AN- Someone requested one where Harry was a bit of a prick and didn't realize what he had with Ginny until he'd ruined it. Then he winds up pining for her. Can't find the request though...

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Calmly Carrying On

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His breath held a hint of the beer he'd been drinking but she didn't mind, because he was kissing her. She couldn't taste the beer on his tongue. No, his tongue held the slight taste of the chips he'd been eating shortly before he took her hand and asked if she wanted to go somewhere private with him.

And of course she did.

He'd been her crush for ages, she admired him, she envied all other girls that had the opportunity to know him like she'd been getting to know him.

Three months ago was the first time he asked if she'd wanted to go somewhere private at a party to 'talk', now it was a regular occurrence.

He was always so smooth about it, he was so sure of himself, so gentle with his hands, so gentle with her. It was because he was the way he was that she'd given him her virginity and hadn't regretted it one bit.

Now they were at a friend of a friends party, which was the usual place that they found themselves locked in an embrace somewhere hidden away.

This time they'd snuck into the master bedroom and he was doing his best to drive her crazy with his wandering and grasping hands as he moved back and forth, thrusting himself inside her.

"I'm getting close," he panted, it sounded like a beg, like he was begging her to join him as he came.

She wasn't there yet, but it still felt really good. And she didn't want to hurt his feelings by making him think she hadn't been enjoying herself, so she whimpered and started clenching the muscles in her pelvis and let out a few more whimpering noises before tensing up her body completely and pretending to let out a silent scream.

His responding 'oh, yes,' followed by the pick-up in speed of his movements, the ferocity that had him grabbing her under the knee on one leg and bending it up towards her chest as he simply used her body for his own pleasure, that made it clear that he believed she'd gotten hers.

She quite enjoyed this part, when he focused on himself and just took her.

It was hot.

But it didn't last very long.

He collapsed on top of her after less than a minute then rolled over onto his back, pulling her with him so she would be cuddled to his side.

This was another part of their meetings that she really liked; he was affectionate after they shagged.

He didn't speak, neither of them did, he just held her with one arm and traced the other up and down her arm or side while they recovered.

Given how the noise of the party was carrying through the house, they shouldn't chance laying there for much longer. The door had a lock on it, but it was the flimsy style that only required a coin or a butter knife to unlock it from the other side.

Plus, one of her brothers was at this party and they didn't want him to note their absence.

That was why they hadn't gone public yet; Harry was friends with Ron, and he didn't want Ron to know they were together, let alone shagging.

The number of brothers she had was always an issue when it came to her dating life, so she didn't question it, she just cherished the time that they did find to spend together.

"We should go," she whispered.

"You mean you want to go back to dancing with your friends while I drink with mine and watch you?" he teased.

Ginny smiled and pressed a kiss against his chest. "Noticed me, did you?"

"Hard not to when you're shaking your arse at me."

She swatted his chest and chuckled. "Come on. I'll leave first, you need to make it look like no one's been in here."

She pulled her clothes on and cast a few glances over at him, he was completely unabashed laying there naked before her; yet another thing to admire about him. He was the type of person that wouldn't second guess taking up a challenge to run streaking through the campus.

Ginny finished pulling on her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair to attempt looking presentable, then leaned over the bed to give him another kiss, one that he took advantage of by pulling her closer and turning the peck into a proper kiss.

There was no one in the hallway when she left and only a few people to pass on the stairs down to the main party. It was loud and crowded and no one would have noticed her missing for a half-hour; they were all too drunk to properly gauge the passing of time.

She headed to the kitchen, smiling at all the familiar faces she passed, and got a drink for herself. Just water for now, she wanted to remember this in the morning.

Ron could be spotted in the next room with his girlfriend sitting on his lap while he played cards with a few other people, her friends were still in the sitting room that had turned into a dance floor. They looked like fools, but fools that were having fun and she wanted to join them.

She drank down what she could from the water in her cup and tossed the rest down the sink, then made a beeline for the 'dance area', her hand making the familiar movement to her wrist to adjust a bracelet.

But the bracelet was missing.

She checked both of her arms and her pockets and realized that she must have left the bracelet in the bedroom.

Her eyes darted around to see if she could spot Harry anywhere, maybe he'd found it when he cleaned up and put it in his pocket for safekeeping. He wasn't anywhere to be seen though.

It wasn't like the bracelet was anything precious, but she only had a few accessories and that was the one she liked the best. She wove through the people congregated on the stairs once more and slipped past the bathroom line and around the corner to the master bedroom again. The door was slightly ajar and she could hear Harry still in there talking to someone.

"-not a big deal," Harry said.

"Yeah, well Ron will think it is when he finds out," the other person laughed, it sounded like Dean, another friend of Ron's.

"Who says Ron ever has to find out I'm shag buddies with his sister? She's not likely to tell him. She thinks that it's all romantic or whatever, clandestine meetings and all that."

Dean scoffed. "Why does everything have to be like that for them? It's just getting a leg over."

"I don't care, works well for me; Ron doesn't find out, Ginny keeps letting me shag her when I feel like it."

"And you don't think she'll ever catch on that you aren't actually interested in her outside of that?"

"Eh, who knows. It's been working so far. Only another few months before we're off on gap year then uni, so if she can keep her mouth shut until then, I can avoid having a hoard of tall gingers looking to bash my face in."

Dean scoffed at him, "you are so lucky. How do I get a set up like this? No wasting money on dates, no interruptions at school or from hanging out with your friends."

"I know, it's a choice situation. Plus, she's hot."

"Damn right she's hot. And you've got her thinking she's off the market."

Harry laughed. "A lingering look here, a gentle touch there, she's complete putty."

"Was she really that easy?"

"She really is. For me anyhow."

Ginny was frozen on the other side of the door, listening. She was almost in too much shock to recognize the sound of their footsteps coming towards the door, but she did and she bolted to hide behind the open linen closet door and was out of sight of them walking down the hall.

She stood there a moment, frozen , then her hand went to fiddle with her missing bracelet and she remembered why she came upstairs again in the first place.

The master bedroom looked untouched. He'd even fluffed up the pillows so there was no sign of head imprints. It was like nothing untoward had occurred in there.

Because he didn't ever want to tell anyone that there was anything between them.

She was a shag to him, nothing more.

He'd been using her.

He knew that she liked him, no, adored him.

Adored. The word sounded nasty in her head now.

She'd adored him, she'd given herself to him, she'd taken his words, his touches, his everything to mean that she meant something to him.

But she didn't mean anything to him other than a convenient place to stick his cock.

What an idiot she was!

He never had any intention of going public, ever. She wouldn't be worth the hassle to him because it would mean telling her brothers and taking precious time away from hanging out with his friends because having a girlfriend was an 'obligation'.

He fully intended to keep her on the end of his hook until he was done with school and off travelling on his gap year where he would find other women to put on the end of his hook and move on from the next day.

What if he never wound up telling her that he wasn't interested?

Or worse, what if he intended to keep her on his hook and send her emails or messages here and there throughout his travels so that she would think they were still 'together' and she'd just sit around waiting for him until he got back?

That. Bastard!

Inside her head she was screaming at the top of her lungs and ripping the bed sheets apart, bashing the pillows over every surface of the room and breaking picture frames until the room was entirely destroyed. In actuality, she was just standing there, staring at the place on the bed where she'd foolishly let him shag her only twenty minutes ago. The spot where she'd faked an orgasm so his pride wouldn't be wounded.

Her legs gave out and she sunk, cross-legged, to the floor.

From this vantage point she saw exactly where her bracelet had got to. It was right against the night stand, nearly under the bed. She crawled over to it and pulled it onto her wrist.

