Chapter 3: The Quidditch Tease
The orchard had become a battlefield, and Harry was losing.
Not the Quidditch match—though that was slipping away too, his reflexes dulled by the constant assault on his senses. No, the real war was internal, and Ginny Weasley was waging it with surgical precision.
She dove past him on her broom, close enough that the wind from her passage carried the scent of her—sweat and something floral, maybe honeysuckle, maybe just the pure, maddening essence of her. Her jersey, emerald green and two sizes too small, clung to every curve like a second skin. The fabric had ridden up during a particularly aggressive feint, exposing a strip of toned stomach that Harry had nearly flown into a tree trying not to stare at.
"Getting slow, Potter!" she called over her shoulder, her red hair whipping behind her like a banner. "Or just distracted?"
He said nothing. Couldn't trust his voice.
The makeshift hoop loomed ahead, its weathered posts casting long shadows across the grass. Ron's distant cheering drifted from the porch, punctuated by the clink of butterbeer bottles. Hermione sat beside him, a book open in her lap, though Harry noticed she hadn't turned a page in twenty minutes.
Ginny snagged the quaffle from midair, her body twisting in a motion that made her jersey gape at the neckline. Harry's grip on his broom tightened until his knuckles went white.
Focus. She's Ron's sister. Your best friend's sister. She's—
She scored. Again.
"That's seven to three," she announced, circling back toward him with a laziness that was entirely manufactured. "I'm starting to think you're not even trying."
"I'm trying," Harry managed. His voice came out rough, sandpapered.
"Are you?" She drifted closer, close enough that he could see the individual freckles dusted across her nose, the way her brown eyes glittered with something that wasn't quite mischief. Something darker. Hungrier. "Because from where I'm sitting, you look like a man who's got something else on his mind."
The quaffle hung forgotten between them, suspended by nothing but the tension.
"We should—" Harry started, then stopped. Should what? Stop? Flee? Throw himself into the pond and hold his head underwater until the burning in his blood subsided?
Ginny tilted her head, and a strand of hair fell across her cheek. She didn't brush it away. "Should what, Harry?"
He hated how she said his name. Not the way Hermione said it—with warmth edged in concern—but like a challenge. Like a dare. Like she knew exactly what was happening inside him and was thoroughly enjoying the show.
"Nothing." He kicked his broom backward, putting distance between them. "Let's just finish the game."
"Fine." Her smile was sharp as a blade. "But you're going to have to actually try to keep up."
She shot upward like a rocket, quaffle tucked under her arm, and Harry had no choice but to follow. The wind screamed past his ears. The ground fell away. Somewhere below, Ron's cheering grew fainter, swallowed by the rush of air and the thunder of his own heartbeat.
Ginny leveled out at the height of the treetops, then banked hard left, weaving through branches with a recklessness that made Harry's stomach clench. He followed, matching her turn for turn, though every fiber of his being screamed at him to pull back, to land, to put an entire continent between himself and the way her body moved on that broom.
She was fast. Faster than she'd been last summer. Faster than him, maybe, when his head wasn't full of static.
The quaffle sailed toward the hoop. Harry lunged, fingers outstretched, and—
Ginny's broom collided with his.
Not a glancing blow. Not an accident of proximity. She drove into him with deliberate force, her body slamming against his before they both went tumbling. His back hit the grass. The world spun. And then she was there, on top of him, her legs straddling his hips, her hands braced on his chest, her face inches from his own.
The quaffle rolled away, forgotten.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Harry could feel everything. The weight of her. The heat of her. The rapid rise and fall of her chest pressed against his. Her hair fell around them like a curtain, blocking out the sun, blocking out the sky, blocking out everything except the two of them and the smell of crushed grass and sweat and her.
"There," she breathed. "That's better."
"Ginny—"
Her hips shifted. Just slightly. Just enough.
And her hand—her hand that was supposed to be bracing herself against his chest—slid downward. Over his stomach. Over the waistband of his Quidditch trousers. Over the unmistakable evidence of exactly how much he'd been suffering for the past hour.
She didn't flinch. Didn't pull away. Her fingers pressed against him, firm and deliberate, and her lips curved into a smile that was equal parts triumph and hunger.
"Oops," she whispered.
Harry's mind went white.
Every nerve ending in his body ignited simultaneously. His hands, which had been frozen at his sides, twitched toward her hips—toward the curve of her waist, toward the warmth of her skin beneath that absurd jersey—
Ginny was already moving.
She rolled off him in one fluid motion, summoning her broom with a casual flick of her wrist. By the time Harry managed to sit up, she was ten feet in the air, hovering just out of reach, looking down at him with an expression that made his blood boil in ways that had nothing to do with anger.
"Better luck next time, Potter," she called. Then she flew back toward the house, her laughter trailing behind her like smoke.
Harry stayed on the ground.
His heart hammered against his ribs. His hands were shaking. And his body—his body was a traitor, still aching, still burning, still feeling the ghost of her touch in places that made his face flush with shame and something far, far worse.
"Harry!" Ron's voice, distant but unmistakably cheerful. "You alright down there, mate? Looked like a nasty spill!"
Harry pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until he saw stars.
"Yeah," he shouted back, his voice cracking on the word. "Fine. I'm fine."
He wasn't fine.
He was hard as stone and twice as useless, lying in the grass of his best friend's orchard while said best friend's sister—the same sister who'd just deliberately touched his cock and smirked about it—disappeared into the house like nothing had happened.
This was a problem.
This was a catastrophic, friendship-ending, life-ruining problem.
And the worst part? The very worst part, the part that made Harry want to Apparate himself directly into the sun?
He wanted her to do it again.
He wanted to chase her. To catch her. To pin her against the nearest tree and show her exactly what happened to girls who played games with things they didn't understand.
But he wouldn't. Because he was better than that. Because she was Ron's sister. Because he was supposed to be the good one, the noble one, the one who did the right thing even when it felt like swallowing glass.
Fuck.
He dragged himself upright, retrieved his broom, and started the long walk back to the Burrow. His legs felt like water. His pulse still pounded in his throat. And somewhere deep in his chest, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his own whispered that this was only the beginning.
The porch came into view. Ron, still oblivious, waved with enthusiasm. Hermione had closed her book and was watching him approach with an expression he couldn't read—something sharp and knowing, something that made his stomach drop.
She knew.
She couldn't know. There was no way she could know.
But as Harry climbed the steps and took the butterbeer Ron offered, he felt Hermione's gaze on him like a brand. And when he finally met her eyes, she looked away too quickly, a flush creeping up her cheeks that had nothing to do with the afternoon heat.
Great. Fucking perfect.
Now there were two of them.