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split-n-splice · 6 years ago

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"Her reputation going sour was no secret." – a line of interest from Ch1 of The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie. ;3 Just throwin’ that out there. Also! A definite nod to the cupcakery here, because headcanon: those recipes were taken from Drakken’s cookbook. Also headcanon: Drakken likes baking, fite me. This makes sense to me since Ron likes baking, and since Drakken’s shown interest in recipes.

Edited by @gogofordrakgo ♥ (ohlawd thnx for putting up w/ me)

[Chapter Guide]

7. Enabler – 4

As his first day alone in more than two weeks wore on, Dr. Drakken became increasingly aware he was off his game.

He haphazardly wrapped up the order of power staves and shipped them off to free up his schedule. Even left with a surplus of free time on his hands, left in the total privacy of his lab with no one to hover and no distracting upgrades to personalized combat gear to win himself brownie points, he made very little headway on his drones.

He managed to get one robot up and running, so to speak, but commands that seemed so simple like stand and walk just didn’t compute. Yet the buggy self-aware machine managed to rise on its own accord and point to the unassembled duplicates strewn about in a thousand different pieces on his worktable. Worst of all, the bare-bones robot began chanting, “sisters, sisters, sisters,” incessantly until something Drakken said or did caused its head to snap his direction. Preservation activated and an artificial fight or flight drive tripped, unfortunately geared toward fight. The skeletal droid abruptly announced him a threat to the sisters and lurched into action. Lucky for him, there was still a plug to pull.

He could have used some assistance in disabling the mutinous drone, but he managed on his own, as he always had. He shut down the project for the day to tend to a swollen lip received in the collision of steel knuckles and his face.

Back in his quarters, he couldn’t help casting glances to the phone, itching to dial – to dial someone. Anyone. He knew exactly who he wanted to ring up and give an earful to, but he clenched his fists and stamped a foot and grunted to himself as he stalked away from the landline. He had a headache and didn’t need to deal with her attitude now anyway.

Solitude was still disheartening. If he had expected a call from the runaway that evening to update him of her progress or lack thereof, or even to say goodnight or make small talk or anything at all, then he was sorely disappointed.

Drakken knew she wouldn’t have approved – in fact he was certain she would have been furious with him if she’d known – but he’d taken the liberty of sending out henchmen to gather intel on the superhuman. Granted, he’d lost those resourceful fellows, who’d only just returned from the assignment with their haul a day before getting the axe.

As Drakken lugged the overflowing box out of the storage room the next day, he reasoned with himself that he deserved to know who he’d been harboring, especially if he planned to continue to do so. He’d been just a little too wary to touch the box before, lest she pop up behind him to catch him red handed.

He deposited it on his coffee table and locked the door to his quarters for good measure, just in case the woman returned and came barging in at an especially undesirable time.

An abundance of manila folders stuffed with news articles topped the box, and if the men hadn’t already been fired, Drakken might have tipped whoever was responsible for courteously ordering the articles by date, even if he’d nearly scattered them as he unthinkingly tossed them aside while rummaging. VHS and cassette tapes at the bottom of the box made up the other half of the heft. Infiltrating a Global Justice base to steal her official records had been asking too much of the henchman, but an excess of media coverage to expose her would have to be good enough.

With the Bebe bots a bust and a woman who wasn’t even present distracting him still, Drakken settled in to squander his day reading what the sacked henchmen had scrounged up. He could spend an entire week reviewing her hero streak, reading the articles and watching the news reports or listening to interviews on tape, but he elected to skim through the past the four years worth of clippings, pulling out a folder from the bottom of the stack to begin.

A few nights ago, at three in the morning, he had been woken by the girl slamming his “front” door and stalking to his kitchen, the green embers glittering over her skin burning off perspiration and nearly setting her pajamas ablaze. She forwent a glass and drank straight from the faucet before hanging over his sink to hold her head under the stream of water, cursing about a comet. She’d looked just a little too unstable for him to hazard questioning her then, and had returned to his room to let her raid his kitchen for a midnight snack in peace.

So Dr. Drakken wasn’t altogether surprised when the earliest scant news coverage regarded a chip off a comet that had struck down in the suburbs of Go City. It had come so fast and so sudden that there had only been a couple blurry shots of the meteorite’s decent and recovery to accompany the articles. That it hadn’t left a bigger crater or caused fatalities was a mystery, but there was no mention of five quarantined adolescents caught up in the catastrophe either, so a cover-up wasn’t improbable.

Within the year, a trio of teenagers in uniform were garnering admiration of the general populace with their heroic feats. Front-page photos of a distantly familiar girl with her hair still short and boyish beside defeated villains bound up and posed with like trophies, frequently smiling smugly for the camera, should have been enough to make any villain in his right mind reconsider taking her in. Drakken wanted to believe he knew her better than that – that she wasn’t the vigilante she claimed she never wanted to be, and that there was no chance she might be on her way back to his lair with her teammates to hand his ass to him at any moment – but it wasn’t so easy.

Guiltily, he came realize that maybe she hadn’t been pulling his leg about her piloting capability after all when he found a clipping from last fall, featuring a photograph of a far more recognizable woman in uniform along with two young men like her in front of a jet as colorful as their suits, which had been generously donated to them by Global Justice. The Go Tower constructed in the bay a year earlier served as a monument and a base, and Dr. Drakken would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little envious that some superhuman youths had it all handed to them on a silver platter just for swearing an oath to use their gifts for good.

The set of gloves he’d fashioned paled in comparison to the extravagant gifts from Global Justice and Go City. Clearly, giving her things was no way to win her allegiance, because the girl’s hero career had been short-lived. She’d served little more than three years. If she’d only abided by their rules, she could have been living it up, yet she’d formally quit her team months ago.

As of this year, there was a marked change in the tone of the headers. There was less and less praise to be found, until there was next to none at all. If he’d been hoping to find reassurance she was genuinely a bad seed, he got it, though snooping made him feel worse with each article he skimmed over.

Nasty gossip sprung up like weeds. Disbelief and speculation aplenty could be found in clippings from newspapers and magazines as to why she’d abandoned her occupation as a beloved hero. The supply of libel following her resignation was endless. If he had to guess, serving under Global Justice had kept such publications suppressed before, but she’d lost that perk when she put her foot down on doing their bidding.

Blasting scandalous, one popular rumor circulated that she’d withdrawn because she was a typical case of irresponsible teen pregnancy, such negligence marking her unfit to be a role model any longer. That she was still occasionally seen in uniform despite her quitting should have proven she wasn’t expecting – but instead it inspired ridicule and controversy over endangerment and abortion. There was no wining on that front without a good lawyer, which he doubted the girl behind the mask could afford without Global Justice’s charity.

That lost traction when the former hero lashed out at a news reporter on live television. Written accounts played it off as if it had been unprovoked, but Dr. Drakken found a tape on the incident at the bottom of the box that proved otherwise. He was hesitant to hit play on the copy of the broadcast. The masked young woman trying to escape a bombardment of questions was hard to watch as she was confronted by the press with the matter of substance abuse, among other things, all because marijuana was said to be smelled on her clothes. Once detox was mentioned, the cornered superhuman – disheveled and fresh out of an unsanctioned battle – lost her cool and attacked the reporter outright. It was all caught on camera until she was swept away screaming profanities by her gorilla of a brother.

Less than a month later, paparazzi spotted her outside of her hero attire, a familiar ponytail and mismatched boots enough to give her away. It was bad enough she was recognized without her uniform and mask, but she was caught smoking with some punks on a school campus. The snapshot was fuzzy, and there was no way to distinguish what was probably only a cigarette from anything else, but nevertheless it brought an impending graduation into question.

It did not help when some wacked-out addict, an unreliable source if there ever was one, came forward claiming to have taught her the art of cooking meth. The junkie was later found battered and left on the steps of a rehab center. Her signature plasma burns left on the man sparked ever more gossip as to her changing demeanor and bad habits.

