The Very Long Night Of Harry Potter

Chapter 11- 1:15 A.M.

Hermione sat in her chair in Harry's closed ward, still feeling numb from Mrs. Weasley's words. She knew that she hadn't meant them, that it was the grief, but still, she had said them. Even though they had been targeted at Ron, they had affected her as well. And add Ginny's actions, taking away Hermione's own opportunity to help the boy she considered to be as a brother, and it was a miracle that she was sitting here with a stunned and blank look on her face as opposed to giving Moaning Myrtle competition in the crying and wailing department.

She scanned the room, more out of habit than out of any real interest, her anesthetized mind seeing, but not registering.

Mrs. Weasley was currently asleep in one of the chairs, primarily thanks to a potent sleeping and anti-anxiety potion that Alexander had given her. Still, as powerful as that potion was, about a third of the indicators on the miniature monitoring spell floating above her head were amber in color- attention. Lyta had set the spell to give an alarm if more than half of them slipped out of the green- nominal- or if any hit the red- emergency.

Ron had left shortly after his mother had been given the potion, claiming that he was going to get some food and tea from the tea shop on the top floor; that had been over twenty minutes ago, and he still hadn't returned. She knew that he was walking around somewhere in the building, trying to keep his frustration, anger and own grief at bay while he dealt with his mother's words and his sister's actions. Prat. She was sitting here, hurting, and he was off on a walkabout! Selfish prat! She needed him here, but he was too scared, too scarred by his encounter with his mother to stay for long, needing space.

Burying her anger, Hermione continued her survey of the room.

Harry and Ginny were still lying there on the bed peacefully, in repose, arms at their sides, eyes closed, thought-rope connecting their temples. If not for the rise and fall of their chests and the constant blips, beeps, tones, lub-dubs and other assorted sounds of the monitor spells, she would have thought them dead.

Alexander was currently dozing several chairs over from where Hermione sat, conserving her energy for when it would be needed. Hermione secretly envied her, envied her apparent ability to simply let go for a time and relax, to catch rest when she could, while Hermione was stuck, running in circles, her thoughts just building and building and building and building with no resolution in sight...

Mr. Weasley cleared his throat expectantly. Hermione looked up at him, realizing what was about to happen.

"So, you and Ron finally figured it out apparently?"

And, again, she was right. She didn't get surprised often; actually, the last time she had been this taken by surprise had been a week previously; the time before that had been at Hogwarts, with Snape and Malfoy... Hoping that tonight would not be a repeat of the attack on Hogwarts, with Dumbledore dead... but then, Ginny had stolen her chance to help tonight...

Another cough sounded and she realized that Mr. Weasley was looking at her quizzically.

Oops, she thought, got a little lost in there, didn't you, Granger?

"Yes, we figured it out finally," she said.

He smiled.

"Good."

After a few more moments of silence, he spoke up again.

"When?"

Hermione thought to herself, or in other words, how long has Ron been 'neglecting' to tell you and Molly?

"About five, six months or so; when we were at Harry's relatives house."

Arthur smiled again.

"Tonks is going to be happy."

Hermione looked at him, puzzled.

"Why would Tonks be happy about Ron and I getting together?"

His grin was a carbon copy of the one that his son had flashed at her on her eighteenth birthday. When she had walked into her bedroom. Which had been filled with conjured flowers. Lots and lots of conjured flowers: carnations, daffodils, tulips, honeysuckle, daisies, orchids, azaleas, lilies, and the most difficult of all to conjure, several dozen long-stemmed roses.

"Because the rest of the Order was in on the betting pool and she won," Mr. Weasley said, clearly enjoying every moment of this conversation.

There were about two seconds of silence as Hermione's expression rapidly began resembling a tomato in color. A tomato that shortly burst.

"WHAT?! YOU HAD A BETTING POOL GOING?!"

Mr. Weasley, still grinning like the proverbial cat that ate the equally proverbial canary, said, "Well, actually, there were two pools; one for when you two would finally figure it out and get together, and the other for when you two would gather the courage to tell me and Molly." He considered for a moment, looking over at his dozing wife. "More Molly than me, I think though."

Hermione held her face in her hands. Somewhat muffled, she said, mortified, "Alright, let's have it; what were everyone's bets?" Might as well get this over with.

"Well, actually this little pool has been going on for almost a year now (Hermione groaned). You see, Molly found this necklace in Ron's room after Ron, Harry and Ginny went back to Hogwarts after last New Years; a rather gaudy piece if I do recall, with 'My Sweetheart' as the pendant..." Hermione choked back a laugh, knowing Lavender's tastes in jewelry from dorming with the girl for six years. So that's what Harry was taking the mickey out of Ron about!

