Chapter 6: Night
The heat of the day clung to the Burrow like a second skin. After lunch, the suggestion of the pond became a necessity. Harry followed Ron down the overgrown path, the air thick with the buzz of insects and the weight of what had happened at breakfast. He could still feel the imprint of Ginny’s hip, hear her whisper looping in his mind.
The pond was a hidden jewel, shaded by weeping willows, its surface dappled with sunlight. Ron whooped, stripped to his trunks, and cannonballed in, spraying icy water everywhere.
“Come on, then!” he bellowed, surfacing.
Hermione had changed into a modest one-piece bathing suit, a deep blue that covered her from chest to hip. She stood at the water’s edge, arms wrapped around herself. The suit was undeniably fitted, outlining the gentle, full curves of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist. She seemed intensely aware of the fabric clinging to her, of the way it shaped her body for anyone to see.
“It’s cold,” she said, her voice hesitant.
“That’s the point,” Ron laughed, splashing her.
Then Ginny arrived.
She walked down the bank with a languid, unhurried grace. She wore a simple black bikini, two small triangles of fabric held by thin strings. It was minimalist, daring. Her freckled skin seemed to glow in the greenish light. The top cupped her small, perfect breasts, lifting them, the lines of the fabric cutting across the swell without hiding an inch of their pert shape. The bottoms sat low on her hips. She was completely, devastatingly bare everywhere the fabric didn’t cover, a fact Harry’s eyes registered with a jolt that felt like a physical blow.
She didn’t look at Harry. She walked straight to the water and waded in, sighing as the cool water rose over her legs, her stomach, then finally her chest. The black fabric darkened, becoming a second skin. She submerged, then emerged, pushing her wet hair back. The water beaded on her skin, on the slopes of her breasts just above the bikini line.
“Merlin, that’s better,” she said, floating onto her back.
Harry stood frozen, his own trunks feeling suddenly too tight. He forced himself into the water, the shock of the cold a temporary relief. He swam, trying to focus on Ron’s Quidditch talk, but his vision kept snagging. On Hermione, nervously floating on her back, the blue material of her suit stretched taut across her chest, rising and falling with her breath. On Ginny, who would suddenly dive under and then erupt from the water nearby, droplets flying from the ends of her hair, her body slick and shining.
After a while, Ron climbed out to sun himself on the bank, drowsy. Hermione floated closer to the edge, near a submerged log.
Ginny drifted toward Harry. The water was chest-deep here. She treaded water, her movements causing small ripples that lapped against his skin.
“You’re very quiet, Potter,” she said, her voice low.
“Just cooling off,” he managed.
“Are you?” A playful smirk. “You look a bit flushed.”
She moved closer, until they were only a foot apart. Under the water, her leg brushed against his. It was an accident. It wasn’t.
“You know,” she said, looking past him at the willows, her tone conversational, “this bikini is new. The ties are a bit tricky. I’d hate for one to come undone.”
His breath hitched. He could see the small knots at the back of her neck and at the center of her back. A simple pull.
“Don’t,” he whispered, the word strangled.
Her eyes snapped to his, bright and challenging. “Don’t what? I didn’t say I was going to do anything.” She leaned in slightly. The water level dipped just below the top of her bikini. He could see the very beginning of the soft, freckled swell of her breasts, the shadowed valley between them. The wet black fabric was transparent enough to hint at the darker circles beneath. So close. “But you thought about it, didn’t you? You’re thinking about it right now.”
He was. He was thinking about the strings giving way, the fabric falling, the final, devastating revelation. His heart hammered against his ribs.
From the bank, Hermione called out, her voice tight. “Ginny, could you help me? I think I’ve got weeds on my foot.”
Ginny held Harry’s gaze for a second longer, a victory shining in her eyes. Then she turned, smoothly slicing through the water toward Hermione, leaving him trembling in the cool pond.
He watched her go, watched the way her shoulder blades moved, the water streaming from the small of her back down to the black triangle that covered so little. He saw Hermione glance from Ginny’s approaching form to Harry’s stricken face. Hermione’s expression was unreadable, a mixture of concern and something hotter, more confused. She pulled herself onto the log, her blue suit straining as she moved, water cascading from her body in rivulets that traced the curves Ginny so boldly displayed and she so carefully concealed.
Ron snored softly on the grass.
The afternoon sun beat down, but Harry felt only the cold, sharp ache of wanting, and the terrifying sense that the delicate, teasing balance of the day was about to shatter.