A/N—Oh, blast it all. I had this chapter written. I had it all done but like two paragraphs and wouldn't you know it, my computer crashes. Congratulations to me, I caught the newest and most harmful virus. Christmas has come early.

If you read some other stuff by me, you all ready know this…but I'm still pissed about it, so yes, I'm going to rant some more. This particular story was really hard to get out, because as stated in other A/N, I despise rewriting. It was boring and took me forever. That, and college has been kicking my ass lately.

Unconventional Commitments

Chapter Thirteen
A Black Cat (Chapter title has nothing to do with actual chapter. But does have something to do with chapter number. Lol, I've had too much coffee…)

If I had one wish in life it would be for simplicity. Everything is always so complicated, for once it would be nice to just have things fall in place, you know?

If I had two wishes, the second would be to just erase the past few weeks of my life. Actually, make that my first wish…because if I got rid of these past weeks, simplicity would be granted.

No confusion, no possibility of a relationship…yes, life would indeed be peachy.

Except, while peachy, life would also be boring. Because without the prospect of randomly waking up in an unknown bed, is life really worth living? Er…okay, so that makes me sound like a complete slag. But that isn't what I meant, just saying that surprises are nice at times. They give you something to look forward to; you never know what tomorrow will bring and all that.

Or, so are my contemplations as I lose myself in chocolate ice cream. That's right; I'm back on ice cream. I attempted to give it up, but when depression rang at my door, it was just too much to resist. This must be what it feels like to be a drug addict…

This blows. Why should I be depressed yet again? Harry left it all up to me, so it is obvious as to what I am going to choose. To stay single, of course. Or maybe to try something with Harry. Wonder if it'd be cheating to flip a coin…

All right, this is ridiculous. I do not want to be with Harry Wanking Potter. I have spent all my time lately devising ways to get out of this potential relationship; I am not going to bloody just jump into it now. This is nothing unusual, actually. I don't like relationships, but I normally go for them all the same.

I mean, I went out with Colin, even though I had virtually no feelings for him. Maybe that's the issue, that I normally have no real regard for my date, so I have no qualms about going out with them. I see no potential risk of attachment and the fact that I am in a relationship keeps my mother happy.

But with Harry…I don't have romantic feelings for him, per se, it's just that…potentially he is a threat. For instance, Dean I could have gone for. Both terrified of commitment, both easily bored and distracted…clearly not a relationship that would go anywhere. A dream, really. But I didn't go for him; I backed off because of Harry. I even felt guilty. This is bad, this is very bad. This hasn't happened to me in years—if ever. I mean, the last time I felt like this was with…er, never mind. That particular relationship is not worth bringing up right now.

I don't know what to do about this. I almost want to go on a date with Harry…but if I make the first move then he's going to think that I am just totally committed and that we are going to be together forever and ever and…I just can't deal with that.

Screw it, I'm going to bed.

I wake up to the unpleasant sound of a loud thumping on the front door. I lay in bed for a good five minutes, contemplating what to do about this particular situation…to go back to sleep and ignore whoever is so desperate to get in, or to get up and permit them entrance. Decisions, decisions…

I finally drag myself up off the bed, it's doubtful that my sleep would be pleasant with all that noise anyway. However, as I am stumbling down the hall, the door is literally blasted open. My mouth falls open, how horribly rude.

As I prepare to yell at the perpetrator I notice that it is Fred and George. Well, that's really just to be expected of them. Still, that doesn't give them the right to go blasting off people's doors, and I told them as much.

"You can't go around just blowing up other people's doors, you know." See, told you…

"Oh, we'll fix it," Fred answers flippantly.

"This is a muggle neighborhood," I continue, "you're just lucky that Hermione isn't here, she'd have your heads."

They glance at each other nervously.

"Damn," Fred mutters.

"The Ministry already doesn't like us," George adds while giving Fred a meaningful look.

