This time Ron's laugh wasn't muffled. Harry turned to grin at him, and paused. 'Hey, Ron…' he said, his green eyes lighting with a sudden curiosity, 'what's that on your neck?'
Ginny turned around and so did Seamus and Elizabeth, in time to see Ron look startled, and put a hand to his neck. 'What…?'
'You've got a bite mark,' said Harry, hugely amused, 'right there,' and he poked Ron in the side of the neck with his finger.
Ron flushed as scarlet as a sunset, and clapped his hand over his neck, but it was too late.
'Ron's got a hickey,' Seamus announced delightedly. 'Unbelievable!'
Ginny stared at her brother in astonishment. How on earth….? Well, not that she expected any of her brothers to tell her everything, or even most things, about their love lives, but Ron…well, Ron had always seemed to her to be a bit of a romantic, a dreamer. Un-serious snogs were not in his nature. And he'd never have a girlfriend and not tell Harry, and it was very evident from Harry's expression that he was as surprised as everyone else.
'So, Ron,' said Seamus, leaning on his broomstick, 'who's the girl? I don't quite recognize the teeth marks.'
Ron was still scarlet. 'There's no girl,' he said, looking at the floor.
'A boy, then?' Seamus was grinning. 'I'd no idea!'
'No! It's just — I walked into a door,' said Ron, rather desperately.
'With your neck?' Harry demanded, his eyebrows rising.
'Yes,' said Ron firmly.
Ginny snorted. 'Ron Weasley,' she teased in a superior tone. 'After living in a house with Bill, Charlie and the twins, if you think I don't know what a hickey looks like…'
'Ginny…' Ron began in a warning tone, rounding on his sister. As he did, she got a good look at his neck. Heavens above, it was a bite mark.
'Bill, Charlie and the twins?' Seamus echoed. 'What, Percy never got any action? So much for power being an aphrodisiac.'
Ron looked as if he were going to have a coronary. 'I do not have a hickey!'
Harry grabbed Ron by the arm. 'Okay, then, if you want to be like that,' he said. 'Sod waiting for the match to start — we're having a little talk,' and with that, he frog-marched Ron several yards away, to the shade of a leaf-bare oak tree. Ginny followed them with her eyes, fascinated, as Ron pulled his arm out of Harry's grasp and stood, looking stony, while Harry spoke animatedly with — or rather at — him.
'Well,' she murmured, half to herself, 'at least they're talking…'
'So they are,' said a voice behind her. Seamus. She didn't turn around.
'Maybe we should too?'
At that, she did turn, and looked at Seamus properly for the first time since she'd arrived at the changing rooms. He was looking at her very steadily, his expression serious and his blue eyes doubly so. Cloudy blue, the color of winter sky. She nodded at him. 'I guess we should.'
He took her arm and drew her towards the side of the changing hut, out of sight of Harry and Ron. He let her go immediately, and faced her, looking determined. 'Ginny,' he said. 'I wanted to apologize.'
She had expected him to say several things; this was not one of them. 'For what?' she demanded, astonished.
'For not being understanding before,' he said. 'Last night — this morning, I guess it was. What you had to tell me was, well, overwhelming, and I wasn't sure how to respond. And you were right. I was thinking I was going to have to rescue you from Malfoy somehow, and when it turned out I didn't I guess I was… disappointed.'
'Disappointed?' Ginny echoed, but without any anger. She was, if anything, impressed by Seamus' honesty. It couldn't be easy to say the things he was saying. 'But why, Seamus?'
'Because…' He exhaled and leaned back against the wall of the hut. His cheeks were very red, with cold and with, she suspected, embarrassment.
He had pulled his hands inside the overlong sleeves of his red and gold sweater, and it gave him a boyish, almost childlike aspect. 'Because at least in that scenario I could imagine that there was something you needed from me.' He shook his head. 'I like you, Ginny, but you're a mystery. And I know every beautiful girl probably has guys lining up to tell her she's a mystery, but you really are. I think that you must be — ' But Seamus never got to tell Ginny what she must have been, because at that point she took several steps towards him, leaned up on her toes, and kissed him.
The first thing Draco would have done, she knew, was kissed her back fiercely; the first thing Seamus did was catch at her elbows, steadying her against him. Only then, when he was sure she was securely placed, did he bend his will to kissing her back. His hands slid from her elbows to cup the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and his lips on hers were cool, almost cold, gently exploratory. He tasted vaguely of hot cocoa.
She found that she was shivering hard in his embrace, and no sooner had she noticed that then he broke off the kiss, leaning back just far enough so that he could see her face. 'Ginny,' he whispered, 'are you all right?'
She looked back at him, seeing the dazed, dazzled expression in his eyes; the expression she'd seen on her brothers' faces when they got some Christmas present they especially wanted, the expression her mother sometimes wore when she welcomed a child safely home. The way Harry looked at Hermione and the way that Draco had never looked at her. It made her want to cry.
'I'm all right,' she said, and she put her arms around him. He was warm and solid, the heavy jumper making him bulky although underneath it, he was lithe and almost thin. 'Seamus — can we stay still for a second? Just like this.' As if he understood, he put his arms around her and held her and she rested her head against his chest, hearing the thickly muffled beat of his heart through the wool sweater, as regular as the ticking of a clock.
Draco walked out of Dumbledore's office and began to make his way down the hall. If he could have seen himself, he would have been surprised at how slowly he was moving, and how very white his face was.
As it was, he was entirely unconcerned with how he might look, which was unusual for him. He was not in shock precisely, but stunned, his mind whirling. Everything around him seemed to have taken on a precise and sharp-edged clarity. He could still hear Dumbledore's voice in his ears.
Some of this I know for fact, and some is hearsay but we know enough, at this point, to be fairly sure of the basic facts. Of course this was years ago, many years it would seem to you. Almost twenty years…
He was on the stairs now, walking down them. He had his broomstick in his hand. He was glad he had not forgotten it. I must talk to Harry. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that hiding things from Harry that might potentially upset him was, in the end, a terrible idea. Besides, it was hard to predict how Harry would react to this information. He also could not help but wonder why Dumbledore had told him alone and not told Harry; then again, he suspected that he could guess.
He was on the front steps now, and they were cold and slick with ice. He sped down them and took the short cut down to the Quidditch pitch, the one that cut alongside the lake and down past the west side of the pitch, where the Gryffindor changing rooms were. As he neared the pitch, he saw that the stands above were filled with people; the grounds around the pitch seemed deserted though, but as he quickened his pace his gaze fell on a splash of gold and red by the side of the Gryffindor hut. A person.
No, not one person, but two people. Two people clinging very close together as if against a cold wind, two sets of arms in their red and gold sleeves wrapped around each other, two faces pressing blindly towards one another. A tousled, sandy head. And a waterfall of familiar scarlet hair. Seamus Finnigan and Ginny Weasley.
Well, what did you expect? said a knife-sharp voice in his own mind as he stopped, and stared, and then forced himself to move again. He averted his gaze as firmly as he could, rounded the edge of the pitch, and stalked towards the Slytherin side of the pitch, where his teammates waited. He could not quite rid himself of the feeling that Ginny had known he had passed by, had even looked up and seen him, but of course she hadn't; she'd been very, very occupied. Be happy, he told himself, it was what you wanted, and then as he neared the Slytherin team they saw him and let out relieved cries of welcome. He hoisted his Firebolt in the air and walked forward to join his team.
