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After the tryouts for the Auror Quidditch Team, Harry filled in the form requested by Allan Murray of Department of Magical Games and Sports. Even though it was just an instant team for Kingsley’s propaganda to advertise that Ministry of Magic in Britain would be trustworthy, Harry had confidence his team would win at least once against Puddlemere United. One win was enough for the Auror Headquarters against such a famous professional team. He folded the document into a paper plane, tapped the wing with his holly wand. It took off to Murray’s office, brushing Ron’s face when he entered the office. He glanced back in the direction the plane had gone.
“Is that the Quidditch form?”
“Yep. Don’t worry. I wrote your name as regular Keeper.” Harry stood up and stared at his disorderly desk, “I need to tidy up,” he muttered.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m wondering who you put as Seeker.” Ron sat down on his swivel chair, leaning against the back of it and causing it to make a squeaky sound.
“I’ll tell you later at the Leaky Cauldron. New trainees are waiting for us there.” He glanced at his scattered files and shook his head. He didn’t feel like organizing them. He wanted to have a pint of beer. “Let’s go,” he said.
Ron stood up and craned his neck to get a look at Zabini’s desk. “I want to know Zabini's trick. How does he keep his desk so neat?”
Harry followed Ron's gaze to Zabini’s tidy desk next to Williamson’s, which was messy as well. “I’m convinced that no Gryffindor wizards are good at that kind of magic except Percy,” he joked.
Ron cracked a smile. “Yeah, I agree. Dad is more typical.”
Harry smiled at the memory of Arthur’s junk shed and nodded towards the door, meaning to leave. Ron was going to follow him, but he halted. “Harry,wait. I forgot to tell you, Mum sent me an owl to ask you about your birthday party. She wants you to ask Andromeda to come with you and Teddy.”
“Yes,okay. Come on, Ron. They’re waiting.” Harry gestured at the entrance door of the office and raised his eyebrows. Ron looked undecided between leaving and saying more. He hesitated for a while before finally opening his mouth. “Harry, I've been thinking, and...I’m sorry about that time when I interrupted you while you were saying good-bye to Ginny on your birthday.” His ears went red with embarrassment as he spoke.
Harry soon understood what his friend meant, and stared at the polished floor, feeling embarrassed. The memory of when Ginny let him come in her room two years ago rushed back to his mind. Ron continued, “If I had known everything that was going to happen...that you were going to walk into the Forbidden Forest like that ...I might not have stopped you.”
Harry stepped towards Ron, put his right hand on his shoulder, and said with a smile,“You cared about your sister, and you didn't want her to get hurt. I know.”
Ron smiled back, and they left for the pub. They decided to take the subway, for Ron had told Harry he wanted to experience the tube. Ron was very excited by the sight of red buses and black cabs. He seemed to enjoy the hustle and bustle of the crowded stone and brick forest of London. At the entrance to the underground, a girl with curly, chestnut-brown hair was strumming the old acoustic guitar singing a melancholy song:
All through the first part of that night
We did lie in sport and play
When this young man arose and he gathered his clothes
Saying “fare thee well today” *
Ginny’s blazing look before she kissed him jumped in Harry's mind. The song took him back in time to when she kissed him in her room of the Burrow two years ago. He had been completely unprepared for that. Her lips were so warm when they were pressed up against his own. He'd hardly had a moment to react, just felt the softness of her and the fire spread through his entire body, urging him to devour her. At the same time, his chivalry was simmering.
When he'd saved her in the Chamber of Secrets in his second year, it seemed his destiny then to be hers. She was the only woman he could love. Only she could have given him strength to hunt Tom Riddle’s horrifiying weapons.
He held her back. When his arms wrapped around her, he felt her joyful tremble. Her arms reached up and tangled around his neck, and she deepened the kiss, moaning at the contact, her body against of his own. Her sigh of pleasure feeling told him she wanted him. That was the first and the last time for him to love her, he'd thought desperately.
Tomorrow he had to leave her. If he failed to beat Voldemort, he would never see her again. No, he didn’t want to forget her beautiful, sweet smelling red hair. He wanted to remember her soft, freckled skin forever. He wanted to keep in his mind that she was the only girl who could understand how he loved flying on his Firebolt during playing Quidditch, how joyful he felt when she made jokes and laughed. It was her who had understood his anger when nobody could believe him about Voldemort's return. She was his only real thing, his glittering light in the dark world. She was someone to fight for. He'd sworn he would come back, would come back alive to her. He'd known she was also thinking the same thing.
That's not the promise that you gave to me
When the first you lay on my breast
You could make me believe with your lying toungue
That the sun rose in the west *
Her breath sent shivers up his spine. They'd been close to her bed. But before he could lie her down, the door had banged open behind them, and Ron and Hermione had barged in.
Harry put down two pounds into the velvet inside the guitar case, and muttered to himself,“What if..”
Then he looked back at Ron, who was now puzzling over an automatic ticket gate, just like Arthur Weasley. He grinned and walked back towards his best mate to tell him how to go through.
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Author's Note: Many thanks to two wonderful beta readers, krazyboutharryginny and BookDinasour.
(*Blackwater Side by Sandy Denny)