Chapter Text
Ginny sits next to me in herbology on Tuesday.
I want to die.
Instead, I offer a casual “Hey” when she sits down on the stool next to me. Her hair is in a tight French braid; she has quidditch practice tonight.
“Hey,” she replies. After a pause, she says, “Your mom works for the Prophet, right?”
I nod, happy to make small talk if it means she’s somehow oblivious to my disturbing behavior two days ago. “International news. She travels a lot.”
“Do you write?”
“Umm, no.” A lame response, but I wasn’t expecting an interview before taming plants that will try to maim me.
“What do you do, then?”
I give her a confused look.
She gestures to me, to my general being. The combat boots. The hair charmed black with its single streak of blue. The multiple piercings that practically encase my ears in gold. Then she says, “I’ve seen you with a sketchbook. Do you draw a lot?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” God, why am I so determined to fuck up this conversation? “Really any visual art. Sketching. Painting. Photography. I dabbled with design during third year. I’m not good at finishing projects.” This last statement is as much a deterrent as a confession. I hate when people ask to see my art. Most people do it to be polite; it’s a knee-jerk reaction to meeting an artist. “Oh! I’d love to see your work!” And then they feel the need to follow through, to persistently ask about it in an attempt to prove that they actually care about the shit you make.
Then you show it to them, and they have nothing interesting to offer. Someone who’s mum collects paintings will offer some weird comparison to a style that isn’t remotely related to anything I make. Or I’ll get a vague comment on “the colors” or “the composition,” buzzwords that even teenagers know to use. My favorite? “Wow, cool.”
Luckily, Sprout starts the lesson and Ginny doesn’t have the opportunity to feign interest in my artsy shit.
As we’re packing up our bags after class, though, Ginny says, “We should hang out sometime.” She’s not looking at me when she says it, her eyes fixed on the clasp of her bag, which is giving her an odd amount of trouble.
“That’d be great.” I’m instantly afraid that in my effort to avoid sounding too eager, I now sound board. Fantastic.
“Are you going into Hogsmeade this weekend?”
Obviously. “Yeah!” I try to sound a bit more excited, as though it’s a crazy coincidence that we’re both going on one of the five school-sanctioned outings of the year.
“Great. We’ll meet at the overlook of the shrieking shack.”
Why the mysterious rendezvous? I couldn’t begin to guess, but I’m not about to tell Ginny Weasley no.
And so five days later, I’m standing in freshly fallen snow, staring out at the shrieking shack. I’m lost in thought, my brain running in circles over how to handle a day with Ginny Weasley, when a flash of red appears in my peripheral vision.
“Have you ever been down there?”
I turn to her, propping myself against the fence, my back to the shack. “Hello to you, too.”
She blushes. “Hi.”
Holy shit. I made Ginny Weasley blush. And somehow she’s even prettier.
Fuck me this is going to be a disaster.
“No,” I say in answer to her question. “Have you?”
“Only once. My brothers say it’s a great place for mischief.”
She can only be talking about Fred and George. “What kinds of mischief?” I indulge.
“All kinds,” she says with a wink before slipping under the fence.
“Are you serious?” I grin.
She’s already stomping down the snowy hill, long hair flapping in a winter wind behind her. She flicks her wand over her shoulder, and the footprints begin to disappear as quickly as they form. “Come on, Bracken!”
I can’t descend the hill fast enough.
---
On the inside, the shack is creepier than I imagined it. Something monstrous has been in here; long claw marks rake down the walls, and I swear there a bits of dried blood absorbed into the floorboards.
It stirs a memory. “Is this where…” It feels taboo to finish the question.
Ginny just nods. “Dumbledore had the shack built when Lupin was a student here, so he’d have somewhere safe to go for the transformation.”
Fuck. “That’s dark.”
Ginny looks like she wants to say more, but instead we let the subject drop. “So you paint?” she asks in between groans of aged floorboards.
“Yeah.” And suddenly I’m telling her more than I’ve told anyone in years. I tell her first about the painting – what inspires me, what styles I’ve been experimenting with – and then we talk about my mum. Which leads to a conversation about her mum, about how Ginny loves Molly but doesn’t want to be like her, doesn’t want six kids and bills she can’t afford to pay and no way to contribute to the family income.
“I might want kids,” she admits, “but I don’t want so many. And I couldn’t stay at home with them. No way.”
The shadows move across the wall, and soon the sun has set. But we keep talking, our backs to the wall, knees inches apart as we freeze our asses against the uninsulated floor. It’s enchanting, the privacy. Knowing no one will interrupt us.