Mr. Weasley was still talking; Hermione made herself listen instead of imagining the looks on Ron's parents faces at Lavender's gift dangling from Molly's hand.

"...So here he are, standing in the kitchen, sharing what little we knew from Ginny and Harry, when Moody, Tonks, Lupin and Shacklebolt drop by."

Hermione made a noise that sounded like something of a cross between a strangled laugh, a snort, and the words, "Oh no..."

Mr. Weasley's eyes twinkled in a way very similar to those of the late headmaster.

"Oh, yes. I must say, Moody's reaction to that sparkling bit of metal was most amusing. I believe his words were something along the lines of, 'Better let me check that thing over. Something like that is clearly heavily cursed...'"

She couldn't help it this time; she burst out laughing.

Wiping the tears out of her eyes, she looked over at Mr. Weasley, who smiled at her, his expression merry.

"So after we explained to them about it, I believe it was Remus who said something along the lines of wondering when Ron was going to remove his head from his arse and notice you (Hermione giggled). After the rest of us agreed with the sentiment, Tonks said that she was putting five Galleons down on the summer..."

Hermione felt her face flush.

"...and after that, the rest of us there put down our bets." Mr. Weasley looked morose for a second. "Oh, well, there goes my two Galleons."

But when he looked back at her, his expression was cheerful once more.

"So, after that, we had to let the rest of the Order in on it; of course, we had to get Albus and Minerva to promise not to use their authority to put you two in joint detentions or patrols or whatnot; primarily because Albus had his money on you two together by late May."

Hermione smiled at the image of Dumbledore cheerfully plunking down several golden coins and realized Mr. Weasley's objective in telling her all of this.

"Thank you," she said.

He gave her his fatherly smile, and said, "I thought that you would need some cheering up after what Molly said before; she didn't mean a word of it, you know."

"I know."

"Actually," his smile shifted from fatherly and back to amused, "she was one of the most optimistic out of all of us; she bet on you two telling us at Bill's wedding that you had gotten together."

She groaned. "And who won that pool?" she said, wishing that Ron would get back from the tea shop already and share in the embarrassment.

Mr. Weasley beamed and said, "Actually it was Minerva who won that, if you count yours and Ron's little display before as telling us." He considered for a moment and said, "Well, I guess it does. Anyway, she said something about a 'Yule brawl' or something to that effect..."

Hermione colored, the memory of her in her old dress robes, yelling at Ron, suddenly flashing before her eyes... 'Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!'

"...we weren't exactly sure what she meant by that; all she said was that it was the first sign of mutual attraction between you two..." My God, Hermione thought, was it THAT obvious? "...but she wouldn't give us any details."

Thank Merlin for that, Hermione thought. It was bad enough to suddenly find out that they had been rowing loud enough for McGonagall to hear them from her office down the hall; if she had told the rest of the Order what she had heard that night...

A sudden thought occurred to her and a feral grin suddenly crossed her features.

"Mr. Weasley... Arthur, when Ron gets back from the tea shop, do you want to tell him all this, or can I?"

He smiled. "Be my guest."

"Thanks."

That should keep him happy, she thought to herself. And it was very nice of him to spend the time and effort on cheering me up with Ginny being in that coma; then again, cheering me up certainly kept him distracted from his daughter's situation. Then a sudden thought struck her. Oh, dear God, just don't ask...

As if on cue, Mr. Weasley coughed, clearly preparing himself to ask another question, undoubtedly one of a personal nature, considering the way his ears were coloring.

...about that, she thought weakly, feeling the color return to her face with a vengeance.

"There is one other thing," he said, clearly embarrassed, his ears coloring to the point where they would probably be visible in the dark, lightly glowing red. "If I may?"

Hermione nodded very slightly, feeling as if her face was going to melt from the heat and fall off if she moved her head any more than that.

"You and Ron haven't, excuse me, haven't, um, done anything? Uh, gone too far?" her boyfriend's father asked, his ears red enough by this point to serve as possible ignition sources for minor flammable objects.

"No!" she blurted out, horribly embarrassed, and then, calming herself, said, "No, we haven't."

And they hadn't, truthfully. Well, to be honest, they were sleeping in the same room... but in separate beds! she thought, and for a good reason!

