Chapter Nine

Setting Sail

"All right, so you're SURE this will work?" said Harry, pulling an eye-patch over his eye.

"Yes!" said Percy, "Remember we were about to do it with Madame Malkins? But then you didn't want to because we still had some money! Well, guess what, we got no money now, we used the last of it go pay for the Knight Bus here, so this is our only option! We're going to STEAL a boat from this shipyard, like real pirates would!"

"Well...if you say so..." said Harry, and grabbed his sword, and pointed at the first boat he saw, a fancy-looking yacht near the dock, "Uhm, how about that one?"

"We are pirates!" said Percy, "We can't use that! That's a yacht!"

"But a very NICE yacht, at that!" said Colin, and to this, Percy replied, "True."

"All right, crew, lets go!" Said Harry, and the three of them raced off towards the yacht. They leapt from the dock onto the deck of the boat, where a bronzed girl in a red two-piece bathing suit and a large pair of sunglasses was laid out on a beach chair, tanning, and seemed to be asleep.

"YARRRR!!!!" Harry shouted, and pointed his sword at the girl, "I'M HARRY POTTER, PIRATE EXTRAORDINAIRE, AND WE HAVE COME TO TAKE YOUR SHIP! YARRRRRRRR!"

"HARRY?!" A familiar voice exclaimed, and the girl bolted upright, and raised her sunglasses with a puzzled look on her face, "Pirate Extraordinare?! Have you gone completely mad? What do you think you're doing on my yacht?"

"Hermione!" Harry gasped, "I had no idea, I'm so sorry, but since when have you owned a yacht?"

"Aren't they super expensive?" added Colin.

"Yes, they are," said Hermione, reaching over to the side to take a sip out of her glass of iced tea with a wedge of lemon on the top, "But no fear--as always, I had the top marks in my house for six years straight now, and my parents decided to congratulate me! My father is the owner of the car company GM motors, so we can afford it!"

"GM Motors?" asked Harry.

"Why, yes, Granger Motors!" Hermione looked proud.

"I thought GM stood for the Muggle car company General Motors," said Colin.

"Yeah, they wish!" said Hermione, rolling her eyes, "And now, if you don't mind, I must ask you, what is with this pirate business?"

"All right," Harry sighed, "After all, you are my best friend, and I didn't mean to barge in on your nice time, I'll tell you..."

"Great! But just a minute, I'd like some more iced tea," she said, and began shaking the glass in her hand so that the ice cubes rattled, "CABANA BOY!" she called, and out the door of the indoor part of the yacht walked a tall teenage boy dressed in a sky blue, sparkly thong with another glass of iced tea sitting on a tray in his hand.

"RON?!?!" Harry screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGH!" Ron jumped two feet into the air, sending the iced tea glass sailing off the tray to sploosh into the water seconds later, and used the tray to cover himself up, his speech stammered and his face as red as his hair "This is, aahhhh, my, ahhh, summer job, this thong, is my, aaaah uniform, oh my god..."

"Ronald Weasely!" Percy put his hands on his hips, "Do Mum and Dad have ANY idea you're out here?!"

"Not exactly...they think I'm working as a Lifeguard at the Beauxbaton's Summer School."

"Oh boy, wait until they hear about this!" Percy rubbed his hands together gleefully.

"You do that, and I'l tell you what REALLY happened on the night of the Quidditch championship night in your sixth year," said Ron.

Percy squealed, "Oh, you wouldn't!"

"Wouldn't I?"

"What happened?" said Harry.

"NONE OF YOUR BEESWAX!" Percy bellowed, while Ron laughed.

"Well, it goes like this, see Percy was very happy that the Griffindor team won, so he..."

A large yacht, much bigger than Hermione's, all of a sudden floated up beside the crew's boat, and loudly blew their horn, while Ron continued explaining to a shocked crew what happened to Percy.

--TOOT! TOOT!--

"Ewww! Percy!" said Harry, when Ron was done telling, "I didn't know you had it in you!"

"What are you saying 'Eww' for? It sounds somewhat heroic!" said Colin, "Good on you Percy."

"I am going to murder you, little brother," Percy growled, "Because of that episode, Penelope dumped me."

"Why, cuz she saw how small it was?!" Hermione cackled.

"Naw, I think it was more the terrible job he did," said Ron.

"Sounds like he needs a little more practice," said Harry.

"Not to mention more equipment," added Colin.

"SHUT UP! EVERYONE, JUST SHUT UP! It's not my fault the common room was messy, and i wanted to clean it up, but I only had one mop, and it was a very, very small one, and Penelope was angry because she didn't think I cleaned it well enough so she left me!" Percy shouted, while the four howled with laughter.

