Year 3: Chapter 26

Joseph held the door open and allowed Ginny to enter before him; she smiled up at him and caught the small wink he had thrown her way. Ginny gasped at the sight, grabbing hold of Alice's hand she leaned into her whispering gently.

"It's so beautiful Al. Who would have thought Joe and Frank would know a place like this?"

Joseph and Frank moved to either side of the girls and led them to an empty table. Both boys were behaving as gentlemen and pulled the chairs out for their dates settling them before taking their own.

Alice and Ginny had found themselves on a double date, and it was fun and easy without some of the awkwardness they had expected.

The boys had brought them to a small café on the outskirts of the town; it was quiet unlike the streets and seemed occupied by the villagers and other older clients.

"How did you two know of this place?"

Joseph and Frank exchanged a guilty look at Alice's question before Frank answered.

"My mother owns it; see, she's the one over there with the green robes on. Not many students come here, but she told me I had to, she wanted to know about how the game went today."

As if on queue Mrs. Longbottom made her way over to their table. In front of her floated four large mugs and a large plate. Smiling she lowered them onto the table.

Before anybody could speak she'd pulled Frank to his feet in a large hug. She kissed his cheek, which turned a rather dangerous shade of red.

Joseph snickered from his position but Ginny thought maybe he should have remained silent as the lady turned to him and repeated her welcome in much the same manner.

"Oh it's great to see the pair of you; I do hope you're behaving… although I can see you've remembered your manners."

Joseph smiled up at the woman and in his usual cheeky style answered her.

"Of curse we're behaving Mrs L. I'd like you to meet Ginny Dunn, I'm hoping that she'll agree to be my girlfriend later, and the blonde is Alice Scott. She's the one Frankie here likes."

Both girls blushed as they smiled and said hello. Alice couldn't help but feel she was being judged by the woman, but calmed when Frank laced his fingers with hers under the table.

"It's nice to meet you both. Very pretty young ladies you are too; don't let these two get out of hand now."

She seemed nice enough as she looked pointedly at her son. He grinned up at her mouth filled with a chocolate brownie she had brought over. She rolled her eyes as he swallowed.

"We won. It was a bad game though; those Slytherins were just evil."

"You're exaggerating, they're not that bad."

Ginny looked up at the older women.

"They were though Mrs. Longbottom, they were horrible. All our team were injured. Our friend Amanda had her nose broken by Bellatrix Black and her own cousin tried to push her off her broom."

"You don't say?"

Joseph nodded quickly.

"Yeah and the other two chaser were badly injured. James' hand was broken and Kathy's eye was really badly hit; she couldn't see from it."

"But they're all right now, aren't they?"

Alice nodded quickly.

"Yes, and Madam Pomfrey fixed Sirius' mangled leg, and put ointment on Christian's two black eyes and fixed Ted's fingers which were broken."

"Wait, so they really did play rough?"

Joseph laughed hard.

"Yes, they even set Frank on fire!"

"THEY WHAT!"

She pulled Frank off the chair and started to search him for burn marks.

"Mum, stop it. I'm fine, honestly! Look, we won the game, which really annoyed those Slytherins, and then Madam P. sorted us all out. We're even meeting for drinks in an hour."

She seemed to relax and headed away to serve another customers. The group sat there for forty minutes eating chocolate brownies and drinking hot chocolate. Then with a wave to Mrs. Longbottom they left to meet the Quidditch team in the Three Broomsticks.

Okay so long time no post; I know I'm getting bad. I promised you post earlier but we've been having some technical problems with opening the chapters but its fixed now and so more post. I should also say that Uni has gotten in the way a bit lately as well but even though I haven't posted I have finished writing year 3 its now offically 61 chapters long!

I want to say as well that I have no idea what Mrs Longbottom did for a living, hey she may have been a lady of leisure and not worked at all, but I wanted a place where they could all go in Hogsmeade and not fear that they were in danger (for later years) and hence Mrs Longbottom owning it. Also it is NOT the same café used in OOTP this is another one that has been completely made up.

Taylin: Thanks for understanding; I'm hectic at the moment seminars, essays, books to read. But I've managed to finish writing all of third year and I've started some chapters for fourth year in my time off, so it's just trying to find the time to post now. As for Annie, she actually isn't having much problem finding time to read the chapters it's opening them!

Firewalker32: Thank you, and don't worry about not knowing what to say in reviews, I have the same problem so here's a trick just ramble. One of my reviews (I think it was for Holly) was massive because I rambled on about anything and everything that was happening to make it longer! As for Amanda going with Lily yeah that was the plan all along and then I remembered when she was showing Peter what to say and she asked Sirius and he said yes, I thought I'd throw that in for fun, to show I remember where I'm going with this.

Annie: Look its posted; I never thought this chapter would get put up here but lookie it is! Oh yeah the brought forward romance well it lasts about three to four chapters and there's a hint of another romance that is def going to happen in year 4 (I've already written it!)

Avadne: Yep Sirius got ditched, and I can promise that is going to happen a lot (he's the easiest to ditch!) and what was the other bit? More dates, well yes. I have this chapter, which is Alice and Ginny, the next is Peter and Branwen and I've written Valentine dates where James finds someone I think you'll like to go out with.

Anyway I will try to post next week but I have two essays due in a week Wednesday and I have to read the Aeneid by Virgil for one of them. So if I don't post next week you know why (or it could be Annie's whacked up computer!)

So please read and review this chapter, and if you're one of these lurker readers that doesn't normally review (I've done that a few times) please do so even if it's only to say that was terrible why would Mrs Longbottom own a café! I'd love to hear that, because then at least I know people are reading.

Kris