Ha ha, look at that! Wasn't so long was it? Least, not as long as the other chapters were, ey?
Disclaimer: We don't own Harry Potter.
Ginny-Star: See? A nice quick update.
Hermione Double1: Not that bad was it?
"He's just a selfish, retarded- WORM!"
Ah, Ron you genius. Blackmail! That's the way to go! Anything cane be resolved with a little blackmail- I know too well. Look at what Fred and George have done to me. They've permanently stunted my emotional growth. More soft murmurings from inside. I lean closer, catching the end of Hermione's sentence.
"…I know, I know." Tuh, she always knows. Everything, she'll know about. Ginny's voice replies to her, a slight hiccoughing note to it that implies she's been crying. Aww, why did she go and do that for? That bloody little feeling of guilt tries to claw its way out of my gut in the form of a very pathetic little 'I'm so sorry', but I managed to force it back down.
"But how could he think that? Why on earth would he think that? And w-we were just starting to connect, just talking to each other- why the hell was he coming in a-anyways?" Uh, it's MY room, Gin. Like it or not, I have to go in there sometime in my life! Stupid women.
"Oh, shh, it's okay Ginny. Your brother is a rather annoying prat!" huffs the lovely 'Mione. Isn't she a darling? Telling all and sundry the negative points of me… "But… don't you think that maybe you would have done the same thing if you saw him with… ah… someone?" HA! Score one for me!
"Hardly! I w-would have just scrambled back out a-and hope that one day the awful image in my brain would go away." Wha? What she on about? I'm such a good looking bloke, why on earth would that revolt her? What does she know anyway?
"Oh Ginny, I'm sure he was just being protective of you," a short snort from the ever elegant little Ginny, "Even if he did do it the most insensitive, foolish way possible." Excuse me! I am not an 'insensitive, foolish' lad! I happen to be a very loyal, brave and daring Gryffindor! We do not understand, or want to know those blasphemy words that you've just spoken, little Madam Granger!
"Herm, please don't stick up for him, it wasn't him who was just completely embarrassed in front of the person he has completely fallen for but was up till just then in a state of denial about." Even if you do like Harry, it does not give him the right to- oh yeah, we'd decided that wasn't how things were, didn't we? Damn. Well, it still doesn't give her the right to hug him. He's a lad after all; we get the wrong idea about things don't we?
"Well…"
"He's just a selfish, retarded- WORM!" YOU WHAT? That little conniving, spoilt little WITCH! I stand up for her and that's the gratitude I get? Thanks a lot Ginny! Last time I go around looking out for your welfare! What is WRONG with her? I had half a mind to knock down the door when the softest little sobs emitted, fizzing out my little fuse.
"Hmm. Oh, please don't cry again Ginny, there, there. You want some chocolate? I can go down and get some if you like." Uh-oh. Dearest Hermiones voice sounds a little too close (Oh, duh, she's walking towards the door. Git Ronald strikes again!).
"P- please."
The door opened and Hermione looked up at my fantastically built form with awe.
Okay, maybe not so much fantastically built as a little gangly.
And maybe not so much awe as 'you make me sick Ron, sick, sick, SICK'.
Hurriedly, she closed the door and pushed me a little way down the hallway so that Ginny doesn't hear us bicker, which I'm sure will happen fairly soon. Maybe if I try to make conversation…
"Er… uhm, is-"
"Don't you even dare say a word, Ronald Weasley. I think you've just about put your foot into everything today, and now your sister is in the room crying her eyes out!"
Uh…well…
"But… see, I didn't mean-"
"Didn't mean to? Didn't mean to make her utterly embarrassed and feel like her life is over? Well done Ron, you just have." Dammit woman, stop standing on my sentences!
"Now wait just here, Hermione-"
"No! I'm not about to get into an argument with you, right here Ron." And with that, Miss Granger turns around, hitting me in the neck (my face is too high up to be hit) with her bushy brown hair as she huffed her little way down the stairs. Let's go see Harry! Yeah! He won't try to whip me to death with coils of brown hair (pretty pretty hair… NO!)
"How'd it go mate?"
"… Well… not good."
"What d'you mean?" Don't look at me like that Harry, it wasn't my fault!
