PROTECTION ♞ h.p.

5. Making Mistakes

The evening of the banquet, Harry stood in the kitchen waiting for Ginny to finish getting ready. He pulled on the collar of his dress robes. He'd only had them on for about ten minutes and he was already uncomfortable.

Cursing Remus for giving him this assignment for the hundredth time since putting on his robes, Harry boosted himself up on the counter and picked up his butterbeer. He took a large gulp, but almost didn't get it down. At that moment Ginny appeared in the doorway and his body jerked to attention.

Bloody hell.

She was looking down at her dress as she pulled at the side distractedly.

Harry took a deep breath and forced his face into what he hoped was a neutral expression before she looked up. She was a vision in a long emerald green gown. The fabric hung on her body, enhancing her curves and showing off her slender frame to perfection. It was a halter at the top with two pieces of fabric that came up to clasp behind her neck, creating a deep V and leaving her freckled shoulders bare.

Harry swallowed reflexively as he eyed them. The urge to count each tiny fleck on her skin automatically popped into his head. In fact, that initial thought, quickly led to an urge to find and count the freckles on her entire body.

Dropping his gaze to the floor, he stifled a groan. Attempting to force his mind away from her, he began repeating the latest Quidditch stats in his head.

He'd been repeating those stats in his head a lot over the last week.

Although they'd chosen to simply not speak about the kiss, pretending instead that nothing had happened, Harry found forgetting about it to be much more difficult. He was a bit worried actually because he wanted to kiss her constantly and his imagination didn't seem to care about the particulars. Every time he turned around, he pictured himself kissing her or holding her in some random place or another. His mind seemed determined to torture him with scenes of them together and it was driving him crazy.

Most days he went to bed with a bad mood and a headache. The way she looked tonight, he was sure to end the evening with a splitting migraine and a mood foul enough to rival any Hungarian Horntail.

Ginny had left her hair down and it fell in loose waves around her face as she looked up at him.

"Ready?" she asked, still fidgeting with her dress.

Harry nodded, jumped off the counter and walked towards her.

Ginny's eyes ran over him and her breath quickened. Spinning on her heel as she felt a flush rising to her cheeks, she walked back out of the room

Harry sucked in a quick breath as she left. The cut of the dress showed off the gentle curve of her back, the fabric gathering low at the base of her spine. His eyes ran over her skin as he followed her out of the kitchen.

He pulled at his collar again, suddenly feeling much hotter than before and repeating his new mantra of only a job in his head as he walked.

When they arrived at the banquet, Harry looked for the Aurors assigned to the perimeter and nodded to them as they passed.

"Stop fidgeting," he said, noticing Ginny pulling at her dress again, as if looking for lint that he knew wasn't there. "You look brilliant. Let's get this over with."

He put a hand on her lower back and guided her into the room where they were quickly surrounded by her friends from work.

Ginny talked and laughed; introducing Harry to anyone he hadn't already met through the weeks, but Ginny was a little distracted. Despite her best efforts, she was just unable to truly focus with Harry's hand on her skin.