Chapter 4
Saturday 29 July
Of course now I actually had to go ahead and have the sodding barbecue. At least it was going to be girls/witches only. I couldn't cope with any more boy/wizard-induced tension.
I s'pose the one good thing about last Sunday was that Cho and I had found friendship again. She'd owled me the next day to tell me that Harry was doing all the kind of things that a proper boyfriend should. And she even apologised for all the mean things she'd said.
"It must be my hormones," she said sarcastically when she came round the next Saturday to help me make salad and dust off the sun loungers.
"I think it's a little too soon to start using that excuse," I told her. "Have you decided what to do yet?"
"Well I took the pregnancy test, but it was hard to tell whether it was positive or not. There's meant to be blue sparks in the window thing, but it was really faint," said Cho. "All I know is that I'm not ready to have a baby. I mean, I can barely look after myself!"
"Sex always ends up getting complicated," I said feelingly.
Cho looked at me with surprise. "Have you? With Draco? Oh God, it wasn't Ron, was it?
"I haven't with anybody," I said indignantly. "But I'm thinking about it."
Draco had come round the night before and had spent two hours alternating between kissing the stuffing out of me and getting really annoyed when I wouldn't let him go below the waist.
I grimaced at the memory of it and Cho tactfully changed the subject. "So who's coming to this barbecue?"
"Parvati, Lavender and Susan who I'm in the band with." I started.
"I met them before," Cho reminded me. "And can we expect a performance?"
"Susan reckons we're going to do an acoustic set but we'll see about that," I murmured darkly. "If Susan's coming then her little sister Penny will come too, but she never says anything to anyone. And I invited Ginny and you invited Veronique for me, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure if she's going to turn up though," Cho said hesitantly. "She really doesn't like you."
"The feelings mutual." But at least the invitation (accepted or otherwise) might up my popularity quota with her cousin, I added to myself.
I'd got way too much food in. Anna had let me clear out the cooler block at work and everyone had chipped in one galleon and five sickles. The kitchen was groaning with quiches, salads, and chips, cocktail sausages that I'm usually addicted to. But it was so hot, I didn't feel like eating.
I was just trying to fix the actual barbecue together when Susan, Parvati, Lavender and Penny turned up. I waved a hand at them and went back to reading the instructions using the self-lighting charcoal. It might have just as well have been written in Urdu for all the sense it made. The doorbell rang and I could see the others were preoccupied with making dramatic in-roads into my ice-supply so I hurried to answer it. Veronique was standing on the doorstep looking about as happy to me as I was to see her.
"Hi," she said distantly and tossed a stray lock of her dazzling blonde hair over her shoulder. I wondered idly if she'd used magic to make her hair shine so much. Why she would want to blind people was beyond my knowledge of understanding.
"Glad you could make it," I said in my best hostess voice. The Mothership would have been so proud if she could have heard how polite and friendly I was being. "You must be hot, let me get you a drink."
Veronique stepped past me and gave me a look as if to say, what are you on? "Where's Cho?" she asked rudely. I pointed in the direction of the garden. "She's out there, I think."
"You've got some gooey stuff on your dress," Veronique pointed out with a smirk as she sauntered past.
I looked down to see a glob of coleslaw on my new summer dress and with a sigh I ran up the stairs to get changed. I was deciding what to wear (as all my other summer robes were being cleaned) when the doorbell rang again. I quickly pulled on my genuine '60's pale-green flares and was hunting round for a top when the doorbell rang again.
"Do I have to do everything?" I muttered between gritted teeth, practically falling down the stairs and trying to button up my shirt at the same time.
I was still buttoning up when I opened the door. I mean, it was only going to be Ginny and she'd seen me in various states of undress whenever she slept over.
But it wasn't Ginny. Harry, Ron, Draco and their mate Justin were standing there with a couple of lads who worked with the Weasley Twins at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, they happened to be Seamus and Dean. They were clutching some bags from which looked suspiciously like they came from the shops in Hogsmeade. They were all looking at my bare midriff. I pulled the gaping ends of my shirt together.
"Do you need a hand with the buttons?" enquired Justin with a wolfish smile while I just stared at everyone.
"You're not meant to be here," I complained as they began pushing past me.
"Don't worry about it," sad Draco comfortingly, leaning down to kiss my cheek. "We're your official gatecrashers."
