Eleven Months Later: Scrubbing Bubbles

[kanedax]

Title: Eleven Months Later: Scrubbing Bubbles
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Deathly Hallows
Rating: Strong R for language, nudity, and sexual contact

Characters/Pairings: Harry/Ginny, along with a previously-unnamed Hogwarts painting
Summary: Two Hogwarts students steal away...
Notes: This story was written after How To Survive When No One Wants You Dead, but takes place two months before that chapter. It’s a prequel, it's a supplement, it's something. Call it what you will…
It’s just a little bit of fun with the Mermish language and a lot of fun for people who, well, want me to write Harry and Ginny naked. Which I’ve never done before, in any fandom, so it could very well suck. 
If you don’t want that, feel free to skip on to How To Survive, and I’ll be continuing the story any day now. I don’t own Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, or any of the Hogwarts ghosts. They belong to JK Rowling. I also don’t own the mermaid in the painting, but I do own her name. Good luck using it in daily conversation.

Three Months Later: Our Little Wilkins / Previous Chapters / Thirteen Months Later: How To Survive When No One Wants You Dead

“Scrubbing Bubbles.”

The blond mermaid looked up from her rock as the password was spoken and the door opened across from her. It had been a few weeks since anyone had visited, and she waited to see who would be with her today. As the seconds ticked by without anyone crossing the threshold, Gshlk (the name, nearly unpronounceable in the human language, was one she had been given long before she had become immortalized in this painting centuries ago) strongly resisted the urge to call out.

For one, she only knew very little of human language, and she had only known few humans in all of her years at Hogwarts who had spoken Mermish. Whoever she called would not answer back.

Besides, she was allowed to hang in this room under the explicit instruction that she was not to interfere or interact with any of the humans who used the pool beneath her. It had been explained to her many times over that most humans, especially the calves that populate the building, are very modest when in the water or when cleaning themselves. It had much to do with the fact that they were draped in those horrible furs almost all the time, and did not like to be seen without them.

Gshlk had difficulty believing how this could be. The furs were ungainly. Billowing. Even in the warm summer months, they would be worn in multiple layers. How could one walk or run with those hindrances? How could they fight, or evade capture, with those sails slowing them down, allowing others more surface to grab, to pull, to impede. She could not even imagine a Mer attempting to swim in such devices without being dragged to the wild grindylows.

Yet time after time, year after year, when the young humans attempted to use her pool, they would only reluctantly remove the furs. Constantly look around as though they were in danger of being seen. Indeed, many of the calves throughout the years would not even remove all of their garments before washing. They would wear strips of fur around the area where their legs started (their genital area, Gshlk had been told) or around the mammaries even as they swam through the water. Some would even wear one large fur that covered their midsection along with the other two areas. How they thought to get clean when half of their body was covered remained a mystery to Gshlk.

How could they see themselves in that way? Gshlk thought as she stared at the door, her tailfin slapping impatiently against the warm rock. The humans are a beautiful race when unwrapped. After many years of watching, I could see how many of my kind would become infatuated with them, despite their unscaled legs.

I wonder whatever happened to Rslchk and her human man…

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

Gshlk’s ears perked up. There was a human voice. But she couldn’t see anyone in sight.

“You thought it was a good enough idea when we were in the common room.”

Was that a second voice, or merely the first voice again? Humans sounded so alike, she could barely tell the difference.

“Yeah, well…”

“In fact, your exact words were ‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. I’ll go get the Invisibility Cloak and we’ll get out of here.’”

Still no bodies. Perhaps one of the wandering souls was playing a trick on her. It seemed like something that Pivs would do. Only, Gshlk assumed, she would have been pelted by water sacs or bars of soap by now if that had been the case.

“Or were you just flirting when you said you wanted to take a bath with me?”

Perhaps Nk? Thabaron? Fafrr?

No, this didn’t seem like anything they would do. They were all fairly serious souls. They would have shown themselves by now.

“Well, I didn’t know we were actually going to go through with it. I’m not a prefect, and you’re Quidditch captain now. I’m not even allowed in here anymore.”

The door closed on its own.

Maybe Miirtl? She would have made her presence known. She always did whenever she came into the prefect’s bathroom, whether Gshlk wanted her company or not.

