Chapter 2

She couldn't believe it. She had finally plucked up the courage to speak to the Harry Potter. No, wait. Scratch that. He absolutely hated being the Harry Potter. OK, start over. She couldn't believe it. She had finally plucked up the courage to speak to Harry, the boy of her dreams. The one who had saved her life, and won her heart forever in the process. She had resigned herself to years of unrequited love. It was her own fault, of course, since she couldn't ever actually talk to Harry, but it still hurt. This time was different. Fred and George, damn and bless them, had forced her to do this. They and their stupid (wonderful) dungbomb had done this.

"Oh hi, Ginny. How are you?"

"I'm just fine, but it seems that you were feeling down. What's wrong?" Lord, where was she getting this courage?

He couldn't bring himself to tell her the real truth about what he was thinking about, so he decided to get something smaller off his chest. Maybe it would help a little bit. "You see, I have this problem. Professor McGonagall wrote to me while I was still at the Dursleys' and informed me that I was a prefect."

To Harry's eye, Ginny looked skeptical, not to mention more than a little pink. She must not have bought that this was what was really bothering him. She ignored that though, and dealt with what he had placed before her. "But Harry, that's wonderful. What on earth could be wrong with that?"

This girl was quite perceptive. He would have to keep his eye on her. "Well, you see, I, well I haven't told Ron and Hermione yet. I can already picture their reactions. I'll have Ron furious at me. He'll be saying 'I can't believe you. How could you be a prefect? You're taking all the fun out of life. Though at least you can take points away from Slytherins. That's some small consolation.' Hermione will be ecstatic. 'Oh that's WONDERFUL, Harry! We'll have so much fun. You do know all the rules and everything right? I can give you some books to help you prepare.' I don't think I'm quite ready to deal with all of that yet."

By this time Ginny was doubled over with laughter. "Oh my goodness. I can picture those two doing exactly that." She paused to take a breath. "They're so into each other right now, though, that if you tell them, you might get off easy."

Harry mulled that one over. "You know Gin, you may be right. I think I'll try that."

A rustling emanated from a cluster of bushes. Harry took no notice of it, but apparently Ginny did, for when she glanced in that direction, her pink cheeks and ears turned a violent red, she gave Harry a breathless, "Sorry, I have to go ummm. . .help my mum. Yeah, help my mum," and dashed off into the house.

Harry was utterly confused. What on earth had just happened? Why had she just run off like that? He hadn't the vaguest notion as to the answers to these questions. He turned to look at the bushes that had let out the noise. There was nothing in view, so he just assumed it had been one of the large variety of magical creatures that inhabited the Weasleys' garden, and that just confused him more. Oh, well, he thought, and he returned to his previous occupation. Though his thoughts were noticeably brighter than before his cut-off conversation with the only female of the generation, he couldn't help but feel that he had just witnessed something that he had been missing for a very long time indeed.

* * * * *

Fred and George ducked down as quickly as they could, but it was too late. Ginny had seen them and run off. George was the first one to speak.

"Well, that actually went OK."

"Yeah, until she saw us. What were you thinking, poking your head up like that? We would have been just fine listening."

"This isn't my fault. You're the one who made all the noise."

"I was trying to stop you, you stupid git."

"Hi boys."

With that simple remark, both twins jumped a foot and a half in the air.

"Good grief, Hermione, scare the other half of my life out of me," said George.

"No kidding. That wasn't very nice of you. Say, what are you doing here? Weren't you on a picnic?" With that question, Fred got another sinister grin on his face. "We really need to work with our ickle Ronniekins."

"That we do, Fred my boy. Way too little time spent alone."

"Weasley men have a reputation to uphold, after all."

"What reputation?" inquired Hermione. She seemed a little embarrassed, so grinning deliciously, the twins continued.

"Why, all Weasley men are great with the ladies."

"We thought you would know that, seeing as you are spending quite a bit of time with one of them."

"A great deal of time, in fact. Must be fun, though this power can be a curse sometimes."

"We have to beat away the ladies with a stick sometimes, and that's just not on."

"Oh shut it you two," a rather embarrassed Hermione cut in. "You don't seem to be having that much success yourselves."

"That's because you are just too young to understand." Fred patted Hermione's head patronizingly. "One day, when you grow up, all will be made clear to you."

Hermione was growing impatient by this point. "Enough. I actually wanted to talk to you two about something, but I can't if you keep going on like this."

"And what was it you wanted to ask us about?" George bowed quite extravagantly. "Messrs. Weasley and Weasley at your service. Though another Messr. Weasley is probably also at your service, just in a different way."