"Yeah," Fred says with a laugh, "but I still don't see how it's our fault that someone left our product in the middle of muggle London. I mean, just because our name is on the box the Ministry had to go have a fit over it. I thought Dad was going to burst a vein that day…"

I scowl at them; did they really come here to take a walk down Memory Lane? "Did you have a reason to be here, or just one of those random impulses to go blow up something?"

"You never came back to work!" George says. "And you were scheduled for this morning—"

"No I wasn't."

George produces a piece of parchment, "Oh yes you were. We wrote it down this week."

Crap. No bother, I like a challenge. Besides, they weren't concerned about this last night at the family dinner…Wait a minute; they weren't at the family dinner. "How about we strike a deal? You let me off work today, and I don't tell Mum that you two were out partying last night."

"How did you know—?"

Fred quickly elbowed George in the stomach to silence him. "No deal, you have no proof."

"Do you really want to count on that? Besides, you know that I can be very convincing when I want to be. I'll even tell her about that bottle of Firewhiskey you keep stored at work."

They gaze at me with a sort of pride. "Evil," George pronounces, "our baby sister is well on her way to being an evil genius."

I wink at them, "I learned from the best."

I bite back a laugh as they blush.

"Well, you know, Ginny," Fred says slowly.

"We really don't need Mum in all this, now do we?" George finishes.

"Depends entirely upon you," I answer dismissively. "But for your information, Ron and Hermione announced their engagement last night…that's really the sort of thing that we should all be together for. I'm really disappointed in the both of you." I resist the urge to laugh at the lecture Mum is going to give them next time she sees them. At least I made it for dinner.

"Sorry," they both mumble.

"Don't apologize to me," I say in a shrill tone that terrifyingly reminds me of my mother.

"Sorry, Ginny," they say again.

"We'll just go find Ron then," Fred says after a moment.

George nods and they sulk out of my apartment.

I smirk, another day of work complete. Now, to get back to sleep…

I walk back to my bedroom and crawl underneath the covers. I close my eyes but find that sleeping is easier said than done. I shift positions as if this will help...it doesn't. I unconsciously grab my extra pillow and hug it against me as if it is another body. Only, it isn't firm and comforting like…Harry. Oh shit.

I sit straight up, now fully awake. That one has definitely never happened before. I don't even enjoy sleeping with other people (and I do mean sleeping, not anything else) I prefer to have the entire bed to myself. For instance, it drives me insane to have people touching me in any way while I am attempting to sleep…it's just creepy.

But now, the thought of Harry being protectively close to me sounds almost appealing. I really think that I might start hyperventilating. God help me, I want to "cuddle" with Harry Potter.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Hell has officially frozen over.

Sufficient to say, I never got back to sleep. No, instead I spent hours upon hours thinking. Oh, what fun. I'm turning bitter…Not that I wasn't bitter before, but even more so now. Sarcasm has taken over all normal thinking, which is a good thing about half of the time. The other half of the time it just gets me in trouble and contributes to the bitterness. It's a never-ending cycle, really.

But I did come to a few conclusions. So good for me, right? Anyway, I have decided that—drum roll please—I, Ginny Weasley, am going to go on a date with Harry Potter. I'm just going bite the bullet, and go on the date. How bad can it be? I'm just going to go on the date, and be done with the whole thing. I'm sure that after one night as his date I'll feel as if I am about to suffocate, and then I will no longer have this flip-flopping issue. I will be definite about it, there will be no "if." I will be gung-ho on getting out of this relationship.

Of course, as stated, Harry is a potential commitment threat…but I'll just stop the whole thing before it gets deep. Sorry, Harry, but your feelings take second place to my sanity.

I do have one small problem to take care of though before I go about this date business. I still have no front door. Fred and George conveniently forgot to fix it before they left. How generous of them. This actually puts me in a predicament, because if I use magic to fix it then the Ministry gets notified of it. Normally, I wouldn't care, but I all ready have like eighteen warnings and fines from them. Is it my fault it took me a while to get used to the key? Alohomora is just so much easier…

Anyway, my damn door needs fixed. But how exactly does one go about this in the muggle way? That seems vastly complicated.

