[fic] Those Russian Songs From Sunny Spain
Those Russian Songs from Sunny Spain
by thistlerose
Rating: Mature / R
Ships: Harry/Ginny, Neville/Hannah
Summary: It takes more than good memory to have good memories.
A/N: Written for the hpgw_otp Fortune Cookie Challenge. 3,000 words. Set after the series.
"These days," The Quibbler had reported not long ago, "wizards and witches get quiet when Neville Longbottom enters a room."
Harry hadn't quite believed it, and not just because he'd read it in The Quibbler. Sure, he'd seen Neville stand up to a gang of Death Eaters and behead Voldemort's snake. Sure, he knew all about Neville's adventures at Hogwarts during their seventh year, while Harry had been off hunting Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione. Undermining Snape's authority, stealing Gryffindor's sword. Brilliant stuff. Neville was a hero and deserved every accolade.
Harry knew that.
He also knew that Neville was one of the most popular professors at Hogswarts, that there was a long wait list for his elective Herbology classes, and that even Peeves and the Slytherins treated him with something approximating respect.
Harry knew all that - and yet he experienced a jolt when Neville entered the Three Broomsticks that night in early autumn, and absolutely everyone, from the patrons to the buxom blonde girl pouring drinks behind the bar, got quiet.
If Neville noticed, he gave no sign, and that was so very Neville that the spell on Harry broke and he raised his hand in greeting. Beside him, Ginny waved too.
Neville grinned when he saw them, and hurried to their table, brushing raindrops from his cloak, mumbling apologies as he squeezed around chairs.
"Ginny Potter," he said, dropping at last into a chair opposite theirs. "Holyhead's most valued player. I should have brought parchment or some chocolate frog cards; some of my students would love to get your autograph. Oh, hey, Harry," he added like an afterthought.
"Hey," Harry echoed, amused. Neville was joking, he knew. And yet, thought Harry, there was truth in his words; he remembered the first time someone - a young sports reporter for the Daily Prophet - had asked him what it was like dating - this had been about five months before their fairly private wedding - one of the most famous and important women in Quidditch. "Bloody brilliant," Harry had replied, and the reporter, mistakenly reading sarcasm in his quiet tone, had laughed. Ginny had laughed later, when he'd repeated the story, laughed and wrapped her slender arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, and later still, when they lay on his bedroom floor, limbs tangled, sweat drying on their naked skin, he'd told her falteringly that it was bloody brilliant, that he'd so much rather be known as the Boy Who Dated Ginny than the Boy Who Saved the World While He Still Had His Baby Teeth.
"I'm still glad you did," Ginny had said after a thoughtful pause.
"Yeah," Harry had said with a sigh. "Yeah, me too."
When the Prophet report came out two days later, they'd had another laugh over the fleeting nature of fame.
Usually fleeting, Harry thought now as Neville reached into a fold of his cloak and withdrew a book bound in battered leather.
"Take a look at this," Neville said, opening the book and turning it so Harry and Ginny could see the flower pressed between its pages. "D'you know what that is?"
Thanks to the book's enchanted pages, the flower had lost none of its color; Its petals were pink as a sunrise, its stem and leaves - which grew in spirals like a corkscrew - had a curious bluish tint. Harry shrugged and shook his head.
"I was never good with plants," Ginny said. "It's pretty, whatever it is."
"Its common name is Dawn in the Mountains, though there's nothing remotely common about it. It used to grow high in the Pyrenees. Centuries ago, I mean. It was all over the crags - as high up as any flower could possibly grow. Why it started to die out, no one really knows for sure. Some say the giants - you know, they waged battles all over those mountains in the seventeenth century - had something to do with it. Some say a wizard cast a spell that went badly wrong, and made the air - well, like I said, no one really knows. But for the past two hundred years, this order of witches and wizards has been cultivating the flowers. They're pretty secretive. And when I say secretive, I mean - you can't get to see them. They guard the mountain passes with spells and traps. To even glimpse one of them - a witch or wizard, I mean - let alone any Dawn in the Mountains, you have to be - well, you've got to be…"
"Neville Longbottom?" said Ginny when he trailed off, his cheeks reddening.