They were rewarded with a nice blush from Hermione. "Stop it, you two, before I turn permanently pink. What exactly are you two getting up to?"

"Why, my dear Hermione, what do you take us for? Do you think we would stoop so low as to embarrass you using our brother?"

"Yes. Now answer the question."

"Well, our dear little sister has had this dream for a very long time."

"You see there's this guy."

"He's quite the hero. Everyone in the Wizarding world loves him."

"But to her, he is her personal hero. He saved her life, and her life alone two and a half years ago."

"Before that, she had a crush on him. After, well, crush doesn't even begin to describe it."

"So all we are trying to do is make her dreams come true."

"Not to mention get one very tense young man a girlfriend, which would hopefully put him a little bit at ease."

"So you're trying to set Harry and Ginny up." Hermione nodded approvingly, and the twins returned the gesture. "Good idea. How exactly are you going about it?"

"Well, first we're trying to get them to talk. That may sound easy, but since Ginny can't seem to find her voice within 50 feet of him, it makes things slightly more complicated."

"Yes, that would complicate things, wouldn't it? Well, I'll tell you what, I'll try to come up with a few ideas of my own. I am a female, after all, I think I'd have a better perspective on Ginny's feelings than you two oafs."

"Speaking of you being a female, where is our dear ickle Ronniekins? You didn't just love him and leave him did you?"

"Cause that would make you a scarlet woman. We can't have scarlet women going after our dear little brother." At this Hermione once again flushed red.

"For your information, your 'dear little brother' is in the kitchen being told off by your mum for leaving a mess from when he packed our picnic lunch. I think I'll go join him." Hermione added an aggravated noise from her throat, and stormed off in the direction of the house.

For their part, the twins managed to wait until she was inside the house before they lost it completely, laughing harder than they had all day.

* * * * * Dinner that night was an interesting affair. Mr. Weasley and Percy were talking animatedly about work, their conversation seemed to be centered around the application of Muggle protection laws in the rest of Western Europe and America. Mr. Weasley was saying. "In America, they have done it right. Muggles are absolutely protected from any kind of nonsense that malicious wizards here have a tendency to do to those poor people." With this, he glanced meaningfully at the twins, who were completely oblivious, as they were involved in a conversation of their own, and sometimes involving Hermione. Mr. Weasley wondered about this. The twins didn't usually associate with Hermione, as they tended to think that she was a stick in the mud, and she thought they were immature prats. Percy was talking, so he just shrugged and returned his attention to his own conversation.

Percy was saying, "Yes they may be well protected, but honestly, we need to worry more about protecting ourselves from them. That may not be as much of a problem in the States, since they have so much space, but as we need to live much more closely with our Muggles, we need to keep our protection up." Percy managed to convey a hint of disdain as he said "Muggles".

Meanwhile Mrs. Weasley was going on to an intensely red Ginny about how she had fallen in love with Mr. Weasley. "I tell you it takes ages for boys to see sense. Why, if his older brothers hadn't finally decided to knock some sense into him, I don't think he would have ever noticed that there was a female gender, except for Muggles."

For her part, this only served to remind Ginny of the events of the afternoon. "Yes mum, I know exactly what you mean," Ginny replied in a heartfelt manner.

Harry was trying to involve Ron in a conversation about Quidditch, but for once it wasn't working. Normally, when you even mentioned the word "Cannons" around Ron, you couldn't get him to shut up for an hour, but tonight he just kept going off into dreamland. Harry had to kick him under the table a couple of times to get Ron's attention, and he took this as a sign that his and Hermione's picnic had gone very well indeed.

Hermione was also off in her own little world, but she only got involved in a conversation when the twins finally got her attention by a most unusual means.

"Well, you know what they say about prefects. They're usually the worst of the lot. How many times have we heard about the wonderful pranks played by Harry's dad and his friends?"

Fred nodded at his brother's comment. "He wasn't only a prefect, but Head Boy as well. That's right, prefects are pretty horrible. Maybe it's the power that goes to their heads."

This had grabbed Hermione's attention quite effectively. "We are not horr. . .Oops."

The twins grinned at her. "So you are a prefect. We had been wondering about that. One more thing to tease you about. Anyway, we were wondering how to get Harry and Ginny alone again. We haven't been able to come up with anything plausible. Care to help?"

"Come on you two, that one's easy. We're going to Diagon Alley soon, just send them off on some errand together. Even you two prats could have come up with something as simple as that."

"Ooh, that cat of hers must be wearing off on her. She bites now. But thanks Hermione, we know just how to do that." This was as waste of breath however, as she had returned to absently eating her dinner, a dreamy smile on her face.