On the hero scene, Shego had been golden – but after quitting, the press wasted no time in tarnishing her reputation. Her worsening temper and foul mouth didn’t help the backlash. Her name had been drug through the mud over the past six months, with only a few gems of praise from faithful groupies to be found among the stack of slander.

Dr. Drakken wouldn’t be surprised if it was all true, even the conspiracy theories mixed in about her being from another planet.

"This is why I don't like the hero scene. Everyone knows everything," she’d told him the night he’d found her wandering down a highway in the dark. He hadn’t had much to lose that night when he went with a gut feeling and sprung the proposition on the downtrodden young woman, but whether or not it was the right decision remained to be seen.

Given the stress of the media hounding her every move, both on and off duty, and the family turmoil he’d witnessed from a distance, Dr. Drakken had to bottle his pity for how discontent the runaway must have been to actually jump in a car with an utter stranger and just go.

Before the guilt of prying could get to him too badly, he called it quits and stuffed everything back into the box, double-checking the VCR to be sure he didn’t forget anything she might find later. She’d made it explicitly clear she didn’t want him digging into her past. Even if the box contained publicly available media – for the most part – going through it left a bad taste in his mouth, as if he’d been reading her diary.

Despite the evidence he had that she was indeed a bad apple with a slim chance of returning to her old life, it still felt unwise to put everything on the line for an ex-hero that could easily thwart his plans from the inside. Drakken sat back and shut his eyes, straining to take her words to heart no matter how difficult it was to do so.

“Trust her,” he snorted. “Trust her to what? Bring her brothers to my doorstep?”

But then, he supposed she could have done that already. If she’d wanted to stop him before he could become a major threat, she could have cornered him back in Go City, when she had her team close by to back her up. And even once she was in the lair, she’d had ample time to call in the hounds, and plenty of opportunity to hack into his computers to uncover any master plans, yet she hadn’t busted him yet.

Drakken slumped with his head thrown back over the spine of the couch, stewing a short while on how trustworthy this new partner of his really was, before tuning in to Go City broadcasts to watch the news. She’d only been gone about thirty hours, but he still waited with the bleak expectation to hear some breaking news announcement of her return to the metropolis, anticipating it to be a reason to rejoice. None came, but it still served to worry him.

Leaving the television on, he gave it just a little longer as his stomach drew him toward his kitchen. He’d never had breakfast. He wasn’t even sure if he’d had dinner yesterday. The phone drew his eye though, and he forcibly looked away from it and to the fridge as he took inventory. It was getting a tad late to start on any lab projects, and he could still taste a sore reminder of yesterday’s mishap on his lip.

A check through his cookbook and he found himself gravitating back toward the phone once again. He grudgingly made a call, although it wasn’t the number his fingers itched to dial, and greeted his mother with a weary, “Hello,” and waited for the next half hour for the woman’s exuberance to die down enough to get a word in edgewise.

“That one?” chirped his mother. “Honey, are you feeling alright?”

Drakken blinked and sucked on his split lip. “Relatively speaking,” he slipped. He fished out his notebook and spread it open, eager to get the call over with. “Um. The market will be closing soon,” he lied. “So can I get that recipe?”

“Only if you call me later to tell me how they turn out,” the woman haggled haughtily.

“I’ve made devil’s food before, mother,” he sighed, drumming his pen on the pad. He noticed the pages of memos on the recent gloves and flipped to a fresh page with a small snort.

“Not with my recipe, you haven’t,” chided the woman, and proceeded to let him in on the family secrets in detail. Word for word, he copied down the recipe she knew by heart, running the instructions and ingredients by her once before thanking his mother and heading out the door.

By midnight, a sweet tooth had been satisfied, but sitting alone at the counter with a warm devil’s food muffin drizzled with chocolate ganache just brought his awareness to a weird sort of cavity he wasn’t unfamiliar with but had been successful in ignoring for years – until now, apparently.

He decided he’d have to tell his mother about the muffins tomorrow. It was late, and if he dared pick up the phone now, he might dial the wrong number accidentally on purpose.

The third day alone wasn’t any more productive than the last, but at least he didn’t spend it holed up in his quarters gorging on muffins. True, he’d slept through his alarm, but he gave himself the excuse that it was Sunday, and he’d spent the latter half of his night lying wide awake staring at his ceiling in a vain effort to get some shut eye.

He could tell himself all he wanted that fresh air would do him some good, but it was a lie. Testing out a back-burner product on new targets the henchmen had been tasked to whip up did little to improve his mood. The vaporizing rifle prototype did its job fine, obliterating the targets, though the sight was off and it really needed work to fix an issue of kickback that just about dislocated his shoulder.

Other than taking down a couple memos to be sure he did that, he didn’t make any progress to speak of on his projects. The random destruction of dummies and henchmen fearing they’d be the next targets did little to inspire him and get his head back in the game.

He knew exactly who to blame for it, too. Little ol’ her was a troublesome woman. Though he wasn’t sure if he was worried for her wellbeing – maybe a little, but maybe not – he was certainly stressed enough worrying about the potential consequences letting her go could have. The thorn in his side wasn’t even here and she had him more distracted and frazzled than ever.

Drakken shoved the elaborate rifle into the hands of the henchman on standby and ordered him to return the contraption to the closet, but the henchman didn’t march off immediately, and instead asked something as daringly out of line and ludicrous as, “Rough breakup?” Which sent Drakken reeling as if he’d been cut, and he vehemently ordered the goon to get a move on if he didn’t want to be booted along with the rest.

He ate another damn muffin for lunch, knowing damn well the sweet confection wouldn’t improve his bitter mood.

When the phone rang, he was all too quick to dive for it. Answering was a mistake, and he struggled with the balance of taking bites of savory chocolate and holding a conversation with his nosy mother. She accused him of being upset and went through a list of every likely reason why, and he denied every possibility. If the nagging didn’t alleviate the loneliness somewhat, he would have hung up.

“It’s a girl, isn’t it?” his mother finally guessed, and Drakken had to bite his tongue and hold the phone out lest she hear his weary groan. No matter how wildly far off the mark she was, it was an inevitable question she always fired off at some point – only this time, maybe for the first time in history, she was actually right. Sort of. But he sure wasn’t going to admit that.

“No, mother,” he droned. “It’s just been a rough week,” he assured her for the umpteenth time. It really hadn’t been. Slaving over unique gloves had actually been quite rewarding, the worst part of the week being the part where his car got hijacked and he was left worrying if the new recruit would be friend or foe when she came back, if she came back at all.

After the phone call, he eyed the plate of delectable muffins sitting out on the counter, and decided it best to stow the remaining half dozen of them in the refrigerator out of sight before he could make himself sick.

The next day, Drakken was drilling it into his own head that he didn’t miss having anyone to hover, breathe down his neck, or criticize him as he tinkered with the fine inner workings of a robot brain. If he could only get the droids up and running like half-operational human beings, the Bebes would theoretically fill the human need for company. And even if they didn’t, he still had three organic subordinates – the henchmen – to fall back on. He didn’t need a snarky girl leaning on him and giving him sass trying to get his goat.

His lip was curled at the very thought of someone breaching his personal bubble uninvited when suddenly his subject booted up. It took him a second of staring back at the robot before the Bebe blinked mechanically and he leapt back. What really scared the bejeebers out of him was the fact the android hadn’t even been plugged in to a power source. Before she could fully start up, he reached into the Bebe’s cranium to pull out the CPU to put her to sleep for a nice long while until he was ready to deal with self-aware robots sporting hyperactive preservation drives again. The other two dormant severed heads received the same treatment just to be on the safe side.

His heart was still thudding from the first surprise when he received another unwelcomed jolt.

The room flashed red and a bone-rattling siren buzzed to announce a threat. Either someone had sounded the alarm, something had been tripped, or something malfunctioned. Whatever the case, he was in too much of a foul mood to be pleased by the uncharacteristically swift response of two of his henchmen cutting through the lab with their staves ready.

False alarms were more common than not at this point. There must have been one at least once a month for the past year since establishing his Nevada lair.

