A/n: I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date. No time to say, "Hello", "Good-bye!" I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!
Disclaimer: checks watch Oh foo, I don't have a watch. I also don't own Harry Potter OR Alice in Wonderland. Damn my luck.

- Chapter 11

'like a broken clock-
i'm out of time.'

"I –puff- can't –puff- do this –puff- anymore!" Hermione declared once she was safely in the confines of the kitchen. "It just isn't worth it!" She paused. "It's not right!"

"You know, they say the first sign of insanity is talking to oneself." A teasing voice came from the doorway.

Hermione whipped around, nearly causing self-induced whiplash. Then she sniffed. "So I've been told."

"Brrr," Ginny mocked as she entered the kitchen, grinning happily. "Did it get colder in here, or is it just your sunny disposition?"

"Save it Gin. What do you want now?"

"Well you're chipper. Who's to say that I want anything? Maybe I just happen to pass by the window upstairs and I just happen to see that you were running off in the same direction my brother had taken just a few minutes previous and happen to know that you stayed there for quite a while?" Ginny batted her eyelashes innocently in her friends direction.

Hermione only rolled her eyes and barely suppressed a snort of disbelief.

"Okay, okay." The red-head sighed and gave in. "I want details. I did see all that, now I want to know what happened. Did he make a move? Did you make a move? Where their any moves made at all, period? Give me something—please!"

She was practically begging and Hermione couldn't help but be amused by the whole scene. "Rather interested aren't you." Ginny crossed her arms in response and the brunette just shook her head. "You know Gin I was hoping to have a nice, quiet summer. But, I guess I shouldn't have expected that around here."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest but Hermione cut her off. "No I didn't mean it in a negative way. There are just so many people here – not that it's a bad thing. It just means less and less can be hidden from wandering eyes." She racked a hand through her hair unconsciously. "I love it here, I really do. But right now I'm sick of what I've got myself into – and I'm just. I'm tired."

A silence followed as Ginny had the decency to look a bit abashed. "I'm sorry, 'Mione. It's just – I've always wanted you as part of the family. So I was going to make it happened by any means possible, even if it wasn't the smartest way to begin with. Oops." She rubbed her neck awkwardly. "Guess my advice isn't that great after all. I mean – I never did get Harry to like me did I?"

Hermione smiled sadly. "Hey, now that's not for your lack of trying though eh? Harry's well, I mean he can be – sometimes." Pausing for a moment she had to think of how do describe her best friend, "One of a kind." She finally decided on.

Giggling softly, Ginny nodded her head in agreement. "Enough about that," Waving her hand dismissively, "Now, what really happened out there?"

The brunette smiled and dove into retelling her adventure into the woods.

"… And that's when I came running back in here. I didn't know what else to do! You're brother kissed me! Wouldn't you have done the same?" Hermione finished in a huff, not even thinking about what she was asking.

"I think if one of my brothers tried kissing me, we would have another problem entirely." Ginny told her friend, eyebrows furrowed in mock seriousness.

Hermione gave her a look that clearly said, 'you know what I meant.'

Ginny waved her hands in front of her as if trying to ward her off. "So, George finally kissed you. The thing that you've wanted since you left your house knowing you would see him here. And what do you do; chicken out and run away."

"Well, when I thought of that happening it also involved us going out—not currently seeing other people!" Hermione moaned, rubbing a hand down her face.

"Oh, you're being so over dramatic. This is simple to fix. You can do it like that." She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

"I can?" the brunette asked, her tone coloured with disbelief.

"Stop that or I won't tell you. I've gotten you this far, how much more can go wrong?" Ginny asked diplomatically.

Hermione only raised her eyebrow skeptically.

"Er, okay so with the people in question a lot could go wrong. But it won't." She added hastily. "All you have to do is break off things with Blaise. See, clean and simple." Ginny clarified smugly.

"That's your brilliant plan?" Hermione asked, raising her voice slightly. "Didn't I say going into this that I didn't want anyone getting hurt? And what did you make me do? Go out with a boy who genuinely wanted to go out with me again which whom I didn't have the least bit ofinterest in any longer?! The go on tolead on said boy, AND your brother? Who are you?"

Ginny sat there, frozen to the kitchen table which she had perched herself on. Only, she wasn't staring at Hermione; she was looking at someting behind her.

"You were leading me on?" asked a quiet voice from the doorway.

Whipping around for the second time that afternoon, Hermione saw George standing in the aforementioned doorway. She could just picture herself; hair wild from being tossed around, and the perfect deer-in-the-headlights look on her face. Oh bugger.

"No George, that's not what I meant. You didn't hear the entire conversation. I said-" George however, cut her off.

"I think I may have heard enough of it." He continued in that same quiet, sad voice.

Hermione was horrified. "No you see-" But she was cut off again by George retreating back outside and into the garden. Letting out a scream of anguish, she turned on her heel an flew up the few flights of stairs to Ginny's bedroom

"Pack!" She half screamed to her suitcase. Quickly a few things flew from around the room and gathered neatly in her trunk. She yanked her cloak off the bed in front of her and walked around the bed to stand by the trunk.

Before Ginny could come in, Hermione locked the door to prevent her entrance. "Hey!" Came her muffled yell from outside. "You can't lock me out of my own room! I live here!"

Ignoring her friend, Hermione pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill to scribble a hasty note to Ron and Harry.

Harry and Ronald,

I'm sorry for not giving you a proper good-bye but things have become complicated here and something has come up at home that I must attend too. I'm sure Ginny will be happy to simplify things further. Contact me by owl at a later date if you wish.

With love,

Hermione

P.S. – Please tell you mum I'm really sorry and thank you for everything she's done for me.

She charmed the paper so only the intended could open and read it.

Not three seconds later she had made up her mind. She apparated home.

"Hello mum? I'm home!"

A head ducked out from the kitchen. "Is that you honey, what are you doing home? I though that I wouldn't see you until Christmas?" Mrs. Granger asked from the kitchen where she was preparing a roast for dinner. "How did you get here too? I didn't think the fireplace was connected to the flu?"

If Hermione had been in a better mood she would have chuckled. Instead, she sighed wearily and sank down on the sofa. "Don't you remember me receiving my apparition license at the end of this past school year? And it's Floo. It's not the same thing as the sickness."

"Of course, of course, now what were you saying darling?" her mother asked while slicing potatoes and carrots.

"Oh mum, I've royally screwed up everything!" she exclaimed.

Walking around the counter and wiping her hands on her apron, Mrs. Granger assessed the state in which her daughter had arrived. "Is this one of your 'teenage emergencies'?" Her mother asked seriously.

Not the kind she was thinking. "Please mum, I don't have emergencies. I have small…" She wracked her brain for the right word, "Predicaments."

"Of course you do." The older woman said nodding her head. "What happens to be the cause of this particular 'predicament'; a boy maybe?"

How did mothers always know?

tbc