"Um," he said. "Yeah."
"Neville," said Harry, "you are cool."
"So, anyway," Neville went on, his gaze lowered, "I did get to see them, and we talked for a long time, and they gave me this one specimen. I showed it to my classes this morning, and then I thought… Really, though," he said hurriedly, "I'm not cool, Harry. I'm just - you know -"
"I think you're cool," said Harry. "Your students obviously do." He nodded toward the blonde girl, who kept shooting them looks, even as she served the other patrons. "She thinks you're cool."
"She ought to," Neville said, lifting his gaze and grinning again. "She's coming home with me after her shift, isn't she? Don't you recognize her?" he asked as Harry goggled. "That's Hannah Abbott."
"It can't-" But Harry looked at the girl again and realized that he did know her. A plump Hufflepuff with blonde pigtails. "Oh. I guess it's been a long time. And she looked - before, I mean, at Hogwarts, she wasn't so-"
"You can mention her boobs, Harry," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not as grabby and insecure as I was in school."
"You weren't," Harry insisted, "and I was going to mention her- Wasn't she," he went on desperately, because both Neville and Ginny were raising their eyebrows at him, "the one who accused me of sending Voldemort's basilisk after Justin?"
"I think that was Ernie," Ginny said.
"Was it? See, I don't remember."
"I know." Ginny patted his hand. "That's why we're here."
"That's why?" Hannah had come up behind Neville. "It's not our Sooty Floo? Because I'm told I mix the best Sooty Floo in Hogsmeade."
"What's your competition?" said Ginny. "The Hogshead?"
Never grabby, thought Harry, and not as insecure as she'd been at Hogwarts, but…
Neville turned to Hannah. "I think," he said as he reached up a tucked the Dawn in the Mountains into her blonde curls, "we'll be getting Sooty Floos."
"All around?"
"Yeah."
She kissed the top of Neville's head, then walked away. She hadn't walked like that when they'd been students - had she?
"You blush, Neville," Ginny said. "And sometimes you stammer. But you can't disguise the fact that you're cool. Does she have any idea what you just gave her?"
"She should recognize it when she stops to look at it," Neville replied. "She's heard me describe it, she's seen the paintings in my books. She's actually interested in what I do. Sometimes - when she can get off work, when they don't need her here - she even comes with me. It's bloody brilliant."
Hearing his own words, spoken in the same tone with which he'd answered that Prophet reporter, Harry turned from Neville to Ginny. "I know all about brilliant," he said.
Hannah returned with their drinks. "So, what does bring you here?" she asked as she set them down on the table.
"Harry's working on a book," said Ginny. She sipped her Sooty Floo. "Mmm. But we'd've come up here sooner if we'd known about these," she added graciously.
Hannah beamed. "A book? About what?"
"About me," Harry said, reluctantly. "Well, all of us. What happened here six years ago. What really happened, I mean. Not everything. There's some stuff that's just too hard to explain. Some stuff that's really private. Not my stuff, necessarily. Stuff about Dumbledore. And Snape. And - to a lesser extent - my family. My Muggle family, mostly. I just - I've thought about it, and there's no need for everyone to know everything. But I want people to know - well, things that are true."
"As opposed," Ginny put in, "to things Rita Skeeter reckoned would sell better."
"I don't understand," Hannah said, frowning. "Skeeter's book's been out for a long time. It was published - what? A month after the Battle of Hogwarts? A few weeks?"
"A week after we finished burying the dead," said Ginny. "Barely."
She was exaggerating, but no one corrected her.
"I have to get back to work," Hannah said reluctantly.
