really care who might have asked me, I just wanted to go. But you, coming up and cornering me, starting off your request by prefacing that you didn't actually want to go with me, but had given up on putting in the effort with anyone else, that bugged me. It still bugs me. And another thing, do you realize that what you said to me in the library was the most that you've ever said to me since the end of my first year? It's amazing really, how you're the only person I could possibly talk to about what I went through and yet I'm still a back-up friend to you. Well, I have plenty of friends now Harry! The only reason I'm going to the ball with you is because I OWE YOU."
He was gobsmacked. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was between her and the door, he was sure that she would have stomped out after screaming that at him.
"You don't owe me anything," he said quietly; sadly. "I would never think that anyone would owe me for what happened, whether it was you or anyone else."
From the clenching of her jaw he could tell he'd said the wrong thing again.
"Look, I asked you because of anyone else I could have possibly asked, you're the only person who I could think of that wouldn't think of me as, you know, The Boy Who Lived, or a Tri-Wizard Champion. You don't think of me like that, do you?" She adjusted her stance a bit, still glaring at him, and shook her head. "Right, that's what I thought. I-I'm sorry. I'm crap at, you know, talking about things, and I had no idea you might want to talk about, you know, that." The room suddenly felt a few degrees warmer. "You could have come to talk to me about it though, if you had wanted to."
"No, I couldn't. You're Ron's friend. It's sibling dynamics, Harry; unless you talked to me about it first, it would have been an issue for Ron. He would have accused me of trying to steal his friend."
"No, he wouldn't!" he defended instinctively.
"Yes, he would. You saw what he was like after your name came out of the Goblet of Fire. He can't stand others having the spotlight. I know you guys are best-mates again, but if you started paying any attention to me, I would have been hearing about it from him, and I didn't want him stupidly reminding everyone in the common room about what I'd done."
He opened his mouth to defend his best friend, but closed it again, because she was right. Ron didn't think before he acted and he likely would have brought it up. Harry knew that Ron loved his sister, but he wouldn't hesitate before bringing up the Chamber incident.
"I-I guess you're right."
"Uhuh. Now, I know we've only got a week left, but you do have dress robes right? And they still fit?"
"Yeah, your mum picked them out for me this summer. I… I think they still fit."
Ginny rolled her eyes before closing them and giving a soft sigh. "Will you please go and double check that they still fit? You're likely a few inches taller than you were this past summer."
She was clearly forcing herself to sound very polite and it was making him feel worse about what a bad friend he'd been to her.
"I will," he promised. "And I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For not talking to you since… you know. And for making you think you were just a back-up friend or something." Her lips pursed and he knew she was holding something back. "What? Just say it."
"It isn't just me you do that to."
"What?" He had no idea who she was talking about.
"Think Harry, who was it that you hung around with when Ron was being a berk?"
He thought on it. It was mostly Hermione, but she was going back and forth between him and Ron, trying to keep the piece, and when she was with Ron he was with… Neville. And he had barely spent any time with Neville since after the first task.
"Oh bugger," he moaned at the realization. "I really am a shit friend, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are."
"Thanks for sugar coating it."
"Sugar coating things for you doesn't work. I need to write things on a brick and throw them at you to get your attention."
He chuckled. "Yeah, that's probably true." He stared at Ginny for a moment, unsure what to say next. He could now see that she really was doing him a favor by agreeing to go with him to the Ball, but he didn't want her to feel like the whole evening was one big obligation. "You know, before Hogwarts, I never had any friends." He'd never said that outright to Ron or Hermione, he wasn't sure they had been able to tell. Hermione had mentioned that she hadn't got on with any of the students at her primary school, but he hadn't told her anything about what it had been like for him. "Ron was the first friend I ever made, then Hermione. I guess I just felt lucky that I had two really good friends and never thought to put in the effort to make more. When Ron was cheesed off with me, I essentially followed Neville around because he was the only other person that wasn't hanging out with his friends. And I never thought to spend time with you outside of The Burrow because you have friends of your own too."
