Liberating the Tin Man

Chapter 8. Savor the Boldest Brew

"Hi love, I'm so sorry about the match," Laurie said with a sympathetic shrug as she moved toward the counter, addressing a distracted-looking Ginny.

Ginny looked up at the always-sweet girl and smiled. "Oh, yeah," she responded. "It was a shame. O'Shea found the snitch in...what was it? Fifteen minutes?"

"Fourteen minutes and twenty-six seconds," Lou called from the seating area where he was directing chairs with his wand to sort themselves out, readying the caffé for its morning customers. "Never seen anything like it. That one will go down in history," he added wistfully.

Laurie gave Lou a very slightly disapproving look and turned back to Ginny. "Oh, not really, I'm sure," she said. "It'll all blow over soon, I'm positive of it."

Ginny laughed. What did she care about the stupid Quidditch playoffs. Certainly it wouldn't have been a pleasant day for Harry, or for her brother for that matter. They would likely have to deal with feelings of let-down and embarrassment as the Puddlemere United team woke up to loads of newspaper articles detailing their rather embarrassing, though mercifully swift, defeat in the land of the leprechauns. But Ginny was having a hard time getting worked up over the game.

Yesterday, just before she'd left her flat to meet Harry, Ginny had come to a turning point of sorts, and her spirits seemed to have been mercifully lifted ever since. She felt once again comfortable with her own abilities to think and act and it was a wonderful respite, compared to the self-imposed anguish that she'd been wallowing in previously. She had developed some very sensible arguments, Ginny reflected, in favor of moving on, and it had made some logical sense to try to protect herself from being hurt again, as she had been, to the point of uncontrollable sobbing in the lonely confines of her bedroom. And, it wasn't hard to argue that she had been somewhat justified in refusing to trust the carefully-written confessions of the wizard who'd caused her such pain.

But those arguments and justifications fell lamely to the floor once she'd finally opened up her eyes. Right there at what she always thought of as "hers and Harry's" table in "hers and Harry's" caffé, she'd at last seen, in that face that she loved so much, what had been lacking for so long: genuine emotion, sincerity and, regrettably, pain. Ginny was ready, now, to follow her instincts and to let them shepherd her out of the thick forest of insanity into which her intellect had led and abandoned her.

"Can I get you something?" Laurie asked, drawing Ginny's attention to the caffé menu on the wall behind the counter.

"I'll have the Jamaican Blue Mountain, please," Ginny replied. "I'm in the mood for something bold."

"Sure, love," Laurie said with another apologetic smile and a nod, and she pulled out a mug, lifting the lever of the copper coffee urn to allow the steamy brew to fill its charge.

When she had settled down into her seat and removed her long, thick winter cloak, Ginny let out a loud sigh and reached for her coffee cup, feeling her cheeks once again twisting involuntarily into a grin. She imagined that she must look like an incredible idiot, sitting in an empty caffé just minutes after it opened up and smiling like a goofy, lovesick troll, but it couldn't be helped. The P.U. had lost and Harry would be coming home soon, and she had proof of it right there in the pocket of her cloak, tempting her pitilessly to give it a read.

But the morning was supposed to have been set aside for studying. Ginny had a ten o'clock exam in her Alchemy class, and she needed to review notes and memorize scores of rules for combining magical ingredients -- from the Four Laws of Alchemy to Merlin's Principles of Congruity. Reading what was in the pocket of that cloak would only encourage her wandering mind, and Ginny really needed top marks on this test; her homework marks had fallen into the range of "dismal" in recent weeks. Waiting until after the exam made a lot of sense, she thought, as she tapped her index finger on her mug in a nervous gesture, but it didn't stand a ghost of a chance of actually happening.

Ginny had stopped by the mail room of her apartment building on her way out and dropped a nonchalant inquiry as to whether there had been any deliveries yet. She had been expecting a letter from Harry, but it had been a wonderful shock when the mail witch handed over not one, but two scrolls of parchment. Two. A crimson blush had plastered itself on her face upon receiving the bundles, and she was fighting another one now as she sat at their table and drew in a mouthful of hot, robust coffee, letting it work its wonders, warming her mouth and throat as it made its way down her body. Casting a glance at her cloak which lay across Harry's chair looking like a wanton maiden, she gave a grunt and lunged forward, retrieving the scrolls.