One of the downsides of being a mermaid in a frame was that you couldn’t travel from painting to painting without legs. She was a captive audience, and Miirtl knew it.

“That didn’t stop you when you were trying to figure out the second task, did it?” And two bodies appeared out of thin air, one clasping a shimmering swatch of fabric.

Are they of the same gender? Gshlk thought as she studied the two. It was her job to alert the mature humans if any males and females came into the bathroom together. Unlike the Mer, humans had no mating cycle. The matures believed that this pool would be a prime area for mating, as it was a secluded spot, as well as being one of the few areas in the school where calves were allowed to remove their furs without punishment.

“Well, what about security alarms?” The taller of the two said. “We’re not allowed into the girl’s dorms. How do we know that there aren’t similar triggers in here?”

Gshlk did not see a problem with the mating. To the Mer, maturity was the only qualification for calf rearing. If a Mermaid could physically rear a calf, if a Merman could physically impregnate a Mermaid, then Mercalves happened. However, she could see the dilemma that faced the matures if their female charges were distracted from their education by delivering calves.

Besides, Gshlk didn’t want to lose her position in the painting any time soon.

“I haven’t heard any screams,” said the shorter human. “Not yet, anyway.” She winked at the taller figure, whose pale face turned beet red, nearly matching the color of the shorter one’s long hair.

Gshlk squinted, attempting to determine their gender. The furs made it exceedingly difficult sometimes. Many of the females had large enough mammaries where they were noticeable through all of their layers. Neither of these seemed to be bulging in the chest. But she might see something poking from beneath the shorter one’s red and gold wrappings…

Better safe than sorry, she thought, and took a deep breath, preparing to scream out. Her Mermish vocal cords, evolved through millennia to carry sound through even the murkiest water, would be heard all the way to the office of Gngl, the new Head Mature of the school now that Dumbledore and the other one were gone.

“I think she’s seen us,” said the tall one, his hair dark and messy. He was looking directly up at Gshlk’s painting, and her breath caught in her throat as she got a better look at him.

The striking green eyes, framed by black metal circles. The crooked scar on his forehead, visible even through the dirt and grime that covered his face. This was the boy (now a man, she saw) who had come into her pool four years ago, the second one to carry the Golden Egg. She had pretended to be asleep then, but even through her veil of hair she had been able to see him. He was one of the Champions.

This was also the boy, Miirtl had gleefully told her last summer, who had not only vanquished the previous Head Mature from Hogwarts, but had also defeated The Black Human himself.

There were two names in human tongue that Gshlk knew well.

Dumbledore was one.

And Harrypotter was the other.

So the other one must be one of his companions. Not the tall Weeslee Boy, who had come in here quite often two years ago. Her initial guess must have been correct. Those were mammaries, small though they are, beneath the furs. This must be one of Harrypotter’s females, the ones that Miirtl loved to mock and ridicule as often as she could.

Lunie? No, the hair was too dark. From what she had been told, Lunie’s hair nearly matched her own.

The other one, the one whose name was too difficult for even Gshlk to put into a Mermish context? That female had also come in on occasion two years ago, but ceased after Miirtl became a constant bother (something about a juice and a feline, but Gshlk knew nothing of that, and did not wish to ask). That one had dark hair that puffed up when it wasn’t wet, while this one was straight and tame.

This one must be the Weeslee Girl, the one that Miirtl had spoken of with more venom in the past three years than the other two combined. The one who, by all accounts, was Harrypotter’s Promised. Gshlk chided herself for not making the connection sooner. The Girl’s hair matched the Weeslee Boy’s so much, she guessed that they must be birthed from the same female.

She was quite beautiful, as well, although her face and furs were just as covered in muck as Harrypotter was. She was far from a calf, as well on her way to maturity as he was on his own current. Gshlk decided she could find herself infatuated with both Harrypotter and the Weeslee Girl if she watched them for too long.

Gshlk debated calling Miirtl. She loved Harrypotter so. She would want nothing more than to come and see him again.

Gshlk decided that she didn’t want to put Harrypotter through such irritation, and struck the idea from her mind.

Besides, he had vanquished The Black Human. Gshlk may be punished later if anyone found out about her indiscretion, but for now she would let him be. Consider it her gift to the Champion and his Promised.

