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Darkness Claims | ||||
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Category: Post-OotP Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Angst Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 28 Summary: Harry is changed after a summer spent in isolation and Ginny is the only one who seems to notice. One-shot. Hitcount: Story Total: 5407 |
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Darkness crawls across his skin, the dueling glows of firelight and starlight glancing serenely off the smooth contours of his spectacles. His thick, coal black eyelashes brush the glass, sweeping down to meet his cheeks and then up again, revealing dark green eyes that stare at the sky. The grass beneath his head is slightly damp with dew; dew that is evaporating rapidly from the heat of the fire three feet away, the wood popping, sending sparks spiraling into the sky. His feet are bare, toes curling over blades of slippery grass and pulling slightly, distractedly. His hands rest on his stomach, which lifts up and down with each deep, meditative breath he draws from between his parted lips. He is lost deep in thought and the buzz of conversation around him cannot break through. She sits with her ankles crossed, a worn cushion beneath her to keep her free of the cold wet grass he's sprawled upon and her chin in her hands. Her long hair is unbound and falling in fire-kissed waves around her face and over the bare, freckled rounds of her shoulders. The summer air is warm but holds the promise of autumn not far away, looming crisply in the minds of the frogs croaking down in the pond and in the buzz of the insects mating with the flames of the candles on the dinner table they'd brought outside for the occasion. The black shadows of bats swooping low over the fire, collecting insects and enjoying such an easy feast fall across his face, but if he sees them he doesn't show it. She glances upward, meeting the vaulted twilight blue of the star-strewn sky, seeing the small flit of a bat as it swoops down and then up, twirling with a leathery flap back toward the trees where it may enjoy its freshly caught kill of a moth or mosquito. Bill, Charlie, Fred and George sit at the table, swatting away insects and sipping half-full bottles of butterbeer, sweat rolling down the sides of the brown glasses, making rings on the wooden table her mother will kill them for later. Her mother has already turned in, taking her father with her after declaring the small party "for the young at heart" once dinner was eaten and cleared away. The magical bonfire blazing brightly in the middle of the garden throws golden shadows on everything and she feels warm despite the dewy brush of the grass against her bare knees. Around the other side of the fire, Ron sits with his long legs thrown out, the muddy bottoms of his feet turned to the fire and a long, ungainly stick in his hands. A marshmallow is roasting on the end, turning black and bubbling to a grotesque shape. Hermione sits beside him, on her own cushion and curiously close to Ron's side watching the gooey mass of his dessert as it burns. Ron pulls the branch out of the fire and blows loudly on the flaming, blackened thing and once the brightest bits of red have guttered out, he opens his mouth wide and pulls the thing off the end. A mass of gooey white appears through the crust of the marshmallow and he pulls it out his mouth, swallowing the charred crust and the bits of goo he managed to grasp with his teeth. Hermione makes a clucking noise--whether of disgust or amusement she isn't sure--and Ron immediately thrusts the stick at her. With a sigh, the bushy-haired girl takes the stick and pulls the remains of Ron's half-eaten sweet off the stick with her fingers. Ron smiles and blushes red from his neck to his ears and reaches into the bag for another, perhaps for himself or for Hermione. She looks away and focuses on the fire in front of her, the buzz of her brothers speaking loudly about Quidditch barely reaching her ears. She steals glances at the sprawled figure in the grass and sees his expression hasn't changed. For some reason, he draws her eye like the candles are drawing the insects, but she feels neither heat nor pain from the attraction. Just a distance, a thoughtful distance nestled in dewy grass. "I'm going to bed before you three take off my head. But before I go--Ballycastle has it in the bag! No, don't look at me like that, Charlie, you know its true!" Bill chuckles as he unfolds himself from the chair, his long hair unbound and as wild on his shoulders as hers is. She smiles despite herself as she watches him laugh and cuff his younger brother on the top of his head. Charlie swipes at him with a hand covered in scars and shiny burns, and then stands to follow. "Whatever, Bill. We'll just see when the Cannons have a crack at them. Right Ron?" But Ron isn't listening--too wrapped up in Hermione--and Charlie doesn't press. He stretches his dragon-honed muscles and smiles at the four youngest around the fire. "You four put out the fire and bring in the table and chairs when you're done. Mum'll kill you if you leave them outside all night." Ginny nods for all of them and Charlie thinks that's good enough. He follows Bill inside, while the twins finish off their butterbeers. They aren't staying the night since the house is so crowded and it isn't long before they make their farewells and Apparate back to London with dueling cracks