She remembered, back in September, a nightmare that had featured two glowing red eyes igniting her parents' house afire, the crackling of the searing flames sounding like laughter, maniacal laughter over the screams of those inside, the heat of the flames keeping her at bay, her wand spouting more flame when she had tried to use Aguamenti, the Flame-Freezing charm only making the blaze roar higher, hearing her parents screaming her name in agony... and waking up in Ron's embrace, shivering, him whispering soothingly to her as she sobbed in his strong arms.

Shortly afterward she had fallen back to sleep, a sleep untroubled by red eyes, unhooded Dementors, werewolf fangs, marching undead, headstones with the names of her friends and family, and all the other assorted themes that her unconscious mind had come up with over the past several months. All that dream had featured was red hair, blue eyes, and an intense feeling of security and love.

Two days later, Ron had moved his mattress into her room, and neither of them had suffered a nightmare since, the presence of their love keeping the bad dreams at bay. They slept the sleep of the innocent and just, especially after she had found an anti-snoring potion for Ron to use.

By mutual, and unspoken, agreement, they kept to their own mattresses, although they both made occasional jokes about the room being cold at night.

Of course, there was also a memory that had been consistently intruding on her thoughts for the last week, sort of like the songs that get stuck in one's brain, but much more pleasant in this case, of course, causing random instances of dreamy smiles, wistful sighs and other similar phenomena. It was interesting how a little slip of paper could put her in a state that had Harry privately convinced that she was losing her mind...

Hermione went into Ron's room, next to her own, hunting for a book that she suspected was in there and, rather than try and Summon it through a closed door, she decided to take a look in there herself and see what else had migrated its merry way up there.

She opened the door and sighed at the sight that greeted her. The place was a mess! Clothes all over the floor, a few solitary hangers dangling forlornly in the half-opened wardrobe, the floor of Pigwidgeon's cage covered with a few moldy old newspapers coated with owl droppings, and the desk surface completely covered in parchments with Ron's messy handwriting on them.

With a sigh, she Summoned the Muggle cleaning appliances that they had purchased a few weeks previously and had then enchanted to help clean the demented building that the Blacks had once called home and gave them their instructions.

As she watched the mop and bucket gather up Ron's clothes from the floor and begin to wash them, she had an amused flashback to her childhood, watching Disney movies with her parents, remembering the mild irony of her five-year-old self's favorites: The Sword In The Stone and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Suddenly hoping that the mop wouldn't be fetching water when she turned around, she gave a little chuckle at the thought of Ron's expression seeing that particular depiction of Merlin, starting up an assembly line of dish washing and cleaning, as she dived into the mound of parchment that Ron called a desk.

As she sorted out piles of parchment, she mused to herself somewhat wistfully about cuddling on a couch somewhere with Ron and watching those childhood movies together, wondering what his reaction to The Reluctant Dragon would be, when her hand encountered...

'Paper?' What was a slip of thin Muggle paper doing on Ron's desk, amid all of the heavy parchment, broken quills and empty inkwells?

Her curiosity getting the better of her, she looked and nearly collapsed from shock.

She took another look, her mind still not comprehending, for once, the words printed there. Squeezing her eyes shut, she took several deep breaths and cracked open one eye. She immediately thought that she was delusional, even though the slip of paper quite clearly read:

Customer Copy

Deposit Payment Receipt for-

one size 7 ring, silver, sterling

setting(s): one sapphire, round, 4mm, two diamonds, round, 2mm

Style ID #: 8/26

Customer Signature:

Ronald Weasley

'Oh my... Oh my God... Oh my God!!!' she gasped, her mind reeling.

Hermione stood next to Ron's desk for nearly a minute, staring in muted shock at the piece of paper with a jeweler's logo at the top, a price figure (excessive), and Ron's scrawled signature. She... she knew that she loved him, and that he loved her, but... but this? So soon?

Yes, she knew, intellectually, that times of war tended to have higher marriage rates; not knowing if you would live to see tomorrow had a distinct tendency to make people live for the here and now. Still, was what they had together just that, two people coming together for mutual pleasure or was it something more?

She closed her eyes as the question caromed around inside her skull, loosing memories as it went: Ron, looking at her with concern in his blue eyes as he wiped away the tears from her latest nightmare; Ron, kissing her tenderly and lovingly; Ron, with his head in her lap as he dozed; Ron, dancing, actually dancing, with her at his brother's wedding; Ron, lying in a bed in the Hospital Wing, croaking out Er-my-nee; Ron, making the three of them breakfast in his flannel pajamas, pancakes, with maple syrup that he got from God knows where; Ron, studying a book the size of a paving slab with her, cuddled next to each other on the floor, each of them studying a page; Ron and Ron and Ron and RonandRonandRonandRonandRonRonRonRonRonRonRonRonRonRonRon...

