CHAPTER NINE

Red for Passion

George put the bucket down, meekly, steeling himself for a lecture. Hastily Ron and Fred got off Harry and dusted themselves down. Harry struggled to his feet, wondering why they had all jumped to attention like a line of soldiers in the ranks.

"Um - we were just playing," Fred said, with an angelic smile.

Hermione grinned widely. Only then did Harry properly notice the tall, slim posture she was holding, inclined slightly to one side at a typically feminine angle. She was regarding the four of them through her eyelashes in an unusually girlish manner.

"Playing is one word for it," he replied, tactfully deciding not to comment. He glared at the twins and Ron. The twins merely sniggered and nudged each other. Ron hadn't heard him at all. Ron was staring at Hermione so blatantly, Harry was sure his jaw was about to hit the ground.

"Going to offer a lady something to drink?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Or do I have to go and find Ginny to get some intelligent conversation?"

Harry gave Ron a pointed nudge in the chest.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Snap out of it, Ronniekins," taunted Fred, prancing towards the house with George close behind.

"Yeah, Ron, put your eyes back in, mate!" called George, winking at Hermione as he passed. Hermione merely rolled her eyes and continued smiling.

Ron, quite possibly even more red than an over-ripe radish, made a face at the twins as they turned their backs to go indoors.

"Gits," he muttered.

"You all right, Hermione?" Harry decided to ask. The situation was on the verge of getting rather embarrassing.

"Fine thankyou," she replied. She looked delighted to see Harry and Ron again. So delighted, Harry found himself being clutched in an amicable hug. "What about you?" She looked searchingly into his face as she pulled away again.

"Absolutely fine," Harry asserted.

"No nightmares? No scar pains?"

Harry shrugged. "The odd one or two. But nothing to get worked up about!" he added, when Hermione's eyes widened in concern.

"If you're sure." Hermione smiled.

Odd, Harry thought. He would normally have expected her to take apart his every word and go off on a tangent about something. Her lectures on safety and vigilance last year had been intense enough to rival Moody's!

"OK, Herm?" Ron said, almost as a grunt.

"I wish you wouldn't call me that," Hermione sighed. "You know I hate it."

"Sorry. Did you want that drink, then? Let's go inside."

"Thankyou." She bent to pick up her bags, staring up in sheer amazement as Ron beat her to it.

"I can take them," he said, with a nervous grin.

Hermione smiled back. She shot Harry a look of amused bewilderment as Ron turned his back, mouthing silently: "What have you done to him?"

Harry, grinning ear to ear with entertainment, shrugged.

***

As the back door clicked shut behind Hermione, Harry and Ron, Ginny leapt up from the living room floor where she had been sitting, helping Mrs Weasley cut some recipes out of old copies of Witch Weekly in varying stages of age and debilitation.

In the kitchen, the two girls ran into each other's arms in a mixture of excitement and relief.

Harry remembered vaguely how it had felt to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione before the long, dreary, Dursley-dominated summer holidays, without ever having to worry about whether or not he would see them again. The summer had become a time full of anxious pacing around bedrooms and highly censored postal communications. Harry was lucky if he ever had an evening in which he did not hope and pray that everybody he cared about was safe. He imagined all of them felt the same way. Obviously Ginny and Hermione did, hence their affectionate reunion. They had grown very close over the past few years, ever since Ginny had been taken into their confidence. In fact, Harry found it rather difficult to remember what his days at Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron had been like without her.

"Is everything all right?" Hermione was asking, anxiously.

"Fine," said Ginny, nodding her head. She lowered her voice so Mrs Weasley could not hear. "Everybody is still safe and sound, thank goodness, but Mum's starting to get really worried."

"Unsurprisingly," said Ron, grimly. "She's been in a state ever since that summer we spent in London with Sirius, remember?"

They nodded. The incident with the boggart in Gimmauld Place was firmly etched in Harry's mind. He had seen it transform time after time into the body of each member of the Weasley clan, while Mrs Weasley had tried helplessly to fight it.

"Have you been back?" Hermione asked, settling herself in a chair at the kitchen table in between Ginny and Harry.

"To Grimmauld Place?" said Ginny. "No. Dad's been a few times to check things over. Somebody needs to keep an eye out back here while The Order is abroad."

