These were the days Harry cherished most at Hogwarts, the ones with empty evenings in the early fall or late spring. Freedom to do whatever they wanted, and the weather to do it outside. Quidditch practice had just ended, and his night was wide open. Ron managed to escape Hermione's clutches in the library and borrow George's broom. They met on the pitch as darkness approached.
"Sirius gave me this last year," Harry said, holding up a velvet bag.
"Have you heard from him?"
"I get an owl every couple of weeks. He's off trying to get info on Voldemort for Dumbledore. The owls came from all over the world this summer."
"So what's in the bag?" Ron asked.
"Check it out." Harry opened the bag, releasing a specially modified snitch. It glowed in the dark, a tiny ball of yellow zooming around the stadium.
"What fun is that? You can see it."
"It's a smart snitch. It runs away." Harry grinned. "Race you?"
"You don't have a chance," Ron teased, leaping onto his broom. The two Gryffindors took off after the yellow light.
"God, they're such little kids sometimes," Hermione said to Willow. They could see Harry and Ron from their perch on a nearby hilltop. Willow had decided that Hermione didn't have enough female friends, so she instituted weekly girl talks with her and Ginny Weasley. This was the first one.
"Ron really wants to make the Gryffindor team," Ginny said. "He's always upset that he can't practice."
"Why not?" Willow asked.
"No broom," Ginny answered with an accompanying shrug. Willow said nothing, having learned of the precarious Weasley financial situation from Grey.
"He might be good enough to be a seeker anyway, if they didn't have Harry," Hermione said.
"I think he'd make a good keeper," Ginny said. "We've never had one in our family, and Gryffindor needs a permanent one. He always plays it when they fool around at home." The regular Gryffindor keeper had developed a serious problem with vertigo. The reserves had rotated, allowing the team to sneak by Hufflepuff in the season's first match, but no one believed it would be good enough to take the Quidditch cup.
All three were silent for a few minutes, wondering what to say next.
"So Ginny," Willow finally offered, "Hermione tells me you're head over heels for Harry." The youngest Weasley turned bright red as the other two laughed.
"Could be worse," Ginny responded, overcoming her embarrassment. "He saved my life, so it's pretty obvious. Why don't you ask 'Mione who she's writing in her diary about?" Willow raised an eyebrow in the brunette's direction.
"How did you … I-I mean, what are you talking about?"
"I didn't, but I do now," she said. "It's sooo obvious, anyway."
"Is not." Hermione pouted, feeling foolish for admitting anything.
"We're talking about Ron, right guys?" Willow asked. Hermione and Ginny stared at each other, as if daring the other to say it.
"Yes" was Hermione's quiet response.
"Does he know?" Willow asked.
"My brother?" Ginny laughed. "He wouldn't know if we strung the message out on this hill with little candles."
"You can't tell him," a horrified Hermione pleaded. "I don't really have other friends than him and Harry, and I don't want to mess that up."
"We won't," Willow intoned seriously. "Besides," she added with a grin, "you have us."
"I think he'd go for it," Ginny speculated. "What are you doing for a date to the Halloween Ball?"
"Going alone," was the somber answer.
"Me too."
"You guys are wimps," Willow said. "Want to hear a story?" They nodded. "When I was in high school, and it's a really long bad story that I won't get into, mostly because of skanky vampire me, but anyway, this girl Anya showed up one day. As she put it, she was 'newly human and strangely literal.'" Willow said, imitating the vengeance demon.
She saw two pairs of raised eyebrows, but plunged ahead anyway.
"Anyway, she totally wanted my friend Xander, but she didn't really understand human dating conventions or anything. So she simply walks up to him, asks him to this big dance and says," putting on her Anya voice again, "Look, I know you find me attractive. I've seen you looking at my breasts."
The two younger girls giggled.
"What happened?" Hermione asked.
"Xander asked her to marry him last year," Willow said. She figured it was a good idea to leave out the whole 'left her at the altar' portion of the story. The girls cooed at the romantic ending. "You see my point?"
"Umm … we should wear low-cut robes?" Ginny said, collapsing all three of them in a laughing fit.
Up in the air, Harry paused, watching the girls fall on the ground. Ron pulled up next to him.
"What do you s'pose is happening there?" he asked. Harry shrugged.
"No idea," he replied, taking off after the snitch again.
"You're saying we should just ask," Hermione said on the hilltop, once she had stopped gasping. Her tone communicated the utter terror she felt.
"Yup. Sometimes what a girl makes has to be the first move," Willow said with a mischievous smile. "Besides, those two are way too nice to say no."
"I don't want Harry to say yes because he's a nice guy," Ginny said. "I want him to say yes because he wants to be with me." Willow thought of Grey's words several nights before.
"Sometimes you have to take what you can get, Gin," Hermione said, echoing Willow's thoughts. "Whereas, I don't think Ron IS that nice. He'd just fumble around, trying to figure out what was going on, before he said no."
"Maybe," Ginny said, "but maybe not. Remember last year with Krum? He was really unhappy about that, and absolutely stunned by you."
"What happened?" Willow asked.
"Hermione got all dressed up for a dance she went to with one of the competitors in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Ron was in a tizzy, she looked so good."
"No, he wasn't."
"Oho," Ginny put her hand on Hermione's arm, "he certainly was. He's my brother, trust me I know. His ears were all red."
"The official Willow opinion is that you guys should both ask. Then we'll get you fitted out with an expert makeup and hair consultant, and the boys won't know what hit 'em."
They looked at her skeptically.