As she opened the first, Ginny smiled again.

"Ginny," it read. "We lost, as I'm sure you know. The good news is that I could see the snitch there from my bench - it was about as obvious as the sun, and almost as slow. I don't know why Jones couldn't get to it because he seemed to have had an angle on O'Shea. Anyway, we're leaving tomorrow. I'll be waiting at our coffee shop after you get out of class. I really miss you. Love, Harry."

Taking another drink from her mug, Ginny let her eyes dance back up to the top of the scroll and she read Harry's letter again, and again, memorizing the words. He hadn't said much, but then again, he hadn't needed to. It was Ginny herself who'd been deficient in the word department lately, and she felt simultaneous surges of guilt and gratitude as she finished the third reading: "...I really miss you. Love Harry."

It was a bit strange, and also a bit hard to believe, that Harry Potter -- her Harry -- was actually pursuing her again. And writing about his feelings. And didn't appear to be any more concerned than she was that his beloved Quidditch team had just tanked its first playoff bid in a decade. She felt giddy. Forcing her smiling mouth to close and biting on her lip to ensure that it stayed in a presentable, perhaps studious, expression, she unrolled the second scroll, feeling drunk in anticipation of what else Harry might have written to her.

Ginny's eyes grew huge and she sucked in a lungful of coffee-scented air, dropping the letter on the table as she struggled to process its message. It was from her mum, and she was being summoned to the Burrow for dinner that evening. The note hadn't spelled out exactly what Ginny's mum wanted to speak to her about, but the tone was all-too transparent: Ginny had fallen into disfavor, and was about to receive a severe scolding.

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"You'd better run, Potter!"

Harry jumped back in his seat and the newspaper that he'd been reading rustled noisily as his hands instinctively jerked forward. He'd been reviewing a myriad of articles, all of which detailed, ruthlessly, his Puddlemere team's 200 point loss in Ireland, and he had to take a few seconds to appreciate exactly who it was that was threatening him.

Looking up, he saw that Ginny was standing in the doorway of the coffee shop and seemed to be doing her best to shoot rays of hatred toward him with an intensely disturbing glare. Harry decided not to speak just yet, but instead continued to watch the irate witch, guardedly. As absurd as it seemed, given the situation, he was relieved at the sight before him; he was back in London and Ginny was back in the caffé where she belonged, though not quite in the mood he had been happily anticipating.

"I said, you'd better run," Ginny repeated and she set her bookbag down, not-so-delicately, right there on the welcome mat and stared at Harry from across the five feet or so that currently divided them. Her cloak, which had been left unbuttoned, flapped slightly in a gust of wind that was carried in as a customer entered the caffé and scooted around Ginny cautiously. She looked rather sinister, Harry thought, and he fought back an urge to cringe.

Deciding to put himself in a less vulnerable position, Harry dropped his newspaper and stood up, shoving his chair backward and flinching as it scraped loudly against the slate tiles. His heart was pounding now, and he was struggling to recall why Ginny would be this angry with him.

"You recruited my mum!" Ginny said in a slightly more muted, but nonetheless intimidating voice, managing to attract the attention of the shop's other six or seven customers as well as the staff.

"Oh, right...that," Harry thought as Ginny's words registered their impact. He remembered, vaguely, swallowing a heady dose of pride and drafting a quick note in a lame attempt to convince Molly to have a little chat with her daughter. He'd done it on the same day that he'd approached Ron about asking Hermione to talk to Ginny as well, as he hadn't, at the time, seen any real hope of the witch coming to her senses on her own. Harry looked around nervously and tried to lift his shoulders in a gesture of reassurance to the other caffé patrons, offering Lou and Laurie a little embarrassed nod each.

Ginny took two steps toward Harry and continued her assault. "I had to spend two hours, last night, over at Mum and Dad's house getting lectured and you don't want to know how painful that was! I hadn't done well on an important exam and I just wanted to go home and sleep, but instead I found myself on the receiving end of my mother's wrath."

"Listen," Harry began, cautiously. "I sent your mum an owl days ago -- before we talked." He looked up helplessly at the seemingly livid witch. "I knew she'd probably chuck the thing into the fireplace as soon as she read the postscript, but...I had to try. I was getting quite pathetic." He muttered the last part quietly, hoping that only Ginny could hear his feeble little confession, and that it would somehow soften her mood. Just a bit.

