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Ties
By Calixa

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Category: Post-OotP
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 17
Summary: He's being manhandled, abused, bullied, kicked with no screaming, and he loves it...
Hitcount: Story Total: 6066







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Ties

“You could have been nicer about it,” she says after a moment, eyeing him from across the table. A plate of toast and a butter dish sits between them, metaphorically collecting dust. He meets her gaze squarely, unflinching.

“All I said was no,” he says, giving her a look that’s decidedly cross. “I wasn’t mean or rude about it.”

“Actually,” she says in return, deliberately slowly, “You were.”

He clenches his teeth. “How so?”

“Rejecting someone is never nice.” She raises her hand to her hair and tucks a stray strand of red behind her ear. His eyes follow the gesture, knowing that his fascination is only partially hidden. He doesn’t care so much anymore.

“What should I have done, then?”

Her eyebrow raises itself slightly, and she taps the edge of the plate of toast idly with her index finger, as though deep in thought.

It’s breakfast, or, as Ron has been cheekily calling it all week — the “Rush”. Rush of girls, gaggles of them, hoping to catch Harry unawares and persuade him to be her date for the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend. Well — all but Ginny, of course.

Ginny pushes the plate of toast towards him. “You could have said yes.”

“No, I couldn’t,” he responds irately. She just doesn’t get it. He flicks a crumb of bread off the edge of the table, and pushes the plate aside. “I’m not interested, Ginny.”

“Why not?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you interested?”

He shrugs. “I dunno.”

Ginny gives him a long, penetrating stare. Then she gets up, the plate of toast in hand. “I think Neville’s still hungry,” she says. “I’m going to give this to him since you don’t want it.”

As she walks off, he can’t help but notice the way her hips swing gently as she moves, the way the small of her back curves just so, and the way her hair falls over one shoulder in tangled waves that his hands itch to run themselves through.

This would be why, thinks Harry, heaving a deep, heartfelt sigh.


***


It’s lunch the next day, and Harry only gets one bite in before he has to turn down another girl.

Then before he can get a second bite Ginny storms up to him and she looks annoyed. Harry’s heart does a funny little twisty-flop movement that he knows can’t be natural.

“Follow me,” she orders, grabbing his tie.

Really, like he has a choice, what with her pulling him out of the Great Hall like a flame-haired crusader on a mission. They turn into a small, deserted corridor and she stops so abruptly that he bumps right into her as she spin around to face him. Her fingertips press flat against his tie, both her hands on his chest. Instinctively he moves his own hands to the small of her back to steady her. Harry realises a second later, in dismay, that she isn’t the one who needs steadying.

Harry takes a step back hastily. “What-?”

“I thought I told you to say yes,” she mutters, and yanks him forward roughly by his tie again. He notes with a vague sort of alarm that he’s literally being manhandled by Ginny Weasley. He’s more surprised, however, than anything, because most girls are terrified of him. Awestruck, even. But the pair of scarily bright brown eyes he’s staring down into right now are reflecting anything but fear.

He frowns at her and hopes no one is going to pass by and witness this. It’ll make for a good show, in any case, the great Harry Potter getting his arse pushed around by a tiny girl with bed head in the middle of the afternoon — though he should be one to talk.

Harry winces as she tightens her grip on his tie and twists it around her fingers. Her nails look sharp — which only adds to the fear-inducing effect of her wild halo of tangled hair. He wonders briefly if it will hurt a lot if she loses her temper with him.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, a bit more cautiously.

Ginny makes a noise that’s halfway between the sound that angry cats make and a sort of exasperated hiss. The hair on Harry’s neck stands on end, and he inches back, only to find his back grazing the stone wall of the corridor.

"She's my friend," says Ginny.

Oh. That's all he can say, Oh.

"What's wrong with her?"

"N-nothing. I just..."

"You need to go to Hogsmeade," she says, letting go of his tie, and smoothing it out with nimble fingers; gliding hands, pat pat quickly all better. Harry watches in fascination, imagining that he can feel the warmth from the pads of her fingertips on his chest, running through the thinness of his robes right to his skin. "If she asks you again, say yes."

This is probably a trick question. Except, he realises, it's not a question, or a request at all, but an order.

“You should smile more,” says Ginny, handing him his quill. “It won’t kill you.”