"I don't understand," said Neville, after she'd gone. "I thought you didn't care, Harry."
"I always cared," said Harry quietly.
"I know. I mean - I thought you didn't care to do anything. I remember. Hermione wanted to go after her, but you said she was entitled to her fiction, and anyone who believed it… You were done being the center of attention. The people who mattered knew the truth. That's what you said, right?"
Harry and Ginny exchanged another look.
"There are people," Harry said slowly, holding Ginny's earnest gaze, "I mean, there will be people. We hope. And they'll deserve to know. And you never know. If something happens to us. Something could. And then what?"
"Oh?" said Neville. Then he said "Oh" again, more softly, as he caught Harry's meaning. "So, the two of you are…?"
"Trying?" said Ginny with a smile. "Yeah."
*
Later, in their room above the Three Broomsticks, Harry and Ginny cuddled under a thick quilt. It was a chilly night, one of the first of the season. The rain still fell; they could hear it pattering the roof and windows.
Running his hands slowly through Ginny's hair, Harry whispered, "I'm glad Neville remembered that thing Trelawney used to say. I'd forgotten."
"That's because you spent her whole class snickering with Ron behind your crystal balls," Ginny replied sleepily. "According to Hermione. You never listened to a word she said. Just about every word out of her mouth was utter rubbish."
"Also according to Hermione?"
"Yeah," said Ginny.
"I just-" Harry wove a thick strand of Ginny's hair around his fingers. "There's so much I've forgotten about my years here, and I didn't even realize I'd forgotten it until I decided I wanted to write about it. Some of it - like that thing Trelawney always used to say - probably isn't important at all and won't make it into the book, but at the same time…" He tilted his head back against the pillow and stared, though it was too dark in the room to see the ceiling.
"It bothers you," said Ginny.
"Yeah. I don't regret keeping my distance from this place all these years. I think it's great that Neville's the big celebrity here now. He's certainly better at it than I ever was."
"He's older too," Ginny reminded him. "All those years ago, he'd have hated being famous as much as you did. You just wanted to play Quidditch and kiss pretty redheads."
"That's still all I really want to do," said Harry, grinning. "Though these days I'd rather watch a certain pretty redhead play Quidditch. And kiss her. And do other things with her."
"Other things that I reckon won't be in your book."
"Not this book, anyway."
"Harry Potter," Ginny snickered, "uncloaked! I bet that would sell millions of copies. Do you remember where we first kissed?" she asked suddenly, twisting in his arms so that she lay half on top of him. Through her flannel pajama top, he could feel the soft mounds of her breasts.
"What is this, a quiz?" Harry asked, lowering his hands so he could fondle her. "Are you testing my memory?"
Ginny batted his hands away gently. "Yeah."
"Of course I remember. It was Gryffindor Tower. Right after that Quidditch match against - " He couldn't remember which house they'd been playing against, so he went on quickly. "I'd just finished detention with Snape. You gave me this…look. And you sort of ran at me."
"All right," said Ginny. "You may." At his quizzical look she added, "What you wanted to do before. With your hands."
Grateful, Harry flicked open the buttons of her pajama top and cupped her breasts. He'd have done more - Ginny usually went half-mad when he kneaded her, especially when she was on top - but her fingers curled around his wrists and held him.
"Second question," she said. In the darkness, Harry could just make out the curve of her smile. "Where was our second kiss?"
"Um." Here, Harry drew a blank. They'd ended up down by the lake, he knew, but there'd been a great deal of kissing between their escape from Gryffindor Tower and that. "A…corridor?" he guessed.
"Which one?"
"I don't remember," Harry said. "D'you think I was even paying attention to where we were? All I cared about was you. I'd've kissed you in the Potions classroom. In front of Snape. Is that it?" he asked. "Is that the answer?"
"No," Ginny laughed. "It doesn't matter. I don't remember either. I do remember where I first let you touch me like you're touching me now."