She stood up again, moving on autopilot back towards the door and shut it behind her, pulling a coin from her pocket and twisting it against the middle of the knob so it would lock. Doing this, part of her felt like she was saving a few other girls at this party from feeling the way she did right now.

Ginny went home after that. She slipped silently out of the party and walked the two miles to her house. It was a quiet night and it was chilly too, but she was glad for it; she wanted to be numb.

When she woke up the next morning, she still felt miserable.

She'd been had.

Harry had completely used her. And there was no way that she could tell anyone because they'd just call her a slag and say she'd been asking for it; they'd point out that she should have known what was going on considering all the signs.

And there had been signs.

But she hadn't been looking for signs, she'd been looking for love. Signs didn't matter then. Signs in a new relationship were for friends to notice and comment on, not for the person in the new relationship to seek out. And she hadn't told any of her friends about them, it had been a secret she'd thought was kept between just the two of them, if she'd told her friends then maybe they would have pointed those signs out to her. But she hadn't, so they didn't. So now, here she was with a piece of her heart broken and feeling used and discarded.

Well, one thing she knew for sure, she wasn't going to be having any 'clandestine' meetings with Harry ever again.

If he could use her like this and not feel any remorse about it, then she should simply move on and not bother with him; interact with him as little as possible. If he came to realize that she might possibly have been worth the interruption in his lifestyle, then that was his problem to deal with.

Because she was worth more.

As she got ready for the day, she gave herself a looking over in the mirror. If she smiled, then she didn't look like she'd just had her world turned over. If she faked a mischievous glint in her eye then she could pass for feeling playful and game for anything. What she couldn't do was let her mask slip right now and look miserable.

She had to look like nothing had changed.

Yesterday she had a sexy secret that had made her feel desired and like she had some kind of hidden power. Today she had a secret that gave her stomach issues and anxiety.

But that would pass.

She pulled on her uniform for the ASDA where she worked part time and went down to the kitchen to get some breakfast.

"Good to see you weren't out too late last night," her mother commented from the stove, where she could usually be found.

"No. One house party is usually no different from the next, so I left and got home at a reasonable hour."

"And no hangover to boot. Glad one of my children is being responsible."

"Only took six tries to get it right," she grinned cheekily, bypassing the start of a full English breakfast that her mum was preparing and opting for cereal instead. "It's still too early for my shift but I figured I'd walk and get some fresh air instead of taking the bus.

Ron hadn't gotten up and come down before she left, and that was how she preferred it. Not only was Ron absolutely miserable in the morning, but he'd likely start talking about the party last night and she didn't want to think about it.

Her head was swirling with thoughts as she took her time walking the three miles to the grocery store where she'd be stocking shelves for eight hours. She wondered if she should see about getting a real boyfriend; plenty of the guys at school had shown interest, she'd just never reciprocated. But then, if she did that it then she might just be using the guy as a rebound. She could just avoid guys all together and put her focus into her schoolwork and football, or spending time with her friends; it was what she spent most of her time doing anyhow, it would be business as usual.

Six mind numbing hours of stocking shelves later and she was exhausted from being in her head about it. Then her thoughts turned angry over how she'd let a boy get her so mentally twisted around and worked up.

He wasn't worth it! She slammed down a tin of beans as she thought that.

"Hey now, what has the shelf ever done to you?"

Ginny turned around, ready to snarl at whoever it was that made the comment, then remembered that she was at work, and saw that it was someone from her form at school. "Hey," she smiled.

Colin Creevey was the school photographer for the monthly bulletin and the yearbook committee. He'd always been really nice to her and their friend groups sort of circulated around each other.

"It's not so much what the shelf did to me, it's what it represents," she told him with a false sense of being philosophical.

"And what does it represent?" he chuckled.

"Well, shelves are the location on which these beans are showcased, put on for judgement and the like. Take this can for instance," she held one up that had a minor tear on the label. "This can will be scrutinized over because it only has a small imperfection that makes absolutely no difference to the quality and quantity of stomach fulfilling needs that the contents inside can provide, however it may not get picked to be taken home by some loving family simply due to the fact that it has this minor tear that now makes it inferior to the other cans on the shelf. It's the shelf's fault really! If this can were simply left in the box for the next person who has the desire for a can of beans then they would take it home with them, put it on their own pantry shelf where it can be properly displayed next to pasta, a potential meal option than cannot compare."

"Wow, that's very insightful," Colin beamed. "Tell you what, I'll take that can of beans and give it a proper home, the shelf need not be involved." He took it out of her hand and put it into his basket.

Finally, a reason for a real smile to grace her face today. A laugh escaped her as well. "Well, those beans appreciate that, but what about all the others?" she waxed dramatic.

Colin shook his head sadly. "This store is full of shelves, I can't please every pantry item."

They shared a moment of mutual amusement.

"How is your weekend going?" Colin asked her.

"It might sound lame, but I'm looking forward to it being over." She needed a proper distraction from thinking about Harry and how she'd been some love-sick fan girl over him. "Being surrounded by knowledge and gossip is preferable to house parties and shelf stocking." She emptied the last of the box on her cart then turned to him again. "You?"

"I went for a hike yesterday and got some good shots. Doing editing and development today, so it's safe to assume I'll be high on the fumes come evening and sleep like a dream." She'd never noticed before, but there was a cute and endearing quality about him. "Anyhow, I'll let you get back at being angry at shelves. See you tomorrow."

"See you. Enjoy those beans!"

There, just a little normal, friendly, human interaction and she was already feeling better.

Colin went around the corner and she started collapsing the boxes on her trolley.

"He's got a thing for you," said someone close by.

Ginny turned and saw it was another guy from school. The tall, dark and handsome one that started there last year after being kicked out of several boarding schools.

"Doesn't everyone?" she ripped a box apart and set it down on the trolley, then flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Just a little?"

"That's the way I've found it is for me," he replied smoothly.

Had she been blind to how many cute and eligible men there were surrounding her because she'd been so consumed by her crush on Harry? How is it that she was now having interactions with two of them back to back?

"I suppose it's a burden we attractive people need to bare. Sometimes people just need us to smile and remain calm, that makes the world alright again."

"I've noticed you're good at the smiling part."

He was dressed really nicely for someone that was in an ASDA on a Sunday afternoon; it should have made him look misplaced, but he appeared quite comfortable standing there in the canned goods aisle talking to her. "I've noticed you're good at remaining calm."

"And the world is pretty alright from where I'm standing."

Christ, he was smooth.

"What's your name again?" she asked.

()()()

Wednesday evenings were always the most intense practice of the week. He was sitting on the floor of the changeroom with his head resting back against the locker and drawing in deep breaths to try and calm his body down before he hit the showers.

"I'm dying," came the familiar groan from the other side of the room.

"Stop being so dramatic, Ron," Dean said from where he was laying face down on the bench.

"Oh yeah, I'm the one being dramatic. Do we need to get a fainting couch in here for you?"

"Piss off."

Harry grinned; it was the sound of team camaraderie.

"I'm off to the showers, then I'm going to go and see Hermione, maybe get a rub down," Ron grinned then polished off the rest of his water bottle before heading into the showers.

He was well out of earshot when Dean opened his mouth again. "I think that might be a decent enough reason right there to get a girlfriend."

"You do you."

"Oh, come on. You'd say no if she asked you to get serious and offered to rub you down after each practice?"

Harry grinned at the thought. Ginny had strong arms, he had no doubt she'd be fantastic at giving him a back rub. The way they had things going with them now though, that was all he had the time for. "A hot shower will have the same effect. Plus, my mum's got one of those massage chairs at home, I'll sit in that for a good ten minutes and get to sleep no problem."

