Chapter 3: The Taunting
The cold shower had done nothing. It had been a futile, shivering exercise under the spray, his body thrumming with a restless energy that the water couldn’t touch. The memory of Ginny’s wink, the deliberate arch of her back as she bent over, played on a loop behind his eyes. It followed him through the castle halls, a secret rhythm underneath the mundane sounds of homework and footsteps.
Saturday in Hogsmeade offered a distraction, or so he’d hoped. The Three Broomsticks was packed, a wall of heat and noise hitting him as he shouldered the door open. Laughter clashed with the clink of glasses. He scanned the room for Ron and Hermione, his eyes instead finding a flash of red hair by the bar.
Ginny was there. With Dean.
Dean had his arm slung casually around her shoulders, talking loudly to Seamus about the upcoming match. Ginny was leaning against the bar, a half-finished butterbeer in front of her. She wore a thin, light grey sweater that looked impossibly soft. It was not tight, but it defined her shape perfectly, the fabric dipping and curving over the subtle, tempting swell of her chest. Harry’s throat tightened. He could see the outline of her bra strap through the knit, a faint shadow that drew his eye like a magnet.
He tried to look away, to find his friends, but it was too late. Ginny’s head turned, her eyes scanning the crowd and landing squarely on him. That same knowing smile from the locker room touched her lips. She raised her butterbeer in a tiny, almost imperceptible salute.
Dean followed her gaze, his own smile faltering slightly. “Alright, Harry?” he called, a note of forced cheer in his voice.
“Yeah,” Harry said, weaving through the crowd toward them, feeling as if he were walking into a trap he’d meticulously set for himself. “Busy in here.”
“Always is,” Dean said, his hand flexing on Ginny’s shoulder.
She shifted under his arm, a fluid, graceful movement that seemed to slip her just out of his loose grip. “I need a refill. You want another?” she asked Dean, not waiting for an answer before she turned to the bar.
Harry was standing beside her now, close enough to smell the clean, floral scent of her shampoo cutting through the pub smells. The glance she’d given him in the locker room had been a covert transaction. This was different. This was public. Dean was right there.
Madam Rosmatta was at the other end of the bar. Ginny leaned forward, stretching over the polished wood to catch her eye. “Two more butterbeers, please!”
In leaning, her body pressed sideways against Harry’s arm. It wasn’t an accident. It was a slow, full-length press, from her shoulder down to her hip. The soft, yielding warmth of her, even through layers of clothing, sent a shockwave through him. His entire world narrowed to the point of contact, and most specifically, to the slight, perfect pressure of her breast against his bicep. It was small, firm, a defined curve that he felt in exquisite detail. His breath hitched.
She held the position for a heartbeat too long, then pushed back upright, taking the two foaming tankards from Rosmatta. She handed one to Dean without looking at him.
Then she turned her head toward Harry. Her lips were close to his ear, her voice a whisper meant to cut through the noise for him alone. Her breath was warm against his skin.
“You never answered my question,” she murmured, her tone light, conversational.
He could only look at her, paralyzed, the pub noise fading to a dull roar.
“About the shower,” she clarified, her brown eyes holding his. A playful, challenging glint. “Was it… enjoyable?”
Before he could even form a strangled syllable, she leaned in again, her mouth almost touching his ear. Her voice dropped even lower, a secret within a secret. “It’s freezing in here. Can’t you tell?”
She pulled back just enough to let her meaning hang. Her gaze flicked deliberately down to her own chest for a fraction of a second, then back to his face. The thin grey sweater. The hint of a strap. Can’t you tell?
He could. God, he could. His imagination, fueled by a thousand frantic fantasies, did the rest. He saw the tight peaks of her nipples, hardened by the chill, pressing against the soft wool. The image was so vivid, so visceral, he felt dizzy with it. He wanted to look, to stare, to confirm what her whisper promised. He forced his eyes to stay on her face, which was now the picture of innocent inquiry.
Dean was watching them, his earlier cheer gone, replaced by a guarded, darkening expression. He hadn’t heard the words, but the proximity was a message in itself. “Everything alright, Ginny?” he asked, his voice tighter.
“Perfect,” Ginny said, turning a radiant smile on her boyfriend. She took a sip of her butterbeer, her throat working as she swallowed. “Just telling Harry about the new Comet training brooms. Chilly in the supply cupboard where they’re stored.”
Dean’s frown deepened, not buying it but lacking proof. “Right.”
Harry finally found his voice, a rough, unconvincing croak. “Cold storage. Yeah.” He was burning up. The press of her breast was a brand on his arm. The whisper echoed in his skull: cold nipples, enjoyable shower.
Ginny slid off her bar stool, her movement deliberately slow. She picked up her butterbeer. “We should grab that table before it’s gone,” she said to Dean, nodding toward a corner. She walked past Harry, and as she did, the back of her hand brushed against his. A fleeting, electric contact.
She looked over her shoulder, not at Dean, but at Harry. She gave him a small, private smile. It wasn’t a wink this time. It was worse. It was a confirmation. A promise of complicity.
Then she was gone, weaving through the crowd with Dean following, his body language stiff and annoyed.
Harry stood rooted, the noise of the pub crashing back in around him. The ghost of her warmth lingered on his arm. The phantom feel of her small, perfect breast pressing into him was more real than the wood of the bar under his hands. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, trapped beat.
She had done it again. In a crowded pub, under her boyfriend’s nose, she had orchestrated a moment that belonged only to them. She had made him an accomplice with a whisper and a glance. And she had painted a picture in his mind so potent he knew it would haunt him longer than any ghost.
The chill she mentioned wasn’t in the air. It was the shocking, thrilling cold of a line being crossed, and the terrible, feverish heat of wanting to cross it again.