She lay down on the rock, wondered if they would not mind if she watched them while they bathed, and fell asleep on her crossed arms.

“See?” said Ginny as she folded up the Invisibility Cloak. “She’s not going to bother us, we’re fine.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Harry, shifting the pile of clean clothes to his other arm and locking the door to the hallway. “It looked like she was going to start hollering for a minute there. Must have changed her mind.”

As Ginny wandered around the edge of the bathtub, Harry got a look around the prefect’s bathroom. Despite his status as Quidditch Captain two years ago, Harry had never come back after his initial experience during the Triwizard Tournament. It was, however, just as he remembered it. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting light from eternal candles across the floor and the pile of towels and bathrobes in the corner. There was a diving board at the far end of the room that hung over the deep end of the tub. The tub itself (the word itself being taken to the extreme, as this particular basin could pass for a small lake in most of the United Kingdom) was surrounded by practically hundreds of shining nozzles, which Ginny was turning on and off one by one.

“I can never remember which ones were the good ones,” she said as the faucet she was clasping poured out gobs of what looked like pink shaving cream.

“Yeah, I’m sure they’d take some getting used to,” Harry said, putting the pile of clean clothes next to the edge. “I just sort of played with them and found whatever filled the tub when I was in here. I was just needing to get the egg underwater, I wasn’t too concerned with anything else.”

“I only got in here a few times last year,” said Ginny as green gel erupted from the next spout. “One of the rule changes that Snape put in place was that the bathroom was only accessible to prefects and Captains in good standing. Basically the Slytherin prefects and any Captain whose team was in the lead in the Quidditch standings.”

“Not too biased at all…”

“Yeah, not after the Carrows took over reffing the games. Their love for Slytherin was equal only to their hatred of Gryffindor. I got in here once, and that was only because Ernie let me in after they won their first match of the season and had a technical lead in the standings. Oh, for God’s sake!” she growled as a jet of water skipped across the pool. “I don’t want fancy. I just want hot and soapy, can you give me that?”

“Ernie let you, did he?” said Harry. “I didn’t know he was on the team last year.”

“Yeah, he was one of the few Hufflepuffs who wasn’t afraid of them. Ah, there we go.” Clear steaming water poured out of the faucet, and Ginny stood up to stretch.

“You two didn’t…” Harry stammered. “You know…”

“Oh, yeah, we had loads of wet, naked fun,” boasted Ginny. “It’s amazing what some of these faucets can do… of course we didn’t.”  She put her hand on her hips. “Ernie was just being a gentleman, like he always is. He knew that the Carrows had it out for my team, and decided to give me a break after Neville, Luna, and I tried to break into Snape’s office. So he let me in, closed the door behind me, and went on his way. From what I hear, he did the same for them, too, and for the rest of his team.”

“Just checking…” Harry said, kicking himself for asking.

“You honestly didn’t think that, did you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Because you know there was no one else. I’ve told you that.”

“I know,” Harry said, shrugging. “It’s just… you know me. Self-confidence has never been my strong suit.”

Ginny snorted, but stepped toward him. “I’ve known you for eight years, watched you argue for a hundred theories, whether you knew they were right or not. Confidence has never been your problem, Mr. Potter.”

“With women, it has been,” said Harry, blushing slightly. “Anyway, we should probably hurry up. We left the party pretty suddenly, Ron and Hermione might start wondering where we…”

Ginny was inches from him now, and he could smell that flowery smell, even through the dirt and grime that covered her from the Quidditch pitch. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. Their lips parted as she kissed him softly. Harry forgot what he had been saying.

“My team just won the Quidditch Cup,” she whispered, her arms still around him. “I’m smelly, I’m bruised, I’m covered in dirt. So is my Seeker. I haven’t had any time alone with my boyfriend that didn’t involve looking over my shoulder, checking my watch, or being very quiet under his Invisibility Cloak.

“So let’s just forget about Ron…”

peck

“Forget about Hermione…”

peck

“And let’s just be alone for a while. Okay?”

Harry nodded, his vocal chords feeling completely paralyzed as he felt Ginny’s body press against his. He bent down to kiss her, but he straightened as a sudden realization hit him.

“We might not be alone,” he said, looking around the room.