"Mate, you know she's hot, right?"

His brow furrowed. "What?" Of course he knew Ginny was hot, that was one of the first things he ever noticed about her.

"Just saying, if I had something going with a girl like her, I'd want other guys to know so they'd stay away."

"What?!" That earned his attention enough that he opened his eyes.

"I've just been seeing a few guys sniffing around her, that's all," Dean shrugged.

Dean's eyes were still closed and Harry observed him carefully. He'd known that Dean had an interest in Ginny when he went for it with her a few months back, but they had an understanding between them; first come/first served, that kind of thing. He, Harry, had made the first move, so that meant that Dean had to back off.

Dean was the only one that knew there was something going on between he and Ginny, and it was only because Harry needed to let Dean know that she was now off limits to him.

Was this Dean now saying that if he didn't sack up and make something official, then he'd be moving in on her?

"We've only got two months left of school, Dean, if you're still sticking around here after I leave, then fine, but until then, we've got a code."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean said morosely. "Code, whatever."

Harry scowled at his friend then and got up, taking a towel out of his locker and heading for the showers.

Dean still being interested in her bothered him, it was bothering him through his shower and still bothering him the next day at school when he caught sight of Ginny in the hallway.

Harry looked around, there weren't that many other people there and no one close enough to overhear them if he went to have a chat with her. They hadn't spoken since Saturday.

And she looked good.

He couldn't believe he had barely noticed her for so many years and now she was this beautiful person that he got to snog and shag in private.

"Hey," he greeted her, coming to rest against the locker beside hers.

She had been looking down at an open textbook and her head shot up when she heard him there. "Oh, hey."

It wasn't the enthusiastic or purring greeting he was hoping for, but he moved past it. "Have you got a free block right now? Want to go somewhere and… talk?"

A dark expression passed over her face and she looked back down at her textbook. "No thanks. Now that you bring it up though, I think I'm done 'talking' with you."

Her words had been crystal clear, but he couldn't have heard her right. "What?" He was so sure that he had mis-translated her meaning that he was smiling.

She placed a bookmark in her textbook and closed it, putting it into her backpack and closing her locker. "I don't know what the hell I was thinking messing around with you, but I'm done with it. So, move along, Potter."

Ginny started walking away from him then and he gaped after her, giving her a few paces head start before he could get his mind wrapped around what she'd said, then hurried after her.

"Wait a minute. What happened? I thought things were going fine, what changed?"

"I'm allowed to change my mind," she shrugged. "It was… something, now it isn't."

No, that couldn't be all there was to it. "What, is there someone else?"

She scoffed at him. "Sure, I couldn't possibly just be done with you, I have to have already started shagging someone else in secret." She stopped and turned to him then, staring at him dead on so he would see her expression and hear her perfectly. "No, Harry. There isn't anyone else, currently. Thing is, it turns out we both had different expectations for what we were to each other. I'm trying not to be mad about how I was just your fuck buddy, because you never made me any promises that I was anything else to you, but it just took me a while to come to that realization. So, I've decided that before I make more of an arse of myself by continuing to be 'involved' with you, I'm ending it."

Where was this all coming from? Three months and multiple shag sessions and now suddenly she wanted… what exactly? He was leaving for the continent in two months to travel for a year, then he was off to uni.

"You're right, we didn't promise each other anything, but there's only a few weeks left of school here for me, so why end it now?"

Ginny glared at him then and glanced around to make sure that no one was listening in on them. "You saying you don't care that I'm growing to hate myself over letting you use me, so long as you get to until you bugger off on your Gap Year adventures?"

Hate herself?

"What? No! I thought this was… mutual."

"Yeah, well it isn't. Wasn't." She growled under her breath then looked up and gave a hard swallow. "Look, maybe I've read a few too many Jane Austen novels or something, but I never saw you as just an occasional hook up when it was convenient." He could hear how hard she was fighting to keep her voice level and her eyes dry. "I'm pretty sure that at one point the term 'clandestine meetings' really did pop into my head as a term for what we were doing. And I adored you. How pathetic is that?" she shook her head and gave a self-deprecating smile.

'Clandestine meetings', he recognized that. Hadn't he said that at some point recently? He just couldn't remember when or why.

Shit, Harry thought. She really had been thinking they were more than what they were, he suspected as much but hadn't addressed it. "Ginny," he said her name bracingly.

"No," she held up her hand to stop him. "Don't say my name like that. I know how fucking foolish I was being. I've had lots of time to think it over since I heard you talking to Dean Thomas about it."

Double shit! That's where he had said those words! "Hold up! You aren't ending this because Dean knows, are you? Because he is the only one that knows, and that's only because he fancies you but we're mates, so he needed to know to stay off."

The shock on her face didn't last long before her expression turned dangerous.

He shouldn't have said that. He wasn't quite sure what it was he said that was making her take on that look, but it was most certainly his fault.

Her voice was low and her teeth were clenched together in a snarl as she spoke next. "Are you telling me that in order to stop your best mate, who actually fancies me, from potentially properly asking me to go out with him, in public, you had to tell him you were fucking me? So, all that time I wasted on you, I could have been spending it with someone who thinks of me as more than just someone to mess around with?"

Well, when she put it that way.

It did make him sound like a real cad.

"And still you're wondering why we can't just carry on until you leave?"

She was genuinely hurt by that; he could see it in her eyes. Her gorgeous, chocolate brown eyes.

"I… well…"

"Go. Fuck. Yourself," she growled at him. "Because I certainly won't be anymore. And you could use the practice."

"W-what?"

"The last time we shagged, I faked it, because I didn't want to wound your pride. That's the type of pathetic person I am. Next time you look for a fuck-buddy, maybe don't target someone so naïve." She turned around then and hurried off.

All he could do was stand there and watch her go.

That conversation had been very enlightening.

Harry was very quiet for the rest of the day, quiet and brooding.

He hadn't meant to be leading her on or do her emotional harm. They just hadn't talked about what it was they were doing. He'd thought she was okay with it, into it even, like she was living out some kind of 'crush fantasy'. He didn't realize that she cared about him or really thought it was going somewhere more serious. He just wanted to have a bit of fun before the end of his last year.

He knew she was witty and smart and beautiful, but over the next few weeks he really got the opportunity to watch that radiate out of her, because she was suddenly becoming very popular. There were always hoards of people around her, it was like she was using other people as a shield so he would never have the opportunity to talk to her privately ever again.

"Has she always been this popular?" He asked Dean as they stood across the courtyard from Ginny and her admirers, kicking a football between them.

"Yes," Dean told him head on. "You just never noticed properly before because all you saw her as was a prize."

Harry pursed his lips. Dean was sour with him about how he'd buggered up any chance he had of getting somewhere with Ginny.

How was he to know that Dean liked her that much though? He'd only ever skirted around the subject of liking her. It was only after Harry and she first hooked up and he told Dean in confidence that Harry realized she was more than a passing thought to him.

"She was never just a prize," Harry muttered, pouting internally.

"Yes, she was. You just think she wasn't now because you want what you can no longer have."

Ron came over to join them then and they dropped the subject. Ron didn't though. "She's too popular for her own good," he shook his head. "I'm really hoping that she finds herself a steady boyfriend for next year so that I won't have to think about the number of guys basically pawing at her."

Harry looked back over at her. Not a single person, male or female, was touching her, but it was easy to get the impression that they were. It was like she was a lantern and they were all just dimwitted moths.

"I heard that Blaise Zabini was trying to get her attention now," Dean announced.

He said that and timed it perfectly for him to hit the ball hard so it caught Harry off guard and hit him hard in the stomach.