Dr. Drakken cast aside his tools and replaced his goggles with his eyeglasses, ready to storm out after the goons to find out what the hullaballoo was all about. It was probably just another unfortunate raccoon stuck in the fence.

Before he could take three steps from his work station, a henchman’s voice crackling over the intercom made him jump once more. “Dr. Drakken, sir, you’re needed outside,” came the urgent summon, and Drakken heard a thunderous snarl booming before the intercom clicked off.

It certainly didn’t sound like snared wildlife.

The insistent siren alone induced a dreadfully unwanted adrenaline rush, urging him to hurry and shut the alarm off at the lab desk. Even without the blaring system that had left his ears ringing, he swore he could still feel a rumble under his feet, and cast a nervous glance upwards at the stalactites holding steady before he exited the lab.

He all but ran down to the garage. The second he opened the door and stomped out from the foyer, he heard the rumble of a jet engine dying down to a whine, and if he didn’t associate the sound with military, he might not be so concerned of the trouble that could be brewing.

The thought that he should have brought a weapon with him was fleeting.

Before he could make it outside to search the sky for the source of the rumble, his jaw dropped.

He wasn’t anticipating a jet to come rolling out of the dark and into the half-lit hangar, the wingspan barely making it through the broad garage door. The flashy new sky beast sported multicolored streaks and bolts, and as it came to a stop in the middle of the scrap-filled warehouse, it dawned on Drakken exactly where it had come from. He’d seen that jet before in a photograph just the other day.

As his men rushed in after the aircraft in the hot wake of the engines, their electrified rods raised in defense, Drakken stormed toward it, his livid glare locked on the single figure onboard.

The top popped and rose with a hiss to reveal the pilot, whose hands were held up in peace for a moment to give the henchmen pause before the intruder pulled off the helmet and mask. The aloof subordinate stood up in the cockpit, shook out her hair, and shot an outrageously smug smirk to Dr. Drakken.

++X++

Shego slid down from the body of the aircraft and didn’t have a chance to appreciate solid ground or even utter a greeting before Dr. Drakken reached her, and she could only stare in a surprised stupor as he raised a hand at her.

Next she was wide-eyed in shock and reaching up for the sting across her cheek. It hadn’t hurt, but it didn’t change the fact he’d slapped her. She was taken aback for a moment. “What was that?” she blurted, turning a sneer back to him. “You hit like a baby!” Honestly, her baby brothers had whopped her worse than that.

And what was that he’d said about the next man to lay a hand on her?

She could get him back later, she decided, because she was pleased to be back regardless of his indiscernible sputtering and tantrum. Though she couldn’t pretend to understand what had his panties in a twist. She’d kept her word, hadn’t she?

What she could do was chortle when the fuming man made a grab for her before he could calm down enough to think twice. It was hard to hold him at fault when he was a villain and had likely conditioned himself to act out, assuming he wasn’t already violent by nature, but she wouldn’t hesitate to teach him not to take out that temper on her if he pushed his luck any further.

Curious if he would however, she let him catch her roughly by the arm. But Drakken faltered once he had her – it was clear he hadn’t expected it to be that easy, or maybe some sense caught up to him – and his moment of surprise made it easy for her to pull her arm away.

Catching him off guard, she slipped behind his back. Her hands snuck up his suit jacket to find the back pockets of his trousers, making him jump. His yelp wasn’t particularly masculine.

“Yoink,” she chirped, making off with his wallet as the startled man swung around.

Shego impishly remained two steps ahead of Dr. Drakken in pursuit of her, purely for the sake of egging him on although he was clearly riled up enough. She stole a gander at his driver’s license as she shuffled backwards. “Andrew?” she snorted. He sputtered something with a note of embarrassment and lunged for it. She jumped back, plucked a twenty from the wallet, and finally surrendered it.

Drakken roughly snatched his wallet back from her outstretched hand, still practically shaking in his tantrum, a funny shade of purple creeping over his face. The indignant doctor barked her name furiously and lurched toward her again, but she leapt back out of reach for good measure.

“Missed me, missed me,” she sang childishly, skipping back and smiling wryly at the hotheaded man.

He wasn’t calming down, none too pleased to be played with. Before she could knock it off on her own accord, Dr. Drakken gnashed his teeth and finally exploded something coherent, “SEIZE HER!”

To which Shego cocked a brow, and before she knew it, she was being restrained and shoved to her knees by a pair of henchmen, her arms twisted and secured behind her back. She knew she could still get the better of them, but she chose not to fight it as she watched suspiciously, once again curious to see just what Dr. Drakken thought he was going to do. She was done playing now though. Did he really think she would accept being slapped and manhandled, just like that? With him glaring as harshly as he was, she had half a mind to spit plasma at him when he stalked up to her.

The mad scientist opened his mouth and raised a finger to lay into her verbally when she sighed heavily and relaxed against the henchmen’s clutches. “Okay,” she began. “So I lost your car, but I got the jet, didn’t I?”

Drakken’s purple-faced humiliation and anger ebbed as he threw a glance back, and his rigid shoulders slumped. She could see his temper cooling he studied the aircraft parked in his garage. She’d stayed true to her word, but it seemed like he was only just now registering that she had in fact brought him a jet.

“Where did you get it?” he quizzed suspiciously as he turned back to eyeball her. Just about anyone else would have received plasma to the face for eyeing her body, but Shego had the funny feeling he was looking less at her figure and more at her pristine new uniform she’d stolen from the Go Tower – although the nature of his stare made it only slightly less unnerving.

“Just something from home,” she said flippantly, fixing a wry smile on her face.

“You stole tech from Global Justice,” he uttered.

“Not really, I mean – it was a gift,” she grumbled, casting her eyes down. That didn’t change the fact that big brother monitored its usage.

Drakken must have realized that, because his eyes shot wide in dismay an instant before the anger from moments ago boiled back to the surface. “They can track it here!” he gasped in alarm as he whirled on the threat in his lair.

Shego, on the other hand, lacked the same fear. The fact she remained unbothered seemed to enough to distress him.

“Cool the engines, Dr. D,” she called nonchalantly before he could fret over how to get a beacon out of his lair. “I squashed a few bugs, snipped a few wires. Give me some credit. I’m not just another stupid thug here.” He looked back to her as she nodded back to the henchmen holding her to make a point, but it hardly calmed him.

She tried to add a smile and a cheery on top, “Oh, and – it can hover. It’s a hover jet. Far out, right?” She was really quite proud of herself, and couldn’t help beaming as she patiently waited to be commended. An order for her release would be nice, at least.

Dr. Drakken stepped back from her and ran a hand down his face. He held it over his mouth and stifled a whine, and Shego noticed he looked almost pained as he glanced back to the stolen mass of technology. “Release her,” he grunted to his men with a dismissive wave, and stalked away to go inspect the aircraft. As Shego crept up carefully behind him, she heard him muttering incredulously to himself, “I can use this. I can really use this.”

“So, uh,” she started, and he flashed a glower back at her over his shoulder. She smiled sheepishly. “Does this make up for taking off and losing your car?” She decided, maybe, he didn’t need to know yet that she’s driven it off a pier and sank it in the ocean in the heat of the moment whilst fleeing the police earlier. She hoped there hadn’t been anything important in it.

Dr. Drakken surveyed her, his brow creased and his expression that of indecision as he considered the loss of his car in return for the multi-million-dollar aircraft. He settled for giving Shego’s shoulder a ginger pat. “I think I’ll keep you,” he said finally.

#The Company You Keep fic #drakgo

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stuckwith-harry · 7 years ago

Text

Chapter 1: November

A particular brotherly feeling

Summary: She has a brother and an ex-boyfriend to spite, and he desperately needs a date. So when the rumour that Harry and Ginny are together makes the rounds at Hogwarts, she has the ridiculous idea to use it to their advantage and play along. Harry wants to help her out just like any brother would, and that is the only reason he says: “Okay. Deal.”

