The Off Season

The waking charm flashed bright lights across the ceiling. As Ginny lay on her back squinting up at them, they got steadily brighter. Eventually Celestina Warbeck's voice filled the room as well, quivering on a syrupy high note, and Ginny had no choice but to climb quickly from her bed in order to make it stop.

Once standing, she wobbled slightly on her feet, looking longingly at the mussed bedcovers where she had been lying comfortably only a moment before. Shaking her head and muttering to herself, she trudged unsteadily in the direction of the shower.

The hot water ran in rivulets across her scalp and cascaded across her face, rinsing the sleepy stupor from her brain. She washed carefully, paying extra attention to all her body's curves and crevices and using the special shampoo that made her hair smell like apples. Stepping gingerly from the shower, she kept a tight grip on the railing Bill had installed to help keep her from falling.

She wrapped a large fluffy towel around her middle and sat gingerly on the edge of the tub. Lifting her wand from where it lay on the corner of the sink, she spoke the incantation for a hair-removal charm and ran the tip of the wand up and down her legs in a smooth motion. When she was done, she rubbed a soft, sweet-smelling lotion into her skin, then ran her fingertips across her legs gently, enjoying the feeling of the smooth, clean skin. It was not hard to imagine what Harry's hands would feel like in place of her own.

She leaned forward and bent her leg so that she could examine the scars that ran from her right ankle almost to her knee. The tangle of black, red, brown, and purple threads snaking across her skin looked just as bad as they always had, but she did not have the same reaction that she had in the past. Instead of making her feel ugly and deformed, this time the marks brought back the memory of the day she'd gotten them.

It was a hazy memory, obscured by a fog of panic and chaos. She had been standing on the lawn near the broom shed, her feet planted firmly in the green grass of late spring, her wand in her hand. A curtain of black fog, shot through with brilliant green lightning, obscured the sunny sky above her. Curses rang in her ears, echoing off the stone walls of the nearby castle. Ginny herself screamed until she was hoarse, casting every curse she could think of. It had been a day of pain and loss, but it had also been a day of courage and triumph.

Unlike with other guys she'd been interested in, her scar wasn't a curiosity for Harry. He had been there when she was hurt, and before. In the last few weeks, he'd helped her to change her own mind about the injury. Thanks in part to his help, she'd gone from thinking of herself as wounded and crippled to seeing the injury as a part of her past. Yes, it had affected her deeply and continued to do so every day. But it didn't kill her, and she should go on living. There was no reason to sit on the sidelines and watch others fly above her. Today, scar or no scar, limp or no limp, she was taking the first steps toward rejoining the game.

-----

Ginny Apparated to the park where they'd played Quidditch the weekend before, feeling confident and undeniably sexy. Her broom slung across her shoulder, she walked across the grass towards a picnic table at the end of the field, where a dark-haired young man sat watching her. Enjoying the feel of his eyes on her, she rolled her hips and swung her ponytail exaggeratedly. She was emphasizing the appearance of her limp, but she didn't care.

"Fancy meeting you here," she called to him once she was within earshot.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" he asked jokingly, indicating the tree-lined park with a sweeping gesture.

"Maybe I'm not such a nice girl after all," she replied, waggling her eyebrows at him.

He just laughed in response, but his face colored a little bit. She dropped her bag at his feet with a satisfying thump and leaned a little on her broom. Looking him in the eye, she waited for him to speak.

He stared back for a moment, his green eyes unreadable behind his glasses. Finally he shook his head a tiny bit and seemed to snap out of his thoughts.

"Right," he said. "You ready to practice?"

She blinked at him in surprise. In her elaborate preparations, she had nearly forgotten that they were meeting for some reason other than romance or seduction. To cover her error, she gave a mock salute. "Absolutely."

"I thought we could start with some standard Chaser drills first, passing and shooting, and then if there was anything you wanted to work on we could do that at the end. Next week we could work with Bludgers, and when you're ready, we can combine them." Harry looked focused and serious, and Ginny realized that he'd put quite a lot of thought into this.

"Sounds good," she said, nodding. Very little of her own thought about this day had been related to Quidditch, and she felt chastened, although he had said nothing about that.

They mounted their brooms and rose into the air while Harry explained the first drill. "This is something I learned from one of my teammates, who played in Europe for a while." He waved his wand, and several glowing columns of blue light appeared on the field. "First we'll fly it as an obstacle course, then add in passing." Ginny nodded.

