A/N: I'm starting to have fun with this, now : ) And I loved all
the responses that Peter got. He's probably thrilled with them too,
but too noble to say anything about them.
And like before, the thoughts are going to be in bold and italics. Some
of the thoughts will be occurring immediately after dialogue, so I hope it
doesn't get confusing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ginny looked over to Hermione, who was biting her lip, obviously torn
between wanting to stop the two boys before it got out of hand and the sheer
pleasure of watching Draco Malfoy get the total shit beat out of him.
"I'm noticing that you aren't doing anything to stop them," Ginny
said to her friend.
"Considering you are Head Girl and all."
"Yes, well…I'm not wearing my Head Girl badge am I? And
the term hasn't started yet." Hermione replied, her brown eyes bright
with humor.
"I don't think Peter's hurting him much," Ginny said, giving
another wince as Peter gut punched Draco.
"No, not really," Hermione said slowly, as Peter ducked from one of
Malfoy's blows and returned with a quick jab to the jaw. "We'll
pull Peter off of Malfoy when Malfoy starts to actually fight back, ok?"
"Sounds like a good plan to me."
******************************
"Are you sure you're ok, Peter?" Ginny asked as both she and Hermione
helped him sit down at one of the tables outside Florean Fortescue's
Ice Cream Parlor.
"I'm fine," Peter replied, sighing as Hermione quickly placed
a rag filled with ice cubes to the bruise on his cheek.
"That was really amazing," Hermione said very quickly while she inspected
the bruise. "I mean, there really wasn't any need for violence, since
Ginny and I are both used to his insults and you really could have gotten
in trouble with the store keepers—"
"If you weren't so quick thinking and ended up leaving Malfoy with
the blame, Hermione," Ginny said.
"And him paying for the damages," Peter chuckled.
Hermione blushed, "Yes well. But I really shouldn't have enjoyed
that so much."
"Why?" Ginny asked. "I heard you slapped Malfoy in your third year!"
"No way!" Peter exclaimed. "You slapped Malfoy?"
Hermione's blush now extended from the roots of her hair to the
bottom of her neck. "That was under special circumstances," she explained.
"Completely different situation. And it was only a slap."
"Ron still talks about it though," Ginny grinned.
Hermione occupied herself with fussing about Peter's bruise, completely
ignoring the both of them. Peter and Ginny both shared a look at Hermione's
sudden silence.
Ginny held up Peter's right hand, gently feeling for any broken
bones. "I think you're ok so far as the bones are concerned, Peter,"
she said. "But you've a really deep cut here across your knuckles."
"Damn boy has teeth like a shark," Peter muttered, wincing as Ginny
cleaned the cut with a bit of water and a cloth that Mr. Fortescue had brought
out for them.
"Well, that's the best I can do here," Hermione said at last,
taking the ice pack from the bruise. "The swellings gone down some and it
doesn't look as if it will be too much of a problem for you."
"Thanks Hermione," Peter replied.
"Thank you, by the way," Ginny added, taking a fresh piece of cloth
and cleaning the cut with a bit of water. "For giving Malfoy what he deserved."
"Yes, thank you," Hermione chimed in.
It was now Peter's turn to blush. "It was nothing," he said, his
ice blue eyes twinkling.
*************************
"Can you imagine going from zero to three hundred in six seconds?" Ron
asked Harry, still in awe over the new Firebolt Chaser.
"Or the fact that it's coated with liquid diamonds to make it
practically indestructible," Harry agreed. "I'd like to see the Whomping
Willow take on that!"
"And the shop owner was telling us about the Firebolt Keeper! Wow, I'd
sure love to get my hands on that when it comes out," Ron sighed, blue eyes
misting over. "Imagine it having a charm that lets you fly it standing up!"
"Gin's going to just die when we tell her that we actually got
to touch it," Harry chortled, slamming into Ron, who had stopped dead
in Harry's path.
"What is it?" Harry asked.
"Who's that guy Hermione's bending over?" Ron said in a
deadly whisper.
"What?" Harry followed Ron's gaze to the table at Florean Fortescue's.
"Oh. Him."
Isn't that Peter Byrne, the handsome Ravenclaw captain?
Yes, I believe that's him. Funny how we run into him just
after Ginny made that comment yesterday about him being cute, isn't
it? Hilarious.
