#frotcot bingo

It took twenty-three dates.

Twenty-four if you count their shag in the ministry loo. Harry decided he definitely did.

Twenty-four dates before the stubborn bastard said it.

One word that set Harry’s nerves alight; relief in his lungs, elation in his veins.

One word breathed into their tender kiss.

We knew the first time we saw them together in public, of course! Well. Some of us knew. Some of us were still insisting the poor boy was straight, which anyone with a Witch Weekly subscription should have known was nonsense. Take that photograph on page two, November 3, 2001. We can remember it like it was yesterday, the way he was looking at Charlie Weasley on the dancefloor! His eyes were hotter than all those laser lights bouncing around! Well, and who wouldn’t look at Charlie Weasley like that? “Because he was reminded of Ginevra,” our broomsticks!

Excuse us. Some of us are a little excitable, due to the occasion.

We were saying: it was clear as a sunny day in January, those boys were head over heels on their first re-encounter. We saw all we needed to, there on page one! Among the dozen pictures from the opening of the new hospital wing, the way their gazes caught and clashed! The way their eyes kept dropping to each other's lips! And then— heads together, tilted close to hear amid what surely was a din of conversation, as if they were the only two in the world. Now that is romance, right there on the glossy page for anyone to see. And what could be more interesting than that?

So it was hardly surprising, to us, of course, when we saw them together again three issues later. We had debated it hotly in the meantime: where would they go? A formal date, a paparazzi shot of one leaving the other’s home in the early hours? A casual encounter easily explained? When we tell you, not a one of us could have predicted— except yes, fine, except Amelia, but her sight isn’t strong enough to see the biscuits in the tin half the time, so none of us listen to Amelia— well. Who, now honestly who, (besides Amelia) could have predicted the Scene at the Harpies Match?

And what a scene! Many of us screamed when we saw it! Four dozen of us dropped our tea cups and had to wait for our hands to stop shaking before we cast Reparo. Others bit our own hands nearly hard enough to draw blood, and Cuthbert fainted dead away onto a blessedly convenient chaise. That first image, the quick glances when they thought no one was looking, just missing each other's eyes over and over! The way the wind ruffled their hair, and that extra inch of throat from an open collar. That would have been enough to keep us going for another week, surely! But there was more.

Angry faces, flushed cheeks, and then! The way he stood up so quickly and strode out (on those legs, Merlin keep us), and the way he jumped up to follow! And of course. The pièce de résistance, which of course you would have seen: the confrontation against the wall of the stadium, braced against each other, furious, and— excuse us while we sigh— the Kiss.