FIC: H/G - "What Happens When You Think Too Much"
What Happens When You Think Too Much, H/G
Rating: PG (perhaps craning its neck to peer into PG-13's garden)
Obligatory Disclaimer: It's Jo's world; I'm just playing in it.
ETA: Oops - I guess I should add that there are spoilers for DH under the cut. :P
The day after the battle was a blur. Ginny had spent most of it in the Great Hall with her mum, dad, and all her brothers … save one. Losing Fred had been absolutely devastating, and she didn’t want to think what the day would have been like if Percy hadn’t been there. His reunion had been a small joy that somewhat tempered their sorrow, and the eight of them talked and enjoyed each other’s company as Ginny could only barely remember them doing years ago, before she had ever come to Hogwarts.
Ginny briefly spotted Harry sitting next to Luna. She suppressed the instinct to feel injured that he hadn’t sought her out to sit next to, and she made no effort to go to him. Now was not the time for a passionate reunion, and there was no telling how long she and her family could be together like this, when they needed each other the most.
"George, tell 'em about the time you and Fred rigged my chair with a Flatulence Charm," said Ron, laughing.
George made a show of sighing heavily, before he said, "Ron, how many times do I have to tell you? There's no such thing as a Flatulence Charm. You can't just go blaming all your bodily functions on us."
They were telling Fred stories, and George was in an especially sharing mood, telling more than one tale of mischief that he and Fred would never have dared confess to while they were still living under Molly and Arthur’s roof. Harry’s name was mentioned a couple of times that afternoon, and Ginny unconsciously glanced toward where he had been sitting. But no, now was not the time.
*******
Harry left Dumbledore’s office and went straight to Gryffindor Tower. It occurred to him as he approached the painting of the Fat Lady that he didn’t have a password. But before he could worry too much about that the passageway opened for him of its own accord.
The Tower had taken a beating in the battle, but it could have been much worse. Harry climbed the stairs to the familiar dormitory, and flopped down on his old bed.
"Kreacher?" he said tentatively. With a pop the elf appeared at his side.
"Is there something Master wants?"
What Master really wanted was sitting downstairs in the Great Hall. Harry wanted nothing more than to curl up with Ginny and fall asleep with his arms around her - and hers around him. And if they happened to have a nice snog or ... something before they both drifted off, well, that would be fine, too. But now was not the time, and Harry could see at once what a dumb idea it was. “Hey Ginny - so sorry about Fred. Wanna mess around?” He could have kicked himself for even thinking it.
No, now was definitely not the time. He turned resignedly to the elf and asked, "Is there anything left in the kitchens, Kreacher?"
*******
Ginny and her family returned to the Burrow late that night. Hermione accompanied them, both because her own parents were still in Australia and because she seemed to have become physically and irrevocably attached to Ron. Ginny tried not to resent their newfound closeness, but it was difficult when the person she wanted to be close to right now was nowhere to be seen.
Mrs. Weasley had insisted that everyone get some sleep after the long day and even longer night before. Ginny, however, could not make herself fall asleep. More for something to do than because she was thirsty, she went down to the kitchen to get some water. As she reached on tiptoe to get a glass from a high shelf, she heard a noise from outside. She wouldn't have dared to do it a few days ago, but she found herself heading for the kitchen door and peering into the night. She saw a dark figure approaching the house.
"Ginny?"
She recognized Harry's voice at once and, despite being pajama-clad and barefoot, ran straight for him and threw her arms around him in a tight hug, which he returned even more urgently. After a few moments, Ginny tried to extricate herself just a bit so she could cover his face in kisses, but he kept holding her.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, and Ginny thought she heard a tremor in his voice.
"No, I couldn't sleep. I was in the kitchen.” He was still holding her. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Yeah, just … I’m so glad to see you.”
They pulled apart and Ginny took his hand. “Come on, let’s go inside.” As they walked back to the house, Ginny decided that, judging from his behavior, now was not the best time for a passionate reunion either. It was enough, for now, to feel like he needed her.
*******
Harry obeyed the tug of Ginny's hand as she led him into the living room and sat facing him on the sofa.
