Harry Potter and the Dream Book

Chapter 20: the Long Kiss Goodbye

CHAPTER TWENTY: THE LONG KISS GOODBYE

A few weeks after the Second Task, Harry and Ginny were sitting comfortably in the Three Broomsticks, sharing a piece of chocolate cake, and holding hands across the table.

“This is good, isn’t it?” said Ginny happily as she was savouring another mouthful of cake.  “I’m an icing type of person.  You?”

“Me too,” said Harry.  He had stared at her so much that he was almost in trance.  

“We should get another plate of just icing,” Ginny offered in a playful tone.

Harry was glad that Ginny had not asked him to go to Madam Puddifoot’s.  It was Easter and he was sure that the little coffee shop was decorated with real-life jumping bunnies dressed in pink trousers and flowery hats or something.  He liked the Three Broomsticks much better, and apparently so did Ginny.  It was a sane place, and he felt like a sane person; unlike Ron who was so over-enthusiastic to go out with Hermione that Fred and George had actually had to dissuade him to buy a set firecrackers that he wanted to bewitch to spell out ‘I love you Hermione’ in pink letters in the blue sky.

“But it’s romantic,” Ron was saying aloud as Fred and George were ushering him out of the shop.

Harry and Ginny had burst out laughing at the exasperated look on Hermione’s face.

After two enormous pieces of chocolate cake, they visited every shop, hand in hand, kissing spontaneously every time they felt like it, which was often.

They spent a tremendous amount of time trying out Quidditch gear and looking at the advertising outside the Hog’s Head.

“Oh, look!” said Ginny, pointing out a photograph.  “Someone has lost a baby Niffler.  We should tell Hagrid.”

Harry didn’t reply but he kissed her instead.

Harry’s parents had told the Longbottoms about the fake scar they had put on Neville thirteen years ago.  Frank and Alice had looked horrified at first, but after a long afternoon of reflection and discussion, which Harry had skipped, they had decided to keep the masquerade going on and Harry’s dad had once again performed the spell that had erased Harry’s scar from his forehead.

Harry had taken upon himself to relate the story of the scar to Neville and Ginny, but without any mention of the Dream Book.

“I knew it,” said Ginny, wide-eyed, when he finished his last sentence.  “I just knew it.  There always was something about you, a connection to You-Know-Who, that couldn’t really be explained.  It all makes so much sense now.”

The three of them were sitting close together on the rocks along the lakeshore.

“Are you OK, Nev?” asked Harry, staring at his friend.

Neville had been silent the whole time.

“Yeah, I’m OK,” he said finally.  “I’m relieved, I guess,” he admitted. “Is that alright?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said reassuringly.

“Do you think You-Know-Who knows?” Ginny asked him, squeezing his hand.

“Well, his snake won’t tell him,” Harry replied with a surge of pride.

His dad had cut the snake’s head clean using Godric Gryffindor’s sword which had strangely fallen out of the Sorting Hat.  The event had resulted in his telling his mother and father about his second year at Hogwarts and how he had killed the Basilisk.  After that, his parents had wanted to know about this first year, and third year, and so on until he had been too tired to speak and had fallen asleep on his father’s bed in the teachers’ wing of the castle.