Chapter 3: Midnight Tea & The Angry Teapot

A few hours later Hermione was sitting on top of her bed looking round at her almost empty room. She had thrown almost everything into her trunk in one big pile. Then her true brainy side came over her and she had to fold each piece of clothing until they all fit in neatly.

She looked at the clock she still had an about half an hour till Ron would come to get her. Thinking to kill some time, she cracked open Hogwarts a History. And started reading it for the umpteenth time.

Wondering what plan Ron and Ginny had for Harry, Hermione turned the page without really taking in the words. She hoped it would be something to cheer him up, he was sure to be dreadfully unhappy this summer. She sighed at this thought and put down the book. "Its no use, Ron's right, I can recite it in my sleep."

Then she jumped realizing she had just thought Ron's right. She mentally slapped herself while tugging her large trunk downstairs. Hermione pulled and tugged at the trunk, huffing loudly. Then while going down the stairs someone said, "Let me help you with that." And picked it up from the other side concealing their face.

Assuming it was her father she huffed, "Thanks."

Then Ron's head popped out from the side of the trunk and said, "Sure! Hey Hermione!"

Hermione screamed, let off guard, and dropped the trunk on Ron's foot. "Umph! Hermione, what you do that for!"

Ron bent down the nurse his injured toes. "Oh I'm sorry Ron, you just...surprised me."

"Yes, as it's seven and only a few hours ago we agreed I would be coming, but I guess short term memory loss kicked in a bit late for you," He gave her a freckled grin and proceeded to help her downstairs, "So how's you summer been so far?"

"Painfully boring," she answered truthfully.

"Same, here. Well besides when Loony Lovegood came to or house and invited us over to her house for the day," he gave her a half smile and seemed to chuckle at the memory.

Hermione was about to ask what had happened when she heard Charlie's voice downstairs. "She'll be staying till term starts then? Well this should be interesting..."

Hermione and Ron walked around the corner to see Charlie by the fireplace covered it soot, and Mr. and Mrs. Granger sitting merrily around the living room.

Mrs. Granger took a sip of her drink, "Why so?" She tried to make her voice sound casual but there was defiantly a note of urgency in it.

"Oh just that I'm going to be in charge of a house, that soon will be filled with four teenager..." he chuckled, "There's going to be hormones seeping from the walls."

Hermione blushed at the thought; "I don't think so Charlie. Well, maybe from the boys."

"We'll see about that, Hermione," Charlie winked at her making her all the more embarrassed.

Ron seeming to realize she was blushing and quickly said, "Charlie we better be going..."

Charlie nodded and Ron and him took Hermione's trunk and told her they would see her in a bit. Hermione gave her parents hugs and farewells. "Promise to write" and "I'll try to stay out of trouble." Then proceeded to step into fiery grate. She landed flat on the floor, nose down, in the Weasley's kitchen.

She heard someone laugh and look up to see Ginny, for a second time today. "Hey."

"Oh hey, Hermione, you're all sooty," she laughed once more and walked up to start brushing off the grit from off Hermione's clothes.

"Oh, sorry next time I'll try to miss the burning ashes while flying at lightning speed through the fireplace!" she said indignantly but cracked a smile all the same.

Hermione started to get settled in, finding her trunk already in Percy's old room. Then she came back downstairs to see Ginny still in the kitchen ad offered to make her a drink. She was getting Hermione a drink when Ron walked in, obviously just from a shower, as his hair was all wet.

"He sorry about before, Charlie was being a git," he said spotting Hermione. Ron ruffled his hair making it messier and took the seat diagonal from her.

"Oh it was nothing, it's just that I don't think my parents are completely ok with letting me spend time with two boys all summer with just a brother in his twenties to supervise us."

Ginny took the seat next to Ron and handed Hermione her lemonade; "Do I even want to ask what happened?"

"No," said Hermione and Ron at once.

"Where are your parents anyway?" asked Hermione looking around the Burrow noticing it's absence of a lot more red-headed children.

"Fred and George they're trying to open up a Weasley's Wizard Weazes in Hogsmeade. Percy...well you know, in his place in London. As for our parents..."Ginny and Ron exchanged glances both looking as if they were about to crack up, "...there helping Bill out with the plans, the wedding plans."