"Behind the greenhouse," said Harry triumphantly. "I remember because I got some sort of pollen-"
"I had a jumper on, then," Ginny said.
"Oh, yeah. No, I remember. It was in the library! Pince was shrieking at some poor first-year and I-"
"I had a bra on," Ginny said. "I mean the first time you touched me like this." She undulated against him and Harry, who'd been hard for some time now, was suddenly very hard, aware that neither of them had underwear on, and that, Quidditch star or not, he could break her grip on his wrists if he wanted.
He did want to, but Ginny released him before he could act. She flopped off him and he rolled over, pinning her. She spread her legs and bucked against him. He bucked back. His erection met the heat between her legs and they both hissed. Ginny flung her arms wide and arched her back, offering her bare breasts to him, offering her flat belly, and all that lay below it.
Harry kissed the soft skin behind her ear, the pulse at her throat, and the dip between her collarbones while his fingers teased her nipples. "It was the first of November," he murmured against her skin. "After Voldemort was defeated. I'd spent the day before at Godric's Hollow, thinking about my parents and everyone else we'd lost. Then I realized I needed to stop thinking about the past. And for that, I needed to you. So, I went to you. It was your last year at Hogwarts, so I met you in Hogsmeade. We had butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Then we went for a walk. I told you about the cave where Sirius used to hide."
He paused to lick her taut nipples and delight in her throaty moan. His fingers brushed her belly on their way to the drawstring of her pajama bottoms. One tug, and they were loose enough to slide over her hips.
"Harry," she whimpered.
"We went to the cave," Harry continued, pulling back so he could hook his hands under her knees and jerk her closer. He wished they'd kept the candles lit; he loved watching her freckles disappear as she flushed. "It was a beautiful day. No clouds. The crags were covered with - I don't know. But they looked all rusty. Like - I don't know. Piles of ancient armor or something."
"That's rather puh-pretty."
Curling over her, Harry pushed her thighs until she was bent nearly double. Then he spread her wide.
"It was cold," Harry said. "But you just started taking off your clothes. First your cloak. Then your jumper. Then - then the rest." He was having difficulty continuing. The smell of her filled his lungs and his erection throbbed painfully. "You - you left your shoes and socks on, though. I'll never forget that. I started to get undressed too, and I couldn't stop looking at your knees. It was like - like - " He faltered, remembering the sun on the back of his neck, heavy as a yoke. He'd been scared out of his mind.
"But you see?" he said. "I do remember the important things."
"You kept something on too. D'you remember what it was?"
"My hat," said Harry.
"No."
Harry stroked her. "My watch."
"Nuh - no. It was your tie. Don't you remember? You started to unknot it, but your hands were sweaty and you kept fumbling it? I was getting impatient - sort of like I'm getting impatient right now - though - yes, what you're doing - mmm, it's nice - and I was - so I grabbed it and - "
Harry wasn't wearing a tie, so Ginny clasped him by the shoulders and pulled him to her.
*
They didn't make a baby that night. "But it was practice," Ginny would say a week later, when they were back at their house in Edinburgh. "Not that you and I need practice."
Harry, who had by then started writing his book, looked up from his roll of parchment. "But - practicing is still good. Whether we need it or not. Right?"
Ginny patted his shoulder. "Practice is good."
Harry twiddled his quill between his fingers. "D'you think I should put some sex in this story? It is a biography, and I've had a lot of sex in my life. With you," he added.
"I know. But this is for the next generation, remember? Do you have any idea what that sort of knowledge would do to them? How badly it would scar them?"
"The book would sell better."
"You don't want to be famous anymore."
"No," he said, laying the quill down beside the parchment. "I really don't. I thought - when we first got back from Hogsmeade - that I envied Neville a little. But if I don't write things down, there's a chance I'll forget them, and then what?"
"Then," said Ginny, cupping his face and tilting it back so that he was looking up into her loving brown eyes, "it's a good thing I know how to jog your memory."
