Author's Note: OK, this chapter is a bit smaller than some of the previous ones, mainly because there wasn't a lot that could go in it before The Big Event. Well, I think it's big. Maybe I'm just kidding myself. Anyway, my next chapter might not be up for a little while – I'm currently having a power struggle with a plot bunny, and I have no idea how it's going to go. Confused you enough yet? OK then. Major thanks to all of my reviewers, again.
Kou Shun'u – wow. Thanks. You've just renewed my confidence in Chapter 6. I didn't think it was that good, but you've said such lovely things… grinning wildly right now.
Jelly bean – got your e-mail, thanks. I'm glad you liked the gay thing. I don't know where it came from, really, but it just seemed to fit the moment. 'Fabulous writer'? Moi? My head is swelling…
Fuzzywuggle – love the name. And thanks for the info re: black holes. I know nothing about them – I suppose I really shouldn't write about what I don't know, but it just happened, and… bleurgh. Forgive me?
lxl-water-spirit-lxl – you have no idea how difficult it is to type your name. I produce a chapter a day, usually – I'm glad you like it.
Jordan – thanks, I've been hoping not to get a flame, and so far I'm doing OK. Hope you like this chapter.
Aurora – I am so happy you like the way Draco is – I was worried for a long time that I'd just crapped it up, but if he works for you…
Brokenflower – I can't wait to read this similar story of yours – please write it anyway, however like mine it might be. Glad you like the story!
Athene Saile – I know what you mean about filler chapters – take this chapter, for instance – I read it over, and it seems like filler the whole way through, but when you get to the end, it should make more sense. I hope. Gah, panic attack…
Chapter Seven
Neither Draco nor Hermione acted any differently the next day, but, as Harry correctly suspected, they'd had plenty of practice with that kind of thing. Only Harry and Ginny had any idea that anything had happened, and out of respect they said nothing.
"We could lock them in a room together," suggested Ginny, as they sat on the sofas and watched TV.
Harry shook his head. "A) Too obvious, and B) they'd easily escape."
"Well, do you have any better ideas?" she asked snippily.
He considered it. "No... but I'm working on it."
"Of course you are."
Ginny, it seemed, though having spent the first part of this ordeal whimpering and clutching any family members she could get her hands on, was now much calmer and focused - probably because she actually had something to focus on now. Matchmaking was one of her favourite activities - God knew, she'd tried to set Ron and Hermione up enough times in the past.
Speaking of Ron, Harry thought, as the boy in question padded into the room with a bowl of cereal. Harry resolved to have a talk with him as soon as possible - he couldn't afford to be anything less than honest if he was going to go ahead with this matchmaking thing.
But before he got a chance to corner Ron, Fred and George stood up and tapped their spoons loudly against their empty milk glasses.
"We have an announcement to make," said Fred.
"Oh my God! You're getting married!" shrieked Ginny, laughing, but she shut up when George fixed an icy glare on her.
"As I was saying," Fred continued, smiling, "we have an announcement to make. As you know, these last few days have been pretty stressful for all of us, and we thought it was time to... destress."
"Fred Weasley, if any of your next words happen to be Weasleys, Wizard or Wheezes, I will hit you," said Hermione, looking highly suspicious.
George sighed and sat down next to her. "Hermione, dear, one day you'll want my help, and I hate to say this, but I might not want to give it to you if you keep acting like we're criminals, or something."
Draco sneered. "I doubt she'll ever be wanting your help. Unless, maybe, she wanted to learn how to be an idiot."
Hermione gasped and admonished him. "Draco, there was no need for that. What's got into you?"
Harry had to admit that it really didn't seem like Draco to say something like that. Which, when he thought about it, was testament to how much things had changed over the past few days. Then he saw it - the thing that had made Draco change from being a vaguely pleasant person to being an insulting, sneering sod. George, when he'd sat down, had flung his hand over the back of the sofa, and although to any impartial observer it would look like a casual, comfortable position, to Draco it could easily seem as though George was encroaching upon his territory.
Draco stared with narrowed eyes at George for a few seconds, then suddenly stood up and walked off. Hermione sighed and began to stand up herself. Harry, surprising everyone, including himself, held out a hand to stop her. "It's OK," he said, "I'll go."
Hermione frowned, confused. "But-"
"Really. I'll go." In a desperate attempt to make her understand, he gave a tiny nod in the direction of George's arm. She looked over as inconspicuously as possible, saw it, and realisation flooded her face. She nodded, and Harry moved off towards the kitchen.
