Author's Note: I would first like to sincerely thank everyone who has reviewed my story so far. I really appreciate it! Please, if you have any questions about the story, let me know, because it really helps me in my writing to make everything more credible, etc.
A couple of people had some questions about the fic, mostly about where people are, so I'll use this chapter to answer some of them. I realize that I haven't exactly been clear about this (everything is clear in my mind, but that often doesn't translate to the page), so this is basically what's going on with Harry: At the end of her seventh year, Ginny got pregnant by Harry, just before he went off to fight the war. He killed Voldemort, and no one has seen him since. All the other Weasleys are explained in this chapter, if just briefly. I don't really want to go into exactly what each of them are doing, if they're married, and how many children they have and all of that. If it's important to the main story, I'll put it in, but otherwise, just assume that Bill has returned to Egypt to work for Gringott's, Charlie is back in Romania with the dragons, and Percy, as we know, works for the Minister of Magic. I think that's about it as far as the Weasleys go. This chapter is focused about Ginny and Hermione.
Another (slightly random) note. In this chapter, Ginny and Hermione have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Now, I'm an American, so I don't really know how they serve food in England. So when it says "Ginny stabbed viciously at her pickle," I'm just assuming that the English give you a pickle spear with your sandwich, like they do in the States. I'm sorry for the inaccuracy if they don't, and it's really a minor point, but I wanted Ginny to stab something on her plate, and if she stabbed her sandwich that would be a bit obvious, and if she stabbed parsley or something that would look stupid, so I just gave her a pickle.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Chapter 5
"HERMIONE!" Ginny yelled at the top of her lungs, "HERMIONE GRANGER! HER – MI- O – NE!"
"Merlin!" Hermione exclaimed as she appeared before Ginny with a pop, "I'm here! What do you want?"
Ginny glared at Hermione, who was wrapped in a towel, with a comb in her hand that was still tangled in her ever-troublesome curls. Hermione laughed outright at Ginny, who tried very hard to maintain her scowl, but let a little smile creep in. She knew that she must look an idiot, with her face all flushed from screaming, not to mention the intense heat caused by Hermione's fireplace.
"What are you doing today?" Ginny demanded.
"Err…" Hermione grimaced as she wrenched the comb out of her hair, "I was just going to have a quiet day, really. Do some house cleaning and maybe work in the garden a bit. Why?"
"You're not working?"
"No, I've got the day off," Hermione said, turning her back on Ginny to make toast and coffee at the stove.
"Want to go shopping?"
Hermione dropped the coffee pot, which bounced about the floor for a while as she tried to pick it up while still clutching the towel to her chest. Ginny's eyes narrowed slightly. Did Hermione have to react in such an exaggerated way? It was true that Ginny hadn't been out of the house for a long time, but really, it was a little ridiculous. Hermione, sensing Ginny's irritation, scrambled about, chasing the coffee pot, and seeming to become more and more clumsy with every attempt to grasp the handle.
"Hermione, it's not like I've never seen you naked before," Ginny's laugh was stilted, "You practically lived at my house for six years or something, and in my room."
What was supposed to be teasing came out as a harsh reproach. Ginny cringed inwardly as she heard herself, but there it was and she couldn't take it back.
Hermione snatched the coffee pot off the floor and looked hard at Ginny, "What are we going shopping for? Food?"
"No, you idiot, clothes."
"Clothes," Hermione repeated flatly, "You want to go shopping for clothes? You?"
"Yeah," Ginny replied defiantly, "Is that a problem?"
"No!" Hermione turned to the stove again. Lightening her tone of voice considerably, she exclaimed, "Sounds great! What's the occasion?"
Ginny ignored the fake smile in her voice, "I'm going with Fred and George to some stupid cocktail party tonight – "
Whoosh. This time, the coffee pot sent a cascade of black liquid all over the floor. Hermione shrieked some incantations, waving her wand about, while simultaneously running into the next room to escape the hot coffee hissing at her bare feet. Ginny waited impatiently for Hermione to return, now feeling both irked, and a little hurt. Was she that much of a loner that Hermione, the biggest bookworm on the planet, was reacting like this?
"Sorry," Hermione said, upon return, "I guess I'll just have milk this morning. So…what cocktail party is this?"
"The Department of Commerce," Ginny replied, wrinkling her nose, "Sounds boring as hell, but Fred and George want me to come along to have some fun…And, you know, just to, well…"
"Get out of the house?" Hermione finished, smiling, "That's great!"
"Yeah…" Ginny agreed, "So do you want to come?"
"Of course!"
That was a lie, and both women knew it. Hermione hurriedly opened the fridge and stuck her head in to hide her reluctant face.
"Great," Ginny said, without enthusiasm.
"Is it just us or is everyone invited?" Hermione asked, straightening up. Her face was blank.