8/15/2008
by thistlerose
Rating: Mature / R
Ships: Harry/Ginny, Neville/Hannah
Summary: It takes more than good memory to have good memories.
A/N: Written for the hpgw_otp Fortune Cookie Challenge. 3,000 words. Set after the series.
"These days," The Quibbler had reported not long ago, "wizards and witches get quiet when Neville Longbottom enters a room."
Harry hadn't quite believed it, and not just because he'd read it in The Quibbler. Sure, he'd seen Neville stand up to a gang of Death Eaters and behead Voldemort's snake. Sure, he knew all about Neville's adventures at Hogwarts during their seventh year, while Harry had been off hunting Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione. Undermining Snape's authority, stealing Gryffindor's sword. Brilliant stuff. Neville was a hero and deserved every accolade.
Harry knew that.
He also knew that Neville was one of the most popular professors at Hogswarts, that there was a long wait list for his elective Herbology classes, and that even Peeves and the Slytherins treated him with something approximating respect.
Harry knew all that - and yet he experienced a jolt when Neville entered the Three Broomsticks that night in early autumn, and absolutely everyone, from the patrons to the buxom blonde girl pouring drinks behind the bar, got quiet.
If Neville noticed, he gave no sign, and that was so very Neville that the spell on Harry broke and he raised his hand in greeting. Beside him, Ginny waved too.
Neville grinned when he saw them, and hurried to their table, brushing raindrops from his cloak, mumbling apologies as he squeezed around chairs.
"Ginny Potter," he said, dropping at last into a chair opposite theirs. "Holyhead's most valued player. I should have brought parchment or some chocolate frog cards; some of my students would love to get your autograph. Oh, hey, Harry," he added like an afterthought.
"Hey," Harry echoed, amused. Neville was joking, he knew. And yet, thought Harry, there was truth in his words; he remembered the first time someone - a young sports reporter for the Daily Prophet - had asked him what it was like dating - this had been about five months before their fairly private wedding - one of the most famous and important women in Quidditch. "Bloody brilliant," Harry had replied, and the reporter, mistakenly reading sarcasm in his quiet tone, had laughed. Ginny had laughed later, when he'd repeated the story, laughed and wrapped her slender arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, and later still, when they lay on his bedroom floor, limbs tangled, sweat drying on their naked skin, he'd told her falteringly that it was bloody brilliant, that he'd so much rather be known as the Boy Who Dated Ginny than the Boy Who Saved the World While He Still Had His Baby Teeth.
"I'm still glad you did," Ginny had said after a thoughtful pause.
"Yeah," Harry had said with a sigh. "Yeah, me too."
When the Prophet report came out two days later, they'd had another laugh over the fleeting nature of fame.
Usually fleeting, Harry thought now as Neville reached into a fold of his cloak and withdrew a book bound in battered leather.
"Take a look at this," Neville said, opening the book and turning it so Harry and Ginny could see the flower pressed between its pages. "D'you know what that is?"
Thanks to the book's enchanted pages, the flower had lost none of its color; Its petals were pink as a sunrise, its stem and leaves - which grew in spirals like a corkscrew - had a curious bluish tint. Harry shrugged and shook his head.
"I was never good with plants," Ginny said. "It's pretty, whatever it is."
"Its common name is Dawn in the Mountains, though there's nothing remotely common about it. It used to grow high in the Pyrenees. Centuries ago, I mean. It was all over the crags - as high up as any flower could possibly grow. Why it started to die out, no one really knows for sure. Some say the giants - you know, they waged battles all over those mountains in the seventeenth century - had something to do with it. Some say a wizard cast a spell that went badly wrong, and made the air - well, like I said, no one really knows. But for the past two hundred years, this order of witches and wizards has been cultivating the flowers. They're pretty secretive. And when I say secretive, I mean - you can't get to see them. They guard the mountain passes with spells and traps. To even glimpse one of them - a witch or wizard, I mean - let alone any Dawn in the Mountains, you have to be - well, you've got to be…"
"Neville Longbottom?" said Ginny when he trailed off, his cheeks reddening.
