Attention

Chapter Nine

As soon as the portrait hole swung closed behind Harry, Ginny felt an awkward silence descend like a curtain between them. It shouldn't have, really--Harry was practically a Weasley, especially if you asked her mother, and there had always been plenty to talk about before.

Then again, maybe it was precisely their semi-siblinghood that made this so uncomfortable. Why the hell had Harry suddenly and randomly asked her out?

A dozen possible conversation starters piled up in Ginny's head: So, you fancy me now?... I imagine you really just want to snog, not talk... Are you still virgin, by any chance? Most bets say you're saving yourself... and many more highly inappropriate ones.

'So,' Ginny began, hoping that one or more of her options would choose itself, and that she wouldn't horribly embarrass herself. Her mouth motored on without her: 'What are your plans for the Easter holidays?'

'Mostly studying, I guess,' Harry said with a shrug. 'N.E.W.T.'s are coming up, and you know how Hermione is. We're in three of the same classes, Defence, Charms, and Transfiguration, and she's been harping on since January.'

'Oh, you're not doing Potions?' Ginny asked, seizing on the safe subject of classes.

'No,' Harry said unhappily. 'McGonagall bullied Snape into it last year, but my marks were so bad that she couldn't make him accept me for a second year. There went Auror training. Snape was thrilled.'

'I'm really sorry, Harry,' Ginny said. She placed a hand on his arm sympathetically.

He turned to her. Ginny noticed a faint line of smudgy black around his mouth--he'd started shaving, then. More accurately, he hadn't shaved that morning.

Without warning, Harry leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth.

Ginny was aware that his lips were chapped and that the fuzz around his mouth was extremely bristly. The way they were standing, in the middle of the corridor with about a foot and a half between their bodies, and Ginny's hand on Harry's arm rather than behind his back or head, made the kiss anything but passionate. Still, Ginny tried to enjoy it. She leaned into the kiss and moved her lips around not unencouragingly.

After about ten seconds of futile effort, Harry broke away.

'I'm sorry,' he said sheepishly. 'That really didn't work.'

'Don't worry about it,' Ginny said with a bit of a laugh.

'Nothing there, is there?' Harry looked, if anything, slightly relieved.

'Nope. Sorry, Harry.' There went her childhood fantasy: she had kissed Harry Potter and felt nothing. She realised that she was perfectly okay with this.

Harry coughed and looked away, then said, 'This essay you've got to write, what is it?'

'You still want to go on that walk?'

'Sure. It's a nice enough day, you didn't look so happy with your friends--'

'How could you tell?' Ginny asked as they continued off down the corridor, heading for the front doors.

'You were talking with them, and you were laughing, but the moment they stopped watching you, you let your smile down.'

'I didn't think I was being that obvious.'

'I don't think anyone else would have noticed. I was just watching you. You're nice to look at.'

Despite the lack of chemistry between them, Ginny felt flattered. 'Thanks,' she said. 'You're not so bad yourself.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Harry said. 'I'm a little gangly in places, a little soft in others'--he patted his stomach--'and this fuzz,' he said, indicating his chin, 'never seems to go away no matter how much I shave. And let's not start on the hair.'

'I like the hair,' Ginny said defensively. She reached up to ruffle it. It was a long reach; he was taller than she was. 'But let's not get started on self-image; I could go on for hours on what I hate about myself.'

'Like what?' Harry sounded genuinely interested.

Ginny regretted having brought it up, but said nonetheless, 'Well, I don't like my hips, and my arms are all pudgy, and I've got about fifteen extra pounds 'round the middle--'

'Soft is nice,' said Harry firmly. 'It gives you shape. You're not a stick like, say, Lavender Brown. She's got no figure at all.'

Ginny had always envied Lavender her slenderness, and Harry's attitude surprised her. 'I just worry that I'll turn out like Mum.' She sighed. To her horror, she felt little pricks of water at the corner of her eyes. Fortunately, they had reached the doors at this point, and she made a point of rubbing her eyes against the sunlight. 'Bright out, isn't it?'

The small pause Harry allowed before speaking announced that he'd noticed the subject change, but was letting it pass. 'I like it,' he said. 'It's been a long, cold winter.'

Ginny suspected he didn't just mean the weather. 'Why?' she asked. 'What's been happening?'

'Voldemort--'

Ginny flinched. She'd still not got used to it.