"Ginny, there are some things I need to tell you. Things I've kept from you, but I want you to understand--"
"Harry, you don't owe me anything. Whatever you have to say, I want to hear, but I don't want you to feel like I'm pressuring you. You and Ron and Hermione have this thing, and you and I are something else that's not a part of that. And that's okay. I'm fine with that."
"No, that's--" Harry began. It was important for her to understand this. "That's not okay. You shouldn't be fine with it. I was trying to protect you before, and that's the only excuse I can give for keeping you in the dark like that. But I want you to know things. I don't want you to feel like you're not an equal." The look of gratitude in Ginny's eyes was disarming, but he still managed to keep himself from adding "ever again," because it felt like too much.
Harry sat with Ginny for the next few hours, unloading most of the secrets he had kept from her the past two years - the prophecy, his meetings with Dumbledore and insights into Riddle’s past, his search with Ron and Hermione for the remaining Horcruxes, and the Hallows and the role they played in Voldemort’s downfall. Ginny said very little, only offering up a couple of things she remembered about Riddle from the diary when Harry talked about seeing the teenaged Riddle asking about Horcruxes. Harry felt a bit silly finally saying all of this out loud and all mashed together like this. He wondered how ridiculous it sounded, and if perhaps Ginny would be skeptical or … think he was bragging or something.
But the more he said to her, the more he realized he was doing the right thing. She listened intently, and seemed to know exactly when to let him ramble, when to fill the silence, and when he needed a reassuring touch of her hand. By the time he had finished, he was lying with his head in her lap, glad to have had an innocent excuse to be with her without worrying that he was pushing her into something she didn’t want. Yet.
And there it was, the anxiety that had pricked at him since he’d been vaguely able to see an end in sight to his conflict with Voldemort. Now that there was no more Dark Lord to fight, now that there was all the time in the world to be together, would Ginny even be interested in him any more? Or was the looming threat of war and the knowledge that it would eventually interrupt their happiness, perhaps for good, part of the attraction?
He could tell he was being unfair to even think such a thing. Still, she was the one who had made a move the previous summer. Yet she betrayed no inclination to make such a move now. Harry couldn’t help wondering if this signaled a change between them.
*******
It had been a few weeks since Harry’s first appearance at the Burrow after the Hogwarts battle, and Ginny had never felt closer to him. They spent almost all of their time together - paying their respects and consoling each other along with their friends at the multiple burials, talking for hours on end, and sometimes just sitting in comfortable silence together. This was quite satisfactory to Ginny, who loved that she and Harry were able to take the time now to get to know each other much better than their brief, hot-and-heavy romance had allowed the year before.
Well, satisfactory wasn't the right word. She did miss the intensity of their first few weeks of dating. It wasn’t that she couldn’t enjoy being around Harry without it, because it meant a great deal to her that Harry had begun to trust her with things he'd previously reserved only for Ron and Hermione. But there hadn’t been anything terribly romantic between them at all - except a few chaste kisses - since she’d basically thrown herself at him on his seventeenth birthday. They seemed more like friends who sometimes kissed than boyfriend and girlfriend.
And this feeling was never more acute than on a couple of evenings when they had fallen asleep next to each other. It drove her CRAZY to wake up in the middle of one of those nights and roll over to see him lying next to her, knowing that nothing had happened - or would happen - between them but sleep. Nothing wrong with just sleeping, obviously, but she couldn't get around the fact that she desperately wanted so much more.
At the close of the third week of Increasingly Maddening Platonicness, their fumbling attempts to reestablish their relationship were dealt a heavy blow. Harry was asked to come to London to sit in on some Ministry business with Kingsley and the surviving Aurors. As Ron had recently left with Hermione for Australia so that she could jog her parents' memories, Harry had planned to accompany Ginny, George, Charlie, and Molly back to Hogwarts to help with restoration of the castle. But the four Weasleys were now going without him.
Ginny could not help being disappointed. She had been hoping that the roominess of the castle and its many secret corners - safe from the watchful eyes of her mother and brothers - would inspire either Harry or herself to be bold. But perhaps the physical separation would do just as well to rekindle their former heat.