"But I haven't got enough food," I wailed as I followed them down the hall into the kitchen.
"Jeez, Hermione, you've got enough scoff to feed the population of house- elves," laughed Harry when he saw the buffet.
"I've got some barbecue stuff too," I confessed. "Not that I can get it working, so I s'pose if you're staying you can use your ancient fire-making skills handed down since caveman days."
We went out to the garden and Veronique immediately got up from her deck chair to curl herself around Ron who'd barely glanced at me since I opened the door. Cho seemed to know everyone and Susan knew Seamus and Dean because they used to hang out together back at Hogwarts, oh and the many times they came into the café almost everyday at lunchtimes. Parvati and Lavender were looking decidedly chipper at the presence of boy-shapes. So much for spending a quality time with the witchhood. Everyone was saying hello to each other, apart from Penny who, as usual, was fidgeting on the sidelines. I touched her arm. "D'you wanna help me get this barbecue working?" I asked gently. She nodded. The self-lighting charcoal wasn't working, so I whipped my wand out. Penny watched silently as I tried to light the charcoal and swore as I tried to get the stuff to ignite.
"You could try chucking some lighter fuel on it," suggested Draco coming up behind me and placing a kiss on the back of my neck. He definitely improved when there was company present.
"There will be no chucking and no lighter fuel," I said firmly as he took my wand out of my hands and lit the charcoal as soon as he muttered the words "Incendio." I clapped my hands slowly. "You've managed to lit it. And I couldn't even do it."
Draco pointed towards the instructions, "It says in there if the charcoal won't self-light then you should point your wand vertically downwards when lighting it the emergency way."
I smiled at him. "I'm impressed. You've obviously got hidden talents."
Draco gave me a smouldering look. "You have no idea," he said softly.
"We're not talking about barbecues anymore, are we?" I teased him.
Penny scarpered off as Draco nudged me with his hip.
"Nope," he murmured, pulling me towards him for another kiss.
He always does this. He seems to know when I've had enough of him and he turns up being so affectionate that I melt into a pool of girlie slush.
"So, do you want me to use my ancient fire-making skills to cook meat as well?" demanded Draco. "It might take my mind off the fact that you've still got four buttons undone on your shirt."
Although my plans for a wizard/boy-free zone had been ruined, the barbecue was actually a success. Once Ginny had turned up and everyone had pretended to eat and given up because it was too hot, a game of witches versus wizards Quidditch had started. We summoned our broomsticks (everyone has one once they leave school) and we levitated some hoola hoops on each end of the garden.
My garden was quite large so it worked out all right. And there were large trees and bushes covering the sight from Muggle eyes. (I was part of the Muggle Protection Act, but it seemed safe enough being quite hidden). I had a Quidditch set so we didn't have to charm any round objects.
After I'd caught the Snitch leaving the score 200 to 60 we collapsed on the grass while Susan ordered Penny (who hadn't played) to make us some drinks. I found myself sitting next to Veronique. I thought she'd have been all snooty about doing something as uncool as playing six aside Quidditch but she'd been the witch of the match, scoring three of our goals.
"You were really good," I told her. "I couldn't believe the way you looped around Seamus like that." She grinned at me. "I'm quite skilful when it comes to getting rid of the opposition."
I didn't know how she could sit in my back garden, drinking chilled butterbeer and have the nerve to say something like that. She wasn't talking about Quidditch. Oh no. She was talking about me and Ron and doing it when no one else was around so she could keep her sweet girl rep. I tried to count to ten and not have a major hissy fit but I'd only got to five when I saw Susan bearing down on me with my acoustic guitar.
"It's too hot," I told her before she could even open her mouth. "My fingers are way too sweaty to play."
"I'm not taking no for an answer," Susan said, blithely ignoring my pained face. "Everyone's dying to hear us."
"No they're not," I argued. But Cho, who was sitting nearby gave me an evil smile, and cooed, "Are you going to do that acoustic set that I've been looking forward to all day?"
Susan hauled me to my feet, still protesting, and shoved the guitar at me. "You strum, I'll sing and Parvati and Lavender are going to improvise."
Accompanied by Lavender on a tambourine (that she'd transfigured from some spoons and a wooden stick using her wand.) And with Parvati on harmonies, we did a couple of our own songs, which sounded weird, quite frankly, without the full-on shouty treatment, before launching into our version of Deaths Awful.