A/N: This story was requested by @katiechasedbells. Well, Emi requested Hinny + TATBILB-esque fake dating. I added the Christmas theme, because Christmas is great. Rated T for f-bombs, f-bombs, and more f-bombs, one (1) light innuendo so far, and some slightly heavier themes later on. Merry Christmas, I love you fools!

Ao3

November

Santa tell me, if you're really there Don't make me fall in love again If he won't be here Next year

Santa tell me - Ariana Grande

“… and I guess that’s all I came here to say.”

Dean carefully raises his head to see her reaction, shifting on his feet. Judging from the way he is struggling to meet her eyes, it’s clear he wants this conversation to be over just as much as she does. “I’m sorry, Ginny.”

Ginny nods once to indicate she understands. She does – perhaps more than she likes to admit.

“Thanks for being honest, at least.”

Dean’s shoulders relax, and she can’t help but wonder just how worried he was about ending up at the receiving end of a particularly vicious Bat-Bogey hex.

“I hope Seamus knows he’s lucky”, she says. When a deep red flush creeps up Dean’s dark cheeks, she doesn’t fight the urge to roll her eyes. “C’mon, how oblivious do you think I am?”

To this, Dean says nothing: He’s suddenly fascinated by his own shoelaces, and Ginny considers that answer enough.

“Thanks for understanding”, he says finally.

Ginny finds herself untangling the arms she had kept crossed over her chest. “It’s fine. I get it.” She tugs at the crimson-and-gold scrunchie around her wrist and shrugs. “You gotta do what you gotta do, yeah?”

Dean smiles at her flatly, and that’s it. He squeezes her shoulder before he turns around, leaving her standing in the half-dark of the short passageway.

Ginny glares at the heavy crimson tapestry that hides the short cut to Gryffindor Tower. Only days ago, the two of them were snogging each other in this very spot like their lives depended on it. At least until Harry and Ron barged in on them and ruined the moment.

That reminds her she has somewhere to be, so she takes one last look and then turns her back on the spot.

She never would have guessed this is where they’d break up.

***

Just as Ginny makes it back to her dormitory, Harry Potter jumps down a flight of stairs several floors below. He’s late for Quidditch practice, his team – Ron – is still playing inconsistently, to say the least, and like that isn’t enough to worry about, he catches the eye of none other than Romilda Vane when he finally makes it to the bottom of the marble staircase.

“Hiya, Harry!”

“Quidditch practice”, Harry tells her abruptly, rushing past her.

To his dismay, shaking her off is no easy feat, and she’s still keeping up with him when he marches outside with the longest strides he can manage.

“Rumour has it you still haven’t found a date Slughorn’s Christmas party!”, she tells his back. Harry sighs at the cloudy sky – one, because that damn party is giving him headaches to rival Voldemort’s, and two, because she’s absolutely right. “So, I was thinking …”

Not that he’s planning on telling Romilda Vane that.

“I’ve – uh – found someone, actually”, he says.

“Really?”, she says, sounding slightly crestfallen. Harry notices it not without satisfaction. “Who?”

“It’s a – surprise”, Harry says wildly, wondering how on earth she doesn’t notice he’s making all this up on the spot. “Well, uh, practice calls, see you around!”

And with that, he all but runs off down to the Quidditch pitch, where his disgruntled-looking team is waiting for him.

Merlin help him, he’s got to find a date.

He’s just opened his mouth to apologise to his teammates when he spots someone running towards them from the other end of the pitch. As they come closer, he recognises Ginny, who’s rather unceremoniously pulling her long, fiery hair into a ponytail using the Gryffindor scrunchie around her wrist.

“Where’ve you been?”, Harry asks, snapping into his Captain self, when she finally jogs up to them.

“None of your business”, she shoots back. “Captain”, she adds, when he raises an eyebrow at her.

With great effort, Harry keeps from grinning, and he’s still fighting an inexplicable jolt of smugness when he says: “Alright, everyone, time to get going before the rain does …”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Ginny swing a leg over her broom and kick herself off the ground with more force than strictly necessary. She shoots into the sky like a missile, her long, flaming ponytail trailing after her, a bursting streak of colour against the dark grey clouds looming over them.

Of course, the rain doesn’t wait for them to finish practice. The seven of them stick it out for a full hour before Harry takes pity on them, so they retreat to the castle, shivering, soaking wet and, if possible, in an even worse mood than before.

On the way back to the common room, the team falls into the usual groups, and Ginny finds herself walking between Ron – who’s dragging his broom after him with slouched shoulders – and Harry, who catches her eye when she looks over at him.

“You alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Oh, you know, just the general murderous attitude”, he says, probably because there’s no non-awkward way to say something is clearly wrong, but I’m afraid you’re gonna hex me if I ask you outright.

Still, his tone and his grin loosen the knot at the pit of Ginny’s stomach a little. Ever since last summer, she hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’s trying to establish himself as some sort of honorary big brother to her, and another one of those is the last thing she needs at the moment.

It also doesn’t feel like them at all.

Like the aftertaste of a truly lousy practice and the pent-up energy she’d been saving for Quidditch isn’t enough to drive her up the wall, she now finds her thoughts circling back to her boyfriend – ex-boyfriend – and it doesn’t even bring the rush of angry self-righteousness she’d hoped for. Instead, she feels oddly deflated, and Merlin, she’d have chosen any fucking thunderstorm over this.

And it’s not – heartbreak. Even as the weight of the breakup sinks down on her, Ginny finds she has no desire to fling herself on her four-poster bed and sob into her pillow until all the crying gives her a headache: something she’s watched every single one of her roommates go through at least once. She would have expected to feel some sort of shock or betrayal – at least a little despair – but there’s nothing. Not quite.

By the time they’ve changed into dry clothes, the common room is packed, and the armchairs closest to the fireplace are all occupied, so they sit cross-legged on the thick, scarlet carpet and begrudgingly spread their homework across the floor. Harry is still doing his utmost to build up Ron’s spirits again, who seems to have fallen into his usual post-practice hole of self-loathing, but Ginny pays them no attention and gets started on a half-hearted History of Magic essay instead.

She lets herself be distracted when Harry gives up on trying to talk sense into Ron and scoots closer to the fireplace with an exasperated sigh. Happy to think about anything else, she gives him what she hopes is a compassionate sort of grin and says: “Sorry practice was lousy, Captain.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, he says with a smirk. “Practice was spectacular.”

Behind them, Ron snorts into his homework, and Harry turns to him. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad and you know it.”

Ron and Ginny simultaneously raise their eyebrows. Just then, Ginny can see Dean climb through the portrait hole, and because that’s the last thing she wants to think about right now, she turns to Harry and says: “Look on the bright side, it can’t get much worse from here.”

“Don’t challenge him”, Harry mutters – quietly, so only she can hear him.

Ginny laughs with more enthusiasm than the joke deserves, in the hopes to distract him, but unfortunately, Harry isn’t that oblivious. He follows Ginny glances and looks over his shoulder to see Dean standing in the middle of the common room, looking oddly out of place, and back to Ginny, who’s been trying – and failing – to avoid eye contact.

Even worse, it seems to have caught Ron’s attention, too.

“What’s going on with you two?”, Harry asks, perfectly casual.

Ginny plays with a dog-ear on the upper right corner of her Transfiguration paper, where the y of her last name has disappeared in the crease. “We broke up”, she says shortly.

A small silence falls, but it’s not Harry who catches her attention first.

“What?”, she snaps at Ron when she sees his face.

“Nothing”, he says, not quite meeting her eye. And then, very quietly: “Well, I’m sure it won’t take you long to find someone new.”

Right there and then, Ginny would love to push him into the fucking fireplace. She opts to get to her feet instead, because she isn’t going to sit here and let her brother slut-shame her like he, of all people, would know what the fuck he’s talking about. “You know what, Ron?”, she spits, loud enough for half the common room to hear. “Go fuck yourself. Figure you could use the experience.”

And with one last glance at Ron’s quickly reddening face, she storms out of the common room.

The miserable day stretches and becomes a week. Slughorn’s party blows up in the back of Harry’s mind like a disgustingly sparkly balloon until it consumes his every thought, and while he’s not particularly pleased about it, he decides it’s time to ask for advice.