"Chuck the thing?" Ginny yelled, sharpening her eyes and reaching into the inside pocket of her cloak with her right hand, fumbling around for its contents. "You knew the very second Molly Weasley found out that her precious little boy lost -- her sainted Harry Potter -- had designs on her one and only daughter she'd have me stripped naked, wrapped up in the family quilt and delivered to your doorstep."

Harry struggled within himself. His mind was trying to play tricks on him, he knew, because he could swear he saw the beginnings of a grin forming on Ginny's pretty lips, but he decided that it was too early to let down his guard, given how severely angered she had appeared when he first saw her. Many emotions were competing for attention within him, and Harry felt slightly baffled as he tried to sort them out. He was excited and relieved that he and Ginny were supposed to be meeting to discuss getting back together -- finally -- and he was also genuinely frightened, as the witch looked to be about to retrieve her wand. A tiny, but growing tendril of concern was wrapping itself around Harry's brain, imploring him to wonder whether Ginny's current mood was an indication that she'd reconsidered talking things over. And, a small, small part of him was busy trying to fight off an image of himself peeling back a little corner of ancient floral fabric to reveal --

"I had to endure two hours worth of lecturing by the queen of lecturing herself, and you have no idea how unbearable that is," Ginny continued, interrupting Harry's thoughts. She was still speaking a bit loudly, and although she may have hinted at humor with her words, her eyes still appeared, to Harry, to be shooting sparks. As she drew her hand out of her cloak, her eyes flew wide open and she gasped.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry had shouted, and Ginny stumbled backward into the brick wall of the little coffee shop, gasping for air in short, quick breaths.

"No!" Harry yelled as he ran over to the slumping witch and attempted to hold her steady against the wall, grasping her by the shoulders. "Ginny, I'm so sorry! I thought you were going to hex me and...I have really strong reflexes now...I shouldn't have..."

Ginny blinked and grabbed Harry's hands to stop the shaking that she was being subjected to. She could hear the soft chatter of the others in the caffé and straightened herself up, hoping to pacify any concern for her safety.

"Harry, I'm okay," she said, a bit breathlessly. "I think I just got the wind knocked out of me, that's all." She brought her hands up to her face and buried it in them, laughing heartily. "I guess I deserved that, didn't I?" she asked.

"No, Ginny," Harry said with a strong, steady tone, "you haven't deserved anything that I've put you through." He let his hands fall from Ginny's shoulders and pointed meekly at the little bundle of purple envelopes that she held in her wand hand. "Oh," he said.

"Yeah, oh," Ginny returned, smiling up at Harry. "You thought I was going for my wand?" she asked. Harry nodded and grimaced, which caused Ginny to laugh again. He looked so cute right then, all disgraced and manly at the same time. Deciding to finish the thing she'd attempted before getting hexed, she opened the first of the envelopes and read it aloud.

"Ginny, I lied. I do want to complicate things. Please go out with me. Love Harry."

Ginny looked up at Harry with a pained expression. "I'm so stupid, Harry."

"No your not," he replied as he watched Ginny tuck the first card back into its envelope and open the second of the stack, reading it.

"Ginny, this is silly. Let's get back together, okay? Love, Harry."

Again, looking up and making a face, Ginny sighed. "No, I am really, really stupid."

"Are not," Harry repeated, and he looked shyly down at the third envelope that Ginny was now opening. His chest was rising and falling noticeably, and he bit on his bottom lip as he waited for Ginny to continue.

Ginny read the contents, and her voice caught slightly as she did so. "Ginny, I love you, Harry."

"Monumentally stupid," she said, standing taller and lifting her eyes to gaze at Harry's scar.

"Well," Harry said, "not monumentally. How about we call it a truce and just leave it as- "

Harry's words were cut off as Ginny launched herself into his chest and planted her lips on his still-open mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut and begged her heart to stop pounding. It was impossible to concentrate properly with its incessant drumming and she couldn't remember when she'd ever wanted anything more than this kiss, right now. But as she attempted to make the muscles in her mouth do the things that she wanted them to do, the pounding persisted, and Ginny soon felt her brain retire from its fight, melting into the background as a strong arm reached under her opened coat and encircled her waist, pulling her closer to that warm chest and producing tingles everywhere. Her cloak swung forward, almost covering the two of them, and Ginny felt Harry's other hand pressing circles into her back before snaking up to push gently on the base of her neck.