When we'd finished I caught Ron's eye, he was staring at me with such longing that it made me catch my breath. Our eyes locked and it was only when Justin asked if we were going to take any requests and Susan dug me none too gently in the ribs that the moment passed. "I can't play many things," I insisted when Seamus and Dean pleaded with us to play Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals. "I can do some dad-rock stuff and that's about it."
Any oldster stumbling into the back garden would have been delighted that young people could still make their own entertainment as we spent the next half hour singing aloud to Beatles' songs and forgetting the words to Wonderwall.
By the time my strumming hand had started to cramp, it was getting dark. It was still sweltering hot, so I magically created a few fairy lights (real fairies fluttering around) to keep the midges away. Our garden had been transformed into a fairy grotto. I lay back on the grass contently and listened to the conversations wash over me. It was so nice when everybody forgot all the reasons why they hated each other and just chilled out. Even Draco and Ron seemed to be having a civil conversation about some new broomsticks out, wizards eh? I wasn't the only one inspired by all this group bonding as I heard Justin suddenly exclaim, "We should all go to a festival before the summer's over."
I rolled my eyes. The day I went to a Muggle festival and slept in a tent without the benefit of my summer-weight duvet was the day they buried me. No one else seemed to share my opinion though. There were enthusiastic noises of agreement from all sides and I could have voiced my dissent, but knowing how flaky my guests were I reckoned that any mass outings were never going to happen. I smirked as Dean mentioned that his Muggle relatives had offered him some cheap tickets to a festival in Devon, but frowned slightly as Susan added that Anna would probably let us borrow the café's van (it would be too expensive to buy a Port Key to take us that far away, also with us many). This was starting to sound suspiciously like a plan. I was just about to point out all the pitfalls of sharing a field with a bunch of tree-hugging hippy Muggles when Parvati plonked herself down next to me.
"D'you wanna know a secret?" she giggled.
"Yeah!"
"I think Justin's really cute," she whispered. "He's just asked me if I want to go to the Three Broomsticks with him tomorrow."
"Cool," I said. "Justin's a sweetheart."
"You should know," said Veronique from somewhere behind me. "Hermione's snogged him," she added for Parvati's benefit.
I sat up and glared at her. "Who told you that?" Veronique held my gaze. "Draco told me. It wasn't a secret, was it?"
I was going to kill Draco. Once in a moment of weakness I'd told him that I'd ended up snogging Justin when I first split up with Ron. And I only told him because we were having an intimate moment and it seemed like a good idea to be honest with each other. My mistake. I jumped to my feet as Cho came over to investigate the raised voices.
"It was a one-off," I told Parvati who was looking at me with a hurt expression. "We'd both had too much to drink."
But Veronique wasn't finished. "In fact, the only boy she hasn't made a play for seems to be Harry," she remarked to Cho conversationally.
"Shut it, Veronique," hissed Cho as I tried to count to ten again. It was no use; I was going to whack her if I stayed in the garden. With a frustrated groan I took a step towards Veronique who was standing there with a satisfied smile on her face but Parvati grabbed my arm and dragged me into the kitchen. The strip light made my eyes hurt as Parvati pulled me towards the sink and told me to splash cold water on my face.
"I snogged him once," I repeated. "'Cause I was upset and I was trying to make Ron jealous. It was a mistake. We don't even talk about it."
Parvati held up a hand. "OK, just calm down," she said soothingly. "It kinda freaked me out for a minute that you'd snogged him but it's alright."
"Really?"
"Look, I'm not that naïve," Parvati said with a smile. "I guess Justin's been with other girl's. I just didn't realise you were one of them."
"I wasn't with him," I protested. "It was just a kiss."
"I know," said Parvati. "Please don't start getting hysterical. Go upstairs and put on some more mascara, you've washed yours all off. And I'm going to go and ask Justin if you're a good snog. Joke!"
"Oh, ha ha," I said sourly but I followed orders and walked upstairs. But I didn't re-apply my Maybelline Wonderlash. I sat on my bed with my head in my hands. Sometimes I just wanted to disappear and never come back. I must have said it out loud 'cause I head Ron's voice from the doorway saying, "I don't know what I'd do if you left."
