Chapter 1: Of gaping, and Harry

Disclaimer: I'm not a millionaire, so I don't own Harry Potter. This plot is by Ari Munami.

GINNY'S POV

I'm sure you've heard about my little obsession with Harry Potter. It is pretty obvious. All the blushing, stuttering, and constant staring I do around him kind of states how I feel about him.

I have always been like that but lately I've been acting a little less like a second year around Harry. I still have feelings for him but I've been less obvious about it. Recently I've been more distant and I've managed to speak to him for more than five minutes without stuttering once. I've become quite confident near him, partly because I've finally started having my fair share of experience concerning blokes. In fourth and fifth year, I had two long-term boyfriends, and a couple of two-week flings. That alone is probably the whole reason I've had more self-control around him.

I've never really known what attracts me to Harry so much. He's never been particularly handsome over the years. He was always a little taller than the rest of us, causing his physique to be more like an overly stretched string-bean. His glasses always made him look incredibly geeky, but nobody's ever bothered to mention this to him partly because he would've got really self conscious about it. Truth is Harry is rather…not confident about certain things.

I think his personality and his reputation was what made me become obsessed with him. He's always so modest and caring that even anyone would grow to like him. Although Voldemort probably would not be included in that number…And the best part is that he hasn't let all the fame and glory go straight to his head. Instead of becoming this arrogant and obnoxious person, who's deeply, deeply in love with himself; he became marginally confident, modest, caring, I could go on forever.

Sometimes, he would let it get to his head but that was only when he was trying to get a laugh. And the other thing I love about him…Yeah, I love him. I figured it out two years ago, when I got all jealous when he was with Cho. I didn't know what I felt for him until I felt like ripping Cho's hair out when I saw her tossing her hair and "accidentally" dropping food down her shirt so that Harry's gaze would follow her hands reaching down to lick the speck of pudding that fell into her cleavage. Please, that's not even a classy move.

That's when I realised that I wasn't just infatuated with Harry; I was in love with him and that scared me like nothing else. I mean, at the time, I was only fourteen. How could I possibly be in love? Especially with someone I was barely even good friends with? So I went out with a ton of guys; to try in vain to forget about him. It didn't work. So I decided to stop acting like a slag, and stop stringing along these poor blokes when it was clear that I barely had any interest in them, and just become better friends with Harry. I did that which resulted in my cool and charming demeanor around the infamous Boy-Who-Lived.

Unfortunately all my hard work went out the door, when I, and everyone else, saw him the summer of my sixth year. The only thing that makes me happy about the fact that I now have to start all over again is that I wasn't the only one that turned into a puddle at the mere sight of him of his gorgeous pectorals…

It was the week before we would be returning to Hogwarts for their seventh year and my sixth year. Ever since Voldemort was resurrected, Harry has been under strict orders to stay at his aunt and uncle's house, so we hadn't seen him the entire holiday. All of us were super excited to see him again, since we couldn't talk about anything of real importance using owls. During these dark times, anything could be intercepted.

When Harry left at the end of his sixth year he was of more than average height, still had his geeky glasses, and had a rather muscular physique from the years of Qudditch and running from Death Eaters. Many girls had noticed his physique and Harry had a fair amount of girlfriends in his sixth year. The world was paying a little more attention to him and Harry was under a ton of pressure. He was dubbed "the chosen one," so people expected him to be a super human. During those times, I became Harry's personal confidante; a fact that still makes me immensely pleased.

Anyway, the whole Weasley family, Hermione, Remus, Tonks, Sirius...all of us was there on August 31st in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. We were incredibly psyched to see him again, especially me because this was the first time I would start a school term on incredibly good terms with Harry.

Dumbledore had offered to pick him up; mysteriously telling us he had business to take care of while he was there. So all of us were grouped around the kitchen table sitting in silence and nervously flinching every once in a while. The only one who wasn't fidgeting was Sirius, and that was probably because he had seen Harry last week on a secret mission.