"What? They don't run in the same circles!" Ron said, taking the ball for himself while Harry tried breathing through the pain in his lower torso until it went away.

Dean explained. "His parents have a majority investment in ASDA and apparently he met her properly while they were doing a site visit at the one she works at. I can't imagine he'd have a need to go into a grocers for any other reason than that."

Blaise Zabini came from the wealthiest family in the area. He'd kicked around to a bunch of different boarding schools until landing at their school for his final year. The bloke was good looking, rich and intelligent. If he was trying to catch Ginny's eye, then the rest of them were done for.

But he didn't care, he reminded himself, she was just someone that he used to spend time with, now he didn't.

What he would do to have a do-over of that last time they spent together though. He'd spent several nights falling asleep and thinking about what he could have done differently to make it better for her; maybe to have made it so good that she never would have broken things off with him.

He was becoming slightly obsessed with her.

Only slightly though.

Her words had struck a chord with him and he didn't, couldn't bring himself to look for someone else to mess around with before the end of term, he didn't want any other girl getting the same impression he'd given to Ginny. It wasn't that he thought that he was all that and there would be several girls not caring whether he was looking for a forever, but it really just wasn't worth the hassle.

So, it was just Ginny he was stuck looking for in the halls or at house parties.

And it was only Ginny he would notice in the halls and at house parties.

Now he found himself at the last house party of the year and noticed Blaise Zabini had showed up and was standing very close to Ginny. Blaise didn't normally come to these parties; he was too high brow for them, or so Harry figured.

Blaise, fucking, Zabini.

He shouldn't be there. He should be off at some country club getting drunk on cognac and smoking cigars in specially made smoking jackets; training to be just like his father, or stepfather, or uncle. Harry wasn't sure what Zabini's situation was, there were only rumors.

Plus, he was very drunk right now and didn't give a shit, other than that he wanted Blaise to get away from Ginny.

She was off limits! To everyone!

She didn't have a boyfriend yet, he was sure of that because Ron hadn't mentioned anything about it, and he would have complained about it.

Someone turned the music up and suddenly there was a sea of people in the middle of the room dancing, including Ginny and Blaise, and they were dancing very close together. They weren't in the middle of the crowd, they were on the outside of it, so Harry could only watch and scowl about how Blaise was allowed to put his hands on her waist, then how he tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear. Then their hips were moving back and forth to the music practically stuck together.

He couldn't watch any more. He grabbed another beer and headed outside to sit in a garden chair in the dark corner of the yard. He closed his eyes to try and think of anything other than what he'd just seen in there.

That could have been him in there grinding with her, it would have been a precursor to what they'd get up to later when they were properly alone.

He was leaving in three days and he might never see her again. What a waste his last two months of school had been; he'd been obsessed with her the entire time.

The sound of someone coming to stand on the grass in front of him made him look up.

Ginny was standing there, looking down at him.

"Why are you out here alone?" she asked.

"What do you care? I thought I meant nothing to you now."

"I never said that."

"May as well have. Shouldn't you be inside with Zabini? Taunting all the rest of us?"

Her eyebrows went up at that accusation. "Taunting? By that do you mean 'dancing with'?"

"That wasn't dancing, that was foreplay," he spat. "You can't dance with a guy like that and expect he'll just think it's nothing."

"Why not? You were screwing me, and I meant nothing to you!"

It was his turn to counter with an, "I never said that."

She put her hands up, "you know what, I just came over to check on you and make sure you didn't vomit in your sleep and choke or something. Clearly you're perfectly happy as you are, so I'll leave."

No, he didn't want her to leave.

Her hands came down before she turned to walk away and he grabbed one of them, yanking her towards him and using the leverage to stand up himself. Then he kissed her.

He hadn't realized that she was the perfect height for this until now; she wasn't as tall as him, but he didn't need to stoop to kiss her when she was pressed right against his chest. He missed the smell of her, the taste of her lip chap, the feel of her silky-smooth hair on the back of his hand when he held her.

She was wriggling against him, her hands on his shoulders, he knew she had missed him too. He opened his mouth to kiss her deeper, then she bit down on his bottom lip.

"Ow!"

"Get off of me!" she angrily whispered at him.

"Ginny, what the fuck?" Was he bleeding? It hurt enough that he felt like his lip should have been bleeding.

She pushed him away and he fell back into the garden chair, nearly tipping it backwards with the way his weight rocked it.

"We're done, Harry, you don't get to kiss me anymore. If you don't like that I'm moving on, then too damn bad. I can go back in that house and pick whoever I want for a one-off and you've no right to feel any kind of way about it."

"Only interested in a one-off now? I thought you were a relationship type girl."

"I was, but congratulations, you knocked some sense into me, now I know to set a more realistic bar for my expectations."

She turned on her heel then and stomped back into the house.

As he watched after her he saw that there were several people in the backyard that had over heard that, they'd probably watched as he'd made an arse of himself and kissed her too.

Three more days, the thought, then picked up his beer bottle and held the side of hit to his lip, wincing at the contact it made.

()()()

Ginny lay on her new bed and closed her eyes, smiling to herself over the fresh start she was making.

This was a new school, a new room, she was going to be making new friends; it was a whole new tapestry.

University, finally.

Her last few years at school hadn't been terrible, and neither had living at home with her parents, but now she was out on her own and living in a coed dorm miles away from her doting mother, and no brothers around questioning her about her comings and goings.

The room, her room, it smelled clean considering the number of people that would have stayed in here previously.

People had likely had sex on this bed.

Not the mattress though, that she'd bought herself. Uni meant there was drinking and sex, which meant that the previous mattress would very likely have held evidence of that drinking and sex in the form of bodily fluids that will have seeped into the very essence of the mattress that had been left there for her.

No thank you.

First thing she'd done, besides exchanging the mattress, was to plug in an air freshener and open her window.

The absolute best thing about this particular residence she was going to be living in, it was the way the dorms were laid out. There were six rooms to a dorm 'pod', each room was single occupancy and there were two wings with three rooms each and a bathroom. That meant that she was sharing a bathroom with two other people.

Only two!

The kitchen and sitting area were shared and the first thing you saw when you walked into the pod.

She had several boxes to unload to get her room set up, but her parents had just left and her dormmates hadn't yet arrived so she was laying happily on the mattress for a minute more before getting to work on everything else.

So far there hadn't been any other dorm mates arriving, and her initials had been stuck on the door to this room, so there wouldn't be any bickering over who had which room.

The sound of more people coming in made her find the strength to get up again and start her unpacking process, opting to meet her dorm mates after they'd gotten a chance to get their bearings first.

Several hours later and it was getting dark outside when she and four of her dorm mates were sitting around a board in the sitting room with a drink in each of their hands, laughing as they came up with the rules for their pod.

Thus far they had the following;

1. Don't eat anyone else's food without permission.

2. Keep it quiet after eleven unless there is a party going on.

3. Everyone is responsible for cleaning up their own messes or else they'll get the mess moved to their bed.

4. Stay out of each other's rooms unless you want your hair dyed a bright color.

5. Don't shag anyone else in the pod. (One wing was male, the other female)

6. If you do shag someone else in the pod, you aren't allowed to bitch or gossip about it to other members of the pod.

7. Everyone takes a turn supplying liquor, especially on Saturday's.

The rules kept getting more strange after that because they'd been drinking too much by then and everything seemed hilarious and so important that it needed to be written down and enforceable.

So far, so good on the five of them clicking with each other. She liked all her pod mates and was having a great time.

Then, around eleven the door to the dorm opened; and he walked in.

Their eyes found each other immediately.

"Uh oh!" Ginny announced loudly. "I've already broken rule number five!"

