Chapter 4: The Spill
The ghost of her touch hadn’t left him. It lingered like a scent on his skin, a persistent, maddening warmth on his arm where her breast had pressed. Harry sat at a small, sticky table in the corner of The Three Broomsticks, nursing a butterbeer he didn’t taste. Ron was arguing passionately about Keeper strategies with Seamus, their voices a distant buzz.
His entire awareness was fixed on Ginny, seated directly across from Dean two tables over. She was laughing at something Dean said, throwing her head back. The column of her throat was pale and exposed. She wore a simple white blouse, the top button undone. It was crisp and clean, a stark canvas that his eyes kept returning to, imagining the contours it concealed.
He remembered her whisper. Can’t you tell? He could tell nothing through the fabric, but his imagination, now fully licensed by her brazenness, provided everything. The memory of that imagined tightness, the peaked points under soft wool, was a constant hum in his blood.
Then it happened.
A clumsy reach for a pasty, a jostled elbow. Ginny’s full tankard of pumpkin juice tipped, a slow, amber cascade spilling directly into her lap and across the front of her pristine white blouse.
“Oh, bugger!” she exclaimed, jumping up from the bench. The juice spread rapidly, a dark, wet stain blooming over her stomach and seeping into the fabric covering her breasts. The white material turned translucent, clinging to her skin.
Harry’s mouth went dry. The noise of the pub faded. He was statue-still, his drink frozen halfway to his lips.
The stain was perfectly, horrifically, beautifully centered. The wet blouse clung to every curve, defining the shape of her bra and the swell beneath it with a cruel clarity the grey sweater had only hinted at. He could see the color of the bra now—a deep, lacy red—and the intricate pattern of the fabric as it stretched over her. The wet cotton molded to the perfect, pert hemispheres, the cool air of the pub likely making her nipples taut against the confinement. He stared, unblinking, his heart a jackhammer against his ribs.
Dean was up, flustered, grabbing napkins. “Here, use these—”
But Ginny was already peeling the blouse away from her skin with both hands, a look of annoyed frustration on her face. “It’s soaked through, it’s freezing,” she said, her voice carrying. She didn’t turn away. She stood there in the middle of the busy pub and began to unbutton the blouse.
Harry stopped breathing.
Dean’s hand faltered, the napkins forgotten. “Ginny, maybe… the ladies’…”
“It’s sticking to me,” she said flatly, her fingers working down the front. One button, two. With each release, more skin was revealed: a glimpse of her flat stomach, the red lace of the bra’s band. Three buttons. Four. The blouse fell open.
She wasn’t naked, but it was a revelation that branded itself onto Harry’s mind. The lacy red bra was minimal, more suggestion than coverage. It cupped her small, perfect breasts, lifting them, presenting them. The delicate patterns of the lace did little to hide the shape of her nipples, which were indeed pronounced against the cold, wet fabric of her blouse moments before and now seemed eager against the lace. The curves were firm, rounded, impossibly inviting. Every detail he had ever fantasized about was there, just concealed by a whisper of crimson silk and thread.
She shimmied her shoulders, and the blouse slid down her arms. She stood there in her jeans and the red bra, completely unabashed, holding the soggy garment. Her skin was pale and flawless, dotted with a few faint freckles across her collarbones. She looked directly at Harry, then at Dean, a sly smile playing on her lips.
“Oops,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. Her brown eyes glittered with a challenge. “Guess I’ll need to change... unless you boys want to help me clean up?”
Dean looked like he’d been hit with a Stunning Spell. His mouth opened and closed. He glanced around, acutely aware of the few spectators now glancing their way. “Ginny, for god’s sake—”
She ignored him, her gaze locking onto Harry’s. The air between them crackled. He could see the steady rise and fall of her breathing, the subtle movement it caused in the red lace.
Then she took a half-step closer to their table, her voice dropping to that intimate, carrying whisper she’d used before. It was for both of them, but her eyes were on Harry as she spoke to Dean.
“I know, Dean. I know I haven’t showed you my bare tits yet.” She said it so casually, like discussing the weather. Dean flinched. Harry felt a jolt of pure, illicit heat straight to his core. “So perhaps,” she continued, her smile widening just a fraction, “it would be best if Harry helped me out in the bathroom. I want the first time I show you to be special, you know. A private… unveiling. Not in the middle of the Three Broomsticks.”
She let the words hang, poisonous and sweet. She was offering Dean a rationale, twisted and considerate, while offering Harry something else entirely. A chance. A test.
Dean’s face cycled through confusion, irritation, and a grudging, manipulated acceptance. He wanted to see her, that was plain. Her phrasing made him the considerate boyfriend, waiting for a special moment, while pitching Harry into the role of… what? Chaperone? Accomplice?
“Fine,” Dean gritted out, looking defiantly at Harry, as if daring him to refuse. “Help her. Don’t be long.”
Ginny didn’t wait. She turned, the movement making the lean muscles of her back shift, the clasp of her bra a tantalizing puzzle at the center. She walked, not toward the general corridor for the toilets, but toward the narrower back hall that led to the private function room and, Harry knew from a past slip-up with a broken toilet, a small, single-stall washroom for staff.
“Coming, Harry?” she called over her shoulder, not looking back.
He stood up, his legs unsteady. Ron and Seamus had stopped talking and were staring, open-mouthed. Harry ignored them, everything in his world narrowing to the sight of Ginny’s retreating back, the strip of pale skin between the red lace and the waistband of her jeans, the confident swing of her arms.
He followed her into the dim, quieter hallway. The sounds of the pub became muffled. She pushed open the door to the small bathroom and slipped inside. He followed, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
The room was tiny, barely fitting a toilet, a small sink, and them. The air was close, smelling of lemon soap and mildew. She stood facing him, her back against the sink, her arms crossed casually over her stomach. The gesture pushed her breasts up slightly, deepening the shadowed valley between them, making the red lace strain.
They were alone. The fantasy territory he’d lived in for years was now a cramped, tangible reality. Her chest rose and fell, a quicker rhythm now. Her teasing smirk had softened into something more focused, more real.
“So,” she said, her voice a low hum in the enclosed space. “Help me clean up.”
She wasn’t talking about the juice. The stain was on the blouse crumpled in her hand. The only thing left to clean was the faint, sticky sheen on her skin. She uncrossed her arms and let them fall to her sides, a silent offering, a question.
He was, for the first time, close enough to touch what he had dreamed of. The red lace was a breath away. His own breath came in short, ragged pulls. The momentum of her audacity had carried him here, to this silent, pressurized point. The next move was his, and the weight of it, the terrifying, exhilarating possibility of it, pinned him to the spot, his desire a live wire sparking in the cramped, lemon-scented dark.