As they parted, Harry seemed on the verge of telling her something important, but apparently reconsidered before Apparating, leaving Ginny to wonder if he was actually attracted to her at all anymore. She couldn't shake the fear that part of what made them irresistible to each other before was the knowledge that it couldn't last. And that now that there was all this time, Harry had lost interest.
*******
That Harry had lost interest in Ginny even a little couldn't have been further from the truth. They sent each other a couple of owls, of course, but their respective responsibilities left little time for such things. Harry's days kept him busy, listening to Kingsley's team of Aurors discussing where improvements could be made, and offering up his opinion when he had one. There was a big job to be done, and Harry was glad to have been asked to be a part of it. But at night he thought of little else but Ginny and how much he missed her.
His eighteenth birthday came and went, but not without pangs at the memory of his last birthday, when she had called him into her room and...
That was it. As soon as he saw her again, he was going to make a move, whether she was ready or not. If she slapped him or told him where to stuff it, so be it. At least he wouldn't wonder any more if she felt the same as he did.
As he entered the second week of August, he received an owl from Hermione.
Dear Harry,
I hope things are going well in London. Ron and I have just returned from Australia and are in the thick of Hogwarts reconstruction. It looks much better than it did in May, but there is still quite a bit to be done.
I didn't want to worry you, but I thought you'd want to know that Ginny took a rather nasty fall earlier today. She's quite all right, apart from a badly broken leg. The problem is that the best person to mend the break is Madame Pomfrey, but she's left the castle for the summer, to tend some family matters. There's not much in the way of medical magic experience among the workers here, I'm afraid, though there are more people fussing over her than she can really tolerate. She's doing very well, so there's no need to panic, but without a proper mediwizard her recovery will be slow--
Harry merely glanced at the rest of the letter, and wasted little time in contacting Kingsley to make his apologies and excuse himself for an unspecified amount of time. He packed his things, Apparated to Hogsmeade, and hastened to the castle. After making his way through a gauntlet of former classmates and teachers, all of whom seemed intent on catching up, he arrived at the hospital wing, which was still being patched up. Ginny was the only patient in the room, and she lay asleep in the first bed.
Harry sat in a chair at her bedside and held her motionless hand. He reminded himself that it was only a broken leg, and that dramatics would be more than ridiculous in this situation. Yet he couldn't keep from saying the thing he'd almost told her when he last saw her.
"Ginny, I--" He hesitated. It hardly counted to say this while she was sleeping. He'd have to screw up his courage all over again to say it for her to actually hear. But this was as good a time to practice as any. "Ginny, I love you." He lowered his head to her hand and kissed it. Thinking it would be incredibly dopey to stay there and hold her hand much longer, but not wanting to leave her, he climbed into the bed next to her and watched her sleep for a while before dozing off himself.
He awoke after a few hours and put on his glasses, only to find that Ginny's bed was empty. He looked around the hospital wing to see if she'd been moved, but she was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't have gone far in her condition, but he went to the first place he could think of - Gryffindor Tower.
Once again, the passageway opened without a password, and Harry climbed through the portrait hole into the common room. It was dark, but he could tell that the Tower was nearer to being restored than any other area of the castle he'd seen. Looking around at the familiar tapestries, he almost didn't notice a figure sitting near the fire, until it turned and spoke.
"I love you, too, Harry." Ginny said quietly. She had heard him.
"Ginny! How did you get up here?"
"Hermione helped me up. I couldn't stand another night on that hospital cot." She looked at him with that familiar blazing look, and he couldn't stand it any longer - not touching her, not kissing her, not looking for wherever else she might be hiding those wonderful freckles...
But he glanced at her leg, still tied to a splint, and thought that perhaps now, of all times (cursed be the Fates!), was definitely not the time.
"Harry, can I ask you something?" she said.
"Yeah," he said a little too quickly, scrambling to bring his libido down a notch.
She seemed to deliberate before she finally said "Is there something wrong between us? Or ... with me?"
"No, I--"
"Because we -- we don't kiss like we used to. And it's just not the same between us as it was before. It just feels like ... maybe you don't want me like you did before."
