Knickers

Chapter 8: Lying to Ourselves

Ginny Weasley was bored. This in itself wasn’t anything new; after all, she had been bored at many times in her life. She didn’t think however, that this emotion was something she should be feeling as she and her fiancée were having sex. Indeed, Colin normally would have her writhing in pleasure at this point but not today. No, today, the feel of her fiancées body on top of hers was simply annoying her.

“What’s wrong Ginny,” Colin murmured, his thrusting stopping as he noticed how distracted-and ultimately how far from an orgasm-she was.

Ginny looked up and gave a slight groan at the concerned look on Colin’s face. Obviously he was in one of the annoyingly caring moods that she found him in when he was eager to please her sexually. Personally, Ginny hoped that he would get the look off his face and stop making her guilty for the fact that she was currently in love with another man but was still thinking of going through with the wedding to Colin. Indeed, the overly caring attitude had only really started about two months ago, around the time that Ginny had begun to behave distant around him due to her newly realized feelings for Harry, and therefore the feelings of guilt that had begun to emerge…but Colin couldn’t know this so she put on the mask she had become used to wearing when she was around him and answered his question. “Nothing Colin,” she moaned slightly as his hand brushed over her sensitive stomach and reached up to caress her breast.

“You’re not even close though are you?” Colin asked sceptically, his hand moving down to the spot where they were even now joined, and found her clitoris, rubbing lightly.

Ginny decided that the only way to avoid this conversation was to prove what Colin was saying wrong. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure this meant faking an orgasm, something she had done on numerous occasions with her fiancée, especially when she was feeling as emotional as she had been the last few months.

“No,” she gasped lightly and arched her back, imagining that instead of Colin’s hand between her thighs, Harry’s was there. She started to feel herself getting more aroused, her channel beginning to get wetter. Maybe she wouldn’t have to fake the orgasm after all…

Colin must have felt this, a grin forming on his face as he realized that all it was going to take tonight was a little more pressure. With a smirk, he placed his thumb onto her clitoris and pressed down, pushing into her body with his penis and withdrawing to up the friction between the two of them.

Ginny groaned as the blood that had been for the last ten minutes or so residing solely in her head travel south to make her nether regions begin to ache. “I’m sorry but,” she imagined that it was now Harry’s cock that was, as she spoke, gently pushing into her body and withdrawing. “I’ve been a little distracted today. We lost the game and…” she closed her eyes as the waves of pleasure finally started to get bigger. She felt her eyes start to roll back into her head a bit, even though they were closed. Apparently she wouldn’t be able to feed Colin the prerequisite lie of being distracted tonight as the feelings coursing through her body prevented her from finishing what she had been about to say.

Colin felt Ginny’s internal muscles pulse a bit as she began to get more aroused by what he was doing to her. He frowned slightly. This distance between them wasn’t new, but it only recently had been occurring more frequently. Indeed, something was going on inside Ginny’s head and he didn’t know how to help her with it. At the moment however, this thought was being increasingly overwhelmed by the need to give his fiancée an orgasm that could quite possibly bring her back to him emotionally-at least for the evening. From beneath him, Ginny began to pant, breathy moans emerging from her mouth assuring Colin that at least for the moment, she was with him not only physically, but emotionally as well.

It was unfair really, Ginny thought as she moved herself a bit against Colin, the pressure between her legs becoming unbearable. He was a good man, her best friend really, but she wasn’t in love with him and quite frankly was imagining another man on top of her at the moment. Something was distinctly wrong with this picture but she wasn’t willing to admit to herself that perhaps the best thing for both of them was to call the wedding off…

Colin groaned, finally feeling Ginny begin to move under him as he moved his hand from her clitoris to stroke her breasts. The blood that had begun to recede from his cock was finally there again, as he began to thrust harder.

Ginny felt her body begin to tense in preparation for her orgasm. Through pleasure filled eyes, she stared up at her fiancée and groaned as she felt the pressure begin to retreat abruptly. With a sigh, she realized that the only way she was going to satisfy both herself and Colin was if she actually had an orgasm. This meant unfortunately, imagining herself somewhere else-with someone specifically. She closed her eyes, imagining again that it was Harry, and not Colin that was currently pumping into her body so erratically that she knew he was close to coming.

So was she as a matter of fact, the orgasm she had felt approaching and then receding returning with the strength of a freight train at the images her brain was conjuring. She opened her mouth and let another breathy moan escape, knowing that Colin would like that before wrapping her one leg around his waist and grinding her nether regions against his own in order to get some relief from the unbearable pleasure that was coursing through her body.

With a wrenching groan, she let herself come, barely stopping herself from calling Harry’s name. Colin followed, his stifled groan drowning her almost indiscretion with the sound of his own voice. If Ginny had been listening closely, she probably wouldn’t have felt so guilty.

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Colin lay on top of his fiancée, his heart still pounding and a guilty conscious plaguing his thoughts as he reviewed the fact that he had just almost called the name of a woman that wasn’t his fiancée during sex. Indeed, Colin had not been entirely truthful with himself when he said that it was Ginny who had been rather distant in the last few weeks; he felt that he had too. And this, he reflected as Ginny moved a bit and he felt his cock slip out of her, was cause for concern.

