Fic: "Interludes" by tosca1390
To: rumpelsnorcack
Title: Interludes
Author: tosca1390
Pairing: Harry/Ginny, small sides of Ron and Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,400 words
Summary: . Having the ability to touch her, to take her hand under the table in the Dining Hall, to kiss her in empty classrooms away from Ron’s weird stare was unnerving.
Author’s Notes: Just a little HBP missing moment for you, rumpelsnorcack! A trouble-making Weasley brother and potion brewing are also involved. I hope that this fits the bill, and that you enjoy your gift!
Many thanks to stmargarets for the wildly awesome and quick beta, and to flyingcarpet just for being awesome, in modly and other ways.
*
“This is impossible!”
Looking up from his Defense essay, Harry watched as Ginny lowered her forehead to her open Potions text. Her bright hair fell across the book and table, the ends brushing his wrists and hands. He very much wanted to run his fingers through it.
“What’s impossible?” he asked after a moment, blinking. He had to stop staring at her hair.
“All the bloody potions to remember, and how to brew them, and the antidotes!”
He grimaced. “Right.”
“I’ll never get better than an ‘A’ for my Potions O.W.L.s,” she said, her voice muffled by parchment. “I’ll fail, and have to drop out, and go home in shame to my mother.”
“Fred and George dropped out, and you don’t see them wandering around in shame,” he said, smiling slightly.
She lifted her head and looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Shall I write home to Mum and say you told me to drop out because Fred and George did?”
The air in the library was suddenly thick and warm; he wasn’t sure he could speak when she looked at him like that. He swallowed hard, watching the candlelight flicker across her face, shadowing the freckles along her nose and cheeks. “No--no, I don’t reckon that’s a good idea,” he stammered.
She laughed and touched his hand lightly. “I must have blocked out what you and Ron and Hermione were like during O.W.L. revisions this time last year. I didn’t remember it being this bad.”
The ease with which she touched him still startled him. Having the ability to touch her, to take her hand under the table in the Dining Hall, to kiss her in empty classrooms away from Ron’s weird stare was unnerving. In the back of his mind, he knew that he was just holding his breath. The tightness in his chest lingered, waiting for the other shoe to drop. From Dumbledore’s lessons, he knew eventually, this carefree time would have to stop.
For now, though, he could take her hand in his over their piles of parchment and books. “Maybe we hid our abject terror well.”
She snorted, catching her fingertips against his. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re terrible at hiding things.”
“I am not,” he protested through the lump in his throat.
Passing a hand through her hair, she smiled at him. “You’re good at many things, Harry. But you have an awful poker face.”
“When it comes to you,” he blurted out, the back of his neck flushed with warmth.
Something in her face softened then. She pushed her books out of the way and leaned across the table, kissing him lightly. “Maybe so,” she said softly against the corner of his mouth.
He’d never been good at this, he knew that. But it was easy, with Ginny, to place his free hand against her cheek, tilt his head just so. She tasted of tea, and the biscuits they’d squirreled away before escaping the Dining Hall and Ron and Hermione’s focus.
“There you are, mate!”
Ron’s too-bright, too-loud voice broke between them. Harry tensed immediately, pulling back from Ginny. She sighed and sat back in her chair, fixing Ron with a glare and keeping her hand firmly in Harry’s. Harry was torn between wanting to tug her back across the table, and putting as much distance between them as possible while Ron was in the room.
Standing at the edge of the study area, Ron watched them darkly. Harry couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if his eye was twitching. From the front of the library, Madam Pince shushed them.
“Hi, Ron,” Ginny said evenly.
“Reckoned we could revise together,” Ron said with a too-wide grin, sitting down next to Harry. His gaze went right to their hands.
Harry was positive that he was redder than he had been in quite a while. He swallowed and slowly slipped his hand from Ginny’s.
Ginny, on the other hand, looked close to committing fratricide from the look in her eyes. “Where are your books?”
Ron leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest. “Huh?”
“Your. Books,” she repeated, voice clipped.
“Books? Oh! I’ll just look off Harry. Hermione’ll be by in a moment, in any case,” he said smugly.
“Right,” Harry said, shaking his head.
Abruptly, Ron jumped up in his seat. “Ouch, bloody hell! Ginny! That’s my ankle!”
Face not giving an inch, she merely looked at him blankly. “Was it?”
