Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not like a high-school-age girl could reasonably own anything I've used for this, but I'm being overly precautionary like I usually am.
A/N: For the 80s Film Challenge (HPFFC). I chose Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so this is kind-of based on it. No one's really going to be in character and the plot has been tweaked. The key characters take turns narrating; narrator switches are in italic. There will probably be several more chapters – at least two.
Ginny:
Ever had one of those days when taking a holiday from your normal life makes more sense than it should? I did, once, and it was quite an experience. But let me back up a bit, to the morning it happened.
I had a lot of stuff to do that day, even more than some of the older kids I knew. Though I usually handled that sort of thing, I'd had enough of it. Taking a day off and hanging out with my friends just made sense. Plus that, I'd get to explore the wider world known as Muggle London, which I'd wanted to do for ages but hadn't gotten around to doing.
The first thing to do was to get Luna to tag along. The general rule of things involving her was that if she was doing something that a normal person was also doing, it wasn't a bad idea. So long as she didn't look like she was from another planet during the trip, it'd be fun to have her along for the ride.
Luna:
"You want to WHAT?" I screeched. Ginny was a surprising sort of person to begin with, but exploring Muggle London instead of trying to study for the exams was crazy even by my standards. Usually I'd jump at the chance to get out of school-related things (I always knew that my having been sorted into Ravenclaw was a glitch), but this was total insanity.
"I told you, Luna, we need a day off," Ginny replied. She was trying to seem reasonable, but it wasn't working. In fact, she made me, the queen of crazy, seem perfectly normal, and that was a hard thing to do. "Come on, we have another week of studying for the exams ahead of us – a day off won't hurt. Plus that, I need someone to be on my side when I try to convince the rest of our group, and you're perfect for that."
I kind-of knew she'd say something like that. Whenever someone in our group was trying to convince the others, I was the perfect assistant. It seemed like there was some rule involving me, something along the lines of, "get Luna on your side and you'll be more convincing". It did seem to work, for some reason that totally escaped me.
"All right," I finally said. "I'll go, just because someone's got to keep the lovebirds in check." Now that most of our group was paired off and the only other one who wasn't was chasing after a girl who was totally out of his league, I seemed more reasonable than ever! After all, I seemed to be the only one who realized that tying the knot right after you finish school isn't the most intelligent thing you can do.
Ginny:
Now that I had Luna on my side, albeit with a reason I didn't particularly like, convincing the others was easy. "Come on," I said, "you only live once!"
"And besides that," Luna added, "We have loads of time to make sure we're ready for the exams. This is almost perfect."
Of course, someone had to object. "If we're not fully ready for the exams, SOME of us might not get to do what we like later on," Hermione muttered. She glared at Ron as she said this, although I didn't know why – he was the most prepared of any of us, with a job already lined up at George's shop. Of course, that probably wouldn't last too long, but it was better than nothing.
For once I was happy that most of our pack had to survive seventh year at the same time Luna and I did. The guys were remarkably enthusiastic about it, and even Hermione looked, if not happy, at least willing to tag along. So we were off.
Luna:
"So how exactly are we going to get to London in a decent bit of time?" Leave it to Hermione to worry about every little detail. She was always doing that to the extent that it made me wonder why we put up with her. Of course, Harry and Neville were used to it by now, Ginny saw her as the big sister she never had, and Ron positively adored her. There are definite disadvantages to becoming part of a group after it's existed for several years, as I found out the hard way.
"We can Apparate now, remember?" Ginny reminded me of a snapping turtle these days, not like she hadn't been that way before. I guess that losing family members can do that to people, but I don't really know. It didn't happen to me, but then again, I was nine and probably immune to stuff like that.
Within seconds, we were off. We'd decided on an unused building near the Ministry telephone box as our destination, and we were going in pairs just in case something went wrong. I ended up with Neville since he had no sense of direction and I did, at least that's the version Ginny gave me. It was funny, since I knew the real reason she'd done it was because she was trying to set us up. I didn't quite mind the idea, of course, but I'd always hated matchmaking.
Neville and I landed perfectly, as did Hermione and Ron. The problem was that Harry and Ginny didn't quite make it to our destination. Problems had happened already, I realized to my dismay.
Hermione:
"This makes a lot of sense if you think about it," I finally said after listening to Luna, Neville, and Ron panic for several minutes. "They're off somewhere else, doing who-knows-what, and they've left us to fend for ourselves. I'm telling you, if they accidentally landed someplace else, they'd have figured it out and come here by now. So come on, I'm taking over and we're exploring, like we were supposed to do."
Luna looked at me like I was crazy. I had to get used to her doing that. We'd all changed because of the war, but her more so than anyone else. She was still flighty and she still used Nargles to explain all the random stuff that happened, but she was deeper and more intense than ever. Some days I wondered if she was still the same person. "We should at least leave a note telling them where we've gone, in the unlikely event they come here," she said. I noticed that her voice no longer had the musical lilt that it used to have. She'd been through more than the rest of us, so it made sense that she was different.
"Okay," I said, "we'll leave a note." So Luna wrote one:
Dear Harry and Ginny,
We're exploring like you two were supposed to be. If/when you find this, we'll be somewhere near that big clock ("It's called Big Ben," I snapped, but she didn't hear me).
Sincerely
Luna, Hermione, Neville, and Ron
PS – If you are not one of the people named above, please disregard this note and leave it here for them to find.