Of Scrolls and Sleeping

Chapter One: The First Move

Ginny's eyes raised slightly from the parchment she and Harry had been scouring. The four of them had been sitting at the table closest to the fire in the Gryffindor common room for hours poring over these ancient scrolls. Everyone else had headed off to bed before they even dared pull the scrolls out and spread them across the table between them. By now the fire burned very low in the hearth, almost embers, and the tapers Hermione had charmed to hang above them and illuminate their quest, like weak torches in the forest, were half spent.

Ginny's eyes took in the top of her brother Ron's head, resting lightly on the table directly across from her, cradled partially against his left shoulder. His left arm traced a crescent from the back of his head to a spot on the table just above where Hermione's lay to his right. Just inches apart, her position was almost his mirror. Her forehead was almost precisely an inch from his mouth and his right arm rested gently across her back, the hand trapped under her head against her shoulder, hidden beneath her untamed chestnut hair. Their deep even breathing was the final brush stroke and Ginny's lips curled slightly in a faint sagacious smile. She marveled how sleep could even free the corporeal to their subconsciously tangible devotion.

Her attention moved to her right as she watched them, where Harry sat oblivious to the intimate sketch across from him. His arm was braced against an upper slat of the ladder back chair Ginny occupied just as Ron's had been before he and Hermione had surrendered to unconsciousness. He leaned over the parchment, his eyes slowly sifting through the words. She thought about how the passing years had not diminished her affection for him, only increased and deepened it, despite her efforts to cover him in her heart with Michael. Replace him, she thought. No, no one could ever do that. She had only attempted to be practical, to place her attentions elsewhere, if not her heart, so as not to burden him. She knew it pained him to see anyone hurt and also that it was in his nature to blame himself for their pain. So when it was obvious that he fancied Cho Ginny had sought distraction and distance, she loved him too much to add her desires to the inferno hiding inside him. But circumstances had changed, Cho now gone from his heart and Michael from the crowded place in hers, to each other's arms no less. Still he had shown no sign that he felt as she did.

Her face turned to his, she felt the pressure of his side against her shoulder, it was glorious, and she relished it for a moment. She watched him soak up the words, his right elbow on the table with his hand pressed against his forehead, causing his fringe to stick up from around it at unruly angles. Their faces were very close. He must have felt her soft breath on his cheek for he turned to look at her then. Mere inches away those emerald eyes stared right through to her soul. He closed his eyes. She couldn't believe it- he was going to kiss her! In her excitement she closed the space between them, moving her lips to his, pouring all her heart and the soul he had just claimed with his green gaze into the kiss as though her very life depended upon it. She felt no response from Harry as he began to lean back away from her. She froze, close to horror; had she misread his intent? Then like a spooked doe she fled up the stairs to the girls' dormitory.