"So, what you're saying, is that you are socially inept?" Ginny said this as though she had known it all along, but it was good for him that he recognized it now.
"Yes," he grinned. "That's exactly what I'm saying."
"Then let me explain the basics of friendship to you Harry; you're allowed to have more than one friend group, and that group is allowed to be outside of your year at school too."
"Making friends doesn't come naturally to me."
"Then try saying 'hello' to some people that you think you might get on with. It doesn't mean you have to spend less time hanging around with Ron and Hermione."
"Look at you; giving me dancing lessons and teaching me how to make friends," he teased.
"Yeah," she puffed herself up, "it's a big task, but it's about time someone undertook it."
He chuckled, then held out his hand to her, "want to try those moves a few more times?"
By the time Christmas had rolled around, Harry had been making a point of spending a little more time with Ginny, and with Neville. He hadn't realized how funny Ginny was until this week, she had the same mischievous streak in her that the twins had, and her jokes had him in stitches several times.
Christmas morning had been a busy one, considering most of the school had opted to stay because of the Yule Ball. He, Ron and Hermione had join in on a snowball fight amongst nearly all of Gryffindor house that lasted for hours, then Hermione left to get ready for the Ball just as Harry had gone over to help Ginny and a few of the younger students building snowmen.
"How are you with transfiguration?" Ginny asked him as she attempted to make some sort of hat for the snowman.
"I'm passing the class at least," he told her and then managed to make something close to a top hat and stuck it on top.
"Perfect!" she announced.
"Looks like most of the girls are disappearing to get ready. You don't need to go and join them?"
"No. I'm only one of two girls in my dorm that's going so I don't need to fight for mirror time. Plus, I'm only going with a friend, so who would I be trying to impress?" she smirked.
"What?!" he asked with mock indignation. "You aren't going to get all prettied up for me? And after I managed to ask you to be my date so smoothly!"
"Eh, you'll get over it. Plus, you know what I look like. By the time the Ball starts I'll look like this," she gestured to herself, "in a dress with some of my hair pinned back."
He scoffed at her. "You're putting in so little work and yet I've been trying on my dress robes every night and trying out different ways to tame my hair," he joked.
"Here, this'll tame your hair." She took the top hat off the snowman and put it on his head. "There, now you can't even see the unkept mess. Perfect."
He kept the hat on until he was officially too cold to stay outside any longer, then he stuck it on the snowman and walked back inside with Ginny. They came across Neville in the entrance way and Harry invited him down to the kitchens with them so they could get a bite before going up to Gryffindor. He made sure to grab something extra for Ron.
Ginny branched off for the girls dorm and Harry and Neville walked into the boys dorm to see Ron already wearing his dress robes and casting severing charms on the lacy cuffs.
"Need help with that?" Harry laughed.
"I need to bloody light it on fire!" Ron complained. "Both you and Neville have decent dress robes, I saw you both trying them on earlier this week, I should have checked mine at the same time!"
"Planning ahead isn't your strength," Neville laughed and headed for his bed.
Harry saw Ron open his mouth, likely about to make a hurtful comment at Neville, so he stuck a pastry in Ron's mouth to stop him. "Take off the jacket at least first, then maybe we can do something to make it look better."
An hour later and Ron's dress robes were free and clear of lace, they'd managed to make it one solid color and remove the mothball smell, which was as good as it was going to get.
Then suddenly he and Ron found themselves showered and dressed and waiting in the common room for their dates; Ron was going with Parvati Patil, her sister Padma was Neville's date and he was waiting for her down in the Entrance Hall.
"Did you see Hermione come down yet?" Ron asked him as they both stared at the fire, already wishing this evening was over with.
"She's already left to meet up with her date," Ginny told them.
Harry turned his head around to see her and was momentarily surprised by how genuinely ugly her dress was; it had this light green skirt with several layers and a pink bodice type thing with a darker pink sash around her waist. And the ruffle, it must have been their mother thinking that ruffles were still in style because both hers and Ron's outfits had the lace and the ruffles.