So, when he catches Hermione on the way to lunch, he decides to bite the bullet.

“Hermione – who do I ask to this stupid party?”

“Harry! Merlin, I thought you would have found someone by now!” Harry fights the urge to sigh at the sight of Hermione’s shocked expression. “It’s in less than three weeks!”

“Which is plenty of time”, Harry tells her firmly. “It’s just, uhm …”

“You’re trying to get your admirers off your back”, she says matter-of-factly, rummaging through her bag.

Harry grimaces. “If you have to put it like that. Well – I kind of told Romilda Vane I’ve got a date because she wouldn’t leave me alone, but if I don’t find one soon, she’s going to figure out I lied. Plus – I really don’t know who to ask.”

“Anyone, Harry”, says Hermione in her most exasperated voice. “Ideally, someone impressive enough to get Romilda off your back for good, although, between you and me, I’m not convinced that kind of person exists. But there’s got to be someone.”

“You’re one to talk, who are you bringing?”, Harry shoots back at her.

Hermione blushes a pale shade of pink, but doesn’t reply.

By sheer virtue of not being in the same year, Ginny and Dean manage to avoid each other during the days following the breakup. On the rare occasion that they do pass each other in the hallway or in the common room, they give each other polite smiles, which, at the very least, is an improvement from her last breakup.

Regardless: It turns out that even the most amicable breakup in history leaves traces that sting, so she spends the rest of the week throwing out all every bit of homework that Dean has ever doodled on – tiny sketches and notes in the margins for her to find in class the next day. On Wednesday, he sheepishly gives back her scarf, and by Thursday night, she’s learned to avoid their regular armchair in the common room.

Less than a week to untangle their lives.

Apart from Dean, she’s been avoiding Ron as well, who continues to be his usual, insufferable self. Ginny doesn’t think she can handle another snide remark about her and Dean without exploding and taking everyone in a radius of ten miles with her, so perhaps it’s fortunate they’re both so busy with schoolwork she hardly sees him.

Ron is neither the only person to raise an eyebrow at Ginny’s dating habits, nor is he the first – that honour goes to the twins – and it’s not particularly new or surprising either, but all that makes it worse, if anything. As far as Ron is concerned, Ginny has snogged a dashing total of two people in her entire life, and she’ll be damned if she lets him shame her for that.

It’s only Luna no one knows about. But if Ron is so determined to make her feel like a horrible person because she has the audacity to snog exactly two different boys, she’s not about to throw a girl into the mix and watch what he does with that extra ammunition.

Dick.

She’s marching down a hallway near the Transfiguration wing, arms crossed, when she hears laughter from nearby, and just as she stops, Michael Corner and Cho Chang come around a corner, and arm in arm at that.

The three of them come to an awkward halt with half the hallway still between them. Ginny and Michael make reluctant eye contact.

“Hi, Michael.”

Michael opens his mouth as if to answer, but then something in his face flickers: he deliberately takes his time as he turns to Cho, appearing not to have heard Ginny at all, and kisses her flat on the mouth.

And while that’s a nice – and noisy – reminder why breaking up with him was one of Ginny’s better decisions, watching him flaunt how glad he is to be shot of her is the last thing she needs today. She pushes past them, almost knocking over a bewildered-looking third-year, and stomps down a flight of stairs, where she promptly runs into Harry.

“Hey”, he says, blinking at her. “What’s going on?”

“I’m plotting a murder”, she says briskly. “Happy?”

“As long as it’s not mine.”

Ginny grins despite herself. He already has that disgusting, protective look on his face she’s come to loathe so much – but they’re friends, real friends, so she tells him about Dean and Michael and Ron, in short, clipped sentences that clearly indicate she doesn’t want pity.

“Alright”, she says when she’s blown off enough steam to feel like she can go for the rest of the conversation without yelling. “Your turn. Really, I could use the distraction.”

Harry looks over his shoulder when the nearing sound of many feet on stone indicate dinner at the Great Hall is over. He sighs.

“Our team is giving me a stomachache, is all”, he says. “Ron and Hermione aren’t really talking right now, so I get to decide who I feel like hanging out with today, which is fun. Uhm – Voldemort is out there, I guess.”

Ginny snorts.

“And I need a date for Slughorn’s stupid Christmas party”, he says over the humming of the students scuttling past them. “Which is clearly the most stressful thing out of all of these. Hey, Colin, what’s up?”, he adds with little enthusiasm when the startlingly blond kid – Ginny recognises him from class, but they’ve never talked much – turns around and blinks at the pair of them, at least until the dinner crowd runs him over.

Ginny turns back to Harry, who sighs. “Thanks for letting me vent, anyway, Harry.”

“Any time,” he says, looking slightly startled when she pats his arm. “Happy to help.”

In hindsight, they absolutely should have seen it coming.

Friday becomes a Hermione day because Harry begrudgingly decides he needs to visit the library, and he can’t convince Ron to accompany him. He hasn’t even made it down to the right floor yet when she comes running towards him, her bushy hair flying in all directions.

“You asked Ginny!”

It’s not a question.

“I what now?”

“Oh, come on, Harry, half the school is talking about it anyway. When did you ask her? Since when has this been going on? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Harry takes a deep breath. “Hermione, what on earth are you talking about?”

Hermione’s face adopts the tragic look Harry has come to associate with her not being able to answer McGonagall’s questions – something he doesn’t get to see a lot. “Slughorn’s party, Harry. Everyone’s talking about how you’re bringing Ginny, and rumour has it you’re going out and all that.”

“And since when do you mindlessly believe rumours?”

“I don’t!” She seems offended. “But you did say you were looking for a date, and it makes complete sense to bring Ginny! Frankly, I was almost surprised you hadn’t considered it sooner. So, are you not –”

“There you are!”

Harry looks up, and his stomach jolts: Ginny is running towards them, her long, flaming hair flying behind her.

“Hi, Hermione, Harry, I need to talk to you right now.”

“I –” Harry lets himself be dragged away by Ginny, who’s grasped his hand and is now pulling him behind her until they’ve found an empty classroom.

“What’s going on?”

“So, I take it you’ve heard the rumours”, she says, locking the door with her wand.

Harry looks at her with wide eyes. “Yeah, what –”

“Have you told Hermione it’s not true?”

“I was going to when you kidnapped me!”

She crosses her arms and looks at him with a glint of mischievousness in her eyes that reminds Harry of the twins. “You haven’t. Great.”

“Who made that up, anyway?”

Ginny shrugs. “My money is on Colin. He probably heard more than we realised the other day.”

It takes Harry a second to remember what she’s talking about. “For the record, I wasn’t asking you – I was just telling you –”

“I know that. I guess it sounded like you were asking me or something.”

“And apparently we’re dating, too?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that one, too”, she says. “They’re all insane, I’ve had to explain to three of my friends that we didn’t make out behind the greenhouses in the last hour alone.”

Harry feels himself blush. Ginny bites her bottom lip and grins. “I’m assuming you still really need that date.”

“Well – y-yeah, but …”

“And I wouldn’t mind a way to get back at Michael. And Ron.”

“What … does that have to do with me?”

“You see, out of all the people at this school …” She steps closer. “I reckon it would piss him off the most if I dated his best mate. So, the way I see it, we could help each other out here.”

Harry stares at her in stunned silence. Then: “You’re saying we play along.”

Ginny nods, and Harry’s mind runs into a thousand directions at once, pulling at every limb.

This is insane.

This is Ginny.

Ron’s going to kill him.

No was never an option.

Ron is going to kill him.

“So, what, we – pretend we’re actually together?”

“Yeah. Just for a while.”

Harry only hesitates to declare her insane because he’s quickly beginning to see the appeal. If he shows up to Slughorn’s party with not just a date, but a girlfriend, and it’s Ginny Weasley – well, that might just get Romilda to leave him alone for good.

“Ron’s going to kill me.”

“I’m told you have a knack for surviving the impossible”, she says, wiggling an eyebrow.