that make the corners of her lips turn up. That leaves the four of them grouped haphazardly around the glow of the crackling fire, four points on an uneven compass. As if he were clearly marked "North", her eyes drift back to him and she sees with a start that his face is tilted in her direction. Dark shadows have sunk into his eye sockets, swallowing and following the round rims of his glasses, the jagged lightning bolt scar on his forehead thrown into stark relief from the bonfire. She can't tell if he's watching her, but there really is nowhere else for his gaze to land but on her and she attempts to smile, break the silence or the tension or whatever it is she feels growing between them. The hair on the back of her neck rises and she wants to hug herself, suddenly very cold despite the fire and the warmth of the air cupping her body from behind. Ron and Hermione are talking still...chatting away about something neither of them can hear and she desperately wants them to look across the flames and see this. What they might see is not clear to her as she isn't sure herself, but she wants it seen just the same. The dead black hollows of his eyes glitter and glisten from deep within and she's drawn into them, a breath escaping her throat and curling into the air. She should look away, its nothing. Nothing is keeping her sitting there, staring at him--and why is he looking at her like that in the first place? Her heart beats like a moth battling its wings against the chamber of her chest. She sways, light-headed and gropes for a handhold in the slippery, dew-beaded grass, ripping up handfuls and clumping mud beneath her short fingernails. And as she sways there, caught like a insect between the teeth of a bat, she sees the corners of his lips curl upward and the flash of white teeth between them and whatever it was that had caught her lets go. Perhaps she imagined it and she thinks she must have because...because it was nothing. Shakily she smiles back and he quickly looks away, turning his attention back on the sky, his hair falling over his forehead in a charming, rakish fashion. His bemused smile remains and she sees the flicker of his eyelashes as they brush the glass again, the liquid glitter of his eyes flicking back and forth as if tracing a constellation above him. She wants to know what's so fascinating about the sky, a sky that she's studied going on five years and finds as fascinating as watching a flobberworm grow. She remembers the vague lessons she'd received from Firenze the Centaur in Divination and thinks perhaps he's reading the future...but he couldn't do that. Not really. But she wants to know what's so damned fascinating and why he's smiling like that. Why did he look at her? "No! Ron...no! Please!" Her attention goes to the couple (and she refuses to call them anything else; even though they aren't together officially, they've been a THEM for ages) across the fire and she sees Ron attempting to drag Hermione to her feet. She laughs, really laughs, as he drags her upward off her cushion. "There's no getting out of it Hermione! We're going to settle this once and for all! Come on!" "What are you doing?" Ron ignores his little sister and takes Hermione's hand (a bold move!) and pulls her away from the fire with her still giggling girlishly, something Hermione rarely--if ever--is. Seeing her lose her scholarly seriousness and bossy tone and giving in to Ron's tugging makes her smile and her insides grow warm and for a moment she forgets about the sprawled form on the grass and the strange look they'd shared. The two figures quickly disappear into the gloom outside the circle of light the fire casts in the garden and she doesn't wish she could follow them. Wherever they're going, its not meant for her and she wishes them all the luck she can. Alone now with the lusty pop and crackle of the fire and the shadowed form laid out in the grass, she stretches and thinks for a moment about going inside but a sense loss rises at the thought and she decides to stay out until the last ember gutters to gray ash. Her attention wanders, her fingers plucking at the grass. She feels the inexplicable pull of his gaze once more and lifts her head off the spattered sparkle of the dewed grass to greet it. His hands are now behind his head, tilting it upward to better peer around. No, not around. At her. Peering at her with the round black eyes and the glowing fire lit skin. Unnerved once again and this time alone, she feels caught in the cobwebbed corners of his eyes. He's been so secretive since he arrived earlier and the smiles he's graced upon them all have been haunted, silvery things with thin measures of pain in the corners. Sixteen today, she thinks. Her mother had thrown him a party and it was probably the greatest birthday he could ever remember (he'd managed a laugh and taken great bites of his cake, opened his presents and thanked them all heartily) but now the haunted smile has crept back in. A sadness that has grown up inside of him since their departure at King's Cross is radiating from all corners of his body and how none of the others seemed to have noticed it is beyond her. He screams lonely and lost and pained and she feels her heart spasm in her chest, the death throes of the moth captured inside. "Harry?" she starts, glancing away to see if she can make out the faraway dots of Ron and Hermione, but they're long gone on their giggling mission. "Did...did you enjoy the party?" She doesn't expect him to