Hermione hated weddings. She especially hated magical weddings. But what she hated the most
was cupid. More specifically shiny little cupids with real wings and arrows that actually worked.
Yes, they did wear off, as Fred and George assured her in two to three hours (thank all that was
holy for that) but it was still bloody annoying to have to hide behind a mangy shed in order to
get away from Luna of all people trying to suck her face off. That, believe it or not, was not
the worst part. The worst part that she had actually suceeded right in front of the entire
reception, and those few who didn't see it, well they could look at the pictures.
Yes, there were pictures. Yes, she had a slight anger management problem. Yes, she really wanted kill something right now. Preferably something small, happy, furry, and smaller than her.
She banged her head against the rotten wood of the shed. This only served to make her headache more painful and make the shed wobble alarmingly. All she now needed is for the shed to collapse. Either that or for a stinkbomb wrapped in dead fish to drop out of the sky and hit her on live television. In some ways she prefered the latter since Ron didn't watch TV, know how to pronounce television, or be interested in this 'amusing' event. His eyes were already too occupied checking out Fleur's cousins. And she a had a lot of cousins. And this is how we come to the actual cause for this murderous rage and bottomless depression. Not the fact that Luna had kissed her (and had used WAY too much tongue), no a stupid bumbeling little moron commonly know by the name of Ron Weasly or 'Bootlicker Supreme' whichever you preferred.
Unfortunatly (for him), right as she was about to ramble on about his blindness, deafness, dumbness and general idioticism he came lumbering down the road bearing the same disgruntled expression she would wear if her face was strechier. She decided to (again) push the wrath into her cupboard and tell it to stay until, at least, they were in a slightly less public place and she had time to establish her alibi and asking the her 'tell me all your secrets' comforting voice:
"What's wrong?"
He looked up from the ground he was in the process of frying, startled.
"I didn't realize anyone was here."
She rolled her eyes and barely resisted yelling 'Captian Obvious to the rescue!' at the top of her lungs. Instead she said:
"Well usually I don't spend weddings counting the amount breaths I can take before the mold on this shed kills me, but I didn't like the decor."
He furrowed his brow, puzzled and said:
" What's wrong with the way its decorated, yeah, the cupids are cheesy, but all in all..."
And again she had to remind herself, that although he could be extremely intelligent in some areas, she was talking to a guy who barely knew what sarcasm meant, much less be able to reconize it.
"I was kidding, Ron, I am here because Luna won't leave me alone, as you've probably heard."
Yeah, real smooth, Granger, bring up one of the more humiliating moments in your life, why not
bring out the baby pictures out next, you know the ones where you are naked in the bathtub.
SHe decided not to continue this thought for several reasons, Number one being that she didn't
even want to imagine what he would be thinking IF he ever saw those pictures (althought that
was not extremely likely, the five protection charms, 6 anti-intruder potions, and the
various gadgets involving pins and several catapults would take care of that), Number two being
that she didn't want to scare the poor little woodlice with the loudness of his laughter, and
Number three being that this was not the time to be thinking about Ron, bathtubs, and
backwashing in the same sentence.
" Yeah, I didn't see that, but Fred showed me a picture." He chuckled, his face breaking out in a wide grin. " I always thought there was something weird about her."
" She was hit with an arrow, Ron, cupid's arrow. One of your brother's stupid inventions. And that weirdness you noticed was probably due to the fact that she has this odd affinity with wearing radishes on her ears."
"Why are you being so sarcastic, you do it a lot, but today you are really laying it on thick."
And he has noticed, without me having to run off the dictionary definition of sarcasm, irony,
and cynicism all in one breath. I feel so loved.
"I'm grumpy."
"Ah."
And the silence was awkward so I decided to return to my original question,which I (suprisingly)
hadn't gotten a long-winded tirade of grumbles to. I repeated my question and patiently
waited for the "It's just..."s, the handwaving, and annoyed sighs to pan out into an
account of why Ron looked like Bush had just gotten re-elected (by some impossible
feat involving a lot of tipexing out the part of the law that holds the two terms only rule)
Not that he cared about politics, much less muggle politics.
" Ginny was snogging one of Fleur's distantly related cousins behind some tree and I yelled at her" at this point he carefully looked at my face looking for signs of dissaproval, I kept it a blank mask, wanting to hear the story first. He continued:" About, you know, Harry and REPUTATIONS and things, and at this point the French bloke was slowly inching away, you know scared, and next thing I know Harry goes and punches me in the face."
It was at this point that I injected the question of wether or not Ron had been drinking,
smoking weed, or eating small white pills with the letter E printed on them.
He replied in the high voice of the accused:" I swear, he punched me, he punched me and said,
'Ginny can snog whoever she wants so keep your nose out of her business' " My face was still
doubtful, that was until he pointed to the bruise that I hadn't noticed previously, since
his hair covered it. I then said slowly, trying to process the information I'd just been given
"Ok, did I get this right, Ginny goes off to do whatever with a guy who she's known for 2 minutes
and who gets a manicure regularely, deducing from the state of his hands, you 'tell her off'
and Harry punches you."
