Disclaimer: I'd say my band teacher is from another planet, but that would be insulting the aliens.
Chapter 10
"Hehe, my face tingles!"
"Well Harry, that's probably due to the fact that you keep using your tongue to complete an electrical circuit."
Harry shrugged and continued to touch his tongue to the wire that was protruding out of one of Mr. Weasley's many electrical sockets. Hermione rolled her eyes and turned back to Draco who was sitting rather stiffly in one of the wooden chairs that surrounded the table at the Burrow, his eyes darting back and forth, "Honestly Draco, would you please relax? There is no one home and if there were they wouldn't attack you!"
"You can never be to sure!" the blonde Slytherin protested.
Hermione sighed and leaned back in her chair. They had been at the Weasley's residence for four days now and Draco had acted like this the entire time. At first, she had been sympathetic, after all it would be hard to sleep in a house owned and surrounded by your former enemies, but after the Weasleys had shown that there were no hard feelings on their side, she had begun to get fed up with him. But Draco's attitude wasn't the only thing that had her patience worn to the quick. Ever since they had arrived at the Burrow Mrs. Weasley had been giving her odd smiles and insisting at every meal time that Hermione sit next to Draco and, not only that, but quite frequently she would take the rest of the group on long outings (turning a deaf ear on the numerous protests) and leave Hermione, Draco and sometimes, like now, Harry alone. Not that she regretted inviting Draco, she just wished Mrs. Weasley would stop being so bloody romantic about the whole ordeal. A loud thump jerked her back to reality. It seemed as though Harry had passed out.
"Finally!" Draco exclaimed and Hermione raised a questioning eyebrow. Draco shrugged, "The constant zapping noise was getting to me."
"Ah."
A fly buzzed on the windowsill making the obvious silence more, well, silent. They had already discussed and agreed on the fact that whoever had stolen the Invisibility Cloak was probably the same person who was responsible for the murders and there wasn't much left to discuss as they weren't any closer to figuring out who the culprit actually was.
Draco began drumming his fingers on the table and Hermione felt compelled to break the silence, "So, about Quidditch…"
"You don't know anything about Quidditch…"
"Not true, I know what a Quaffle is!" Draco appeared to have taken this statement as a challenge of sorts and he proceeded to ask her a very long and complex question that contained very Quidditchy sounding words. Fortunately, she was saved the embarrassment of answering, or rather, the lack of answering by the sounds of the Weasley's arriving home. "Lets go see them, shall we?" she asked rather hastily and excited the room.
"Hello, everyone! How was your trip?" she asked with an attempt at a cheerful tone which probably made her sound like one who has attempted to strangle themselves on numerous occasions.
Mrs. Weasley looked at her strangely for a moment before answering, "Splendid, splendid! And how was yours and Draco's time? Hmm?" She asked with that revolting smile and actually had the nerve to wink.
Hermione grimaced, "Uh…great." But she wasn't sure if the red-haired woman had heard her response for at that moment they had stepped into the kitchen, Harry still sprawled across the floor.
Mrs. Weasley rushed over to the black-haired boy's limp form and cried out, "My word, what happened?"
"Harry decided to try a muggle science experiment." answered Draco wryly before tensing up like a spring once more.
The witch's gaze then swept over the socket, wire still sticking out and put two and two together, "Ah, I see. Well I'll just Ennervate!" She stared on in shock as her revival spell had no effect on the unconscious wizard. "Good Lord! He's dead!"
"No, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione explained calmly, ignoring the exaggerated jump to conclusions, "You see, when Harry got hit on the head, along with insanity he also got the defense of being impervious to magic.
"Cool!" said Fred and George in the background and immediately began firing random spells of questionable legality at Harry.
"Now boys, don't be immature." lectured Mr. Weasley, but Hermione noticed that his wand was poking out from behind his back.
"Well, I think Harry needs some rest." Called out Hermione, "Draco help me carry him." The ferret-like blonde scurried over and both students quickly left the room, Harry in tow.
"Has the whole bloody family gone mad?" He shouted once they were out of ear-shot.
"Now, Draco, don't be too harsh. Losing Ron was hard for them."
"Yes, but firing off potentially harmful spells at an unarmed wizard?"
"You know how odd that sounds coming from you? And besides, I wouldn't call an immunity to magic 'unarmed' exactly."
"You're just standing up for them because they're your friends!" he accused.
"Well yes, that's generally what friends do for each other." They finished dragging the lifeless wizard upstairs and dumped him on the bed that used to be Ron's without another word.
The rest of the holidays passed rather uneventfully, that is if you can call the fact that whenever Harry came into view whichever Weasleys happened to be around pulled out their wands and discharged random spells. Unfortunately, Harry began to think this was some great game and started issuing his own spells in return. Because of this, most of the Weasleys had to be treated for minor injuries. The oddest of these by far would have had to been the time that no less than seven squirrels popped out of Fred's head. And so, to prevent more of these occurrences, Hermione and Harry spent the rest of the vacation outside mostly with Draco tagging along for now he was even more terrified of the family than usual.
At long last the day came that they were to return to Hogwarts and so, after many goodbyes and thanks, the three of them hurriedly flooed out of the Burrow and into Professor McGonagall's office. They stepped out of the room and into the hallway where they met Ginny. (She had decided to remain at Hogwarts over the holidays in an attempt to avoid her now rather bizarre family.)
She greeted them with a wave, "Hi you lot! How did you enjoy your break with my insane relatives?"
"Er, it was…nice." said Hermione tentatively.
"It was terrifying, wasn't it?"
"Well yes." But before any other banter could be exchanged, the group was approached by Neville who seemed twitchy and rather paler than usual. "Hi, Neville. How was your Christmas?" Hermione inquired.
Neville jumped high enough to make an Olympic pole-vaulter proud and said in a rather high voice, "Uh, hello, uh, Hermione. My break? It was, uh, great." He squeaked before speeding away.
"Wonder what his problem is." said Hermione, her brow furrowing.
"He's been rather squeamish all year" Ginny replied knowingly, "Well guys I think I'll depart. I still have some homework to complete."
Hermione watched Harry play with his new finger puppet, an electrocuted version of himself as she reflected. It had been a very odd break indeed.
A/N: Wow, I got this chapter up fast. Yay! Well I hit the 10 chapter mark and I think I also hit 10,000 words. Double-yay! Well, that's about it. If I get loads of reviews it'll be another quick update. Fare thee all well!