Liberating the Tin Man

Chapter 3. Playing with Fire

"Hi!" Harry said, greeting his friend as she joined him at their table and blew steam off the surface of her coffee.

Ginny gasped. "Sweet Merlin, what happened to you?" she asked, blinking twice and straining to refocus her eyes. Sitting across the table from her, decked out in full Quidditch gear and looking like he'd just been spit out of a dragon's belly, was Harry Potter. He lifted his head a bit, attempted to make eye contact through his glasses, which were perched sloppily near the end of his nose, and smiled broadly.

"What?" she asked. Ginny was amused, curious and a little impatient to be let in on whatever it was that Harry had been up to.

"I've been waiting for you!" Harry replied, grinning. "Ron and the guys left about an hour ago, but I didn't want to leave before I got the chance to see you."

Ginny narrowed her eyebrows. "Ron and the guys..." She sat back and took a sip from her mug, studying her companion. Puffy eyes, food wrappers on the table, grass stains on his elbows and -- she leaned under the table to take a peek at the rest of Harry's uniform -- yep, on his knees as well.

"Harry Potter," she said, "have you been out all night?"

Harry smiled. "Yes I have!"

"And, you've been drinking coffee?" she asked, smirking now at Harry's behavior. He was like a peacock spreading his feathers -- all proud of himself. "And, he waited for me..." she thought. "He wants to show off a bit." Ginny's grin broadened and she let her eyes take in the sight before her again. Harry's Quidditch uniform fit him like a glove, she noted. He had that scruffy, unshaven look about him that wizards got when they'd been up too late. And, when he pushed his glasses up so that he could see more properly, Ginny could see that his eyes were a bit glassy and reddened. The poor lad looked like he needed to get to bed soon or he'd fall off his chair.

"Four cups," he replied. "I'd have another and stay here with you for a bit, but I'm afraid I'd drown in it." Harry took off his glasses and wiped a smudge with his napkin. "I'm dead tired."

Wicked thoughts soared into Ginny's brain and she entertained one or two of the inspired ideas briefly before deciding against them. Her naughty side wanted to tease Harry by not giving him a chance to tell her why he looked so pleased with himself, but she couldn't give in to those temptations this morning. Not completely, anyway. Not when he sat there looking like he did just now -- so happy and full of himself.

"Harry," Ginny asked wryly, "why were you up all night?"

"We were celebrating our win, of course!" Harry boasted.

"Ah, yes," Ginny said. "There was a game last night, wasn't there?"

The smile that Harry's been wearing faltered a bit at his friend's pronouncement. "Didn't you watch it?" he asked, sounding slightly wounded.

"Well," Ginny began, "I had a lot of schoolwork to do last night and a bunch of us got together to revise." She pursed her lips. "I'm sorry, Harry. Did I miss anything good?" she asked.

"Only if you think that the idea of me getting put in the game as a last minute substitute and catching the snitch to win, clinching an almost-sure spot in the playoffs is good..." Harry said. His voice was deep and rough: warn from endless retellings of the final minutes of Puddlemere United's victory among his teammates. He was tired, he knew, and was possibly exaggerating things a bit in this state of mind, but he felt a surge of disappointment that Ginny hadn't witnessed his catch.

Playing on a professional Quidditch team had been an all-encompassing obsession for Harry for well over a year now. And last night, he was finally given the chance to soar above the crowds in a real Quidditch pitch. He felt bad for Tony Jones of course, the starting seeker who'd taken a bad fall and would likely miss the next two games as his bones healed and strengthened, but for Harry, playing in the game had been beyond amazing. His broom had never responded better to his commands and his eyes had never been sharper. It had felt as if the other seeker didn't even exist.

"You're smiling again," Ginny remarked, smirking. She leaned forward and rubbed her chin thoughtfully, regarding Harry. "I think I'm in the mood for something sweet this morning. Do you think you could fetch me a packet of sugar from the counter, Harry?" she asked sweetly. "I've never tried coffee with sugar before."