"Fine! Sheesh, we were just having some fun," said Harry turning and pointing to the yacht, "Now, who's boat is that?"

A large group of girls rushed to the dock, and started screaming and cheering, taking photographs and waving. Harry heard several of their screeching voices.

"Ohmigosh! We found her!"

"It's Hermione!"

"And OHMIGOD LOOK! IT'S HARRY TOO!"

"And Ron! Ooh, what a sexy outfit!"

"Oh no!" Hermione groaned, "They followed me! Part of the reason I wanted this yacht was so that they couldn't find me!"

"Who are they?" asked Harry, "They seem to know all of us."

"They are none other than...the Fangirl Squad," Hermione shuddered, "Groupies of Harry Potter, and the stories, movies, characters, and everything else you could possibly associate with it. They've done nothing but follow me around ever since I appeared in the first book."

"How come they never looked for us?" said Harry.

"Probably because I am Muggle-born, and all of the Fangirls are Muggles, so they see me around more."

The ugliest one of them all seemed to be shouting the loudest.

"OMG IT'S HARRY RON AND HERMIONE AND COLIN AND PERCY I'VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR THEM I REALLY HAVE NO LIFE LOL!!!! ROTFLMAO!!!1111one:D :D :) Wheeeeeeee!!!!!" In her sheer mania, she leapt off the edge of the boat and into the water, still cackling. She started to swim back to shore, still laughing. "Haaaahhheeee woo ack! Tee hee hee! Hoo hoo hoo!!"

"What...the...HELL did she just say?" asked Ron.

"Oh, that's instant messaging slang," said Hermione, "They just like to use it in regular speech rather than just typing."

"What?" Ron asked, dumbfounded, and to this, Hermione sighed and just said, "It's a muggle invention that is supposed to improve communication between people globally, but ironically has led to thousands of people sounding like idiots when they type because they don't take time to use proper grammar or spelling, and instead use abbreviations like 'lol', 'omg', 'c u l8r' and stuff like that."

"Oh, I see," said Ron.

-Clank! Clank! Clank!-

"Yikes!" Colin shouted as three grappling hooks were thrown onto the top of Hermione's yacht, and three girls used the ropes attached to the hooks to swing over, "They're coming aboard!"

They plunked themselves onto the deck, and grinned, "Hello!" the one with black hair, green eyes and glasses said, "We are the three leaders of the Fangirl Squad, and let me say, on behalf of the entire Fangirl Squad, it's a true honor to meet you! My name is Harriet Potts!"

She then pointed to the other two girls, one with thick brown hair, and one with flaming orange hair and freckles, and introduced them, "And this is Hermyra Greggs and Rhonda Wheeler!"

"Charmed!" the two smiled and waved.

"OUT! ALL OF YOU, OUT OUT OUT!" Hermione started jumping up and down and screaming "OFF MY BOAT NOW!!!! YOU'VE DONE NOTHING BUT BOTHER ME AND FOLLOW ME AROUND FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS AND I'M SICK OF IT!!! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!!! BEAT IT!! SCRAM!!!!"

"Wow..." said Harriet, and then threw her nose in the air, "Hmmph! I see the Hermione we followed turns out to be more ill tempered than we thought! Come on ladies, let's go! We don't need HER anymore!"

With that, the three leaders grabbed their grappling hooks and in seconds were on their boat again.

"All right girls!" Harriet Potts shouted, "Next stop...Diagon Alley, for our annual Wizard shopping spree!"

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" the girls cheered and the boat set sail again.

"YOU NEED A WAND TO GET INTO DIAGON ALLEY YOU KNOW!!!" Hermione shouted at the ship.

"Oh, let it go, Hermione," said Harry, "So, uh, back to business...do you think we could...maybe...oh, say, borrow this ship for a while?"

"Borrow?" said Hermione, "Oh right, this pirate business...with all the interruptions, you still haven't told me what this pirate business is all about."

--TEN MINUTES LATER--

"Well! That sounds plausible!" Hermione nodded, "Fine, you can have the boat."

"Really! Great! Thank you!" Harry made his way over to Hermione to hug her, but she held out her hand.

"...as long as you let Ron and I come along on your mission," said Hermione.

Harry looked at the both of them, and then smiled, "Well, of course! I can't have an adventure without you two! You guys have always been there for me!"

"Wonderful! So it's settled!" said Hermione, "Now, let's go finish the job of destroying the Dark Lord!"

"Sounds great," said Percy, "But before we go...Ron, can you PLEASE change out of that thong?"