She smiled softly. It was something more; something so much more than pleasure, passion, or mutual attraction. It was love. She knew that there was no one else for him or for her; she had seen his soul (almost literally) and knew it well, as well as he knew hers. They weren't two people who came together through circumstance; they were two halves of a single person, neither one truly complete without the other...

Hermione opened her eyes and smiled, a smile that was only the barest window into the joy permeating her. She looked down at the piece of paper still clutched in her hand. It's a question, she realized, albeit an unknowing and highly premature question, but it is still a question nevertheless. No, she had corrected herself, it's the question. And the answer to that question was...

Yes. I will.

Putting the slip back down on the desk, she then proceeded to mess up the neatened piles of parchment, her normal aversion to doing so quite gone as she covered her tracks.

Now to get that slip of paper to a safer place than his desk...

She made her way downstairs, finding Harry and Ron eating a mid-afternoon snack in the kitchen while pouring over biographies of the Hogwarts founders.

'RON!' she shouted, trying as hard as she could to keep her tone cross over her internal joy. He jumped a good two feet into the air, hitting his knees on the underside of the table.

'What?' he responded, clearly confused as to the reason for being yelled at and wincing at the sharp pain in his knees.

'Your room is a mess! I know that you don't sleep in there anymore, but still,' she cast about for some reason to get him up there, 'what do you think your mum would do to you if she came by on Order business and saw it like that? I've already sent the mop, broom and bucket up to get to work and I figured that we could work on the desk together."

Ron's expression, which had been getting more and more worried since the mention of Molly Weasley, slid into panic at this last statement.

'Uh, well, if you're so determined to help me, why don't I handle the desk while you co-ordinate the mop and broom?' he said.

'Why?' she asked. 'Is there something there that I'm not supposed to see?'

'Um, uh, um, uh...' Ron began making assorted stuttering noises and she decided to take pity on him.

'You had better not have doodled in those books! Madam Pince will skin us alive!' she scolded.

For some reason, this statement somehow restored Ron's ability to speak.

'I didn't and you know it,' he said quickly, 'shall we go and get started on your mad cleaning then?'

She nodded with a triumphant smirk and followed Ron out of the kitchen, leaving Harry to his bottle of butterbeer, chicken sandwich, biography of The Hogwarts Four and rarely seen grin.

As they cleaned up his room, she purposefully paid no attention to Ron's desk cleaning. Still, she was fairly certain that she saw his hand dart into his pocket holding a small piece of white as she had Scourgify-ed Pig's cage.

A muted cough brought her back to the present. She blinked and realized that Mr. Weasley was looking at her curiously. Damn, she thought, and then she suddenly realized where her thoughts had gone... and her cheeks suddenly colored in response.

He smiled gently. "Do I want to know what Ron was doing in that little trip you just took down memory lane?"

"But... wha... how..." she stammered.

He grinned much the same way that Ron did when playing herself or Harry in wizard chess and had them several moves away from a checkmate.

"I've been seeing that same expression on Ginny's face ever since last summer," he said.

Hermione was saved from digging a deeper hole for herself by Ron's much belated return from the teashop, bearing a laden tray of tea, coffee, and various chocolate confections.

Closing the door behind him with a foot, he placed down the tray on one of the end tables and looked anxiously at Ginny and Harry, both as still as when he had left them.

"Did I miss anything?" he asked, staring at the prone figures, not seeing his father and girlfriend smirking behind his back.

~*~*~*~*~

Harry was in the process of trying to convince a seven foot tall stack of books to not tip over onto him- why, oh why did I stack them this tall?- when he heard Ron's muted moan of anguish.

"Harry?"

Not now, not now, not now, not now, now is REALLY not a good time, Harry mentally chanted, not sure if he was talking to the books or to Ron. He tried using his body, leaning up against the pile, which was taller than he was. The heavy books pressed into his back, balanced, as they were, precariously atop the smaller tome that was near the bottom of the pile. Don't tip, don't tip, don't tip, please don't tip, don't tip, don't tip...

"Harry!"

Oh, shite.

The books shifted behind him as he startled at Ron's call to him. Harry felt the bottom books- the ones sitting right on top of the smaller volume that he had foolishly placed near the bottom of the stack- move and knew that this stack was coming down.

He jumped back from the leaning tower, which promptly heeded the call of gravity and with a sound like, well, like a seven-foot-tall-plus tower of books falling over and crashing to the floor, it fell over and crashed to the floor.