"Um," he said. "Yeah."
"Neville," said Harry, "you are cool."
"So, anyway," Neville went on, his gaze lowered, "I did get to see them, and we talked for a long time, and they gave me this one specimen. I showed it to my classes this morning, and then I thought… Really, though," he said hurriedly, "I'm not cool, Harry. I'm just - you know -"
"I think you're cool," said Harry. "Your students obviously do." He nodded toward the blonde girl, who kept shooting them looks, even as she served the other patrons. "She thinks you're cool."
"She ought to," Neville said, lifting his gaze and grinning again. "She's coming home with me after her shift, isn't she? Don't you recognize her?" he asked as Harry goggled. "That's Hannah Abbott."
"It can't-" But Harry looked at the girl again and realized that he did know her. A plump Hufflepuff with blonde pigtails. "Oh. I guess it's been a long time. And she looked - before, I mean, at Hogwarts, she wasn't so-"
"You can mention her boobs, Harry," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not as grabby and insecure as I was in school."
"You weren't," Harry insisted, "and I was going to mention her- Wasn't she," he went on desperately, because both Neville and Ginny were raising their eyebrows at him, "the one who accused me of sending Voldemort's basilisk after Justin?"
"I think that was Ernie," Ginny said.
"Was it? See, I don't remember."
"I know." Ginny patted his hand. "That's why we're here."
"That's why?" Hannah had come up behind Neville. "It's not our Sooty Floo? Because I'm told I mix the best Sooty Floo in Hogsmeade."
"What's your competition?" said Ginny. "The Hogshead?"
Never grabby, thought Harry, and not as insecure as she'd been at Hogwarts, but…
Neville turned to Hannah. "I think," he said as he reached up a tucked the Dawn in the Mountains into her blonde curls, "we'll be getting Sooty Floos."
"All around?"
"Yeah."
She kissed the top of Neville's head, then walked away. She hadn't walked like that when they'd been students - had she?
"You blush, Neville," Ginny said. "And sometimes you stammer. But you can't disguise the fact that you're cool. Does she have any idea what you just gave her?"
"She should recognize it when she stops to look at it," Neville replied. "She's heard me describe it, she's seen the paintings in my books. She's actually interested in what I do. Sometimes - when she can get off work, when they don't need her here - she even comes with me. It's bloody brilliant."
Hearing his own words, spoken in the same tone with which he'd answered that Prophet reporter, Harry turned from Neville to Ginny. "I know all about brilliant," he said.
Hannah returned with their drinks. "So, what does bring you here?" she asked as she set them down on the table.
"Harry's working on a book," said Ginny. She sipped her Sooty Floo. "Mmm. But we'd've come up here sooner if we'd known about these," she added graciously.
Hannah beamed. "A book? About what?"
"About me," Harry said, reluctantly. "Well, all of us. What happened here six years ago. What really happened, I mean. Not everything. There's some stuff that's just too hard to explain. Some stuff that's really private. Not my stuff, necessarily. Stuff about Dumbledore. And Snape. And - to a lesser extent - my family. My Muggle family, mostly. I just - I've thought about it, and there's no need for everyone to know everything. But I want people to know - well, things that are true."
"As opposed," Ginny put in, "to things Rita Skeeter reckoned would sell better."
"I don't understand," Hannah said, frowning. "Skeeter's book's been out for a long time. It was published - what? A month after the Battle of Hogwarts? A few weeks?"
"A week after we finished burying the dead," said Ginny. "Barely."
She was exaggerating, but no one corrected her.
"I have to get back to work," Hannah said reluctantly.
"I don't understand," said Neville, after she'd gone. "I thought you didn't care, Harry."