Harry rolled his eyes just as Hermione wheeled around the corner, out of breath and hair wild. “Ron! You just took off!” she said, panting.
“I did not!”
“You absolutely did. I was still talking, and I looked around and you were gone! I looked ridiculous,” she said shortly, taking a seat next to Ginny. Harry thought she might have mouthed an I’m sorry to Ginny, but he couldn’t be sure.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ron muttered. A moment later, he was wincing and muffling a groan again. “Oi!”
“You might just want to quit while you’re ahead, mate,” Harry said under his breath, catching Ginny’s eye.
She smiled slightly, calm and serene in the evening light. Later, she mouthed to him, as Hermione and Ron began bickering back and forth to themselves, their usual dance.
Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.
*
Harry stood outside the Charms classroom, leaning against the cool stone wall and fingering the note in his hands. It had been two days since he and Ginny had any time alone together. Ron, despite his acceptance, had continued finding ways to attach himself to Harry. Hermione had begun her revisions with Ginny in preparation for her O.W.L.s
“N.E.W.T.s will be on us before you know it, and I for one refuse to be caught off-guard. This is a perfect revising opportunity,” she’d said primly, much to Ron’s derisive amusement.
In between worries over Dumbledore, and Horcruxes, and trying to avoid drawing any more of Snape’s ire, Harry had just watched Ginny from afar, and wondered. She was so even and so steady, sure of herself and sure of him. It was unsettling how easily they came together. He wondered if his dad had felt like this with his mum, even with their rocky start.
She’d passed him in the corridor earlier today and slipped a note into his pocket: 9:00pm, Charms classroom. -Ginny. He’d held onto it all day like a talisman; he was slightly embarrassed, but it didn’t stop the warmth from crowding his chest every time he read it.
Somewhere in the castle, the clocks began to strike nine. He breathed in deeply, pushed himself off the wall, and walked to the heavy door. Slipping the note in his jeans pocket, he pushed the door open.
Ginny stood at one of the desks, peering into a mini-cauldron. Her uniform robes lay across a nearby chair. At the sound of the door creaking, she turned around. “Hi,” she said with a smile.
“Hi.” A smile curved his mouth to match hers.
“Come over here and help me,” she said, turning back to her cauldron.
He shut the door and walked over, standing at her side. “What are you making?”
“The Draught of Peace. Hermione said I ought to practice since it’s almost always a tested potion for the O.W.L.s,” she said, glancing at him. Tendrils of hair had escaped from her ponytail and now were stuck to her neck and temple. “She said it needs to sit for a shorter time than you’d reckon. I’ve been watching it for a while now, waiting.”
Nervously he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I can’t remember if I had to make it when I sat. I know it was important,” he said, feeling rather pathetic. He looked down at the cauldron, full breaths suddenly hard to come by. “What kind of cauldron is this?”
“Isn’t it amazing? Fred and George just finished the prototype. They wanted to be able to do their mixing and inventing while traveling, so they modified a typical cauldron. It’s more lightweight and it shrinks. It also allows for minor potion concocting, nothing too acidic or stringent,” she said, with something like pride curling through her tone. “They sent me one to test out.”
He smiled. “Very nice,” he said. “You’re definitely their favorite, I reckon.”
Suddenly he found her hand in his, their fingers locked together. “I’m the sister, I’m everyone’s favorite. Except Ron, because he’s an idiot prat.”
“He’s just worried for you,” he said hesitantly, turning towards her.
She was looking at him, face implacable. Her eyes were very dark in the flickering light. “Ron’s concern is sweet to a point. Now it’s just annoying,” she said evenly. “Don’t you agree?”
Slowly he nodded, his heart lodged up in his throat. “I do, yeah,” he said quietly. Their time was limited, he knew that much, and the threat of it ending hung over him like a dark cloud. He wanted as much time as possible with her, and he wanted to say that to her--but he didn’t have the words, couldn’t find them anywhere.
Her mouth softened then, and she leaned up to kiss him gently, putting a hand to his chest. “We don’t need to watch it right now,” she said after a moment, stirring the potion one last time and pulling him to the other side of the classroom. She sat on one of the tables, hand still clasped in his. He stood in front of her, knee to knee.
“Hi,” he said again, slightly stupefied.
She laughed at that, brushing the fringe from his forehead. “Oh, Harry. Your hair is a mess,” she said fondly.