“What are you talking about?” said Ginny. “The door’s locked.”

“Yeah, well,” Harry said, pulling his wand out of his pocket. “Just to be sure… Spiritum Revelio!”

The wand failed to do anything.

“Well, that’s a start,” he said, looking around the large bathroom.

“What are…?” Ginny repeated, then stopped. “Oh. Right. Myrtle.”

“I can try casting some protection spells,” Harry thought aloud. “They should work in the school, because we’ve been able to use Muffliato for years. But I don’t know if any of them work for ghosts…”

Ginny shrugged, a small smile crossing her face. “Give it a shot.”

“Yeah…” Harry said, suddenly feel like he was on stage. He walked around the outside of the tub, just as he and Hermione had done back when they were setting up camp. “Umm… Protego Totalum… Cave Inimicum…”

He heard some rustling behind him, and redoubled his efforts.

“Muffliato… Hmmm… I suppose they’re magical… Salvo Hexia… ummm… Repello… Repello… Repello Spiritum?”

“Is that even a spell?” Ginny asked. “Or are you making it up?”

“I don’t know,” he said, turning around. “We used one for Muggles, so in theory…”

His words died in his throat. Sparks flew from the tip of his wand as it clattered on the marble floor.

“You really should be more careful with that,” Ginny teased as she pulled down her knickers. “You keep dropping it every time you see me.”

“Well, you do have that effect on me,” he said, his mouth suddenly dry. Ginny bent down to put the panties on top of the rest of her folded up clothing, and stood back up completely nude.

“It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before,” she said.

“Bits and pieces, yeah,” said Harry. And it was true. When they were alone in an area where they might be walked in upon, their clothes stayed where they were. When they were under the Cloak, he had once or twice risked unbuttoning her shirt, letting his fingers run along the edge of her bra, pulling down the cup to play with her hardened nipple. On one particularly frenzied occasion Ginny had unzipped his fly and reached inside his underwear, and he had responded by lifting up her skirt and pulling her knickers down to her knees, allowing a brief glimpse of pale red hair before their eyes were closed again, lost in each other’s kisses. But… “I haven’t seen… umm… everything…”

Ginny blushed, and Harry watched as the red traveled down past her neck, stopping just shy of her small freckled breasts. He saw a bruise just under her right shoulder blade, most likely from that errant Bludger around the ten-minute mark, and another on her left thigh.   “Well?”

Harry smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so wonderful…”

She giggled. “You flattah me, suh!” she said in her best American Dixie accent, and dove into the pool. Harry watched as she went completely underwater, her pale back and red hair gliding effortlessly through the suds as she swam a length of the tub before surfacing on the other side.

“Okay!” Ginny yelled, leaning against the edge of the pool, her naked body just achingly out of view beneath the water. “Your turn!”

Harry quickly remembered the second part of this expedition. “Oh, yeah, right,” he said. “My turn.” He cleared his throat, and hesitated.

“Do you want me to turn away?” Ginny asked, but Harry shook his head.

“No, it’s fine,” he said, removing his shoes and socks. “I just haven’t done this before.”

“Harry, I can name at least a dozen people who have seen you naked.”

“Actually, no,” he said, pulling off his Quidditch jersey. “You can name at least a dozen people who have seen copies of me naked. Big difference.”

“Well, either way,” Ginny said, wading towards him. “You have no idea how jealous I was when I found out Hermione and Fleur were going to see you and I wasn’t.”

“I thought you said to forget about Hermione?” Harry said, smirking.

“I’ll talk about whoever I want if the end result is me seeing your bare tush,” she crossed her arms on the marble edge and grinned up innocently at him.

“Cool your heels, I’m almost there,” he said, unzipping his trousers and pulling them off. He folded them in quarters and set them to the side. “Glasses on or off?”

Ginny shrugged. “They’re Imperviused. Either way’s fine with me. Hurry up then, one more thing.”

He looked down at his boxers, and started turning red. “Right…”

“Do you want me to play some sexy music?”

“Cute…”

“Put a couple Galleons on the table to get a special dance?”

“You know, I think I liked you better when you turned colors and ran to your room whenever you saw me.”

Ginny stuck her tongue out. “See, that’s why I love you,” she said. “You’re funny.”