"I always cared," said Harry quietly.
"I know. I mean - I thought you didn't care to do anything. I remember. Hermione wanted to go after her, but you said she was entitled to her fiction, and anyone who believed it… You were done being the center of attention. The people who mattered knew the truth. That's what you said, right?"
Harry and Ginny exchanged another look.
"There are people," Harry said slowly, holding Ginny's earnest gaze, "I mean, there will be people. We hope. And they'll deserve to know. And you never know. If something happens to us. Something could. And then what?"
"Oh?" said Neville. Then he said "Oh" again, more softly, as he caught Harry's meaning. "So, the two of you are…?"
"Trying?" said Ginny with a smile. "Yeah."
*
Later, in their room above the Three Broomsticks, Harry and Ginny cuddled under a thick quilt. It was a chilly night, one of the first of the season. The rain still fell; they could hear it pattering the roof and windows.
Running his hands slowly through Ginny's hair, Harry whispered, "I'm glad Neville remembered that thing Trelawney used to say. I'd forgotten."
"That's because you spent her whole class snickering with Ron behind your crystal balls," Ginny replied sleepily. "According to Hermione. You never listened to a word she said. Just about every word out of her mouth was utter rubbish."
"Also according to Hermione?"
"Yeah," said Ginny.
"I just-" Harry wove a thick strand of Ginny's hair around his fingers. "There's so much I've forgotten about my years here, and I didn't even realize I'd forgotten it until I decided I wanted to write about it. Some of it - like that thing Trelawney always used to say - probably isn't important at all and won't make it into the book, but at the same time…" He tilted his head back against the pillow and stared, though it was too dark in the room to see the ceiling.
"It bothers you," said Ginny.
"Yeah. I don't regret keeping my distance from this place all these years. I think it's great that Neville's the big celebrity here now. He's certainly better at it than I ever was."
"He's older too," Ginny reminded him. "All those years ago, he'd have hated being famous as much as you did. You just wanted to play Quidditch and kiss pretty redheads."
"That's still all I really want to do," said Harry, grinning. "Though these days I'd rather watch a certain pretty redhead play Quidditch. And kiss her. And do other things with her."
"Other things that I reckon won't be in your book."
"Not this book, anyway."
"Harry Potter," Ginny snickered, "uncloaked! I bet that would sell millions of copies. Do you remember where we first kissed?" she asked suddenly, twisting in his arms so that she lay half on top of him. Through her flannel pajama top, he could feel the soft mounds of her breasts.
"What is this, a quiz?" Harry asked, lowering his hands so he could fondle her. "Are you testing my memory?"
Ginny batted his hands away gently. "Yeah."
"Of course I remember. It was Gryffindor Tower. Right after that Quidditch match against - " He couldn't remember which house they'd been playing against, so he went on quickly. "I'd just finished detention with Snape. You gave me this…look. And you sort of ran at me."
"All right," said Ginny. "You may." At his quizzical look she added, "What you wanted to do before. With your hands."
Grateful, Harry flicked open the buttons of her pajama top and cupped her breasts. He'd have done more - Ginny usually went half-mad when he kneaded her, especially when she was on top - but her fingers curled around his wrists and held him.
"Second question," she said. In the darkness, Harry could just make out the curve of her smile. "Where was our second kiss?"
"Um." Here, Harry drew a blank. They'd ended up down by the lake, he knew, but there'd been a great deal of kissing between their escape from Gryffindor Tower and that. "A…corridor?" he guessed.
"Which one?"
"I don't remember," Harry said. "D'you think I was even paying attention to where we were? All I cared about was you. I'd've kissed you in the Potions classroom. In front of Snape. Is that it?" he asked. "Is that the answer?"
"No," Ginny laughed. "It doesn't matter. I don't remember either. I do remember where I first let you touch me like you're touching me now."
"Behind the greenhouse," said Harry triumphantly. "I remember because I got some sort of pollen-"
"I had a jumper on, then," Ginny said.