Can’t argue with that.

And the truth is, he can understand why Ginny would want to stick it to Ron. Not that he’d ever tell Ron that. Harry doesn’t have a death wish after all.

His mind zooms back to the day they walked in on Dean and Ginny, and the weird surge of protectiveness he had felt. That’s the only real feeling he’s ever had towards her, he tells himself firmly – so isn’t dating her the perfect chance to prove that?

He wants to help her out just like any brother would, and that is the only reason he says: “Okay. Deal.”

#hinny #harry potter #fanfiction #hp fanfic #apbf #jessie writes

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stuckwith-harry · 7 years ago

Text

Chapter 2: December

A particular brotherly feeling

Chapter 1

Ao3

A/N: A very sick @ronaldswheezy helped with grammar. (Also, my meetup five bed makes a cameo, hehe. Good times.)

December

“Show a little loving Shine a little light on me”

Lovers - Anna Of The North

Because he’s Harry Potter, and she’s Ginny Weasley, the rumour spreads ridiculously fast. From that point on, it’s a simple matter of keeping up the illusion, and soon enough, the hallways of Hogwarts are positively buzzing with gossip.

It’s ridiculous and a bit off-putting, Harry thinks, that a very real war is looming right outside the castle’s windows, that the Daily Prophet doesn’t go three days without reporting another disappearance anymore, and as soon as he’s spotted sticking his hand into Ginny’s back pocket, it’s the talk of the school. Still, he can’t deny there’s something weirdly pleasing about watching an entire common room full of students spin around and rather unsubtly crane their necks to stare at them as soon as they climb through the portrait hole together.

They set up a contract back in their deserted classroom, signed it, and made a copy for each. Harry remembered a spell from last year, and enchanted both pieces of parchment: To everyone but the two of them, their contracts would look like Potions homework.

“Sneaky”, said Ginny, sounding impressed.

The rules are simple: She goes to the Slughorn’s Christmas party with him. They go to Hogsmeade together, should the occasion arise, and sit next to each other in the Great Hall. No tongue when they kiss. And absolutely no snitching.

So on Saturday morning, the all but strut into the Great Hall, floating on the rare feeling of being in on the joke. It’s peak breakfast time, easily the busiest hour of the morning. The quest: Confirm the rumour that’s spreading around the castle like a particularly lovesick Devil’s Snare.

A simple enough feat, all things considered.

“Ready?”, she asks, looking up at him.

Harry holds her gaze and nods.

“Let’s do this.”

Several dozen pairs of eyes follow them as they march into the Great Hall, their entangled hands swinging happily between them. Harry spots the Creevey brothers frantically elbowing each other in the ribs as he and Ginny walk up to the Gryffindor table. The plan they’ve agreed on before coming down here makes his heart thump in his chest.

They find a spot on the bench wide enough for both of them, and before they sit down, she turns around, puts her hand on the back of his neck and kisses him on the mouth.

When Harry comes to his senses again, he looks around to find half the students present unabashedly staring – he fights the flush that creeps up his neck, grins at Ginny and quickly sits down next to her. Out of the corner of his eye, he registers a third-year Hufflepuff standing up on the wooden bench to get a better look; two Ravenclaw boys from Ginny’s year whispering heatedly; Romilda and Ron’s open mouths.

“Tossers”, Ginny mutters, looking rather pleased with the whole thing. She leans into him, covering her mouth with her hand when she whispers into his ear: “Good job, by the way.”

Harry glances past her at Ron, who’s sitting a few seats further down the Gryffindor table and looks like he just choked on his porridge. Their eyes cross when Ron spots him staring – he raises his eyebrows and mouths, What?

Harry shakes his head and looks away.

It doesn’t change the fact that he hates lying to Ron, but over the next few days, they hardly have a chance to talk. With school and Quidditch keeping them busy, the match against Slytherin rapidly approaching, there’s no time to discuss his relationship with Ginny in detail. Harry finds he’s rather relieved.

“I could kill him”, Ginny says loudly over the rumble of the Gryffindor victory party, handing Harry a butterbeer. “I could kill him, that hypocritical, entitled, self-righteous git.”

Harry doesn’t bother to ask who she’s talking about. “What did he do now?”

Ginny scoffs and points across the room. Harry follows her index finger with his eyes and spots Ron on the other side of the common room, where he’s snogging Lavender Brown rather enthusiastically.

“I could kill him”, Ginny reinforces, clearly eager to emphasise that particular sentiment. “And I kind of want to vomit.”

Harry has something else on his mind, though. “Is Hermione still here?”

“Haven’t seen her.”

“Mind if I disappear for a second?”

“You go. Want me to hold your butterbeer?”

Harry spots Romilda Vane watching them and takes that as an excuse to kiss Ginny goodbye before he slips through the portrait hole. She watches him leave, but he doesn’t notice.

When he finds Hermione, she’s sitting on the teacher’s desk of an unlocked Charms classroom, an entire flock of little yellow birds flying in a circle around her head, quietly twittering.

“Er”, he says. “Hi.”

She looks at him with a very odd expression on her face.

“Oh, Harry – you should be back at the party, I’m sure Ginny’s waiting for you.”

Harry doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m happy for you, anyway”, she says into the silence. “I had a feeling about you two.”

“How?”, Harry wants to ask, but before he can, Ron and Lavender come barging in, and that clearly poses the bigger problem at the moment.

Lavender does keep Ron busy, which means Harry doesn’t have to worry about their friendship imploding just yet, as he manages to avoid the topic of Ginny altogether on the rare occasion that the two of them do hang out. Oddly enough, Ron doesn’t bring it up either, and Harry decides it’s for the best, not exactly keen on a confrontation. He takes the same approach when it comes to Hermione, because while her comment from the day of the match hardly leaves his mind, he doesn’t particularly enjoy lying to his friends.

Unfortunately, that still leaves the mindbogglingly nosy rest of the school.

“So, how long has this been going on?”, purrs Lavender, who’s sitting on Ron’s lap. Ron, in turn, is trying to read over his Potions essay and doesn’t interact apart from regularly shooting Harry glances he thinks he doesn’t notice. There’s something oddly searching in them, and Harry doesn’t like it at all. He stares straight ahead at the Gryffindor Christmas tree, counting the crimson red baubles.

“Since you heard about it, I guess”, says Ginny, who’s sitting next to Harry on the most popular sofa in the common room, right in front of the fireplace. She’s flipping through the Daily Prophet and doesn’t bother to look up, though Harry has a feeling she must be as acutely aware of Ron’s presence as he is. “We really thought we could keep it secret for a bit, but the news travelled so quickly, it’s almost like the rest of the school knew before we did.”

Harry blinks and stares at her. She winks.

It quickly turns out it wasn’t their most cunning move to start this conversation when the common room is as packed as it is. More and more Gryffindors, some of which Harry has never spoken to, suddenly come over to sit or stand around their sofa and needle them with questions.

“How did it start?”

“Well, we were already friends, so –” Harry looks to Ginny for help, wondering if she’s also thinking about how idiotic it was not to come up with a backstory ahead of time.

“One thing led to another”, she says simply. Harry can’t quite place the look on her face. “It’s like – you look at someone as a friend, and at some point it shifts, and you see something else instead.”

“What made you like the other?”, asks a girl from Ginny’s year.

“Oh, I’m just dating him for his fame and money, didn’t you know?”

The little crowd break into reluctant chuckles – Harry actually has to bite into his fist to keep his grin from turning into real laughter.

“What about you, Harry?”, the girl presses on.

“Yeah, what about you?”, Harry hears Ron ask.

Uh oh.

But Ginny looks at him, and he feels their classmates’ eyes on him as much as he doesn’t.

“She’s funny”, he says after a beat of silence. “She’s cool, and – I really like hanging out with her.”

The Gryffindors around them giggle and sigh.

Harry stares into the fireplace so he doesn’t have to look at Ginny.

Hogwarts’ new and unfading interest in Harry and Ginny’s relationship comes with another considerable upside, which is that Dean and Seamus can start dating without attracting almost any attention. Ginny knows better than to expect it’s not a huge relief for both of them.

