One Good Day
Chapter 4: Kisses In The Dark
Disclaimer: Just a quick reminder that I'm not the originator of any of these characters, that would be one J. K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing.
A/N: One more bit of fluff before we come to the exciting conclusion, I think. I really hope you've enjoyed the story thus far. Oh, and just so there's no confusion, the movie that our heroes are watching here is completely made up as I'm not one much for romantic comedies (I know... Ironic), so I just wanted something that fit the narrative. Enjoy the fluff while it lasts as I promise you the last chapter mixes things up a little bit.
"I don't like it when they get like that," Ron said leaning over to Harry as he nodded behind the two girls huddled behind a newspaper. "Scares me."
"I don't know," Harry replied as Ginny peeked surreptitiously over the newspaper. "I'm beginning to take a different view on you lot plotting behind my back," he explained with a smile.
"So, it's all right then? Everything?"
"Honestly, Ron. This has been the best birthday I've ever had."
After hauling Ron and Hermione out of the Video Arcade, Ron again had tried to change the subject, only this time by complaining about how hungry he was. Considering that Ron seemed in a perpetual state of hunger, no one really questioned him, though Harry nearly asked him if it was all the snogging that made him so peckish.
They had stopped at a corner cafe near the car park for lunch. They all four ordered sandwiches, but while Ron, Ginny, and Hermione each had a tea, Harry ordered another soda, this time a different flavor, and he remembered to drink it slowly. They had barely started at their sandwiches before Hermione gave a start and dashed out of the cafe, returning a moment later with a newspaper folded under her arm. Ginny seemed to know exactly what this was about as she helped Hermione unfold the paper, and the two girls disappeared behind it for the remainder of lunch. The only time the boys got a glimpse of either Ginny or Hermione was when a random hand snaked from behind the paper to grab at a sandwich, or when they were rewarded with a remonstrative glower for trying to eavesdrop.
"Well, I'd say it'd have to be better than my last birthday," Ron mentioned gloomily.
"Really?" Harry asked, arching an eyebrow. "You seemed quite happy to moon over Ramilda that morning."
Ron groaned and rested his head on the table. "Why'd you have to bring that up?"
"I didn't, mate, you did," Harry snorted into his soda. "Still, I suppose getting poisoned might put a damper on things."
Ron cast a nervous glance at the whispering newspaper before them before leaning in towards Harry, whispering, "I've never said this, but, I'm a bit grateful that I was poisoned, really."
"You're daft," Harry whispered back.
"No, see, only up until then I was beginning to wonder if Hermione would ever speak to me again. It was looking real bad, and then after I drank the poison it was like she had forgiven me for the Lavender Incident." Ron had, in the months following his extremely physical relationship with Lavender Brown, taken to calling it the "Lavender Incident," as if it weren't a relationship at all, but instead some sort of crime or scandal. "I mean," he continued. "I still feel a bit guilty about it."
"Why, though?" Harry asked. "It seems, at least from where I'm standing, that Hermione has definitely forgiven you. Or was that interlude in the zombie game a bit more of her raking you across the coals?"
"What are you two whispering over?" Hermione poked her head out from behind the newspaper with a suspicious look on her face.
"Nothing," Harry replied. "What are you two on about?"
"Nothing," Hermione yelped before once again disappearing behind the paper.
Picking up where they had left off, Ron had continued, "I think I haven't forgiven myself." Harry said nothing, sensing that Ron had wanted to get this off his chest for a while. "I know why I got off with Lavender. Think everyone did but her. It wasn't because I was particularly fond of her in any case. Except, I keep thinking that if maybe I wasn't such an idiot, I might've been with Hermione for much of last year. But now, well, we're together but, well, I guess we're not supposed to talk about it. Against the rules, an' all that."
"Do you love her?"
"What?"
"Do you love her?" Harry repeated slower.
Ron looked down into his hands and mumbled something that Harry suspected was, "of course."
"Well, mate, I think if you can manage not letting her go a day without knowing that, you'll eventually learn to forgive yourself. But then, I've never been in that position, so I wouldn't know." Harry had looked at the smaller of the two silhouettes that played upon the newspaper before him as he said this, and Ron cuffed him lightly on the shoulder.