answer, but his voice comes out clearly, deep and contented. "I did. I really did." A smile ghosts her lips and she pushes her hair away from her face. "That's...good. You looked like you needed something to um, take your mind off...things." She is careful to avoid bringing up Sirius, which is a wound too fresh even for her to probe. It must be raw and livid for him and she winces as he nods his head, clearly reading her meaning. "Yeah...things," he says, rolling over on his side and propping his head on the heel of his palm, his fingers curling into the short black spikes of his hair. Turned toward the fire now, long shadows are cast down his cheeks and his eyes are visible through the gloom, glittering and sparkling like the stars above them. She lets out a sigh of relief, but relief from what she doesn't know. She follows the movement of his other hand as one finger hooks in the belt loop of his denim trousers, the rest of his fingers spreading out over his hip. His skin seems starkly pale against the dark blue material and she wonders if he's cold down there in the grass. "Ginny...come here..." His voice is soft and hesitant, deep and something else. It makes something jolt suddenly in her stomach, something like a pleasurable squirm. A shiver spreads like a pair of hands up her spine and she clutches hard at the grass. "What?" she says with an exhale of unsteady breath. He licks his lips and pats the grass beside him with the flat of his too-white hand. She follows it, sees the patch of grass and wonders if its cold like the stalks against her knees are. "I want to show you something," he says in that same soft voice, the one that makes her insides squirm. She has no reason not to believe him; he is her friend after all and there is nothing at all wrong with sliding off her cushion and heading north where his strong, magnetic pull resides three feet from a blazing fire in her overgrown, insect-and-bat-riddled garden. "What is it? I don't wanna get all wet without knowing why..." she attempts to make her voice light and joking, but it comes out flat. He smiles at something though and runs his hands over the grass, making it slippery and matted, bits of the sweet-smelling blades clinging to his fingers. "Its not that bad. It won't be for long, I promise," Harry says, flashing his smile at her and she finds herself charmed by it, reeled in like a fish on a hook. She nods and slides off her cushion, her stomach squirming even more as she crawls the few feet between them, careful to watch out for the leaping and popping fire in front of her. He pats the grass beside him firmly and she scoots around to his side, sitting on the cold, prickly ground and feeling dew soaking into the rear of her shorts and the knickers beneath them. "Now lay down." She glances at him as he lays down, his hands beneath his head, face turned to the sky. They're so close that her long hair brushes his cheeks. He doesn't seem to mind as he frees one of his hands to wrap around the wrist nearest to him. "Please?" She cannot say no to the look in his star-spattered gaze and she immediately lies down beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip. His hand is still on her wrist and he either doesn't realize it or wants to have hold of it so she doesn't tug it free. Both connected arms rest between them on their hips and she feels a distinct tingle go through her from head to bare toe. "So what are we looking at?" she asks, looking directly at him with her face tilted to the side. His breathing is deep and rhythmic as he turns his own head to stare into her eyes and she feels herself sinking deeper into the green shadows there. His smile comes back--and not the smile he'd graced the rest of the family with, no this smile is full of pleasure and something darker and deeper than that. A shiver runs the course of her spine, sliding around her neck like the grips of ghostly hands. "We have to wait a minute...its not time," he says, motioning toward the watch on his free hand, which flares to life with a toxic green glow, illuminating the clock face. Muggle magic, she likes to call it. Strange, ordinary magic he still clings to like a foreigner eating food from his homeland. "For what?" "Shh...you have to wait." So she does, turning her gaze back to the stars that twinkle and twitter above them, heat radiating along the side of her body connected to his. This feels very intimate and (dare she say it?) romantic, but there's still that unease deep in her chest. Something isn't quite right with Harry and hasn't been for a while. She wants to directly ask him what it is, but her tongue seems glued to the roof of her mouth. The watch on his wrist suddenly gives off a tiny but loud beep-beep sound and she jumps, glancing at him sharply. He lifts the watch to peer at the time on the glowing face, smirks knowingly and then drops his wrist down. "Is it time?" she asks lightly, her answer in the form of his smirk turning in her direction. He nods imperceptively and then tilts his face back toward the stars. She follows his gaze, peering at the stars that glisten and glitter like diamonds above them, the topmost portion of their vision claimed in a reddish glowing darkness--the fire doing its best to outshine the rest of the world. "So...?" The hand still clamped on her wrist tightens and she breaks off. He lifts her wrist and points it at the sky, both their arms upraised, like sundials on a lawn. "Point your finger..." His breath whispers along her neck