What?! Somehow, in his effort not to be a complete arse, Harry had still managed to bollocks things up quite nicely. He hastened to explain, to assure her that there was absolutely nothing wrong, and that he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her sweet mouth and - he felt he should stop right there before it became very visually apparent just how much he wanted her.
"I mean," she continued, "I understand if it was just more exciting being with me when you knew there wasn't much time. And if, now we've spent all this time together not kissing and ... whatever else, you don't quite feel as attracted to me anymore."
She paused, and looked into his eyes, searching for something. Harry, for a crucial moment, could not think of what to say.
"But just because I understand doesn't mean I like it." she continued. "And, please don't misunderstand, I've loved the time we've spent together, and I'm so glad - so, so glad - that you feel like you can talk to me about things and that we can be together without feeling like we have to be making out all the time." Another telling pause. "But I miss the way I used to feel when we kissed. Like there was nothing more important in the world, and it almost hurt when we stopped."
Harry stepped until he was face to face with her. "I do want you," he said, placing a hand on her arm. "Ginny, I want you so much. I just didn't want to rush things. I didn't think you'd be ready to pick up where we left off. We have all this time now, and I just thought - well, since we didn't have to have each other right this second, that we should sort of take--"
"But," she interrupted, "don't you want me right this second?" A voice from inside him was screaming YES! YES!, but for some reason he could make no sound. "Because--" she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper, "because I want you right this second."
Ignoring the primeval roar from his chest, Harry cupped her face in his hands and kissed her hard. She returned the kiss with equal ferocity, and he began to walk her back to the nearest sofa before stopping himself.
"Your leg."
"Yes?"
"It's broken."
"I've got another."
"You're injured, Ginny."
"The rest of me still works. I'm perfectly capable of--"
"I don't want to push--"
"I want you to push."
He looked at her in amazement. Why had he waited this long? Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck midnight. It was Ginny's birthday. He kissed her deeply, lifting her off the ground and walking her back to the sofa. She tried to help him carry her by wrapping her arms around his neck and her unbroken leg around his waist.
"Happy seventeenth," he said with a smile, before sinking with her into the cushions.
[ETA2: Thanks to angua9 and wahlee_98 for beta and feedback.]
Rating: PG (perhaps craning its neck to peer into PG-13's garden)
Obligatory Disclaimer: It's Jo's world; I'm just playing in it.
ETA: Oops - I guess I should add that there are spoilers for DH under the cut. :P
The day after the battle was a blur. Ginny had spent most of it in the Great Hall with her mum, dad, and all her brothers … save one. Losing Fred had been absolutely devastating, and she didn’t want to think what the day would have been like if Percy hadn’t been there. His reunion had been a small joy that somewhat tempered their sorrow, and the eight of them talked and enjoyed each other’s company as Ginny could only barely remember them doing years ago, before she had ever come to Hogwarts.
Ginny briefly spotted Harry sitting next to Luna. She suppressed the instinct to feel injured that he hadn’t sought her out to sit next to, and she made no effort to go to him. Now was not the time for a passionate reunion, and there was no telling how long she and her family could be together like this, when they needed each other the most.
"George, tell 'em about the time you and Fred rigged my chair with a Flatulence Charm," said Ron, laughing.
George made a show of sighing heavily, before he said, "Ron, how many times do I have to tell you? There's no such thing as a Flatulence Charm. You can't just go blaming all your bodily functions on us."
They were telling Fred stories, and George was in an especially sharing mood, telling more than one tale of mischief that he and Fred would never have dared confess to while they were still living under Molly and Arthur’s roof. Harry’s name was mentioned a couple of times that afternoon, and Ginny unconsciously glanced toward where he had been sitting. But no, now was not the time.
*******
Harry left Dumbledore’s office and went straight to Gryffindor Tower. It occurred to him as he approached the painting of the Fat Lady that he didn’t have a password. But before he could worry too much about that the passageway opened for him of its own accord.
The Tower had taken a beating in the battle, but it could have been much worse. Harry climbed the stairs to the familiar dormitory, and flopped down on his old bed.
"Kreacher?" he said tentatively. With a pop the elf appeared at his side.
"Is there something Master wants?"
