I do not own Harry Potter. All rights go to J.K. Rowling.
The swimming pool incident
Summary: Looking back on it, Hermione wished that she never suggested going to the swimming pool.
It was a year after the war had ended, and a lot had happened. This particular (August 14th) was the day after Hogwarts had, at last, been fully repaired. The gang thought that this was cause for celebration.
At 1:00, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna and Draco met in a café to decide what to do. After the war, everyone had made up with Draco and over the year they had become firm friends. (Although Ron still felt slightly inclined to tease him about the 'ferret incident' in 4th year.)
It was after an hour and several cups of coffee that Hermione came up with the answer.
"What about a pool party?"
Everyone apart from Harry just stared at her blankly. After about a minute (during which Hermione's face gradually grew redder from embarrassment), Draco came out of his trance and asked "What is a pool?"
Hermione sighed. "A swimming pool is a structure, often a concrete-lined excavation of rectangular shape, which is filled with water and used for swimming."
Everyone stared at her in shock, at a loss as to how she could actually quote a dictionary. (Even though it seemed impossible to do, Hermione went even redder.)
After about five minutes, Ron said "So it's kinda like a mini ocean?"
Hermione sighed again. "For now, I'll just say yes."
"But don't you need a … what do you call it? A soofboard?"
While trying to hold back giggles, Hermione said "It's called a surfboard, Ron. And you don't need one, but some people like to use them."
Ginny, however, was concerned about something else.
"But won't our clothes get really wet?"
This time, Hermione couldn't control herself and burst out laughing, so Harry stepped in to explain.
"You don't go swimming in your clothes, Gin. You wear a swimsuit."
"And where would I find one of them?"
"In a muggle shop."
"Of course."
Hermione (who had managed to stop her laughing fit) asked "So does everyone agree on the pool party?"
After a few tense minutes deliberation, in which Ron and Draco got jabbed with forks, everyone agreed.
At 3:30 they all met outside the swimming pool.
After glancing at what Ron was carrying, Harry and Hermione burst out laughing and Neville asked in bewilderment "Ron, what the hell are you holding?"
"It's a soofboard. My dad found it in his shed.
In between his laughter, Harry managed to ask "Do you even know how to use one?"
Ron smiled "Easy. You just stand on it and 'ride the waves.' At least that's what dad told me."
Suddenly, Luna looked very wary. "That board is surrounded by wrackspurts."
Draco snorted. He still wasn't used to Luna. Suddenly Ginny frowned.
"What should we do with our wands? I mean, we can't just leave them lying around."
Hermione frowned. "You're right…"
After a few moments, she brightened up. She pulled out her wand, held it out in the palm of her hand, grabbed Ron's wand and muttered a few words under her breath. She then did the same to everyone else's wands. When she had finished, they stared at her, bewildered.
The Ron spoke up. "What the hell have you done to my wand?"
Ron then quickly realised what he had said, and he and Hermione blushed deep scarlet. Meanwhile, Harry, Ginny, Neville and Draco were in hysterics and even Luna was giggling crazily.
When they calmed down, excluding the occasional mad giggle from Luna, Hermione explained what she had done.
"I've made them waterproof so that we can leave them on poolside."
Everyone nodded in approval and marvelled inwardly at how Hermione thought of that.
They entered the building and were immediately freaked out by the fact that the woman at reception was staring at them. It took Harry and Hermione a few moments to work out why the woman was staring. They looked at the others and realised that they were still wearing wizard robes.
Draco, who hadn't realised that they had to pay, walked straight into the changing rooms. Unfortunately, the woman chose this moment to come out of her trance and hit the security button. Harry personally thought that they were all doomed; at least until he heard Hermione yell "Obliviate!" and heard the alarms fade into silence. Everyone hurried into the changing rooms before they had to explain their odd fashion sense to the muggle police.
10 minutes later, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville were all in the otherwise empty pool and waiting for Luna and Draco to come out of the changing rooms. They were surrounded by floats, inflatables and bouncy balls.
Hermione and Harry knew what kind of costume to get, so Hermione was wearing a plain red costume and Harry was wearing black trunks. Ron and Ginny had done quite well considering they didn't really know what to look for. Ginny was in a purple and white polka dot costume and Ron was wearing orange trunks with aquamarine swirls. Neville, however, hadn't quite got the picture. He was wearing a neon pink wetsuit.
Ron suddenly noticed that the pool was empty (apart from them and the toys) and decided to query it.
"Hermione, why are we the only ones in here?"
Hermione then pulled a Draco-worthy smirk. "Whenever anyone comes, they realise that they are missing an extremely important meeting and have to turn back."
Throughout that sentence, Hermione's tone had become more and more evil, and everyone had become more and more scared.
Just then, Luna entered. She was wearing a bright yellow costume with sunflowers on it. As it was Luna, no one queried this. Much to everyone's surprise, she screamed, ran to the pool and dove in. She didn't resurface for about 20 seconds, and when she did, she looked genuinely terrified.
Ron, genuinely concerned, asked "Luna, what's wrong?"
"The swizzlebergs!"
"The swizzle-what?"
"The Swizzlebergs! They're tiny, fuzzy, purple creatures with massive ears that float above water and create mayhem! Fear for your sanity!" Luna then dove back underwater. So did everyone else, but that was just to hide their laughter.
Ginny was the first to emerge with a straight face.
"Luna, how come we can't see them?"
"Because their invisible."
"Then how come you can see them?"
"Because daddy taught me to."
"… Okay …" Ginny was slowly inching away from Luna.
Just then Draco entered, blushing deeply and muttering "No one says a word." He was wearing bright blue trunks with pink bunnies on them, bright orange armbands and a yellow ducky rubber ring.
"Can't you swim, Draco? I thought ferrets could swim." Said Ron, stifling laughter.
"Well I can't, so shut up about it."
"Okay." Ron decided not to push it further, as only Hermione could actually swim. The rest could only manage doggy paddle.
Draco slid in, looking extremely miffed, and moved up to where the others were.
"So what do we do now?" he asked. Everyone turned to stare at Hermione. She was about to reply when they heard an automated voice.
"The wave machine is about to start."
Hermione paled. She had been to this pool before, and she knew that the waves were really strong. Even she struggled in them. She was about to warn Draco to get out when she heard a yell.
"It's the swizzlebergs!" They all turned round just in time to see Luna dive under yet again. They heard noises from the deep end and turned to see massive waves forming. They heard a yell from Ginny who had just been hit on the back of the head with a massive float.
"I'm doing-aarghh!" Harr, Hermione, Draco and Neville turned to the source of the noise to see a submerged Ron and a capsized surfboard.
The next 30 minutes was a blur of everyone knocking into each other, the pool toys and Ron's surfboard. There was also the occasional shout of "Stop you evil swizzlebergs!"
At last the waves stopped. As the seven bruised and battered teenagers clambered out of the pool, Hermione vowed to herself that she would never again suggest going to a swimming pool.
A/N: Hi, I'm back. The idea of this one-shot came to me while I was in the sea on holiday. I hope you liked it! As for my other on-going story, I have not abandoned it, and I never will. The updates will just be a bit irregular. At the moment I have a temporary writers block on the story to please pm me ideas. As for this story, please review to let me know if you liked it and whether I should do more one-shots like this. B-)