"You'd manage," I told him, looking up and in that split second that our eyes collided, it was as if I was back in his living room because the tension was there again and the only thing that was preventing us from kissing was our own willpower. Which seemed to be in very short supply.
I held out my arms as Ron flew towards me and then we fell back on my bed, his body covering every inch of me, our lips searching and then finding. All my nerve endings were so over-sensitised that when Ron kissed my neck I whimpered because it felt so good even though I knew it was wrong. I tried to pull him back to me as he suddenly shifted away from me. But he was only tugging his t-shirt over his head and throwing it on the floor before settling back in my arms. He plated little kisses along the way as he undid each button on my shirt and our legs tangled with each other.
The last fragment of my rational mind registered the irony of the situation. Like, Draco had been badgering me for weeks and all I could do was come up with excuses about it not being the right time or the right place and now I was with Ron and the door was wide open and anyone could burst in on us and I didn't care. All I cared about was the scrape of Ron's teeth on my tongue and the frantic drumming of his heart against my chest and the chaos his fingers were causing as he stroked my back.
"Make me stop," Ron groaned, making no effort to pull away from me.
"I don't want you to stop," I whispered and Ron caught my mouth again in a hard, frantic kiss. His hand curled into the waistband of my trousers and nothing was going to stop.
"Hermione. Um, Hermione."
There it was again. That nagging voice that must be my conscience.
"Hermione!"
Ron paused. "Did you hear something?" Was my conscience that loud?
I tried to get into the kissing and the moments towards losing my virginity again but the moment was gone. Especially when I glimpsed Penny standing at the doorway looking like she was about to burst into tears and bleating, "Hermione! Hermione!" at me. In one movement I pushed Ron away and jack-knifed off the bed.
"How long have you been there?" I yelled at her, once again grabbing the ends of my shirt and folding my arms.
"I was calling you but you, er, didn't hear me," she whispered in the tiniest voice I'd ever heard.
"I'm sorry I shouted at you," I said, trying to catch my breath. All I could think was, my God, she actually spoke. Ron, with t-shirt back on stepped in front of me to shield me from her curious gaze. Penny's eyes were popping out as she looked at him and then me and then back to Ron again.
"You never saw this," he said to her sharply. "Hermione and I, we're just. we just got carried away." He could say that again.
"People are going now," Penny said. "They wondered where you were." She gave us another incredulous look and scampered out.
"You'd better go downstairs," I said, moving away from him. "Say I was being sick or something. The heat."
"Is damage limitation all you can think about?" Ron snarled. "Don't you think we should talk about what just happened?"
"It was stupid what just happened!" I said fiercely. But it hadn't been stupid. It had been glorious and wonderful and thrilling and must never happen again. I walked out of the room without looking back.
It was obvious that everyone was wondering where Ron and I had disappeared to but I cobbled together silly stories about the heat and eating too many cocktail sausages and being sick and when Ron appeared he and Veronique left immediately. The others followed. Cho and Harry stayed behind to help me clear up and finally they went too but Cho was back to being weird with me.
I went out into the garden and sank down on the sun lounger. I felt lousy. I was a bad, bad witch. I wasn't to be trusted, especially with other witch's boyfriends. But Ron was more than someone else's boyfriend. No matter how hard we tried to be apart from each other, some force that I couldn't even begin to explain drew us together.
"It went rather well, don't you think?"
I gave a start as Draco came towards me.
"I thought everyone had gone home," I muttered.
"No, I'm still here," he said softly. "I made you a cup of tea."
I moved my legs so he could sit on the side of the lounger and took the mug from him. It was dark but I could see the searching look he gave me. And I somehow knew that he knew what Ron and I had been doing, I just did. And Draco might have been difficult and high maintenance but he didn't deserve the treatment he was getting from me.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
My mouth twisted. "I was wondering why you put up with me."
Draco reached out to stroke my hair from my face. "Maybe I think you're worth the effort."
It was all very well breaking my heart over Ron but it was always going to be doomed to failure. Whereas Draco was right here, right now. He wasn't going anywhere, he was staying with me, and despite all the grief I gave him.
"Draco?"
"What's the matter, honey?" he purred, nestling me into his arms.
"I've been thinking." I took a deep breath. "I will sleep with you. Not tonight but very soon, I promise."
