A/N: Welcome Back...here we go.
Disclaimer: Yeah I know, I don't own Harry Potter...damn it.
Good Night.
Jennifer dropped her shoulders as she walked out of the office. Carter never hurt her, never forced himself upon her so to speak, yet he always made her feel inferior to him. Verbal lashings were a daily routine for her, but she always felt that it was her fault. Jennifer was not weak by any means, which is perhaps why her friends were so surprised by her behavior. Carter and Jennifer were not "dating" so to speak, but everyone whom knew Jennifer well knew that Carter had weaseled his way into her life, if not her heart. Jennifer took whatever he said without a second glance, thus appeasing Carter, but sending Jennifer a one-way ticket to a mental breakdown. Jennifer never had much, but she was grateful for all that she had. Her consisted of a father who worked too much, but loved her dearly. She did not have many material things, but she was happy with that. She grew up with those down to earth tendencies that are so adored. She was surrounded by loving friends who stayed by her side through Jennifer's toughest times, and Carter was just a rough phase in Jennifer's life. She knew her friends were worried, but she never really realized how worried they were. It was because of their protectiveness that she had survived thus far, and it would be because of their protectiveness that she would continue to thrive. She walked to the front desk and smiled softly at Josiah who gave her a quick one armed embrace.
Around ten or so, Ron felt the need to get out of his room, well temporary apartment as it were, and see the sights. He walked down to the front desk and found Carter talking to some customers. He paused briefly and Carter looked up. He held up a finger signaling Ron to wait, and a few minutes later he walked up to Ron. "Everything to your liking?"
"What? Oh yes. I was wondering if you had any maps of the city. I'd like to look around."
"I can do better than that. Ms. Summers, come here for a moment please." Jennifer put on a smile to mask her tired face.
"Yes Mr. Forrester?"
"Please escort Mr. Weasley around the city." She nodded. 'Great, now I'm a damn tour guide?' She thought bitterly to herself.
"Come with me Mr. Weasley." The two walked outside, "Where would you like to go first?" She asked him.
"Um..." He asked, slightly embarrassed at his lack of knowledge of the city. She saw his blush and laughed gently.
"No fret dear, I'll show you to some of my favorite places and then if anything comes to mind we can go there." He smiled, relieved at her ability to change the awkward situation to a light one. They walked around all day and she showed him the museums, Broadway, the novelty stores, the Park, they even went to go look at the Statue of Liberty, even though it was quite some distance away. Around nine, Jennifer looked at her watch and jumped at the time, had time actually flown that quickly. "Are you hungry?"
"Hm?" Ron said, amazed by the city lights.
"Are you hungry?"
He looked down at her and chuckled, "Sorry, the city is amazing, kind of entrancing really, but to answer your question, yes I am quite hungry."
"Good, I know a great Italian place just right down the street from here." She grabbed his hand and blushed instantly at the palm-to-palm contact, she was about to drop her hand when he clasped onto it tighter and smiled. Jennifer felt a small flutter in her stomach but ignored it. He pulled her closer to him forcing her to look up at him. She tried to smile, but found that her lips would do nothing of the sort. So instead she looked into his eyes, blue eyes meeting brown. Finally he cleared his throat and turned away. "Right well, the restaurant is down this way." They walked in and Jennifer nodded a greeting to the host.
"Hello Jennifer, busy night?" He asked pointing to Ron, his eyes sparkling.
"Just showing a guest around the city." She said dismissively.
"Whatever. Follow me." The host escorted them to the back of the hotel to a booth. Jennifer slid in one side and Ron slide in on the other. Dylan will be with you shortly.
"Thanks Kevin."
"No problem, oh remember that Opal is holding a small party at her house on Friday. Come alone." He said, knowing that if she was required to bring a date, Carter would force her to bring him.
She smiled at him, knowing what he was implying. "Thanks." She turned her attention to Ron. "Did you enjoy yourself today Mr. Weasley?"
"Please call me Ron Miss Summers."
"As long as you call me Jennifer." He laughed.