Harry wants to retort oh yes it will because sometimes it feels that way to him, but he knows Ginny won’t stand for that kind of talk. He still has a faint bruise on his arm where she shoved him against the lockers last week when he said he was going to quit Quidditch. Of course he wasn’t really going to; he was just testing to see her reaction. Obviously Ginny had been rather strongly opposed to the idea.

So he just shrugs. “People don’t smile for no reason.”

“I like you better when you smile,” Ginny offers, as though this should be reason enough for anybody.

He tries not to, but Harry takes the bait anyway. “So you don’t like me when I don’t smile?”

A glimmer of something resembling amusement flitters over Ginny’s face. Her lip twitches, and she blinks once before replying airily, “I don’t know.”

What does that mean? Harry stares at her, trying to find an answer in her expression. Maybe. Hopefully. No, it can’t be. He feels like a fish out of water.

It’s Ginny who breaks the staring first.

“You’re late for potions,” she announces, grabbing his arm to look at his wristwatch. “Hermione’s probably timing how late you are, you’d better get going.”

It doesn’t even occur to him. Not until he’s skidded to a stop in front of the Potions dungeon, he’s running so fast that his tie’s crooked again and Snape throws him a dirty look as he sits down — not exactly late, but damned close to it — Hermione rolls her eyes in exasperation and hisses in a low voice, did you lose your watch? To which Harry shakes his head and shows her his arm. Ron looks amused, as though he wants to say something funny, the sort of thing Ron would say that Harry misses him saying, but doesn’t because Hermione is holding his hand under the table.

Then it hits him, as he watches the tiny minute hand on his watch hit twelve — one o’clock on the dot, Snape clears his throat — that Ginny knows his schedule better than even he does.

Hermione just wants to know why Harry’s cauldron still has last class’s frog guts stuck to the bottom and why he looks so happy about it.

***


Harry wakes with a loud crash and the sound of a door slamming. He rubs his eyes and sleepily pulls the hangings around his bed back with one hand. He’s only slept for four hours, and it’s noon already. It doesn’t matter though; he’s not going anywhere any time soon.

Or so he thinks.

Neville’s face wavers above him as he fumbles for his glasses on his bedside table.

“Harry,” says Neville, looking startled and vaguely unnerved, “Ginny’s at the door.”

He sits bolt up. “What? Why?”

Neville shrugs. “I don’t know. But she looks kind of angry.”

Harry nearly trips over himself as he stumbles out of bed. Ginny’s really at the door, already dressed, her hand on her hip.

“Hi,” he says, sounding dumb and knowing it.

“Harry. Ready?”

A hot rush runs through him, making him feel slightly heady, almost like he’s just taken a shot of firewhiskey (which, at seventeen, he’s had a few by now). He’s mildly resentful that she has this effect on him.

Harry blinks slowly. “Um, what should I be ready for?”

Ginny tilts her head back, gazing at him with those clear, bright brown eyes. “Hogsmeade, remember?”

“Hogsmeade?” he repeats, confused and still in a state of half-sleep. “I thought we weren’t going.”

“You said you didn’t want to go,” Ginny says, making a rotating motion with her hand. “I never said we weren’t going.”

“I-”

“Go get changed, Harry.”

A few minutes later he stumbles out into the hall, his robes flung haphazardly over his thin frame, and his hair probably a wild mess — when is it not? — where Ginny is waiting for him.

She flicks her hair over her shoulder and smiles at him, a pleased, knowing little smile that generally lets him know that he’s about to get himself into something he’d rather not at the moment. Not that he ever does want to get into things with Ginny — well, he does want to, rather, he wants to a lot — but if there’s an idea that’ll get the two of them in deeper trouble than this, well, someone ought to let him know about it because it might make this current dilemma of his wanting her so bad all that much easier in comparison.

Ron doesn’t care, which bothers him, because Ron is supposed to care and then they could all pretend it wasn’t happening in light of sibling disapproval, but no, not a single one of them has the decency to at least muster up the energy to threaten to flatten Harry against the dungeon floors - six brothers and not one. How disappointing. He fleetingly considers owling Mrs. Weasley to let her know, but something in the back of his head tells him that’s underhanded and silly and he should just suck it up like a man.

So he follows her. Down corridors, down adventures disguised as narrow stairwells pressing in, pressing him closer, stone closing in, closer and closer, the smell of her hair like flowers or grass or rain or maybe something else he can't decipher, can only get lost in.

“Where are we going now?”