She'd clearly noticed her expression. "I know, it's terrible, isn't it? This is why I didn't need much time, it didn't matter how much I tried to do my hair or put on make-up, this dress would stand out above it all."
He pried his eyes away from the dress and up to her face, noticing that she had added something to her lips and around her eyes, her hair was also done up. Actually, despite how awful the dress was, she did look quite pretty.
"No, your face makes up for it," he said unthinkingly.
"What?"
"Yeah, what?" Ron echoed his sister.
"Nothing, I'm an idiot," he shook his head. "I'm trying to say you look nice."
"I can only agree with the you being an idiot part," Ron snorted.
"Hi Ron, ready to go?" Parvati asked as she came into the room, wearing a traditional Indian sari that had all kinds of intricate threading on it at the edges.
"Whoa, that's a lot of pink," Ron said about her outfit.
Harry shook his head and stood up, taking Ginny's hand and heading for the exit. "And he calls me an idiot."
Ginny chuckled and they hurried down the stairs as quick as her heels would allow them to travel. He didn't realize until they reached the Entrance Hall that he had been holding her hand the entire way, and it was only because she had pulled on his hand in the direction of McGonagall, who was collecting all the champions and their dates so that they would be the last through the doors.
"Hermione!" Ginny exclaimed upon seeing her.
Harry did a double take before he realized that Hermione was there, as the date of Victor Krum. Now, Hermione had a really pretty dress. So did Cho, and so did Fleur. He hoped Ginny wouldn't be too self-conscious about her dress considering how nice the other females that were going to be at the head table were dressed.
"Hi Ginny," Hermione beamed. "Harry," she nodded at him. "Ginny, you look…"
"Like my mother wants me to stay a little girl forever?" Ginny finished her sentence for her. "I'm aware. Don't worry about it, I hate my dress too."
"Oh, it's not that bad," Hermione tried to assure her, which only worked to have Ginny and him snickering.
"It is," he told Hermione. "I probably should have offered to switch Ron's dress robes for mine so that she and I could look equally terrible."
McGonagall got their attention then and told them all the order in which they would be entering the hall and heading straight for their table for the meal. Harry and Ginny had the unfortunate pleasure of being sat close to Percy, who was filling in for Crouch again. He tried not to laugh at the faces Ginny made every time he caught her eye while Percy was talking.
Then came the dancing portion. He felt sure that he could manage to make his way through all the steps, at least hold off making a fool of himself and Ginny until there were more people on the dance floor and the attention was off them, and he succeeded. The first two dances were essentially the same beat, so he managed to get through them with a little guidance from Ginny, then there was a slow dance and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist and they slowed down to a sway.
"Thanks for making me practice that with you last week."
"Told you, I didn't want to look like a fool out here, no need to thank me for that."
He smiled down at her. "I'm actually having fun so far. I've been dreading this, but it's not so bad."
"Can't say that feeling is shared with Ron over there," she nodded her head towards the tables at the other end of the room where Ron was sat with his arms crossed and looked to be glaring somewhere in the direction to the left of them. "I'm glad Hermione didn't wait around for him to ask her. He needs to realize that other guys will find her appealing too."
"You think Hermione fancies Ron a bit?"
"Of course she does, and he fancies her a bit too. They're both just too close to each other and too stubborn to admit it."
The next song started, and it was a much quicker tempo than the previous ones had been. "Oh no, I don't think I'm up for this."
"That's alright. Why don't you go over there and see to my miserable brother. I'm going to find one of my fun brothers and see if they want to spin me around the floor a bit."
"Thanks," he grinned at her.
Ron really was in a state, one that made Harry feel sorry for Parvati up until she was asked to dance by someone from Durmstrang, leaving the two of them as only a handful of people that weren't on the dancefloor when the Weird Sisters took to the stage.
Harry wanted to stay near Ron and try to buck him up, but there was nothing for it. And Hermione, Ginny and Neville all looked to be having a great time jumping up and down to the music. He wanted to go and join them. He'd seen Ginny dancing with each of the twins, with Neville and with two other guys that he recognized but didn't know the name of, likely the two other guys that had asked her to come here with them tonight.