"Well then Jennifer," he stated, "I did enjoy myself today. Thanks for the thorough tour."
"It wasn't a problem, I enjoyed myself as well."
"Really?" He asked.
She looked up his eyes and smiled, "Really. So tell me about yourself Ron."
Ron squirmed, she was not a witch therefore he could not tell her much about his past and current life. "Um...what do you want to know?"
"How about the basics. What was your family like?"
He smiled an easy question to answer. "I grew up with five brothers and one sister."
She nearly choked on the water she had been drinking. "Five brothers and one sister?!"
"Yeah."
"Wow. Big family. What are their names?"
"The eldest is Bill, he works at a bank. Then there is Charlie who works for a reserve in Romania. Then Percy who works under my father. The twins Fred and George who own their own joke shop. And then there is me, and lastly my sister Ginny, who is working as a...doctor in Greece." He said, trying to make his family sound normal.
"What does your father do?"
"He works under the British government." Okay so it was not a complete lie. He worked for the British Ministry of Magic which was indeed England's wizarding government.
"And your mum?"
"She doesn't work. Well at least she doesn't work for money. Raising eight kids definitely was not an easy task."
"Eight? I thought you only had six siblings."
"By blood yes, I had six siblings. However my best friend is practically my brother so my mum practically raised him from the time he was eleven."
"How kind. But what happened to his parents."
"Murdered when he was an infant."
"That's horrible." She gasped. "Do they know who did it?"
"Yeah, he's dead now."
"Did he kill others?"
Ron nodded, "Many, many others."
"I don't understand how one can murder another human being." She said looking into her clear water glass."
"Neither do I."
Suddenly a man walked up. Jennifer perked up, "Hey Dylan. This is Ron Weasley, Ron this is a friend of mine Dylan Webster." Dylan smiled and nodded his greeting.
"What can I get for you Jen?"
"The usual."
"And you sir?"
"Uh...I'll take the shrimp fettuccini."
"Good choice. Wine with that?" Jen shook her head and looked over to Ron who shook his head indicating a 'no'. Dylan nodded "Then I'll send this right up." He walked away.
Ron looked over at her. "Good friends."
She smiled, "You could say that."
"You have a wonderful smile, anyone ever tell you that."
Jennifer blushed at his sweet but blunt comment. She smiled and shook her head then looked out the window beside them. "You really do." He said gently.
She looked over at him, "Thank you." She said warmly, her eyes twinkling. "Okay more about you. What do you do for a living?"
"I work to catch the bad guys so to speak."
"A police man?" She questioned.
"You could say that."
"Ever been married." This time he choked on his water.
"Pardon?" He asked, wiping his mouth with the linen napkin. She giggled.
"Have you ever been married?"
"Where did that come from?"
"Random question. So...have you?"
"No, but I was almost engaged."
"What happened?"
"She turned me down."
"Why?"
"No clue."
"I'm sorry." She said genuinely. He looked at her for a moment and studied her face and nodded.
"What about you? Any special guy in your life."
She shifted uncomfortably. "There's a guy I guess, I don't know how special he is."
He noticed her discomfort and dropped the subject immediately. "What about your family?"
She turned to him. "Well, my family was rather small, even by typical means. My mother died when I was young, and my father worked a lot so he was never really home. I had no siblings, eventually my friends became my family. My father had a heart attack a few weeks ago, so he's still recovering from that."
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright, it could have been worse. He just worked too hard. I know mom's death was hard on him, I guess he needed an outlet for his pain and found his solace in work."
"Too many people these days do." Ron said.
"I agree." The two continued to exchange stories of their past and when their meals arrived; Jennifer was in tears from laughing so hard.
"I'm glad to see that I amuse you so."
She continued laughing and Dylan was still at the table when Ron said this, "Take it as a compliment man, I haven't seen Jennifer laugh this hard since she fell off my father's sail boat." At the memory, Jennifer laughed even harder, tears pouring out of her eyes. "She hasn't had anything to drink has she?" Dylan asked pointing to Jennifer.
Ron held up his hands, "Not that I know of. But please tell me about this incident." Dylan looked at his watch.
