Work Text:
They stumbled out of the portrait hole still laughing, falling clumsily into one another’s arms as the portrait swung shut and blocked the sounds of excited shouting and chatter, kissing each other elatedly until the Fat Lady snapped at them for inappropriate displays of affection.
Harry glanced up at her with what he hoped was an apologetic look, but he was unable to remove the grin from his face. ‘Come on,’ he said, tugging on Ginny’s hand.
She laughed as he pulled her towards the stairs. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere private,’ he said, and then felt himself blush as she raised her eyebrows and smirked. He laughed sheepishly. ‘I just mean - I don’t want to be watched by portraits or anyone else.’
She squeezed his hand as they hurried down the stairs, and into another corridor, and he was so giddy with disbelief that he turned, walking backwards so he could look at her. ‘You kissed me back,’ he blurted out. ‘Thank god.’
‘Excuse me, you kissed me back,’ she said, her eyes mischievous, her grin wicked.
He didn’t stop smiling, but frowned and shook his head. ‘Fairly sure I caught you, lifted you a bit and kissed you.’
‘Fairly sure I’m the one who ran towards you and threw myself into your arms?’
‘That could have just been for a hug,’ he pointed out. ‘And I-’ But in his insistence of walking backwards he hadn’t realised that he had veered to the left and caught his shoulder on a bust, which wobbled dangerously until he caught it with a panicked expression and steadied it. Ginny cackled with laughter, and, when he was safely out of the way of the scowling bust of Paranaeus, she pushed him against the rough stone wall and kissed him again.
He took a sharp intake of breath as he felt himself pinned against the wall, her hands running up onto his shoulders, kissing one another deeply. He could hardly believe it - his heart was singing in his throat, his insides were trembling in excitement, his head was dizzy with glee.
She pulled away, and he blinked stupidly. ‘You… what?’ asked Ginny.
‘Huh?’
‘You said it could have just been for a hug, and you…?’
‘Oh - yeah-’ he said, his mind rushing. ‘Yeah - And I’m the one who’s been wanting to kiss you for ages.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she said, her eyes glinting. ‘Why didn’t you, then?’
This had not been what he expected - he expected her to ask since when, or react with surprise and now felt quite caught off guard. He chuckled as he stared at her and wondered how to phrase it. ‘Er… You probably won’t be impressed if I say “Ron”, will you?’
She tutted. ‘And here I thought you were the bravest person I knew.’
‘Well I am very brave,’ he told her, grinning. ‘But I’m also very considerate of your brother-’
‘Ugh,’ she said, exaggerating her disappointment. ‘This will never work.’
‘Let’s not be too hasty about that,’ he said, tilting his head down to kiss her again.
They were just starting to really get into it when Harry felt a sudden, unpleasantly cold sensation come through his back and entirely surround him. Ginny clearly felt it too, for she yelped as they broke apart - the Fat Friar had come zooming through the wall, and without waiting to hear what the long-dead monk would say to them, Harry seized Ginny’s hand and led her at a run down the corridor, both of them spluttering with laughter, still clumsily clinging to each other every time they turned to see if the silvery ghost was following them, breathless and joyful as they ran all the way out to the grounds.
When they got there, the sun was just starting to slip behind the dark, rugged mountains, casting long shadows and a thick, golden sort of air around them. They slowed to a stroll, still hand in hand, towards the dark lake which lay perfectly still and glossy.
‘I’ve been desperate to get you on your own,’ he told her. ‘Every time I thought I had, Ron would pop up.’
‘So you thought you may as well jump to the other end of the scale and snog me in front of everyone?’
‘Yeah,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It’s OK though, I looked over at Ron and he did this.’ He did his best impression of Ron’s slightly stunned expression and jerk of the head, and Ginny snorted with laughter.
‘The best we can hope for, I think.’