Ginny really was quite popular. Even her horrible dress wasn't enough to deter them.
Her dress was making him smile now every time he saw it.
And he was done with sitting there moping with Ron.
"I'm going back out there," he decided finally.
"What? Why?"
"Because they're all having fun, and you aren't. It's Christmas, Ron. Forget about how you didn't exactly come here with the person you wanted to come with, you've got the chance to get out there and dance with whoever it might be right now. So, I'm going to go and make a fool of myself, on purpose for once."
Ron didn't move, so Harry just left him there and maneuvered his way through the people until he reached Ginny again. She was dancing with a Ravenclaw in his year. "Can I cut in?" he asked them loudly.
"Harry!" she grinned. "I thought you were too cool for dancing to this kind of music."
"I think I can manage now that everyone else looks like they're making fools of themselves too."
She let out a loud laugh and put her arm over his shoulder, dancing with him now, the Ravenclaw guy had simply moved on to another girl without protest.
It was an hour later, maybe two, and he was absolutely parched and burning up from all the dancing they'd done. His cheeks actually hurt from smiling so much. Who knew that he could have found a dance like this to be so much fun? He took Ginny's hand and pulled her over to the buffet table with him where they each took a cup of punch, then another, before heading outside to cool off in the winter wonderland that had been made.
"Alright, I think I should officially thank you for inviting me," Ginny told him.
"Is this you saying that I'm not such the wet blanket that you thought I was?"
"I'm saying I've been a good influence on you," she corrected.
He let out a loud laugh at that. "That could be true. If it weren't for you I'd probably be sitting at the table with Ron, arms crossed and moping over how poorly the evening was going for me."
"And if it weren't for you, I probably would have said yes to going with Jackson or Arnie and neither of them was very gentlemanly when I danced with them earlier. So, we're both winning here."
"What? What did they do?"
She shrugged. "Just asked if I was interested in finding an empty broom closet is all. I dealt with it."
"What?! They shouldn't be trying to get you to sneak away with them for a snog! You came here with me!"
She chuckled at his indignation. "That makes it sound like you're the one who was supposed to ask me to go to a broom cupboard."
"I… well… I mean, if anyone… that's not what I meant." This conversation had taken a very strange turn. "Look, I just meant that I'm glad we're spending more time together."
She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Harry. I know you don't see me like that."
"Look, I know you're pretty, it's just that broom cupboards aren't exactly top of my priority list for places to visit."
"Harry," she put her hand on his chest to stop him. "You're just digging yourself in further here. How about you tell me about your progress on that egg?"
"That's easy, there hasn't been any."
They did two walks around the garden while they continued to chat, then went back into the Great Hall and got a plate of the late night buffet that was set out, where he bumped into Cedric Diggory, who told him to take the egg with him into the bath, before heading up to Gryffindor where Harry thanked her for coming with him, because he'd truly had a great time.
Ron had been sour with everyone the next day because they'd all had fun and he'd been miserable at the Yule Ball. His mood had been so terrible that it gave Harry all the motivation he needed to get away to the Prefects Bath with his egg and try to decipher what Cedric had told him.
Two hours it had taken for him to figure it all out, about putting the egg in the water and managing to memorize what the song had been.
By the time he got back to the tower to put the egg away it was lunch time and he bumped into Ginny, so they walked down to the Great Hall together while he told her about it.
"What can't speak above the ground?" he asked her in a whisper.
"Well, you couldn't hear it unless it was in the water, so I'm guessing it's an aquatic being. So, probably a-"
"Mermaid," he finished her sentence. "Yeah, you're probably right. So, that means that… how am I supposed to do this?!"
Neville sat down across from them. "Hey guys. How are you supposed to do what?"
Harry wasn't sure about sharing this with Neville.
"He needs to figure out how to breath under water for about an hour," Ginny told him, then turned back to Harry. "I've heard of something called the Bubble-Head Charm. It's not something you'd learn until sixth or seventh year."
"Or you could use Gillyweed," Neville shrugged.
Both Harry and Ginny turned to Neville then.