"He says it's actually livable now," said Ron, with a sardonic snort. "And there's no damned house elf there to cause chaos now."

"What about Mrs Black's portrait?" asked Harry. He remembered the shrieking picture very vividly, and so it seemed did the others.

"Still there," replied Ginny, sadly. "She just refuses to budge. Nothing can get her down."

"Any other news?" Hermione persisted. "It's so annoying not being able to talk properly unless we're all at school."

"We're only hearing scraps here and there," said Ron. "Stuff Dad picks up at work or things in the paper, but it's all horribly censored. Fudge is trying to keep Dad in the dark about everything, and Dumbledore doesn't seem particularly bothered about sorting him out, so we're just putting up with it. It's bloody annoying, though! But Harry had a letter from Sirius this morning, didn't you?"

Harry nodded.

Hermione sat up straight, full of avid interest. "What did he say?"

"That The Order is back in England and he's staying with Lupin for the moment. Russia was no go apparently, and they lost the Death Eaters they found out there."

Hermione sighed, frustratedly. "Well that was a brilliant waste of time, then, wasn't it?"

"At least they're back now though," said Ginny, gently. "And everybody is OK."

"What are they going to do now, then?" Hermione said, more as a statement to herself than a question.

"Dunno till Charlie and Bill get back," replied Ron. "Which ought to be next week."

Mrs Weasley heaved herself to her feet and came through to welcome Hermione.

"Did you get here all right, dear?" she asked, after giving the girl a fond hug.

"Yes, no trouble," replied Hermione. "I came by Port Key. I would have Apparated, but I thought it would be better not to risk it."

"Quite right," agreed Mrs Weasley. "No sense in making things worse than they need to be." She turned her attention to preparing the evening meal.

"Oh, and we've got Fleur Delacour staying with us," said Ginny, in a low voice.

Hermione looked astonished. "Fleur Delacour? From the Triwizard Tournament? I didn't know anyone was in contact with her."

"She works with Percy at the Ministry," Ginny explained. "He brought her back for dinner and she's staying for a while."

"Penny, however, is not," muttered Ron. Mrs Weasley turned around swiftly and clipped him round the ear.

"What did I tell you yesterday, Ron?"

"Ow, Mum!" Harry watched Ron's ears turn the customary bright pink.

"Where's Penny then?" asked Hermione, bemusedly.

Ginny explained while they sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee and enjoying Mrs Weasley's cream buns.

"Oh dear," said Hermione, with a sigh, when Ginny had finished the tale of the disastrous dinner a few nights before. "Is she coming back?"

"Dunno," said Ron, shrugging. "But Perce is in a right strop, so nothing new there."

"He hasn't spoken a word to anyone since she left," added Ginny, regretfully. "He's really upset about it."

Ron snorted. "Dunno why you're so bothered, Gin, after how upset he made Mum and Dad not so very long ago."

"RON! I thought we'd settled all that," said Mrs Weasley, furiously. "He admitted he was wrong and he's made his apologies and as far as your father and I are concerned, that's the end of the whole affair."

"Yeah, well, it's not the end of it as far as I'm concerned, Mum," answered Ron, raising his voice to match Mrs Weasley's.

"Calm down, Ron," said Ginny, firmly.

Ron ignored her, and getting to his feet, he rounded on his mother again. "So it's fine for him to put you and Dad through absolute hell for a year and then come snivelling back at the end of it saying he had been misled and mistaken and all that rubbish and you treat him as though nothing had happened?"

"RON! Don't answer back!" said Mrs Weasley, glaring at him.

"I'm not answering back, I'm telling the truth. A fine right he's got waltzing back here pretending everything's always been all right, and then setting the place in uproar again because he can't take care of his own wife!"

"I DON'T REMEMBER YOU BEING SO SYMPATHETIC AT THE TIME!" shrieked Mrs Weasley, positively shaking with fury. "It's none of your BUSINESS how Percy conducts his relationship with his wife!"

"It's my bloody business when he's constantly tearing this family apart!" yelled Ron, shaking just as much as his mother.

"We're not torn apart! Look at us! We're sitting round the table drinking COFFEE!"

"It's the principle of the DAMN THING!" Ron looked about to explode. He turned on his heels and stalked out into the garden, slaming the door behind him with all his might.

The little kitchen shook.

****

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