“Well, prepare to laugh, then,” he said, and, with the air of someone tearing off a Band-Aid, pushed his boxers down to his ankles. The teasing grin that had been on Ginny’s face dropped for an instant as she looked him up and down. It was quickly replaced by a smile that Harry read as loving, impressed, and full of ideas, all in one quick gaze.

“Well?”

“Are you getting in the tub, or aren’t you?” she asked, pushing herself away from the edge to give him room to climb in.

“Do they even have strip clubs in the wizard world?” Harry asked as he sat down on the cool marble and shoved himself in. The water felt incredible on his sore muscles, and he could see the dirt float from his arms and face as he submerged himself completely.

“A few, yeah,” Ginny replied as he resurfaced. “I guess most wizards who want to go end up just going to the Muggle ones. Not much of a difference, really.”

“Probably easier than putting a couple Sickles into a girl’s g-string.”

“You are going to drop the nudie bar conversation and kiss me eventually, right?”

“Absolutely.”

And he put his hands to her waist and pulled her to him, and he was kissing her. Ginny wrapped her arms around his chest, and for the first time felt their bare skin press against each other. As his hands ran through her long, red hair, as her fingers ran up and down his back, she felt herself responding. She ground her body against him as their tongues danced, feeling her small nipples harden as they were tickled by the hairs of his chest. She could feel him rise against her thigh, and knew that he was just as lost as she was.

She forced herself to pull away from his kiss, taking a step back. “We should… umm…” she gasped, her hands and eyes betraying her as they traced his arms and chest, “We should probably sit for a few minutes…”

“Yeah… yeah…” his green eyes seeming far away as he gazed down at her. His hands cupping her hips, running along her sides. She let out a small squeak as one of his thumbs, hard and tough from his years of manual labor with the Dursleys, brushed gently against one of her sensitive nipples. “Yeah… sit… sit is good…”

The next few minutes found Harry and Ginny awkwardly groping along the edge of the prefect’s bathtub, using one hand to try to find some sort of outcropping in the marble where they could sit without drowning. Despite their attempts to keep somewhat civil and just take a bath, they both found their hand blindly searching, as their eyes never left each other’s faces, and their other hands continuing to search each other’s bodies.

“We should really… just… take a bath…” Harry stammered, gently squeezing one of her breasts.

“Yeah… just a bath… cuz… yeah…” Ginny babbled back, kissing him quickly on the lips before traveling down to his shoulder, his neck, whatever happened to be in comfortable reach for her mouth.

Harry was the one who found the seating area. More specifically, the backs of his knees found the seating area, and he fell backward, finding a white marble ledge close enough to the surface where he was submerged to his armpits. He looked up to see Ginny gazing hungrily down at him.

“Just… just a bath…” she panted, her fingertips trailing along his neck and shoulder.

“Yeah… just…” he replied, his will slipping away as he watched a lock of wet red hair fall across her flushed, freckled face. “Just… just scrubbing…”

“Just… umm… just… oh, fuck it,” and Ginny fell on top of him. Her legs spread,
straddling his thigh and he kissed her more than he had ever kissed her before and he pulled her closer to him until she could barely breathe and still wanted her to be closer and waves went through her as her sex ground against his leg and she could feel him pressed between their stomachs and oh God he felt so good and so big and so…

“Do you…?” Harry gasped, looking into her eyes. “Do you want to…?”

Yes! Ginny’s brain screamed. Oh God yes this is the time this is the place I’ve been waiting eight years for you to ask that and I want you in me now!

Ginny shook her head, panting. “I want to,” she said. “I really really reallyreallyreally want to. But not tonight. Some night when we… when we have as much time as we want… and a bed to fall asleep in afterwards,” just like I’ve always dreamed, “ but not tonight…”

Harry nodded, his wet hair barely allowing his lightning-bolt scar to show through. “I can wait for that,” because when everyone else was asleep and I was allowed to think of you, that’s how I always dreamed it would happen. He smiled his smile. “My wand’s on the other side of the tub, and I haven’t memorized any… umm… protection spells yet.”

“I have,” Ginny replied, feeling her midsection betray her as it continued to slide up and down his thigh. “But if you think I’m leaving this spot, you’re crazy.”