"This is Harry taking over," she thought. She heard Harry make a little man noise - something deep in his throat - and Ginny felt herself falling back against the brick wall while he leaned against her, plunging into her mouth with a deep kiss. "Okay, Harry. You can take over," she reasoned, a bit dazed. "I may have been an idiot for these past few weeks, but you've been one for even longer." Letting her muscles relax and trying hard to hear her own thoughts over her blasted heartbeat, Ginny gave in to the pure indulgence of being kissed by Harry Potter again. And, she managed to realize, it was more than being kissed. Harry brought a hand up to her cheek and stroked it with his thumb, making another one of his noises and releasing her lips to nip at them.

"I'm being loved," she thought. "This is what it feels like to be loved by Harry."

Harry felt himself losing control, as if a dam had burst open. He took a couple of fast, frantic breaths before covering Ginny's mouth again, thrusting his tongue in and reveling in the feel of it. How long had it been since they'd done this? He wondered at his own, absurd stupidity as he ran his hand up and down the waist of the beautiful witch who was blessedly letting him do it. She was so tiny, he thought. How did she manage to carry that heavy bookbag all the way to the university with ribs like this? And, he marveled, as his arms moved again of their own accord and pulled Ginny in even closer, how much did he love her? Ginny wriggled against him and let out a little grunt of sorts and Harry smiled through their kiss. There wasn't any need to calculate. They were home, now. He'd almost thrown his life away after some insane notion that a life that included Ginny was too good for him, and she'd stubbornly refused to let him do it. And they were home now, he thought, as Ginny gently broke their kiss.

A gloriously painful sensation began to radiate from the region of Harry's ear, and he realized that Ginny was breathing heavily into it, trying to say something. Feeling as if his nerve endings were being oversaturated and that his emotions were all on full tilt, Harry silently wished that the witch would stop trying to talk at this particular moment, especially not right into that part of his anatomy.

"Ginny," he gasped.

Ginny let out another puff of hot, moist breath and it wrangled with Harry's senses as she breathed, "Harry, I love you too, but we've got company at the present time."

Harry froze. White hot heat blazed on his face and he shut his eyes tight. "Right," he scolded himself. "You're in a coffee shop, not a brothel. Stupid."

Ginny giggled, saying, "It's alright. I think we've only slightly marred the kids over there for life, but I think that Lou and Laurie were getting a bit of a kick out of our display." She gently stepped to Harry's side and motioned for him to turn around and look about their caffé, smiling self-consciously as she did so at the dismayed patrons and smug-looking employees. The scene was almost surreal: several witches threw disapproving glances at Ginny and two teenage boys gave Harry a proud thumbs up while Lou draped an arm over his girlfriend's shoulder and winked at the pair.

"Sorry," Harry muttered.

"Quite alright," Ginny responded. She took a wobbly step toward their table, and sat down in her customary seat. As Harry took the chair opposite her, Ginny smiled up at him. "So," she said. "Now that we've settled the 'loving each other' thing, can I say that I'm sorry?"

"No," Harry replied. He gave Ginny a stern look and then leaned his elbow on the table, planting his forehead in his hand and balancing himself on it. "I don't deserve you," he said, peering up at her through slightly crooked glasses.

"No," Ginny chided. "Probably not."

"You were so sad after the war," Harry continued, "and I should have been there, helping you instead of...you know...chasing after stupid snitches."

"Yeah," said Ginny, her voice laden with sentimentality. "Some people might think that. But, you weren't exactly able, were you?" She paused as Harry lifted his head and stared at her, looking embarrassed. "I watched you, you know. When Dumbledore died, you cried at his funeral along with the rest of us. I was there. It was touching."

Bringing her fingers up to Harry's face, Ginny played idly with a section of dark hair which had fallen over his glasses, righting it and dropping her hand back down on the table. "When the Death Eaters went on killing, you would show up at the burrow or at Grimmauld Place with this look -- this amazing look. It filled me with hope, Harry, that you were so confident about facing...what you had to face. And I knew that you were preparing yourself in every way that you could. I used to sit up at night, in my room, and imagine it as if I was the one who had to walk right up to Voldemort to duel with him...to kill him." Ginny closed her eyes and shuddered. "It brought on nightmares every time."