He found Draco contemplating a large meat cleaver, and gulped. "Y-You know... murder is a crime... and George is a good bloke, really."
Draco looked up, surprised, and hurriedly replaced the meat cleaver in the drawer. "Believe it or not, I wasn't actually going to kill him. Severely injure him, possibly. Maybe cut off his arm. Or just his fingers, who knows?"
Harry grinned. "I know for a fact that neither of them have any interest in each other whatsoever. She only has eyes for you."
"I love her," said Draco unexpectedly.
Harry nodded. "I know. And as much as I never, ever thought I'd say this, I'm glad. I think you'll make a great couple."
"You sound awfully confident that we'll get together."
"I've never felt more confident about anything in my life."
They were silent for a little while, then Draco cleared his throat and said, "Thanks, Potter."
Harry glowered. "Will you bloody call me Harry? I seem to remember you telling me it wouldn't kill you to use your first name - how about you return the favour?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Alright... Harry."
They returned to the living room to find that Hermione had moved to another seat. She smiled at them as they came in. "Fred's still waiting to make that announcement."
"Go ahead," said Draco, sitting as close to Hermione as he could get. Harry hid a grin.
"Well, we wanted to help everyone destress, and we thought the best way to do that would be... a party."
Ron blinked. "A party."
"Exactly," said George, "Food, music, good company... games." He wiggled his eyebrows.
And then Harry had a brainwave.
* * *
"It's brilliant!" said Ginny when he told her. "But we might have to let the rest of them in on it."
"Why?"
"Put it this way... do you even have the faintest idea how to charm a bottle so it'll do what we want it to do?"
"No," said Harry miserably, "but let me guess - the others will?"
"Correct," replied Ginny happily. "I think you should tell Ron first, though - get it out of the way."
"Great - send me off to my death, why don't you?"
Surprisingly enough, telling Ron wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be.
Ron had known from the start that all was not friendship between Hermione and Draco. "It was the way she looked at him," he explained. "She's never looked at us like that, and I thought that either there was a whole new level of friendship that I didn't know anything about, or maybe she felt differently about him altogether. And, of course, you'd have to be a fool not to notice the way he looks at her."
"And... you're OK with this?" Harry asked uncertainly, neglecting to mention that he himself had not noticed the way Draco and Hermione looked at each other - he'd had to have it pointed out to him by Dumbledore.
"To an extent. If they love each other, what can I do about it? I mean, I could kick and scream, right, but would that change anything? Would they stop loving each other just because I'm not happy? No, they wouldn't. Besides, he's... well, he's obviously a good person. He's looked after you for five years, and I'm grateful for that."
Harry was touched by Ron's gratitude on his behalf, but was still not entirely convinced. "But you do fancy her, don't you?"
"Well, yes, but surely that's beside the point? She loves me as a friend, but she's in love with him. That's the way it is, end of story."
"OK, then," said Harry. "So will you mind much if Ginny and I try to play matchmaker?"
"Not at all," replied Ron evenly, then his head jerked up, "You and Ginny? You're not... are you?"
"No!" exclaimed Harry, and hurriedly changed the subject.
Preparations for the party were well under way. The Internet, despite being wonderful, could provide nothing in the way of magical products. Fred and George were especially disappointed to learn that Zonko's didn't have a website. So the task fell to Moody and other members of the Order to go out and requisition more supplies.
"I thought you were getting the supplies," said Hermione to Fred and George at one point. "You got all that butterbeer."
"Already had it," said George gloomily.
"When Dumbledore brought our stuff here, I don't think he realised exactly what he was transporting for us."
"Butterbeer."
"Trick wands."
"Canary creams."
"Invisi-"
"No!" yelled Hermione. "Please stop. I don't want to know what you have brought to my apartment."
"Our apartment," Draco corrected gently, going past with a large box, "I've just spoken to Moody by Floo. He passed me a whole bunch of stuff, and we can expect more within the next two hours."
Hermione looked around wistfully. "If any of you so much as scuff the carpet during this party-"
"We will hang ourselves," said Fred solemnly.
"You better bloody had."
When no-one was looking, Ginny sneaked a bottle of the butterbeer and drank it. "This is the bottle we'll use. Have you told Ron yet?"
"Yup," said Harry, still pleased that it had gone so well. "Have you told everyone else?"
"Only Fred and George - don't want to spread it around too much, or they'll know we've got a conspiracy going on. Although, come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure the twins will be as discreet as I'd hoped. I believe their exact words were, 'Hermione actually fancies that arsehole?'."