There was a round of cat calls and laughter from the others as Harry Potter stood there, just inside the doorway, with a box of his belongings in his arms, staring at her in surprise.

"Wait, which one was rule number five?" Christy asked, slipping down off the couch to get slightly closer to the board, still squinting at it. "Oh! You've already shagged him?"

Ginny chuckled; Christy was a very loud drunk.

Everyone stopped chuckling when they saw that Harry's parents had walked in behind him.

Dustin, the guy who had taken charge of writing out the rules, he stood up and attempted to look not drunk. "Wel-welcome to… we need to give this place a name."

"The Pod," Christy offered.

"Toadstool," Katie said.

"Barnes and Noble," Geoff said with finality.

The five of them chuckled at that.

"The Hollow," Ginny suggested.

"Oh! I like that," Katie said. "Put that one down," she told Dustin.

"The Hollow it is." Dustin wrote it down and turned back to Harry and his parents. "Welcome to The Hollow. We are all very drunk, sorry about that."

"Looks like Harry's got some catching up to do," Harry's dad grinned. "Sorry we're so late."

Ginny turned her attention back to Harry and she sobered a bit when she noticed the way he was looking at her. They hadn't seen each other for over a year, the last time they'd interacted she'd bitten him. It looked like his year off he'd taken had done him some good though, the look in his eye told her he'd grown up a bit.

"Did I just overhear that you two, erm, know each other?" Harry's mum asked her politely.

Ginny now wished that a hole would open up beneath her feet and she could slide down into the dorm below them, or perhaps begin her life as a mole person.

"His room would be that way," she said as pleasantly as she could manage and pointed towards the boys wing.

She kept her eyes on Harry as he and his parents passed through the common area to the other side, then she sat back down properly and drank from her bottle, attempting to avoid the eyes of the other four while they waited for some kind of explanation.

They didn't wait though, they just started laughing at her, long enough that she let herself join in.

It was pretty funny.

She'd moved on over the last year past the humiliation she'd felt. For the later part of her last year she'd had a steady boyfriend, but they now went to school on the opposite sides of the country and had come to an amicable end around her birthday.

Now, here was Harry Potter, back in her life.

And they would be living in very close proximity.

The Potter's came back through the common area again and Dustin and Geoff offered to help with the rest of the stuff, which meant that Mrs. Potter stayed to have a chat with the girls and was looking very amused with the list of dorm rules they'd come up with.

"And how long ago did this social experiment start?" Mrs. Potter asked.

"We all started chatting an hour or two ago and thought this would be a good idea," Christy told her.

"They're not all going to be strictly enforced. I don't think any of us would actually dye someone's hair a bright color just because they came into your room to borrow a book or something," Katie dismissed.

"You saying you'll be the first victim?" Ginny grinned. "Because I've got two brothers I did that to in their sleep."

"You didn't!" Christy gasped.

"Of course I did!" Ginny said proudly. "The buggers thought they'd found my diary and started giving me grief about it. They didn't know that it was a fake though and I nailed them for it. Green hair on a ginger does not look good. It took them ages to get it out."

"You kept a fake diary?" Mrs. Potter chuckled.

"I have a lot of older brothers, a real diary just wouldn't be safe. Plus, I knew one of them would get nosy and poke about my things sooner or later."

"I take it there wasn't anything about my son written in there then?" Mrs. Potter asked pointedly.

"Erm, no," Ginny blushed. "Sorry about having to overhear that. And it was ages ago."

"I know," she nodded.

Excuse me? Ginny thought. "What do you mean 'you know'?" How on Earth could she 'know'? Harry had been off traipsing around wherever for the last year. When would he have found the time to tell his mother about some girl he hooked up with occasionally for a few weeks during his last year of school?

"Ginny, Harry's mentioned you to me, a few times." Ginny didn't know what to say. "I'm glad you ended things with him how and when you did. It took his father several years of me rejecting him before he finally grew up and became somewhat responsible."

Ginny didn't get the chance to ask her to elaborate on that before the guys came in carrying the next load of Harry's things; he too had purchased a new mattress for his bedroom.

"Just one more trip then we're all done," Mr. Potter told his wife.

Katie and Chrissy's eyes were on Ginny, she could feel them, but she was watching Harry as he walked past.

He'd talked to his mum about her?

How exactly had what she'd said to him made him more responsible?

The guys came back into the common area and Dustin and Geoff picked their drinks back up and sat down, then Harry's parents said farewell to them all and he walked them back down to their car.

"His parents seem nice," Dustin said.

"Yeah, his dad was funny," Geoff agreed.

"Just how well did you two know each other?" Katie asked her. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"No!" Ginny assured her. "It was over a year ago. His mum's just told us he's grown up since then. I'm sure he'll be mature enough to have moved passed it by now, just like I have. I'm sure we can be friends." It amazed her how sure she sounded, when in her gut she felt that same tinge of loss and betrayal she'd had when she found out just how little she'd meant to him. "I've had relationships since then. My last one ended near a month ago. What about the rest of you?"

Katie started talking about her ex then, next it was Geoff's turn.

Harry came in while Dustin was admitting that he was saving himself for marriage, but that there were a few ways to work around that, he then gave a wink to Chrissy, who told then then that she was a lesbian.

"I can work around that too," Dustin grinned. "You can help me perfect my technique. Throw a blanket over me and we'll put on some t.A.T.u, you won't know the difference."

He was joking, obviously.

Harry joined Josh on the other couch and put a new, cold six-pack of beer on the table before them. "Ginny," he nodded.

"Harry," she greeted back. "How was your gap year?"

"Saw some sights," he shrugged. "Did a lot of walking. Looking forward to being in one place for a while now. Hi all," he said to the rest of them.

They chatted for another two hours and there didn't appear to be any tension coming from Harry. Then again, he was always good at playing his true feelings close to the vest.

When she'd first started crushing on him it was because of his disposition to always be capable of looking like he was having a good time. People were drawn to him; he had an engaging smile and a great sense of humor. It also helped that his eyes were fucking gorgeous. He just had this air about him that he could do no wrong.

The other dorm mates didn't bring up their shared history, for that she was grateful. She was also glad that it was out there. Not that there was any reason to keep it a secret, it was just going to be easier to have them all know.

He was telling them about some of his adventures in Greece when her eyes started to close because she was drifting off, then Chrissy fell against her and jolted her awake; Chrissy was properly asleep.

"I think we need to call it," Ginny announced. "I don't fancy spending my first night on the couch when I've got a new mattress to break in." She lifted Chrissy's arm around her shoulder and helped the girl to her feet. "Night all."

She glanced back at them before they rounded the corner to their bedrooms and caught the way Harry was staring at her bum.

()()()

Harry was jolted out of his sleep by the sound of someone slamming the door to the bathroom, which was right across the hall from his room. This sound was followed by the sound of someone retching.

It appeared either Geoff or Dustin had too much to drink last night.

After Ginny and Chrissy had called it, Katie had bowed out not too much later. Then Harry pulled out the harder stuff and the guys enjoyed some of that.

It was likely Geoff that was getting sick right then; he was fresh out of school, like Ginny, and hadn't experienced the wonder of non-mixers or beer that wasn't usually served in a red solo cup yet.

He and Dustin had been pacing themselves and enjoying the flavor of the drink, Geoff though, he was downing it in one go and making a face after each time, then pouring himself another.

