Chapter 2: Locker Room Games
The steam from the showers hung in the air, a thick, damp fog that carried the sharp tang of soap and sweat. Harry leaned against the cold metal of his locker, the chill seeping through his thin practice jersey. His muscles ached pleasantly from the grueling seeker drills, but his mind was elsewhere, trapped in a loop of Hermione’s wide, understanding eyes from last night and the sharp click of her dormitory door.
The sound of laughter cut through his thoughts. Ginny’s laugh.
She was across the room, tugging at the laces of her boots, still in her full Quidditch robes. Dean Thomas was somewhere in the bank of showers, his off-tune humming audible over the rush of water. Ginny’s red hair was plastered in dark, wet streaks to her neck and forehead. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion.
“Merlin, my fingers are dead,” she announced, her voice echoing off the stone. “Couldn’t feel a snitch if it bit me.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Harry said, forcing a normal tone. “You blasted three past Ron like they were stationary.”
She grinned, a flash of white in the steamy gloom. “He was off his game. Thinking about Lavender, probably.” Her eyes met his, and there was a knowing glint in them. She had heard about the common room last night, then. The gossip chain at Hogwarts was lightning.
She shook out her hands and then, slowly, bent forward from the waist to attend to her other boot.
The movement was casual. Innocent.
It wasn’t.
Her scarlet robes, damp with sweat and mist, stretched tight across her back and settled firmly over the pronounced, rounded curve of her arse. The fabric was thin, practically painted on by moisture, outlining the full, perfect shape of her. She took her time, fingers fumbling with the lace, shifting her weight slightly from one foot to the other, making the muscles in her backside flex and shift under the clinging material.
Harry’s mouth went dry. The sight was a physical blow, wiping all thought of Hermione from his head. This was different. Ginny knew exactly what she was doing. There was nothing accidental here. This was a presentation. An offering.
He couldn’t look away. His gaze traveled from the small of her back, down the deep, inviting cleft, to where the robe pulled taut across the strong swell of her thighs. A fierce, desperate heat flared in his gut, lower, coiling tight. He wanted to cross the room. He wanted to put his hands on that curve, feel the heat and life of her through the wet fabric, pull her against him until there was no space, no Dean, no guilt.
“You’re quiet today, Harry,” she said, her voice slightly muffled from her bent position. She peered at him upside-down through the curtain of her hair, a smirk playing on her lips. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Just tired,” he managed, his voice rough.
She straightened up, but not all the way. She stayed in a slight, provocative lean, hands on her knees, pushing her chest forward. The damp robes clung to her breasts, outlining every curve. They were fuller than Hermione’s, round and high, and the wet fabric left nothing to the imagination. He could see the distinct, hard points of her nipples pushing against the scarlet wool. His fingers twitched at his sides with a mind of their own.
“Tired?” she echoed, her eyes dropping deliberately, briefly, to the front of his trousers. A spark of pure, wicked satisfaction lit her face. She’d seen the effect she was having. “Looks like you’ve got plenty of energy to me.”
The humming from the showers stopped. There was the sound of a curtain being drawn back.
“Gin? You coming?” Dean called out, his voice bouncing off the wet tiles.
“In a sec!” she called back, but her eyes never left Harry’s. They were challenging him. Daring him.
She reached up and, with a slow, deliberate motion, pulled the tie from her ponytail. A cascade of damp copper hair tumbled around her shoulders and over her chest, catching the low light. She shook it out, a slow, sinuous movement that made her breasts sway gently beneath the robe.
The want was a sound in Harry’s ears, a roaring static. It was a raw, scraping need to see, to touch, to possess. He wanted to wrench the soaked robes open and see her bare skin glistening in the steam, to take the full weight of her breasts in his palms, to bite the salty skin of her neck. The intensity of it frightened him. It was separate from friendship, from loyalty, a pure, animal hunger.
“Better go,” Ginny said softly, her smirk softening into something else, something almost like pity. “Dean’s waiting.”
She said the name like a bucket of cold water. Dean. Her boyfriend. Harry’s former dorm-mate. A good bloke.
The coil of heat in his gut twisted into a knot of shame. He looked away, breaking the spell, staring at a rusted spot on his locker door.
“Right,” he muttered.
He heard the soft swish of her robes as she turned, the light pad of her feet on the stone floor. He didn’t watch her walk to the showers. He couldn’t.
He stood there in the emptying locker room, the steam condensing on his skin, listening to the low murmur of her voice mixing with Dean’s, followed by the shared, intimate laugh that sealed them off in their own world.
The cold metal of the locker finally bit through his jersey. He shoved his own kit inside, the movements sharp and angry. He was hard and aching, a prisoner of his own body. He thought of Ginny’s knowing smirk, the perfect, taunting curve of her backside. He thought of Hermione’s shocked comprehension, the fragile almost that had shimmered between them.
He was caught between them, between a friend who’d seen his hunger and one who provoked it for sport, and the war inside him was no longer a quiet struggle. It was a roaring, visceral thing, fed by sight and memory and the relentless, pounding need to just see. To know.
He slammed the locker shut. The bang echoed in the damp, empty space, a futile punctuation to the silence. He had to get out. The steam was suffocating him, thick with the ghosts of their presence, the echo of their laughter, the phantom scent of Ginny’s sweat and shampoo.
But as he pushed open the heavy door to leave, the image that followed him out into the cool corridor wasn’t of Ginny. It was of Hermione’s eyes in the firelight, watching him understand, and the terrifying, thrilling possibility that shimmered in that understanding. Ginny’s game was a flame, bright and hot. But Hermione’s silence was a deep, dark current, and he was suddenly, desperately afraid of where it might pull him.