“I seem to be trapped, too,” said Harry, recognizing her movements and moving his hands to her sides to help her move back and forth. “Besides, it’s my first time. I don’t want to disappoint you with a marathon-like five-second display.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I probably wouldn’t last much longer,” Ginny breathed. “But I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to practice.”

“Yeah, lots of practice,” he said, and one hand pulled from her hip and slid across her clit and he had one finger inside of her and she cried out because it was a surprise but it felt so good. Her hand tightened against the back of his neck.

“I take it that’s a good moan?” Harry asked.

Ginny nodded, breathing heavily into his ear.  “It’s fantastic,” she said. “I can usually fit two, though...”

Harry leaned back, a glint in his eye. “Oh, really?”

Ginny smiled, and a high-pitched note escaped her throat as he did as he was told. “Just something for your cheat sheet,” she whispered, and the hand that wasn’t behind his neck, steadying her balance as she moved up and down on his fingers, slid down his chest and wrapped around him and he gasped as she took a firm grip and moved her hand in time with his and there were no more words only moans and cries and lips and fingers and his mouth found her breast and her teeth found his ear and she was screaming into his and he was screaming into hers and…

“Oh, God… Ginny...” “Harry… Yes… Harry!”

“Can you breathe yet?”

“Just… just a few more minutes…”

They had, in fact, finished, together, fifteen minutes ago. Five minutes later, Ginny had been able to get up enough strength to pull herself off of Harry’s lap and slide down onto the outcropping next to him. Since then, they had been sitting next to each other, Ginny nestled against Harry’s chest, their arms wrapped around his chest, his around her shoulder. Both were still gasping for air.

“That was… really good…” Ginny said for probably the fiftieth time.

“Yeah…” Harry said, kissing the top of her head. Even this minor display of affection sent chills through her. Didn’t we just finish? she asked her body in response.

“So this is seriously the first time you’ve ever been naked?” she asked.

“In front of someone, yeah,” he replied.

“And it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a naked woman?”

“Pretty much,” said Harry. “Except for a few magazines that Seamus snuck into the dorm before Filch got a hold of them. And, you know… the bits and pieces of you…”

“What about Cho? Or Parvati?”

Harry laughed. “You saw me and Parvati at the Ball. We were done with each other before we stepped through the door. And Cho… yeah, we only got one date and a few kisses in. Nothing else.”

“And Hermione?” Ginny asked. She was fairly sure she knew the answer, but needed to hear it just to be sure.

“What about her?”

“You haven’t ever…?”

“Never,” said Harry. “I’m fairly sure everyone in my year thinks that I have, but by the time I was far enough away from the Dursleys to be... well, to allow myself to be interested in girls, I was already too close to her. She was never an option for me.”

“But you’ve never even seen anything…?”

Harry looked down at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” Ginny shrugged, her finger running up and down his chest. “You spent so many months in that tent, I just wondered if…”

“This is Hermione we’re talking about,” said Harry. “Organization’s her middle name, remember? Always changed behind a screen or in another part of the tent. I don’t know if she let Ron see her wandering around in her undercrackers, she never did when I was in view. Heck, I didn’t even see a sock laying around, let alone a bra or anything like that.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Why the sudden interest?”

She shrugged again, and he could feel warmth on his shoulder as her cheek turned red. “You’re not the only self-conscious one in the room. Just wondering if you were… comparing… or anything…”

“What?”

“They have nicer bodies than I do,” she said. “Bigger… you know, more… ample…”

“And the past, what is it, two years now hasn’t made you realize that I love you and your body just the way they are?”

“You’re sure?” Ginny said. “Cuz, you know…”

“How about the past twenty minutes? Should I show you the bite marks, or the hickeys?”

Ginny giggled. “Okay, I’ll take that.”

“So what about you, Miss Skeeter?” Harry said. “How does my scrawny self compare to Mr. Corner or Mr. Thomas?”

“Made it about as far with them as you did with anyone,” said Ginny. “Dean was too much of a gentleman, we never got past sloppy kissing in the hallway. Hell, you probably walked in on the worst of it.”

“You mean the night I wanted to hex him?”

Ginny laughed and slapped him on the chest. “You never told me that! Even then…?”