"Is that something like how you feel about my little sister?" he asked, and Harry grimaced. He didn't like talking to Ron about his feelings for Ginny, particularly because of how overprotective Ron could get. But when he looked over at his best friend, there wasn't anything but a slight twinge of concern.
"I... well... um... I guess so?"
"You guess?" the overprotective Ron had reared its ugly head.
"No."
"No?"
"I mean, I don't guess."
"Will you just say it?"
"Okay fine," he sighed. "Yes, I love her."
"All right."
"All right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." Thankfully, before the situation could get any more uncomfortable, the newspaper crumpled down to the table and Ginny and Hermione were looking at them.
"Okay, we've got it all sorted out, but we're going to have to leave right away. Come on, you two, we haven't much time," Hermione ordered as she and Ginny began collecting their things. Ron and Harry slowly started to get up as they cast each other looks that seemed to say, did they hear us?
Back in the backseat of the car, Ginny nuzzled up against Harry and slyly asked, "So, what'd you lot talk about?"
The car lurched into life and Harry's jaw clenched as he lied, "nothing."
"Really?" she prodded in an unbearably sweet voice. She burrowed further into him as the car shimmied around a corner, and batted her eyelashes, obviously intent upon getting an answer out of Harry.
"Fine," he whispered against her ear, and as he did so he could feel her shiver. "Ron was just telling me a few things about him and Hermione. So, uh, where are we going now?" he added in a louder tone hoping to change the subject before she pried the full conversation out of him.
"I'm not telling," she sang at him, and laughed at the put out face he gave her.
"I'll make you tell," he warned.
"You will not Harry Pot... No! Ha! Stop it!" Before she could finish telling him off, Harry had started tickling her ribs and she exploded into a fit of laughter. This turned out to be a bad idea, however, as a moment later, Hermione let out a gasp, and a high pitched squeal peeled out from below them. Yet another motorist was driving by them, leaning on his horn, and making murderous faces, and in unison Harry and Ginny muttered, "Sorry," as they gave up their game.
A few minutes later, Hermione pulled in outside of a large white building with a Marquee posted over the wide glass doors. Harry gaped at it. They were taking him to a cinema of all places. The only time Harry ever got to see a movie was typically at dinner since Dudley refused to be in a room without a television on. Even at that, he could only sneak glances as the Dursleys normally made him sit with his back to the television. Of course, he had heard plenty about cinemas from the Dursley's, as well as some of the other Muggleborns from school like Dean Thomas, but he had always wanted to know what it was like to watch a whole movie from beginning to end, let alone to see it on as a big a screen as he had heard.
Then a weird feeling came over him. He had heard that cinemas were dark. Seamus (whose father was a Muggle, and therefore knew about these things), had once told him what kids their age typically did at cinemas. There was a reason why they were so popular to go to for a date. He looked over at Ginny and gulped.
"Harry?" Hermione said interrupting his thoughts.
"Huh?" he said in a much higher pitched voice then normal.
"Are you coming? It's about ready to start."
**
"Where's Ron and Ginny?" Harry asked when Hermione was the only one waiting for him outside the toilets.
"Oh, they volunteered to get the popcorn and sodas. It took nearly the entire time you were in there to explain Muggle money to them. Come on, we'll go get seats." She looped her arm around his elbow and frog marched him into the theater.
"Hermione?" Harry muttered as they took their seats, leaving an empty one in between them. "I just wanted to say thanks."
"For what?"
"For everything. For today," he said quietly.
"I have no idea what you’re talking about," she said as though he had cauldrons falling out of his ears. When a look of puzzlement rested on his face, she leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek and said, "You can thank me tomorrow."
Understanding her meaning, Harry traded his confused look for a more sly one and remarked, "Looks like you're not having a bad day yourself."
Hermione blushed. "Well, I just... It's been nice, and I've never known him to be this sweet. I mean I've always liked him, but today. Uh. But what about you two? You know there's a mirror in the car, it's not like there's curtains separating us or anything. And after what Ron said you two talked about..."
"Oh, what Ron said, eh?" Harry's brows furrowed, and in an attempt to keep his part of that conversation as private (and as far away from Ginny's ears) as possible, he said, "So what did you think about the part where he said he loved you?"
Hermione looked completely dumfounded. "He... left that part out... I guess." Harry immediately felt bad. Bad for betraying Ron's trust, and bad for telling Hermione what he told her only to change the topic of conversation off himself. His brow softened and he smiled warmly at her.
