taking control

Chapter 5: Freshly Turned Dirt

Chapter 5: Freshly Turned Dirt

"Morning sleepy-head," he heard her murmur before feeling her lips press against his.

Harry moved his lips sluggishly against hers and pulled her body close to his, basking in her warmth as his mind continued to awaken along with the rest of his body. He pulled his lips away from hers as he made some startling discoveries. His hand was finding a lot more skin than he was accustomed to, and what fabric he ran across had a strange feeling to it that he eventually deduced to be lace.

He met her eyes and took note of her coy smile. Slowly he brought his hand up and lifted the blanket off their bodies. His eyes travelled down her face and to her chest and froze at what he saw.

"Happy birthday, Harry," Ginny whispered into his ear. It took a long moment to tear his gaze back up to her face and only because her giggle finally broke him out of his stupor. "Do you like it?" she asked. There was a naughty tone to her voice with a tinge of nervousness shining through.

He nodded vigorously.

"Sorry you didn't get to unwrap it," Ginny said, and Harry shook his head vigorously to dispel her of any such notions of apology. "Or maybe you still can." That was when the last of his functioning brain cells went on strike.

They had only recently re-begun their physical explorations of each other. Almost immediately after that first pleasurable encounter, they had learned about Alicia, and it had simply not felt right to continue along as if nothing had happened. That had lasted a couple weeks until they woke up in a similarly compromising position and let their hormones do their thinking for them, but their clothes had always remained more or less in place, and he had certainly never seen her wearing anything like that.

Not that he had much to compare it to, but this was, without a doubt, the best birthday ever.

OoOoO

"What is the status of your work in the greenhouse?"

Neville looked up from his plate and across the table to meet his gran's gaze. "Of the seventeen samples, three are thriving, four are living but only just, and the rest have already wilted completely."

She nodded imperiously, though the action failed to faze him as it had for most of his life. That was just the way she was. "Very good. I had my doubts about all this Herbology business, but as Professor Sprout stated, you have a gift for it that should not be left to waste."

"Thank you." He smiled at the praise and inwardly chuckled at her distinct change in tune as he tucked back in to his lunch. He had been trying for the past two years to convince his gran to allow him his own greenhouse at the manor. She had been opposed to the idea from the very start, citing a variety of reasons including cost and the indignity of a wizard of his standing mucking around in the mud, but he had persisted despite her staunch refusals. Begging and pleading would get him nowhere. If it did not work when he was young, there was no possibility of it working now. She had even resisted Professor Sprout's entreaties on his behalf, and he was greatly amused by the professor's response to his stubborn grandmother even as he felt the bitter disappointment at the professor's failure to talk sense into the formidable woman.

Then he came up with a plan. He had lived with his gran for over fifteen years before he finally began to understand her. She was not one to be swayed by emotions but cool logic, so that was what he set out to give her. He outlined exactly what he hoped to accomplish in his independent summer studies and what he would need to make it possible. He went even further into the realm of sheer theory on where he hoped his research and experimenting would eventually lead him, and how it could gain him respect from the magical community. Augusta Longbottom always responded well to that which would earn the family respect.