"I didn't exactly apologise. They were talking very loudly, and I couldn't help but overhear things they said when standing at the door. Hermione is mad at me, so is Ginny. I have a feeling that for the rest of the summer, they won't be speaking to me." I paused for Great Effect. "And will be speaking about me."
"God… is it that bad?" asked an aghast Potter.
"Yeah."
"Maybe I should go and talk to Ginny about it?" Much as I believe you mate, you're still not gonna be hangin with my sister for a while.
"I dunno mate. She seemed really upset. Probably best to leave girl talk to girls."
"I suppose. So, what d'you plan on doing today?"
"Bit of Quidditch? Oh no, we can't now Ginny's mad at me can we? Erm… don't really know then."
"Don't suppose your Dad's got a TV round here, has he?"
"Them boxes that have people in them? Yeah… but you'll find that it looks like it's insides have exploded." Muggles are weird. Why would you want a box with people in them? It's people cruelty! Where did they get people that small anyway?
"Pity."
"Ron, come downstairs! I want the garden degnoming!" Oh mum! Not the gnomes, anything but the gnomes… why can't they just leave me alone? Stupid knee high ugly buggers… Ahh. I've just figured out the secret to muggle boxes. Gnomes!
"Oh god, not again! Them bloody gnomes should just shove off…"
"Here, I'll come help you." Aww, good on ya Harry! Best be all hosty about it though at first…
"Nah, don't have to if you don't want." Do it Harry, do it! Save me from them gnomes! If you don't I shall rip off both your knee caps and serve them to Fred.
"Nowt much else to really do is there?" Thank god!
"Suppose."
For the next fifteen minutes, Harry and I wasted a good portion of our lives fighting with the midgets from hell. All of the cackling insanely and bobbing up and down in the poppies. Right queer lot, aren't they? Mad.
"OW! The bugger just kicked me in me shin!"
"Quick get it!" hollered Harry. Throwing my arm behind me to where Harry was pointing, I grabbed a particularly smelly gnome and tossed it over the wall.
"HA! Take that you little-"
"Quick, that one's trying to make a dive for it!" What's this, why am I doing all the work here? Summat's not quite right here…
"Got it!" I yell anyway.
"They don't half like this garden do they?"
"Mum's fault. She keeps a nice, magical garden. Means that nice, magical gnomes come to stay for a cup of bleeding tea."
"Heh, if only Aunt Petunia could see these now… she'd freak and toss out all the plastic gnomes on her garden." A sudden image of the ugly woman that Harry has for an aunt is conjured up in my mind, chucking out frozen gnomes from her garden. Interesting.
"Muggles. Insane the lot of them- why plastic?"
A few days later…
"Ron, it's been three days. Can you please just go to Ginny and apologise to her?" What? Why? No! I don't need to apologise for owt!
"What the bloody hell for!"
"… Just do it! Least then we'll get peace round here!" Not my fault they do all this… girl thing, with the look and the stare thingy and the cold mabob. "And while you're at it, apologise to Hermione too."
"What! Why Hermione too?" Don't make me, Harry. Please. I don't want to… see her snub me.
"Well… cause she's a girl. And girls like to share anger. So if Ginny's mad at you, then Hermione is too." Since when did Harry become little know-it-all on the opposite sex? Just like Ginny when she was talking about… no! No connections or links to be made about them too. It's wrong. She can just gaze lovingly at him from afar, that I don't mind.
"That's just stupid!" I spluttered. And it is! Plain stupid!
"Well… yeah… but-"
"Yeah yeah, she's a girl." I sighed, my head in my hands. "They're mad, the lot of them Harry, mad."
"I know, Ron, I know. Gonna go apologise now? For real, and not listen in on their conversations?"
"Do I have to?" I whined. Maybe if I add my pitiful 'I've just encountered a spider' look on it'll help.
Oop, ok, maybe not. He's just looked at me in the 'You Nut' way.
"Ye-es." Ah well. I tried. Still not gonna do it without any payoff though, so last resort!
"Can I have a ride on your Firebolt?"
"Sure."
"You strike a hard bargain, Mr Potter." He laughed at me, and punched me on the arm in a friendly sort of way.
"Likewise, Weasley, likewise."