Of course now I actually had to go ahead and have the sodding barbecue. At least it was going to be girls/witches only. I couldn't cope with any more boy/wizard-induced tension.
I s'pose the one good thing about last Sunday was that Cho and I had found friendship again. She'd owled me the next day to tell me that Harry was doing all the kind of things that a proper boyfriend should. And she even apologised for all the mean things she'd said.
"It must be my hormones," she said sarcastically when she came round the next Saturday to help me make salad and dust off the sun loungers.
"I think it's a little too soon to start using that excuse," I told her. "Have you decided what to do yet?"
"Well I took the pregnancy test, but it was hard to tell whether it was positive or not. There's meant to be blue sparks in the window thing, but it was really faint," said Cho. "All I know is that I'm not ready to have a baby. I mean, I can barely look after myself!"
"Sex always ends up getting complicated," I said feelingly.
Cho looked at me with surprise. "Have you? With Draco? Oh God, it wasn't Ron, was it?
"I haven't with anybody," I said indignantly. "But I'm thinking about it."
Draco had come round the night before and had spent two hours alternating between kissing the stuffing out of me and getting really annoyed when I wouldn't let him go below the waist.
I grimaced at the memory of it and Cho tactfully changed the subject. "So who's coming to this barbecue?"
"Parvati, Lavender and Susan who I'm in the band with." I started.
"I met them before," Cho reminded me. "And can we expect a performance?"
"Susan reckons we're going to do an acoustic set but we'll see about that," I murmured darkly. "If Susan's coming then her little sister Penny will come too, but she never says anything to anyone. And I invited Ginny and you invited Veronique for me, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure if she's going to turn up though," Cho said hesitantly. "She really doesn't like you."
"The feelings mutual." But at least the invitation (accepted or otherwise) might up my popularity quota with her cousin, I added to myself.
I'd got way too much food in. Anna had let me clear out the cooler block at work and everyone had chipped in one galleon and five sickles. The kitchen was groaning with quiches, salads, and chips, cocktail sausages that I'm usually addicted to. But it was so hot, I didn't feel like eating.
I was just trying to fix the actual barbecue together when Susan, Parvati, Lavender and Penny turned up. I waved a hand at them and went back to reading the instructions using the self-lighting charcoal. It might have just as well have been written in Urdu for all the sense it made. The doorbell rang and I could see the others were preoccupied with making dramatic in-roads into my ice-supply so I hurried to answer it. Veronique was standing on the doorstep looking about as happy to me as I was to see her.
"Hi," she said distantly and tossed a stray lock of her dazzling blonde hair over her shoulder. I wondered idly if she'd used magic to make her hair shine so much. Why she would want to blind people was beyond my knowledge of understanding.
"Glad you could make it," I said in my best hostess voice. The Mothership would have been so proud if she could have heard how polite and friendly I was being. "You must be hot, let me get you a drink."
Veronique stepped past me and gave me a look as if to say, what are you on? "Where's Cho?" she asked rudely. I pointed in the direction of the garden. "She's out there, I think."
"You've got some gooey stuff on your dress," Veronique pointed out with a smirk as she sauntered past.
I looked down to see a glob of coleslaw on my new summer dress and with a sigh I ran up the stairs to get changed. I was deciding what to wear (as all my other summer robes were being cleaned) when the doorbell rang again. I quickly pulled on my genuine '60's pale-green flares and was hunting round for a top when the doorbell rang again.
"Do I have to do everything?" I muttered between gritted teeth, practically falling down the stairs and trying to button up my shirt at the same time.
I was still buttoning up when I opened the door. I mean, it was only going to be Ginny and she'd seen me in various states of undress whenever she slept over.
But it wasn't Ginny. Harry, Ron, Draco and their mate Justin were standing there with a couple of lads who worked with the Weasley Twins at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, they happened to be Seamus and Dean. They were clutching some bags from which looked suspiciously like they came from the shops in Hogsmeade. They were all looking at my bare midriff. I pulled the gaping ends of my shirt together.
"Do you need a hand with the buttons?" enquired Justin with a wolfish smile while I just stared at everyone.
"You're not meant to be here," I complained as they began pushing past me.
"Don't worry about it," sad Draco comfortingly, leaning down to kiss my cheek. "We're your official gatecrashers."