What Master really wanted was sitting downstairs in the Great Hall. Harry wanted nothing more than to curl up with Ginny and fall asleep with his arms around her - and hers around him. And if they happened to have a nice snog or ... something before they both drifted off, well, that would be fine, too. But now was not the time, and Harry could see at once what a dumb idea it was. “Hey Ginny - so sorry about Fred. Wanna mess around?” He could have kicked himself for even thinking it.
No, now was definitely not the time. He turned resignedly to the elf and asked, "Is there anything left in the kitchens, Kreacher?"
*******
Ginny and her family returned to the Burrow late that night. Hermione accompanied them, both because her own parents were still in Australia and because she seemed to have become physically and irrevocably attached to Ron. Ginny tried not to resent their newfound closeness, but it was difficult when the person she wanted to be close to right now was nowhere to be seen.
Mrs. Weasley had insisted that everyone get some sleep after the long day and even longer night before. Ginny, however, could not make herself fall asleep. More for something to do than because she was thirsty, she went down to the kitchen to get some water. As she reached on tiptoe to get a glass from a high shelf, she heard a noise from outside. She wouldn't have dared to do it a few days ago, but she found herself heading for the kitchen door and peering into the night. She saw a dark figure approaching the house.
"Ginny?"
She recognized Harry's voice at once and, despite being pajama-clad and barefoot, ran straight for him and threw her arms around him in a tight hug, which he returned even more urgently. After a few moments, Ginny tried to extricate herself just a bit so she could cover his face in kisses, but he kept holding her.
"Did I wake you?" he asked, and Ginny thought she heard a tremor in his voice.
"No, I couldn't sleep. I was in the kitchen.” He was still holding her. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Yeah, just … I’m so glad to see you.”
They pulled apart and Ginny took his hand. “Come on, let’s go inside.” As they walked back to the house, Ginny decided that, judging from his behavior, now was not the best time for a passionate reunion either. It was enough, for now, to feel like he needed her.
*******
Harry obeyed the tug of Ginny's hand as she led him into the living room and sat facing him on the sofa.
"Ginny, there are some things I need to tell you. Things I've kept from you, but I want you to understand--"
"Harry, you don't owe me anything. Whatever you have to say, I want to hear, but I don't want you to feel like I'm pressuring you. You and Ron and Hermione have this thing, and you and I are something else that's not a part of that. And that's okay. I'm fine with that."
"No, that's--" Harry began. It was important for her to understand this. "That's not okay. You shouldn't be fine with it. I was trying to protect you before, and that's the only excuse I can give for keeping you in the dark like that. But I want you to know things. I don't want you to feel like you're not an equal." The look of gratitude in Ginny's eyes was disarming, but he still managed to keep himself from adding "ever again," because it felt like too much.
Harry sat with Ginny for the next few hours, unloading most of the secrets he had kept from her the past two years - the prophecy, his meetings with Dumbledore and insights into Riddle’s past, his search with Ron and Hermione for the remaining Horcruxes, and the Hallows and the role they played in Voldemort’s downfall. Ginny said very little, only offering up a couple of things she remembered about Riddle from the diary when Harry talked about seeing the teenaged Riddle asking about Horcruxes. Harry felt a bit silly finally saying all of this out loud and all mashed together like this. He wondered how ridiculous it sounded, and if perhaps Ginny would be skeptical or … think he was bragging or something.
But the more he said to her, the more he realized he was doing the right thing. She listened intently, and seemed to know exactly when to let him ramble, when to fill the silence, and when he needed a reassuring touch of her hand. By the time he had finished, he was lying with his head in her lap, glad to have had an innocent excuse to be with her without worrying that he was pushing her into something she didn’t want. Yet.
And there it was, the anxiety that had pricked at him since he’d been vaguely able to see an end in sight to his conflict with Voldemort. Now that there was no more Dark Lord to fight, now that there was all the time in the world to be together, would Ginny even be interested in him any more? Or was the looming threat of war and the knowledge that it would eventually interrupt their happiness, perhaps for good, part of the attraction?
He could tell he was being unfair to even think such a thing. Still, she was the one who had made a move the previous summer. Yet she betrayed no inclination to make such a move now. Harry couldn’t help wondering if this signaled a change between them.