Harry yawned and nodded, rising obediently out of his chair and shuffling up to the service counter where Lou, the morning's server was busy shining the copper cappuccino machine, using his wand to steer the polishing cloth.

"Hi," Harry said, addressing Lou. "May I have a packet of sugar please?" Lou tossed a small, white package on the counter and Harry brought it back to the table. He sank back into his seat and rubbed his eyes, noticing that Ginny was once again staring at him, her eyes sparkling just a bit too much for this early hour, in Harry's opinion.

"What?" he asked, gruffly.

"It'd probably be better if it had cream in it as well," Ginny said, ripping open the sugar packet and sprinkling its contents into her coffee mug. "My mum always takes her coffee with cream and sugar...I just remembered."

Harry gazed at his friend. Surely she wasn't serious, was she? But as he gazed, Ginny delicately shoved her coffee mug over to his side of the table and arranged her face in a very pleasant and appealing way. He smiled. "Want me to go get you some cream?" Harry asked.

"Oh, that'd be great, yes," Ginny replied.

When Harry returned again and sat down in his chair, Ginny pulled the coffee mug to herself and cuddled it in her palms. She took a careful sip and smiled. "Mmm..." she said, grinning at Harry. "Tastes good this way...it's like having dessert for breakfast."

Harry fought to keep his eyelids from shutting. He'd been looking forward to seeing Ginny for hours now, but his body was beginning to abandon him.

"I drink it black," he offered, fighting to maintain enough volume in his words so that he sounded interested.

Ginny bit her lip. "You drink it black because I drink it black" she said, catching Harry's eyes with an impish glance. "I gave you your very first sip, remember? And it was black."

It hadn't ever occurred to Harry that other people put stuff in their coffee, now that he thought about it. He laughed. He wondered vaguely what his playful friend was up to with her strange comments and her sugar and cream, but was much too tired to concentrate properly on the subject.

"Harry," Ginny said after a while.

"Mmm?"

"I was just having you on." She took another sip of coffee and peered coyly over her mug, watching Harry struggle to comprehend her words. "I was at the game," she said. "And, you were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I've never been so proud." Ginny beamed up at Harry and watched a shy smile form on his handsome face. "My throat hurts, I screamed so much at the match, I swear!"

Harry scratched is face nervously. "You were having me on? Honestly?" he asked.

"Yep," Ginny responded with pride.

"And, you still drink your coffee black?" he asked, not really sure why.

"Yep," she replied with a giggle. "I just wanted to make you walk around a bit...I wanted a better view of your bum in that uniform." Ginny laughed again when Harry's tired eyes flew wide open.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

Walking three steps forward, turning on his heel, and then taking three steps back toward his apartment building, Harry Potter paced in circles at the corner of 6th Avenue and Venice Street, deep in the middle of a small wizarding community in London. He had been turning the corner onto Venice, where the Caffé dei Dolci stood out prominently in a row of brownstone storefronts, and he was sorely tempted to go back to his flat and skip out on coffee altogether this morning.

Ginny Weasley had been an unrelenting nightmare on every morning of the past week, and Harry had his doubts whether the fact that today was Sunday would alter her behavior any. For some reason, the witch had taken to flirting with him shamelessly, and it was getting to the point where the two friends were going to have to have a talk. He wanted friendship, Harry sulked. He wanted a break from his "all Quidditch, all the time" lifestyle, if only for an hour at daybreak. And he wanted to drink his coffee in relative peace. Balancing on the outside of his right foot, Harry paused in the midst of another turn-around.

"Sod it," he thought, setting his jaw and pushing his legs forward in the direction of his and Ginny's beloved coffee shop. He glared at it's ornate façade and the two statues of exquisite, albeit naked, Roman Goddesses which flanked each side of the entranceway, as if he thought the shop should somehow hold less appeal. The sad, sad truth of the matter, whether Harry liked it or not, was that meeting Ginny at the Caffé dei Dolci was the only thing he had to do on this particular day. The Puddlemere United Quidditch team had finally, amazingly, and a little bit surprisingly, secured a seat in the playoffs, and Harry's team had been given a week's leave to rest up and enjoy the holidays before post-season practices began. Ron had been beside himself with excitement, sending an owl to Hermione within minutes of learning that they'd be free for a week, and securing plans to visit his girlfriend's family with her. All of Harry's teammates, in fact had cheered at the news, and quickly made arrangements to go this way or the other, visiting people and taking vacations, or just enjoying time with their own families. Harry, by contrast, had felt his stomach drop.