"Follow me," he said. Without looking to see if she complied, he dove headfirst toward the first column, which was moving lazily, tracing circles on the field below. As Harry approached the beam of light, it seemed to shy away from him, but he adjusted his course and flew directly through it. Ginny watched him bob and weave in order to fly through the next few bars of light until she understood what he was doing, then took a deep breath and flew after him.

The glowing columns danced before her, surprisingly hard to reach, and she felt new respect for Harry's flying abilities. She narrowed her focus and forced all thoughts of seduction out of her head, concentrating all her energy on hitting each column precisely, and felt herself improving with each successful attempt. They flew through the course three times in a row, until Harry slid to a stop near one goalpost and Ginny flew up to meet him.

"Good job," he said warmly. "You ready for more?"

Without waiting for her answer, he waved his wand, splitting the makeshift obstacle course into two parallel courses.

"Accio Quaffle," he said, and she watched the round ball come shooting toward them from the picnic table where their bags still sat. She flew to catch it, guiding her broom with her knees and reaching out her arms to pluck it out of the air. Over her shoulder, she looked back at Harry, who motioned her toward the nearest course before dipping his broom and flying into the other.

The rest of the morning passed in a haze of Quaffles as they drilled relentlessly on passing, swerving, diving, and catching. Harry was a natural teacher, and had carefully thought out the plan for today, choosing tasks that got successively harder as the day went on and Ginny grew more confident. Some were routines that she remembered from her Hogwarts days, but most were entirely new to her, things that he must have learned from his professional teammates and his coach.

The sun was dipping low in the afternoon sky by the time that Harry dropped down to the pitch and motioned for her to land also. She touched down gingerly, remembering vividly the last time she'd dismounted from her broom. Gingerly, she placed her weight first on her stronger left leg before swinging her right leg off the broom and standing on both feet. The earth seemed to sway for a moment, and she almost fell before leaning heavily on her broom.

Harry rushed to her side. "Are you all right? How's your leg?"

Ginny blushed. "I'm fine. I just haven't been on the ground for a while," she explained, feeling the rolling sensation subside already.

"You're just out of practice, that's all," Harry said with a smile. "We obviously need to get you into the air some more."

"Obviously," Ginny said dryly, as she hobbled bowleggedly off the pitch toward the picnic table where her bag lay.

Sitting down heavily on the rough wooden bench, she reached into her bag and retrieved a plastic bottle of water, then swigged heartily. Harry sat down next to her a minute later, his leg touching hers from knee to hip. Ginny was suddenly reminded of her forgotten mission to get Harry to admit his feelings for her.

"You did a great job out there," he said, jerking his head toward the pitch.

"Yeah?" she replied, blushing despite herself.

"Yeah," he said softly, dropping his eyes to her lips.

For a long moment, she thought he was about to kiss her. Holding her breath in anticipation, she extended the tip of her tongue and used it to wet her bottom lip.

This seemed to snap Harry out of his trance, and he looked swiftly back up to her eyes, red splotches staining his cheeks.

"Yeah," he repeated. "A great job. Your shooting is just as good as it used to be, maybe better even."

She nodded, wondering how she could make him want to kiss her again.

"One thing that you need to work on is your right side," Harry explained. "When you're about to catch a pass on your right side, you twist around and try to protect your leg."

Ginny nodded again. "If a Bludger hits me there, it'll be really painful," she explained. "I don't really know how to avoid that." She didn't have to say out loud that she had almost dropped a couple of those passes today. It had been obvious. And if she was having trouble with simple, easy passes from him, she would be in real trouble when faced with professional Chasers in a game situation.

"Some kind of a charm to stop the pain, maybe?" Harry asked. "A numbing charm?"

"No good. I can barely walk with them, much less fly."

Harry frowned. "Maybe some kind of protection charm, then?"

"I don't know any, but that could work. I'll ask around."

Harry nodded, and they smiled at each other. It was only then that she noticed that he had turned his body slightly, resting his arm along the wooden tabletop behind her so that he almost had his arm around her. Almost, but not quite.

"You did really well on that first drill, too," Harry said, and she recognized that he was padding his criticism with compliments to make it easier to take. "It usually takes people a really long time to get good at that one."

"Thank you." She nodded gravely. "And you, Mr. Potter..." She trailed off, stroking her chin as though she were in deep contemplation. "You fly very well, but if you want to be a Chaser, you'll have to work on your passing."

Harry nodded solemly. "You think so? Actually, I have excellent aim."

Ginny fought to keep from laughing, remembering the few times she'd had to chase down passes that had gone wide.

"I was... testing you," he said. "Yes, that's it. Testing you."

"Ah." She nodded in comprehension. "So how did I do? Did I pass the test?"