Harry was glad to be at school now instead of still wandering around and living out of a backpack. The places he'd travelled were nice, but he perpetually felt like he needed a shower, and like he needed to keep checking on his belongings; the hostels he had been staying at weren't always the nicest. His fantasy of visiting new places and meeting women on the beach or in a bar then sweeping them off their feet and back to his bed for a night of love-making, that truly had been a fantasy. There was no way he wanted to be shagging someone on a rusty bunkbed that he was sharing with a thirty-year-old man, whose language he didn't know, that was sleeping on the bunk above him.

It had not been the life of luxury.

More often than not at night he would find himself thinking about her.

For Christmas his parents had met up with him on the island of Santorini and they'd spent several days on the beach together. His mum had been able to tell that something was on his mind and she wore him down until he told her everything about Ginny. About how he'd had something great and had buggered it all up by being insensitive and ungrateful, about how he hadn't realized what he'd lost until he'd really lost it.

It wasn't that his trip had been miserable because of it, but his nights hadn't always been great because his thoughts usually turned to her.

His mum told him he was 'pining' for her. He'd scoffed at the idea, but the more he thought about it he realized that it was the truth. He didn't think that there would be anyone more suited for him than Ginny.

He missed her all the time.

There had been a lot of people that saw what had happened the night he'd kissed her in the garden at that house party, a lot of people that overheard their argument too. Dean had been one of them, and he'd been pissed with him about it. It turned out Dean thought of himself as competition for Zabini then as well and after that confrontation, Ginny had left the party and neither Dean nor Zabini got a shot with her.

Harry supposed that was something to be grateful for, but it had essentially ruined his and Dean's friendship.

When Harry got back home in May he'd gone through his mail and started figuring out where he wanted to go to uni, he caught up with a few of his friends then and found out through the grapevine where Ginny was going to school in the fall; to one of his top choices.

It wasn't like he was intentionally following her to the school, but he couldn't deny that being at the same campus as her was part of the selling features; so he'd secured his enrollment there and signed up for what residence he wanted to be at.

Never would he have thought that they would wind up in the same residence building as each other, let alone the same dorm.

His shock at seeing her sitting there with their new dormmates was genuine.

Thank God he had already admitted to his mum about her, otherwise he would have had some explaining to do then. But his mum was sly enough that she wouldn't make a scene about it.

That didn't stop his dad from giving him a ribbing over it while Dustin and Geoff were helping them unload more things from the car.

He knew he missed her, but getting to sit there and watch her, even out of the corner of his eye, it was a relief to see that he hadn't been building her up in his head; he hadn't been making her out to be more than she was. She was just as brilliant as he had recalled her to be.

And God, did she have a nice arse.

He'd looked over the rules for the dorm that were written out. It looked like he was going to be keeping his crush on her to himself.

He heard the sound of flushing followed by the shower turning on.

The problem was, he really needed a wee now and they had just the one bathroom on this side. The guys were going to need to talk about whether they could and couldn't use the loo for a wee while someone was in the shower. In the meantime, he got out of bed and found his balance, then padded over across the common area to have a listen and see if any of the girls were using their bathroom.

All was quiet there, so he tip-toed over to their loo and relieved himself.

There was a shelf set up in their loo that they didn't have in the guys bathroom. It was set up with all kinds of lotions and towels and face masks, all the things that he'd seen in the health aisle at the grocers that he had never known the purpose of.

He flushed and washed his hands, then opened the door to find Ginny waiting on the other side.

"Sorry!" he said immediately. "Someone was using the one on our side and it was an emergency. I'll be having a chat with them about what boundaries we've got there so this might not happen again. I just-"

"Harry, it's too early," she stopped him. "I don't care, I just need the toilet and my toothbrush."

"Right, yeah. I'll just," then he put his hands on her hips and turned them around so now he was the one in the hallway. He wasn't quick about removing his hands from her hips, because he didn't want to. She was still exactly how he remembered her, just a year older. Her lips still looked incredibly kissable.

If he was not mistaken, she had a few more freckles now. There was a faint glow under them like she'd been spending a lot of time in the sun over the summer.

"Harry?"

Right. He'd been staring at her for too long.

He let her go and walked away, hearing the door close behind him.

Them sharing a dorm this year was going to be difficult. He had no idea what it was that he wanted from her, he just wanted her. And not the same way that he'd wanted her when he had her. She'd made everyone laugh last night before he showed up; she was always making people laugh. And yet, he'd never before been close enough to her to have the opportunity to find out what she was always saying that was so funny.

He'd gone to this school because she was here, he'd signed up for this residence building because he'd heard she was staying somewhere on campus, now they were sharing the same living space.

He was a stalker.

She'd turned him into some kind of obsessive stalker.

That wouldn't do.

Ginny only remembered him as the guy that had used her for sex. He had to get her to see him in a different light.

There had to have been some attraction still there, for him it was freaking electric, but for her, her thoughts of him could be completely tainted.

He needed to be her friend.

They all needed to cohabitate, all six of them, and they needed to get along. Maybe, eventually, one night they could be studying late together, just the two of them, then she'd get a crick in her neck and he'd offer to rub it for her, then she'd start moaning softly from the pleasure of it. Next thing you know, they're back in her room and he's got his head buried between her legs and he's apologizing over and over again to her using his tongue.

The picture in his head drifted away and he realized he'd just been standing in the middle of the common area staring at the kitchen, then he looked down and it was obvious that his little daydream had been too much.

Breakfast.

Everyone had too much to drink the previous night, now they needed breakfast. Something greasy.

He searched the fridge, freezer and cupboards.

There was bread, pop tarts, copious amounts of cereal, six different cartons of milk, a few pieces of fruit and a tin of beans.

No bacon, no hashbrowns, no sausages.

They didn't even have a frying pan, so there wouldn't have been a way to cook them anyhow.

There was also no coffee or tea pot.

He heard someone come into the room behind him.

"We are sorely lacking on some essentials here," he announced.

"Figured we would be," Ginny said as she came to stand beside him.

He didn't turn to look at her, he didn't want to get caught constantly staring at her; admiring her. It would potentially creep her out.

"I wanted to make us all something to battle a hangover, but all we have are the basics. I don't even think we have dish soap to wash the single crockery contributions everyone brought."

Ginny snorted a laugh. "Come on then. Go get dressed and I'll meet you back here, we'll go on an adventure to find some breakfast for everyone."

That was all the invitation he needed to spend time with her. She led the way to a breakfast and lunch place nearby and they got a few Styrofoam containers of take away breakfast and two trays of coffee and teas. When they got back to the dorm there were a few other residents in the halls that they needed to tell the tale of their morning adventure to that hurried off to find the same diner, and when they got back to the dorm, the others started coming out of their rooms at the smell of fried breakfast and coffee.

Poor Geoff only managed one piece of hashbrown at a time for an hour before he could take a sip of tea.

After the food was consumed, they all made a list of what was missing from the dorm for necessities, and everyone chipped in a 20 pound note then Dustin and Katie went out shopping.

Harry shared a grin with Ginny at how well their first morning had gone.

Their first week there went well too, and the first month, the second month they all started getting a bit bogged down with assignments, fitting them in between parties, and by the end of the second month Harry wondered if he'd been working a little too hard at being Ginny's friend. Because it was working. Too well. He'd caught her getting chatted up by guys all over the place and had to hold in his snarl every time. When she left the dorm for the evening he'd wonder if she was meeting up with one of those guys and what they would be getting up to. He wasn't so far into the friendzone that she'd tell him about what she was doing and with whom though, he didn't know whether to be grateful for that or not. On the one hand, he didn't want her thinking of him as that kind of friend, on the other hand, he needed to know if there was still a chance for him to make things right with her.

It was November first when he woke early and wandered into the common area and he caught Ginny doing the walk of shame into their dorm. She'd been out at a Halloween party and the drawn on cat nose and whiskers were smudged on her face. She was wearing a short black dress, her shoes were in her hand and it looked like she'd lost the cat ears she'd been wearing. She still looked half asleep.