“We should get back,” I say at long last, knowing that they’ll be counting up the parade of students as they stomp through the great foyer of the Hogwarts castle. If they find us missing, there’ll be hell to pay, and I don’t want to be responsible for top student, chaser of the Gryffindor quidditch team Ginny Weasley getting a black mark on her record.
Ginny’s eyes meet mine as she says “We’ll be fine. I’m not done, yet.”
Then the wildest thing happens.
Ginny leans forward and kisses me.
It doesn’t happen all at once, but my brain still takes too long to make sense of what’s happening. She leans in, asking for permission. Pauses, waits to see what I’ll do. I’m frozen, though, my mind so convinced that this is impossible that reality doesn’t sink in until her lips are on mine.
Even then, my hands stay draped across my knees, forming into fists of confusion and nerves.
Ginny pulls away after a few seconds. “Sorry,” she says, her breathing already ragged, like it took all her will to lean in and do the thing I’ve been dying for her to do since…
“No,” I stammer. “No, you’re perfect.”
I don’t have time to cringe at the word choice, because now she’s kissing me again. This time, she takes my face in her cold hands and parts my lips with hers. Immediately, my body is on fire. I lean in, hands reaching for her and finding her neck, her waist. I pull her closer to me, and after a few long moments of aching necks and hungry mouths, I feel her shift.
Ginny straddles me, her red hair catching in the moonlight as she lowers her face to mine. Through many layers of lined pants, winter robes, and a coat, my hands find the curve of her ass. When I squeeze, Ginny bites my lip.
Fuck yes.
She keeps kissing me, her hands now pawing against my clothes but not moving to unzip or unbutton anything. Her fingers move back and forth, torn between the desire to rip something off me and the knowledge that it’s fucking freezing.
The kiss goes on for days, it seems. Both of us stuck in the limbo of wanting more and being unable to do much in the frigid air of the shack.
A sharp knock pulls us apart.
“Who?” Ginny mouths silently. I place a finger over her lips.
Another knock. “Orla Bracken. Ginevra Weasley.” I don’t recognize the voice. Not a professor, then. Who could they possibly have sent?
“We should run,” Ginny’s voice is gleeful, and her eyes in the moonlight are full of fire.
Is she crazy? I mouth an emphatic, “No!” My father would kill me; her mother would send a howler.
“It’d make a better story,” she grins. I’d never noticed until now just how much she looks like the twins. It’s in the eyes – those light brown orbs flecked with gold. Right now, they’re all mischief.
The knocking intensifies. Ginny grabs my hand. The door bursts open at the same time Ginny kisses me.
When she pulls away, I open my eyes to see two very pissed off Aurors looking down at us. Their faces are obscured by the light emanating from the ends of their wands. “Ginevra?” one of them – a woman – asks, looking directly at Ginny. The Weasley hair is hard to miss.
“Who’s asking?” Ginny asks with feigned innocence.
I stare at her, impressed. I’d heard rumors about what happened at the Ministry of Magic this summer, about the fight she and the others had been in with the Death Eaters. But that kind of bravery doesn’t mean someone’s willing to stand up to what everyone tells them is legitimate authority.
I had no idea Ginny had it in her.
“Orla Bracken?”
“That’s what they call me.”
A man’s deep voice. “You girls need to come with us.” His tone is graver than the situation warrants.
“Did we miss the curfew?” Ginny asks as we both stand.
Maybe he knows she was at the Ministry. Maybe he thinks she thinks she’s hot shit because she’s friends with Harry Potter. Maybe he hates teenagers. Or lesbians. Or maybe he just knows her brothers.
Whatever the reason, Ginny’s question pisses him off. He grabs us both by the arm and pushes us out of the shrieking shack. The female Auror starts asking us questions, then gently reprimands us for leaving the safety of Hogsmeade, the supervision of the teachers. “Don’t we know You-Know-Who is at large?” I don’t point out that if the teachers made any effort to supervise, we wouldn’t have made it to the shack to start with.
Ginny is perfectly calm through the whole thing, teasing the male Auror but completely unable to get anything but stern looks from him. When we get back to the castle, McGonagall is waiting in the foyer. She sends me up to Flitwick’s office and asks Ginny to follow her. As we part, Ginny gives me a wink over her shoulder.
My knees go a little wobbly.
I went into tonight crushing on Ginny Weasley. I’m coming out of it completely fucking infatuated.