Chapter Five: The Flower’s Petals
I smell bacon, thought Ginny as she roused herself from her slumber. Eggs, too.
Propping herself up on her elbows, she raised her head far enough above her blankets to see that the wondrous smells were coming from her slightly ajar door.
Donning a bathrobe, she made her way to the kitchen, where Mark, clad in an apron and chef’s hat, was making breakfast.
Mark, unaware that Ginny was awake, took his spatula and flipped the pancakes in the air, making them land on heir uncooked side back on the stove.
Ginny clapped lightly. Mark turned around quickly, highly surprised that he had and audience.
“Ginny,” he said. “What are you doing up this early?”
“The smell of your fabulous cooking woke me up,” she replied. “You know you only have to act like you are competing for me when Harry’s around.
“I know,” said Mark, scooping some bacon and eggs onto a plate. “I just wanted to make you breakfast, aside from the acting.” Mark levitated the food over to the table and pulled out a chair for Ginny.
“Wait ‘till Harry overhears me talking about this,” commented Ginny as she sat down.
“What I wouldn’t give to see the look on his face,” said Mark, sitting down opposite Ginny. “So how do you like your eggs?”
“They’re wonderful,” said Ginny, scooping a second helping onto her plate.
“Great they’re a new recipe I’m trying out. I added some milk in them to make them fluffier.”
“Well, it tastes like you’ve got a winner with that one.”
Mark starred out the window as he sipped his tea. His mind seemed to be elsewhere.
Ginny glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to et ready for Quidditch.”
Mark grabbed the last piece of toast and made his way to the door. “It shall be an interesting day.”
“Indeed it shall,” agreed Ginny. “See you at the pitch.”
Her door closed with a snap and she changed into her Quidditch attire. She knew that something big was happening at the Quidditch pitch today, and she knew it would be big…this was Harry, after all.
Ginny debated over her broom choice for only a second before grabbing her Xcelerator. After the wonderful carnival last night, she figured she should cut Harry some slack.
As she walked out her door, a rose petal shower encompassed her body. From seemingly nowhere, the dark petals rained down, and Ginny laughed aloud with delight.
Ron and Hermione emerged from their room, and laughed when they saw Ginny spinning around in the petals like a carefree five-year-old.
“Having fun?” asked Ron.
Ginny stopped spinning and glared at her brother for ruining the moment. She walked over toward him, and the petals followed her.
“Do you want me to stop it?” asked Hermione.
Ginny looked upward at the shower’s origin and then back at Hermione. “I think I’ll get rid of it later. I’m actually really enjoying it at the moment.”
Harry poked his head out of his door to see how his latest attempt at wooing Ginny had gone over. Certainly nothing could be wrong with rose petals, but Harry made sure Ginny wasn’t waiting outside his room to pummel him when he exited, just in case.
After hearing Ginny say that she was enjoying his gift, Harry cautiously made his way over to where she, Ron, and Hermione were standing.
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Harry. His smile reached his eyes when he saw she was carrying the Xcelerator.
“Let’s head down,” suggested Ron.
Ron and Hermione led the way while Harry and Ginny brought up the rear. Silently, Harry conjured a red, thornless rose and tucked it behind Ginny’s ear.
“You look like and angel.”
Ginny blushed and thanked him quietly. He had always loved how her face looked with a slight blush to it.
All too soon, for both Harry and Ginny, they arrived at the Quidditch pitch. Mark was laughing at a joke Captain Nick had just made, and when he looked up and saw Ginny, he smiled even wider.
As Ginny broke from the group to go join Mark, Harry slipped off to the side where a man was waiting in the shadows. Harry passed him a slip of paper and then left to rejoin his team.
The man got on his broom and shot toward the sky. Once he was high enough, he conjured a smoke stream behind him and began to spell out the words on the paper in the air.
“What’s that barmy bloke doing?” asked Mark.
Ginny turned around and looked up at the sky, where her name was being spelled out in an acrostic poem.
Gorgeous
Intelliegent
Natural
Nice
Youthful
“Your doing, I suppose?” asked Ginny of Harry. He nodded and waited for her reaction.
“You couldn’t think of something better than nice?”
“My brain ran out of ideas and my thesaurus quill wanted to put naughty nymph in for the two n’s.” Harry saw Ginny smirk slightly. “I didn’t think it was quite appropriate for the whole team to see.”
