Chapter 15
“So let me get this straight,” said Fred, a grin growing on his face, “this Pridefest is when the Muggles all get naked, slap on some body paint and get out on the street to celebrate sex?”
“Celebrate their sexual identities,” corrected Ginny, staring into the bathroom mirror and drawing a glittering line over her eyebrow. “But yes, more or less. That’s what Harry said.”
“Wicked,” both twins chorused.
“Well, if you two want to come, get yourselves ready,” said Bill, appearing in the hallway behind the twins. He craned over Fred and George’s heads, peering at Ginny. “Don’t let Mum catch you like that, Ginny.”
“It’s just makeup.” Ginny drew another sparkling arch over the other eyebrow. “Fleur lent me her kit. You can change the colors on this pencil thing and it even does glitter, isn’t that amazing?”
“Are you talking about my cosmétique?” Fleur drifted up behind the twins. Her blue eyes widened when she beheld Ginny. “Mon dieu! Out of my way, sauvages, I must rescue Ginny…!” She elbowed the snickering twins aside, marched into the bathroom, and snatched away the magical makeup pencil. “Hold still. This will take some fixing.”
“I don’t want to look pretty, Fleur!” Ginny protested as Fleur brandished her wand. “Or not too pretty. I’m going to Pridefest. I want to look…sparkly!”
“Oui, oui, sparkly not pretty, yes…” Fleur murmured, already siphoning away Ginny’s makeup efforts with her wand.
A quarter-hour later, Ginny emerged, face painted with glittery pink shading into sparkly gold, fingernails painted in rainbows, and flicked her hair back for her staring brothers. “How do I look?” She posed in her sleeveless yellow sundress.
“Like you’ve been Transfigured into a mutant pixie!” cackled George, and he and Fred collapsed into laughter, followed by Ron.
“Are you really sure this Harry bloke is worth it?” he said in an undertone as they all started trooping out of the house.
Ginny was glad her makeup hid her blush. “I’m not doing it for him. I just want to celebrate Pridefest, that’s all.”
“I think you look fine,” said Hermione kindly. She hadn’t let Fleur near her with her cosmetics, but had allowed the twins to run pink and purple highlights through her hair with products from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, so she looked like a fluffy firework. She wore a purple skirt and pink t-shirt. Ron couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, staring like she was a princess.
“Everyone ready?” called Bill in the courtyard. He was wearing his usual black outfit, and Fleur was her normal glorious self. “Ron, Hermione, Ginny, you each grab hold of someone…”
Ginny took Fred’s arm. Harry had warned that parking would be horrendous in San Benito during Pridefest, so the wizards were Apparating into town, Ron, Ginny and Hermione using Side-Along Apparition. Bill had already scouted out a back alley unlikely to be popular with the town’s Muggles.
Sure enough, when they emerged from the suffocating pressure of Apparition, not a single Muggle was to be seen among the stinking, fly-buzzing Dumpsters or shadowed concrete. Ginny blinked sight back into her eyes and blew hard to clear her ears of pressure. Sometimes, she reflected wryly, magic was far from glamorous.
“Come on!” Ron was already running down the alley, to the crowds and noise of the main street.
Ginny gasped when she beheld the spectacle of San Benito’s Pridefest. Bunting was strung across the street, rainbow flags flapping in the breeze. Every corner seemed to have a different DJ playing music, each with their own dance party in session. Children ran giggling through a bubble machine. Each shop was open, windows full of their finest wares, every restaurant spilling over. There was indeed no parking: cars were jammed along the street, with more inching through the crowd of brilliantly dressed Muggles. It seemed half the State of California had crammed itself into this one town: a gyrating mass of people of all ages and genders, each brilliant with festival dress—and undress. Ginny looked away from one example, blushing.
“How’re we going to find Harry and the others in this?” she shouted in Hermione’s ear.
“They said they’d be at the beach!” she yelled back. “Hold onto me!”
Ginny clung to Hermione’s arm with one hand and Ron’s arm with the other. The others all joined the convoy, and in a snaking line the wizards made their way through the crowd, crossing the street and fighting down toward the beach.
It was scarcely less crowded there, with revelers playing in the waves and walking along the sand. Yet more festival-goers danced in the concrete amphitheater to the pounding beats of the loudest DJ yet, performing before a background of shifting colored lights. Ginny was so mesmerized by this display that it was only by sheerest luck that she spotted the telltale mop of black hair, whirling past at the edge of the crowd. “Hey! Harry!”
They all hurried down the beach access stairs, waving frantically. Harry Powell stopped dancing and waved back, face cracking in that lightning-grin. Ginny found herself grinning back, and ran down the last few steps as Harry extracted Tomas and Maya and the Muggles all came forward.
“Ginny! Hey!” Harry, Ginny was both relieved and disappointed to see, had not stripped down for Pridefest. He was wearing his usual baggy shorts, held up by a gray-black-and-white belt, and a white t-shirt with a rainbow unicorn on it. He was, however, sporting a purple plastic headband with antennae on springs, bobbing around whenever he turned his head. “Wow, Ginny, you look great!”