Ginny took "everyone" to mean Sirius, "No, just us. The twins are going to watch Sirius for the day so we can have a girl's day…and all that."
Ginny felt a pang of guilt. It had been so long since she and Hermione had had a "girl's day," something that they did religiously while they were at Hogwarts. It was always fun to get away from the boys, however much they adored them, and just spend time talking about things that weren't so serious all the time. Ginny could tell Hermione was thinking along the same lines as her, from the way Hermione's lips tightened a little when she nodded.
"Meet me at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch," Ginny said to break the awkward silence, "See you then!"
And before Hermione could reply, Ginny pulled her head out of the fire. She sat for a moment, as her head stopped spinning, and looked around at the empty kitchen. Fred and George had taken Sirius out that morning, letting Ginny sleep in. Her mother was out in the garden, and her father at work. After that uncomfortable conversation with Hermione, Ginny felt very lonely. There was nothing to occupy her time with Sirius gone, and speaking with her old friend made her realize how much she missed female companionship.
Well, you've got a son now, Ginny reprimanded herself.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that you can't have friends, a voice inside her gently nudged.
"Well, I'm going out with a friend in a couple of hours, so there you go," Ginny said out loud to the empty kitchen.
(Okay, I tried everything to show a lapse in time here, but nothing worked, so now the story is picking back up in the Leaky Cauldron)
Hermione, Ginny noticed as she looked at the woman across from her, wasn't looking her best. She immediately felt bad for the mean thought, but it was the truth. Albeit, Hermione looked more pulled together than Ginny, but Ginny had a son and everyone knew it. Ginny knew she was nitpicking and being catty, but she couldn't help it, and she detested herself for it. Hermione looked great, albeit somewhat tired.
"How's work?" Ginny asked, to break the silence, "Busy?"
"It's exhausting," Hermione replied, setting down her drink, "We're just about to launch a new project, and it's really hard getting all the details worked out."
"What project?" Ginny didn't really care what project it was, but listening to Hermione ramble on about her work was better than sitting their in the uncomfortable silence that had dominated the past twenty minutes. Hermione worked in the Muggle Relations office, as a sort of interpreter. She had made a rather large mark early in her career by penning a Ministry handbook on how to dress like a Muggle (which regularly updated itself with the latest fashions), and now she analyzed undercover projects that the department wanted to do and explained to them how to best disguise their objectives.
"We're going to do a sweep of all the Muggle asylums in Europe."
"Asylums?" Ginny's interest was slightly peaked at this bizarre topic, "What for?"
Hermione brushed some curls out of her face, "Well, it turns out that a lot of people who were missing or we thought were dead from the war…"
Hermione's voice diminished. Ginny stirred uncomfortably as she felt her heart reverberate in her chest.
"Er…Sorry," Hermione said, "We…Um, sorry."
"It's fine, Hermione," Ginny said, trying to look reassuring and failing miserably, "Just…Tell me about it."
"Um, well," Hermione looked down at her drink and attempted to gather her thoughts, "Um, well, a lot of the people that we thought were missing, well, it turns out that they were in Muggle asylums. We do a sweep through the asylums every year, just because they occasionally pick up one of our people, but that rarely happens. But in the last couple of years, we've found more and more of the wizarding community there."
"Why?" Ginny's heart had begun to throb painfully, not with hurt, but with as much hope as she could possibly allow. Was it possible that Harry could be one of these people?
"Well, it's mostly people who survived the Death Eaters. A lot of them have been tortured into insanity, so obviously we have to take them to St. Mungo's to try and recuperate them. But we've found a lot of people who have survived the Death Eaters, or seen something horrible, or something that puts them in to a state of shock, and it takes away all their magical powers."
"That can happen?" Ginny gasped, momentarily forgetting about Harry, "I never knew that!"
"Yeah," Hermione nodded, leaning forward, "It's bizarre. And it's so sad. I saw one man, and it's no wonder that Muggles thought he was crazy. Because they just sit there and babble away about how they can do magic, and they talk about all this stuff that makes no sense to Muggles, like the Floo network and Galleon and whatever else."
"Oh, Merlin, that's terrible," Ginny frowned, "How sad. Do they get better?"
"They've got a special team of Healers over at St. Mungo's that work specifically with them. So far, only a couple have gotten better, but that's better than none."
"That's so great that you guys are going to help them," Ginny said, smiling at Hermione sincerely.
"Yeah, it's really…wonderful, in a way. It's hard."
Hermione smiled at Ginny, and for a moment, everything seemed to fit right back into place.
"But anyways, there's a lot of people like that, so we've decided to make it a continental thing, since there were people all over Europe involved in this, and we're trying to work everything out with all the different governments, and it's terribly stressful."