The forlorn wizard dug one hand deep into the pocket of his trousers and reached up with the other to pull on the door to the caffé, feeling dejected and beaten at his decision to come despite his own better judgment.

"Hi, handsome!" Ginny said, smiling brightly and lifting a brown earthenware mug to her friend in greeting. "Mum wants me to tell you that Christmas dinner will be at six o'clock, but she wants you there earlier if you can make it." She sipped her drink as Harry removed his cloak and made himself comfortable in his usual seat. "Ooh," she said, "you're wearing red today, my favorite color on you."

Harry frowned as the witch's eyes raked unguardedly up and down his torso and he waited for the inevitable flush of heat to work its way up the back of his neck and around to his cheeks, warming his face like a false friend.

Ginny held the muscles of her cheeks and lips tightly, presenting an engaging smile and doing her best to hide her disappointment at not receiving so much as a "Hello" from her friend. Her obsession. She held the smile bravely as she watched Harry Potter walk up to the counter of the coffee shop, chat somewhat animatedly with Laurie, who had just arrived to start her shift, and then return to sit across from herself with a scowl firmly planted on his usually attractive face.

"I'm ruining everything," she thought as she watched Harry take a cautious sip of his beverage and reach for the Daily Prophet. She felt her carefully placed smile dissolve slowly and pinched her lips together in order to keep from pouting openly. She'd grown impatient and had decided to kick up her campaign to pull Harry out of his determined bachelorhood, but for the first time since she'd graduated from Hogwarts, her efforts hadn't produced the predicted affects.

Instead of enjoying the healthy doses of feminine attention that Ginny was lavishing on him, as she'd assumed he would, Harry seemed to be positively revolted by them. She'd poked and prodded enough in recent months to become reasonably sure that Harry needed her, and he'd been practically beside himself when she had taken to depriving him of her company, months back. Everything had been working beautifully so far, in fact, as the two shared tiny little parts of their lives with one another every morning and Ginny had felt absolutely certain that she could bring Mr. Clueless around. But the stark and somber truth couldn't be denied, Ginny thought, as the wizard who sat across from her continued to read the Quidditch pages without so much as acknowledging that he had company or even responding to her invite: she'd gone a bit too far. She hadn't been considerate enough of his...stupidity.

Fifteen minutes more went by and Ginny still found herself to be the miserable recipient of the silent treatment from His Grumpiness, and it was getting increasingly hard to hold her tongue -- especially after having consumed three-quarters of her mug of coffee already. Caffeine was buzzing through her system, and words were threatening to escape her. Harsh words. Piercing words. Honest words -- the worst kind to use when someone was mad at her, Ginny supposed.

"Hold it in, Ginny. Hold it in," she begged herself. If she had been mistaken in her handling of Sir I-Don't-Need-a-Witch this past week with unwanted compliments, winks and one instance of a slap on the bum, then she surely wouldn't make any headway by speaking her mind. As she sat contemplating where her clever strategy had failed, Ginny caught sight of something that utterly stung her. Harry had thrown her a brief flicker of a glance and for one miniscule moment, he had held her gaze.

"That's right," she scolded internally, "you see me here you dolt. Right here where I've been week after week, pining away after you...just pining away after stupid Harry Potter. Like a bloody fool."

Ginny thrust her head down and looked away. Inexplicably, her traitorous eyes had moistened, and she wouldn't give Harry the benefit of witnessing the extent to which he was hurting her.

"No," she thought. "I'm doing this to myself."

With that final thought licking at her pride, Ginny cleared her throat and stood up from the table she always shared with the only wizard she had ever wanted. "Bye," she choked out softly, and she grabbed her book bag as gracefully as she could manage and left the Caffé dei Dolci.