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The Mystery in the Attic | ||||||
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Category: SIYE Challenges new Characters:Harry/Ginny, Ron Weasley Genres: General, Humor, Romance Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 9 Summary: Harry is spending the summer at the Burrow after the tragic events at the Ministry in OotP. His late-night foray into the kitchen for a snack is interrupted by a sound from the attic. Is it the ghoul or is there something more mysterious at work? Written for the SIYE "Summer at the Burrow" challenge. Hitcount: Story Total: 9394; Chapter Total: 1537 Awards: View Trophy Room |
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Ginny’s chipper voice froze Harry in place. He’d left the door to Ron’s room open, providing anyone waltzing down the hallway a view of him moping on the bed. In his embarrassment, he almost left the pillow over his head to wait for the bed to swallow him up completely. Instead, he let it fall to the side. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied unconvincingly, causing her to snicker. “If you’re practicing to try to convince Mum, you’ve got a long way to go.” She arched an eyebrow at him and gave him an appraising look. “If you’d rather not talk about it, no worries, but I think even Ron would be able to tell something’s up from that.” Harry silently cursed his inability to lie convincingly about himself but sat up anyway. “I messed something up and I don’t know how to fix it.” Ginny stared at him for a long moment before walking to Ron’s bed, kicking the door closed behind her. She got settled and took a deep breath, looking intently into his nervous face. “Is it about the Ministry? I know how terrible it feels to blame yourself for people getting hurt because Tom manipulated you.” There was a disarming earnestness in her voice as she spoke that almost startled Harry. Even though his guilt about the foray into the Ministry still ached in his chest, that had been relegated far into the recesses of his mind. He actually let out a small, nervous laugh. “No, it’s something else.” His cheeks burned under her stare and he averted his gaze out the window. “I accidentally snooped on someone and realized that I’m making their life much more difficult. I’m trying to figure out how to make things better.” “Well, at least you’re not being incredibly vague about it,” replied Ginny, a smirk plastered across her face. “Otherwise, you’d be making another person’s life harder, too.” Harry raked his hand down his face, unsure how to continue. He didn’t have many details he could share without giving himself away. “Let me guess… You were wandering the Burrow late at night and stumbled into some mystery that you just couldn’t help investigating?” Ginny eyed him knowingly as color rushed into his cheeks. “Just a hint, Harry: sneaking around under an invisibility cloak pretty much disqualifies you from claiming to be ‘accidentally snooping.’” He let loose a vehement swear as his traitorous cheeks turned a darker shade of red. Ginny simply laughed at him from her perch on Ron’s bed, the musical sound of her mirth filling Harry’s ears. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t get caught unless I want to get caught. You’re not as quiet on the stairs as you think.” Harry groaned as he fell backward onto his bed. He grasped for his pillow and covered his face with it. Perhaps the bed would simply absorb him, allowing him to fade into an oblivion in which he no longer felt mortified by Ginny’s easy-going dismantling of his spying. “I’m so sorry for snooping on you,” came Harry’s muffled voice from beneath the pillow. “I promise it’ll never happen again.” “Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easily. You’re going to have to pay for your mistakes.” From beneath the pillow, Harry asked what he needed to do to make things right. “Well, first of all, you’re going to have to tell me what you found out. After that, we’ll see what else you need to do to make amends…” “Do I have to?” Harry hoped the patheticness in his voice might sway the youngest Weasley, but her only response was to tear the pillow out of his grasp and fling it into a pile of dirty clothes across the room. “Fine! Fine…” said Harry crossly, adjusting his glasses so they were no longer crookedly perching atop his nose. “Two nights ago I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the kitchen for a bite to eat.” “The treacle tart, of course,” interjected Ginny with a smirk. “Well, you’re not wrong. When I was heading back to bed, I heard the ghoul thumping. I figured it would keep at it all night since Ron could sleep through the Hogwarts Express barreling through the Burrow.” “And when you realized that you were mistaken, I’m sure you immediately scampered off back to bed?” asked Ginny, feigning incredulity. “Maybe I should have, but I saw you adding something to a potion that made it explode! I was worried that you might have gotten injured or something.” “Mmhmm… Sounds almost plausible. So I guess you went back downstairs as soon as you saw I was okay? I’m sure you didn’t eavesdrop on my conversation with the ghoul, right?” She made a disappointed clucking sound with her tongue when Harry merely hung his head in response. “And you didn’t think twice about how odd it was that a witch was having a full conversation with a ghoul about something she was obviously intent on keeping a secret?” A feeling of dread was growing in the pit of Harry’s stomach as she spoke. How stupid could he have been to think she was casually explaining herself to the ghoul? He chanced a glance into her mischievous brown eyes, feeling all the more in trouble at her look of triumph. “Well, even if you accidentally stumbled upon someone in the attic two nights ago, I’m sure you would have decided to leave well enough alone after realizing your mistake and that the noise had only been someone you know and trust. Surely, you wouldn’t have attempted to check back up on things the next day? It’d be far too easy to mistakenly leave evidence of your snooping by leaving a light on or something