"Sounds like it," Ginny replied, "Ah! Food!"
A waiter was walking towards them with two plates levitated in mid-air with his wand. He lowered them to the table, refilled their drinks, winking at Hermione as he did so. Hermione blushed, but did not look displeased. Ginny felt the companionship that had been bubbling happily up inside her disintegrate as it was replaced by a hot wave of acidic jealousy. When they were in school, no one paid Hermione any attention, especially when Ginny was around. Ginny stabbed at her pickle viciously.
The two women sat in silence for a while, but this time it was less awkward, because they were eating. Ginny glanced at Hermione from the corner or her eye. True, Hermione was as bookish as ever, and her cream-colored sweater and sensible brown trousers were on the boring side for a twenty-two year-old. But she was a very beautiful woman. And unlike Ginny, who looked careworn and broken, Hermione was at least still partially whole. Hermione still had a glow to her face, a light in her smile. No wonder the waiter had ignored Ginny.
"So…" Hermione said into the silence, "How's Ron?"
Ginny looked up at Hermione, who was turning slightly crimson. She wondered how long Hermione had been waiting to ask about him.
"He's good," Ginny replied, "I talked to him just a couple weeks ago. He's working hard, of course, but he seems happy."
Hermione blinked rapidly, looking down at her plate. Ginny wished she hadn't said Ron was happy. Ron was happy with his work on the marketing team of the Chudley Cannons, but Ginny knew that his personal life was less than stellar. In fact, it was pretty much nonexistent since Hermione had broken things off with him.
"I guess he must be very busy," Hermione said, trying to keep her voice light.
"Well, yeah, but he still has time for people. I mean, you know, he appreciates hearing from me and hearing how everyone is doing and all that. He's really wrapped up in work right now, of course, since they're right in the middle of the season, but, um…" Ginny hesitated, "I'm sure he'd be glad to hear from you."
Ugh. Ginny wasn't sure how she felt about giving Hermione advice about love. Especially if it involved Ron.
"Oh, Ginny," Hermione sighed, setting down her fork and looking up. Her face was fully flushed now, "You know that I love your brother, right?"
Ginny felt awkward, but in a completely different way than she had for the majority of their conversation. She did know that Hermione loved Ron, but she didn't really like to think about it too much. There was only so much detail she could stand where Ron was concerned.
"Yeah…" Ginny said in a casual voice, hoping that her evasive tone wouldn't inspire Hermione to embellish any aspect of her relationship with Ron.
"Of course you do. It's just that…we're both so busy and, well, Ginny, I love your brother, but right now it just doesn't work."
Ginny quietly breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that that was all Hermione had to say.
"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean."
Ginny looked down at her half-eaten sandwich. It was good, but she wasn't really hungry any more. She was confused about how to feel towards Hermione. If Harry was only an hour away, Ginny would get to him. She wouldn't care if she had to walk every step of the way, but she would get to him. Hermione loved Ron, and he was so close, so why did she distance herself from him? How could Hermione let all these days slip by, if she loved Ron that much?
"How's everyone else?" Hermione asked as the blush receded from her face, "Charlie, Bill, Percy?'
"Bill's better," Ginny replied, drawing herself out of her thoughts and pouncing on this more pleasant topic, "You know he had a rough time getting back to work, what with his injuries and all, but once he got to Egypt, no one cared any more, so he's good."
"Oh I'm glad," Hermione smiled, "I know it was really hard on him. And he and Fleur are still together?"
"Yeah, they're great," Ginny said, "And Charlie and Percy are working hard, as usual. Percy's going to be at the party tonight, so I can't wait to see him."
"Oh, that's great!" Hermione said, "Give everyone my best, will you?"
Ginny nodded, thinking about how strange that sounded. Before, Hermione never had to "send her best" to the Weasleys, because she was always welcome at the Burrow. But now Hermione's rare visits were awkward and drawn out. It just wasn't the same without everyone there. Without Ron to get in trouble, Fred and George to tease him, Hermione to lecture everyone, and especially without Harry to worry over. The Burrow would never be the same, even if Ron and Hermione got back together. Ginny suspected that Harry's mysterious disappearance had as much to do with their breakup as their work lives, but she never voiced this. It was too painful to bring up the fact that the same person, who had brought peace and joy to the rest of the wizarding world, had shattered every aspect of Ginny's life.
"Well we'd better get started," Ginny said, "The party starts at eight, and I have to get home to change and make sure mum and dad are set to take care of Sirius and all that."
Ginny reached into her purse and pulled out several galleons, just as Hermione did the same. They looked at each other.
"I'll get it," Ginny said, "It was my invitation. And, anyways, it's not my money, so I don't mind spending it."
"All right," Hermione agreed, completely missing Ginny's attempt at a joke.