“Seamus hadn’t told anyone he’s gay before”, Dean tells her one day. “So, I guess I have to thank you for being a massive gossip magnet at the moment. It makes the whole thing a lot easier to navigate.”

Ginny finds herself grinning. “Any time. You look really happy together.”

“Thanks. And – you too.”

“Yeah …”

It’s their first real conversation since the breakup. They both stare around the half-empty common room, until finally, Ginny pats his shoulder, and says: “Well – I was gonna go and see Harry before class, so … take care, yeah?”

“See you around.”

With that, she climbs through the portrait hole.

As expected, she spots Harry in the crowded Charms corridor, miraculously without company. She can already feel several pairs of eyes following her, so she walks up to him with a wide grin and grabs his face with both hands before she kisses him.

He kisses her back rather more enthusiastically than expected. When they break apart, he’s smiling, really smiling, and says: “W-What was that one for?”

Ginny smirks. “I saw Michael coming this way.”

Harry quickly looks over his shoulder. Sure enough, Michael Corner is standing on the far end of the corridor, looking thoroughly annoyed.

“Oh, yeah”, he says, turning back to her. “Of course.”

“I can’t believe this is working. Tosser.” She suddenly grabs his hand, making Harry’s heart jump into his throat. “Here. I wanted you to have this.”

She pulls the Gryffindor-coloured scrunchie off her wrist and pushes it over his hand with a grin. “There.”

“Thanks”, Harry says, “but I don’t really suit ponytails.”

Ginny rolls her eyes at him, but grins. “Just don’t lose it, will you?”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

That’s a response that pleases her greatly. Before she can say anything, she notices Ron walk up to them, Lavender holding onto his arm with fierce determination. He comes to an awkward halt before he reaches Harry and Ginny, standing in the middle of the hallway.

“What are you looking at?”, Ginny asks him, loud enough for half the people present to hear.

Something flickers in Ron’s face. His ears turn a pale shade of red. “Nothing”, he says, his jaw clenching.

Ginny turns to Harry. “Also, there’s a Hogsmeade weekend in January. Reckon you’d like to go with me?”

“Last I checked, it was in the contract”, he says quietly, one eyebrow twitching.

“Oh. Yeah. Well, I have Herbology, so I’d better hurry. Hey, Ron! Watch and learn.”

With that, she stands on her tiptoes to kiss Harry goodbye, lingering a few seconds for good measure.

“See you later?”

“Definitely.”

Ginny makes it to Herbology only three minutes too late and counts that as a success. She slides into the seat next to Luna, who’s already put on her protective goggles, which enlarge her eyes even more than usual.

“You look pleased”, she observes.

Nothing quite like sticking it to your brother in front of two dozen people, Ginny reckons. Yes, that’s definitely it.

Even though there’s something rather unsettling about tickling the sleeping dragon only to find the dragon unwilling to reciprocate. Ginny and Ron don’t do the silent treatment. They do spectacular shouting matches that make the walls of the castle tremble. That’s how they work.

That’s how they’ve always worked.

“Excited for Slughorn’s party”, she says. “That’s all.”

There is exactly one person in the entire castle Ginny never expected to fool, and that’s Luna. Which is why she is surprised, to say the least, when Luna looks at her with her abnormally large eyes and says: “You know, I’m glad you’re going out. He makes you really happy, doesn’t he?”

“Uh … yes. Absolutely. Hm-hm.”

Ginny grabs her own protective goggles, pulls her Dragon-hide gloves over her fingers, and forcefully pushes Harry out of her mind.

Christmas is upon them before they see it coming. Seemingly overnight, the usual twelve Christmas trees – enormous and tinsel-laden as always – show up in the Great Hall. Shapeless, mushy snowflakes stick to the castle’s windows and soak the hems of their robes on their way to the greenhouses. Even the Gryffindors prefer to retreat to the comfort of the common room after class, and Peeves gets in trouble for attempting to strangle a group of second-years with a string of enchanted fairy lights.

On the night of Slughorn’s party, Harry spends twenty whole minutes trying to flatten his hair before he decides he’s fighting a losing battle. By the time he starts to wonder when exactly he started to care about his hair this much, he’s running late, so he all but jumps into his dress robes, tucks his wand into his pocket, and triple-checks that the scrunchie around his wrist is still there.

He rushes down into the common room and stumbles to a halt when he spots Ginny, who’s sitting on the arm of a sofa near the portrait hole.

Her red hair is cascading down her back in small, soft waves, explaining the thick, long braid she’d been sporting earlier. She’s wearing a dress made out of a velvety, pine-green fabric, with slim straps over her freckled shoulders.

“Uh. You look nice.”

She looks up. “I was just about to send a search team”, she smirks. “You too. Ready to go?”

“All set. And – you know, thanks for doing this.”

Ginny pats his arm. “Hey, I’m a girl who keeps her promises. You haven’t seen Hermione, have you? I looked for her in her dormitory, but I didn’t find her.”

“I guess she’s already there”, Harry says as they climb through the portrait hole. On the other side, Ginny grabs his hand.

“Who the hell shows up to a party early?”

Harry fights his grin in vain.

Slughorn’s party decoration is downright overwhelming at first glance. Every wall in his spacious office is draped in shimmery emerald, crimson and gold fabric, and Harry hasn’t taken five steps yet when he notices he’s got glitter in his hair.

“How?”, he says loudly, looking at the ceiling.

“Hold still”, says Ginny. She brushes over the top of his hair, causing Harry’s stomach to perform something that feels a lot like a spectacular nosedive.

Uh oh.

“All better”, she says. “Do you –”

“D’youwannagogetdrinks?”

Ginny’s eyes narrow in amusement. “Sure.”

They just about manage to grab a glass of champagne each when Slughorn spots them at last, his booming voice making half the room look up when he thunders: “Harry, m’boy!”

“Good evening, Professor …”

“And I see Miss Weasley is your date tonight!”, Slughorn roars good-naturedly. “Splendid!”

“Well, I’m his girlfriend”, says Ginny.

Harry chokes on his champagne. Ginny smirks and pats his back, letting her hand linger on the small of his back for the rest of the conversation.

They talk to Slughorn and the circle of people that slowly join the conversation until they decide with a silent exchange of glances they’ve killed enough time to sneak away. They find an empty table in a corner of the office and spend the next glass and a half people-watching, muttering jokes to each other and snickering under their breaths.

“Do you get tired of people begging you to let them write your biography?”

“Yeah, you know, I still haven’t figured out what that’s all about. I’ve had a very boring life.”

Ginny looks at him with a warm, fuzzy feeling filling her stomach that she blames on the champagne. “Yeah, well –”

Just then, they notice someone coming towards their table and look up.

“Hermione!”, Harry says when she reaches them. “Who are you running from?”

“Uhm”, says Hermione, who’s slightly out of breath and flushing under their stares. “Cormac … McLaggen.”

Harry blinks at her. “Cormac? You invited Cormac McLaggen?”

Hermione stubbornly refuses to look at him. “I figured it would annoy Ron the most.”

“Glad to hear we’re all on the same team here”, Ginny smirks, pushing her champagne glass towards her.

“Oh, no thanks, Ginny, I’ve already had plenty … well, I’ll leave you to it …”

She gives them both a weirdly knowing smile, and just like that, she’s gone.

“Does make you wonder”, says Ginny thoughtfully. “What do you reckon pisses Ron off more, Hermione dating McLaggen, or me dating you?”

“To be fair, he hasn’t murdered either of us yet. I’m taking that, by the way”, Harry says, reaching for her glass. “How come I didn’t know you’re such a lightweight?”

“Because no one gets drunk on butterbeer, which is extremely convenient for me, because I’m tiny, but I do have a reputation to protect. Hey, do you feel like dancing? Just reckon we should go and mingle before we start looking like complete tossers”, she adds.

“Sure.”

He takes her hand and together they make their way towards the dance floor, where several of the other guests are already swaying to the music.