The truth of the matter was that he was in love with someone else and had been sleeping with her in secret for two months now.

He had met Laura Woodross at work two and a half months ago, Laura being a journalist from America who had recently transferred newspapers in order to be closer to her family in London. His editor, sensing that the pair of them would make a good team, had immediately re-assigned Colin to work with Laura, taking photos to accompany her stories in the ‘Daily Prophet.’ They had become fast friends and before Colin had known it, they had been pursuing a relationship, despite the fact that at the time they had both been very aware of his engagement to Ginny.

Indeed, Laura was like a drug for him; he knew he shouldn’t have her, shouldn’t spend hours on end in illicit liaisons that masqueraded as assignments. But he couldn’t and truth be told, he really didn’t want to. The fact of the matter was that Ginny was his best friend and at the time of his proposal he had genuinely wanted to marry her. But now….now, he didn’t know. He still loved her, he knew that much, but he knew that deep down inside, he loved Laura more. Due to his almost verbal indiscretion just moments ago though, he didn’t know if he would have to go through with the marriage after all.

“Colin,” Ginny murmured as she kissed his neck gently. “That was wonderful.”

Colin smiled nervously, glad that Ginny couldn’t see his face right now. Apparently she hadn’t noticed the fact that he had just barely stopped himself from calling out another woman’s name while he had been making love to her. With a sigh, he returned the kiss and hugged her tightly to him. He didn’t know how to break it to Ginny that he had deep feelings for another woman. Didn’t want to really. After all, she was his best friend and, while he couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life with anyone but Laura at this point, his best friend was a close second. Besides all that, he didn’t relish dumping a woman with six older brothers…

But he couldn’t seem to stop the niggling voice in his head that told him that something was distinctly wrong when the thought of marrying a woman that he had proposed to just two months before didn’t send the same shivers of happiness through his body. He wasn’t willing to admit to himself that perhaps the best thing for both of them was to call the wedding off. Maybe this was the best thing for both of them. Now though, as he began to feel Ginny start to drift off next to him, he put these thoughts out of mind, and out of sight. He loved her…sort of, and at the moment that was all that mattered.
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“You know Harry, you didn’t have to stay in the hospital with me,” Katie murmured as she took a bite of the green Jell-O that she had been served as a bedtime snack. She grimaced as she took a bite. She was hungry but she didn’t qualify what was in the bowl in her hand as actual food. With a sigh, she leaned forward and placed the almost full bowl on the table next to her bed.

Harry smirked as he noticed Katie’s reaction to the vile green concoction she had attempted to eat. With a sigh of his own, he reached into his jacket pocket and got out the Milky Way bar that he had bought when he had gone home for a change of clothes earlier.

Katie cast him a grateful look as she took the bar of chocolate he was offering her, “You are a God, you know that right?”

Harry shrugged, leaning back in his chair, “I do what I can.” Suddenly remembering what else he had brought back from his impromptu shopping trip, he stood and went to the table beside the door, picking up the bundle of lilies he had sat there when he had come into the room 5 minutes ago. “I got these for you too.”

Katie put down the chocolate bar on the table next to the Jell-o and took the flowers, “Oh Harry, you shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I should have. How many times have you either a) visited me in this very hospital or b) brought me anything here? Flowers are the least I can do,” he said, sitting back down again. “And the fact that I’ve decided to stay here in the hospital until someone either kicks me out or you get well is beside the point. We wouldn’t want the gossip mongers to get wind that Harry Potter isn’t standing by his fiancée in her time of need, now would we?” He finished with another smirk, leaning forward to place a kiss on Katie’s lips. He pulled back slightly, now dropping smaller kisses onto Katie’s neck as he continued to talk, “Besides, who was it that was with me the last time I landed myself in here?”

Katie smiled, “Thank you Harry,” she said softly. She pulled back, trying to tamp down the feelings of arousal that Harry was drawing from her. Now was neither the time nor the place. Desperate for a distraction, she looked down at her flowers. “These are my favourites, you know,” she gulped nervously.

“Yes I know that,” Harry said sitting back in his chair again, smirking at how flustered he had made his fiancée. He looked down, twiddling his fingers against the chair arm impatiently, a frown replacing the smirk that had so recently been gracing his features. He had something to tell Katie and he wasn’t sure how well she was going to like it.

Katie’s brow furrowed, forgetting the feelings of arousal she was feeling as concern for her fiancée rose to the forefront of her mind, “Harry, are you alright?” she asked, placing the flowers into the vase by the bed and taking one of Harry’s hands.

“Hmmm?” Harry looked up, deciding to just go for it. “Yes, I’m fine. It’s just that you’ve got an interview that Oliver set up for you in five minutes and I’m trying to work up the nerve to tell you,” he shot her a boyish look, relief lighting his face up. “Guess I don’t have to worry about that now, do I?”

“Harry!” Katie cried angrily, dropping Harry’s hand, “How could you let him do that?”

“Well it’s in our contracts Katie,” Harry sighed, his right hand-now free- coming up to rub his temple.