"I guess I could take a few minutes off. Okay so one week in June Jennifer, me, and some friend of ours decided to take a trip down to Florida where my father lives. I asked if I could borrow his boat one day and he agreed, since I grew up on sailing, I knew what to do and so on. Well anyway we were all on the boat laughing, fishing, and just having a real good time. The day passed in a blur. Well when the sun was beginning to set, we started turning back. Jennifer here complained of the temperature drop so I handed her my sweater that I had brought along. So she took off her lifejacket and put the sweater on. Well a friend of ours, Viv, saw some dolphins so she called Jennifer over to watch. The two sat on the edge of the boat watching them and then Viv got up to use the restroom. Well I was talking to all of the guys, so no one was watching Jenn and Viv came back up five minutes later and looked around for Jennifer. She couldn't find her. Turns out Jennifer had fallen of the side of the boat. Anyway we ran to the other end of the boat, and there was Jennifer petting the damn dolphin and waiting for us to come get her. She looked up at us, laughed, and yelled out 'Took you long enough!' When she got back on board we were laughing so hard everyone had tears in their eyes. Scared us at first, but Jennifer's a good swimmer, she proved it." Jennifer had stopped laughing and smiled at her friend.
"I would have been a better one if it weren't for that stupid sweater. It weighed like a ton of bricks."
"Yeah well sweaters weren't meant to go swimming in."
"Thank you Capitan Obvious. Go back to work."
"You wound me."
She pointed to the door, signaling him to return to work, but he had caught the sparkle in her eyes while she "commanded" him. She looked back at Ron and smiled, "Eat up, the food is great." Ron stared at her intently for a few moments while she began to eat. She caught his gaze and wiped her mouth. "What, do I have something on my face?" She asked.
He smiled, "Yeah actually you do." He reached over and wiped the marinara sauce off her cheek with his thumb. She caught his hand with hers and smiled.
"Thanks."
"No problem." He looked at her for a few moments, then cleared his throat and began to eat. He was surprised at how good it was. "This is great!"
"I know. Greg, he's the main chef, is amazing in the kitchen, can cook just about anything with anything."
"You have great friends."
"Thanks. Tell me about yours."
"Well I had two main best friends, Harry Potter and then my other best friend who became my girl friend, Hermione Granger." The last name Potter sound extremely familiar to Jennifer but she shook it off as a coincidence. "I met Harry and Hermione at the boarding school in England I attended, and we've been best friends ever since. Although at the moment I don't know what to make of Hermione and mine's relationship." He said honestly.
"It'll work out."
"I hope so." They continued their meal and when the check arrived, Jennifer reached for it, but Ron stopped her. "My treat."
"Oh no I couldn't ask for you to..."
He looked at the check and counted out the money, hoping he had placed the correct money out. Jennifer looked at him and then the money. He hadn't, but she just took it for his miscalculation of Euros to American money. She smiled warmly. "Hand me your wallet."
"Pardon?"
"Just do it." He handed her his wallet and she replaced the money on the table with a twenty and a ten. Ron grinned uncomfortably. She smiled, "It's alright, you just have to get used to American currency." She handed him his wallet back and the two got up, Ron walked away and Jennifer inconspicuously placed a ten down on the table for a tip. When they left the restaurant it was nearing midnight. "Ready to go back?"
Ron yawned. "I guess that's our answer." He stated. She laughed.
"Alright, come on sleepyhead." They entered the hotel and Jennifer walked with him up to his room. He looked down at her and reached for her hand, his thumb caressing the top.
"I had a wonderful time today."
Her throat went dry. "Me too."
"Thank you." He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "Good night." He said, placing his key in the lock and opening the door. She waved at him and he shut the door.
"Good night." She said to the door and walked over to the elevator. She pressed the first floor button and walked to the front desk, Josiah was still there. "Do you ever sleep?"
"Nope."
She sighed, "Me neither."
"Have a good time today?"
She smiled. "Yes, I really did. Well I'm going home now; see you in the morning, Good night."
"Good night."
