The summer before his seventh year, he kisses her; it's a fumbling attempt, wet and awkward, with half her brothers only an open door away. She freezes for a second, her lips on his, before gently disengaging herself and backing away, her expression a mixture of regret and apology.
Afterwards, he can't stop thinking about her. He knows he's being obvious, but he doesn't care. He watches her practising Quidditch, while pretending to revise in the stands. He finds himself heading off, Freudianly, to her lessons instead of his; occasionally he catches her eye, but she just smiles and shrugs.
He spends his evenings in the common room revelling in the way her hair gleams in the firelight, and watching her chatter to other boys. He'd like to be one of them, but she's made it clear he's missed his chance. And so he watches, and then in bed at night, he imagines her soft hair caressing his body, and fantasises about touching the little pointed breasts he once caught a guilty glimpse of when passing the door to the girls' Quidditch changing room.
He wonders whether she's slept with any of her admirers yet. There are no rumours circulating about her, unlike Pansy, for example, so he thinks perhaps not.
He thinks she knows he's watching her, but she doesn't react at all. In fact, "indifferent" seems to be a pretty accurate description of her attitude to him these days.
He's supposed to be thinking about overcoming Voldemort, but his mind is full of her.
He makes a pass at her during the summer. They’ve run inside to escape a hailstorm; she goes to get some biscuits, turns round, and there he is, his nose two centimetres from hers. When he kisses her, she thinks of how she's dreamed about this for years, and considers putting her arms around him and hugging as hard as she can to keep him safe.
And then she remembers Tom Riddle taunting her, saying Harry would never care about a silly little girl like her, and she knows she can't do this, not until Voldemort is gone. She remembers meeting Voldemort face to face, a few months earlier, and how he mocked her, saying, "Ah, the Weasley girl. I gather we've met before." She thinks of the obituaries in the Prophet, and of Tom again, and she pushes Harry away.
Afterwards, she doesn't know what to say to him, or how to explain, and so she smiles when she catches his eye, and hopes he doesn't mind too much. And then she pretends nothing's changed between them, except that she watches him watching her, and loves the way her skin tingles at the feel of his gaze.
She knows she was right, mostly. She'll fight alongside him, and give her all to the struggle against Voldemort, but she won't play the damsel in distress again; she'll never again be a pawn in Voldemort's game of chess.
They dance around each other all year at school, until Voldemort makes his move. They are – not ready, but waiting: Harry and Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and the others. Even Draco Malfoy.
After all the death and celebrations, she returns to The Burrow for the holidays, while he's kept busy in London doing interviews and photo shoots; the wizarding world can't get enough of Harry Potter. He visits frequently, but they're never alone, and she wonders whether she imagined his hungry eyes last year.
But then, on an August afternoon, he catches her in the kitchen when nobody's around. She reaches to get something from a cupboard, and turns to find he's there again. And it's she who kisses him this time, and he who pulls away, but only to stroke her face and butterfly-kiss her eyes. They don't speak, because all they have to talk about is pain and longing and grief. So she kisses his guilt away, and he kisses her heartache better, and they forget for a while. Voldemort is gone, and many of their friends are gone; but they're alive, in love, and in lust, and maybe, eventually, they can be happy.