“But…” Katie stuttered. “I’ve only been here a few hours. How does he know that I’ve recovered enough to even give interviews?”

“He asked your doctor,” Harry said succinctly, “And besides, you know as well as I do that this is part of the job. The public wants to know and you are as aware as I am that the papers will just make it up anyways if they don’t get their interview. You might as well have a say in how the story’s told.”

Katie looked down at her hands, pouting. She hated when Harry was right.

“And quite frankly I think you should be grateful he didn’t shove one of these onto you in the ambulance the way he did to me,” Harry cracked a joke, remembering the week from hell he had experienced near the beginning of the Quidditch season. “I was on the same painkillers you were on, didn’t know what I was saying, and looked like shit.”

Katie tried to stifle a laugh. The entire wizarding world had thought that their ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ was dying and had acted accordingly on this, flooding his hospital room with flowers, gifts, and the odd woman, sent specifically to satisfy the Boy-Who-Lived before he joined his family in the, and he quoted, ‘great beyond.’

Needless to say, Harry hadn’t been amused.

“Who’s doing the interview then?” Katie said, suitably chastised and now extremely grateful that Oliver had chosen to do this tonight, after she had had the bones in her leg, ribs and arm healed, and her concussion dealt with. Indeed, right now Katie Bell, Star Chaser for the Chudley Cannons was simply dealing with exhaustion and the aftermath of the potions that had been put to use on her body.

“Laura Woodross from the ‘Daily Prophet.’ You know, that American woman who works with Colin?”

Katie nodded, “Good, I like her work. Is Colin coming with her tonight? I’m not sure I’m up to pictures.”

Harry shook his head, “No, he’s on a date with Ginny tonight,” he grimaced, trying not to think to hard about this and to move on to more relevant topics. “And I like Laura’s work too,” Harry agreed, “She’s certainly better than Rita Skeeter, now isn’t she?”

“Well I would like to think so,” a tall lanky blonde with an American accent who Harry assumed was Laura, smiled from the doorway.

Harry’s suspicions were confirmed though when she came forward, hand extended, “Laura Woodross, Daily Prophet. Are you ready for your interview, or is this a bad time?”

Katie smiled, “No, come on in. This is a great time actually.”

And with that, Harry watched as his fiancée and Laura got on with the interview, chatting as if they were old friends. Harry admired this in a reporter. Indeed, being able to put one’s interviewee at ease was something that he felt was lacking from the previous staff at the ‘Daily Prophet.’ The fact that she never wrote anything but the truth about him-good and bad-was also a change after the years of being the scapegoat for the newspaper that Laura currently worked at.

Something about her was familiar though, something that he couldn’t quite place. Laura tossed her hair, laughing at something that Katie had said and that was when Harry noticed it-the strangely familiar navy sweater that Laura was currently wearing that he swore he remembered Ginny giving Colin last Christmas. But it couldn’t be, could it? There had to be some explanation. Surely she had to have bought it at the same store Ginny had. It had nothing to do with the fact that she worked in close proximity with Colin. But he had to know…

“Laura,” Harry stopped her, “Sorry to interrupt, but where did you get that sweater? My friend Hermione has a birthday coming up and I’d like to get her one.” This fact was true; Hermione DID have a birthday coming up, but it was Harry’s overly suspicious and jealous mind that was forcing him to ask to question in the first place.

Laura shot him a smile, “Well I’d love to tell you that Harry, but I don’t know. It was my boyfriend’s, hence the large factor. He lent it to me on our last date and I forgot to give it back to him. Silly, I know.” She laughed self-deprecatingly at this point, pulling at the sweater that was indeed large on her, clearly a man’s size

Warning bells went off in Harry’s head. He had to be wrong, this could not be the same sweater. Instinctively, his eyes moved to the bottom left corner or the sweater, searching for the monogrammed letters that Ginny had sewn in for Colin. His anger rose as he found them.

“A boyfriend you say?” He asked after a moment, trying to reign his anger in. “Anyone I know?”

“Yeah, I’ve been seeing him for two months now and no, you probably don’t know him,” Laura said impatiently, and a bit nervously if Harry didn’t miss his guess. Her hand went down to cover the initials on the sweater. With shaking hands, she said apologetically, “I’m sorry Harry, but I really need to be getting back to this interview, I promised my editor I’d have this story for the paper tomorrow and I need to get this done if I want to do that. I can ask him where he got it if you want.”

“Yeah, sure,” Harry said curtly, silently telling himself that he needed more evidence before he jumped to any conclusions.

“Alright then,” Laura murmured, looking down at her notes in a flustered manner. Harry noticed that her hands were still shaking slightly. But then she went back to the interview and all was well again, at least for the moment.

Katie shot him an annoyed look that he had interrupted for such a trivial thing but soon went back to the good-natured conversation that she had been having with Laura.

Harry stood, needing to talk to someone objective about all this, namely Hermione, and gathered his coat, “I’ll be back in awhile, okay?”

Katie nodded, not even breaking her sentence.

With that, Harry left, praying for Colin’s sake that his theory was wrong, that Colin wasn’t cheating on Ginny. If he was…well, Merlin help him when Harry and Ginny’s brothers got a hold of him.