He shrugged, ducking his head slightly. “What’s new about that?”
“Nothing,” she said, voice soft. “I like it.”
He blushed, running his thumb along her knuckles and the freckles there. He wondered if there was a part of her not covered in freckles. That thought sent more heat to his face, so much so that she laughed and kissed his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head, smiling crookedly. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. Hesitating for a moment, he leaned in and kissed her, sliding his free hand into her hair. Every time he kissed her, there was the same warmth and light as the first time, soft and nearly blinding. He shut his eyes, trying to imprint the moment onto his memory for safekeeping.
She breathed into his mouth, her knees slipping to rest on either side of his hips. The change in distance between their bodies felt like a jolt of electricity. He inhaled sharply.
“Harry, relax,” she whispered into his mouth. He could feel her smile against his skin.
“I am, believe me,” he murmured. “This is relaxed.”
Smoothing a hand across his chest, she pulled away from his mouth. He opened his eyes and met her questioning gaze.
“If there’s anything you need to talk about, you know you can tell me,” she said after a moment, intent and serious.
Throat suddenly choked, he held his breath for a moment. The weight of the year, and all the years past, seemed to settle on him in that moment, a reminder of his responsibilities. He wanted to force it away from between them, to keep this separate and above. With her, he could forget, and right now, he wanted to forget.
“I know,” he said finally, voice raw. He slipped his hand to her waist. “Thanks.”
Watching him carefully, she finally relaxed into a small smile. “Okay,” she said before kissing him again, her lips sweet and warm on his. He pulled her close and breathed in the faint honeysuckle scent of her hair, shutting his eyes again. As she curled close into his chest, her arm sliding around his neck, he could feel her rapid heartbeat against his. Her t-shirt was thin under his fingertips, skin warm to his touch.
As he breathed in, his mouth on hers, something acrid filled his nose. Frowning, he pulled back just a bit, their mouths just breaths apart. “Ginny...” he whispered, surprised at how ragged his voice was in the quiet air.
“What?” Then her eyes widened, and she tilted back, her head turning towards the other tabletop. “Oh, bollocks!” she exclaimed. He moved back as she clambered off the table and hurried over to the other side of the room. Dark smoke curled from the top of the cauldron.
Slightly dazed, he followed her, running a hand through his hair. “Wow,” he said, crinkling his face at the smell.
“Oh, damn it, damn it,” she muttered, waving her wand at the cauldron. The contents disappeared, leaving the cauldron and the smoke curling through the air. Together, they peered into the cauldron.
“Bottom’s scorched,” he said.
She shot him a glare. “How helpful, Harry.”
He grinned, an odd buoyancy stealing through his limbs. Reaching out, he grasped her by the waist and pulled her close. “Sorry I was so distracting.”
“You ought to be. If I don’t pass--”
“You’ll pass, you’ve got all of Hermione’s notes, and you’re too smart to fail” he said, pushing loose strands of hair from her face. Her skin was lightly damp, her eyes shining in the torchlight. “Just... I don’t know, relax.”
“I was trying, and then my cauldron burst into smoke,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s always something, then.”
“True.” Shaking her head, she leaned up and kissed him, looping an arm around his neck. “Thanks for helping tonight,” she said between presses of her mouth.
A weird sort of warmth bubbled in his chest as he kissed her back. “Any time. I’m a Potions genius.”
“Of course you are,” she said with a laugh.
Abruptly, the classroom door swung open with a loud creak. They jumped apart just as Ron came into view in the doorway. He was out of breath and flushed so red his freckles were invisible. “There you are, Harry!” he huffed out.
Rolling his eyes, Harry stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets as Ginny scowled at her brother. From the corridor, Harry could hear Hermione calling Ron’s name in a very agitated tone.
“Did you need something?” he asked evenly.
Ron faltered, catching his breath. “Just... you know.”
“Oh for the love of Merlin, Ron!” Ginny exclaimed. “Leave it alone!”
As Ron and Ginny began to bicker, Harry merely smiled and turned back to her mini-cauldron, pulling out his wand and doing a Scouring Charm.
“What on Earth happened? Did you let it sit too long?” Hermione asked, sounding out of breath herself.
Ginny didn’t answer her. Instead, she reached behind her and caught his hand in hers, their fingers tangled together. It was their warm secret, theirs alone.
Harry held onto her hand tightly, wanting never to let go, but knowing the moment would come.