and she shudders despite herself even as she closes her hand with her index finger pointing skyward. "Now watch..." She does, watching as he steers her hand through the sky like a compass needle, though she knows perfectly well where "north" is and how nice he smells. "Here!" he says and she focuses in on the tip of her finger, which is pointed directly at a small streak in the sky. The streak is bright but small. Not a comet, but a simple light moving quickly across space, like a firefly or maybe the lights of a…a... But she can't find anything to compare it to. He traces the arc the tiny light makes with her arm, leaning in close to watch as it moves southwest to northeast before darkness claims it on the horizon and it disappears. It happens so quickly she can't quite decide what it is she's seen. He lowers their arms, letting go of her wrist and resting his arm on his chest, fingers splayed across his heart. She rests her arm on her stomach and turns her face toward his. "What was that?" she asks in an awed voice, expecting something magical. He smiles at her and glances at the sky. "That was, according to the Muggle news the Dursley's were watching this morning, the Russian space station MIR," he explains, rubbing at his chest with the hand resting there. Understanding floods her mind. She knows what that is, of course. Astronomy lessons at Hogwarts were very thorough and the achievements of Muggles in that field were great, so they learnt about moon landings and space stations and rockets along with the names of Jupiter's moons. She hadn't realized you could see it though, not from earth and without a telescope. "Amazing...I didn't know you could see it..." "Only at certain times, I guess. Dudley didn't even know what it was, the great git," he says and then a shadow fleets across his face, a bitter shadow. "Did they treat you badly this summer?" He glances at her, measuring with that same intensity before he decides to give up one of his secrets--and she feels he has gathered so many so fast. "They ignored me." She doesn't know what to say to this. Was that good or bad? Ignoring him would be better than constantly watching him all the time, treating him like rubbish. But she's never been ignored, not really. Pushed to the side, but never ignored, not with six brothers. She doesn't know what it feels like. She draws in a breath, seeing the flicker and flutter of his eyelashes against the surface of his glasses. "Was it bad?" "No." And the secrets form a hard lump in his throat. He nearly chokes on them. "No, it wasn't bad. Could have been worse." She turns toward him on her side, propping her head on her hand like he had done earlier, a concerned look spreading nakedly across her face. She peers down at him, at the green twinkle of his eyes, thankful that the shadows are almost gone from them. The fire pops at her back and she pulls her hair around her shoulder to keep it free, just in case. His face is serious as it looks up into hers, serious and something else and she feels that same pull she felt earlier on her cushion. Only now there is no distance between them and there's no doubt that he is looking at her. She can't describe the look, it might be hungry or needy or sad or even a million things that confuse her, but its there all the same. It curves down from his brows like a drip of water, pooling in his eyes and in the curve of his lips. She finds her voice and it comes out soft, scared and choked. "What's the matter with you?" If he expected this question, he doesn't show it. He continues to look at her, hard, peering into her eyes. Eyes that aren't so far away now, eyes that can see the dark recesses of his own and make out the pain once hidden there. Hidden no longer, but still choked back. He sits up and faces her. "I never saw it," he mutters and if she's meant to understand it, he's miscalculated. She furrows her brow and opens her mouth to ask him to explain, but he captures the hand resting on her hip, lacing his fingers with hers. She lets him do it, too surprised to make much of a fight right now. His tongue appears between his lips, sweeping wetly across his bottom lip. All the air suddenly rushes out of her. Her heart beats a rat-a-tat drum against her ribs as he stares hard into her eyes, the pull strong and thriving. The pleasurable squirm sparks like the logs in the fire, spreading to all parts of her body. "Harry...what are you going on about?" He looks around with a roll of his eyes--checking to see if anyone is listening perhaps?--and then focuses his attention back on her, where the gravitational pull of his eyes draws her closer. She feels like a satellite devotedly orbiting him. "I want to kiss you," he says suddenly, touching her hair and lacing his fingers through it possessively. Her body gives a jolt, sudden and pleasurable, at the sound of his words. "You...you do?" she says, understandably confused. Harry has never looked twice at her. If he had, she would have known. "I have all day," he says and the smile curls the corners of his mouth, like its a relief to finally say it. "Would you let me?" She could say no. Technically she has an almost boyfriend--Dean, bless his heart--but he's not here right now and he's not Harry with his hand in her hair and his breath brushing her lips, so close, so close... She nods weakly, her eyes fluttering closed against her flushed cheeks. His hand finds her chin, tilting it upward. His breath stirs against her skin, bathing her in even more warmth. The