Disclaimer: Yeah I know, I don't own Harry Potter...damn it.
Good Night.
Jennifer dropped her shoulders as she walked out of the office. Carter never hurt her, never forced himself upon her so to speak, yet he always made her feel inferior to him. Verbal lashings were a daily routine for her, but she always felt that it was her fault. Jennifer was not weak by any means, which is perhaps why her friends were so surprised by her behavior. Carter and Jennifer were not "dating" so to speak, but everyone whom knew Jennifer well knew that Carter had weaseled his way into her life, if not her heart. Jennifer took whatever he said without a second glance, thus appeasing Carter, but sending Jennifer a one-way ticket to a mental breakdown. Jennifer never had much, but she was grateful for all that she had. Her consisted of a father who worked too much, but loved her dearly. She did not have many material things, but she was happy with that. She grew up with those down to earth tendencies that are so adored. She was surrounded by loving friends who stayed by her side through Jennifer's toughest times, and Carter was just a rough phase in Jennifer's life. She knew her friends were worried, but she never really realized how worried they were. It was because of their protectiveness that she had survived thus far, and it would be because of their protectiveness that she would continue to thrive. She walked to the front desk and smiled softly at Josiah who gave her a quick one armed embrace.
Around ten or so, Ron felt the need to get out of his room, well temporary apartment as it were, and see the sights. He walked down to the front desk and found Carter talking to some customers. He paused briefly and Carter looked up. He held up a finger signaling Ron to wait, and a few minutes later he walked up to Ron. "Everything to your liking?"
"What? Oh yes. I was wondering if you had any maps of the city. I'd like to look around."
"I can do better than that. Ms. Summers, come here for a moment please." Jennifer put on a smile to mask her tired face.
"Yes Mr. Forrester?"
"Please escort Mr. Weasley around the city." She nodded. 'Great, now I'm a damn tour guide?' She thought bitterly to herself.
"Come with me Mr. Weasley." The two walked outside, "Where would you like to go first?" She asked him.
"Um..." He asked, slightly embarrassed at his lack of knowledge of the city. She saw his blush and laughed gently.
"No fret dear, I'll show you to some of my favorite places and then if anything comes to mind we can go there." He smiled, relieved at her ability to change the awkward situation to a light one. They walked around all day and she showed him the museums, Broadway, the novelty stores, the Park, they even went to go look at the Statue of Liberty, even though it was quite some distance away. Around nine, Jennifer looked at her watch and jumped at the time, had time actually flown that quickly. "Are you hungry?"
"Hm?" Ron said, amazed by the city lights.
"Are you hungry?"
He looked down at her and chuckled, "Sorry, the city is amazing, kind of entrancing really, but to answer your question, yes I am quite hungry."
"Good, I know a great Italian place just right down the street from here." She grabbed his hand and blushed instantly at the palm-to-palm contact, she was about to drop her hand when he clasped onto it tighter and smiled. Jennifer felt a small flutter in her stomach but ignored it. He pulled her closer to him forcing her to look up at him. She tried to smile, but found that her lips would do nothing of the sort. So instead she looked into his eyes, blue eyes meeting brown. Finally he cleared his throat and turned away. "Right well, the restaurant is down this way." They walked in and Jennifer nodded a greeting to the host.
"Hello Jennifer, busy night?" He asked pointing to Ron, his eyes sparkling.
"Just showing a guest around the city." She said dismissively.
"Whatever. Follow me." The host escorted them to the back of the hotel to a booth. Jennifer slid in one side and Ron slide in on the other. Dylan will be with you shortly.
"Thanks Kevin."
"No problem, oh remember that Opal is holding a small party at her house on Friday. Come alone." He said, knowing that if she was required to bring a date, Carter would force her to bring him.
She smiled at him, knowing what he was implying. "Thanks." She turned her attention to Ron. "Did you enjoy yourself today Mr. Weasley?"
"Please call me Ron Miss Summers."
"As long as you call me Jennifer." He laughed.
"Well then Jennifer," he stated, "I did enjoy myself today. Thanks for the thorough tour."
