THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES

Chapter 1

A/N: This is my first adventure in fan fiction. It was only meant as a hobby and I wasn't going to publish it, but my daughter enjoyed reading it so I thought, why not? It is unBeta'ed and I've had no help, so expect a lot of grammatical errors and vocabulary mistakes, because English is not my first language (I'm Spanish).
Feel free to liberally point all said errors and mistakes so I can rewrite it. I expect nothing better than rotten tomatoes being thrown at me. I won't mind: I'm over forty, I've done this for fun, and I'm not going to suffer.
That being said, welcome to my story. Enter at your own risk, but I hope you enjoy it. :-)

July 2003

Harry woke up slowly, clutching the fringes of a strange dream. Dozens of Pygmy Puffs were rolling on the floor of the kitchen and a crazed Ginny was insisting they had to catch them all so they could put them to bed. The Pygmys proved impossible to round up so Ginny started crying while insisting they were going to lose their custody. At which point, he tried harder to scoop the creatures while Crookshanks made an appearance and tried to chase the little beasts. Such was the effort, he ended up waking exhausted.

He sat in bed, thinking strangely about Trelawney and the fuss she would have made of such a peculiar dream, when he realized two things: one, that Ginny was not sleeping at his side. This was weird, because she was not a morning person, much less being the first day of her holidays. Two, that he could hear her in the bathroom… and she was sobbing?

"Gin?" he called.

The noise from the bathroom ceased abruptly.

"Ginny? Are you ok?"

"Yes! I think so!" she answered in a strange, high pitched voice. "Never been better! I'm great!" And just like that, he heard her start to giggle.

This might count for one of my weirdest mornings, and I've had quite a bunch of them, thought Harry. He got off the bed and went to the bathroom. Harry stopped at the door, taking in the scene that took place in front of him.

Ginny sat on the toilet, laughing in a way that could be described as slightly insane. She was still in her pajamas and her hair was loose. Her face radiated exhilaration, the type of happiness he often saw in her after winning a match. But her eyes also had that gleam she had after a couple celebratory shots of Firewhiskey. Neither made sense, Harry thought. Her last match, which precisely she had lost, had been a fortnight ago. She had been really down after, and Harry had hoped the holidays would cheer her a bit. And she had not had any Firewhiskey lately, celebratory or not. Seven in the morning did not seem the best hour to have a drink, and there was not a bottle in sight.

Harry scratched his head. He was puzzled, and meanwhile, Ginny kept giggling.

"Er… care to explain me what's this all about? Are you ok?" asked Harry. And mentally stable, he added to himself.

Ginny nodded frantically. She did not speak, but her laughing subsided and stopped. She gazed at him with a look he did know very well… a hard, blazing look… He gulped, feeling nervousness creeping inside.

He did know that look so well…

"You have that look in your eyes."

Ginny cocked her head. "I beg your pardon? How am I looking at you?"

"It's… it's the most intense stare in the world. Every time you've looked at me like that, it's been a turning point in our lives. I… I can remember each and every one of those moments… and now I'm nervous at to what expect."

For some reason, this caused a new fit of giggles from Ginny, short-lived this time.

"Ok Potter, now you got me curious," she said. "I'd very much like you'd recall which moments were those. Since I can't see myself, I think I could figure one or two of them, but not the whole lot. Care to fill me in?"

"No. I prefer to know what's going on now."

"Well, I'm not saying," she said mischievously. "You're going to tell me about those moments, and after you've finished, I will clue you in, if you haven't guessed already."

Harry groaned. "You now I hate riddles. Pun not intended."

"Oh, but you're good at puzzles. You can collect hints and signs and then solve the mystery, Auror Potter. I'm up for a bit of fun. Aren't you?"

"To be fair, no. The only thing I'm up for is a cooked breakfast."

Ginny made a face. "Well, I'm not hungry right now, so humor me? Please?" She arranged her features in her well-rehearsed begging expression.

"Do not dare to inflict your puppy eyes on me, Weasley," he said. Ginny added praying hands on. Harry sighed, giving up. "All right. First time I saw that look on you, it was the first time we kissed." Despite his annoyance at the game, he couldn't help smiling.

Ginny grinned, too. "I remember. Common room, after winning the quidditch cup. You climbed through the portrait hole and I ran to you."

"And I kissed you."

"That's what you think. I was first," teased Ginny.

"Sorry, but I distinctly recall kissing you first and then you kissing me back."

Ginny shrugged. "Well, sure, have it your way. Which one next?"

Harry rubbed his eyes. "Not so happy this one. After Dumbledore's funeral, when I broke up with you."

Ginny smiled sadly. "Yes, I also remember that. You were stupidly noble, as usual."

"I had to do what I had to do. It tore me apart, but that look on your face told me that you understood, that you wouldn't expect less of me. It gave me the strength I needed."

"I wish I could say I felt the same strength. It was one of the most difficult things I've had to do in my life, letting you go when we had just begun to be together and didn't know if I was going to see you."

"Are you kidding? You were a rock! Remember my seventeenth birthday? That was another time you stared at me like that. You were so sure, so bold… looking at you was like trying to look at the sun."

"What I didn't tell you was that just before that moment, I was so nervous, Hermione had to give me a pep talk. She was also in charge of keeping undesirable intruders off," she grimaced. "I had planned to go as far as I could, and thanks to my nosy brother, a kiss was all we got."

"Best present of the day, the kiss you gave me. No, best gift of my whole life until then. On the months that followed, that memory kept me going on uncountable times. Till' what I thought it was the end."

"Thank God, it wasn't. You returned," said Ginny.

"And that's when you gave me that look again."