Grace

Ginny felt like kicking something.

The recalcitrant football sat on the grass and mocked her, just begging for her to put the boot in. To be charitable, this was the default state of most footballs, but Ginny wasn't feeling particularly charitable.

She also wasn't feeling particularly honest, but if she was she would have had to admit her anger had nothing to do with the stupid football. That she was really angry because of a boy inside, who should have been flying and seeking and beautiful but was instead grounded and lost and broken. Angry because the world - and oh, how she hated to be reduced to this, the catch-cry of the typical teenager - wasn't fair.

She wasn't being honest, though. Ginny Weasley kicking a football was about as dishonest as you could get.

She tried to remember what Dean had written about technique, then gave up and just booted it as hard as she could.

It sailed into the air, which was satisfying, even if it wasn't going in the direction she wanted.

Then Harry wandered into view, and the football's direction took on a new level of horridness; not only was it going nowhere near the basket she'd tipped over for a goal, it was going to hit him in the head.

There was something you were meant to yell, wasn't there? Some odd Muggle term? Oh, right. "FORE!"

Harry looked around, instantly spotting the football. Unsurprising, given his skill as a Seeker - compared to a walnut-sized object on the opposite side of a pitch, a large black-and-white ball flying at his head must have been easy.

His reaction was surprising, though - hands slipping free of the pockets they'd been entrenched in for weeks, hunched posture correcting itself. Fluid as an uncoiling whip, he caught the ball, then stared at it.

She stared at him. For a moment, in the freedom and easiness of his motion, he'd been the Harry of old, the one who flew a broom as if it were part of him, who moved with such unconscious, unknowing grace that it was as if he were a part of everything else. Just for an instant. Then the new Harry was back; plodding, self-conscious and bowed.

"A football? Did Ron nick all the Quaffles or something?"

For some reason, she felt embarassed. "I was trying to understand the appeal. Of, uh, football. Dean really likes it, so I thought that I should make an effort."

He nodded. She wondered if he was even listening. Honestly, Ginny, what are you expecting? A pro-Quidditch rant that serves as a metaphor for his jealousy of Dean? "I don't suppose you have any tips?"

He shook his head, dropping the ball as he did so, bouncing it from one knee to the other. "Nah. Wasn't much for sports, before I went to Hogwarts." The ball went from knee to foot to chest and back. She watched it for a moment, and then her gaze shifted from the ball to Harry. It was still there, she realised, that fluidity of movement. It was... trapped, and possibly wounded, but alive.

"Then where'd you learn... that?" She gestured to the ball, which had yet to hit the ground.

"This? Dudley got one for his birthday when we were ten, but he also got a new computer, so I was able to nick off to the park with it. I got quite good at kicking it around by myself, and it was months before Vernon caught me and confiscated it. Good summer, that."

The urge to kick something - someone - was back. "Even though your uncle took it away?"

"Well, it was good while it lasted, y'know? At least I had it for a while. No sense dwelling on the fact it got taken away, is there?"

He stopped, his expression stricken. He stared at the football as if it had tricked him somehow. Then he mumbled, "'s a stupid game anyway, you're not allowed to use your hands, there's only one ball, two dimensions and no flying..." and stumbled - ran, almost - inside.

Ginny stood there for a time, then headed inside herself, by a different route.

She left the football where it was.