A/N, I love you all. And your reviews! Grazie!
"So, where were you last night?" Ginny turned to Hermione.
"I, stopped out." And she went to walk out of the kitchen, but Ginny had other ideas.
"Ohh no you don't. Who is he? Is it serious?"
Hermione couldn't tell her who she was seeing, so she opted for some truth, but not all of it. "It's kind of serious. We, picked things back up last night." She half smiled as she briefly reflected on last night's events. She'd substituted one bit of information, his name, for another piece, that they'd previously been an item.
"OH MY GOD IS IT VIKTOR KRUM?!"
"No, Ginny, no it's not. We left things about a fortnight ago, I thought there was a chance Ron might reconsider but after I found him with Lavender, I went on a walk and bumped into him. Long story short, he makes me happy and we're starting again." Ginny was pleased for her friend, and her obvious happiness.
"Well, I'll not say anything else, I still value my shoes. Will you take a look at the bridesmaid dresses that I've picked." Ginny pointed at an image on the table, and enlarged it into a free standing life size cut-out.
Hermione looked horrified. "Oh dear Lord Ginny! I'm not wearing that!"
"Why? What's wrong with it?"
Hermione thoughtfully looked over the wine coloured dress, the colour was lovely, but there was a big slit up the side of it, stopping mid thigh. The slit revealed a champagne coloured underskirt that looked more yellow, and was embroided with wine coloured flowers. It had a high neck and a champagne-yellow/ wine red wrap around belt and big thick straps holding it up. "Well Ginny, the reddy-purple colour is lovely but-"
"But?" Ginny prompted.
"It'sbloodyhideous." Hermione blurted out. Ginny laughed.
"You moron Granger, I'm having you on." Hermione was thankful as Ginny transformed the dress. The wine red colour was kept. This one was a full length dress with a slit up the side, it was very fitted around the torso, but flowed out slightly from the hips down and was made out of satin.
"Much better, Weasley. When are you getting them?"
"Well, your coming with me to Madam Malkin's now to put the order in. I've spoken to her already and she says the dresses will be ready in about a month, she's got a lot on, and the wedding is in five weeks so we're all good. I've already got my wedding dress." She added before heading for the front door with her coat. Hermione had no choice but to follow her. Ginny had quite a pace on her as they strode down the street to the tube station, and didn't stop that pace until they were safely in the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione remembered how she first met Charlie in here, but was quickly cut short by Ginny nearly dropping her butterbeer as she became over excited and squealed.
"Chaarrrlieeee." She ran up to him and threw her arms around his neck as he lifted his baby sister off the ground. Hermione didn't make eye contact with him but smiled at the ground instead, from this he gathered that Ginny didn't know about the two of them yet, and neither did anybody else. He smiled to himself as he placed a babbling Ginny back on the ground. "When did you get back? Why are you back? Is there something wrong? Oh please, Charlie, tell me there's nothing wrong."
"Slow down there, get your friend to join us and I'll tell you." Ginny waved over Hermione and she sat down next to the female sibling. "There's nothing wrong. I'm back over here for good, the Romanians can handle their own hoards now and don't need me anymore. I've been back about six weeks-"
"Six weeks?! Why haven't you been in contact? Do Mum and Dad know your back? This is Hermione by the way."
"Nice to meet you, Hermione. Yeah, sorry Gin. Things have been rather hectic. I needed to find a job, sort out a place to live and do a bit of shopping for it. I've not had much time. I live in South Kensington now, I've got an apartment down there, you can come and visit me. Mum and Dad know I'm back, they were a bit pissed I hadn't got in touch sooner."
"South Kensington? Is it nice? Where are you working now?"
"What's this? Am I on trial?" Charlie laughed and Ginny looked apologetic.
"Sorry, it's just it's been ages since I've seen you! You couldn't come back the last few Christmases, and when you came you came by floo for a few hours before buggering off again."
"In answer to your question, yes it's nice. I'm doing a bit of work for the ministry in the Magical Creatures department, specialising in dragons. Not for long though, they'll call me when they need me, I'll be doing freelance stuff for private companies in between. The ministry will call me in to investigate if they find escaped dragons, or mis-treatment of dragons and their counterparts. It's alright stuff, I'm not tied down in the same place for too long, I'll be based in London for the majority of the time though." Hermione knew all of this, they had talked about it last night, but it lightened her mood to hear it again, it brought it to life, it made it seem real. Ginny was silenced as she'd run out of questions to ask. "Well, I'd better be going, I have a meeting with a client. I hope we meet again Hermione. Bye Ginny, I'll see you soon." He shook their hands and left. His hands were still warm as she basked in the brief contact made between them.
"Ooh look at the time! We need to go Granger." They went into the back alley and tapped the brick that let them into Diagon Alley. Ginny picked up her pace once again as they headed for Madam Malkin's. A magical bell alerted the shop mistress to new customers present. She was in the back working on a dress, she came out to meet her.
"Hello my darling. Have you come to place your order?" The blonde haired woman was dressed in emerald green robes which made her eyes look greener than usual. Ginny nodded and handed over the final design she'd decided on, with Harry's card to his Gringotts account. "Fabulous thank you my dear, they'll be ready by the end of the month. Feel free to browse and call me back if anything takes your fancy. Have a good day ladies." The older woman disappeared through the door behind the counter, probably to finish whatever she was working on.