Knickers

Chapter 13-The Meaning of Want

3 Months Later

Ginny Weasley threw her dirty Quidditch gloves to the bench angrily, sitting down and watching as her team mates around her displayed similar bouts of dissatisfaction as they finished dressing. They had just lost the Quidditch National Cup.

There was nothing that could have been done about it. The score had been tied between the Cannons and the Harpies for the entire game, only being settled by Harry who, as always, had caught the Snitch. They had lost, fair and square but that didn’t make the hurt of losing after a near perfect season stop though.

She sighed. Her parents and brothers had spent a half an hour on the field after the game comforting her while wanting to go congratulate Harry, who had been swiftly taken off to the post-game party that the Cannons were holding at the Leaky Cauldron. And now, sitting in the rapidly emptying change rooms, her previously stunned thoughts started to thaw in her brain. There was really no reason why she should be so upset about the loss-she had scored the most points in the game, of any chaser on either team- but she was and it appeared to be a state of mind that she wasn’t going to shake anytime soon. So caught up in her inner musings was she that she didn’t notice that she was now alone in the change rooms.

“Ginny?” a familiar voice called into the empty rooms. Not so alone it seemed…

“Harry?” she replied questioningly, watching as he emerged from around the corner of the lockers-having ditched his Chudley orange for jeans and a t-shirt. “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t at the party. I got worried,” he murmured, sitting down next to her on the bench. “How’re you doing?”

“Are you kidding me? I just lost. Against you. And you’re expecting me to come to the party celebrating my defeat?” Ginny laughed incredulously. It was true that they were on speaking terms (although that hadn’t happened until about a month of stilted conversation in the house that both of them still called home) but it didn’t mean that she had expected him to question her about her general wellbeing upon losing a game that Harry had known going in that he was going to win. After all, Holyhead had a killer instinct when it came to handling the Quaffle but they had yet to find a seeker that could best the great Harry Potter. Ginny doubted that they ever would. This had meant that, going into the game, Holyhead would have had to have scored twice as many times as Chudley.

This hadn’t happened obviously.

“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t think. It’s just that your entire family was there and….” Harry gulped nervously, inwardly kicking himself for such a mistake.

She nodded, a small smile forcing itself from her face as she looked at him. Despite their estrangement, she still found it cute when he was apologetic. “Um-hm. I kind of figured that. You’re a part of the family too, after all.” She cleared her throat, lifting her head up to look at the man who, with his team, had defeated her in the game of her life. “How’s the party going then? Pretend like I care…”

Harry looked her directly in the eye apologetically. Ginny continued to eat up the eye candy that was a repentant Harry Potter, “Good. So good that no one noticed I walked out to find you.”

Ginny sighed again, now feeling guilty for her curt words to him earlier but knowing at the same time that she had to take this opportunity to set some things straight with him. “Look Harry, I know that you have feelings for me but…”

“This has nothing to do with any feelings I may or may not have for you.”

Ginny, however, had known Harry for too long to be fooled by these words. His actions always sold him out when he was trying to lie to anyone close to him.

“Harry, you told me that you loved me only 3 months ago. You broke up my engagement.”

“Because he was cheating on you….” Harry defended himself weakly as he crossed his arms, anger beginning to build within him.

“Because you wanted me for yourself,” Ginny shot back at him, beginning to get annoyed now.

He didn’t answer this statement, choosing instead to look down at the hands in his lap.

She stood, going to her locker and taking off her guards. “Look, as much fun as this has been, I really need to get changed before I’m the last one in this locker room.”

“Too late,” he said quietly. Truth be told, he didn’t know why he was here or why he had left his own party to return to the stadium and moreover to a woman who didn’t want him the way he wanted her. The fact remained that he had and for that reason, he was going to stick around whether she wanted him to or not.

“Oh,” she looked around, seeing him that he was right. “Doesn’t matter though. I need to get changed and then I need to get back to Mum’s house. It’s been a long day and I’m tired.”

Harry didn’t move anywhere.

“That means you have to leave Harry,” Ginny crossed her arms testily. He was so thick sometimes…

“Right,” he said succinctly, sighing and standing. He was wrong to have come tonight and he now knew that. He wouldn’t be trying something as stupid as this again.

He crossed to the end of the row of lockers, disappearing around the corner. “It’s not like I haven’t had you send me away before.”

Ginny paused from the removal of her shirt. “And just what exactly is that supposed to mean? The last time I checked I was the one who gave up the crush I had on you first. I didn’t send you away, YOU sent ME away. You’re the one who had to suddenly realize you had feelings on me after I got over you. And you’re also the one who had to come up with the elaborate scheme to get me and who ruined any kind of relationship I might have had with Colin.”

Harry stepped back around the corner, his face having taken on the snarl that Snape had so often sported when he was especially perturbed at Ginny’s last words, “Is that so? If we’re talking about Colin, I think I did you a favour. He was cheating on you Ginny. Even I, the self-professed manipulator of your heart, can admit that I think it was wrong. Cheating is wrong and as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t destroy the relationship you had with Colin, I saved you from it. And hey, while we’re having this spat, maybe you can answer me this: wouldn’t it have been prudent for you to have acted on your ‘crush’ earlier? Maybe we might not have found ourselves in this position if you had.”