Harry flinched slightly, but Ginny continued. She wanted him to know why she could never have abandoned him. "But when it was all over, I knew that it had cost you an awful lot. You didn't shed one tear at Hagrid's burial. Do you know that?" she said. "You had spent yourself, Harry."

Ginny gave a sad little smile and brought her gaze up to Harry's face. He was listening patiently, she could tell, and it was even clearer to her now that something had changed within him over the past few weeks. Earlier attempts at similar conversations had been cut short with a wave of his hand or a swift change of subject, and he'd become exceedingly adept at even avoiding the attempts altogether, keeping mostly to himself whenever possible. Sitting there, allowing her to speak about the past and all of the horrific things that he'd had to do and endure, Harry appeared so much more real to Ginny. Through his glasses, she could see his beautiful, green eyes staring right back at her and she allowed a moment for a little of swell of triumph to dissipate before going on.

"I left for Hogwarts with a vow to get over my own particular pain so that I could help you heal," Ginny said. She stared again at Harry's scar and let the words tumble out, feeling relief as they did so. "I kind of freaked out a bit, and may have...possibly...temporarily convinced myself that you were never really going to come out of your own little, obsessed, Seeker world. But I never would have really given up. Never. You know that right?"

Looking down, Harry squeezed the tiny, pale and freckled hand that he held. Ginny didn't need to say all the things that she was saying; he'd known what she had been up to. The blame for any problems between the two of them lay solely on his shoulders alone. He cast another glance around the caffé and drew some comfort from the fact that the customers had all gone back to their own activities. No one seemed too bothered anymore that he'd practically tackled Ginny right there in front of all of them. He smiled bashfully at the memory.

"Would you like me to get you a cup?" he asked the ginger-haired witch as she stared coyly at him with a smile of her own.

"No," she said. "I think I'd like to follow you back to your flat now."

Harry's smile broadened instantly and he grabbed his cloak. Ginny stood up to join him and they shoved their chairs back into place, sharing one last public embrace and then laughing into each other's hair as each swallowed their feelings of uneasiness. Ginny stretched herself up to reach Harry's mouth again and she teased his bottom lip with a gentle tug, letting her teeth pull at him just a enough to cause more of that painful sort of sensory overload.

"Ginny," Harry berated, pulling his face back and running his tongue across his lip.

"Sorry," she returned, dropping back onto her heals and placing her hand in Harry's. "I just feel so free now, I can't help it."

"Me too," Harry said. He looked down at the rumpled mess of papers that had been strewn across the table and made a quick decision that -- just this once -- he'd let the next customer sort them out for themselves. Flashing a grin in the direction of Laurie, who was leaning against the counter and staring blatantly, he pulled Ginny out of the caffé in the direction of his apartment building, grabbing her bookbag on the way and slinging it over his shoulder.

Harry's heart pounded, his face was still hot with embarrassment and excitement, and his legs felt somewhat like they'd lost their bones as he began to appreciate the realness of the situation. There were still things that he needed to deal with. He knew that long-withheld, painful memories would soon be knocking on his brain, begging to be paid their due: to be felt and not ignored, and to be honored. But he was ready, now, to face them as a fully functioning wizard, not as a war-damaged robot. He'd battle them off with new memories, he mused, as he yanked playfully on Ginny's arm, drawing her into another kiss on the pavement just outside of their coffee shop. As Ginny kissed back with equal fervor, Harry allowed himself to feel her love penetrate him and he pulled the witch close again, trying to keep as much contact as he could with her tiny little body.

Ginny withdrew from their kiss and laughed, wrapping her arms around Harry's neck and pointing at the window of the Caffé dei Dolci. Through the frosty glass, they could see that several customers were once again staring in their direction, sporting various expressions of disapproval and amusement. Harry laughed too. As long as it didn't bother Ginny, he couldn't bring himself to care what a fool he was making of himself -- not when he felt so wonderful and so...liberated. He released his hold on the witch in his arms and tugged her bookbag back into position over his right shoulder, stepping alongside her to continue the seemingly endless trek to his flat.

"C'mone Ginny, let's get out of here," Harry said and he tugged her along the pavement, listening to her adorable giggles as she hastened to keep up.

~~~~~~~~ La Fine ~~~~~~~~