Legal disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warning: NA

Author's note: I've recently found myself in the Houses Competition as part of the Hufflepuff House, and it's been an absolute delight getting to know my team so far, even if I started out massively confused about (let's be real here) everything! So without further ado, here is my little fic for Bailey for our Pre-Round Challenge!

Submitting info:

House: Hufflepuff

Role: Player (Second Year)

Category: Pre-Round Challenge

Prompt: Bailey (Era: Post-War)

Representation: Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Quidditch, post-war, the Burrow, recovery

Word Count: 1623

Muscle Memory

Of course, the Firebolt had been lost months ago; but when Ginny threw Harry a broom, she made sure it was the fastest one available at the Burrow.

He caught it and looked up at her, frowning. He'd been quite peaceful before she arrived. He had taken to sitting under this tree in the backyard that she'd spent years trying to convince her parents to adorn with a treehouse. They had insisted that it was a bad idea on account of how eager some of their children would be to push their siblings out, which in retrospective was not wrong.

It was a great tree, to be perfectly clear, but it had always been Ginny's place to go and think, usually not about nice things, and Harry spent enough time thinking as it was. Sometimes at dinner, it felt as if he wasn't really at the table no matter how noisy the kitchen got. When Mrs. Tonks brought Teddy around, Harry spent his time watching the baby sleep or sit on the porch with him. He held books sometimes as if he was reading, but Ginny had watched him pretend to study under Hermione's nose for years, so she knew he was only pretending. Ron said that even when he went to bed early, Harry was never sleeping. So when Ginny had seen him under her tree, she'd decided that enough was enough: it was time for Harry Potter to stop thinking.

"Ron told me there were some stunts involving brooms in the Room of Requirement before it burned down, but that hardly counts as flying," Ginny said.

"Funny, I recall being in the air," Harry said.

"Well it doesn't, largely because you did it to save your life, not for fun," Ginny said. "I don't reckon you've done a lot of flying over the last year."

"As it turns out, horcruxes don't fly," Harry said shortly.

"Boring," Ginny said.

She tried not to feel too smug about the fact that she'd gotten him to joke about horcruxes. She untied the scarf in her hair to cover her hand as she reached into her pocket and fished out the golden Snitch, holding it up tantalizingly. Harry's eyes locked on it immediately, with a speed and awareness somewhat like a rabbit's.

"It's fresh," Ginny said. "I'll race you for it."

Harry grinned. Mum had been fretting over him, Ron, and Hermione even more than usual this summer, which was saying something. Harry seemed to feel bad about causing her so much worry, crashing at the Burrow, and probably a million other things. He'd been tolerating an absurd amount of Celestina Warbeck for Mum's sake and had even let her cut his hair. It was long on top, short in the back, and while Ginny hated to admit it (and probably never would out loud) she really liked it.

"You'll race me for a Snitch?" he said.

"Out of shape, Potter?" she asked, leaning on her own broom. "Been a while?"

"Oh, not at all," he said getting up. "But if you think you've got a chance Weasley, I guess it just really has been a long time since you've seen me."

Ginny didn't answer. She knew he'd been teasing, but… well, that was part of the problem. It had been so long.

She wasn't sure how to react, so she let the Snitch go and took off after it.

"Cheater!" Harry called after her. She turned around to watch him take off after her, which was a mistake since she lost sight of the Snitch.

Harry got eyes on it again, and from that point on she relied on her speed as a Chaser to beat him to his target and get in his way. He hadn't flown, let alone played Quidditch in a while, but he was quite agile. She tried pushing him off his broom at least three times, which probably wasn't her best idea. She could just imagine The Prophet's headlines: "Boy Who Lives, Defeater of the Dark Lord, Plummets to Death Because of Overenthusiastic Ex." The mail she would get from that…

Ultimately not only did Harry not plummet to his death, but he caught the Snitch. It was a nice catch too: he'd lunged forwards, caught it, and recovered his balance by launching into a barrel roll.

Snitch in hand, he looked at her with a pleased – dare she say smug – look on his face. They hovered in place.