"It's a seaweed like plant," he went on. "You'd have to take a full mouthful of it all at once, but it'll transform you temporarily so that you'll have gills and fins."
Harry looked back and forth between Ginny and Neville in astonishment before a big grin broke out over his face. "You guys are the best!"
It took two weeks for an owl order he'd placed to come in with the Gillyweed, and another week for him to work up the nerve to go to a secluded place at the Black Lake to try it out, which was where he saw Victor Krum jumping off of the Durmstrang ship; seeing that, he knew that his friends had been correct about there being mermaids in the Black Lake.
He had Hermione, Ginny, Neville and Ron with him when he went down to the water to test it out.
"Just stay near the surface for now," Hermione was warning him. "You don't know how long it's going to work for, so if it wears off and you're too far under the water, then we don't want to chance you drowning. I've weighed it all out according to how long it should work from what I've read. So-"
"Hermione!" Ginny cut her off. "Just let him give it a go, would you?" She took the smallest bit of Gillyweed that had been weighted out and walked it over to him. "Start with this so we can see what it actually does to you."
"Thanks," he grinned at her, his teeth chattering from standing with his bare feet in the freezing water.
"Good luck," she whispered to him so the others wouldn't hear.
It had been a very strange transformation process after he'd swallowed it down; first the water had stopped feeling so cold, then his hands and feet began to lengthen and web, then he started suffocating, which led to him panicking and grasping at his neck while he stared at the four of his friends in desperation.
Until Ginny pushed him over, knocking him into the water, where he could breathe.
It had been a pretty amazing experience actually, he had never been a strong swimmer, yet cruising around the surface of the lake using his webbed hands and feet to propel him had been almost like flying.
By the time it wore off Hermione had clocked his transformation as lasting for forty minutes.
A week later and he'd depleted his stock of Gillyweed and ordered more, but he had the lake mapped out now and a good idea of where the tournament judges were going to be putting his 'most prized possession'. What that possession was, he still wasn't sure, but he had confidence in knowing where to go to find it.
When the day finally came he walked down to the lake with Ron and Neville, they hadn't been able to find Hermione or Ginny, who had likely gotten down to the stands early.
"Feeling good?" Neville asked him.
"A bit nervous still, there's a lot of people watching me standing around in my swim trunks now. But I think I'll do reasonably well."
He bid them a farewell and stood on the dock that had been put up at the lake overnight with the other three contestants and stared at the surface of the water, wishing the starting pistol would go off so he could warm up in the water.
He scanned the crowd and made out Ron and Neville, but still couldn't see Ginny or Hermione anywhere. He hadn't seen them last night either, they'd disappeared after dinner.
When Bagman started talking, Harry put his hand in his pocket and clutched the Gillyweed, then the clock started and he downed the whole lot of slimy mess and jumped into the water with the others.
He had his wand strapped to his calf and was expecting some obstacles to be placed in his path today, but he found none. His route from the surface to the Mer-city was devoid of anything but water and the odd fish.
He spotted the center of the city and saw that there were now four things floating in the middle of the square, and when he got closer he was shocked to see that the 'things' were people. He swam over to them and stared in shock at the sight of Hermione, Ginny, an incredibly blonde girl, and Cho Chang.
Hermione and Ginny were both precious to him, but Cho would be more precious to Cedric. The little girl was clearly for Fleur… and Hermione had been Krum's date to the Yule Ball.
The Yule Ball must have been how the tournament judges decided that Ginny was his 'prized possession'.
A grin came to his face when he thought of how angry she was going to be when she heard that she was being thought of as a possession.
This was why the two of them had disappeared last night.
They must have agreed to this, they wouldn't have been taken without their consent. And Hermione wouldn't have agreed to it if it were completely safe.
With that thought in mind, he pulled out his wand and cut Ginny free from her tether, put his arm around her waist and started swimming upwards. They broke the surface of the water and Harry saw the giant clock read that he made it at the half hour mark.
Ginny woke as soon as she broke the surface and he swam her over to the dock, where Fleur was already back and losing her mind.
