.:::.

The heat seeps into everything: every corner of the house, every breath of humid air, every bit of clothing. It finds even the cool stone floor of the cellar, where Ginny has taken to napping in the afternoons since the heat in her third-floor bedroom became unbearable, the sheets too damp with sweat to lie on. It presses down on Ginny’s chest as she stretches out on the cellar floor, making her work to breathe. The stone beneath her bare skin is warming now, almost as if the sun were bearing down on it.

Mum's chilling charms help for an hour or so, but this heat is different, resistant to magic somehow. It beats the energy out of them, exhaustive and oppressive, and they are tired of casting cooling charms. It seems easier to lie here, to be as still as possible. To do nothing.

And so they've done nothing all day, all week. She hasn't seen Ron or Mum since breakfast. Dad went to the Ministry, determined to find a Muggle "air extinguisher" to bring home.

The house is quiet. Ginny wipes the sweat from her forehead and lets it drip from her fingertips and onto the floor. She wonders how much one person can sweat before they die of dehydration. She's thirsty. The kitchen is too far away. She fumbles for her wand, but it isn’t there.

She closes her eyes.

He finds her there, sometime after dark when it's impossibly hotter. She squirms against his touch; his fingers feel like fire on her bare skin, tracing jagged paths that sear her to the point of anger. She pushes his hands away.

"It's a spell," he whispers, brushing damp hair back from her forehead. "It took us days to work it out. It's affecting everyone in the area."

"Go 'way," she mumbles, turning onto her side.

He doesn't, though. His hands are under the sticky blouse, pulling it over her head. It twists in her hair and gets hung, and she hisses at him. His hands brand her skin, and she’s sure she can feel welts rising on her belly, her breasts, her neck.

"You've got to trust me," he says, and tugs at her knickers. "This is the only way out." The wet fabric scrapes her thighs, the wetness leaving her skin cooler for the briefest of moments before the heat sinks in again. Every brush of his fingers seems to make her hotter, but he won’t let her lie still. He won’t leave her alone. He pushes her thighs apart and then he’s everywhere – on her, in her, scalding her everywhere he touches. The heat is unbearable, stabbing into her gut with long strokes, pooling beneath her, dripping from her cunt with every movement.

And then it happens: a shiver of something, almost a memory, tugging at her from the center and radiating outward, a coolness she’d forgotten about. His fingers find her clit and she remembers that too, how she showed him the way to touch her, hands up her skirt, fingers sliding under her knickers, small circles and the smell of grass out by the lake, all pulling her towards the edge, swirling ever closer.

She opens her eyes.

His mouth is open, his face strained from effort, and his eyes bore into her. He isn’t sweating, she realizes. The heat doesn’t touch him. The ceiling comes into focus behind his head, old rusty pipes forming strange patterns of shadow and light. The floor is growing cooler.

She feels the heat swelling inside her, and she lets go, her heels digging into Harry's arse and her fingernails drawing blood from his bare shoulders. She doesn't make a sound, though – she can't. It's too much, too intense, and she feels the heat flood from her, bursting out, leaving a chill so deep she starts to shiver.

He stills inside her, panting, and then even that warmth is gone as he moves away. He returns with a blanket and wraps it around her. Her teeth chatter. She can only stare up at him, wide-eyed.

"It's broken now," he says, still looking concerned. "You'll be all right."

He pulls her to her feet and takes her up the cellar stairs, past Mum and Dad and Ron, all of whom look pale and frightened. She wonders if they know how Harry cured her. She hopes not, but she blushes all the same.

"What happened?" she whispers as Harry tucks her into her own bed, three blankets pulled up to her chin. She still shivers.

He pauses, a shadow crossing his face. "A curse of some sort. Two people died before we realized what it was."

She shakes her head, certain she's dreaming. "I don't understand."

"People who'd had sex within 24 hours of being exposed were unaffected, as were people who never... and so your father thought you were safe, since you... well, you’re not, and I had to tell him that we'd--" He waves his hand between them, cheeks flushing pink. "And he asked me to... help you."

"Oh god." She closes her eyes and sinks down into the mattress. "He asked you to...?"

"You only had a few hours left. We had no choice."

It doesn't make her feel any better. "Oh god."

He doesn't say anything more. He toes off his shoes and slides under the covers with her, wrapping his arms around her. The heat feels good now, comforting, soothing, warm skin and rough denim and his lips are soft on hers.

"Stay," she whispers into his mouth.

"Yes." He pulls her against his chest.

She'll feel embarrassed tomorrow morning at breakfast, with her parents and her brother all staring at them over tea and toast and knowing, but right now she doesn't think about that.

She smiles and kisses him again. "Are you sure I’m cured? Do you think we should do it again, just in case?"

He grins.

.:::.

~ fin ~