"Good one, but if the Carrows hadn't cancelled Quidditch, I would have gotten it," Ginny insisted. Immediately, she slapped herself internally for mentioning Death Eaters when they were supposed to be having fun. But apparently, the banter overpowered the cloud that had been hanging since the battle.

"Are you admitting you're rusty, Ginny?"

"Me? Rusty? That took you ages, Potter. I might as well have challenged Merlin!"

"I like to think Merlin would have let you win," Harry said. "No such luck with me."

He handed her back the Snitch and she shook her head.

"Keep it," Ginny said. He slipped it in the pocket of his jeans and then there was no clear thing for either of them to do. Harry nudged his head downwards.

"We should fly lower," Harry said. "We don't have any spells on…"

Ginny cursed. "You're right, don't tell Mum."

They landed among the apple orchard, though the fruits were still quite small at this point in the summer. The Snitch seemed to wrestle against the fabric inside of his pocket. He took it out again.

"Feisty," he said simply. "Is that why you picked it out?"

"I actually made Bill pick it up on his way to work," Ginny said. "I thought you'd like it. It's much less serious than interviews and meetings with the minister and discussing all those Azkaban reforms..."

"Thank you," Harry said quietly. "I… you're right."

"I know I'd need some fun, if I'd had the year you had," Ginny said. "But I also know that you can't just start being happy. The timing has to be right. I've been waiting to give it to you for ages."

Harry nodded and swallowed hard before looking up.

"I've been waiting…" he cleared his throat self-consciously. "I looked at the Marauder's Map nearly every day, to make sure you were alright. I hope that's not strange."

She didn't know if it was, but she answered honestly. "I would have done the same. I worried about you so much. I read the paper three times a day, cover to cover. It drove Neville mad. I kept expecting to see you'd been arrested."

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Harry said.

"I thought that," Ginny said quietly, thinking of the procession of Death Eaters that had flowed out of the Forbidden Forest.

Neither of them made a move to leave or go back towards the house. Harry was finally the one who spoke the words connecting this mess of fears and anxiety and half-spoken truths they'd spilled over.

"I missed you," he said simply.

"I missed you, too."

"I missed you so much," Harry said. His voice choked on the words and he rubbed a hand over his face nervously, looking a tad annoyed. "I… Ginny, so many people are gone and we're still here. I think, if you want, that it would make sense to…"

She dropped her broom because two free hands were required to grab a boy's face and kiss him senselessly. His hands quickly found their way back to his favourite places to hold her – one on the small of her back, and one between her shoulder blades. Her hands quickly made her way to his hair and that new haircut of his, which gave a familiar kiss new texture and made the whole thing feel like a fresh start. And somewhere, in the midst of this, she concluded that if Snitches had flesh memories, people had muscle memories that made this kind of rekindling so quick and so warm.

When she pulled away, she laughed.

"Such a Seeker," she said. "You didn't let go of the Snitch."

She'd felt it pressed against her spine. Harry grinned.

"Well, I knew you wouldn't be able to catch it again if I did…"

"Sod off," she said. She was aware of how close they still were. "Brave words for a man who didn't even finish asking me to be his girlfriend again."

"See, I wasn't going to," Harry said. "I… I know I've changed. I know you've changed. Obviously, we already know how to kiss quite well…"

"Among other things," Ginny said.

"Umm—right," Harry said, blushing a bit.

Another headline came to mind: "Boy Who Lives, Afraid of Girls."

"I don't think we can't pick up from last year, so I think we should start from scratch," Harry said. "Because I've thought about this a lot. I was going to ask you if you wanted to go down to the village sometime. I hear that there's a summer festival this weekend, which sounds like a proper second first date."

"I suppose I'll agree to that," Ginny said. "Quick question though: do you kiss on the first date, Potter?"

"Trick question," Harry said. "You know I kiss before anything even starts."

"That I do," Ginny said with a smile, leaning up to kiss him again. While he was distracted, she pried the Snitch from his hand and released it back into the air. She kicked his broom away, mounted hers, and took off again shouting: "REMATCH!"

He said something whiny about something being not fair. Ginny couldn't fathom what he was talking about, but no matter. She also anticipated a lot of time to even out the scores.