*
Title: Interludes
Author: tosca1390
Pairing: Harry/Ginny, small sides of Ron and Hermione
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,400 words
Summary: . Having the ability to touch her, to take her hand under the table in the Dining Hall, to kiss her in empty classrooms away from Ron’s weird stare was unnerving.
Author’s Notes: Just a little HBP missing moment for you, rumpelsnorcack! A trouble-making Weasley brother and potion brewing are also involved. I hope that this fits the bill, and that you enjoy your gift!
Many thanks to stmargarets for the wildly awesome and quick beta, and to flyingcarpet just for being awesome, in modly and other ways.
*
“This is impossible!”
Looking up from his Defense essay, Harry watched as Ginny lowered her forehead to her open Potions text. Her bright hair fell across the book and table, the ends brushing his wrists and hands. He very much wanted to run his fingers through it.
“What’s impossible?” he asked after a moment, blinking. He had to stop staring at her hair.
“All the bloody potions to remember, and how to brew them, and the antidotes!”
He grimaced. “Right.”
“I’ll never get better than an ‘A’ for my Potions O.W.L.s,” she said, her voice muffled by parchment. “I’ll fail, and have to drop out, and go home in shame to my mother.”
“Fred and George dropped out, and you don’t see them wandering around in shame,” he said, smiling slightly.
She lifted her head and looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Shall I write home to Mum and say you told me to drop out because Fred and George did?”
The air in the library was suddenly thick and warm; he wasn’t sure he could speak when she looked at him like that. He swallowed hard, watching the candlelight flicker across her face, shadowing the freckles along her nose and cheeks. “No--no, I don’t reckon that’s a good idea,” he stammered.
She laughed and touched his hand lightly. “I must have blocked out what you and Ron and Hermione were like during O.W.L. revisions this time last year. I didn’t remember it being this bad.”
The ease with which she touched him still startled him. Having the ability to touch her, to take her hand under the table in the Dining Hall, to kiss her in empty classrooms away from Ron’s weird stare was unnerving. In the back of his mind, he knew that he was just holding his breath. The tightness in his chest lingered, waiting for the other shoe to drop. From Dumbledore’s lessons, he knew eventually, this carefree time would have to stop.
For now, though, he could take her hand in his over their piles of parchment and books. “Maybe we hid our abject terror well.”
She snorted, catching her fingertips against his. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re terrible at hiding things.”
“I am not,” he protested through the lump in his throat.
Passing a hand through her hair, she smiled at him. “You’re good at many things, Harry. But you have an awful poker face.”
“When it comes to you,” he blurted out, the back of his neck flushed with warmth.
Something in her face softened then. She pushed her books out of the way and leaned across the table, kissing him lightly. “Maybe so,” she said softly against the corner of his mouth.
He’d never been good at this, he knew that. But it was easy, with Ginny, to place his free hand against her cheek, tilt his head just so. She tasted of tea, and the biscuits they’d squirreled away before escaping the Dining Hall and Ron and Hermione’s focus.
“There you are, mate!”
Ron’s too-bright, too-loud voice broke between them. Harry tensed immediately, pulling back from Ginny. She sighed and sat back in her chair, fixing Ron with a glare and keeping her hand firmly in Harry’s. Harry was torn between wanting to tug her back across the table, and putting as much distance between them as possible while Ron was in the room.
Standing at the edge of the study area, Ron watched them darkly. Harry couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if his eye was twitching. From the front of the library, Madam Pince shushed them.
“Hi, Ron,” Ginny said evenly.
“Reckoned we could revise together,” Ron said with a too-wide grin, sitting down next to Harry. His gaze went right to their hands.
Harry was positive that he was redder than he had been in quite a while. He swallowed and slowly slipped his hand from Ginny’s.
Ginny, on the other hand, looked close to committing fratricide from the look in her eyes. “Where are your books?”
Ron leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest. “Huh?”
“Your. Books,” she repeated, voice clipped.
“Books? Oh! I’ll just look off Harry. Hermione’ll be by in a moment, in any case,” he said smugly.
“Right,” Harry said, shaking his head.
Abruptly, Ron jumped up in his seat. “Ouch, bloody hell! Ginny! That’s my ankle!”
Face not giving an inch, she merely looked at him blankly. “Was it?”