"Oh, yeah. No, I remember. It was in the library! Pince was shrieking at some poor first-year and I-"
"I had a bra on," Ginny said. "I mean the first time you touched me like this." She undulated against him and Harry, who'd been hard for some time now, was suddenly very hard, aware that neither of them had underwear on, and that, Quidditch star or not, he could break her grip on his wrists if he wanted.
He did want to, but Ginny released him before he could act. She flopped off him and he rolled over, pinning her. She spread her legs and bucked against him. He bucked back. His erection met the heat between her legs and they both hissed. Ginny flung her arms wide and arched her back, offering her bare breasts to him, offering her flat belly, and all that lay below it.
Harry kissed the soft skin behind her ear, the pulse at her throat, and the dip between her collarbones while his fingers teased her nipples. "It was the first of November," he murmured against her skin. "After Voldemort was defeated. I'd spent the day before at Godric's Hollow, thinking about my parents and everyone else we'd lost. Then I realized I needed to stop thinking about the past. And for that, I needed to you. So, I went to you. It was your last year at Hogwarts, so I met you in Hogsmeade. We had butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. Then we went for a walk. I told you about the cave where Sirius used to hide."
He paused to lick her taut nipples and delight in her throaty moan. His fingers brushed her belly on their way to the drawstring of her pajama bottoms. One tug, and they were loose enough to slide over her hips.
"Harry," she whimpered.
"We went to the cave," Harry continued, pulling back so he could hook his hands under her knees and jerk her closer. He wished they'd kept the candles lit; he loved watching her freckles disappear as she flushed. "It was a beautiful day. No clouds. The crags were covered with - I don't know. But they looked all rusty. Like - I don't know. Piles of ancient armor or something."
"That's rather puh-pretty."
Curling over her, Harry pushed her thighs until she was bent nearly double. Then he spread her wide.
"It was cold," Harry said. "But you just started taking off your clothes. First your cloak. Then your jumper. Then - then the rest." He was having difficulty continuing. The smell of her filled his lungs and his erection throbbed painfully. "You - you left your shoes and socks on, though. I'll never forget that. I started to get undressed too, and I couldn't stop looking at your knees. It was like - like - " He faltered, remembering the sun on the back of his neck, heavy as a yoke. He'd been scared out of his mind.
"But you see?" he said. "I do remember the important things."
"You kept something on too. D'you remember what it was?"
"My hat," said Harry.
"No."
Harry stroked her. "My watch."
"Nuh - no. It was your tie. Don't you remember? You started to unknot it, but your hands were sweaty and you kept fumbling it? I was getting impatient - sort of like I'm getting impatient right now - though - yes, what you're doing - mmm, it's nice - and I was - so I grabbed it and - "
Harry wasn't wearing a tie, so Ginny clasped him by the shoulders and pulled him to her.
*
They didn't make a baby that night. "But it was practice," Ginny would say a week later, when they were back at their house in Edinburgh. "Not that you and I need practice."
Harry, who had by then started writing his book, looked up from his roll of parchment. "But - practicing is still good. Whether we need it or not. Right?"
Ginny patted his shoulder. "Practice is good."
Harry twiddled his quill between his fingers. "D'you think I should put some sex in this story? It is a biography, and I've had a lot of sex in my life. With you," he added.
"I know. But this is for the next generation, remember? Do you have any idea what that sort of knowledge would do to them? How badly it would scar them?"
"The book would sell better."
"You don't want to be famous anymore."
"No," he said, laying the quill down beside the parchment. "I really don't. I thought - when we first got back from Hogsmeade - that I envied Neville a little. But if I don't write things down, there's a chance I'll forget them, and then what?"
"Then," said Ginny, cupping his face and tilting it back so that he was looking up into her loving brown eyes, "it's a good thing I know how to jog your memory."
8/15/2008