Ron nodded in agreement and said:" The only conclusion I could come to was that either Harry's gone off his nut, or someone has made Harry go off his nut."
"YOu don't think Ginny's behaviour was slightly strange, Harry's just broken up with her."
"I figure she was doing it to hurt him, or to feel like she's still wanted by someone."
He spoke like he had experienced it himself, and again I wondered about the spontaneous snogging incident which had made half of my sixth year miserable.
"Ok, we'll go with that for the moment, but we have to talk to Harry about this, if he did what you say he did, he is acting WAy out of character. "
"I don't want to see him."
"Do I look like I care at this moment in time, someone could've poisoned him or something,
Come on!" I grabbed his arm and proceeded to drag him up the hill to where the Post-Wedding
celebrations were held. My eyes scanned the mass of wedding-attendees drinking champane and
participating in social chit-chat with people they normally would only glance at and snort
in disgust for the sake of the eldest Weasley brother. It was Ron who spotted him,
reluctantly pointing him out by the beverage table. Unfortunatly, he had spotted them too, and
had seen the determined look on my face (Ron told me that it could make a Dementor scared
shit-less) and began to skunk away.
"Oh, no you don't!" I muttered angrily under my breath and grabbed Ron's arm tighter as I sped up towards Harry. IWe finally reached him and I decided to go for the direct approach.
" What's this?" I said, pointing to the bruise at the side of Ron's face.
"That's you interfering in this that don't concern you, like my and Ginny's relationship." he replied bitingly.
"Well, I is bloody well my concern when my sister goes off and acts like a slag right after she's broken up with my best friend!" I gasped at the insult towards Ginny and wearily watched Harry's hands. Luckily, the stayed in one place.
"Don't you call her that, you have no right." growled Harry.
"I can do whatever I please, and don't tell me you didn't want to punch that French pansy-arse as much as I did!" I looked at Ron with suprise, he was temperamental, but he had never gotten into a serious fight with Harry, except that incident in fourth year, and then they never had a full-blown face-to-face confontration like this.
"Even if I did, I wouldn't have, because I ended it, I am not allowed to be this bitter."
And those words explained everything that had unfolded beforehand.
Ron of course, not understanding, blinded by rage, but not enough to loose his best friend over,
stalked off before he did something incredibly stupid, like punch the boy-who-lived in the
prescence of a whole room who licked the ground he walked on.
"Look, Harry, don't blame yourself, she knows that you still care about her, and she understands, but she's very hurt right now, and she wants you to feel like her, maybe even to convince you to come back."
" You think it doesn't hurt me as well? I can't sleep because of all the things I have to do, I don't need her to make it all worse, always there, in my dreams, dying."
I hugged him and spoke a few more soothing words of no meaning, only meant to console him, there was no point in argueing with him now, maybe when he had cooled down he would see reason, but the chance was slim, not many did in the matters of the heart.
I then went to find Ron, who I knew would be sitting somewhere, silently fuming, so I could explain the delicacy of the situation. He was sitting by the small, overgrown pond, ripping pieces of grass into shreds. I sat down next to him, and he looked up.
"Why can I never finish it?" he asked, his voice thick.
I guessed that, just like those years ago with the fight in fourth year, it was time for Ron to put himself down, to punish himself for justefied anger.
"Finish what?" I delicatly prodded him towards the rant sure to follow.
"My fights with him, why am I always too weak to stand up to him, tell him when he is being a moron, I'm just like them in some ways, " he said, vaguely waving his arm in the direction of the party, "Letting him get away with everything, turning a blind eye on everything. I'm just weak. "
And there it was, the reason, weakness, not being good enough. I hugged him, saying:
"Look, he's your best friend, practically your brother, its always hard to find fault in those we love."
"I find fault in you often enough, so that's not true." he muttered to himself. Ginny had once asked me if I was blind and deaf, I had said no, I wasn't the deaf one, he was, but these small hints still made the spark of hope grow bigger, whatever sarcastic response I gave Ginny that day.
"We can't interfere with Harry and Ginny's relationship very much, they are both being stupid, but Harry thinks he's protecting Ginny, you've got to understand."
"There is no point, though, I mean if I was You-know-who I would ask someone who knows about Harry's affairs, a Hogwarts student or something, and as far as any Slytherin or otherwise knows Ginny and Harry are still together, they kept it pretty quiet, their breakup."
I looked at him, slightly amazed, he'd thought of something I wouldn't have in a million years.
Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing I didn't know. I kissed him on the cheek anyway,
and diligently listened to the rant, amusing myself by making slightly mean, sarcastic
comments in my head, which he wouldn't have received well, since it made a lot of references
to spiders, mashed parsnips, and several wooden rulers.
This will be a multichapter story R/R please