*******
It had been a few weeks since Harry’s first appearance at the Burrow after the Hogwarts battle, and Ginny had never felt closer to him. They spent almost all of their time together - paying their respects and consoling each other along with their friends at the multiple burials, talking for hours on end, and sometimes just sitting in comfortable silence together. This was quite satisfactory to Ginny, who loved that she and Harry were able to take the time now to get to know each other much better than their brief, hot-and-heavy romance had allowed the year before.
Well, satisfactory wasn't the right word. She did miss the intensity of their first few weeks of dating. It wasn’t that she couldn’t enjoy being around Harry without it, because it meant a great deal to her that Harry had begun to trust her with things he'd previously reserved only for Ron and Hermione. But there hadn’t been anything terribly romantic between them at all - except a few chaste kisses - since she’d basically thrown herself at him on his seventeenth birthday. They seemed more like friends who sometimes kissed than boyfriend and girlfriend.
And this feeling was never more acute than on a couple of evenings when they had fallen asleep next to each other. It drove her CRAZY to wake up in the middle of one of those nights and roll over to see him lying next to her, knowing that nothing had happened - or would happen - between them but sleep. Nothing wrong with just sleeping, obviously, but she couldn't get around the fact that she desperately wanted so much more.
At the close of the third week of Increasingly Maddening Platonicness, their fumbling attempts to reestablish their relationship were dealt a heavy blow. Harry was asked to come to London to sit in on some Ministry business with Kingsley and the surviving Aurors. As Ron had recently left with Hermione for Australia so that she could jog her parents' memories, Harry had planned to accompany Ginny, George, Charlie, and Molly back to Hogwarts to help with restoration of the castle. But the four Weasleys were now going without him.
Ginny could not help being disappointed. She had been hoping that the roominess of the castle and its many secret corners - safe from the watchful eyes of her mother and brothers - would inspire either Harry or herself to be bold. But perhaps the physical separation would do just as well to rekindle their former heat.
As they parted, Harry seemed on the verge of telling her something important, but apparently reconsidered before Apparating, leaving Ginny to wonder if he was actually attracted to her at all anymore. She couldn't shake the fear that part of what made them irresistible to each other before was the knowledge that it couldn't last. And that now that there was all this time, Harry had lost interest.
*******
That Harry had lost interest in Ginny even a little couldn't have been further from the truth. They sent each other a couple of owls, of course, but their respective responsibilities left little time for such things. Harry's days kept him busy, listening to Kingsley's team of Aurors discussing where improvements could be made, and offering up his opinion when he had one. There was a big job to be done, and Harry was glad to have been asked to be a part of it. But at night he thought of little else but Ginny and how much he missed her.
His eighteenth birthday came and went, but not without pangs at the memory of his last birthday, when she had called him into her room and...
That was it. As soon as he saw her again, he was going to make a move, whether she was ready or not. If she slapped him or told him where to stuff it, so be it. At least he wouldn't wonder any more if she felt the same as he did.
As he entered the second week of August, he received an owl from Hermione.
Dear Harry,
I hope things are going well in London. Ron and I have just returned from Australia and are in the thick of Hogwarts reconstruction. It looks much better than it did in May, but there is still quite a bit to be done.
I didn't want to worry you, but I thought you'd want to know that Ginny took a rather nasty fall earlier today. She's quite all right, apart from a badly broken leg. The problem is that the best person to mend the break is Madame Pomfrey, but she's left the castle for the summer, to tend some family matters. There's not much in the way of medical magic experience among the workers here, I'm afraid, though there are more people fussing over her than she can really tolerate. She's doing very well, so there's no need to panic, but without a proper mediwizard her recovery will be slow--
Harry merely glanced at the rest of the letter, and wasted little time in contacting Kingsley to make his apologies and excuse himself for an unspecified amount of time. He packed his things, Apparated to Hogsmeade, and hastened to the castle. After making his way through a gauntlet of former classmates and teachers, all of whom seemed intent on catching up, he arrived at the hospital wing, which was still being patched up. Ginny was the only patient in the room, and she lay asleep in the first bed.