“Thanks. Fleur helped with my makeup.”
Fleur came forward with a gracious smile. “Hello!”
Both Harry and Tomas did that blinking-and-staring thing all men did around Fleur Delacour. Ginny scowled, annoyed. “Weren’t you going to show us around Pridefest?”
“What?” Harry jerked himself out of his trance. “Oh! Yeah, come on, you’ve gotta see the arts fair…”
“Come on, Harry, I want to dance some more!” said Tomas, who was bare-chested and wearing a pair of swimming trunks. Ginny found she was staring at his exquisite abs—and, when she tore her eyes away, she saw Hermione and Fleur were as well. Men weren’t the only ones who could be made fools of by beauty.
“Yeah, Harry!” Maya, Ginny noticed, was holding Tomas’s hand. She wore what seemed to be a swimsuit under a ballerina skirt, as well as a rainbow unicorn’s horn on her head.
"I wouldn’t mind!” said Ron, standing close to Hermione.
“Yeah!” said both twins.
Harry looked around at the others and laughed. “Okay, then!”
“Yes!” They all descended into the crowd of dancers. Ginny laughed aloud, letting the irresistible beat of the music carry her along. Without thinking about it, she began dancing with Harry: both of them shimmying and spinning, laughing together as they kicked and twirled. Harry took Ginny’s hand, whirling her close and spinning her out, nearly knocking over a woman dressed as a fairy.
“So is Pridefest always like this?” Ginny shouted when he spun her close again.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “It’s getting crazier every year, actually! But this is nothing compared to the one they have in San Francisco, I hear.”
“Crazier than this?” Ginny laughed aloud. “Have you ever been to the one in San Francisco?”
“Maya has. But Stephen won’t let me.”
Ginny glanced around, but didn’t see any Cousin Stephens looming out of the delirious crowd. “Is he going to come to this at all?”
Harry gave a laugh that was almost a choke. “Oh! God, no! Stephen wouldn’t be caught dead at something like this. He’ll probably hide in the workshop all day.”
“What workshop?”
“Stephen’s a chemist.” Harry ducked the fabric wing of a rainbow angel wafting past. “He’d be in that workshop 24-7 if I didn’t get him out sometimes.” He danced around Ginny, lunging and gyrating. “What do your parents do?”
“Dad works for the Minis—for the government. Mum stays home.” Ginny pointed at the twins, George dancing with a girl in his arms, Fred with a boy. “Fred and George have just opened their own joke shop, though! They’re doing really well!”
“A joke shop? What do they sell?”
“Toys and games. Puzzles and pranks you can play on your friends. Things like that.”
“Wow.” Harry sounded wistful. “That sounds cool. I wish I could see it.”
For a moment, Ginny imagined taking Harry to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley. Seeing his face light up when he beheld the marvels within. “Maybe you will one day,” she said recklessly. “Maybe you’ll come back to England and I can show you their shop!”
It happened again: all the light in Harry’s face abruptly winking out, replaced by a stiff mask. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because…we live here. Stephen says our lives are here, not back in Britain. That the past is dead and we need to move forward.” Harry craned over Ginny’s shoulder, squinting. “Felicita?”
Ginny turned around, following his gaze. There, sitting on the beach access stairs, was a small tortoiseshell cat. She sat out of the way of the people heading up and down the stairs, very still and quiet, her gaze fixed on Harry. Ginny wasn’t absolutely certain, but she thought it was the same cat as the one in the comics shop.
“What’s she doing here?” Ginny asked. Even as she spoke, Felicita jumped fluidly down, crouching among the beach plants growing on the cliff.
“I don’t know.” Harry shook his head. “She’d normally hide from something like this. But she’s been following me around a lot lately. Sometimes I almost think Miguel put her up to it.” He laughed.
Something nibbled at Ginny’s mind at this. Something about cats and…Squibs? Something about a strange psychic bond…That Squibs couldn’t perform magic but they could talk to cats or something…
She shrugged it off. Even if Miguel Gomez was a Squib, it wasn’t her business. It was odd, though…
Harry reached out then, to take Ginny’s hand. The contact sent a bolt of lightning through her, and she forgot all about cats, Squibs and Cousin Stephens.
“Want to dance some more?” Harry grinned. On the stage, the DJ had started another set, even faster and more rhythmic.
Ginny found herself grinning back. “Absolutely.”
The sun was sinking toward a bright-yellow sea when Harry and Ginny finally escaped the main press of Pridefest, staggering down to the beach once more. “We’ve lost the others,” said Harry. He didn’t sound too concerned.
“I guess we did!” Ginny wasn’t feeling too concerned either. Actually, she was feeling near-euphoric. It had been a perfect day, exciting and fun, full of adventure and new experiences. After dancing, Harry had coaxed Ginny and the others into visiting the art fair, which was marvelous: rows and rows of vendors selling everything from jewelry to book jackets. They’d spent hours shopping before getting lunch at a taco stand and touring the rest of the festival. Ginny now sported her own rainbow-unicorn headband, and both their faces were painted with more rainbows, unicorns and mermaids.