Buried in books up to his calves, Harry sighed and rubbed his leg where a dull pain was throbbing from the impact of one of the books. Reflecting to himself that he should be thankful that it hadn't hit him a foot higher up, he turned to Ron and said, exasperated, "What is it?"

Ron looked at him with such seriousness in his eyes that Harry momentarily felt like apologizing for his curtness a moment before. It was an impulse that quickly disappeared as Ron said, "it's Ginny."

Panic flooded Harry, even more so than it had an hour-plus previously, as...

...he was standing by the portrait hole and was speaking, "...much less when he's so pressed for time." He turned and pushed open the back of the canvas... and there was a thud from behind him. A thud of a body hitting the floor...

He wheeled frantically. Ginny had crumpled to the floor. For some reason, the others hadn't caught her and now they were standing around her, dumbfound expressions on their faces, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing. He gave an inarticulate cry and ran over to her.

Picking her up off of the floor, he got a glance at her face that sent a jolt of fear coursing through his system. Her eyes were open and staring, and empty. He waved his hand in front of them. No response. The jolt rapidly became a current. Yes, he knew, intellectually, that the body he was now cradling against his chest wasn't actually Ginny, but that made no difference to his emotions.

"Ginny, please, wake up, Move. Give a sign. Ginny, Ginny, please wake up. Please, please, please wake up. Tell me what happened, please. Ginny, please, move, give a sign that you're still in there, do something! Please..."

While he had been pleading with the unresponsive avatar, the other fragments had moved back from the spot and were now standing around. Harry heard the portrait hole close; heard it, but didn't register it. His only concern at the moment was Ginny. Desperate for answers to suppress his rising panic, he turned to Hermione.

"Hermione, what did Tom do to her?"

Much to his surprise and mild irritation, Hermione didn't give him an answer. She was staring at the limp form in Harry's embrace with shock written all over her features; a few moments later, she gasped and said, in a tone rich with disbelief, "Oh. My. God."

Harry couldn't take it anymore. "What? What is it, Hermione? Is it something to do with Ginny?" He was on the verge of a full on panic.

Hermione didn't answer right away. Instead, she moved from standing in front of Harry to his side, crouching down to look into Ginny's still open and staring eyes.

"Harry, that's Ginny."

"I know that, Hermione!" he shot back. He didn't have time for puzzles, not when Ginny, even a copy of Ginny, was in danger. The immediate response, however, struck him with the force of McLaggen's Bludger.

"No, you don't understand, Harry. That's Ginny Weasley, as in the actual Ginevra Molly Weasley, the first female Weasley in six generations, the girl you love, the one who you made stay behind for her own protection, inside your head."

He sat there, on the floor, with Ginny, the real Ginny somehow, in his arms, for several seconds, feeling absolutely stunned. After a few moments, his mind began to process once more, albeit slowly, and he shifted around, moving so he could look at Ginny, who sighed after a moment.

This was too much... "But how...?" he asked Hermione, suddenly feeling too drained to even think of any theories in that direction.

Before Hermione could answer, Harry became aware of a vibrating sensation near his chest, along with some accompanying sounds.

"mmm... muuh... muuuuuhhh..." Ginny mumbled into his chest.

This was becoming too much for him... How the hell was this even possible? Taking Ginny by the shoulders, he picked her up off of his chest and turned her around, her face now inches from his own. She blinked. Harry's heart rose at the movement.

"Ginny...?" he asked, feeling at once both trepidation combined with joy, with a healthy dose of confusion tossed into the mix.

A few moments later, as Ginny's arms wrapped themselves around him, her lips soft against his own...

Harry's panic rose, and questions poured out of him, as the scene from the common room played out in his mind's eye.

"Is she alright? Is she hurt? Is she..."

Ron held up his hands, forestalling Harry's flood of questions.

"She's fine, Harry, but you need to go and find her, she's in the Restricted Section, alone, and..."

Harry interrupted, "Why isn't she with Hermione?"

"They decided that they could cover more ground that way."

Harry groaned. "But what's wrong?"

"Harry, please, just listen to me. You need to go and find her, now. You, not one of us."

Tamping down a fresh wave of panic at Ron's ambiguous statement, Harry gazed over the ten foot expanse of books still separating him from Ron. They had dug out a lot of the aisle, but it would take too long to walk back over the way he had come... Sod it, he thought, pulling his feet free from the books surrounding them.

He walked back to the area he had laboriously cleared. Looking up at Ron, he said, "Ready?"

Ron, knowing what was coming, nodded and braced himself.