"It wasn't a problem, I enjoyed myself as well."
"Really?" He asked.
She looked up his eyes and smiled, "Really. So tell me about yourself Ron."
Ron squirmed, she was not a witch therefore he could not tell her much about his past and current life. "Um...what do you want to know?"
"How about the basics. What was your family like?"
He smiled an easy question to answer. "I grew up with five brothers and one sister."
She nearly choked on the water she had been drinking. "Five brothers and one sister?!"
"Yeah."
"Wow. Big family. What are their names?"
"The eldest is Bill, he works at a bank. Then there is Charlie who works for a reserve in Romania. Then Percy who works under my father. The twins Fred and George who own their own joke shop. And then there is me, and lastly my sister Ginny, who is working as a...doctor in Greece." He said, trying to make his family sound normal.
"What does your father do?"
"He works under the British government." Okay so it was not a complete lie. He worked for the British Ministry of Magic which was indeed England's wizarding government.
"And your mum?"
"She doesn't work. Well at least she doesn't work for money. Raising eight kids definitely was not an easy task."
"Eight? I thought you only had six siblings."
"By blood yes, I had six siblings. However my best friend is practically my brother so my mum practically raised him from the time he was eleven."
"How kind. But what happened to his parents."
"Murdered when he was an infant."
"That's horrible." She gasped. "Do they know who did it?"
"Yeah, he's dead now."
"Did he kill others?"
Ron nodded, "Many, many others."
"I don't understand how one can murder another human being." She said looking into her clear water glass."
"Neither do I."
Suddenly a man walked up. Jennifer perked up, "Hey Dylan. This is Ron Weasley, Ron this is a friend of mine Dylan Webster." Dylan smiled and nodded his greeting.
"What can I get for you Jen?"
"The usual."
"And you sir?"
"Uh...I'll take the shrimp fettuccini."
"Good choice. Wine with that?" Jen shook her head and looked over to Ron who shook his head indicating a 'no'. Dylan nodded "Then I'll send this right up." He walked away.
Ron looked over at her. "Good friends."
She smiled, "You could say that."
"You have a wonderful smile, anyone ever tell you that."
Jennifer blushed at his sweet but blunt comment. She smiled and shook her head then looked out the window beside them. "You really do." He said gently.
She looked over at him, "Thank you." She said warmly, her eyes twinkling. "Okay more about you. What do you do for a living?"
"I work to catch the bad guys so to speak."
"A police man?" She questioned.
"You could say that."
"Ever been married." This time he choked on his water.
"Pardon?" He asked, wiping his mouth with the linen napkin. She giggled.
"Have you ever been married?"
"Where did that come from?"
"Random question. So...have you?"
"No, but I was almost engaged."
"What happened?"
"She turned me down."
"Why?"
"No clue."
"I'm sorry." She said genuinely. He looked at her for a moment and studied her face and nodded.
"What about you? Any special guy in your life."
She shifted uncomfortably. "There's a guy I guess, I don't know how special he is."
He noticed her discomfort and dropped the subject immediately. "What about your family?"
She turned to him. "Well, my family was rather small, even by typical means. My mother died when I was young, and my father worked a lot so he was never really home. I had no siblings, eventually my friends became my family. My father had a heart attack a few weeks ago, so he's still recovering from that."
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright, it could have been worse. He just worked too hard. I know mom's death was hard on him, I guess he needed an outlet for his pain and found his solace in work."
"Too many people these days do." Ron said.
"I agree." The two continued to exchange stories of their past and when their meals arrived; Jennifer was in tears from laughing so hard.
"I'm glad to see that I amuse you so."
She continued laughing and Dylan was still at the table when Ron said this, "Take it as a compliment man, I haven't seen Jennifer laugh this hard since she fell off my father's sail boat." At the memory, Jennifer laughed even harder, tears pouring out of her eyes. "She hasn't had anything to drink has she?" Dylan asked pointing to Jennifer.
Ron held up his hands, "Not that I know of. But please tell me about this incident." Dylan looked at his watch.