"Well, I don't think you needed me to tell you that he loves did you?" She seemed unable to speak. For a few seconds, Harry thought she might be incapable of communication at all, but she eventually shook her head ever so slightly.
"Listen," Harry said. "Don't tell Ron I told you that, okay?" This time she nodded a little quicker, and turned her head to see the two red heads ambling towards them laden with several buckets of popcorn, and at least six sodas. Harry laughed.
"Had a bit of a problem ordering did you?" he sniggered and Ron tossed him a rude stare. Ron sat between Harry and Hermione, and Ginny sat in the open seat to Harry's left, pecking him swiftly on the cheek as she did so. Harry had forgotten all about the conversation between he and Hermione, and was about to see about getting a little more than just a peck on the cheek from Ginny when Ron nudged him hard.
"Oi, what'dya make of this? That chit that gave us the drinks slipped it to me," Ron whispered and handed Harry a napkin. Ginny leaned in close too, to see what it meant, and they both gave Harry bemused looks when he snorted at what he had seen there.
Quietly, hoping Hermione didn't overhear, Harry explained, "It's her phone number, Ron."
"What'd she give him that for?" Ginny asked, her face screwed up in confusion.
"So he could call her, take her out, snog her senseless I expect," Harry murmured, trying very hard not to laugh, and failing miserably.
"What are you looking at?" Hermione asked, and Ron gulped.
"Get rid of it," he hissed at Harry before rounding on Hermione and kissing her before she could ask anymore questions. It seemed to work.
They were still kissing when the already dim lights went completely out. Hermione broke the kiss to inform the group that the movie was about to start, and they all turned their attention towards the screen. "Well, okay, first we have to sit through the previews, then it'll start," she explained.
"What's a preview?" Ron asked.
"Oh, it's just little snippets from movies that haven't been released yet. They show them to you so that you'll want to see that movie when it comes out. Bit annoying really." Ron nodded and watched as the screen before them lit up.
To the contrary, the previews weren't annoying at all. They had seen one about a man who was able to punch and kick very fast. There didn't seem to be any point other than the punching and the kicking in that particular movie, but by the end of the preview Ron was punching at the air and making funny noises as Hermione laughed uncontrollably next to him. The second one was about magic, only the wizards on screen didn't seem to need wands and were able to cast these amazing looking spells that all seemed to involve either fire or dragons.
Halfway through the third preview, as Hermione was trying to coax Ron into trying some soda (and failing), Ginny nudged Harry. "Hey, I thought Muggles didn't have moving pictures."
"Well, they're not moving. Not really," Harry replied matter-of-factly.
Ginny pursed her lips at him and said rather coolly, "You must have a rather different definition of moving, Potter, if this doesn't fall under it."
Harry sighed and launched into a full explanation on how movies were made. He loved the expression on her face as he spoke, how her brow crinkled right at the tip of her nose in concentration, how her lips curled ever so slightly downward as though she were contemplating a particularly difficult arithmancy equation. Her face awash in the faint blue light of the movie screen right then was the most beautiful thing he could remember seeing, and it was no small task to keep the focus of their conversation on the making of motion pictures.
By the time he had finished, the actual movie had started, and Hermione had still not been able to convince Ron to try the soda. "Maybe dad's fascination with Muggle stuff isn't so misguided after all," Ginny said, obviously satisfied with Harry's explanation.
The movie, as Hermione and Ginny had taken turns explaining, was supposed to be about some bloke that falls head over heels for some girl, but then before he is able to tell her how much he loves her, he's killed in a car crash.
"Seems a bit morbid, really," Ron muttered.
"But that's where the fun part comes in," Hermione explained to him animatedly. "An angel gives him one day to come back to Earth and get it right."
"You four min' clammin' up? We're tryin' ter watch the movie, no' listen ter you lot 'splain it," came a grumpy voice from a few rows behind them, and Hermione squeaked a whispered "Sorry."
