A/N: Woah, I am just crankin' out these things, aren't I? One-shots, one-shots, everywhere! This fic is indeed a land(story)mark, for it is my first Harry Potter fic. Not written. Just posted. I don't know where my other ones went. They sprouted legs and flew away. Or something. In any case, this was a sort of spur-of-the-moment fic, so this might be le crapola compared to my other ones. Ah well. Enjoy?
Talking to a Weasley Boy
It was only eleven o'clock when Ginny left the Yule Ball.
But it would be twelve-thirty in the morning when Ginny actually went to sleep.
Now, however, it was eleven forty-five, and Ginny was sitting cross-legged on her four-poster, brushing her fiery red hair and trying not to wake her slumbering dorm mates as she hissed at every knot she untangled.
Ginny shifted her position on her bed and bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain as she tucked her foot under her leg. She had forgotten about Neville's clumsy feet and their cruel abuse to her own innocent ones.
Here she huffed a frustrated sigh. If he hadn't asked her, she might have been dancing with perfectly painless grace and a lovely little song in her heart, and, perhaps, with the Boy Who Lived himself.
Ginny stopped in mid-brush to survey herself. Well, she certainly wasn't Parvati, but she still found herself to be quite attractive.
At this thought, she frowned. Not that it would matter whether I was Parvati or not. Looked like he would have rather paid a thousand galleons than attention to her… she observed.
Her train of though was suddenly rammed (quite unceremoniously) off its tracks when a very familiar, very angry voice hollered, "Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, not as a last resort!"
Stomp-stomp-stomp-SLAM.
Ginny flinched at the sudden crash of the door and checked to see if her roommates were disturbed before she crept out of her dormitory and up the hall towards the fourth-years'. Here we go again, she thought as she opened the door to find Hermione, who seemed to be blinded by her irascibility to notice anything at the moment, raging up a storm. Ginny clicked the door shut behind her, her features furrowing in concern as Hermione flung herself onto her four-poster, grabbed a pillow, buried her face in its near-suffocating depths, and screamed for all she was worth.
The redhead approached her cautiously, not unlike someone locked in a room with a spectacularly large dragon and a very big stick. "Well," she started, "judging by that reaction I'm not even going to bother asking whether you're okay or not, regardless of the fact that mum says it's 'common courtesy'."
Hermione, though she did not remove her face from he pillow, let out a shuddering breath, as if she were on the verge of tears. Or insanity. Or both.
"He…he treated me as if I were some sort of…of criminal," she murmured dejectedly.
Ginny stared at her back apprehensively.
"And…he kept looking at me as if I were some—some sort of—of traitor…" Hermione continued, her voice slightly muffled by the pillow.
She put a hand to her back gently and sighed. "Hermione, don't let it bother you…" Ginny told her, still unsure as to what she was talking about though having a damn good idea as to who "he" was.
"You have no idea the frustration I'm feeling right now," Hermione mumbled dully.
"Try me, you might be surprised," Ginny retorted flatly. "How exactly are you feeling?"
"Upset. Disappointed. Shock. Hurt. Betrayed," Hermione listed dully.
"Well, I've got those down," Ginny supplied bitterly, "any other new emotions I've never felt before?" she asked good-naturedly.
"ANGRY!" Hermione shouted suddenly and Ginny recoiled a foot away from where she originally sat. "Fraternizing with the enemy! Who in Merlin's name does he think he is!" she spat and ripped the pillow beneath her in half, spraying them both with a shower of feathers.
At this, Parvati and Lavender drew back the curtains of their four-posters, surprise etched on their features at seeing an extremely cross Hermione, and Ginny had to allow herself a little mental victory dance. If Parvati was already in bed, it must have meant that she and Harry did not end up having a good time, either.
"You know, Hermione," Ginny began, sounding much more cheerful than she intended to, "I know it's frustrating, but let it roll over you. Boys are senseless and stupid," she advised sagely.
"I agree!" Parvati suddenly piped up. "Harry-stupid-Potter!" She snorted, "the Boy-Who-Lived. They should've called him the Boy-With-No-Bloody-Manners!" she screeched indignantly.
"Well with someone as owlish-looking as you, I'd be quite rude, too!" Ginny retorted. "Now go back to bed!" she snapped and before either of them could say anything, drew the curtains around her and Hermione and had Hermione perform a silencing spell.
"Right," Ginny continued, "where were we?"
"Your brother!" she bellowed.
"Hey, you're not mad at this Weasley, remember?"
Hermione sighed. "Right, I suppose I am acting like a bit of a lunatic now, aren't I?"