She doesn’t answer his question. She never does, instead she tilts her head at him, and her brows crease together in a little furrowed line between her eyes that he somehow finds endearing. “Why is your tie always crooked?”

“I dunno. Does it matter?”

“It’s irritating.”

“It’s not.”

“It is too,” she retorts, and saunters across the hall with purposeful strides. Harry feels his stomach coil and tighten, with each step she takes, and the gleam of — what is it? Determination? — in her eyes spawns a sudden bout of nervousness in him. She comes right up to him, and looks up. Then she laughs at the expression on his face. “You don’t need to look so afraid. I’m not going to hurt you; I’m only going to straighten your bloody tie.”

Harry tries not to look too sheepish — but then again, Ginny really does terrify him sometimes. Ok, most of the time. He plasters what he hopes is a confident, (maybe even dashing) smile onto his face. Ginny smoothes her fingers over the striped silk of his tie, her eyelashes flicking rapidly as she darts a brief, upwards glance at him.

“It’s stained, too, did you know?” she murmurs, rolling her eyes. The flutter is gone, just like that. She rubs her nail over the offensive spot.

“Oh. Sorry.”

Her hands linger slightly on the lapels of his robes — leaving what feels like trails of heat across his chest — and Harry thinks maybe he ought to wrinkle his tie more often. Yes. He makes a mental note to do just that.

“So why didn’t you want to go to Hogsmeade?” he asks, clearing his throat. She lifts her eyes to his and he flushes stupidly with colour. “I mean, I know we’re here, I meant before —”

She flicks one shoulder in a brief, nonchalant shrug. “Nothing I haven’t seen before, and all the teachers are paranoid about Death Eater attacks — I thought I’d give them one less student to worry about.”

“Oh,” says Harry.

“Besides,” she says lightly, “I didn’t have anyone to go with.”

“You didn’t?” He stares at her. “But didn’t…”

She shakes her head absently and tucks his tie under his robes before giving it a small pat. Her hand trails idly down his arm and ends up toying with the hem of his sleeve. Harry’s very aware of her slim fingers stroking the edge of the fabric, brushing the back of his hand slightly. It makes him shiver.

“No,” she says slowly and pulls on a loose thread. “No one asked, and all my friends are paired off. I’d just be a fifth wheel.”

Harry laughs weakly. “I know how that feels.”

The corner of her lip twitches. “Harry, at least six girls asked you last week.”

He scowls faintly at her, trying to ignore the nearness of her fingers to his wrist. But he tries a different tactic this time. He plays it cool. “What can I say? I’m irresistible.”

Ginny looks at him in surprise for a second, and then she snorts. She actually laughs out loud. It’s the first time he’s made her do this, and even though it’s probably at his own expense Harry feels a tingle of pride.

He’s hopeless and he knows it. Ginny’s still smirking. Suddenly he’s not so proud anymore. “That funny, huh?”

Her smirk widens. “Yeah. Actually.”

“Why’s it so funny?”

“It just is.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“You don’t think I’m irresistible?”

Oh, he’s brave, today.

Ginny falters for a second. Just a split second, and that’s all that it takes for Harry to realise he’s hit a stumbling block. Finally. He can’t believe it.

“As a matter of fact…” Her lips are moist. “Try me.”

Then she’s pressing her mouth against his, all warm and soft and before he knows what he’s doing his arms are around her waist and his hands span the gentle curve of her back. Harry can’t get enough, just can’t get enough, not of her lips, of her hair, the smell of her, the shape and feel and fear of it all.

“What about your friend?” he asks in a bit of a daze, when they break apart.

“I asked her to,” says Ginny, laughing.

***

The light in the Three Broomsticks is blinding in contrast with the dimness of the tunnel that leads into its cellar. Harry blinks five times in succession, squinting behind the glare of his glasses. They’re lopsided and he pushes them into place.

Ginny brushes up behind him, her hand still in his. Harry feels like he’s just run a marathon or flown around the castle twenty times without stopping. His head feels light, and he thinks maybe he’d better sit down. So Harry leads them to a table in a far, secluded corner.

Ginny settles into the booth with him. “I really like your tie, by the way.”

He smirks, dizziness temporarily forgotten. “Even if it’s wrinkled?”

“Even if it’s wrinkled.”

“Like it is now.”

“Yeah,” she says, running a finger lightly along the edge of one scarlet stripe. Her lashes flutter for a moment, and Harry’s heart does the same thing. “As long as I get to do the wrinkling, mind you.”


*
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