"'Exceeds expectations', definitely," Harry said, using the old O.W.L. score. Their faces were so close now that she could easily lean in quickly and bring her lips to his. A shiver ran down her spine as she pictured doing it, pushing him up against the picnic table and snogging him senseless.

"Not 'outstanding'?" she asked.

"I have to leave some room for improvement, or I'll be out of a job," Harry said. The words were joking, but she caught a serious note in them. His fingers rubbed the cuff of his sleeve nervously, and she remembered suddenly that the last time they'd kissed, she had pushed him away.

"Oh, you've got the position, don't worry," she said, hoping that it would reassure him.

"It's a tough job, too--" he said softly, his eyes tracing downward to focus on her lips again. "Being forced to play Chaser..." He trailed off and she held her breath in anticipation, certain he was about to lean in and kiss her.

Instead, though, he seemed to stop in place and, after a moment, move backwards.

"So, ah..." he said, lifting his arm from the table behind her and rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "When do you want to practice again? Thursday?"

She blinked in surprise. "Thursday... sounds good."

"Good. Thursday it is, then." He stood and picked up his broomstick, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull him back to her.

"Wait." She had spoken before she knew what she was doing, and stood before she could stop herself.

"Harry, I--"

He turned and looked back at her, and she could see each and every coal-black eyelash that framed his brilliant green eyes.

"I wanted to say thank you," she said, taking another step closer to him, and then another, until she could feel the heat of his body through her skin. "For helping me. There's no way I could do this alone."

"Yeah, well, you're not on the team yet," Harry muttered, his cheeks reddening. "Thank me when we're done."

Ginny took a deep breath and let it out again. She could not just sit back and wait for Harry to make his move. He already had, and she'd been stupid enough to mess it up.

"Even if I never make the team," she said, resting her hand on his arm. "Thank you."

He ducked his head. "You're welcome."

Taking a small step forward, she stood on her tiptoes and leaned toward him, pressing her lips firmly to his for a soft, slow kiss.

When she pulled her lips from his, he just stood there and watched her as she picked up her broom and her backpack. "I'll see you Thursday," she said, and Apparated away.

-----

"I need your help," Ginny said, as Florean brought two dishes of ice cream to the table.

"I heard a rumor," Tonks said bluntly in between bites of her sundae.

"What kind of rumor?" asked Ginny noncommittally.

"A rumor involving you and young Mr. Potter."

"How interesting," Ginny said, her eyes firmly on the ice cream.

"Don't you want to enlighten your old friend?" There was a distinct pout in Tonks' tone. "C'mon, fill me in."

Ginny took another bite of ice cream and tried not to laugh. When Tonks began making quiet kissing noises, she giggled. The noises steadily got louder and louder until Ginny was sure that the entire restaurant must be staring at them.

"All right, all right, I'll tell you, just shut up already!"

Tonks made a few more kissing noises before subsiding into silence.

"But you have to promise to help me with this spell I need."

"Anything," Tonks promised. "Now spill."

"He kissed me," Ginny said. "Or I kissed him, I'm not quite sure which. I was a little --" She glanced around the ice cream parlour, checking for young children. "I was a little drunk."

Tonks giggled. "So what happened? Did you...." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"No." Ginny looked down at the table, tracing intricate swirls on it with one finger. "We just snogged for a bit and then I, ah, got angry for some reason--"

Tonks laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh, no, you didn't."

"I did," Ginny confirmed, blushing. "Anyway, I sort of, ah... stormed off in a huff."

Tonks snickered and Ginny shot her a dirty look before continuing.

"And yesterday we kissed again."

When she did not reply, Ginny looked up at her.

"And..." Tonks prompted. "Then what?"

"Then nothing. I've no idea what's going on."

"What do you think you want to happen?"

"Oh, I know what I want to happen," Ginny assured her, scooping a fingerful of whipped cream off of her sundae and popping it in her mouth.

"Well, at least you've got your priorities straight," Tonks said, picking up a maraschino cherry from the sundae and looking at it thoughtfully. "But I expect more from you in the future." She screwed up her face in concentration and a moment later, her hair matched the cherry.

"So what's this about a spell, then?"

"I need a protection spell."

"Protection? I thought you were on the potion."

"Not like that, you doof. For my scar."

Tonks cocked one brilliantly red eyebrow questioningly. "Your scar? Just what are you planning to do with Mr. Potter?"

"Play Quidditch, actually," Ginny said coolly.

"Quidditch? On brooms?"

"No," teased Ginny. "On Thestrals. Yes, of course on brooms."

"You can fly?"

"Yup," Ginny said. "I can. And I'm pretty good." She realized as she said it that it was actually true.