He gave a hard swallow, trying not to think about where she might have slept. "Alright?"

Ginny stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.

"No?" He reassessed her appearance. Overall she had the look of someone who had been out partying all night, but her eyes were red and her chin, it looked like she was trying to stop herself from crying. "Ginny, what happened?"

She dropped her shoes then and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.

He immediately returned her hug just as hard as she was. "Ginny? Ginny, what happened? Did someone do something to you?"

She shook her head 'no' again.

"Did-did someone try to...?"

She nodded yes.

()()()

Uni had been going brilliantly. Her social group was great, her classes were alright and, amazingly, her dormmates were all great too. She'd worried about how she and Harry would wind up getting along, but they hadn't had a problem so far. He'd turned out to be not such a bad bloke after all.

There was a lot of resentment toward him that she'd been feeling ever since 'that night', but his mum had been right, he'd grown up a lot since then.

He was still attractive and enigmatic, but he was also more than that now, there was some substance to their friendship; she knew little things about him now, like how he liked coffee in the morning then switched to tea, how he hated the sight of a sink full of dirty dishes and would get his revenge on whoever left them there by cleaning everything and then occupying every flat surface around the kitchen as a drying place.

Everyone in the dorm was getting along wonderfully and she didn't want to upset the balance by admitting to anyone, not even herself, that she was still very attracted to him.

It was bordering on pathetic how whenever some new guy that she would start chatting with would ask her out, the first thing she'd think is, 'what about Harry?'

Harry and his devilishly gorgeous green eyes that always appeared to be searching for her own.

She'd made a few attempts to distance herself from those eyes of his and had 'homework dates' with choice people from her classes. Then she was invited to a Halloween party and told she could bring along some of her friends, but the guy that invited her was cute, so she kept the invite to herself. She found a pair of cat ears at a discount store and used eyeliner to give herself a cat face, then put on a cute dress and went to the party that was one residence building over.

The party was loud and crowded, but the guy who invited her was there, they had a few drinks together while they chatted, then he kissed her and she kissed him back. Due to the number of drinks she'd had it seemed like they'd only been kissing for a minute before she was back in his room.

Then his friends came into the room too, looking altogether too eager about the situation.

She could only assume what the expectations were for three guys alone in a room with one drunk girl, and she got out of there fast and wound up locking herself in the bathroom. They banged on the door a couple of times and tried to coax her out, but she sat on the floor with her feet up against the cabinets opposite to stop them from opening the door if they managed to get it unlocked.

They gave up after a while, then she slipped out and told every girl she came across on her way out what had happened, several of the other girls left with her. None of them belonged to her residence building though. And she'd misplaced her key.

All night she sat outside waiting for someone to pass through the doors so she could get to her bed and it was already sun up by the time someone did.

She was cold, she was exhausted, she felt violated.

Now the first thing she saw when she came into the dorm was Harry, standing there as though he'd been waiting for her. Dropping her shoes and going to him for comfort felt like the only choice she had to make her feel better. He was warm and strong. He'd never intentionally hurt her. He was different now than he was almost two years ago. There was a foundation under them that he wouldn't dare start breaking apart.

"I need to lay down," she told him after several minutes of receiving his warmth.

"Okay. I'll get you to your room."

She was so exhausted that she let him guide her into her room and brought her blanket over her. "Can you stay for a bit? Just until I fall asleep?" Her eyes were already closed but she heard him say yes, and that he'd be right back. The door opened and closed twice and she started as she felt a warm flannel against her face.

"I'm just going to clean you off a bit," he said gently.

Oh, bless him! She whimpered to herself. She'd forgotten about the make-up on her face. She must have looked retched.

After he wiped her face she felt him shifting on the bed beside her, laying on top of the blanket. He was keeping a distance between them that she didn't want, so she felt around for his arm and pulled it across her waist, forcing him to hold her. He gave no sound of protest.

It might have made her look weak to need this small comfort to fall asleep, but she didn't care then. Harry had been great to her these past months and she'd been falling right back into her feelings of adoration for him, so he could take this and interpret it however he wanted so long as it meant she could finally get some rest.

Several solid hours of sleep later she awoke and gave a stretch.

"Hey, careful there," came a light scold when her hand hit something.

Ginny's eyes snapped open and she saw Harry was sitting up against the headboard and reading one of her textbooks. "Harry? You're still here? What time is it?"

"Around lunch time."

"Have you been sitting with me since I got back?"

"No, for a while there I was laying down beside you and napping."

She smiled and wiped the sleep from her eyes. "Thank you for that. I was stuck outside most of the night and freezing my bollocks off."

"You don't have any bollocks to freeze," he joked.

"What do you call these?" she pointed down to her chest.

"I believe the kids these days are calling them 'lady lumps'."

She chuckled at that and gave another yawn and stretch.

"Want to tell me what happened?" he asked.

"No."

"Can you tell me anyways?"

She sighed and stayed silent for a moment, wondering if he would do anything with the information in the form of trying to search out and harm the guys from the party. He might not do that if she made it clear that it had been dealt with.

"I got drunk and wound up in a dorm room with someone, and his friends walked in looking ready for a show and a turn."

"What?" Harry growled.

"I got out of there quick and locked myself in a bathroom until they went away, then I left the party and took the female population there with me. I spent all night after that waiting outside for someone to open the door to the building so I could get in."

"Who were these guys?"

"It's been handled, Harry."

"Who were they?"

"Look, I'll get more revenge on them later. Just leave it alone, will you?" she said calmly.

"How am I supposed to leave it alone? Someone I care about has been attacked."

"Threatened more like."

"Fine, threatened, whatever. It needs to get reported to the campus police at the very least."

"So they can do what? Investigate and come up with nothing? If it bothers you that much you can help me come up with how I'll get my own revenge on them."

"Then we can start with how we'll need to buy a sharper knife than the one we have in the kitchen."

She chuckled and rolled over against him so she could essentially use his leg as a pillow for her head. "Maybe not something that will wind up with us in jail."

"Spoil sport," he muttered. Then his hand went into her hair and she felt him trying to run his fingers through it, but it was all full of tangles. "Where is your hairbrush?"

It was an interesting change in their dynamic to have him in her bedroom, brushing her hair gently until it was completely smooth. It felt really nice. It was him admitting that he cared about her too; in some sense. All the warm, fuzzy feelings she used to have about him were returning in full force. Actually, they felt stronger than they had before.

They were just friends now though. No matter what would go on between them this year, she couldn't think of him as more than a friend.

It was around lunchtime that they left her bedroom and Geoff and Katie gave an intriguing look over to them as they entered the common room, to which Ginny explained what happened to her the night before. They were angered on her behalf but calmed down enough to help she and Harry come up with some forms of retaliation. Growing up with her twin brothers and their penchant for pranking, Ginny had several options locked and loaded. And knowing which room one of these blokes slept in made things easier to plan out.

It was late that evening when she found herself once again outside of a residence hall in the cold; at least this time she had her keys and Harry with her. There was a tree right outside the bedroom where she'd been the night before when everything went sideways; the branches of it were thick enough that she'd managed to climb over to his window and pry it open while Harry kept a lookout. The room was now covered in silly string and had a washable spray-painted sign on his wall that read 'Sex Offender' (Washable so they could minimize the blowback if they were found out). The room was also filled with balloons that had confetti in it, something that is near impossible to clean up.

"Is this really enough?" Harry questioned.

The two of them were now seated on branches with their backs against the trunk.