Ginny stepped toward him hotly, now not realizing what she was saying. She was a Weasley first and foremost and goodness knows that she had the temper to go along with it. “I tried. But you were otherwise occupied with Susan, remember? Quite frankly my crush had progressed into more than just a crush. I thought that I would be better off with being your friend and at least have a part of you in that role, rather than be the girl who was destined to love you from afar for the rest of her life, and have none of you!”

Harry was speechless at this. Ginny was just full of surprises tonight.

He hadn’t known. He just hadn’t known and now that he did, he couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do anything because he was so surprised. In fact, a good 20 seconds passed between the two before something happened. Something that Ginny had never dreamed would happen, and that Harry had.

He kissed her.

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Ginny was so shocked by what was happening that the outraged Weasley part of her was temporarily pushed to the background and replaced by a creature that greatly resembled every swooning female she had ever read about in novels. Sadly for her though, this didn’t last long…

“WHAT are you doing?!” she pushed Harry away, trying to catch her breath from the mind-numbing kiss that she had just received.

Harry looked bewildered, as if he himself had gotten so caught up in his anger and frustration that the kiss had also taken him by surprise, “I…I’m not sure.”

“Well get sure!” Ginny wailed, wiping a hand over her mouth and trying desperately to calm her body to the point that she didn’t want to return the favour that Harry had inadvertently bestowed upon her. She lost the battle, the lost look on Harry’s face getting the better of her.

The kiss that followed was intense, more so than the last had been, and longer-about 5 minutes longer. When they finally broke apart, they were both gasping.

“Same question. What was that for? Not that I mind,” Harry panted, leaning his forehead against Ginny’s own as his hands roamed her body. It seemed that his body, for so long a Ginny free zone, were finally succumbing to the years of deprivation it had been subjected to.

“Same answer. It’s just…I don’t know. I’m over you. I KNOW I’m over you so why do I want to snog you senseless?” Ginny moaned, tilting her head up and away from Harry’s in order to kiss him again.

“Don’t know,” Harry murmured as his hands resumed their roaming and slipped under her Quidditch shirt. “Must be that famous Weasley temper channelling itself into other areas. I was expecting you to slap me for that kiss, not snog me.”

Ginny snorted with inadvertent laughter, groaning as his hands gently brushed her bra strap and her nipples hardened further in anticipation. This was wrong….it was too fast and they should stop. Harry, ever the stereotypical man, didn’t appear to be anywhere near to drawing that line in their relationship and so she would have to do it. “Stop that. I can’t think when you do…oh…that,” Ginny whimpered in a low voice as he stroked her back in time to their kisses, hands creeping ever closer to her point of no return.

“Alright,” Harry reluctantly complied with Ginny’s verbalized wishes, slowly bringing the kiss to a close and beginning to remove his hands. After all, this was the first step-albeit quite a large one- in building any future relationship they might have and he didn’t want to sabotage it before it had even begun.

“No, don’t,” she held his hands in place, leaning in to kiss him again. Harry gladly met her lips with his own before….“OK, yeah. Stop.”

He let out a frustrated sigh, removing his hands completely. Ginny’s back suddenly felt cold. “Well which is it?”

“Stop,” Ginny sighed, frustration from her throbbing body warring with her stubborn mind. Every fibre of her being was screaming at her to beware the man who was standing in front of her. He had hurt her, manipulated her….rejected her and now appeared to want her if the current state of his trousers was any indication. The insane part of herself was currently screaming to embrace the latter statement, throw him against the locker room doors and have her naughty way with him but the sane part of her told her to proceed with caution in order to preserve what was left of her dignity and ultimately, her heart. She sighed again, this time in resignation at the fact that her sanity had won out-again. “Look Harry. I don’t know what just happened between us but, whatever it is, it can’t happen again. At least not this way. I loved you, once upon a time and that’s the truth but you’ve hurt me and I just can’t forget that.”

“I know,” Harry stepped back and ran a hand through his unruly hair. “And I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” Ginny said finally, closing her eyes as her insane side won a small battle with the sane side and she opened her mouth again. “Which is why I want to go out with you Friday night, if you’re free.”

Harry’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that. “On a date? You and me?”

“No, with the other Boy-Who-Lived who just snogged me senseless. Yes, you. Now are you free or not?” Ginny rolled her eyes. This was the Harry she knew and loved. The self-conscious and innocent boy she had once watched her brother board the train to Hogwarts with, and the man that she had fallen in love with at the same moment.

“Yeah, I’m free,” Harry murmured, trying to digest the surreal situation that had just fallen into his lap. Not only was he going on a date with Ginny Weasley, but he hadn’t had to ask her himself-therefore cutting out the potential for being shot down and blamed-eventually-for ruining their friendship. “Where do you want to go?”

“Surprise me,” she smiled gently, relaxing slightly now that the answer she had gotten was clearly yes.

“Okay…” he nodded his head in thought, a smile now gracing his unsure features. “Friday then? 8 o’clock?”

“Friday, 8 o’clock.”

“Alright,” And with that, he left the locker rooms to Ginny and her thoughts, taking his own rapidly racing ones with him.