“I didn’t know it until then,” he said. “I had been having feelings for you before that, maybe even years before, but I honestly didn’t even recognize them until I walked away from that scene completely and utterly jealous of him, wishing I was the one who was kissing you instead of him.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she said, bewildered. “I would have dropped him like a bad habit.”

“Gryffindor, remember?” said Harry. “Noble and stupid.”

“We do have that problem, yeah…” Ginny said, chuckling and kissing him quickly on the shoulder.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Harry continued, squeezing her, “But I’m kind of surprised you didn’t get any further. You seemed to know what you were doing a few minutes ago.”

“Which part?”

Harry blushed a bit, pulled his free hand from the water, and wiggled two fingers. Ginny burst into laughter.

“How gentlemanly of you,” she said. “But, um, Seamus isn’t the only one with magazines, Fred and George tried to hide their collection from Mum and Dad as best they could, probably stole a good share of them from Charlie and Percy. But snoopy little Ginny was too smart for them.”

“Research?”

“You could say that,” she said, smiling a little too innocently.

“What else could I say?”

“Wellll… you could also say that when I was turning different colors and hiding in my room, I wasn’t just drawing hearts with our initials in them...”

“Other types of research?”

Ginny could feel him shifting beneath her, and she grinned.

“Thorough research,” she said, teasing him, kissing his neck to achieve full effect.

“Intriguing,” Harry said, his voice desperately trying to keep the high road.

“I can show you my results sometime, if you want,” she breathed in his ear, resisting the urge to climb back on top of him. She took his lobe in her teeth and tugged gently.

“We’ll have to compare notes,” Harry said, bending over to kiss her again, the energy expended not twenty minutes ago coming back in full force. Before she knew it, Ginny had climbed back on top of him, and they were once again kissing, grinding, groping.

“We should probably… call it a night here pretty soon…” Ginny said, coming up for air a few minutes later before diving back down to meet him.

“Pretty soon, yeah,” said Harry as she pulled away a second time. “But something tells me we’re not quite ready to go yet…”

“A few somethings, by my count,” said Ginny, dunking her hands below the surface and gripping him.

“What do you have in mind?” Harry asked as he sucked in breath between his teeth.

“I don’t know,” said Ginny between kisses on his neck.  “I had one idea, but I don’t know if I can hold my breath underwater for that long.”

Harry growled. “I didn’t know you studied Legilimency.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cuz I was just wishing I had brought some Gillyweed with me.”

Ginny gasped as Harry put his hand between her legs.

“Quite a conundrum,” she said, her breathing speeding up.

“One of us is going to have to get out of the water if they want the other to… you know…”

“The marble’s probably really cold,” said Ginny, biting her lip. “You first.”

“You know,” said Harry, “one of these taps makes some really weird foam…”

Ginny looked at him, her eyebrow arched. “The stuff that’s so thick you can lay down on it?”

Harry shrugged. “Could be fun…”

Ginny kissed him. “I like the way you think.”

Gshlk awoke to the echo of the slamming door. She looked around to see that the prefect's bathroom was now empty.

I fell asleep, she thought, chiding herself. I wasn’t able to watch after all...

She saw pockets of foam floating along the surface of the pool. If she didn’t know any better, Gshlk could swear that there were dents in some of them, large enough to have been made by two bodies lying side by side.

At least they enjoyed themselves, by the looks of it.

“What happened?” came a voice that made Gshlk feel even worse. The pearly-hued soul floated up from the surface of the water, a small pout crossing her lips.

“I heard someone come in,” Miirtl said, crossing her transparent arms. “But when I tried to come up and watch, something was keeping me out. And I couldn’t even hear anything. I sat in the pipe for an hour, it’s not fair. Did I miss anything?”

Gshlk shook her head.

Miirtl huffed, lowering herself down to the edge of the water. “Yeah, right,” she said. “No one ever lets Myrtle see anything. What’s the point of being dead if you can’t float around and do as you please?”

Gshlk sighed, and lay her head back down on the rock, disappointed that she had missed the opportunity to break years of monotony.

Oh, well, she thought as she tried to drown out Miirtl’s bickering. Maybe they will come back. Then I can watch them bathe…

Three Months Later: Our Little Wilkins / Previous Chapters / Thirteen Months Later: How To Survive When No One Wants You Dead