"He's not an arsehole!" said Harry furiously. "And she can fancy whoever the hell she likes! They-"
"Look, you can get angry about it later. Right now, we have business to attend to. Fred and George say they know the spell we want - apparently they've used it themselves in the past. I didn't ask why." Ginny waved the bottle in his direction. "Hope this works."
Mr and Mrs Weasley - who Harry had almost forgotten about, they'd been so quiet - had not been happy about the party at first. Despite the fact that they'd spent the last week or so reading and communicating with Dumbledore, they maintained that they were absolutely not stressed out and did not need a party to help them relax. But after some cajoling from everyone else, they agreed to come along. "Only to chaperone you lot, though," Mrs Weasley assured them.
Harry gulped. If the Weasley parents were chaperoning, would they be able to carry out their plan?
The party was taking place that evening. Hermione was going quietly insane over the idea of the apartment getting trashed; Draco, who was supposed to be in charge of damage control, actually spent most of his time calming her down, which was kind of perfect because it meant that Harry, Ginny and the twins could plot as much as they liked without being noticed.
The plan was very simple: at some point during the party, perferably an adult-free point, Ginny would suggest a game of Spin-the-Bottle. Harry, Fred and George would all boisterously agree so as not to give Hermione or Draco a chance to object. It would be arranged so that they were sitting opposite each other. Then the specially-rigged bottle would be produced. It would land on Hermione and Draco and then they'd have to kiss. Harry couldn't help but be pleased with this plan. His enthusiasm for it was helped along by a half-hope that if it was successful, then maybe it would ease the burning guilt that felt like it had been plaguing him for what seemed like forever.
* * *
At exactly 7:30pm Eastern Standard Time, the party went ahead. Hermione had sound-proofed the apartment, so when Bill and Charlie (in charge of music and DJ-ing - Hermione had had to explain the concept three times before they understood) racked up the volume on the stereo, no-one called up to complain. Which was just as well, because it would get a lot noisier before the night was through.
The dress code, although previously stated as being casual, had somehow morphed into semi-formal - the three women were in dresses, and all of the males, even Lupin, had produced shirts from somewhere. Harry couldn't help but notice Draco's reaction to Hermione - obviously she didn't go for the dressy image during the holidays. She did look good, he admitted - a simple knee-length navy-blue summer dress, with spaghetti straps and a matching hair clip. Harry watched as she complimented Ginny on her dress choice - a dark green number which also looked good, but Harry refused to spend too much time looking; Ron was getting suspicious.
Ron had handled the food spectacularly - sandwiches, juice, pies, salads, and then a specialised selection of foods from the wizarding world, like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and Chocolate Frogs. "My parents are going to kill me," muttered Hermione, munching on a chilli-flavoured Bean.
Two hours later, the party was still raging and the butterbeer hadn't stopped flowing. Most people were at least a tiny bit giggly, except Hermione and Draco who were abstaining for professional reasons. Ginny winked at Harry, and he almost had a heart attack thinking she was about to fling herself on him, when she coughed loudly and said, "I think we should have a game of Spin-the-Bottle. What do you think?"
Harry was still busy feeling stupid for assuming Ginny would fling herself at him; it took a sharp kick in the shin for him to jump up and say, "Sounds good."
"Yeah, what the heck," said Fred and George together.
Harry noticed Hermione looking at them all incredulously. "Are you insane?" she asked. "You do realise that most of the people in this room are bloody related? I mean, I'm all for love and happiness and everything, but that's just disgusting."
Ginny seized the golden opportunity. "All the more reason for you and Draco to play."
Reluctantly, through many persuasive noises and a lot of dragging, the pair sat down in the circle. True to the plan, they ended up opposite each other. Harry almost cackled with glee at how it was working out. Fred and George were actually not playing so as to keep the number of related people to a minimum. Charlie, by prior arrangement, was busy distracting Mr and Mrs Weasley.
For Harry, everything went perfectly. The bottle spun round and round, and did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Hermione and Draco stared at each other, then the bottle, then each other again. "You can't back out," said Ginny quickly, "it's against the rules."
Harry knew for a fact that there was absolutely nothing in the rules that said that Hermione and Draco couldn't just make a run for it that very second. But he knew they wouldn't. Right? Suddenly he felt incredibly unsure. Had he really done the right thing? Forcing them into such a situation, and in front of so many people?
He never did find out. One minute he was watching Hermione and Draco, the next, there was an almighty crash that sounded sickeningly familiar, and he caught a glimpse of black cloak before he spiralled into oblivion.