Disclaimer: Any places, events, characters, etc. that you recognize belong to someone else. And 'Crazy' belongs to the infamous Ms. Britney Spears
A/N: woo, last chapter was long. yeah, thanks to mangopango for explaining british currency to me. ha ha ha. Yeah, I'm kind of sitting here with my britspeak dictionary on one elbow and my thesaurus on the other. Britspeak says nothing about currency though, gah! Anyway, yah, this is another interlude. Trust me, there's an actual reason behind this one, I swear. Yippee! And it's a flashback… if that's confusing at all. And yes, Ginny's first name is Ginevra, check JKRowling(dot)com if you doubt me. : - p
Horsekrazy08: It is a big one, isn't it? I looked on the site and it's 13,800. Yeah, nothing I could easily afford.
Chapter Dedication: Jewel cause she beta-ed (if that's not a word it should be) it for me and helped me make it as fantastic as possible. Thank you so so so much. Now everyone go read her story, Breaking Fate. Well, after you read this, of course…
"Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow." –Benjamin Disraeli
A Perfect Day to Elope
CHAPTER TWELVE
In which Ginny goes blonde and Ron is in denial...
Interlude: A Ginevra Story
review by jewel-
…Three Years Ago…
September 25, 2000
"Perfect." Ginevra Weasley stood back and admired her work. "Does it look straight to you?" She eyed her very own Hogwarts diploma. It was hanging, glittering, pressed white, next to a signed picture of the Weird Sisters and above a tray of dirty, gray water and dirtier, grayer forks. "Kyle?"
"Wadda ya want, Gin?" Ginny's one and only employee and boyfriend, the mop-topped fry cook called Kyle, traipsed out of the kitchen, drying his hands on a wet washcloth.
"I said, does it look straight?" she repeated. He eyed the frame curiously.
"Looks good to me," he dropped the washcloth in with the forks and came up beside her. "Are you happy now?"
"Huh?" she turned away from the plaque so that she was looking him square in the face.
"Now, now we've got all… this." He gestured to the empty deli around them.
"Yeah," she sighed. People lied, she decided. People were wrong; the world was perfect. Her deli was perfect. Her boyfriend was perfect. Her family was perfect. Everything was just as it was supposed to be.
"We'll be taking next week off, then?" Kyle said, moving back into the kitchen.
"What for?"
"What do mean what for?" Kyle laughed, "Your brother is only getting married."
"I knew that," she lied. Of course, another thing that was just so blatantly perfect. Ron and Hermione, Hermione and Ron, destined to wed since the dawn of time. It all seemed…she pondered it for a moment… too perfect. No, not Ron and Hermione. Everyone knew they were perfect. Perfectly perfect. It was perfect. Their wedding was going to be perfect, and then their children would be perfect. It was just so damned obvious. So simple some people might even call it romantic.
"Gin?"
"Yeah?" she looked up from the calendar she'd been perusing.
"Mind if I leave early? 's jus' my mum's coming into town tonight, and I was thinking I'd like to be there when the Knight Bus drops her off," he added hurriedly.
"Sure, doll," she smiled, turning back to the calendar. October fifth, next Thursday, she was going to go to a wedding. She was going to be a bridesmaid. She was going to wear an enormous confection of tangerine satin that clashed horribly with her copper curls, but she was going to smile. She was going to smile because everything was going to be perfect.
She looked away from the calendar and turned to washing the silverware.
Rub, rub, clink. Rub, rub, clink.
"Bye, babe! See you tomorrow!" Kyle swung past her, kissed her nose because he missed her cheek, and sped out the door.
"Bye, sweetie!" she called. The door swung shut with an audible bang.
Rub, rub, clink. Rub, rub, clink.
She put down the fork she'd been scouring and shook her hands dry. Without the sounds of metal against metal to fill the noiseless air, she was suddenly very aware that she was alone. The silence pressed down on her like a wet towel; it was unnerving. She shook the feeling away and grabbed her Wizard's Wireless.
"And if you liked that," the DJ was saying, "get ready for another special treat on this magical Monday evening, September the twenty-fifth. For those of you just tuning in, in celebration of our very own Celestina Warbeck's thirtieth birthday–"
"I'm twenty-five!" shouted a woman in the background.
"–in honor of her thirtieth birthday," he continued, "we're playing all Muggle, all day, on the WWN."
"Wizard Wireless Network, oooh," sang the woman.
"Since Celestina is such an enormous fan of muggle music," he concluded, "Here it is, ladies and gents, and I'll have no more of these death threat owls!"