"But I haven't got enough food," I wailed as I followed them down the hall into the kitchen.
"Jeez, Hermione, you've got enough scoff to feed the population of house- elves," laughed Harry when he saw the buffet.
"I've got some barbecue stuff too," I confessed. "Not that I can get it working, so I s'pose if you're staying you can use your ancient fire-making skills handed down since caveman days."
We went out to the garden and Veronique immediately got up from her deck chair to curl herself around Ron who'd barely glanced at me since I opened the door. Cho seemed to know everyone and Susan knew Seamus and Dean because they used to hang out together back at Hogwarts, oh and the many times they came into the café almost everyday at lunchtimes. Parvati and Lavender were looking decidedly chipper at the presence of boy-shapes. So much for spending a quality time with the witchhood. Everyone was saying hello to each other, apart from Penny who, as usual, was fidgeting on the sidelines. I touched her arm. "D'you wanna help me get this barbecue working?" I asked gently. She nodded. The self-lighting charcoal wasn't working, so I whipped my wand out. Penny watched silently as I tried to light the charcoal and swore as I tried to get the stuff to ignite.
"You could try chucking some lighter fuel on it," suggested Draco coming up behind me and placing a kiss on the back of my neck. He definitely improved when there was company present.
"There will be no chucking and no lighter fuel," I said firmly as he took my wand out of my hands and lit the charcoal as soon as he muttered the words "Incendio." I clapped my hands slowly. "You've managed to lit it. And I couldn't even do it."
Draco pointed towards the instructions, "It says in there if the charcoal won't self-light then you should point your wand vertically downwards when lighting it the emergency way."
I smiled at him. "I'm impressed. You've obviously got hidden talents."
Draco gave me a smouldering look. "You have no idea," he said softly.
"We're not talking about barbecues anymore, are we?" I teased him.
Penny scarpered off as Draco nudged me with his hip.
"Nope," he murmured, pulling me towards him for another kiss.
He always does this. He seems to know when I've had enough of him and he turns up being so affectionate that I melt into a pool of girlie slush.
"So, do you want me to use my ancient fire-making skills to cook meat as well?" demanded Draco. "It might take my mind off the fact that you've still got four buttons undone on your shirt."
Although my plans for a wizard/boy-free zone had been ruined, the barbecue was actually a success. Once Ginny had turned up and everyone had pretended to eat and given up because it was too hot, a game of witches versus wizards Quidditch had started. We summoned our broomsticks (everyone has one once they leave school) and we levitated some hoola hoops on each end of the garden.
My garden was quite large so it worked out all right. And there were large trees and bushes covering the sight from Muggle eyes. (I was part of the Muggle Protection Act, but it seemed safe enough being quite hidden). I had a Quidditch set so we didn't have to charm any round objects.
After I'd caught the Snitch leaving the score 200 to 60 we collapsed on the grass while Susan ordered Penny (who hadn't played) to make us some drinks. I found myself sitting next to Veronique. I thought she'd have been all snooty about doing something as uncool as playing six aside Quidditch but she'd been the witch of the match, scoring three of our goals.
"You were really good," I told her. "I couldn't believe the way you looped around Seamus like that." She grinned at me. "I'm quite skilful when it comes to getting rid of the opposition."
I didn't know how she could sit in my back garden, drinking chilled butterbeer and have the nerve to say something like that. She wasn't talking about Quidditch. Oh no. She was talking about me and Ron and doing it when no one else was around so she could keep her sweet girl rep. I tried to count to ten and not have a major hissy fit but I'd only got to five when I saw Susan bearing down on me with my acoustic guitar.
"It's too hot," I told her before she could even open her mouth. "My fingers are way too sweaty to play."
"I'm not taking no for an answer," Susan said, blithely ignoring my pained face. "Everyone's dying to hear us."
"No they're not," I argued. But Cho, who was sitting nearby gave me an evil smile, and cooed, "Are you going to do that acoustic set that I've been looking forward to all day?"
Susan hauled me to my feet, still protesting, and shoved the guitar at me. "You strum, I'll sing and Parvati and Lavender are going to improvise."
Accompanied by Lavender on a tambourine (that she'd transfigured from some spoons and a wooden stick using her wand.) And with Parvati on harmonies, we did a couple of our own songs, which sounded weird, quite frankly, without the full-on shouty treatment, before launching into our version of Deaths Awful.