Harry sat in a chair at her bedside and held her motionless hand. He reminded himself that it was only a broken leg, and that dramatics would be more than ridiculous in this situation. Yet he couldn't keep from saying the thing he'd almost told her when he last saw her.
"Ginny, I--" He hesitated. It hardly counted to say this while she was sleeping. He'd have to screw up his courage all over again to say it for her to actually hear. But this was as good a time to practice as any. "Ginny, I love you." He lowered his head to her hand and kissed it. Thinking it would be incredibly dopey to stay there and hold her hand much longer, but not wanting to leave her, he climbed into the bed next to her and watched her sleep for a while before dozing off himself.
He awoke after a few hours and put on his glasses, only to find that Ginny's bed was empty. He looked around the hospital wing to see if she'd been moved, but she was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't have gone far in her condition, but he went to the first place he could think of - Gryffindor Tower.
Once again, the passageway opened without a password, and Harry climbed through the portrait hole into the common room. It was dark, but he could tell that the Tower was nearer to being restored than any other area of the castle he'd seen. Looking around at the familiar tapestries, he almost didn't notice a figure sitting near the fire, until it turned and spoke.
"I love you, too, Harry." Ginny said quietly. She had heard him.
"Ginny! How did you get up here?"
"Hermione helped me up. I couldn't stand another night on that hospital cot." She looked at him with that familiar blazing look, and he couldn't stand it any longer - not touching her, not kissing her, not looking for wherever else she might be hiding those wonderful freckles...
But he glanced at her leg, still tied to a splint, and thought that perhaps now, of all times (cursed be the Fates!), was definitely not the time.
"Harry, can I ask you something?" she said.
"Yeah," he said a little too quickly, scrambling to bring his libido down a notch.
She seemed to deliberate before she finally said "Is there something wrong between us? Or ... with me?"
"No, I--"
"Because we -- we don't kiss like we used to. And it's just not the same between us as it was before. It just feels like ... maybe you don't want me like you did before."
What?! Somehow, in his effort not to be a complete arse, Harry had still managed to bollocks things up quite nicely. He hastened to explain, to assure her that there was absolutely nothing wrong, and that he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her sweet mouth and - he felt he should stop right there before it became very visually apparent just how much he wanted her.
"I mean," she continued, "I understand if it was just more exciting being with me when you knew there wasn't much time. And if, now we've spent all this time together not kissing and ... whatever else, you don't quite feel as attracted to me anymore."
She paused, and looked into his eyes, searching for something. Harry, for a crucial moment, could not think of what to say.
"But just because I understand doesn't mean I like it." she continued. "And, please don't misunderstand, I've loved the time we've spent together, and I'm so glad - so, so glad - that you feel like you can talk to me about things and that we can be together without feeling like we have to be making out all the time." Another telling pause. "But I miss the way I used to feel when we kissed. Like there was nothing more important in the world, and it almost hurt when we stopped."
Harry stepped until he was face to face with her. "I do want you," he said, placing a hand on her arm. "Ginny, I want you so much. I just didn't want to rush things. I didn't think you'd be ready to pick up where we left off. We have all this time now, and I just thought - well, since we didn't have to have each other right this second, that we should sort of take--"
"But," she interrupted, "don't you want me right this second?" A voice from inside him was screaming YES! YES!, but for some reason he could make no sound. "Because--" she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper, "because I want you right this second."
Ignoring the primeval roar from his chest, Harry cupped her face in his hands and kissed her hard. She returned the kiss with equal ferocity, and he began to walk her back to the nearest sofa before stopping himself.
"Your leg."
"Yes?"
"It's broken."
"I've got another."
"You're injured, Ginny."
"The rest of me still works. I'm perfectly capable of--"
"I don't want to push--"
"I want you to push."
He looked at her in amazement. Why had he waited this long? Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck midnight. It was Ginny's birthday. He kissed her deeply, lifting her off the ground and walking her back to the sofa. She tried to help him carry her by wrapping her arms around his neck and her unbroken leg around his waist.
"Happy seventeenth," he said with a smile, before sinking with her into the cushions.
[ETA2: Thanks to angua9 and wahlee_98 for beta and feedback.]