Ginny lifted the tray of soiled silverware off of the counter and dumped it into the sink. She flicked her wand casually at the jumble of knives and forks, and they jumped up. "I want to see myself reflected in that blade when I come back," she warned a particularly dirty knife, and the previously inanimate objects started scrubbing themselves clean. "That's right." She walked into the stainless steel kitchen and turned off the oven, which Kyle had left on again. So predictable it hurt.
She opened one of the upper cupboards (the one charmed to stay cold) and pulled out a red ice pop.
"Now here's a treat from the states," the man was saying as Ginny unwrapped the ice pop. "An artist whose debut album, Baby One More Time, was so over played that it leaked onto our own innocent Wizarding Wireless," there was an almost inaudible gagging noise in the background, like someone choking on a too-large tube of lip gloss, "Who's second album and song of the same name, 'Oops… I Did it Again' nearly suffocated our poor airwaves under a bombardment of syrupy sweet synthesizer. That's right, folks," Ginny rolled her eyes, "here she is. The infamous Ms. Britney Spears singing a classic hit off of her debut album. Here it is: 'Crazy'!"
Ginny sucked irritably on her ice pop. She had stopped liking that kind of music when she was eleven. Well, no one would say she had been a normal eleven-year-old, either, even by wizarding standards. There had been reasons behind the change, of course; Ginny had had plenty to rant about after her first year at Hogwarts, things pop just didn't speak to. Unlike most children, who had turned from dripping sugar pop-bops to the lesser pop-rock that a twelve-year-old might consider 'hard-core', Ginny had found solace in the heady metal guitar solos of nineteen eighties punk. No one would have, or could have, called her a normal eleven-year-old.
"Craaaaazy," the wireless sang. Ginny laughed at herself for still knowing all the words, though the song was way past her time. She glared angrily down at her hips, which would insist on swinging to the nauseating, synthesizer backup. Damn it, she was not going to be pulled into that. She twirled the ice pop around one finger and tried to ignore the music as she made her way back into the kitchen. She stopped herself.
"Damn it, Gin, no walking in sync with the music!" she snapped at her disobedient feet.
"Baby, I'm so into you," sang the synthesized voice, "You got that somethin', what can I do?"
Ginny started walking again.
Left, right, left, right, that wasn't so hard.
"Baby, you spin me around. The earth is movin', but I can't feel the ground,"
Left,
"Every time, you look at me,"
Right,
"My heart is jumpin', it's easy to see,"
Left,
"Lovin' you means so much more,"
Right hop,
"More than anything,"
Left slide,
"I've ever felt before,"
Ginny might have glared down at her disobedient feet, but it would have meant nothing, as said feet had already zoomed off in the direction of her private closet. Disobedient hands were already digging for the keys in her apron front while simultaneously untying said apron. She flung the apron aside in a dramatic flick of the wrist and swung her closet open, winking at some invisible audience behind her before ducking into the closet and shutting the door behind her. "You drive me crazy…" followed her through the solid wood. She waved her wand over an old, unused glove and grinned a grin shockingly reminiscent of Gred and Forge as it morphed into a dark-blonde wig.
"Ohh… Crazy, but it feels alright," she burst out of the closet, smiling at an unseen cameraman and swinging her head to the incessant pop. Suddenly, she wasn't Ginny Weasley anymore. She was hot, she was wanted, millions of people loved her and the most important thing to do was just keep shooting the video, and that was okay because she had no other responsibilities. She was fire, she was ice, she was electric. There was no Kyle, and that was okay because there'd never been any Kyle.
"Tell me, you're so into me." She spun down the length of her kitchen counter, then swung her legs up and over so that she was a pole dancer at the kind of exotic show she'd never been allowed to go to. She wasn't a nineteen-year-old deli owner. She was a nineteen-year-old popstar, a brilliant popstar at that. She had no brothers, no sisters. She was an only child raised by her insanely rich mother and her billionaire father. She'd never had money problems. She never would have money problems. She wasn't Ginevra Molly Weasley. She was Gin: first name only, please.
She slid down the length of the counter, knocking aside pots and pans as she shimmied along. She slid down onto her knees and twirled her legs in a fantastic fan kick Ginny Weasley would never have been capable of.
"Lovin' you means so much more, more than anything I've ever felt before!" Ron wasn't getting married in a week, neither was Hermione. That was okay, too. There'd never been a Ron, or a Hermione for that matter. She'd never have to force a smile while dressed in tangerine because no one told Gin what to wear. Her brother wasn't going to leave her, ever, because she didn't have a brother; and if she did that was okay because no one left Gin.
"Crazy, I just can't sleep. I'm so excited, I'm in too deep" she wouldn't ever have to waste any more of her dreams on Harry. Who was Harry? She certainly didn't know anyone named Harry. If he didn't love her, that was okay, because millions of other people did.