"I suppose if Mad-Eye can..." Ginny nodded emphatically, and Tonks went on. "So, protection from Quidditch... Oh, Bludgers."

"Right," Ginny confirmed. "If one hits me there, I'll be done for." She indicated the area of her right leg just below her knee. "It's a miracle it didn't happen in the last game, actually."

"So, a protection spell that can be cast on part of your body..." Tonks mused. "And that won't disrupt the Bludgers during play, can't have that."

Ginny ate another spoonful of ice cream and watched silently as her friend mumbled to herself, suggesting and dismissing ideas just as quickly.

"Right," she said eventually, snapping her fingers. "I've got it. This is a pretty simple spell, only lasts for a few hours or so, so you'll have to cast it right before a match, but it should work. Give me your leg."

With no hesitation, Ginny swung her leg up and propped her foot on Tonks' thigh. Tonks pulled her wand, which seemed to be enchanted to match her hair, from her sleeve, and tapped Ginny's leg once.

"Adversus," she said softly, waving it over the area of Ginny's injury.

"Did it work?" Ginny asked, peering curiously at her leg.

"Only one way to find out," Tonks replied cheerfully, and reached across the table to grab Ginny's spoon from her dish. Holding it delicately between her thumb and forefinger, she balanced it carefully in her hand and then threw it deftly toward Ginny's injured leg.

The spoon flew straight through the air, with a swiftness and accuracy Ginny would not have expected from someone as clumsy as Tonks. It hit Ginny's leg right at the center of the center of the spiderweb of scars, but all Ginny felt was a firm impact, exactly as though it had struck something next to her leg.

"That's brilliant! Thanks."

"No problem. So, this for a little game with your brothers, or what?"

"Just a team I'm on with a few friends, is all," Ginny said. It was mostly true.

"When do you play?" Tonks asked with a gleam in her eye.

"Sundays."

"Brilliant," said Tonks, looking at her thoughtfully. "Are we gonna have to give up Fortescue's for this?"

"Never."

"Well, in that case," she said, helping herself to a generous spoonful. "Good luck."

-----

On Thursday, she Apparated to the park, unsure of what kind of reception she would get from Harry. They hadn't spoken since she'd kissed him goodbye, and she didn't know how he'd felt about it. Did he feel the same attraction that she did? The kiss he'd given her outside the pub, less than a week before, had left her breathless and weak in the knees, but how had it made him feel?

Harry was nowhere to be seen in the park when she got there, so she set down her things and mounted her broom, flying a few practice laps around the pitch. She was hovering above the field, feeling calm and comfortable, a few minutes later, when out of nowhere a hand grasped her shoulder.

She jerked around in surprise, but Harry's broom was right next to hers, giving her little room to maneuver.

"Hey there," he said, and she noticed that he was awfully close.

"Hey," she said.

"I have a new broom trick to teach you today," he announced, looking pleased with himself.

"Okay..." she said, wondering what he was getting at.

"You'll have to pay very close attention," he said.

She nodded silently. He reached across the few inches between them and rested one hand on her shoulder. His other hand came around and cupped her jaw, turning her face gently toward his.

It was obvious that he was about to kiss her, but she still felt surprised when it happened. This was not the tentative kiss of their last practice session, or the passionate and sloppy snog they'd shared on the sidewalk outside the bar. Instead, Harry seemed to be taking his time. His lips brushed across hers, then pressed more firmly, and when his tongue stroked her bottom lip, she opened her mouth to admit it.

Harry's hand slipped from her shoulder to trace a line all the way down her arm. He squeezed her hand gently where it rested on her knee, then moved up her thigh to exert gentle pressure, massaging her leg. She groaned lightly in the back of her throat, and buried her fingers in his hair as the kiss intensified.

As they kissed, she could feel him moving his head, changing the angle of the kiss. His hands moved over her arms and legs slowly, his touch first light and then firm. She could feel his leg pressing against hers, and it too moved periodically, as though he were squirming in place.

It was not until she felt something touch her opposite knee that she realized there was something strange going on.

She tore her lips away from his and opened her eyes, looking around with a gasp.

Kissing him had been so distracting and intoxicating that she had nearly forgotten that they were on brooms several meters in the air.

She looked down. Harry was very nearly sitting in her lap, his hands stroking along the lines of her thighs. He was straddling her broom, his knees spread far apart, locked outside of hers. His own broom was nowhere to be seen.

"What--" she sputtered. "How--"

He grinned, then leaned forward to kiss her gently on the mouth. "Ready to practice?"

Ginny swallowed. Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to figure out how he felt about her after all.