Title: "Fetching Harry"

Author: Emmyjean

Classification: H/G implied, Ginny POV

Summary: Ginny is sent to fetch Harry from the Dursleys during the summer before his seventh year.

Spoilers: Through Goblet of Fire

Rating: PG

Notes: Everything belongs to Rowling.

Ginny practically bolted up the stairs leading to the Dursley's house. She had been waiting all summer for the time to come when they would fetch Harry from the confines of his awful Muggle summer residence, and she was especially happy that she was the one chosen to do the honors. After the ton-tongue toffee incident, Dad had decided that it was better if the Dursleys never laid eyes on he, Ron, or Fred and George ever again.

Ringing the doorbell, she tried to get her pounding heart under control. She had been reading about Muggle ways throughout the summer so that there would be no obvious mistakes (like when Ron had attempted to telephone Harry with disastrous results) and she was feeling quite confident about that. It was just her seemingly never-ending infatuation with Harry Potter that was getting her bothered.

She had become very adept, however, at keeping it to herself and acting normal around him. After all...she wasn't a child anymore. She was sixteen years old.

The door opened, and there stood the most massive human being Ginny had ever seen. He had gray hair and a moustache, and thick bushy eyebrows which did little to conceal his mean, beady little black eyes. Ginny felt a lump in her throat and the first bit of what she guessed was comparable to stage fright set in.

"Well? What do you want, then?" the man barked, taking in her patched skirt and worn blouse.

"Umm...I'm here to see Mr. Harry Potter, if you please sir," Ginny replied politely as she could. She was torn between laughing at the man's ridiculously rude behavior and crying at the thought of Harry living with him all summer.

The man's eyes narrowed, and he clipped, "Who are you?"

Ginny smiled her sweetest smile and replied, "Ginny Weasley. I'm here to...er, I'm from school. A friend of his."

The man looked ready to shut the door in her face as he ground out, "I thought I said I didn't want any of YOU people in this house anymore...!"

Ginny thought of something then, her Weasley temper beginning to get the better of her, and interrupted smoothly, "His godfather has asked me to call, actually. Would you mind if I came in?"

The man paled at her words and, although he seemed at loath to do so, stepped aside for her to enter the house. She looked around, not so much taking in the surroundings of the rather average middle-class house, but looking for Harry. She looked back toward the man, who she now assumed was Harry's uncle, and said,

"You'll let him know I'm here, then?"

"I'll do nothing of the sort! You can go and fetch him yourself. He's upstairs, sitting on his lazy bum I imagine. Ungrateful, slobbish..."

Ginny didn't bother to listen to the remainder of the fool's mumbling. She proceeded up the stairs without a backward glance, a feeling of slight embarrassment coming over her as she realized that she must now fetch Harry from his bedroom. She wondered vaguely what her mother would say to this, and smiled to herself at the thought. Coming to the only door in the upstairs hallway that wasn't open, she assumed it was Harry's and knocked.

There was no answer at first, and she knocked again a bit harder. Still, no answer. Looking back down at the landing, she knew she wasn't going to receive any aid from Mr. Dursley or any of the family who lived here, so she was on her own as far as this obstacle went. Wishing slightly that her father had come in with her, she tried the handle and found the door to be unlocked.

Peering into the room, her eyes immediately fell upon the bed, illuminated by the low light of twilight. Harry was lying there, a volume of "Quidditch Through the Ages" open across his stomach. He was fast asleep, and...his chest was bare.

Ginny felt herself going scarlet. She'd never forgive Ron for this. If he hadn't been so smitten with Hermione, he'd have agreed to her more sensible idea that he should come and fetch Harry, while Ginny went to meet Hermione at the train. That way, she wouldn't be in the predicament she was now. Resigning herself to the brutal fact that she was simply going to have to swallow her embarrassment and wake him, while simultaneously making a mental note to pinch every single pair of socks Ron owned later, she quietly approached the bed.