Now that I think back, Sirius had been reclined in his chair, smirking a little to himself as he tilted his seat onto two legs. He had known exactly what Harry would come back as but he hadn't even warned us. Smug bastard. Pardon my French but I'm still a little frustrated about the whole thing, I would've loved the fore warning.

Anyway, finally after sitting in silence for one hour, we heard the familiar screeching of Mrs. Black, the curtains being whooshed by, the door ominously slamming, and footsteps approaching. I held my breath in anticipation and tapped my feet anxiously. Out of the corner of my mouth I saw Sirius' smirk widen.

Finally, Dumbledore came in, and swept his arm to showcase Harry, his purple robes swishing being the only sound once Harry stepping in. From behind Dumbledore, Harry stepped into the room with a wide and gorgeous grin on his face.

The breath I had held in stayed in my throat and my face reddened because of pure desire and embarrassment and because of the lack of air getting to my lungs. Finally I let out a huge breath and my mouth opened wide unconsciously.

I wanted to see what everyone else's reactions were but I physically couldn't move my eyes from Harry who was currently looking slightly confused and disappointed about everyone's lack of reaction.

Sirius broke the silence by dropping the legs of his chair onto the floor and noisily moving over to Harry. Covering Harry completely in a hug, Sirius loudly started talking to him; to make us come out of our daze. Closing my eyes, I tried to take deep breathes, but ended up failing because of the rather graphic pictures that swam in my head. Desperately trying to stop thinking of certain things, I opened my eyes and saw everyone in the kitchen walking over to Harry and hugging him rather weakly; most of them still in the stunned state. I walked over to him, like the rest, and started talking; bad idea on my part.

"H-H-Harry." I practically sigh his name. He smiled at me and my knees literally gave way. He easily caught me, and held me in his warm arms for a while, peering at me with his concerned green eyes through his glasses. I sighed dreamily before he placed me upright again.

And how did Harry look to merit this sort of behavior? Like this. Over the holiday , he had got very tanned, not too dark, not even to the point of sunburn. Just perfect; he was toasted to perfection. And even though he was wearing his glasses that only made him even hotter since they seemed to frame his face better since it filled out over the summer. He had grown a little under half a foot, towering over even Ron. His hair had grown a little and the contrast between the darkness of his hair and the slight darkness of his skin looked magnificent. He was wearing a tight green shirt that clung to his newly formed muscles. And the shirt matched his emerald eyes that were happily sparkling with life at that very moment. Two rows of white teeth shined brightly as Harry smiled his lopsided grin with absolute happiness. And most importantly, he just seemed to glow, like his skin was radiating off light. He seemed to have more confidence altogether.

After a few hours of awkward tension lingering in the house, all of us managed to welcome Harry thoroughly. It been a couple hours since dinner and I am still blushing at the thought of Harry and what I foolishly did. I dipped my elbow into the butter bowl five times and got pasta sauce all over my chin. Then I continuously mumbled and stared at Harry. I tripped down and up the stairs three times that night and I dunked my hair into my soup four times at dinner.

I've officially decided to dye my hair blonde because being a redhead sucks. Why? Because each time Harry or even the thought of Harry comes to mind, my cheeks burn red. Partly because of the earlier incident last night and Harry's amazing body. I have blamed this fully on my redhead complexion so that is why I had found my favourite Witch Weekly and cast a spell on my hair. This was a huge mistake since my hair turned this green/purple/blue colour. It was a colour Tonks couldn't pull off even if she completely changed her face. And since the colour was permanent, I had to stay like that for ten hours until it finally wore off. Imagine my nightmare when Harry saw me. I had walked down to dinner with my sweatshirt completely blocking the view of my horrendous hair. Unfortunately, Fred had banished my sweatshirt so then my vest was in full view with an outright display of my hair. When I had seen Harry, I started freaking out and covered my hair with my hands. But he just removed them, held my hands in his, and said…He said…

"I like it. It's unique." He said in his now fully deepened voice with a hint of mirth.

"Oh." I said faintly, sounding like a complete idiot. I stared at him for a while before running up the stairs, once again, mortified.

The next day, we arrived late to the train, almost missing it. And that is why the most of the school didn't see Harry until he stepped into the Great Hall.