Hermione's mouth dropped open, "NO! Really? Who? When?"

"To Fluer Delacour, turns out their relationship is a bit more intense than we thought, the sly dog. Bill told the family about two weeks ago. That's why my parents needed Pig so much," explained Ron.

"Well, that's great!" said Hermione aghast. ""I wonder what there kids would look like..." She suddenly had an image of little redheaded children with flowing hair, and sparkling blue eyes. She shook herself out of her stupor.

"...very strange combination they are."

That night, after Hermione had settled into her room, she lay awake. She couldn't sleep, she was so happy to be in her friend's house. But she couldn't help feeling worried about Harry who was a hundred miles away, miserable at his aunt and uncles. She hadn't gotten any mail from him, and apparently neither had Ron, even though both of them had both sent Harry multiple letters.

There was a squeak of a floorboard outside Hermione's door. She just assumed it was a magical creature of some kind that liked to wander at night. But then she saw the shadowy outline of someone walking downstairs.

She tiptoed over to the door and looked through the crack to see Ron making his way down the steps. She held her breath and followed him. He proceeded down the steps to the kitchen and pulled out something from the cupboard. Hermione leaned a little bit closer to see that he was holding a...teapot.

Hermione sighed realizing he was just making tea, "Hi Ron."

Ron jumped, startled. "Hermione! What you doing up?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Oh me...just," he gestured towards the teapot, "...making some tea."

"Can't sleep either?" she went and sat down. Ron's hair seemed almost blond in this light. His face seemed shadowed, like he hadn't slept properly in a few days.

He grunted and she assumed that was a yes. Ron broke that nasty silence unexpectedly, "I'm worried about him, Hermione."

She didn't have to ask who he was talking about, "Me too."

Ron went over and sat across from her, "He must be even worse than last year...with Sirius and everything." He bit his lip, "I'm scared he still thinks it's his fault."

Hermione cold feel a hot sensation behind her eyes and her throat was starting to hurt.

Ron kept talking seeming to understand the absence of speech from across the table, "And I'm scared when Sirius died, that I might not have lost just him...but I've lost Harry too."

She couldn't hold it in any longer and started sobbing into her arms. "OH RON!" She was hollering and knew she was going to wake up the rest of the house, but didn't care.

Hermione felt Ron's arms patting her on the back, she looked up to see he had come around the table to pat her on the back. But he was also making shushing noises to make her quiet.

He was so close to her, she noticed the pale moon light beautifully contrasting with his face. His deep blue eyes seeming to go on forever, she leaned up towards him, no conciseness to what she was doing.

Then the light flicked on, and she heard a voice from somewhere, "Hermione, everything alright? I heard you crying..."

It was Ginny in her pale pink pajamas standing at the bottom of the stairwell. Her flaming red hair messed up from sleeping on it. Hermione looked to see Ron's expression but he was pouring the boiling water into the cup making tea.

"No, it's ok Ginny, I'm fine. I guess I should have tried a little harder at keeping my voice down," she tried to give her a little smile. "I better get off to bed."

"Oh if your sure..." Ginny said faintly.

"Yes, I'm fine." And Hermione scampered up the stairs until she reached Percy's bedroom and flung herself into the bed hugging her knees.

What had just happened back there? Was she about to...kiss Ron? No, surely not. She was just overwhelmed with all the stress from Harry. And with that comforting thought, she laid down on her pillow, and within a few minutes was asleep.

Over the next week Hermione had a blast at the Burrow. Most days she'd wake up then lazily go outside and read while Ron flew on his broom. She still was worried about Harry, but they had received a small note from him on Thursday saying he'd be coming on July 31, his birthday.

It was Sunday morning, and Hermione had wrapped herself in a towel ready to take a nice hot shower. She was humming to herself while slowly crossing the hall to reach the bathroom. All of a sudden a redheaded blur streaked past her and went into the bathroom, slamming the door right in her face.