"If your pillow is a testament to that fact, yes," Ginny replied, nodding over to the mass of feathers around them.
"Honestly," she continued, "getting all mad because I went to the ball with Viktor! Can you believe—"
"Yes, Hermione, I can," Ginny interrupted and gripped her shoulders. "Hermione, I've lived with him for thirteen years and you've got to come to understand that he has the worst case of tunnel-vision I have ever come across. He sees Viktor only as someone competing against Harry—"
"Then why was he so keen to have Viktor's autograph before? In fact, that was all he talked about! It was always 'Krum this' and 'Krum that' and as soon as he finds out I'm Viktor's date he goes completely mad and starts yelling at me for fraternizing with the enemy!" she raged.
"But like I said before, he didn't want to—"
"Why are you defending—"
"Hermione!" Ginny finally shouted, "Will you stop interrupting me for just a minute? Listen! Ron, is oblivious, absolutely oblivious, and as soon as he saw that Viktor was competing against Harry, he decided that he it was his duty as his best friend to fully support him."
"That's not true! He accused Harry of putting his own name into the Goblet! Took him the first task to figure out that it wasn't him! Then again, it also took him four years to notice I'm a girl."
At this Ginny couldn't help but laugh. "Welcome to the club."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "What 'club'?"
Ginny tried to hide a smile, finding it an insurmountable task as she explained, "When we were little, I think I was about six, we played 'slip and slide' in the mud whilst it rained. So, naturally, Mum had kittens about us being so dirty and threw us in the tub together. Practically passed out when he found out I had nothing down there—went out looking for it!" she burst out laughing.
Hermione seemed to have a hard time not laughing, as well, and conceded, "Yes, well, that sounds like Ron."
So, it may have taken him four years to notice that you weren't one of the blokes, but it took him six to find out I wasn't his little brother," Ginny told her.
Hermione gave an appreciative laugh. "How do you put up with him?
The redhead rolled her eyes. "I don't know, but it's not exactly what I would call a walk in the park. He's a walking time bomb."
"Even a time bomb has tact and predictability! It's timed for goodness' sakes!"
"Yes, well—"
"Not to mention," Hermione continued, "that he never sees his own hypocrisies in the situation! 'Fraternizing with the enemy' he says! How dare, he! Especially when he went off and asked the Fleur woman—"
"The veela?" Ginny supplied.
"Oh honestly, does it really matter!" she snapped.
Ginny was about to say something when realization finally dawned upon her breadth. "I…I can't believe it…" she whispered. "You're…you can't be…jealous!"
Hermione gaped and mouthed wordlessly at her for a full thirty seconds (in which Ginny had time to wonder why she hadn't noticed sooner) before denying profusely, "I—I most certainly am not!"
"But you are! And it's not just you that's jealous, he's jealous, too! This has absolutely nothing to do with 'fraternizing with the enemy', or Harry's 'well-being', he's just—"
"You're mad!" Hermione cut her off harshly.
"Well apparently so are you and so is he…madly in love that is," she threw in with a mischievous sparkle.
Hermione turned bright pink. "Daftness obviously runs in the Weasley family!" she countered loftily but her face continued to glow.
"Then denial runs in yours. What's the big deal, Hermione?"
Hermione said nothing, concentrating on feather she tried to tell herself was fascinating, no doubt.
"I think…now that I think about it…he might even… I can't believe I didn't notice it before! I mean, I hear it all around me. He threw up slugs for you, for goodness sakes! And…he really does talk about you all the time—about how you're the smartest and cleverest person he knows, how he's comfortable around you…" Ginny listed. "He's always know you were a girl, Hermione, he just forgets! It's like air—you know it's around you, but sometimes, we just don't think about it, do we?"
She sighed. "It's like he's a different species sometimes…"
"Hermione, no body said it was easy talking to a Weasley boy," Ginny said with a laugh, "but you can do it. You've already achieved the near-impossible."
"What's that?"
"Getting one to fall in love with you."
Hermione absent-mindedly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, staring at nothing in particular. And then, with a smile, Ginny left her to ponder on her words.
She'll come to her senses…both of them will…one day.
And as she walked to her dormitory, stripped herself from her gown, and crawled into bed, she realized that falling in love let alone talking to a Weasley boy…
…didn't really make much sense to begin with.
A/N: Wee! That turned out better than I thought it would! Click on that lovely blue button that says review, s'il tu plait. Critique me! Flame me! Tell me I'm wonderful! Just review! Lord is it frustrating to find that you have a thousand hits and twelve reviews…more frustrating than, dare I say, talking to a Weasley boy?