"I think that's the Ravenclaw captain, Peter Byrne," Harry answered.
Both men started walking at a much faster speed.
Hey, I have a good question: why is Ginny holding his hand?
I don't know, but it better be because he's just found out he's
dying. I can arrange that for him. Very quickly.
"Harry!" Ginny called over at him when she saw their approach. "You'll
never guess what happened!" she said excitedly.
I don't know, but I bet it's got something to do with
this guy here. Why is she holding his hand?
Harry noticed how Ron looped an arm around Hermione's waist and
frowned down at Peter, who seemed to be oblivious to the attention he was
getting.
Probably because Ginny's still holding his hand. Why
is she doing that?
"Peter got into a fight with Draco Malfoy!" Ginny's brown eyes
were practically dancing as she looked up at him.
"What happened?" Ron asked, his frown lessening.
"Oh, well, it was really Malfoy's fault," Hermione explained.
"Just after you left us in Flourish and Blotts we were talking with Peter
and then Malfoy came up and started on his normal routine. You know, Mudblood
Granger---"
"Poor Weasley," Ginny finished, putting a bit of medicine on the deep
gash on Peter's hand. Let go of his hand, Ginny!
"And anyway, Peter just hauled off and started punching him," Hermione
finished, smiling at Peter. Let go of his hand!
"It was a really spectacular fight," Ginny chimed in. "You've
got a nasty left," she beamed at him. Let go damnit!
Harry wanted nothing more than to get Ginny far away from Peter so he
could kill him. Why is she still holding his hand?
"We've just been patching him up," Hermione said. Good, Hermione'll
have some practice before I hurt him again. "Malfoy looks worse though."
"Hmmm," Ron said, pulling out a chair for Hermione to sit in and taking
the chair in between her and Peter.
"Are you ok Harry?" Ginny asked, curious as to why he hadn't said
anything.
"I'm fine," Harry said, giving her what he hoped was a bright,
nothing-is-wrong type of smile.
I'd be much better if you would just let go of him damnit!
Ok, maybe we should be levelheaded about this, why are we getting so
worked up here? I mean this is Ginny we are talking about, and Peter's
not a bad sort. Yeah, maybe you're right. We're just overreacting,
that's all. She was just doctoring him up after he hurt himself.
Ginny wrapped a bit of bandage around Peter's hand and tied it
off. "There. All done," she said brightly. She stood up, dusted off her robes
and reached up to give Harry a kiss.
There we go! Much better!
"So, uh Peter," Ron began, "Did you see the new line of Firebolts out,
yet?"
"Yeah, I did," Peter replied, gingerly feeling the bruise on his cheek.
"Actually, I was going to tell you before we got interrupted back there
at Flourish and Blotts that my uncle works for the company as a Spell Checker.
He makes sure that all the spells cast on them were done correctly and such.
He was wanting to know if I knew of a good Chaser at Hogwarts that would
like to test it out at the official opening this evening at Quality Quidditch
Supplies."
"Wow!" said Ginny and Ron at the same time. "That Chaser on your team,
I believe his name is McMullers--he's pretty good," Ron added.
Harry had a sick feeling he knew what was coming next.
"Yeah, he is," Peter said, a pink tint slightly darkening his cheeks
as he faced Ginny. "But you're better. I told Uncle Michael that
I'd ask you."
"Me?" Ginny was shocked.
Overreacting, were we? Not a bad sort, is he? Oh, he's
smooth alright.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: Ok, so this looks like a good spot to end. Find out what happens
at Quality Quidditch Supplies when Ginny hops on the new Firebolt, why exactly
Harry is so jealous, and learn more about this Peter guy.
Oh, a quick plug. Ondergirl and myself, through several late night
chats on AOL, decided to try our hand at writing what we termed "a well-written
and tasteful" Harry and Ginny R rated smut fic. It even has a bit of a plot
to it, due to Ondergirl's efforts. LOL, we were both too chicken to
post it under our real names so we invented one, just in case everyone thought
the story sucked. It's only been out for one night, but so far we've
received pretty darn good reviews (even from the H/H ship, of all places)
and we're now ready to take the credit, but not the blame. ; ) Check
it out, it's titled "The Seduction of Harry Potter" (we named ourselves
the Monarchs of H/G). You might remember the title from one of Ondergirl's
chapter titles in "Written in The Stars."