"RON WEASLEY YOU LET ME IN THERE THIS MINUTE!" she screamed banging on the door. She heard a scrape of a shower curtain opening and then a muffled reply.

"Sorry Hermione, first come first serve!" She could here him sniggering.

"I WAS FIRST UNTIL YOU SO RUDELY CUT IN FRONT OF ME!" she stamped her foot on the ground. "SO BE A GENTLMAN AND LET ME IN!"

Ron's head popped out the door. Hermione could see the steam from his shower pouring out of from behind him.

"I'll act like a gentleman when you start acting like a lady," he gave her an evil grin and went back in, locking the door behind him.

Hermione was so angry she couldn't even respond to that. She stomped back over to her room slamming the door behind her hugging her stuffed animal lion she fumed.

How could he have been so...so...tactless? Saying she wasn't ladylike! Just because she didn't giggle every time a boy passed by, she didn't play stupid games like truth or dare, and she certainly didn't wear vast amount of make-up so she looked like an over done China Doll. Did that make her not ladylike?

She sat there in silence for fifteen minutes, cursing Ron. Suddenly there was a knock on her door, making her jump.

Ron opened the door, hair dripping onto her floor, and said, "Showers open," he spotted Hermione sitting on the floor looking very upset with her stuffed lion in hand, "What's wrong?"

She shot daggers at him. "Nothing," she said and coldly swept past him to the bathroom.

Later that day during lunch Hermione had huffily sat at the table the farthest away from Ron she could. Ginny sat down happily serving the sandwiches she had made. There was a fat little teapot and teacups on the table that were scurrying around trying to serve them.

The sugar bowl was having a bit of trouble with spooning out the sugar. Ron who kept urging it to put more and more sugar into to his tea received a face full, after the sugar retaliated with being put under that much pressure.

Hermione couldn't suppress a laugh seeing Ron's face ghostly white from the sugar covering it. Ron angrily wiped off his face with the tablecloth, then took the sugar bowl and shoved it in the cupboard. Hermione could still hear little thumps coming from the cupboard from which the sugar was trying to get out.

"Where's Charlie?" asked Ron looking around.

"He's out for the day. Something about needing to talk to his friend on the hellyfone. So he went in town for one," replied Ginny simply. She sat down and started to inhale her food, suspiciously like the way Ron did.

"Telephone!" Hermione corrected.

"Yeah that," muttered Ginny indifferently. "He also said we need to clean out the attic while he's gone."

Ron groaned, "Mum told him to clean that out months ago. Now he's making us do the dirty work?"

"Looks like it," said Ginny taking a large swig of her drink.

So around one o'clock all three of them trudged up to the attic. It had boxes chock full of storage. There were spider webs here and there. Hermione unfortunately walked into one, making her splutter.

"I've never been up here," Hermione said to Ginny who had a peculiar look on her face, as if she was trying hard not to sneeze. Hermione realizing one second before backed away, just then Ginny couldn't hold back any longer.

"ACHOO! No wonder," she sniffed, "it's filthy up here."

"Well we better get started," said Ron in a resigned voice. Hermione was refusing to look at him, even when he was handing out the cleaning supplies.

They cleaned for another hour. But every time Ginny sneezed- which was quite often- more dust would fall from the ceiling and land on whatever Hermione was cleaning.

Finally taking pity on her friend (and be fed up with all the falling dust) Hermione said, "Ginny the dust seamed to bother you a lot. Why don't you go downstairs and take a break?" She tried as hard as she could to sound as if she wasn't kicking her out but suggesting she needed it for her health.

Ginny sneezed making more dust fall onto Hermione's hair. "But Hermione," another sneeze, "I don't want to leave you and Ron with all the work. Even if I am allergic to the dust."

Hermione rolled her eyes at Ginny, "No I insist!" And she pushed her friend out the door to the dust-free house. (Well almost dust free)

"I guess that just leaves us," she said coldly to Ron. She looked around for him, but Ron seemed to have gone missing.

"Ron?" she called a little apprehensive. What if something had happened to him? Or what if he had just quit cleaning? Or what if he fell through a floor board and broke his leg and...

She stopped, she was being stupid. "Ron?" she called again.