Who's Supplying the Chocolate Frogs?

By Sara Lynn

Chapter 3: The Biggest Apple

Hermione and her friends were staying New York for three days. They decided the length of how long they would stay in each place based on how much they felt they wanted to see. New York was one of their longest visits. They were staying in the rather large apartment of the Connoway family. Betsy Connoway was one of Mrs. Granger's roommates in college. Betsy was on of those moms. She was very upper east side New York. She tried to be a good mother but what she really lived for were cocktail parties. Betsy and her hubby Jim were always at them, even on Monday nights. They had one kid, she was Ginny's age. Lara. Hermione felt very bad for Lara. Since her parents abandoned her, all she did was eat and eat and eat. So Lara was a rather large girl. Hermione hoped Ron and Harry wouldn't poke fun.

The gang did the normal New York things- shopping, the Empire State Building, taking many photos of the New York skyline, tried New York pizza and New York hot dogs. All of this in the first two days they were there. It had tired everyone out, but it affected Hermione the most. The night after a long day of shopping and the night before their last day there, it began to take its toll.

Lara wanted to take Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione to her favorite restaurant- Chacheese. Supposedly, Chacheese was a popular teen hang out and had the best fondue and best grilled cheese ever. Harry and Ron were upstairs taking showers and what not, Hermione and the girls were down in the living room looking through Lara's makeup. Ginny was trying to find the perfect combination of colors to use on Lara.

"Ok so Lara, I definitely think blues and greens will bring our your err your eyes." Ginny was saying. Lara and Ginny were perched anxiously on the edge of the couch looking through the wide assortment of makeup. Hermione was near falling asleep on the other end of the couch.

"If you say so Ginny, you're much better at this than me." Lara said as the two girls packed up all the makeup to head upstairs and begin getting ready.

"Are you coming to get ready Hermione, or are you going like that?" Ginny quizzed the near asleep girl.

"Umm yeaaah, I don't think I'm going to go Gin."

"Why the hell not? Lara said it's a great place to meet gu- I mean people. To meet people.

"Yes well I'm not feeling very good, I don't think that's the best condition to meet people in." As Hermione said this, Harry and Ron were clumping down the stairs. They, of course were already ready for the evening.

"See, Harry I thought something was wrong. Girls, we were a bit baffled when we finished getting ready for this fine evening when we discovered that you lot were not upstairs doing all your frilly girl things, why is this?" Ron, ever the smartass asked.

"Hermione's not coming and I was trying to convince her otherwise, but she looks like she's about to die." Ginny said. At this, Ron softened and was the first one to really look at Hermione's state. Her eyes were watery, cheeks hot, she was shivering but look as if her body was about 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

"Jesus Hermione, you look pretty sick there, you definitely need to stay put." Ron said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Gosh, sorry Herm. We could all stay home tonight and play board games and we could all go to Chacheese tomorrow evening." Lara said.

"No, no Lara. You said Friday nights are teen nights at Chacheese. You guys go, I can manage on my-"

"NO, no you can't," Ron cut in "I'll stay with you and Harry and the girls can go."

"Ron…" Hermione started but didn't finish her thought. Of course she wanted Ron to stay with her. It was his company she enjoyed the most. So after only ten minutes of getting ready (a record, really without wands), Ginny and Harry and Lara went off to Lara's favorite place.

"Ok miss, this evening be ready to be errr pampered." Ron said once the others left.

"I'm going to do my best to be your mummy dearest." He continued.

"No, I can manage really." Hermione murmured. The state of her really made Ron sad. When Ron was sad he become very affectionate. He placed his hand on her cheek and rubbed part of it with his thumb and his whispered to her, "No way, I'm going to get you some ginger ale because that's what mum always gets me, some blankets because you are freezing I can tell, and some sort of medicine because you, my dear can NOT manage." And with that he set off to do these things for his female friend the muggle way.

A few moments later, Ron returned with a tall wine glass full of ginger ale, three heavy wool blankets, a Weasley jumper in Hermione's favorite shade of blue (it was Ron's) and three Motrin tablets. Hermione held out a shaky hand to receive the medicine from one of Ron's hands. Ron saw how badly she was shaking from weakness and gently pushed her back against the couch with his free hand and said

"No open up." Referring to her mouth. Hermione obeyed and broke her lips apart, and Ron dropped the first tablet in. He asked her if she needed the soda to swallow it with but she shook her head, swallowed and parted her lips two more times for the other tablets. Hadn't she been so ill she would have been as nervous as hell at the fact that Ron was feeding her medicine. She muttered a sweet thank you to Ron.

"You should sleep, it's the only way you'll feel totally better." He suggested.

"Yeah, I know. I just I don't think I can fall asleep. Strangely, I never can when I am sick." Hermione softly said.

"Oh." Ron tried to rack his brain about what else he could do for his friend. He knew he had to get her to sleep if she wanted to have any fun their last day in New York. She also was the one doing all the driving.

"Well…let me see if I can fix that." Ron moved towards Hermione and lifted the blankets off of her. She had just put all three of them on top of her body, but Ron knew she should have them arranged differently. He knew she was too weak to move, so he gently put a hand behind her neck to guide her upper half upwards. He then placed the one blanket around her shoulders. He slid the other underneath her body and let her use the other the regular way. He knew she would only get fully better if her fever broke. He tried to think of what could help other than the jumper and blankets. He realized he should probably turn the air conditioning off and even raise the temperature of the apartment. As he walked towards the controls Hermione realized what he was doing,

"Ron no, you'll boil. Besides do you even know how to work one of those."

"No." He said dumbly.

"But my wand does." He said. And with that he turned the temperature of the Connoway apartment to 77 degrees.

Roughly two hours later, Hermione was softly giggling at the latest story Ron was telling her. They were fiction of course. The latest story had poor Harry suffering an embarrassing day in just his knickers. As he was telling the delightful tale, Hermione noticed that there were drips of sweat coming from Ron's temples.

"Really, Ron- you can turn down the temperature. I'll be fine I sweat." Hermione said cutting into his story.

"Bullshit." Ron had been laying on his stomach on the couch at her feet and Hermione lightly kicked him on the side of his face when her swore. Ron laughed at her sweetly pathetic attempt to injure him.

"How badly would you scream though if I were to uh take off my shirt and reveal my manly muscles to you in order to reduce to amount of sweat coming from my body?" Ron asked kind of nervously.

"Whatever Ron." Hermione said, trying to keep her cool. With that, Ron bent his head at her feet in order to pull his shirt over his red head. Hermione tried her hardest to avert her eyes from Ron's body. It was nice to look at, that's for sure. Hermione then realized that her eyes were starting to grow heavy with fatigue. She was about to fall asleep and she knew what she would dream about. She also knew that she would never forget Ron's kindness to her. He was the only one to ever truly take care of her when she's been sick. That, to Hermione was love.