Harry took a running start and jumped over the piled chaos of paper, colliding with Ron, knocking them both to the floor. Barely winded, Harry picked himself up and started running in the general direction of the Restricted Section.

Ron watched his robe disappear around a stack two aisles over and, somewhat stunned from the impact, slumped back onto the floor. He knew through the link that the twins were coming to get him and help him back to the entrance to the library.

Ginny, you are in so much trouble...

~*~*~*~*~

Ginny felt the sentiment through the connection, but was in too good a mood to care. She was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor, one of the black books in her lap, with a good sized stack of nine or ten others next to her.

She was flipping through her latest book, which, like all of them so far, was an odd mixture of semi-disjointed words and sentences, as if the author had been writing down several trains of thought simultaneously, along with a copious number of illustrations, pictures and images she wasn't exactly sure how to describe, as they came in a variety of different types. One thing was for certain, however. They all gave her a great deal of insight into the mind of Harry Potter.

She stopped near the end of the book, looked at the current page and smiled. The image featured herself and Harry, sleeping, snuggled together under the covers of a large four-poster bed, with a quartet of small children clustered around them, obviously intent on mischief judging by the lights in their green eyes and the grins amid their freckles and flaming red hair.

She closed the book, placed it on the stack and pulled down another of what she had dubbed "The Inner Monster Chronicles" from the shelf.

Opening the new book, she grinned. Ooh, I like, she thought, looking at the picture of herself and Harry.

When she had first looked into these memories of Harry's fantasies and dreams regarding her, she hadn't exactly been sure how to react. First there had been some considerable embarrassment, then, after continuing to flip through the first book she had realized that she had had similar thoughts. Just as frequently. After that little realization had come smug satisfaction, realizing that Harry had her stuck in his thoughts. Daily. And that she was the cause of all of this. Her. Ginny Weasley. She had provoked this in Harry. She was the subject of his every idle moment; she was what he thought about when he wasn't trying to find a way to destroy Tom. Her face, her voice, was what he thought of to calm himself before going to sleep; the memory of her smile was how he managed to get out of bed in the morning. The thought of her, of protecting her, was what kept him sane; although, judging by some of the entries, he was crazy if he though that she would do that... Then again... those ideas had looked like they would be fun...

She had started skimming through the books, finding interesting idea after fascinating scenario. She already had a mental list of favorites, culled from the pages of Harry's daily daydreams.

There had been the one from the first book she had looked at, which involved the two of them sharing one of the Twins' Daydream Charms. There was one from the middle of the school year involving a shower that had a notation that had made her laugh; devoutly thankful that Ron cannot perform Legilimency... Then she had found an explanation for why Harry had been so distracted and played so poorly during their chess matches during the previous Christmas holiday; he hadn't exactly been paying attention to the board at the time, as he had been thinking of an interesting variation that they could have played instead...

Another favorite of hers from the school year concerned the two of them, his Invisibility Cloak, his Firebolt and some midair acrobatics... Then there was one from the same book that had Harry using his Quidditch captainship to gain access to the prefects' bathroom, where they could have fun with the bubbles together... Having never been in there herself, she was intrigued at the idea.

And then there was one from the summer, when he had walked in on Ron and Hermione snogging when they had been at his relations' house; he had wished that she had been there with him as well. Judging from the entry, the wish was partly- mostly- because he missed her terribly, but also that he wanted to see his Uncle's reaction to the two of them with their lips locked together. She smirked, remembering what Ron and Hermione had told her about the Dursleys.

And in the book dating from his seventeenth birthday, which was a hefty ten-odd pounds with an eight-inch wide spine, there had been an entry she had adored. Apparently, that morning, when he had been in the loo, Hermione and Ron had covered his bed with his birthday presents from all and sundry, so that when he had walked back into the room his bedspread had no longer been visible underneath the pile of wrapped boxes.

As much as he had appreciated actually having a proper birthday at number four, Privet Drive for once, and had enjoyed unwrapping the gifts from the faculty at Hogwarts, the rest of the Order, and all of his friends, it would have meant so much more to him if he had come back to find her there, instead of all of the gifts. That, in his wistful musing, she would have been wrapped in his covers, and only his covers, was simply a bonus. I'm going to have to remember that one for next year... she had thought to herself with a slightly evil grin.

And there was one from the day after the wedding, when Fred had played a prank on her by accident- he had been aiming for Phlegm and Gag-rielle- that had coated her with dark, sticky, liquid chocolate. Harry had apparently wished at the time that they could have cleaned up the sweet brown goo in a way that was far less efficient than the shower she had ended up taking but far more fun and much more satisfying... It was interesting, that one, considering that she had also thought wistfully along those lines at the time.