I stare helplessly at the door. I suppose that I should lift it up. Then nail it back on? Do we have nails? I think that Hermione has a nailer-on gun thingie. But she told Ron and me that we were not allowed touching it or any of her other tools, under any circumstances. Oh well, I'm sure that she won't mind; having a door is important. Besides, how hard can it be to use a nailer thing? Press the button and it goes, right?

So I think that I should find the nail thing first, and then lift the door back into place. Right…I walk back to Hermione's room, not to spy of course, just to search for the gun. I will not peek around the room; I will get the gun, and get out.

I peer into her closet. That appears to be a box on her shelf. Her "toolbox" I think she called it. Okay, so I just need to get a chair and get it—Wait a minute, Hermione's drawer is open. The one that she keeps her diary in…No! Bad, Ginny, bad. I will not read Hermione's diary, because that would be invasion of privacy. Besides, she probably has all kinds of spells on it.

I walk over to her vanity and drag the chair over to the closet. God, I am so proud of myself. How good of a person am I? I am not going to spy on my friend, because that would be wrong. I really feel like I should pat myself on the back.

But back to the box of tools. I lift the box down—no easy task, as that beast is heavy—and sit it on the floor. Let's see…oh, this silver thing looks promising, it has a trigger and everything.

I aim at nothing in particular and pull back on the trigger. A nail shoots out full speed…this is too neat. My father would love this; I'm going to have to buy him one for Christmas. I carry the gun out with me; I am ready to tackle the door situation.

I attempt to lift the door, but it's heavier than the toolbox. I can do this, though, I am not some fragile weak woman, and I am capable of lifting a door. Just give me to the count of three. One…two…thre—

"Ginny?"

Harry. Oh, thank God; I'm not going to have to lift the door by myself.

He looks at my empty doorway in confusion. "Uh, do you know that your door appears to be missing?"

"How observant of you. Fred and George blasted it off, long story. Can you help me put it back up?"

He shrugs, "Sure." Before getting to the door though, he notices the nail gun on the floor. "What's this?" Harry muses before toying around with it. "I think my Uncle used to have one of these, not that he ever let me touch it…"

Okay you give a man a task to do and they always find some way to—Oh shit. Harry just shot off the gun thing. And the nail is in my hand!!!!

Oh, my god, oh, my god, oh, my god….it hurts, it hurts, it hurts! I shake my hand around as if this will elevate the pain…big surprise, it doesn't!

"Ginny!" Harry runs over, "Oh, god. I am so sorry, are you okay?"

I have a damn nail through my hand; does he think that I'm okay? Ew, there's blood everywhere…and there's just a nail sticking out of my hand.

I think that I'm going to pass out.

And, apparently, I did. Because it's now six hours later and my hand is painless and nailess—no thanks to Harry. I cannot believe he shot a nail through my hand. Furthermore, I cannot believe that he left me! I am all alone in the hospital.

He better be out buying me something.

As I'm studying my hand to make sure that there are no scars (I really love magic) the door opens, and Harry walks in. He has flowers. Well, that's a start.

"You're awake," he says in a relieved tone.

"Yes, I lived after all. A miracle, really, considering that someone attempted to kill me by way of nail."

"I can't apologize enough, Ginny. I have no idea how it happened…but I feel so horrible about it." He strides quickly over to me, sitting the flowers on the bedside table. He picks up my hand gently, "Does it hurt? Is there anything that I can do for you?"

I pull my hand away, "It's fine."

"No, it's not. There must be something that I can do to make it up to you. Anything you want, Ginny, just name it."

Now this has some potential.

A/N—The nail gun thing…you really don't want to know where that came from. Umm…yeah.

Review, please!

Oh, and to Jessie McDonald, no this is not related to Someday You'll Love me…but I can see where you'd get that. Thanks for asking though, it's awesome to know that someone was contemplating my stories, lol.