Ginny couldn’t help but nod, feeling the same way. She could find no other fault in Harry’s latest attempt to win her over, and flashed him a dazzling smile and a wink as a reward.
Butterflies erupted in Harry’s stomach, and he couldn’t help but do a silent cheer.
Nick ordered the team to huddle up and explained that they would be running a few agility drills first before starting tasks according to position. As the team lined up, Harry was sure Mark flew to Ginny’s other side while in conversation with her so that when they lined up he would be between her and Harry. Ginny canceled the rose petal shower in order to see while she flew albeit grudgingly.
“We’ll be doing wind sprints,” said Nick. “That way no matter which broom you have, the race will be almost even. We’ll fly one-fourth of the pitch, half, three-fourths, and then all the way. “Nick took a spot at the end of the line. Mark looked at Harry and Harry looked at Mark. Each of them saw the challenge in each other’s eyes. It was on.
“Go!”
Harry and Mark took off. They quickly came up to the flags that marked the one-fourth pitch line, but mark pulled slightly ahead at the turn. Harry saw Mark was ahead of him and put on a burst of speed. Mark slowed slightly where as Harry’s burst of speed made him overshoot the line, falling further behind.
Harry shot forward again, but took Mark’s strategy of slowing down for the turn. The men were now nearly neck-n-neck. As they headed back to the starting line, they were flying dangerously close. Mark bumped lightly into Harry. Harry lost his concentration abruptly, and veered slightly off course.
So he wants to play dirty, thought Harry as he turned at the line and headed for the three-fourths pitch flag. Two can play at that game.
Harry flattened himself to his broom and took off at top speed. He got half a broom’s length in front of Mark, and then cut downward right in his path. Mark pulled up haphazardly to avoid a collision and shook his fist in Harry’s direction.
Harry turned again and headed back for the starting line. He was almost there when Mark, who had been flying above him, came down on top of him. Harry veered to the side and fell behind as Mark headed for the end of the pitch.
They only had two more stretches left before the end. They had to fly to the other end of the pitch and back before someone was declared the winner. Harry was determined to make that person him.
Harry zoomed off. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and feel his blood pumping through his veins. He pulled right up alongside Mark and stayed with him as they turned the corner.
It was down to the final stretch. Harry knew he had already won. His Xcelerator far outmatched Mark’s Nimbus 2000. That’s when Mark started bumping him. As soon as Harry would get ahead, Mark would bump Harry and force him to fall behind again. Soon Harry started pushing back. They bumped and pushed all the way across the finish line, and neither knew who had crossed first.
“What is your problem?” shouted Harry, walking over to Mark when they landed.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” said Mark. “I was only being a little competitive. You’re the one who took it way too far.”
“I only flew in front of you in retaliation. You started it. Then you tried to land on top of me!”
“You nearly knocked me off my broom!”
“You did too!”
“CHILDREN!” shouted Ginny over the boys’ screaming match. “Will you stop acting like two year olds and stop having a tantrum? You both LOST. To me. Nice way to make yourselves look all macho, lose to a girl and then throw a hissy fit. Bonus points for the first person to start hollering for their mummy.”
Both Harry and Mark had the decency to look ashamed of themselves.
Ginny crossed her arms and her eyes sparkled with contained rage. Nick landed by Mark and Harry. He wore and angrier expression than an enraged Veela.
“What the bloody hell was that?” he hollered. “We have a match against Puddlemere United this Saturday. Two bloody days away! And then you go and pull this shit! You could have injured both yourselves and each other! You flew off with reckless abandon, and didn’t care how the repercussions of your actions could have hugely hindered the rest of the team!”
Nick paused to let his words sink in.
“You owe each other, and the entire team, an apology.”
“Sorry,” they both said, their voices full of regret.
“We need to win to keep our sponsors,” started Nick. “Some of us need these jobs to support ourselves. We aren’t here just for fun and games. We don’t have old nest eggs to fall back on from family heritage like you two do. Consider that when you make your next reckless move.”
The rest of the team seemed too disgusted at Harry and Mark to do anything more than cross their arms and glare. Even Ron seemed shocked that Harry would do something so stupid.
Nick called practice off and let the team leave the pitch. He seemed too mad to be able to continue practice, and the team war in the same state.