When we'd finished I caught Ron's eye, he was staring at me with such longing that it made me catch my breath. Our eyes locked and it was only when Justin asked if we were going to take any requests and Susan dug me none too gently in the ribs that the moment passed. "I can't play many things," I insisted when Seamus and Dean pleaded with us to play Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals. "I can do some dad-rock stuff and that's about it."
Any oldster stumbling into the back garden would have been delighted that young people could still make their own entertainment as we spent the next half hour singing aloud to Beatles' songs and forgetting the words to Wonderwall.
By the time my strumming hand had started to cramp, it was getting dark. It was still sweltering hot, so I magically created a few fairy lights (real fairies fluttering around) to keep the midges away. Our garden had been transformed into a fairy grotto. I lay back on the grass contently and listened to the conversations wash over me. It was so nice when everybody forgot all the reasons why they hated each other and just chilled out. Even Draco and Ron seemed to be having a civil conversation about some new broomsticks out, wizards eh? I wasn't the only one inspired by all this group bonding as I heard Justin suddenly exclaim, "We should all go to a festival before the summer's over."
I rolled my eyes. The day I went to a Muggle festival and slept in a tent without the benefit of my summer-weight duvet was the day they buried me. No one else seemed to share my opinion though. There were enthusiastic noises of agreement from all sides and I could have voiced my dissent, but knowing how flaky my guests were I reckoned that any mass outings were never going to happen. I smirked as Dean mentioned that his Muggle relatives had offered him some cheap tickets to a festival in Devon, but frowned slightly as Susan added that Anna would probably let us borrow the café's van (it would be too expensive to buy a Port Key to take us that far away, also with us many). This was starting to sound suspiciously like a plan. I was just about to point out all the pitfalls of sharing a field with a bunch of tree-hugging hippy Muggles when Parvati plonked herself down next to me.
"D'you wanna know a secret?" she giggled.
"Yeah!"
"I think Justin's really cute," she whispered. "He's just asked me if I want to go to the Three Broomsticks with him tomorrow."
"Cool," I said. "Justin's a sweetheart."
"You should know," said Veronique from somewhere behind me. "Hermione's snogged him," she added for Parvati's benefit.
I sat up and glared at her. "Who told you that?" Veronique held my gaze. "Draco told me. It wasn't a secret, was it?"
I was going to kill Draco. Once in a moment of weakness I'd told him that I'd ended up snogging Justin when I first split up with Ron. And I only told him because we were having an intimate moment and it seemed like a good idea to be honest with each other. My mistake. I jumped to my feet as Cho came over to investigate the raised voices.
"It was a one-off," I told Parvati who was looking at me with a hurt expression. "We'd both had too much to drink."
But Veronique wasn't finished. "In fact, the only boy she hasn't made a play for seems to be Harry," she remarked to Cho conversationally.
"Shut it, Veronique," hissed Cho as I tried to count to ten again. It was no use; I was going to whack her if I stayed in the garden. With a frustrated groan I took a step towards Veronique who was standing there with a satisfied smile on her face but Parvati grabbed my arm and dragged me into the kitchen. The strip light made my eyes hurt as Parvati pulled me towards the sink and told me to splash cold water on my face.
"I snogged him once," I repeated. "'Cause I was upset and I was trying to make Ron jealous. It was a mistake. We don't even talk about it."
Parvati held up a hand. "OK, just calm down," she said soothingly. "It kinda freaked me out for a minute that you'd snogged him but it's alright."
"Really?"
"Look, I'm not that naïve," Parvati said with a smile. "I guess Justin's been with other girl's. I just didn't realise you were one of them."
"I wasn't with him," I protested. "It was just a kiss."
"I know," said Parvati. "Please don't start getting hysterical. Go upstairs and put on some more mascara, you've washed yours all off. And I'm going to go and ask Justin if you're a good snog. Joke!"
"Oh, ha ha," I said sourly but I followed orders and walked upstairs. But I didn't re-apply my Maybelline Wonderlash. I sat on my bed with my head in my hands. Sometimes I just wanted to disappear and never come back. I must have said it out loud 'cause I head Ron's voice from the doorway saying, "I don't know what I'd do if you left."