“So, listen”, Ginny says quietly once they’re spinning on the spot, someone near the middle of the room. “I know meeting the parents wasn’t exactly part of the contract, but thanks for doing it anyway.”

“Well, Ron invited me way before this started”, he says.

“Yeah … plus, it would be a bit awkward to break up right before Christmas, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s definitely what I was thinking. Absolutely.”

They fall silent for a moment – the kind of quiet ringing of things unsaid. The music they’ve been dancing to fades out, but no new song starts playing.

Ginny leans closer and whispers: “Uhm, is there a reason half the people here are staring at us?”

Harry looks around. Indeed, the other guests seem to have formed a circle around them, all with a rather curious expression. Just as Harry begins to worry they may have heard too much, he catches Hermione’s eye, who stares at him so urgently he wonders if she’s attempting telepathy. She keeps covertly pointing her index finger at the ceiling without catching anyone’s attention.

“And we have a winner!”, Slughorn’s booming voice announces.

Ginny keeps poking his arm, so Harry looks back at her. “Kiss me. Quick.”

“What?”

And then he spots the mistletoe hanging over their heads.

Half of him wants to wonder how exactly that constitutes as winning anything, but that thought is quickly swept from his mind when Ginny grabs the front of his robes with the hand that isn’t resting on his shoulder. Harry feels himself lean into her when she pulls herself to her tiptoes, and then her lips press against his, leaving his mind blank for one blissful, fleeting moment. He only unfreezes when he feels her mouth leave his, pulling her closer for just a second – or five – longer, and they kiss, and kiss –

Ginny’s neck and cheeks look flushed when she finally takes a step back. She gives him a very odd smile before she grabs his hand, and together, they disappear from the curious onlookers. Harry spots Hermione looking rather smug before the circle around them slowly melts back into the chattering crowd it was moments earlier.

They don’t mention it for the rest of the night.

Under any other circumstances, bringing your boyfriend of one month home for Christmas would have been awkward, so it’s a good thing Ginny’s parents already adore Harry. This way, she can save herself the trouble of introducing him as “my boyfriend, Harry” and promptly watching her entire family jump to take a look at him like he’s some sort of exotic animal. As it is, she just grabs his hand before they walk through the front door, and firmly tells everyone to shut up as soon as they stop to stare. Fred dares to wolf-whistle exactly once and promptly points his finger at George when Ginny pulls out her wand. Still, between her mother looking perplexed, but pleased, and her father’s annoyingly unsurprised smile, the whole ordeal is about as bearable as it can be.

There’s still the tiny detail that they’re just pretending, of course.

They make it through dinner without any larger incidents, doing their utmost to change the subject as soon as their relationship comes up. Seeing as they’re trying to handle half a dozen nosy Weasleys at once, that proves to be impossible, so Ginny keeps her wand nearby just in case the twins’ jokes get too sleazy. Since Harry has a knack for sarcasm she’s rather fond of, she’s not too worried, but he doesn’t appear to be in the mood for witty comebacks. Instead, he’s weirdly quiet for most of Christmas Eve, leaving Ginny to do the heavy lifting.

“Alright, I’ve lost count. Remind me, Gin, Harry’s boyfriend number …?”

“Keep talking, George, and you won’t live to open your presents tomorrow.”

“And what kind of present is Harry going to –”

“You’re sure you want to finish that sentence? Really sure?”

Ginny and Harry end up being the last two people down in the kitchen, long after everyone else has gone upstairs – most of them, to wrap their presents at the last minute, she is sure of it. If all the other Christmases she’s ever experienced are anything to go by, at least half of them will sneak downstairs later in the night to stuff their presents under the Christmas tree unseen.

“Sorry about the interrogation”, Ginny says. Harry pulls himself onto the kitchen counter and shrugs.

“It’s fine. Honestly, it wasn’t as annoying as you think it was.”

“You’ve been weird”, she says bluntly, smirking at him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing”, he says promptly. When she quirks an eyebrow, he says: “It’s just – uhm – a bit odd meeting the parents and all. You know, since it’s not actually real.”

“I get that. At least it’s for a good cause, yeah?”

Harry grins. “I know you’re mad at him and everything, and I don’t blame you, but he is my best mate. So I’m not legally allowed to call pissing him off a good cause. But thank you for going to the party with me. I’d rather it was you under the mistletoe than Romilda Vane.”

“Plus, we got to piss off my ex-boyfriend and your ex-girlfriend.”

“Yeah …”

They fall silent for a few seconds before they speak at once:

“I don’t care about pissing off Cho.”

“I don’t care about pissing off Michael.”

They look at each other, and then say, again in unison: “Oh.”

Ginny beats him to it. “You go first.”

Harry shrugs. “That thing with Cho was so short-lived, it was barely a relationship, you know?”

“Yeah.” She comes closer until she can lean against the kitchen counter, right next to where he’s sitting. “Michael’s kind of the same.”

“You were together for months, though, weren’t you?”

“I mean – yeah, but if you asked me what I saw in him, or if I ever even genuinely liked him, I honestly couldn’t tell you. I guess I thought I liked him, or I wouldn’t have gone out with him in the first place, but I don’t – know – anymore. So now I’m not sure how real any of it was.” There’s a weirdly tense pause, where she takes a deep breath, and shrugs. “Turns out I’m pretty bad at discerning what’s real and what isn’t. Between this, and the diary, it looks like it’s becoming bit of a pattern.”

She smirks, but Harry doesn’t reciprocate.

“I guess that didn’t make the breakup with Dean any easier”, he says after a beat of silence.

Ginny smiles flatly. “Dean’s not gay.”

“Huh?”

“He’s dating Seamus, yeah, but he’s not gay. He’s pan. So, you know, it’s not like there was never anything real between us. He didn’t break up with me because I’m a girl. It’s just that, at the end of the day, I’m not Seamus.” She shrugs. “I feel like I’m supposed to be more upset than I am, but … I figure if you like someone that much, and if you’re so sure, you should be with them.”

“Yeah”, says Harry, not looking away. His face looks unusually soft in the dim light.

“Bit of a mood-killer”, Ginny says with a half-hearted grin. “My bad.”

“It’s fine. I’ve been there.” When she looks at him, he shrugs and says: “Feeling like you can’t trust your own head? After everything that happened last year? Yeah, I get it.”

“I figured you would”, she says quietly.

And now it’s Harry’s turn to smile, that weird, unamused smile when there’s very little to smile about. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“It makes sense to me”, she says, placing one hand on his arm. If hearing that means half as much to him as it would to her, it’s the most valuable thing she could possibly say.

Neither of them looks away, so she can watch his smile change before her eyes. “Makes a nice change to have someone who doesn’t think you’re barmy when you tell them this stuff”, he says.

“Yeah.”

When did his face come so close?

“Well, I don’t think you’re barmy”, she says quietly.

“I don’t think you are, either.”

“Harry …”

And just as she holds her breath and leans into him, there’s a dull thump from the stairs, and they spin around. The sound of feet scampering up the steps and back to the first floor fades away.

“Sounded like the twins”, Ginny says into the silence.

“Yeah. Definitely two pairs of feet.”

They look at each other, but only briefly.

“So, anyway”, Harry says. “I think your Mum put up the camp bed in Ron’s room, so – she’s probably gonna expect me to sleep there.”

“She will”, Ginny says. “But Ron won’t. It’s gonna look weird if you don’t sleep with – in my room.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Minutes later, Harry is lying on a dozen throw pillows and a Cushioning Charm on Ginny’s bedroom floor. They’re both staring at their respective bit of ceiling, until Ginny shifts on her mattress and says: “Merry Christmas, Harry.”

“Merry Christmas, Ginny.”

The silence stretches on and turns into the sound of slow, steady breathing. When she rolls over, propping her head up on her arm, Harry’s eyes are closed. His face looks more relaxed and centuries younger than it does most days.

She only watches him sleep for a few minutes. It hardly counts.

#hinny #apbf #fanfiction #katiechasedbells #jessie writes #the pining is strong in this one !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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