SIYE Time:20:27 on 10th December 2024 SIYE Login: no | | |
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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley
Genres: Fluff
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG
Reviews: 11
Summary: Surely Harry can do...whatever he wants.That is, until Ginny puts her foot down. He's just praying she won't. One-shot. Fluff.
Hitcount: Story Total: 5796
Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work.
Author's Notes: A/N: Just a cute one-shot I played around with for awhile. Many thanks to my beta Lily Potter. Hope you enjoy!
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Because I Can
She never objects when it happens unconsciously or accidentally. Rather, she never does anything to suggest she dislikes it. It doesn’t matter so much that neither does she give any inclination that she is in favor of it. He is far past reasoning with logic and rationality where she is concerned.
In any event, he figures if accidental occurrences like knees touching gently during a homework session in the Gryffindor Common room or hands brushing while reaching for a same book, don’t prompt discomfort from her, then neither will ones that transpire on purpose.
He doesn’t allow himself to consider the fact that he has more than likely read way too deeply into her lack of protest, considering all that has happened is that their knees brushed occasionally during a bout of studying.
He’s afraid he’ll lose his nerve.
*
Staring at her is certainly completely harmless. This has always been the case. It is no different now he’s decided to do it consciously.
He is not touching her or distracting her from her studies, and he is not so close as to look like a drug addict sniffing cocaine, because from such a distance he cannot smell her flowery scent. On the other hand he is in danger of acting like a fourteen year old girl, the type who sighs, giggles, and swoons at the sight of a poster with Jeffrey Homesinona on it- the famously handsome editor for Charmed magazine- as the ink on the tip of his quill drips slowly off the end, landing obediently in a puddle in his lap.
He is blissfully unaware.
Ginny Weasley, you see, is his Jeffrey Homesinona. Although he doesn’t have a poster of her in his dorm room like a fourteen year old girl does have of the dashingly good looking magazine editor, it isn’t for lack of trying. But as he thinks that tacking up a large poster of the redheaded girl on the wall next to his four poster bed would attract unwanted attention from said girl’s brother, he refrains from keeping any pictures he has of her within sight of anyone other than himself.
Currently, he has a fantastic photograph of Ginny sitting by the Gryffindor Common Room fire, her auburn hair shining a new hue of red around the room each time she moves her head. Her eyes are bright and thoughtful, glowing the most brilliantly deep shade of brown (photo courtesy of Collin Creevey). Hidden gingerly between two boards on the topmost part of his bed and directly above his pillow, he has it kept under strict security measures.
The most obvious of these measures being to never remove the photograph from its hiding place at any given point in time that Ron is not sound asleep with his own canopy bed hangings drawn firmly around him. Then, and only then, does he allow himself to prop the picture against the platform above his bed with a sticking charm and gaze longingly at it until dreams take over and he is delightfully soaring into the picture with her, where he is greeted enthusiastically with a heart-stopping kiss.
She looks up just now and he slips out of his reverie.
This is it.
He does not blush, but looks her squarely, unflinchingly in the eye, a crooked grin on his lips.
She smiles tentatively, looking at him with a most curious expression. ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she asks, reasonably puzzled.
He merely grins wider and, perhaps foolishly, but confidently nonetheless, says, ‘Because I can.’
He actually thinks he ought to be congratulated on coming up with such an incredibly brilliant way of so subtly drawing her attention to him in a way that does not leave him feeling either awkward or embarrassed, or both. Though he misses the smugness of the smile she had so often adopted each time she had caught him staring prior to this moment, he is equally thrilled and fascinated by the sparkle that flashes now in her brown eyes as she bites her lip to stop the small smile coming to her face.
She doesn’t comment on this bold proclamation, but looks at him intriguingly as though unsure as to whether or not she should take him seriously or escort him off to the hospital wing.
He believes this to be a good sign, thoroughly convinced as he is that she knows exactly why he knows he can do these things without objection. This is only wishful thinking, however, and the much larger part of his brain is telling him to apologize profusely and proceed to lock himself in his dorm room; never to come out for fear of speaking again and sounding like an even bigger idiot than he has just done, as though this is even possible.
But he does none of these things, only continues staring.
She turns away after a moment’s hesitation, but as he continues to pretend to complete his Herbology homework while in fact staring dreamily at Ginny, he sees her eyes glance to him more occasionally than normal.
He thinks that this is quite the accomplishment for the first step in his plan until she glances up again and he meets her eyes. She blushes slightly, and quite adorably, he thinks. And he spends the rest of the night in something of a stupor.