One day, Harry thought darkly as he looked at Ginny. They had come to the scene of the car crash. Apparently the hero of the piece, Eric, was on his way to the place where his true love worked when a large double-decker collided with his beat up little Volkswagen. Harry could see tears welling up in Ginny's eyes, and reflexively reached an arm around her. As they moved closer together, they found themselves separated by the armrest between them. Ginny gave Harry a pout that made him wish he could curse the armrest into oblivion. Or at least out of their way. He jolted it half heartedly, but when he felt it shift, his face lit up into a smile.
So did Ginny's when he raised the rest completely.
She hoisted herself into Harry's lap, and an inexplicable heat quickly spread throughout his body. This is unreal, he thought to himself as he stretched out his legs to make room for her. His arms seemed to wrap themselves around her waist without him telling them to do so, and he found he was not at all troubled by this. In fact, the only thing he worried about was whether Ginny could notice the immense pounding coming from his chest.
Next door, Hermione had gone back to trying to coax Ron into drinking the soda, though he persisted in refusing. Harry smiled at them. They loved each other so much, but they would probably never fully understand each other. In a voice loud enough for Ron and Hermione to hear, but hopefully not loud enough to bother the man a few rows back, Harry hoisted his soda towards Ginny and asked, "want some?"
She gave him an apprehensive look before tentatively muttering, "all right." He watched her sip from the straw gingerly. Is everything this girl does going to drive me nuts? Because I don't think I can stand it, he asked himself as the mere sight of her pulling off of a straw made his pulse quicken impossibly. He knew she only took a sip, but that sip seemed to take forever, and he was actually quite glad when she finished, smiling at him and saying, "that's nice, isn't it?"
Trying not to give himself a heart attack on his seventeenth birthday, Harry immediately elbowed Ron and said, "Don't know what you're scared of, mate, your sister didn't seem to mind." Ron scowled at Harry, but wearing a very defiant face, he made a great show of taking a sip of soda. Almost instantly his eyes widened.
"Oh, that's wicked," he exclaimed as he took a breath of air.
Immediately he went back to sipping from the straw, and Harry overheard Hermione whisper, "Slowly, sweetheart, slowly," as she ran her hand along his back.
The movie was turning out to be quite good, though Harry wasn't sure if it was really the movie, or the pretty redhead curled up in his lap. When Eric had finally gotten his second chance, his one good day, he seemed incapable of doing anything but make a complete arse out of himself. He had managed to have a bucket of paint poured all over him, to have lost control of his flatulence, and to have a golf club swung directly in his face all before lunch. Ginny laughed heartily at all the right places, and so did Harry, but not necessarily because the movie was funny, but because Ginny thought it was funny.
"Sorry," Harry heard Ron mutter, and he and Ginny had both looked over to see what Ron had done to necessitate an apology. He and Hermione's hands had both went for popcorn at the same time, and collided.
"It's alright, Ron," Hermione muttered, and then added, "Let me."
Harry and Ginny watched as she fed Ron a few kernels of corn. Before either of them could avert their eyes, Ron had caught Hermione's hand and pulled her into a deep and passionate kiss. Ginny looked at Harry and made a gagging motion. Smiling, Harry whispered to her, "think it's funny do you?"
She adopted the kind of face a three year old makes when he's caught trying to steel biscuits when he thinks no one is looking, and nodded. Grinning evilly, Harry brought a handful of popcorn to her face, and she batted at it playfully, spilling popcorn everywhere. Their eyes met, and for a second he thought they were going to share another kiss like they did in the pet store, but she returned her attention to the screen, and Harry couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
Sighing, he reached for the soda, and heard the rattle that meant it was empty. Popping open the lid, he slid a sweet flavored ice cube into his mouth and sucked on it, relishing the sugary taste as it melted on his tongue. In the movie, Eric was professing his love in a teary-eyed address to Melissa, and Harry could feel Ginny running her thumbs across the knuckles of his hands. His mouth had grown impossibly cold, and a wicked idea crossed his mind.
"Ginny," he whispered in her ear, feeling her body trill again at the proximity, and she turned to look at him. He took a moment to notice that he couldn't come up with a word to describe just how... precious she was to him, and he kissed her deeply. Quickly she pulled away, gasping.
"You're cold," she whispered.
"Warm me up?" he asked her, and she smiled for just an instant before reaching a hand behind his head to pull him into her.
Both couples stayed like that, kissing in the dark, thrilling at the sensations they shared, incapable of letting go until the lights came on.
Ron was the first to speak. "What? Is it over already?"