Harry glared at Mark, and Mark glared right back. The team, save Ginny, left to change into their regular clothes and find something to do with their two unexpected hours of free time. Ginny stayed behind to watch Harry and Mark’s conversation.
“Look,” said Harry. “We may be fighting over the same girl, but we need to put that aside when we step onto the pitch.”
“Yeah,” agreed Mark. “But it’s going to be really hard. Right now I see you as the enemy.”
“Well, maybe we just need to find something that we have in common to focus on; a sort of temporary friendship during games. Nick said you came from old money?”
“Yeah. My parents are old, rich, and Slytherin. What more can I say?”
“You weren’t a Death Eater?”
“Hell no,” said Mark. “Those barmy codgers can go to St. Mungo’s mental ward for their insane beliefs.”
“Well then, we have that in common. We’re both fighting for good. During games, think of it as us versus them, good versus “evil”. Then we’re on the same side.”
“I can do that,” said Mark.
Harry turned around and stared to walk off the pitch. He wasn’t five steps away before he felt a spell graze his left shoulder.
Harry quickly put up a shield and faced his attacker Mark was twirling his wand between his fingers and looked pleased with himself. Harry looked trough the freshly torn hole in his uniform and saw his shoulder turning green.
“Never turn your back on your enemy,” said Mark. He raised his wand again, but dropped it when his hands turned into paws.
“Never…hex…anyone…when…their…back…is…turned…,” said Ginny as she bounced ferret-Mark up and down on the grass.
Harry laughed, and Ginny turned Mark back into a man. “Now cast the counter curse,” she commanded.
Harry’s shoulder returned to its normal color as Ginny began a trade on Mark’s behavior right after Nick’s speech about not being reckless.
“Honestly, I’m choosing between two infants for a boyfriend,” she sighed exasperatedly.
Harry and Mark both nodded meekly in response.
Ginny turned and headed for her flat. The boys followed after her, but Mark slipped around the back of the building so he wouldn’t have to walk up with Harry.
Harry stopped short of his room and knocked on Hermione and Ron’s door.
Hermione saw the ashamed and semi-defeated look on his face and invited him in at once.
“What did you do now?” she asked as she sat and summoned some tea and biscuits from the kitchen.
“After Mark and I kind of nearly killed each other during Quidditch drills, we got into another fight, and all of it was seen by Ginny.”
Hermione let out a slow sigh. “What pushed you into the fight?”
“He started it, but I had to prove that I was better than him to make a good impression with Ginny.”
“No.”
“What?” asked Harry.
“You’re not trying to prove that you’re better than him.”
“Why am I not supposed to prove that I’m better than Mark? Isn’t that the whole point of this?”
“You’re not supposed to prove you’re better than Mark. Ginny has more options available to her than just you and him.”
“Well then whom do I have to prove I am better than? Everyone?”
“You really are thick. You don’t prove that you are better than anyone. You prove that you are the best for Ginny. It’s not a contest against everyone, it’s a contest for someone: Ginny.”
Harry thought about it. It really did make sense.
“Do you realize how your fight in front of Ginny is immeasurably worse now? You weren’t supposed to respond to Mark’s taunts and jibes. You weren’t supposed to act all macho and tough to make yourself look better than Mark. Macho and tough is not what Ginny is looking for, and she may very well ditch you both and find someone else.”
Harry hit his head on the wall behind him.
“You need to show her that you are the one and only man for her. Start by making peace with her. You owe her a true and honest apology for the fight.”
Harry knew he had to do it, but it would immensely hurt his pride. Suddenly another thing he should apologize for struck him. The coma. All this time she’d been holding on to that, and he had never apologized. That was going to hurt him most of all, but he knew it was what he had to do to prove he was the right one for Ginny.
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A flower’s petals, while vibrant and colourful in the spring months, wilt and turn brown when the sun’s rays focus elsewhere. Once the rays focus back on the flower with just the right amount of light, the bloom is spectacular.
A/N: Thanks to my beta Crystalphoenix for the rose petal shower idea, beta Polaris for the sky writing poem suggestion and Mark’s breakfast in bed for Ginny. Reviewer childofpotter13 suggested a duel, and I thought this would be an excellent chapter to use a mini-version of that… but don’t worry. More duels are due to come!
Next Chapter’s title: The Light Refocused