"Harry?" she whispered, touching him gently on the shoulder. He stirred a bit, but didn't wake up.

"Harry...come on," she shook a bit harder.

Harry's green eyes snapped open suddenly, nearly making her fall backwards in surprise. He bolted upright and roughly grabbed her wrist in his hand as he did so. The book he had been reading fell with a clatter to the wood floor.

"Ouch!" Ginny cried before she could contain herself.

Harry looked up at her, completely disoriented. He stared at her for a moment as if trying to recognize what it was he was seeing.

"Ginny?" he said incredulously.

"Yes, it's me...I've come to get you. To take you back to the Burrow," she clarified, twisting her wrist a bit in his iron grasp in the hopes that he would let go. She felt as if her bone was going to snap any moment.

He looked down at his hand, and then released her quickly, as if he'd been burned by her skin. Rubbing his eyes, he said,

"Sorry...I'm not accustomed to being suddenly woken up."

She smiled inwardly and asked, "You're not?"

He looked up at her, and she found that he was very handsome without his glasses as well. He smiled, making her heart skip a bit as it still did occasionally at close quarters with him, and replied, "Well, at least not here. Dudley used to wake me occasionally when we were younger, but only to torture me in various ways."

"Not anymore, though?" she inquired innocently.

He chuckled and answered matter-of-factly, "No...I could kill him now. He knows better."

She smiled, intrigued by this, and stepped back. She realized then that he still wore no shirt, and averted her eyes.

"Well...you'd best gather your things. Dad's waiting for us down the block in the car. We have a long drive ahead of us, as Mum's refused to allow us to fly."

He stood up and retrieved his book, tossing in onto the bed, and then went about gathering his books, clothes, and the like from around the room. She watched him in fascination - rarely did she get the chance to watch him like this, when he wasn't paying attention to her and no one else was there to catch her staring. Her eyes traveled to the large cage on the little table in the corner, in which sat Harry's large snowy owl, Hedwig. She hooted at Ginny in greeting, and Ginny walked idly over to stroke her through the bars. Hedwig turned this way and that in pleasure, and it was a few minutes before Ginny realized that the room had gone silent.

She turned suddenly and found Harry standing there, holding a stack of papers and watching her intently.

"Um...I didn't think she'd mind. Errol always loved being stroked..."

Harry quickly shook his head and said, "No, no...it's fine. Hedwig loves it, too."

Ginny furrowed her brow and asked, "What, then?"

Harry shrugged, but didn't look away. He thought for a moment, then replied, "You've done some growing up over the summer, haven't you?"

She wondered that he would notice this - she had indeed gone through somewhat of a growth spurt in the last few months. She had developed what her mother termed, quite embarrassingly, certain "womanly attributes". Her brother's spared her no amount of teasing, and she felt pink just thinking about it, but had not even considered that Harry might actually take the time to…She decided that she would not ponder the subject any more as it would merely lead her back into fruitless daydreaming and silly high hopes.

Instead, she made a joke of it to make herself comfortable.

"Well...if you mean that I'm no longer stick thin and gangly, then I suppose you could say that, yes."

He smiled, and after a single hesitation more as he regarded her, added, "Right...but don't worry. You're still short."

She laughed with him...she had counted her blessings that although she had grown a few inches over the summer, she had in no way inherited the Weasley height genes that her brothers had.

"Well...I s'pose that's everything. Let's get out of here, shall we?"

She began to giggle uncontrollably, and Harry asked perplexedly, "What's so funny?"

Ginny looked up at him through tears of mirth, cursing herself for not being able to stop them, and replied, "Harry, if you'd like to explain to my father why you're coming to meet him with no shirt on, that's fine with me. But I wouldn't recommend it."

Harry glanced down, then flushed. He grabbed his shirt off the foot of the bed, and sheepishly shrugged at her after throwing it on.

"Better?"

"Much."

With that, they started out together toward her father's car.

FINIS

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