Not only did she not object….she blushed.
*
Brushing a stray tendril from her face provides far more contact than simply gazing from across a room, but far less than a number of other acts he can carry out. Still, he thinks it is best not to push so early on in the plan. He wants to start small; give her every possible chance to object or protest. He will not push anything on her. And quite obsessively, he makes sure her body language does not send off signals of discomfort at his actions.
If ever she does, his entire scheme is useless and dishonest. But she has never objected before and he is sure he knows why. The reason she doesn’t remonstrate to his actions happens to be the same reason he carries them out. She is as madly in love with him as he is with her.
He is confident that if she isn’t wand over tip for him then surely she would ask him to stop staring, request that he move over slightly to give her more space (insuring that their thighs, nor any other part of them, touch at the supper table) and, indisputably, she would simply brush her own hair behind her ear before he gets the chance, rather than taking so bloody long to do it herself.
All this assures him that the reason she doesn’t protest and the inevitability that she will not do so in the future is because she loves him. Certainly he knows that that is the only logical explanation as to how he is getting away with what he is doing.
He positions her and himself so that his desires are possible: outside in a rather deserted part of the grounds. Deserted because, unbeknown to Ginny, it carries a rather truthful rumor of it being something of a wind tunnel.
He figures she will assume it is for his sake as the isolation provides a wonderful change from the gawking and pestering from the Collin Creeveys and Romilda Vanes of Hogwarts. This is what she will think anyway. She is thoughtful like that, he knows.
After brushing a lock of red hair from her eyes for the third time, Ginny looks up at him searchingly. He knows what the question will be before it flows from her lips.
‘Why do you keep doing that?’
He replies evenly, barely keeping the excitement from his voice in anticipation of the look that is to appear on her face in moments.
The look that has the divine effect of causing a delectable warmth to spread from his toes all the way to his ears, making the monster in his stomach purr contentedly.
The look that assures him of her approval and strengthens his belief in the three words he unabashedly speaks next.
‘Because I can.’
*
Her knee now rests gently against his under a table in the library as they study. Or, rather, she studies while he concentrates on the heat emanating between their limbs and the way her ruby red lips are mouthing words under her breath. This to the effect of making his heart beat wildly at the thought of what it would feel like to touch those lips with his own. And as the thought rolls through his mind, he is abruptly overcome with the contemplation that touching knees seems suddenly juvenile.
So he decides to make things more interesting.
It does not take long for Ginny to raise her eyes from her book and stare at him with a look of mingled incredulity and mirth. ‘Harry?’
‘Hmm?’ he says with his eyes on the book in front of him, all the while struggling not to laugh.
‘Why are you playing kneesies with me under the table?’
He looks up now; brown eyes meet green and he can see that she is biting the insides of her cheeks to keep from cracking up. He has to look away to keep from doing the same.
He only barely manages as he opens his mouth to reply. ‘Because I can.’
There is silence for a moment. Then, because he can’t help himself, he adds, ‘Did you just say “kneesies”?’
There is another second of silence, then laughter breaks out and Madame Pince rushes over to reinstate the quiet.
*
This time it is her thigh that rests against his at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for
lunch. Her elbow brushes his on occasion and, though her shoulder touches his less frequently than he likes, but on occasion it never fails to send shocks up his arm.
He selects a piece of treacle tart from one of the dessert plates in front of him and sneaks a peak at her while he takes a bite. She is laughing at something her brother has done and he chuckles softly to dissuade suspicion even though he doesn’t know what is so funny. He only knows that he loves the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears and the vibrations of her body next to his as she throws her head back.
No one knows these thoughts flit around his head daily, but he often finds himself seriously
considering failing out of sixth year because lunch is drawing to a close and too soon she will stand from her seat and disappear to a part of the castle nowhere near him (as is what happens all too habitually). If he fails out, however, he can sit in the same class as her, side by side instead. And each day he can pretend to concentrate on note-taking while in reality try not to pass out from the intoxicating smell that wafts over from the seat next to him as the girl in question runs a distracted hand through her fiery locks.
But he knows Hermione will never let this happen, so he clings to the few encounters they are able to snatch during weekdays, and spends the rest of his time scheming about more ways to increase the number of these meetings.
Enlisting Hermione’s help seems like a good idea until he gets to the part about having to explain his dilemma which is embarrassing enough, to say the least, without having to voice it. His childish scheme would immediately be dubbed as such by his bushy haired best friend and then he would be back to mooning over the youngest Weasley without as much as a plan to capture her eye.
