Chapter 8: Ginny
The library held its breath for another day. The same table. The same silence, but this one was different. It wasn't brittle. It was thick, syrupy, charged with what had been revealed and what remained hidden.
Hermiously sat, utterly composed, as if yesterday’s standoff had been a minor disagreement over potion ingredients. But Harry saw the faint tremor in her hand when she turned a page. Ron was a mess. He kept sneaking glances at Hermione’s jumper-clad chest, then flinching away as if burned. He hadn’t asked what happened after he left. He seemed terrified of the answer.
Harry watched them both. The memory of Hermione in that sheer blouse was a film playing behind his eyes every time he blinked. The perfect, defiant shape of her. It made the current conservative outfit an even greater provocation.
“Merlin’s balls, you three look cheerful.” The voice cut through the silence like a knife.
Ginny Weasley dropped into the empty chair beside Harry, her long red hair swinging. She tossed a copy of The Quibbler onto the table, her freckled face tilted in assessment. She smelled like the crisp autumn air and broomstick polish.
“Ginny,” Ron muttered, not looking up.
“Ron. Hermione. Harry.” She leaned back, her eyes sharp. “Let me guess. Another thrilling debate on the uses of powdered moonstone? Or is this about Lavender’s legendary lung capacity? The whole tower heard her gossiping about your… study session, Ron.”
Ron’s head snapped up, his ears flaming. “She what?”
“Oh, don’t worry. She was very complimentary. Made you sound quite the adventurer.” Ginny’s tone was light, but her gaze was pure steel. She was here for damage control, in her own inimitable way.
Harry found himself watching her instead. In her tight-fitting Quidditch practice jersey, she was a study in lean, athletic lines. The fabric stretched across her small, high chest. They weren’t large, not like Lavender’s, and not shaped with Hermione’s perky elegance. They were something else. Alluring in their confident simplicity, two graceful curves under red cotton. He imagined them bare: small, pale, tipped with ginger. The thought, arriving hot on the heels of yesterday’s fixation, sent a fresh, urgent stir through him.
“We’re trying to study, Ginny,” Hermione said, her voice tight. “Some of us still care about our N.E.W.T.s, despite the… distractions.”
“Right. The distractions.” Ginny swiveled her chair to face Harry. “And what’s your excuse, Potter? You look like you’re trying to set Hermione’s jumper on fire with your mind. Or undress it. Hard to tell.”
Hermione’s quill snapped. A tiny crack in the wood.
Harry held Ginny’s challenging look. “Just appreciating the scenery. It’s varied today.”
Ginny barked a laugh. “Varied. Good one. You’ve got Lavender’s festival balloons, Hermione’s prize-winning thoroughbreds, and my serviceable training humps. Something for every taste.” She said it without a shred of embarrassment, a blunt cataloguing that made Ron squirm.
“Ginny!” Hermione hissed, genuine shock breaking through her frost.
“What? It’s what he’s thinking. Isn’t it, Harry?” She leaned forward on her elbows, which pushed her chest together, creating a subtle, tempting shadow of cleavage above her jersey’s neckline. “Comparing and contrasting. The eternal pastime. Boys are simple. They see tits, they think about tits. War or no war.”
Her casual vulgarity was a splash of cold water and a shot of fire. It was nothing like his own crude needling. It was observational, almost clinical, and utterly disarming.
“Maybe,” Harry said, his voice lower. “But some are worth more thought than others.”
“And where do mine fall on this grand scale?” she asked, a dangerous smile playing on her lips. “Serviceable? A solid, dependable B? Good for a scrub but not a showpiece?”
Hermione stood up, gathering her things with violent precision. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“You kind of do,” Ginny said, her eyes still locked on Harry. “Because it’s the elephant in the room. Or the bra. Ron’s been initiated. Harry’s been teased. And everyone’s tiptoeing around it. It’s pathetic.” She finally looked at her brother. “You kissed Lavender. You touched her tits. Big deal. Now you’re acting like you murdered someone. And you,” she turned back to Hermione, “you’re seething because he touched hers first. So either do something about it or let it go. But this moping is bad for team morale.”
The sheer, brutal accuracy of it left them speechless. Ron gaped like a fish. Hermione looked murderous.
Harry found himself grinning. A real one. “And what’s your solution, Weasley?”
“Simple.” Ginny stood up, grabbing the back of her jersey’s collar. In one fluid, fearless motion, she pulled it up and over her head.
Ron made a choked sound. Hermione froze.
Ginny stood before them in just a simple, white sports bra. Her stomach was flat and taut, her shoulders freckled. And her breasts, freed from the jersey, were right there. Small, yes, but perfectly formed, each one a neat, round handful that fit snugly in the practical bra. The tops of her pale breasts curved sweetly above the cotton, a dusting of faint freckles across the skin. It was stark, honest, and wildly erotic in its casualness.
“There,” Ginny said, her voice steady, though a faint pink tinged her cheeks. “A baseline. A common reference point. No lace. No drama. Just… fact. Now you’ve all seen a pair. So maybe we can stop acting like they’re some mythical treasure and get back to the actual problem, which is that we’re all terrified we’re going to die and this is the stupid shit we’re focusing on.”
She held her pose for five seconds. Letting the image settle. Harry’s throat was tight. She was magnificent. Not just her body, but the terrifying bravery of it. It wasn't a seduction. It was a strategic strike.
Then she yanked the jersey back on. “Right. Now that’s done. Hermione, sit down. Ron, apologize to her for being a twat. Harry, stop staring at everyone’s chest and try using your brain for something else. We have a war to plan.”
She sat back down as if she’d just summarized an essay, not bared herself to them.
The silence that followed was seismic. The air had been cleared with the violence of a thunderclap. Ron was staring at his sister with a mixture of horror and awe. Hermione slowly, mechanically, sank back into her chair. She was looking at Ginny as if seeing a completely new person.
Harry leaned back, his mind racing, his arousal a steady, aching thrum beneath the shock. Ginny had, with brutal efficiency, rewritten the rules. She had reduced Lavender’s offering to vulgarity, Hermione’s reveal to calculated theater, and presented her own body as a simple, undeniable fact.
But a fact he couldn't forget. The freckled skin, the small, pert shape under white cotton. It was now part of the inventory, irrevocably. He looked at Hermione, saw the calculating flicker in her eyes as she processed Ginny’s move. The competition had just gotten more complicated.
Ginny opened The Quibbler, a faint, triumphant smirk on her face. “Now,” she said, without looking up. “About those Horcruxes.”