Chapter 4: The Breaking Point
The night had been a long, shallow river of restless images. Harry had stared at the ceiling for hours, the memory of Ginny’s bra straps slipping down her shoulders playing on a relentless loop behind his eyes. He had finally fallen into a fitful sleep near dawn, only to be pulled awake by the distinct, hollow groan of the Burrow’s pipes. The shower shutting off.
He was instantly alert. The space in the narrow bed where Ginny slept was empty, the sheets rumpled and still warm. Hermione lay on her side, facing the wall, her breathing deep and even. The morning light was grey and soft, leaching color from the room.
The bathroom.
The thought was a spark on dry tinder. He moved silently, a predator’s grace born of Auror training, sliding from the bed and into the hall. The floorboards were cold under his feet. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. The bathroom door was just ajar, a sliver of yellow light and a cloud of steam escaping into the cool hallway. The lock was a simple, flimsy latch, often broken. She might have forgotten. She’d been careless last night, triumphant.
He didn’t let himself think. He acted. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, already beginning a mumbled excuse about a desperate need to piss.
The air was thick, hot, and carried the overwhelming scent of lavender soap and wet girl. The room was a capsule of steam, the mirror over the sink completely fogged, droplets condensing and tracing slow paths down the tiles.
Ginny stood with her back to him, at the far end of the small room beside the clawfoot tub. Water dripped from the ends of her fiery hair onto the worn bathmat. She had a towel. But she was still in the process of wrapping it.
He saw everything.
The long, elegant line of her naked back, the delicate knobs of her spine descending into the dramatic, sweet curve of her lower back. The taut, round swell of her arse, still glistening with beads of water, each one catching the low light. The powerful, defined muscles of her thighs and calves, the athlete’s body in a state of pure, vulnerable exposure.
He stopped breathing. Time thickened, syrup-slow.
She heard him. Her head turned slightly, a few damp strands of hair sticking to her cheek. She didn’t startle. She didn’t yank the towel up. She moved with an infuriating, deliberate slowness, pulling the terrycloth around her body and tucking the end just above her breasts.
Then she turned to face him fully.
The towel was small. It covered the essential points, but just barely. It was cinched tightly beneath her arms, stretching across the full, heavy weight of her chest. The damp, white fabric clung, becoming nearly transparent where it pressed against her skin, revealing the dark shadow of her areolas, the pert outline of her nipples. The hem ended high on her thighs, exposing the long, smooth length of her legs, the clean junction of her hips.
Water droplets still traced paths from her collarbones down into the deep, forbidden valley between her breasts. Her skin was flushed pink from the heat, every freckle standing out in stark contrast. She looked like something painted, a vision of shocking, damp vitality.
“Harry.” Her voice was calm, a low ripple in the steamy air. “Forgot to lock it, did I?”
He couldn’t speak. His mouth was desert-dry. His gaze was locked on the clinging fabric over her chest, on the way it rose and fell with her steady breath.
“Well?” she prompted, a smirk playing on her lips. She leaned back slightly against the edge of the sink, a movement that made the towel strain dangerously. “You said you had to go. Or was that just a story?”
He found his voice, a hoarse scrap. “It… it was. Isn’t.” He was painfully, obviously hard, and the thin fabric of his pyjama bottoms did nothing to hide it. He saw her eyes flicker down, register the fact, and the smirk widened.
“See something you like?” she asked, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather.
“Ginny…”
“Because you’re staring, Harry. It’s a bit rude.” She pushed off from the sink and took a single step toward him. The movement made the towel gape slightly at the top. He saw a sliver of bare, pink skin. “After last night, I thought you’d have gotten an eyeful. But you look like you’ve never seen a towel before.”
“Stop it,” he growled, but it was a plea.
“Stop what? I’m just standing here. You’re the one who barged in.” Another step. The heat from her body radiated across the small space. The lavender scent was on her skin, in the steam, intoxicating. “You wanted to see, didn’t you? Last night wasn’t enough. You wanted the real thing.”
He was trembling. The honourable promise he’d made to Molly warred with the animal need screaming in his blood. His hands ached to reach out and pull that damp scrap of fabric away, to finally feel the weight of her, the heat of her. He imagined it coming loose with one easy tug.
“Dean was here yesterday,” he said, the name a foul taste, a desperate attempt to build a dam against the flood.
Her expression didn’t change. “He was. He’s my boyfriend. He kisses me. He touches me.” She let the words hang, letting him picture it. “He doesn’t stare at me like he’s about to die of thirst, though. It’s different. More… polite.”
The cruelty of it was exquisite. She was outlining the boundaries only to show him how badly he wanted to cross them.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The question was ripped from him.
For the first time, her casual mask slipped, just for a second. Something hotter, darker, and more possessive flashed in her brown eyes. “Because I can,” she said simply, quietly. Then the tease was back. “And because you love it. You’re practically vibrating.”
She was right in front of him now. He could feel the residual warmth from her shower. A drop of water slid from her hair, down her neck, over her collarbone, and disappeared beneath the towel’s edge. He followed its path with a fixation that was absolute.
Her hand came up. Not to touch him. To adjust the towel at her chest, her fingers brushing her own skin. The action was mundane and utterly erotic. “You should probably go now,” she murmured, her eyes holding his. “Before someone wonders where we are. Or before you do something my boyfriend wouldn’t like.”
The words were a dismissal, but her posture was an invitation to chaos. The towel, the steam, her bare shoulders, the knowing look—it was all a calculated torment.
He couldn’t move. He was pinned.
She solved it for him. With a small, final smile, she turned her back on him again, presenting him with the sight of the towel knotted between her shoulder blades, the damp ends of her hair dark against it, the curve of her spine leading his eye down to the hem barely covering the underside of her arse. She picked up a hairbrush from the sink, beginning to drag it through the fiery tangles, ignoring him completely.
Dismissed. He was a ghost already.
Harry stumbled backwards out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut with a soft click. He stood in the cool, dim hallway, his forehead pressed against the wooden door, his whole body shaking with unspent, brutal need. The image of her was seared into him: the water on her skin, the transparency of the cloth, the blunt, cruel truth in her eyes.
Inside, he heard the soft, clear sound of her humming.