"Well, I'm not any good with computers so I can hardly hack into his school records and have him failing all his classes. Plus, if I could then I would want to do the same for those mates of his, and I can't completely remember what they looked like."

Even in the dark she could tell that he was holding back something he wanted to say, and it didn't take much to know what that was.

"I learn from my mistakes, Harry. I promise I won't go getting wasted at some party again without friends there looking out for me."

"I can't imagine what it must have been like for you last night, but now you'll just have to get used to me being concerned about your safety."

She smiled to herself. "It's kind of sweet that now you care about me."

"I cared about you then too," he argued quietly.

Her teeth clenched together then as she fought to hold back a retort.

"I know I was a prick and you deserve better than me, particularly how I'd been using you. But, I did care about you. It just, it wasn't the cool thing to admit it."

"Because you didn't want to get bogged down by a girlfriend? Or because the amount that you presumably cared about me didn't add up to enough to bother for anything more than shagging me a few times?"

He shifted on his branch and his shoulder settled more against hers. "I didn't want a girlfriend," he admitted. "You did the right thing ditching me when you did. I was a prick. And I certainly realized how I'd fucked up after watching you getting hit on by the entire male population of the school after that."

"I did not!" she laughed quietly.

"You did. And I know because I had to watch it all going down from a distance."

"Is that why you pounced on me at that party?"

"Yes. I went out to that garden because otherwise I would have had to continue watching you dance with that rich jerk the rest of the night."

"This is all quite flattering; you admitting this on top of your mum thanking me for calling you out before you left for your gap year. It's as though I've left a real impression on you." She was trying to joke, but she actually did want to mean something more to him than just a dorm mate. He had changed, she'd been seeing evidence of that since he arrived at The Hollow.

"Action," he nudged her as the light inside 'The Chad's', which is what they were calling him, bedroom turned on.

"Here we go!" She got her camera ready and took several pictures of his dumbfounded face. "He's got a few of his friends with him too!" She wasn't completely sure, but the two guys with him might have been the ones she'd been running from last night as well.

"Oh, their faces are priceless!" he chuckled. "Ooh, I think one of them just left to get something to pop the balloons with!"

They tried not to laugh too loud as they watched the guys get blasted with confetti each time they popped a balloon. One of the balloons though, she hadn't put confetti in, she'd managed to put the components for a stink bomb in and when they popped it the three guys in the room were left gasping for air; two of them ran out of the room, the third went to the window and pushed it wide open, hanging half out of it.

She and Harry froze in their positions in hopes that he might not spot them. It took the guy five minutes before he'd recovered and pulled himself back inside the room. Ginny nudged Harry then and they started climbing down.

"That was genius," Harry grinned.

"Why, thank you," she gave a bow. "Take that as a warning not to get on my bad side again."

"Trust me, I have no intention of ever getting on your bad side again."

She wasn't sure if it was the way he said it, or the exhilaration that was coursing through her veins, but she took him by the hand then and spun him around to face her, then she was kissing him. Again.

Ginny could recall what it had felt like the very first time they kissed. It had been tentative and sweet, he had been gentle and encouraging things to go deeper. This time wasn't like that at all; they'd been here, they'd done this before. She wanted some of that passion he'd put into their last kiss, the one in the garden; she hadn't been ready for it then, but she was now.

And he was kissing her back just as desperately as he had then.

"Ginny," he whispered her name between kisses.

She shushed him and led him back off the path they were on, out of the shine of the lanterns. She was hungry for him, for sex in general.

"Ginny," he said her name again.

"How have I never noticed that you talk too much," she muttered and started kissing him along his jaw.

"I've only said your name twice," he chuckled and gripped her by the belt loops on her jeans to pull her in closer. She could already feel that he was getting aroused and rubbed herself against him.

That was the end of the conversation right there. They both wanted it, and it felt too good to pause between snogging to deal with something as trivial as talking.

Eventually Ginny found herself pressed up against another tree trunk with his lips still firmly attached to hers while his hand was down her knickers and his two fingers had dipped inside her before rubbing the most delicious circles around her clit. The moans she made against his mouth she tried to muffle, but he was doing such a good job! It didn't take long to set her off and when he did, he stuck his fingers back inside her and gave a good groan of his own when he found her so slick from her finish.

"Can we continue this in one of our rooms?" he begged.

"You've a stereo in yours," she panted.

He kissed her once more and pulled back grinning. Then he did something that she would have thought would be terribly disgusting, but it was somehow completely hot; he pulled his fingers out of her and licked them clean.

"We need to get to your room right now," she demanded.

She hastily did up her jeans again and they rushed toward their residence and up the stairs to their dorm. Christy and Geoff were in the sitting area and Katie had a friend over. Harry and Ginny didn't pay them much mind other than to offer a smile and a wave as they passed through on their way to his room.

Harry closed and locked the door behind them and Ginny got the blinds and turned on his stereo. It would be completely obvious to their dorm mates what was going on, but she didn't care, she just started pulling off her clothes while they were serenaded by Green Day.

Harry caught up with her nude state quickly himself and she couldn't help but appreciate the sight of him completely nude with a full erection. Her view didn't last long though because he picked her up and tossed her onto the bed.

"Condom," she whispered.

"Not yet," he whispered right back and started kissing his way down her body, paying extra attention to any spot that had her gasping, then he was perfectly nestled with his head between her legs and doing is level best to drive her mad with his tongue.

He'd never gone down on her before and had no idea what she'd missed out on. His fingers had done the job quite well enough outside, but his tongue was all warm and wet against her already sensitive clit. Then his fingers joined in as well and made it all more intense. A slew of profanity was coming out of her mouth as she peaked once more.

"How are you so fucking good at that?" she panted. "Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know."

"Don't worry, I read the porn rags for the articles," he joked as he kissed up her body until his erection was pressed against her now tender clit and she whimpered.

She opened her eyes and watched as he reached for the headboard and took a condom, then she watched as he slid it over himself carefully. Was he bigger than she remembered?

"You sure?" he asked while he was still on his knees between her spread open legs.

He'd gotten her twice already, she was curious to know if he could manage a third.

"Yes."

It was like he'd spent the last year and a half thinking about how he would make it up to her if he ever had the chance. He took his time and went slow, the rhythm that he was using was perfect for igniting her all over again.

And he was still hard and waiting patiently for his own after she'd cum for the third time that evening.

Ginny flipped them over and started riding him then as her own way of thanking him. The position didn't do much for her, but from the look on his face it was doing absolutely all the right things for him. It took only a minute or two before he grabbed her hips and planted his feet so he could thrust upwards at a rapid speed; she needed to grab onto his headboard to steady herself.

When he finished it was with her name on his lips.

()()()

Waking up spooning with a naked Ginny was the best way for his Monday to start.

Last night had been incredibly satisfying. There was no doubt in his mind now that he was capable of taking care of her needs.

She must have felt him waking, because she began stirring. "I should get back to my room," she whispered.

"It's still early. There's no way we're fooling any of our dormmates about what we got up to last night."

"Well, luckily we have that dorm rule about not talking about whether two of us are boning each other."

"I want it to be a little more than that," he told her.

She turned around in his arms. "And by that, you mean?"

He ran a finger down the side of her face and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I mean I don't want to fuck this up like I did last time. I want us to have labels. And I definitely want us to have a repeat of last night, as often as you'll let me."

There was a hint of skepticism in her expression, but also excitement. "Fool me once, Harry."

"You are no fool, Ginny," he assured her. "If anyone is going to emotionally destroy one of the two of us in this relationship, I'll be the wounded one."

There was a huff of laughter from her that he felt against his bare chest. "Promise?"

"I wouldn't lie to my girlfriend."

()()()