Chapter 10: Ginny Part 2
The tension from the previous day hadn’t dissipated; it had settled into the stone of the castle, a low vibration humming beneath everything. Harry felt it in his teeth. He found Ron and Hermione already in the secluded alcove the next afternoon, a gloomy space where the silence felt like a third person sitting with them.
They weren’t speaking. Ron was pretending to read Advanced Potion-Making, his eyes not moving. Hermione was writing an essay with furious, precise strokes, the nib of her quill digging into the parchment. The air between them was frozen solid.
Harry slid into a chair, the legs scraping. “Well, this is festive.”
Hermione didn’t look up. Ron grunted.
That’s when he saw her. Ginny, moving between the distant shelves, a flash of red against the dark wood. His pulse, sluggish and sour, gave a hard, sudden kick. He watched her approach, her movements confident, a slight sway in her hips that hadn’t been there yesterday, or maybe he was just noticing it now. He was noticing everything.
“Room for one more?” Ginny’s voice was cheerful, normal, as if she’d just happened upon them.
Ron’s head jerked up. Hermione’s quill stopped.
“Always,” Harry said, his own voice sounding rough.
Ginny pulled out the fourth chair, its legs whispering on the stone. She sat, dropping her bag, and looked at each of them in turn. “So. Any verdicts? Or are we all still emotionally constipated?”
Hermione’s lips tightened into a white line. Ron’s ears began to flush.
“Verdicts on what, Ginny?” Hermione asked, her tone dangerously polite.
“Don’t be dense. It’s unattractive.” Ginny leaned back, her hands clasped behind her head. The motion pulled her school shirt taut across her chest. Ron’s eyes flickered down, then away, a frantic, guilty dart. Harry saw it. A slow smile spread across his face.
“See that?” Harry said, pointing a finger at Ron. “Right there. He just looked.”
“I didn’t!” Ron blustered, the color spreading from his ears to his whole face.
“You fucking did. Quick glance. Market assessment. Can’t help it, can you? Now that you know they’re right there under the cotton.”
“Harry, stop it,” Hermione whispered, but there was no force behind it. She was watching Ron, her expression unreadable.
“Why should he?” Ginny asked, genuinely curious. She lowered her arms. “I asked. He hasn’t answered. Neither have you, Hermione. You were both there. You both saw. What’s the intellectual review? Ron?”
Ron looked trapped, his eyes skittering like a beetle in a jar. He couldn’t look at Ginny’s face. His gaze, against his will, dropped again to her chest, then snapped to the table. “They’re… you’re my sister. It’s not—”
“It’s not about that right now,” Ginny interrupted, her voice losing its teasing edge, becoming analytical. “It’s about data. You have some. Process it.”
Ron swallowed. “They’re… fine. Alright? They’re fine.”
“Fine.” Ginny let the word hang, judging it. She turned to Hermione. “And you?”
Hermione met her gaze. Her own arms were crossed tightly over her chest, a defensive barrier. “I think it was a juvenile and unnecessarily provocative act that derailed a critical discussion.”
“But you looked,” Harry pressed, leaning toward Hermione. He could smell her perfume, something like parchment and lavender. “You got a good, long look. Compared. Everyone compares. So compare. Better or worse than yours?”
Hermione’s eyes flashed with real anger. “That is a vile and degrading question.”
“It’s an honest one!”
“Honesty without decency is just cruelty, Harry!”
Ginny watched the exchange like a chess match. Ron stared at his hands, paralyzed.
“Decency’s fucking overrated,” Harry muttered, but his eyes were on Hermione. On the way her crossed arms pushed her breasts up, creating a soft, shadowed curve above her neckline. Her usual baggy jumper was slightly stretched there. He’d never allowed himself to really catalogue it before, but now he did. The subtle, perky swell. Hidden. Always hidden. The knowledge of what was underneath her own practical clothes felt suddenly, unbearably tantalizing.
“The problem,” Harry said, shifting his focus back to Ron, “is memory. It fades. Details get fuzzy. Makes a fair assessment impossible.” He turned to Ginny, a reckless idea fully forming. “How can he give a proper rating if the sample’s gone? Maybe you need to provide a… refresher.”
The alcove went perfectly still. The distant sound of a page turning somewhere in the library was like a gunshot.
Ron’s head slowly rose. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Am I?” Harry’s gaze was locked on Ginny. She hadn’t looked away. Her expression was considering, not shocked. “You wanted a verdict. You wanted us to stop lying. So show him again. Show both of them. Let them get a proper look. Then we can all move the fuck on.”
Hermione stood up so quickly her chair nearly fell. “I am not participating in this.”
“Why?” Ginny asked, her eyes still on Harry. “Scared of what you’ll feel? Or scared you’ll like it?”
“I am scared of nothing!” Hermione hissed, her voice low and trembling. “I am repulsed by this… this animalistic reduction of everything! We are on the brink of a war! People are dying! And you’re sitting here demanding a… a breast show!”
“Yeah,” Harry said, his green eyes bright, almost feverish. “Because the war’s out there. And it’s ugly. And this is in here. And it’s not ugly. It’s the opposite. It’s the thing they want to destroy. So why not look at it? Why not fucking acknowledge it while we still can?”
His words landed heavily, sucking the moral outrage right out of the air. They all felt the truth in it—a desperate, clawing hunger for something alive and good and untarnished by darkness.
Ginny’s fingers went to the first button of her shirt.
Ron made a strangled sound. “Ginny, don’t you dare.”
“Why not, Ron?” she said softly, her fingers pausing. “Dean likes them. Harry appreciates them. You think they’re ‘fine.’ Seems only fair my best friend and my brother have a clarified opinion. For posterity.”
Hermione was frozen, one hand pressed flat against the tabletop as if for balance. Her eyes were wide, fixed on Ginny’s fingers. There was no disgust in her face now. Only a terrified, captivated fascination.
Ginny undid the first button. Then the second.
The opening revealed the stark white of her bra strap, a slice of freckled skin.
Ron was breathing through his mouth, his knuckles white on the edge of the table. He wasn’t telling her to stop anymore. He was watching, his gaze held prisoner by that widening triangle of fabric and skin.
Harry felt a savage thrill. This was it. The tearing down. The real, raw thing underneath all the pretense.
Ginny’s eyes found Hermione’s. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug. A question.
Hermione didn’t nod. She didn’t look away. She just watched, her own breath shallow, as Ginny’s fingers moved to the third button.