Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Nor did I own Harry Potter when I posted the last chapter.
As Ron walked downstairs the next morning, he heard roaring laughter coming from the kitchen. Not being a morning person, he became disgruntled. There goes my peaceful breakfast. He thought. He poked his head through the door, and there sat Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, and George. They looked at him for a second, look at each other, and burst into another round of laughter.
"What the bloody hell is so funny" asked Ron.
"Must you swear?" asked Hermione through giggles. The five at the table were still unable to control their laughter as Ron poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat down.
"Fred and George were just telling us some stories from when you were little," said Harry, with a grin on his face wider than Ron had ever seen before.
Oh, no. Thought Ron. This is exactly what I need. Fred and George telling all my friends everything that they did to me when I was little. What's Hermione going to think?
"Ron, do you remember the time we accidentally levitated you and you flew around the room?" asked George, beaming from ear to ear. "You got so sick afterward!"
"Accidentally? You were preparing that for weeks! You stole one of Charlie's spell books and practiced on my stuff animals. Not only was a traumatized by stuff animals that could move on their own, my own brothers flew me around the room!" exclaimed Ron, trying not to crack the smile that was forming behind his lips.
"Wait a minute, Fred and George cracked open a book when it wasn't necessary?" said Hermione.
"We would do anything to torture our ickle Ronniekins," explained Fred.
"You still do," said Ron, somewhat crossly.
"Oh, what's the matter ickle Ronniekins, are we embarrassing you?" cooed Fred.
"We're so sorry ickle Ronnie, we didn't want to embarrass you in front of you g-,"
"Whatever, let's just talk about something else," Ron interrupted before the twins could say anything even more embarrassing.
"What do we want to do today?" asked Harry. "The weather's fantastic, and we have all the time in the world!"
"Perhaps we should get a jump start on our homework," said Hermione, being practical as always.
"Hermione, I've got great news for you! Dumbledore declared that there would be no more summer homework from now on!" exclaimed Ginny excitedly.
"What? No homework?" asked Hermione, looking disappointed.
"Don't worry, Hermione, we'll make sure that there's plenty to do. Perhaps you can learn to fly," suggested Ron.
"That's quite a, a responsible suggestion, Ron," Hermione said, looking somewhat taken back.
"Well, yeah. I'm not thick, you know," retorted Ron, a lopsided smile on his face. Hermione smiled back.
"Well, this was all very nice, but we still haven't decided what we're going to do today," said Harry.
"I thought we had," replied Ginny. "Aren't we going to teach Hermione to fly?"
"To-today?" asked Hermione nervously.
"Well, of course. You always want to get a jump start on your homework, and since this is your homework for the summer, I figured you'd want to start right away."
"Well, when you put it that say, I guess so," said Hermione, giving in.
"Well, I guess that's settled. I'm going to get my broom," said Ginny. Hermione got up, and Harry followed. Fred and George started to stand up, but Ron stopped them.
"No way are you going to "help" Hermione fly. You're the last ones that she needs helping her." With that the twins sat down and both gave Ron wry smiles. Ron chose to ignore them and walked out the door in search of his broom.
As Ron walked outside he shielded his eyes from the sun. Wow, it's gorgeous out. Perfect flying weather. The wind was strong enough to keep the brooms a flight without much effort, but it wasn't strong enough to push the brooms off of their directed courses.
Harry and Ginny were already outside, trying to coax Hermione out of the shed. "C'mon Hermione, we won't let anything happen to you. We'll take is slowly. Step by step," said Ginny.
"Where's that Gryffindor courage of yours?" said Harry.
"Maybe she doesn't have any," said Ron, a smile on his face. "Maybe she's just chicken." His comment had the desired effect.
"I am not chicken, Ronald Weasley, and I'll prove it to you!" Hermione mounted her broom, and kicked off into the air. She wobbled a little bit, then straightened out, floating in one spot. "See? I can do this." The other three kicked off and joined Hermione in the air.
As Ron, Harry, and Ginny flew around the yard with ease, Hermione gripped onto her broomstick so tightly that her knuckles were white. She didn't go anywhere, but instead she just sat there, suspended in one spot in the air.
"Hermione, you can't just sit there like that!" exclaimed Ginny. "You'll never get used to flying if you don't move!"
"No, I'm just fine where I am, thank you," replied Hermione. Ron flew up next to Hermione.
"I have an idea," said Ron. "Let's both slowly descend to the ground, first." So the two of them slowly, very slowly in Hermione's case, and set down on the ground.
"Now, get off of your broomstick, and sit on mine in front of me," said Ron. Hermione gave him a weird look, but did what he asked anyway. "Now, I want you to do everything. I'm here if you need help, but I know that you can fly. I'll be right here with you."
Hermione kicked off and she and Ron flew higher and higher into the air. Once she got to a good height, Hermione stopped. "Now, go forward. There you go." Ron said as Hermione eeked the broom forward. Ron kept his arms around Hermione's waist to steady her, and to keep himself on the broom. He was nervous at being so close to Hermione, and wondered if she could sense his nerves.
After they had flown forward for a little while, then to the left and right a little bit, Ron and Hermione got down and off the broom.
"Thanks, Ron. You have no clue how much better I felt knowing that you were with me." Ron felt the tips of his ears turn red at Hermione's thanks.
"Well, you did very well yourself today. Maybe tomorrow you can try without me," Ron replied, regretting not being able to share her broom with her again.
"I don't know if I'm doing that well, but we'll see tomorrow," said Hermione. Harry and Ginny dismounted their brooms and walked over. Their clothes and hair were disheveled from a brisk fly around the neighborhood.
"Well, what should we do now?" asked Ginny.
"Actually, I had this idea last night. I don't know if you three would want to do it, though," said Hermione, nervously.
"What is it?" asked Harry.
"Well, while we were sitting around the campfire last night, I really had an itch to have an actual campfire, while camping," said Hermione.
"That's a great idea!" said Ginny. "I've never been camping before, but it sounds like so much fun!"
"Where would we go?" asked Harry.
"Oh, no place far. I thought that maybe on the other side of that lake there would be a good spot. We'd be far enough away to be on our own, but we'd be close enough to the house to get anything that we forget, or in case it rains or something."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, let's go ask Mum. If she says yes, we can get ready right away," said Ron, excited at the prospect of going off with his two best friends and favorite sibling for a couple of nights.
"Alright, let's go!" exclaimed Hermione. The four trudged up the hill to the house. As she went in, Hermione gave Ron a huge grin. He smiled goofily as he followed her into the house.
A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! They made me smile