'--and the Death Eaters, that's what's been happening. I still get occasional flashes of his emotions. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of, say, a lesson, and Voldemort will get bad news, or good news, and I'll get a random twinge of irritation or happiness, and, well, it just messes up my spellwork. Nightmares, too. They're not as bad as they used to be, but I just can't--I can't ever seem to get away from being The Boy Who Lived. The bloody Chosen One.'

They turned onto the path that led around the lake. There were kissing couples lying on cloaks in the sunlight, kissing couples wobbily walking the path, kissing couples standing behind bushes; but the trouble with bushes, Ginny considered, is that they're round, and what is behind from one point is not from another.

Ginny glanced at Harry and saw that his mouth was twitching. 'Spring,' he said succinctly, with a jerk of his head towards one couple who were rather too busy with each other to notice them.

If she could change the subject, so could he. ''Tis the season to be hormonal.'

Harry laughed, and they took a fork onto a more deserted path. There were some benches here that looked across the lake towards the mountains. The two of them sat down and arranged their cloaks more securely--it was quite chilly in the shade.

Ginny decided that the conversation had reached the appropriate point, so she asked, 'So why did you ask me out? Why did you kiss me?'

Harry sighed, stretched his legs out, and put his arms behind his head. Ginny eyed him, wishing there was something between them--he was dead sexy like that, but he didn't make her gut twinge, not like--

No.

Harry was speaking. 'To be honest, to see if it would work.'

'You mean you were just curious?'

'Yes.' Harry now sounded uncomfortable. 'I just...' He scratched his head. 'I can't seem to keep a relationship going. Cho was a disaster, the whole school knows that. Then there was Luna, but she--'

'--was too weird?'

'No, she was actually a lot of fun to hang around. She had the wildest ideas, and it was great to see what she could get away with saying to other people. But she broke it off. She told me--she was really nice about it, which was great--but she told me that my mind was always elsewhere, and that she knew it wasn't on her, and that it was probably best if we just stayed friends.' Harry smiled. 'She's a really nice girl.'

'She is.'

'And ever since then, I've been kind of, well, 'trying' girls out.'

'You mean you've been taking girls into corridors and kissing them?' Ginny asked incredulously.

'Sometimes,' Harry said seriously. 'But mostly I've just been considering what it would be like to date one or the other. Closest I ever came to success was Parvati, but we eventually decided it was just physical.'

'Oh? Exactly... how physical?'

Harry grinned.

Ginny raised an eyebrow.

Harry, not looking quite as smug as she would have expected, said, 'Let's just say that Parvati's very, er, generous with her favours, and that I knew exactly what Professor Holloway was talking about when he told us that using sexually strong memories would work well to conjure up a Patronus.'

'I see.'

'How about you?' Harry asked.

'Oh, now we're having the "how far have you gone?" conversation, are we?'

'Might as well.' Harry shrugged. 'I can't talk to Ron or Hermione about this, you realise.'

'Whyever not?'

'Hermione, maybe. But Ron would go all red and awkward. Besides,' he said, 'they're pretty much wrapped up in themselves these days.'

'True.'

'So...?'

Ginny was silent for a moment. 'It was Dean Thomas,' she said eventually. 'He came to visit the Burrow summer before last--'

'I remember,' Harry murmured.

'--and everyone was outside doing something or other, and we were alone for about half an hour, and... and he was nice, and gentle, and... yeah. It was okay.'

'No sparks?'

'Not really. That's one of the reasons I broke up with him.'

Harry turned and looked at her intently. 'Have you ever felt them? The sparks, the fireworks? Have you ever kissed anyone and...' He trailed off, gesturing helplessly.

Ginny panicked. Even though Harry seemed trustworthy, she was not going to tell him anything whatsoever about... that. Besides, she told herself, it's just hormones.

'Or not kissing,' Harry said desperately. 'Just... have you ever been in love?'

Now that was a question Ginny could answer easily.

'Yes, I have,' she said slowly. She bit her lip and looked down, the affected nervousness and hesitation coming very naturally. 'I don't know if it was exactly,' she told her knees, 'but it certainly was strong, and at the time I thought it was love, though how can you know when you're so young...'

'Yes? Who was it?'

'Tom,' said Ginny in a bleak voice, meeting Harry's shocked gaze. 'Tom Riddle.'