Ron and Hermione have risen from their seats at the Gryffindor table to attend to a Prefect matter and now he can feel her eyes on him. The sound of her voice, soft and smooth like rain, reaches his ears and he whips his head around to survey her much too quickly to inspire indifference.
‘Harry, why are you sitting so close?’
He answers almost automatically, stuttering slightly because she is really very close. ‘Because I can.’
*
Lying on top of Ginny Weasley, their bodies entangled rather gracefully, is something he never intends to attempt, (not too soon, anyway). Hugging her was his next course of action. However, in a completely accidental case of unmitigated luck, he finds he has ended up, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, pressed against practically every inch of her on the cold, hard stone floor that lies below the marble staircase.
Her smell, her warmth, and the feel of her body against his nearly causes his head to explode from sheer ecstasy and sends his imagination careening down a path he has never been before: that of the night following a long white dress and a black tux. And unbidden to the front of his mind comes an image that makes his heart flip over in his chest (as though it wasn’t doing enough of that already). Dressed in pure white is Ginny Weasley walking down the aisle of a small stone church, her father at her side; and there he is at the front of that
church, in a black tux and tie, grinning wildly.
As he pulls himself from this glorious notion he gazes at her beneath him: red hair falling gracefully off her shoulders, eyes wide and full of mirth and he finds himself overwhelmingly grateful for having forgotten to set his alarm clock this morning. The resulting effect forcing him to dress and shower at top speed; charge to the Great Hall and round the corner to the Entrance Hall in a whirl of books and robes only to knock her to the floor and proceed to fall on top of her intimately.
He finds himself even more grateful for having done this when he realizes that the reason he did not set his alarm clock is because it is Saturday. Which in turn means that Ginny is not wearing the usual school uniform that hides so much skin from him, but she is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt instead and his hand has fallen to rest on bare skin near her waist.
The very fact that the incident does not occur on purpose does not stop him from failing to
climb to his feet with the deftness that her brothers would surely have demanded had they been witness to the event.
Indeed, he takes so long that when they are both finally back on their feet, Ginny raises her eyebrows suspiciously while she bites down with white teeth onto a rosy red lip. The resulting look is a little more than endearing, he thinks.
‘Don’t tell me you did that on purpose, Potter?’
‘And if I did?’ he challenges, with a great attempt to mask the panic he feels inside at the thought of an oncoming protest.
‘I’d like to know why.’ But she doesn’t seem angry and Harry’s heart beats again.
‘Because I can.’
*
He is lying with his head on a pillow in her lap in the Gryffindor Common room while not even attempting to complete his homework, but instead wishing he could interlace his hand with the one she has lain on her knee next to his ear. He applauds his own daring because it really is a scary thing to be so close to the girl you’re in love with when her bigger and very protective older brother sits not ten feet away.
But he finds it incredibly hard to care, because although she appears quite caught up in the book currently lying in her lap leaning against the back of his head, her hand is resting gently beside it and he can feel the warmth of her fingertips in his hair.
It seems unbelievable that her brother has not commented on his and his sister’s seating choice, but Harry is too afraid to push his luck, so he resists the temptation to grab her hand and intertwine it with his own.
The silence doesn’t last long and the sentence Harry has been expecting to hear for the past eleven minutes is spoken.
‘Harry, what the hell are you doing lying in my sister’s lap?’
He steals his courage and chances a glance up at Ginny who glances up at Ron and then looks down at him with an expression equivalent to someone suppressing great hilarity.
Resigning himself to the worst, and deciding that it’s either two feet or no feet through the door, he jumps with both and winks cheekily at her, snatching up the hand next to his right ear. He hears her intake of breath, and looking down at the hand now linked with his, he says lightly, ‘Because I can.’
Ron splutters incoherently for a second, opening his mouth only to shut it a few times before the words come to his lips. ‘Ginny, what do you have to say about this?’
Harry holds his breath knowing this is the moment he has been waiting for. But words don’t come and he chances another glance up at her.
Their eyes meet and he tries to decipher the look in her brown orbs, but before he is able to she is leaning towards him. Her hand is on his cheek. And then her lips are on his.
After a long few moments they break apart and Harry struggles for breath and words, but neither are coming to him and he thinks that his head is surely about to explode from pure delight.
He looks up at her to see a smug smirk etched on her pretty face. She shrugs, both her hands now lingering on either side of his face.
‘Only because I can,’ she says with an audacious wink.
He is stunned momentarily; then he grins delightfully, and reaches a hand up to pull her down to meet his craving lips. ‘Too bloody right you can.’
End
A/N: Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a review and let me know.
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