Harry rolled his eyes just as Hermione wheeled around the corner, out of breath and hair wild. “Ron! You just took off!” she said, panting.
“I did not!”
“You absolutely did. I was still talking, and I looked around and you were gone! I looked ridiculous,” she said shortly, taking a seat next to Ginny. Harry thought she might have mouthed an I’m sorry to Ginny, but he couldn’t be sure.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ron muttered. A moment later, he was wincing and muffling a groan again. “Oi!”
“You might just want to quit while you’re ahead, mate,” Harry said under his breath, catching Ginny’s eye.
She smiled slightly, calm and serene in the evening light. Later, she mouthed to him, as Hermione and Ron began bickering back and forth to themselves, their usual dance.
Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.
*
Harry stood outside the Charms classroom, leaning against the cool stone wall and fingering the note in his hands. It had been two days since he and Ginny had any time alone together. Ron, despite his acceptance, had continued finding ways to attach himself to Harry. Hermione had begun her revisions with Ginny in preparation for her O.W.L.s
“N.E.W.T.s will be on us before you know it, and I for one refuse to be caught off-guard. This is a perfect revising opportunity,” she’d said primly, much to Ron’s derisive amusement.
In between worries over Dumbledore, and Horcruxes, and trying to avoid drawing any more of Snape’s ire, Harry had just watched Ginny from afar, and wondered. She was so even and so steady, sure of herself and sure of him. It was unsettling how easily they came together. He wondered if his dad had felt like this with his mum, even with their rocky start.
She’d passed him in the corridor earlier today and slipped a note into his pocket: 9:00pm, Charms classroom. -Ginny. He’d held onto it all day like a talisman; he was slightly embarrassed, but it didn’t stop the warmth from crowding his chest every time he read it.
Somewhere in the castle, the clocks began to strike nine. He breathed in deeply, pushed himself off the wall, and walked to the heavy door. Slipping the note in his jeans pocket, he pushed the door open.
Ginny stood at one of the desks, peering into a mini-cauldron. Her uniform robes lay across a nearby chair. At the sound of the door creaking, she turned around. “Hi,” she said with a smile.
“Hi.” A smile curved his mouth to match hers.
“Come over here and help me,” she said, turning back to her cauldron.
He shut the door and walked over, standing at her side. “What are you making?”
“The Draught of Peace. Hermione said I ought to practice since it’s almost always a tested potion for the O.W.L.s,” she said, glancing at him. Tendrils of hair had escaped from her ponytail and now were stuck to her neck and temple. “She said it needs to sit for a shorter time than you’d reckon. I’ve been watching it for a while now, waiting.”
Nervously he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I can’t remember if I had to make it when I sat. I know it was important,” he said, feeling rather pathetic. He looked down at the cauldron, full breaths suddenly hard to come by. “What kind of cauldron is this?”
“Isn’t it amazing? Fred and George just finished the prototype. They wanted to be able to do their mixing and inventing while traveling, so they modified a typical cauldron. It’s more lightweight and it shrinks. It also allows for minor potion concocting, nothing too acidic or stringent,” she said, with something like pride curling through her tone. “They sent me one to test out.”
He smiled. “Very nice,” he said. “You’re definitely their favorite, I reckon.”
Suddenly he found her hand in his, their fingers locked together. “I’m the sister, I’m everyone’s favorite. Except Ron, because he’s an idiot prat.”
“He’s just worried for you,” he said hesitantly, turning towards her.
She was looking at him, face implacable. Her eyes were very dark in the flickering light. “Ron’s concern is sweet to a point. Now it’s just annoying,” she said evenly. “Don’t you agree?”
Slowly he nodded, his heart lodged up in his throat. “I do, yeah,” he said quietly. Their time was limited, he knew that much, and the threat of it ending hung over him like a dark cloud. He wanted as much time as possible with her, and he wanted to say that to her--but he didn’t have the words, couldn’t find them anywhere.
Her mouth softened then, and she leaned up to kiss him gently, putting a hand to his chest. “We don’t need to watch it right now,” she said after a moment, stirring the potion one last time and pulling him to the other side of the classroom. She sat on one of the tables, hand still clasped in his. He stood in front of her, knee to knee.
“Hi,” he said again, slightly stupefied.
She laughed at that, brushing the fringe from his forehead. “Oh, Harry. Your hair is a mess,” she said fondly.
He shrugged, ducking his head slightly. “What’s new about that?”