fire creates a glow on the inside of her eyelids and she clings to it, clings to him...unsure and bewildered and aware that this is Harry. Harry with his hand on her chin and now Harry with his mouth on her mouth… He kisses her softly once; a light press that lingers for seconds maybe and then is lifted away. She parts her lips and the bottom lip is captured between his without a moment's notice. He releases it again and then presses harder, his mouth moist, his breath sweet as it sweeps along hers. She kisses him back as the hand on her chin drops to her lap and tangles with her fingers. He doesn't press deeper than lips and that's fine. Sweet and needy. She'd expected dark and hard, which would have matched the look in his eyes. But he is gentle and as he feels the light brush of her tongue against his lips, he pulls back, blinking owlishly behind the dark rims of his glasses. They just look at each other and he lets go of her hair, drawing in a deep breath from between his teeth. "What?" she asks, breathless herself, flushed and bewildered. "What am I doing?" he wonders aloud and starts to get up, but she still has his hand and she yanks him back down on the wet grass. "Where are you going? What's the matter?" she says, feeling slightly hurt. He has wanted to kiss her all day and now he's fleeing? What is his problem? He opens his mouth to answer, his eyes dark again, lips moist, but a noise on the other side of the fire makes him close it tight and turn his head toward the source. Ron and Hermione, arguing once more, tumble into the circle of light cast by the fire, hair wild and standing in all directions. Hermione's t-shirt is splattered with mud and Ron has some on his face and the bottom half of his legs are covered to the knee. His bare feet are glomps of black, oozy goo. "What happened?" she asks, standing and leaving Harry sitting before her. Hermione gives an annoyed cluck and then pushes Ron away from her. He looks hurt and reaches for her, but she escapes his outstretched hand like a well-thrown Quaffle. "Oh no you don't!" he says, leaping forward, grabbing her around the waist and lifting her high over his shoulder. "Ron! You stupid brainless oaf let me down! You're covered in muck!" Hermione says, half-squeal, half-angry. Her feet kick the air dangerously, but Ron is well out of danger. "And how did I get like this, huh? Its all your fault!" "No, its not! You were the one who--" Hermione looks abruptly at Harry and Ginny and cuts herself off, going red in the face. Whatever had happened to make them both muddy is obviously not something she wants to tell them. Harry at least. Ginny will find out later tonight and knows it. "Come on, let's get you washed up..." Ron says with a chuckle, carrying Hermione toward the house and leaving Ginny standing, watching them go. Harry stands and sighs. "You know, I'm beginning to think they're a bit more than friends these days," he says seriously. She fights the urge to laugh. "I think you're right," she says equally as serious as he. "Well, I'm going to start carrying this stuff in." Her tone is stiff and uneasy as she moves to walk past him, more than slightly annoyed at him. He'd certainly made it known he'd made a mistake kissing her. What was he doing, indeed! "Ginny?" "What, Harry?" she answers, grabbing up two chairs in her hands to cart them inside. Before she knows it, he is suddenly there, there with his mouth on her mouth and its hard and fast and deep and dark like she thought it would be. No sweet tasting, his mouth is like a black hole dripping with venom, which slowly pours itself into her, making the tree of her nervous system shudder and set fire. And just as quickly as he'd grabbed her, he lets go, leaving her to weave in place with the heavy loads of the chairs in her hands. "I'm sorry. I won't do that again" he says and then turns on his heel and disappears into the house, leaving her alone in the garden with the fire to her back and the chairs in her hands. Sorry? He's sorry for kissing her like that? She isn't. She's just sorry he stopped. Sorry he's confused her, sorry she no longer knows which way is north because its run off into the house. Something is going on with Harry, something she's sensed all day. Does anyone else see it? She doesn't know, but she doesn't think so. After all, he hasn't looked at the rest of them like he's look at her. Drawn her in with the power of his voice--and it had been so easy, too easy--and then asked her something she'd never thought she'd hear from him. The fire behind her crackles and pops; unaware of what has transpired three feet from its burning heart. She stands there with the chairs in her hands, unable to move, feeling the shadows of the bats still feasting on the moths and mosquitoes in the air and shudders. She doesn't know why she shudders, but it feels right and natural at that moment, as if terror were something she should be feeling after her encounter with Harry. Terror? Why? Its just Harry. A darker, more dangerous Harry. A Harry fresh from the worst year of his life and going into a year that might well be worse than that. She remembers the press of his lips on hers. Feels them and shudders. She closes her eyes and turns away from the fire. Darkness claims the inside of her eyelids and she realizes suddenly that Harry has done the same to her. Somehow, his darkness has claimed her. And this makes Ginny, suddenly, terribly afraid. (end) |
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