Her hair was so delightfully pretty in this light, it caught and shone like fire, so soft looking, and now, finally, after so many months of wanting to, he could…
He kissed her her again, more slowly this time, and tentatively raised his hand to her temple and then into her long, sweet smelling hair. He was sure he was melting, it was everything he had thought it would be, but better, and she was finally here, he was holding her and kissing her and Ron hadn’t changed his mind and run out and started punching him yet.
They broke apart, but didn’t move their faces very far from one another. He could see her warm brown eyes searching him; in this light the freckles scattered endearingly across her face seemed to match them perfectly. His hand was still in her hair, and he let it brush through, feeling the tendrils slip over his finger like silk, then coming round to graze along her jaw, rest under her chin, and tilt her face up to kiss her once more.
He thought he felt her hum slightly beneath his lips, but she was kissing him back so meaningfully, and her arms were pulling him closer in such a tender sort of way, that he barely registered it. He was quite lost in her.
It all felt so natural, he though, as they continued the walk down to the lake edge. None of the awkwardness or anxiety or painful embarrassment that he had seemed to eternally feel around Cho. If it weren’t for the thought of ‘this is actually happening!’ that kept screaming excitedly in his head, they might have been doing this for years.
‘Oh, hey, what happened with the match?’ he asked.
‘It was really tough, they were in the lead for so much of it - to be fair, Ron was doing a pretty decent job for once, but Demelza got knocked out by a bludger-’
‘Is she OK?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘Oh, yeah, she’s fine - but obviously that meant we only had Dean and Katie. Katie carried it, to be honest, but she could only do so much. It was so frustrating being Seeker, I kept moving to intercept then remembering I wasn’t allowed.’
She told him every detail, complete with spot on impressions of the other players and Ernie MacMillan, who had been commentating, moving her hands to demonstrate the best maneuvers; simply being so animated that he couldn’t help but grin at her, enraptured, perfectly able to picture it all. ‘And then I got the snitch, obviously,’ she said. ‘It was easy - seems to me that whole position is about hanging around doing nothing then swooping in and getting all the glory.’
‘It has to be an extremely impressive swoop though,’ he told her. ‘Was it?’
‘Obviously,’ she replied, smirking. ‘Better than any I’ve seen from you.’
‘I doubt that, but to be on the safe side I’ll be keeping you as Chaser next year so you don’t show me up any more.’
‘If that makes you feel better,’ she teased, and then she reached up to kiss him again. How did she fit so perfectly? How had it taken him this long?
‘Caught the snitch from right under Cho Chang’s nose, did you?’ he asked slyly, as they broke apart.
Her ears went red but that wicked grin was back, her eyes sparkling. ‘Under her nose? She was miles behind me. Didn’t even get a look in.’
‘I bet.’
‘How was your detention?’ she asked.
He laughed darkly. ‘Miserable. He had me rewriting old detention slips.’
‘What? Why? What on earth do we need to preserve those for?’
‘Well, he had me start in the 70s, for what I’m sure was a perfectly random coincidence and not at all because he knew I’d have to write my dad and Sirius’s names over and over again.’
She scowled. ‘He’s such a psychopath…’ He laughed in agreement, and her face brightened. ‘Were there any funny ones?’
He frowned as he remembered. ‘Now that I’m not doing it anymore and I know what happened with the match… Yeah, there are definitely some I want to ask Lupin about. Like how and why someone called Professor Ainsworth found them in the Hufflepuff girl’s dormitory…’ he waited to appreciate her expressing, stuck between admiration and shock, ‘…covering Sharon Dawkin’s bed in flobberworms.’
She burst out laughing, and he chuckled with her. ‘Why?’ she cried.
He shrugged. ‘That’s for Lupin to explain, I think.’ He stopped on the stony shore of the lake, and they looked out at the reflection of the mountains in the glassy water. He pulled slightly on her hand so she swung gently round, and he caught her in his arms. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly, ‘for winning the match.’
‘Thank you for finally summoning up the guts to kiss me,’ she whispered back. He kissed her again, sinking into it, his heart aching with happiness, clutching her so close he was sure he could never let go.