But, so far, her personal favorite was the one she was currently examining, involving, as it did, a Muggle style camping trip for the two of them, complete with a small camping fire to roast sausages and heat water for tea, a non-magical tent, stargazing, something called s'mores... and a single extra-large sleeping bag.

A few moments later, she looked up from the daydream that she had been perusing, which had been about a third of the book further in from the camping trip, one involving Harry counting her freckles- all of her freckles.

He was nearby. She could feel his panic and anxiety, not knowing what he was going to find. Judging by the impressions she was getting, he was nearing the entrance to the Restricted Section and running at full tilt, his apprehension and concern for her filling his mind.

She glanced down at the non-moving images of her and Harry - some of them moved, some didn't, she wasn't sure why- and grinned. There's no reason why I can't have a little bit of fun with this, is there?

Ignoring the mental howls of protest coming from the other fragments at this, she quickly schooled her features away from the current expression of mischief that would have impressed the twins, and towards a look of disappointment and rage.

Quickly, she flipped back through the book to the camping daydream and, holding a finger in between the pages to mark the spot, she stood and faced the entrance to the aisle. Just in time.

He was here.

"Ginny, are you alright?" Harry turned the corner and looked at her. "Ginny, what's wrong? Are you hurt? I mean, Ron just told me to come and find you; he wouldn't give me any details..."

He had caught sight of her expression, which was currently in a state of being a testament to her acting skills.

"Ginny...?" he asked hesitantly.

"The question is not, am I alright, Harry, but will you be alright when I'm finished with you," she said, in her best 'dangerous' tone.

He looked utterly flummoxed.

"Uh, what do you mean...?"

She gave him a grin which was all teeth, flopped open the book in her arms and handed it to him.

To say that she had a difficult time keeping her glee from her face at the expression on his would be an understatement of epic proportions.

She fought to keep a smile, a real smile, from her face as Harry rapidly turned a color that any Weasley would be impressed by. His embarrassment would have been palpable even without the link; with it, she could play him like a fiddle.

Harry was thinking dimly to himself through the red haze of complete and utter mortification, well, that answers the question as to where the rest of my daydreams went... He looked back down at the picture on the page. He remembered that one... he had been reading the Daily Prophet a few weeks back and had wandered over to the sports section; one of the writers had had an article about the next Quidditch World Cup and England's probable lineup.

The thought of the last Cup and the magical camping that they had done had made him think about the times that the Dursleys' friends had gone on trips (the Dursleys themselves had never gone camping; Dudley had whined at the mere thought of being separated from his telly, computer and refrigerator) and that he himself would have liked to have gone camping once... and then his mind had wandered, of course, over to the one person he would like to have taken along with him.

He continued to look at the image of himself and Ginny putting on suntan lotion... on each other. It was a physical impossibility, he was certain, be he still could have sworn that the heat in his face increased significantly when he looked back up at Ginny.

"Um, uh... eh... eep..." No good. His voice had gone up at least two, perhaps three octaves. He coughed and tried again. "I'm, uh, I'm, uh, I'm sorry?" he said in as meek a voice as had ever issued from his throat.

Fiercely fighting to keep her amusement from her face, she said, ignoring the loud chorus of continuing mental objections coming over the link, "You had better be. If I could use my wand right now..." She let the statement hang, watching Harry's face contort as mild fear vied with his embarrassment as she felt through the link him cataloguing every single curse and hex she knew; it was a very complete list, unsurprisingly, as he had taught her most of them.

Grinning, she stepped closer to him and to the side. His eyes widened with mild panic as he remembered what she had done to McLaggen, and, dropping the book with a muted thump he stepped back from her...

Thunk!

...and collided with the shelf behind him. By moving to the side, she had made him turn so that his back was to the bookshelves. As she took another step closer, cat-like, having cornered her mouse, his expression descended into full code-red panic mode.

"Uh, oh sorry Gin, Ginny... um, Ginevra, I did say I'm sorry..."

She gave him another toothy grin, reached up and tangled her hands in his messy hair. He winced in anticipation and braced himself, clearly awaiting the pain of a large number of follicles violently parting company with his scalp.

She leaned in close and said, in the barest whisper, "Harry, you talk too much..." and, having a firm grip on his hair, pulled him into a kiss.

The feelings of utter confusion coming from the poor boy were almost as delicious as his lips.