"I guess I could take a few minutes off. Okay so one week in June Jennifer, me, and some friend of ours decided to take a trip down to Florida where my father lives. I asked if I could borrow his boat one day and he agreed, since I grew up on sailing, I knew what to do and so on. Well anyway we were all on the boat laughing, fishing, and just having a real good time. The day passed in a blur. Well when the sun was beginning to set, we started turning back. Jennifer here complained of the temperature drop so I handed her my sweater that I had brought along. So she took off her lifejacket and put the sweater on. Well a friend of ours, Viv, saw some dolphins so she called Jennifer over to watch. The two sat on the edge of the boat watching them and then Viv got up to use the restroom. Well I was talking to all of the guys, so no one was watching Jenn and Viv came back up five minutes later and looked around for Jennifer. She couldn't find her. Turns out Jennifer had fallen of the side of the boat. Anyway we ran to the other end of the boat, and there was Jennifer petting the damn dolphin and waiting for us to come get her. She looked up at us, laughed, and yelled out 'Took you long enough!' When she got back on board we were laughing so hard everyone had tears in their eyes. Scared us at first, but Jennifer's a good swimmer, she proved it." Jennifer had stopped laughing and smiled at her friend.
"I would have been a better one if it weren't for that stupid sweater. It weighed like a ton of bricks."
"Yeah well sweaters weren't meant to go swimming in."
"Thank you Capitan Obvious. Go back to work."
"You wound me."
She pointed to the door, signaling him to return to work, but he had caught the sparkle in her eyes while she "commanded" him. She looked back at Ron and smiled, "Eat up, the food is great." Ron stared at her intently for a few moments while she began to eat. She caught his gaze and wiped her mouth. "What, do I have something on my face?" She asked.
He smiled, "Yeah actually you do." He reached over and wiped the marinara sauce off her cheek with his thumb. She caught his hand with hers and smiled.
"Thanks."
"No problem." He looked at her for a few moments, then cleared his throat and began to eat. He was surprised at how good it was. "This is great!"
"I know. Greg, he's the main chef, is amazing in the kitchen, can cook just about anything with anything."
"You have great friends."
"Thanks. Tell me about yours."
"Well I had two main best friends, Harry Potter and then my other best friend who became my girl friend, Hermione Granger." The last name Potter sound extremely familiar to Jennifer but she shook it off as a coincidence. "I met Harry and Hermione at the boarding school in England I attended, and we've been best friends ever since. Although at the moment I don't know what to make of Hermione and mine's relationship." He said honestly.
"It'll work out."
"I hope so." They continued their meal and when the check arrived, Jennifer reached for it, but Ron stopped her. "My treat."
"Oh no I couldn't ask for you to..."
He looked at the check and counted out the money, hoping he had placed the correct money out. Jennifer looked at him and then the money. He hadn't, but she just took it for his miscalculation of Euros to American money. She smiled warmly. "Hand me your wallet."
"Pardon?"
"Just do it." He handed her his wallet and she replaced the money on the table with a twenty and a ten. Ron grinned uncomfortably. She smiled, "It's alright, you just have to get used to American currency." She handed him his wallet back and the two got up, Ron walked away and Jennifer inconspicuously placed a ten down on the table for a tip. When they left the restaurant it was nearing midnight. "Ready to go back?"
Ron yawned. "I guess that's our answer." He stated. She laughed.
"Alright, come on sleepyhead." They entered the hotel and Jennifer walked with him up to his room. He looked down at her and reached for her hand, his thumb caressing the top.
"I had a wonderful time today."
Her throat went dry. "Me too."
"Thank you." He leaned down and kissed her cheek. "Good night." He said, placing his key in the lock and opening the door. She waved at him and he shut the door.
"Good night." She said to the door and walked over to the elevator. She pressed the first floor button and walked to the front desk, Josiah was still there. "Do you ever sleep?"
"Nope."
She sighed, "Me neither."
"Have a good time today?"
She smiled. "Yes, I really did. Well I'm going home now; see you in the morning, Good night."
"Good night."