Harry laughed and pulled his sandals off, bare feet sinking into the beach sand. “Do you think you can get back okay?”
“I’ll be fine!” Ginny was pulling her own sandals off as well, heading down toward the water. “Come on, let’s put our feet in.”
They splashed through the waves, the water running in fountains up their ankles, foam hissing over the sand. Somehow, Ginny found her hand back in Harry’s once more. It felt perfectly natural: his grip was strong and gentle at the same time, his skin dry. They wandered the shore, hand in hand.
“Thank you, Harry,” said Ginny at last. “Thank you for such a great day.”
“Hey, thank Pridefest, not me,” he chuckled. “But I’m glad you had fun, Ginny.”
Something about the way he said her name made Ginny stop. She turned to look into his face. The light of sunset had lit Harry’s features, bathing him in pink-orange light, his green eyes glowing. He looked like a merman, some wild beautiful spirit who had always lived along this coast and always would, at one with wind and waves and shore.
Before she could stop herself, Ginny craned up. Harry’s lips were soft and dry. She gave him a quick peck, then a fuller, deeper kiss. He responded, lips moving, tongue darting out. His arms came up around her, hers around him, and then they were kissing in the shallows, the Pacific waves gliding up the sand around them, hissing back out to sea.
When at last they stepped back, Ginny peered into Harry’s face once more. The Muggle looked both wonderstruck and stricken, eyes full of some deep, haunted emotion. “Ginny…”
“What?” Anxiety seized her. “Did you…not like it?”
“I loved it!” he assured her, quick and emphatic. “That was amazing. But Ginny…I…”
“OI!”
Harry and Ginny both sprang apart, splashing in the water, as Ron came storming down the beach. Behind him hurried Hermione, who looked torn between laughter and horror, and—Harry let out a garbled choke—Tomas and Maya, running hand in hand and both definitely laughing.
“What the ruddy hell do you think you’re doing with my sister?” Ron splashed up to Harry, his face like thunder.
“N-nothing!” Harry stammered, backing up.
“Oh, honestly, Ron,” said Ginny, almost relieved at this resumption of normal life after the breathless, euphoric spell of the kiss. “Leave Harry alone. I kissed him, okay?”
“But he kissed you back!” Ron bellowed.
“Well, what else was he supposed to do?” giggled Maya. “Good job, Harry! Your first kiss!”
“Oh, shut up,” Harry muttered, turning red and staring down at the foam around his feet.
“Aw, don’t be like that, Brexit.” Tomas strode up to place an arm around his shoulders. “We’re all so proud of you!” Harry shoved him, making him stumble and splash in the waves.
“I’m not proud!” thundered Ron. “Kissing my sister!”
“Relax, Ron, it’s Pridefest,” chuckled Tomas. “Kissing’s allowed. Anyway, I think I saw your brother Fred involved in a pretty heavy make-out session with a guy behind the music stage earlier.”
“What?” Ron looked ready to explode.
“What’s going on here?” It was Bill, coming down the beach with Fleur, Fred and George in tow. Ginny was nearly certain both twins were wearing different clothes than the ones they’d put on this morning, and Fred was definitely sporting a hickey on his neck. Ginny thought of Tomas’s revelation and fought back a snigger.
“Ginny was snogging Harry!” Ron rounded on Bill, jabbing an accusing finger at Harry.
“Really? Well, good for you, Ginny,” said Bill. Ginny beamed.
“Don’t you understand?” Ron yelled. “They were snogging! On the beach!”
“Ron, calm down,” said Hermione. “You’re always snogging and kissing me, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but…my sister…with a stranger!” Ron looked at a loss for words. The twins, meanwhile, were howling with laughter, staggering around on the sand.
“Well, there is an easy solution to this, is there not?” said Fleur, who was fighting down her own grin. “We shall simply invite Harry and his friends to dinner at our rental. Then he will no longer be a stranger and it will be all right for Ginny to kiss him if she chooses.”
“Thanks, Fleur, that’s a great idea,” said Ginny, shooting a glare at Ron, who looked on the verge of apoplexy.
“Yes!” Harry straightened. “Thank you! When?”
“Perhaps tomorrow night,” said Bill. He eyed the still-sputtering Ron sidelong. “After everyone’s had a chance to, ah, calm down.”
“That sounds great!” said Maya. “I’m free after five.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the inside of the Ghost Rental,” Tomas added eagerly.
“Excellent!” said Bill. “Then shall you come to the rental at five thirty tomorrow evening? We’ll make dinner.”
“Sounds marvelous,” said Harry. He was indeed looking excited, back straight, eyes lit. “We’ll be there.”
“All right, then! We’ll see you then.” Bill checked his watch. “Now, I think everyone should start heading home. It’s getting late.”
“Okay. Goodbye, Harry!” Ginny waved to Harry, who waved back, still standing in the frothing shallows. Ginny considered kissing him again, but decided against giving poor Ron a heart attack.
They all headed back up the beach access stairs, bumping into other tired but happy revelers, and parted ways at street level, with further farewells. Ginny watched Harry disappear into town, heading home, and wondered what his Cousin Stephen would say if Harry told him of the kiss.