“Nothing,” she said, voice soft. “I like it.”
He blushed, running his thumb along her knuckles and the freckles there. He wondered if there was a part of her not covered in freckles. That thought sent more heat to his face, so much so that she laughed and kissed his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head, smiling crookedly. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. Hesitating for a moment, he leaned in and kissed her, sliding his free hand into her hair. Every time he kissed her, there was the same warmth and light as the first time, soft and nearly blinding. He shut his eyes, trying to imprint the moment onto his memory for safekeeping.
She breathed into his mouth, her knees slipping to rest on either side of his hips. The change in distance between their bodies felt like a jolt of electricity. He inhaled sharply.
“Harry, relax,” she whispered into his mouth. He could feel her smile against his skin.
“I am, believe me,” he murmured. “This is relaxed.”
Smoothing a hand across his chest, she pulled away from his mouth. He opened his eyes and met her questioning gaze.
“If there’s anything you need to talk about, you know you can tell me,” she said after a moment, intent and serious.
Throat suddenly choked, he held his breath for a moment. The weight of the year, and all the years past, seemed to settle on him in that moment, a reminder of his responsibilities. He wanted to force it away from between them, to keep this separate and above. With her, he could forget, and right now, he wanted to forget.
“I know,” he said finally, voice raw. He slipped his hand to her waist. “Thanks.”
Watching him carefully, she finally relaxed into a small smile. “Okay,” she said before kissing him again, her lips sweet and warm on his. He pulled her close and breathed in the faint honeysuckle scent of her hair, shutting his eyes again. As she curled close into his chest, her arm sliding around his neck, he could feel her rapid heartbeat against his. Her t-shirt was thin under his fingertips, skin warm to his touch.
As he breathed in, his mouth on hers, something acrid filled his nose. Frowning, he pulled back just a bit, their mouths just breaths apart. “Ginny...” he whispered, surprised at how ragged his voice was in the quiet air.
“What?” Then her eyes widened, and she tilted back, her head turning towards the other tabletop. “Oh, bollocks!” she exclaimed. He moved back as she clambered off the table and hurried over to the other side of the room. Dark smoke curled from the top of the cauldron.
Slightly dazed, he followed her, running a hand through his hair. “Wow,” he said, crinkling his face at the smell.
“Oh, damn it, damn it,” she muttered, waving her wand at the cauldron. The contents disappeared, leaving the cauldron and the smoke curling through the air. Together, they peered into the cauldron.
“Bottom’s scorched,” he said.
She shot him a glare. “How helpful, Harry.”
He grinned, an odd buoyancy stealing through his limbs. Reaching out, he grasped her by the waist and pulled her close. “Sorry I was so distracting.”
“You ought to be. If I don’t pass--”
“You’ll pass, you’ve got all of Hermione’s notes, and you’re too smart to fail” he said, pushing loose strands of hair from her face. Her skin was lightly damp, her eyes shining in the torchlight. “Just... I don’t know, relax.”
“I was trying, and then my cauldron burst into smoke,” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s always something, then.”
“True.” Shaking her head, she leaned up and kissed him, looping an arm around his neck. “Thanks for helping tonight,” she said between presses of her mouth.
A weird sort of warmth bubbled in his chest as he kissed her back. “Any time. I’m a Potions genius.”
“Of course you are,” she said with a laugh.
Abruptly, the classroom door swung open with a loud creak. They jumped apart just as Ron came into view in the doorway. He was out of breath and flushed so red his freckles were invisible. “There you are, Harry!” he huffed out.
Rolling his eyes, Harry stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets as Ginny scowled at her brother. From the corridor, Harry could hear Hermione calling Ron’s name in a very agitated tone.
“Did you need something?” he asked evenly.
Ron faltered, catching his breath. “Just... you know.”
“Oh for the love of Merlin, Ron!” Ginny exclaimed. “Leave it alone!”
As Ron and Ginny began to bicker, Harry merely smiled and turned back to her mini-cauldron, pulling out his wand and doing a Scouring Charm.
“What on Earth happened? Did you let it sit too long?” Hermione asked, sounding out of breath herself.
Ginny didn’t answer her. Instead, she reached behind her and caught his hand in hers, their fingers tangled together. It was their warm secret, theirs alone.
Harry held onto her hand tightly, wanting never to let go, but knowing the moment would come.
*