Hello, hello, to all! This story is in response to a challenge here on Portkey, issued by the illustrious Witch of the Web. I fell in love with it immediately, and insisted upon picking it up. I have several chapters written already, so you can, at least, expect updates every few days.
I really hope you all enjoy this chapter (which I had so much fun writing, as crazyjealous!Ginny is really hilarious), and all the ones to come!
And, so, without further ado, I present….
A Touching Romance
Chapter 1 ~ No touchy-touchy potion
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The castle was a fluttering mass of activity. It always was, of course, but there was a certain air of franticness that was hanging over it just now.
It was December, and Christmas break was right around the corner. With three quarters at least of Hogwarts leaving to spend the break with their families, the ghosts and teachers were looking forward to a few weeks of a quieter sort.
Up in Gryffindor Tower, the sixth year girls' dormitory was perhaps the most hectic of all. Ginny Weasley in particular. She was frantically gathering the scattered ingredients she needed for a last minute potion. This potion, despite what you may think, was not actually for Potions class.
No, this potion was meant for something completely unrelated to any schoolwork whatsoever. For, you see, Ginny Weasley was a rather jealous person. A jealous girlfriend especially. A jealous girlfriend of one, Harry Potter, to be exact. And this personality trait led her to concoct the potion, one extremely obstinate ingredient of which she was haphazardly tossing her bedclothes about to find.
As she searched under her pillow for the miniscule bit of heartwood root, she went over for what had to have been the millionth time The Plan she was just about to put into action. Step one: create potion. That was supposed to have been simple enough, but, seeing as how the ingredients had decided to hate her and were being quite successfully elusive, it might have turned out not to be quite so easy. But she would find them all eventually.
Step two: administer potion to boyfriend. This would also be easy. Harry's glass of morning pumpkin juice was a must have for the young man (newly christened the Boy-Who-Conquered, after Voldemort's recent defeat). She could easily slip a few drops of the potion into his goblet while he wasn't looking.
Step three: haul off for a relaxing holiday without worrying about boyfriend cheating. Ginny felt particularly attached to this step. It was one she would have absolutely no problem carrying out.
The entirety of The Plan had been set in motion when that horrible wretch of a girl, Cho Chang, had dared give Harry a congratulatory hug after winning the House Cup against Slytherin. Granted, he had been very uncomfortable throughout the whole thing, but he hadn't exactly fought her off with tooth and nail, now had he?
No, he hadn't. And that was the reason for the potion. She'd found it in Hermione's Potions textbook, which Hermione had let her borrow after being convinced that she was trying to get a head start on N.E.W.T.s. Hermione had been satisfyingly accepting of that spur-of-the-moment lie.
The potion was one of great complexity (though Ginny hadn't found it to seem too difficult to make, and couldn't find anything that might lead her to believe it was illegal), and was meant to be used just for the kind of purposes she had. When drunk, the potion created a sort of invisible barrier that clung to the drinker's skin, which could only be penetrated by the person who was the object of the drinker's innermost desire. In laymen's terms, it meant that only the girl Harry loved most would be able to touch him without an extremely unpleasant consequence.
It really wasn't that Ginny didn't trust Harry, because she did. She just knew how the girls of Hogwarts felt about her darling boyfriend. He was, after all, an extremely attractive boy, rich beyond almost all comparison, and a pleasant, considerate, kindhearted person. Every other girl in the castle had some form or fashion of a crush on him. It was a well-known fact.
Harry had decided to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas break that year. Ginny couldn't even begin to fathom why, as the alternative was spending it with her, but she respected his decision. She had been annoyed (soul-consumingly furious, more like) when she had found out that Hermione was also going to be staying. It seemed it wasn't quite safe for her to be in a Muggle environment for a long period of time. Though their leader was long dead and gone, some of Voldemort's Death Eaters were still lurking about to try and pick off a few of the Order.
If it had been anyone else, Ginny wouldn't have minded. She could have handled Lavender or Parvati, maybe even that Chang girl if it came to it, but Hermione was a completely different story. She'd seen the way the bushy haired girl had looked at her Harry, after all. After the collapse of a relationship with Ron that had apparently been doomed to fail from the beginning, it seemed that Hermione's affections had been turned towards her other best friend.
Ginny had always been particularly good at guessing people's emotions, at least she thought so. And Hermione showed all the tell-tale signs of fancying her boyfriend. She became flustered when he praised her. She babbled or blushed if he smiled that special smile of his (the smile, by the way, that really was solely meant for her). She practically jumped through the roof if ever he touched her. One incident that particularly stood out in Ginny's mind was the time that Hermione had fallen from a tree from which she was trying to save Crookshanks, and had been caught in Harry's strong arms. Her face hadn't lost its beat read color until much later that day.
Yes, that walking textbook fancied her Harry, and Ginny intended to completely cease all physical contact between the two whatsoever. Harry obviously didn't have any feelings for Hermione. He wouldn't still be with her if he had. And why on earth would he pick Hermione over her? It simply wouldn't have made an ounce of sense to Ginny, had that been the case. It wasn't, of course, Ginny knew to be a fact.
Ginny found the last few ingredients, brewed the potion perfectly, corked it in a bottle, and smiled. Nothing to worry about now.
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Ah, but that was fun, wasn't it? I really had so much fun writing this. I can only hope you all enjoyed it, too! I'll give you cupcakes for reviews (or whatever's hiding in my fridge at the moment)!
~ Violet Kefira
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