He couldn't speak, Ginny turned to him on the dock and held out her hand to help him up, but he couldn't. He still had another 30-40 minutes before his transformation wore off. His options were to keep floating around the surface, or go back down, because watching Fleur Delacour and the hysterics she was in, he felt like he needed to go back down and get the little girl.
Ginny met his eye as he decided, and gave him that little smirk of hers that told him she knew exactly what he was about to do.
At one hour and five minutes, Harry broke the surface once more, this time with the little blonde girl. She had been the only 'prisoner' left and the mermaids had given him a hard time about taking a second. But, when he got back to the surface this time, his Gillyweed was wearing off and he was able to climb out of the water himself.
"Will you never stop feeling obligated to save little girls in distress?" Ginny grinned at him and gave him a hug.
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her. "It's what I do best."
He'd taken the lead on that task, just barely though, as Karkaroff had only given him a seven because he hadn't been able to control his transformation.
Harry didn't care though. He'd enjoyed swimming through the water like that, and was considering getting even more Gillyweed because it had been such an experience.
Three full months later and he wasn't enjoying the tournament so much anymore.
He was laying in his hospital bed the day after the third task. He was fully healed up now, but Cedric was dead and Voldemort was back.
And Ginny hadn't been in to visit him.
There were a lot of things that should have been plaguing his mind right now, but the fact that Ginny hadn't been in yet to see him, that was bothering him the most. He'd seen Dumbledore, Sirius, Ron, Hermione, all the rest of the Weasley's, Neville, he'd talked to the Minister of Magic, Colin Creevy had even popped in to take his picture (without permission).
But there had been no Ginny. And he didn't even have a get-well card from her.
He… missed her.
When he'd seen the tombstone of Tom Riddle Senior last night, he'd thought of her.
When he thought he was going to die last night, it was Ginny that he wished he could say a final farewell to.
And he needed to see her now.
Not waiting for Madame Pomphrey to release him from her care, he started changing into his clothes; he felt fine, which meant he was fine. He just wanted out of the hospital wing and to find her.
He snuck out the doors and into the hallway and was stopped half way down the corridor by the sound of her voice. "Harry!" she whispered.
He whipped around and looked for her, but she was no where to be seen.
"Ginny?"
She pulled off his invisibility cloak as she walked towards him. "I hope you don't mind. No one would let me anywhere near here otherwise."
"You've been trying to get in to see me?" He didn't understand why anyone would stop her from doing that. "Why couldn't you get in?"
"Because of all the reasons the tournament didn't end the way most of us wanted it to." She took his hand and led them to an empty classroom so they could talk more privately. "It's true? He's back? He set this all up so he could try and kill you again?"
"It's true," he swallowed bitterly. "The tournament was his complicated plan to get me alone. Moody has been a Death Eater under Polyjuice Potion this whole time. Cedric is d-dead," he choked on the last word.
"Harry," she said his name sympathetically and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry about what happened, but all I can think about right now is how I'm so glad you're okay, and back here with us."
"With you," he corrected.
"What?" She looked up at him, their arms still around each other in embrace.
"I'm glad to be back here with you."
Her brow was crinkled in confusion over his meaning, until he bent his neck down to kiss her.
If there was a chance now that he could be killed at any turn, he didn't want to waste this opportunity. He fancied Ginny, this wasn't just friendship. She meant more to him than that. He tried to convey that through his kiss, and felt she'd got the message when she hugged him tighter and kissed him back.
It was slow and sweet and everything that he needed right then.
When he finally pulled back he looked down at her and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
"I should have realized sooner," he started.
"You got there in the end," she blushed. "I'm just glad my lying and saying I didn't still fancy you didn't put you off."
"I still don't know what you see in me."
Ginny reached up on her toes and gave him another kiss. "That's one of the reasons I still fancy you."
He wrapped his arms tighter around her and they stood there hugging for a good while longer.
Neither of them knew what was coming, but he'd come too close to death too many times now to put off any attempt at being happy. His parents had found strength in each other and their friends; he needed to do the same.
()()()