"You'd manage," I told him, looking up and in that split second that our eyes collided, it was as if I was back in his living room because the tension was there again and the only thing that was preventing us from kissing was our own willpower. Which seemed to be in very short supply.
I held out my arms as Ron flew towards me and then we fell back on my bed, his body covering every inch of me, our lips searching and then finding. All my nerve endings were so over-sensitised that when Ron kissed my neck I whimpered because it felt so good even though I knew it was wrong. I tried to pull him back to me as he suddenly shifted away from me. But he was only tugging his t-shirt over his head and throwing it on the floor before settling back in my arms. He plated little kisses along the way as he undid each button on my shirt and our legs tangled with each other.
The last fragment of my rational mind registered the irony of the situation. Like, Draco had been badgering me for weeks and all I could do was come up with excuses about it not being the right time or the right place and now I was with Ron and the door was wide open and anyone could burst in on us and I didn't care. All I cared about was the scrape of Ron's teeth on my tongue and the frantic drumming of his heart against my chest and the chaos his fingers were causing as he stroked my back.
"Make me stop," Ron groaned, making no effort to pull away from me.
"I don't want you to stop," I whispered and Ron caught my mouth again in a hard, frantic kiss. His hand curled into the waistband of my trousers and nothing was going to stop.
"Hermione. Um, Hermione."
There it was again. That nagging voice that must be my conscience.
"Hermione!"
Ron paused. "Did you hear something?" Was my conscience that loud?
I tried to get into the kissing and the moments towards losing my virginity again but the moment was gone. Especially when I glimpsed Penny standing at the doorway looking like she was about to burst into tears and bleating, "Hermione! Hermione!" at me. In one movement I pushed Ron away and jack-knifed off the bed.
"How long have you been there?" I yelled at her, once again grabbing the ends of my shirt and folding my arms.
"I was calling you but you, er, didn't hear me," she whispered in the tiniest voice I'd ever heard.
"I'm sorry I shouted at you," I said, trying to catch my breath. All I could think was, my God, she actually spoke. Ron, with t-shirt back on stepped in front of me to shield me from her curious gaze. Penny's eyes were popping out as she looked at him and then me and then back to Ron again.
"You never saw this," he said to her sharply. "Hermione and I, we're just. we just got carried away." He could say that again.
"People are going now," Penny said. "They wondered where you were." She gave us another incredulous look and scampered out.
"You'd better go downstairs," I said, moving away from him. "Say I was being sick or something. The heat."
"Is damage limitation all you can think about?" Ron snarled. "Don't you think we should talk about what just happened?"
"It was stupid what just happened!" I said fiercely. But it hadn't been stupid. It had been glorious and wonderful and thrilling and must never happen again. I walked out of the room without looking back.
It was obvious that everyone was wondering where Ron and I had disappeared to but I cobbled together silly stories about the heat and eating too many cocktail sausages and being sick and when Ron appeared he and Veronique left immediately. The others followed. Cho and Harry stayed behind to help me clear up and finally they went too but Cho was back to being weird with me.
I went out into the garden and sank down on the sun lounger. I felt lousy. I was a bad, bad witch. I wasn't to be trusted, especially with other witch's boyfriends. But Ron was more than someone else's boyfriend. No matter how hard we tried to be apart from each other, some force that I couldn't even begin to explain drew us together.
"It went rather well, don't you think?"
I gave a start as Draco came towards me.
"I thought everyone had gone home," I muttered.
"No, I'm still here," he said softly. "I made you a cup of tea."
I moved my legs so he could sit on the side of the lounger and took the mug from him. It was dark but I could see the searching look he gave me. And I somehow knew that he knew what Ron and I had been doing, I just did. And Draco might have been difficult and high maintenance but he didn't deserve the treatment he was getting from me.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
My mouth twisted. "I was wondering why you put up with me."
Draco reached out to stroke my hair from my face. "Maybe I think you're worth the effort."
It was all very well breaking my heart over Ron but it was always going to be doomed to failure. Whereas Draco was right here, right now. He wasn't going anywhere, he was staying with me, and despite all the grief I gave him.
"Draco?"
"What's the matter, honey?" he purred, nestling me into his arms.
"I've been thinking." I took a deep breath. "I will sleep with you. Not tonight but very soon, I promise."