"Crazy, but it feels alright," most of all, there was no Tom.
"Baby thinkin' of you keeps me up all night," there'd never been any Tom either. She had no logical fear of blank books; she had no fear at all. She'd never been lied to because she was Gin. She'd never been tricked because no one tricked Gin. She'd never been used, abused, and then discarded like a cheap whore, because people simply didn't do that to Gin.
"You drive me crazy," she'd never gone to the Department of Mysteries. What was the Department of Mysteries?
"Oooh, crazy but it feels alright," she'd never broken her ankle, because Gin took care of her body.
"Baby, thinkin' of you keeps me up all night," she'd never gone to the Yule Ball with Neville, because there was no Neville. There'd never been a Neville.
"Crazy, I just can't sleep," she'd never sent an anonymous valentine. Gin didn't send valentines; people sent them to Gin.
"I'm so excited, I'm in too deep," she'd never been pointed at in the halls. She'd never been whispered about or gaped at. She'd never been blamed because what was there to blame Gin for?
"Crazy, but it feels alright," she'd never found herself covered in blood and feathers.
"Baby thinkin' of you keeps me up all night," who was Tom?
"You drive me crazy baby," she'd never–
"Ginny? What the hell are you doing?" she fell headlong off of the counter she'd been slithering along, taking the Wizard's Wireless with her. There was a terrible crack that told her it had hit the floor and the music stopped. "Was that…"
"No," she snapped, ripping the blonde wig from her fiery red curls and glaring furiously at the intruder, "it wasn't,"
"Oh, nice wig, anyway," Ron replied dully.
"Sorry, closed," Ginny snapped irritably.
"It's okay, I was just wondering if Hermione had been in," he said, completely ignoring Ginny's tone.
"Hermione? Left you already, has she?" she teased.
"N-no…" he faltered. Ginny didn't like that falter, not at all. "Just… has she been in here?"
"Today?" Ginny sank slowly into one of her many bar stools, "I don't think I've seen her since last Tuesday, at the party. Why?"
"Well, it's just… yeah. We got in a fight, you know? and–"
"She left?" Ginny offered. He shook his head.
"No, she didn't leave. See, she wanted… well it seems silly now, but she got really miffed, like she can," he got a look in his eyes as though a miffed Hermione was the most glorious creature in the world, "and we worked it out. We went to sleep, and I woke up about an hour ago because I was cold," he frowned, "and she wasn't there,"
"She probably just went to get a present and didn't want to wake you up. Hermione's nice like that,"
"Yeah," he looked doubtful, "but she usually leaves a note, you know?"
"Yeah," Ginny nodded, though she was fairly certain she didn't know.
"And… nothing. Well her camera thing was out, but she was probably just making sure it was working, right? She's really excited for the wedding,"
"I know."
"It's just… I'm worried about her, you know? There're still plenty of Death-Eaters out there. She could be in trouble, right?"
"Right," Ginny nodded.
"Say, I should probably be getting home, she's probably there, worrying about me," he laughed, much more than was really appropriate.
"Yeah," Ginny swallowed. She suddenly didn't want Ron to go, because bad things would happen if Ron found Hermione not there. "Say, why don't you, er… stay for a cuppa, eh?"
Ron's face suddenly contorted into a furious scowl. "She's going to be there when I get home!" he shouted.
"I-I didn't say she wasn't going to be," Ginny choked.
"Because she is, and she's probably there right now!" he grabbed a salt cellar off of the table and crushed it in his fist. "Gah!" he screamed as salt mixed with fresh-cuts and turned pain into torture.
"I know she is, Ron," she whispered. Her throat suddenly felt very tight.
"I'm going home now! I'll tell her you didn't believe me!" he cried, his eyes rimmed with angry tears. He turned to leave.
…bad things would happen if Ron found Hermione not there…
"Ron!" she cried, her voice choked with restrained tears. "You don't… you don't have to go…"
"Hermione is waiting for me," he whispered, his voice hoarse. He turned back to the door.
…bad things would happen…
She threw herself onto his back, like she had when they were kids fighting over the last chocolate bar. She was much larger now, though, than she had been when she was younger, and they both tumbled to her linoleum floor. He didn't ask why she'd done it. They both knew.
"Hermione's going to wonder why I'm so late," he said.
"She'll forgive you."
"She's going to be mad."
"She won't care, I'll tell her where you've been."
"She'll think I have another girlfriend."
"And who, may I ask, would want you?"
"I dunno."
"Me, neither."
"I reckon I better stay at the Burrow tonight."
"Yeah, probably."
"I don't think Hermione would mind."
"Yeah, probably not."
"She's not coming back, is she?" he asked. He didn't need the answer, but she considered it anyway.
"No, probably not."