like that…” As embarrassed as Harry was, he couldn’t help marveling at how Ginny had him absolutely dead to rights. She’d seemingly caught him at every turn. “It was after Ron kept badgering you about Dean yesterday. You looked upset about it when you stormed off, but nobody answered when I knocked on your door to check on you,” explained Harry, knowing how ridiculous it sounded from Ginny’s bemused expression. “How chivalrous of you!” she exclaimed, grinning widely while rolling her eyes. “You’re not nearly as sneaky as you think under that invisibility cloak. It doesn’t stop you from making noise and you’re the only one in this house who uses Charlie’s old shampoo, so I could’ve found you out with nothing but my nose.” Harry didn’t respond, other than hiding his face behind his hand. He felt the heat of his cheeks on his palm and wondered if this was how Ginny had felt after sticking her elbow in the butter dish all those years ago. He decided not to bring that up, especially since she hadn’t yet begun using her Bat-Bogey Hex on him. “And you were so very concerned about my emotional well-being after that tiff with my brother that you simply had to see if I was weeping bitterly in the attic? Were you at least smart enough not to mess with the potion? Because if I have to remake the whole thing, I’m billing you for ingredients and you’ll be the one waking up every two hours for a week to stir it.” “I swear, I didn’t touch it!” moaned Harry in frustration. “I didn’t even know what it was until today, so there was no chance I’d tamper with it.” From behind his hand, Harry noticed a change in Ginny’s demeanor. She looked quizzical for a moment before losing some of her bravado. “You didn’t figure out what the potion was yesterday?” she asked, her voice suddenly less confident. “No, I didn’t put everything together until I read the book today. I saw the title yesterday, but the ghoul was being loud so I had to duck out before your Mum sent you up here to check on it. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what you could be brewing up here.” “Omigosh…” whispered Ginny, her face quickly becoming just as flushed as Harry’s. “You must have thought that I was…” “No, that’s the thing,” interjected Harry, wanting to cut off the embarrassment that he’d caused. “I knew something about it didn’t make sense. You’re super fun and pretty, so part of me knew that it probably wasn’t some sort of love potion or anything. It’s not like I thought you needed the help!” Harry noticed that his reassurances had done little to assuage her blushing; in fact, she looked to be turning an even deeper shade of red as he spoke. Suddenly, she let out a small gasp. “Last night, when I knew you were listening in, I said I needed something from you for the potion! You spent all night thinking I was making a love potion for you?!” Harry grimaced, unable to hide that she wasn’t too far off the mark. He thought that Ginny might flee the room out of mortification, but he felt an overwhelming need to somehow make things right. Ginny’s ease around him over the past year had been a welcome change, and he didn’t want things to go back to the uncomfortable way they had been during his first few years knowing her. “Okay, yeah. The thought might have crossed my mind some last night,” admitted Harry hastily. “But I read through all the potions today and realized I had it wrong. It’s not a big deal to me or anything, I promise!” Ginny drew herself up and forced herself to look at Harry in the eye. He met her gaze, trying his best to show his resolve and earnestness. “So you understand what the potion is? And what it does?” Harry gave a small nod. “Yeah, I do. I hate that having me always around made you feel like you needed it. You don’t even get away from me when you’re in your own home because your family basically adopted me. It’s not fair to you, and I’m sorry about that.” She shrugged sadly and allowed herself to glance away. Her voice was quiet as she responded. “It’s not your fault. You just showed up, not knowing my parents had been telling ‘brave Harry Potter’ stories to me my whole life. Plus, it didn’t hurt that you saved me from Tom and a basilisk, either. But I figure it’s probably not helpful to expect any guy who asks me out to live up to that kind of standard, y’know?” Harry thought about how it felt to have Cho talking about Cedric the previous term and the unmistakable feeling that he’d never measure up to the standard she had in her head. “That’s fair, although I won’t apologize for coming after you in the chamber. The world’s a lot better with you in it.” A soft, rueful smile was the only acknowledgment Harry received, but he felt alright about that. As hard as the conversation felt for him, he couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Ginny. He smiled in return, thinking that she had proven her qualifications for Gryffindor house multiple times over the previous months. “Well, now that it’s all out in the open, could I ask you for a favor?” she asked, not quite able to make eye contact again yet. “Sure, anything you need.” She reached forward cautiously, her fingers almost brushing Harry’s cheek. He winced when her thumb and forefinger plucked a single black hair from just above where his glasses rested upon his ear. “It’s the last ingredient,” she breathed, her voice almost a whisper. “After tonight, neither of us will have to worry about feeling awkward about any of this ever again.” The clouds that had been blocking out the sun parted just enough to allow a beam of sunshine through the window. The brilliance of the light gave Harry an excellent view of the smattering of freckles along Ginny’s cheeks, nose, and forehead and the glittering flecks of gold in her brown eyes. A summer breeze wafted through the window, flooding his nose with a flowery scent. Before he’d fully processed the thought, an impulse to close the space between them and kiss her overcame his senses. “Thanks for understanding, Harry.” As Ginny stood up, the sound of Ron’s bedsprings creaking broke Harry from his trance. |
| Reviews 9 |
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