Disclaimer: JRK STILL owns it all! Amazing.
Dedication: To HPGuy, who made this installment SO easy.
You Said What?!
"…swear I will!" Harry Potter would have liked to say that he found his missing best-friend by following girlfriend's dulcet voice, but truthfully it was easier to track Ron's outraged howls. He poked his head around the door into the deserted classroom; Ron was slumped into a desk, head buried in his arms.
"I'm pretty sure that's not a real spell..." Ginny was patting Ron's back soothingly. "But I'm sure we can find a spell to remove Harry's big, fat mouth if we keep looking," she continued. Harry would have felt better if he'd known that she'd seen him before saying that.
Harry cleared his throat. "Should I go?" he asked. Ron buried his head deeper. Ginny, at least, giggled.
"No, he's not mad," she said with another pat to her brother's back. "Right, Ron?"
Ron raised his head and nailed Harry with an unreadable stare. "Everybody in this school," he said, "knows not to accept anything from my brothers without first putting on their dragon-hide gloves and picking up a five meter pole."
"Technically I didn't…" Harry winced.
"But you," Ron continued without waiting for Harry to finish, "You, who have lived with those two mad jokesters, did exactly what they told you too do without even a sneaking suspicion.
Harry wondered if telling Ron that his twin-alarm had been down because he'd been overly anxious to join Ginny in the Three Broomsticks would be wise or suicidal. "I'm sorry," he offered softly.
"'S not your fault, mate," Ron said at length with an apologetic smile. "Fred and George can be right clever bastards."
"Yeah," Harry agreed with his own rueful smile. "At least it's not like it's just you up on that sign. My name and Ginny's are up in lights as well."
Ginny tucked her tongue into her cheek, "And they're not going anywhere anytime soon," she added.
"Isn't it enough," Ron muttered, "that the entirety of Hogwarts has seen it? Does the whole world Apparating in need to get a look, too?"
"Hermione couldn't talk Madam Rosmerta into removing it?" Harry asked forlornly. Oh, Snape was going to have an absolute field day.
"Madam Rosmerta thinks it's funny," Ginny said, "but that's not at issue because Hermione didn't even go to ask about taking it down."
"What? Why not?"
"Because I invited her to the dance before she could ask," Ron moaned, "and she ran off."