He tried to pull out of the kiss for a few moments; she simply held onto his hair and didn't let his head move away. After a few moments he seemed to get the message and stopped resisting her; through the link, she felt that his confusion was still there, and rather prominent, but now it had competition- his passion.

Now his hands rose up from his sides and clasped themselves in her hair, the hair that she knew he loved, loved playing with it, loved the feeling of running his hands through it, loved seeing the light playing off of it, loved it because it was a part of her, and that alone was reason enough for him.

After another few moments, however, she broke the kiss and looked up into his eyes, green and glassy.

"Harry?"

He met her gaze, his mind obviously trying its best to catch up with what had just happened.

"Ginny, but... but... you were..."

She silenced him with a finger on his lips.

"I was just teasing you, Harry. I enjoyed looking through these great ideas of yours. Speaking of which, when do you want to play that chess game?"

Harry looked at her, still somewhat dazed.

"But, but, you were all upset with me... just teasing me..." Then his mind caught up with his ears. "What chess game?"

She motioned with her hand to the books on the floor.

"That chess game, Harry."

He looked at the books on the floor, still confused. Then, comprehension lit his features and he started babbling.

"But Gin, um, ah, eh, I don't think that's a very good idea... I mean, if someone..."

He stopped talking when her lips met his again for a moment.

"Harry, you're still talking too much..."

He got the hint and kissed her.

She held him close, her fingers still entwined in his unruly hair, while his hands were tracing out the most amazing patterns on her lower back, patterns that were making her go weak in the knees...

Thud...

...perhaps too weak, as they gave out from under her and she tumbled to the floor, taking him with her. Not that they minded too much. She didn't care that she had landed atop one of the books, whose cover was digging painfully into her shoulder. She didn't care that Harry had landed on top of her when they had toppled. All she cared about at the moment was Harry and that they had this moment for just the two of them, together.

Rolling on top of him, she let go of his hair and began toying with his ears, batting them this way and that, eliciting pleased moans from him as his talented fingers had given up on caressing her back through the cloak and were currently searching for a way in through the tangled black fabric to do that job more directly...

Ginny...

She didn't even care that the other fragments were trying to get her attention because Voldemort had reappeared on the map...

Ginny...

She took hold of a lock of Harry's hair and began tickling his ear with it. He, in the meantime, was...

GINNY WEASLEY!

Ginny jumped, breaking the kiss, her name reverberating inside of her skull, giving her a headache.

"Ginny, what is it?" Harry asked as she sat up on his thighs, his eyes glassy and full of desire.

Rubbing her temples to fight off the nascent migraine, she said tiredly, her voice full of disappointment and longing, "Voldemort's reappeared on the map."

She resisted the urge to shiver as she felt the feral rage against Voldemort join his love for her through the link and in his eyes.

Standing up, she helped him to his feet, and gave him a quick kiss ("For luck").

As they left the aisle and began walking towards the entrance to the Restricted Section, Ginny noticed something out of the corner of her eye.

Stopping, she turned to Harry, who also stopped and looked at her quizzically.

"What is it, Gin?"

"I thought I saw something... hold on a second..."

Harry, obviously curious as to what she had seen, nodded.

She headed back the way that they had come, stopping at an aisle just two rows over from the one with her name on it.

Quickly peeking at the stacks, she blinked, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Then she burst out laughing, and, darting out of the aisle, ran back to Harry, embracing him in a flying tackle.

"What? What is it?" he asked, his urgency about Voldemort momentarily eclipsed by her strange behavior.

She grinned at him.

"Oh, it's nothing, nothing. Shall we?" she said, indicating the direction of the entrance.

As they walked towards the other fragments, Harry asked her repeatedly about the what was in that aisle and each time she would continue beaming like an idiot and say, obviously deeply amused, "Nothing."

And it was true, because, out of an entire, almost empty aisle, the books labeled Cho Chang only filled two-thirds of a single bookcase.

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A/N: And that would be my favorite chapter yet posted, and for obvious reasons *grin* I had so much fun writing this... well, you can imagine :-)

Once again cindale deserves kudos, as do my loyal reviewers- Rainbow Ink, belovedranger, alloy, EJAU, simplypink, Potterfriendz, bardlover, deenas, evanesco75... stating for the record, as always- you rock!

And, by this point, there might be some suspicions floating in the back recesses of your minds, my dear readers? Some familiar sounding scenarios? Hum? Check my LiveJounal entry for this chapter- http://bibliophile20.livejournal.com/5965.html - for a full list of the fics that I dropped references to in this chapter- trying to give proper credit where credit is due.

I hope that you enjoyed the chapter, and, as always, reviews are deeply appreciated!