Sniffles

Harry and Ginny were stumbling home after a night out on the town and they were both a little worse for wear considering it was still only eleven. As it turned out, they were the same kind of drunk, the giggly affectionate kind.

After Ginny had dropped her wand and then her key and then fallen over attempting to pick both items up, Harry decided to knock on the door instead. Harry hauled Ginny back to her feet while she cackled to herself about kicking her shoes into the mud and 'doing a Harry' and the front door swung open. It was Mrs Weasley. She didn't look happy.

"Oooh, I'm in trouble!" Ginny said with an enormous grin.

Mrs Weasley snorted and stepped aside.

"Well, come in, then," she snapped.

"Ah, mum," Ginny said as she stepped inside and threw her arms around her mother's rigid body, falling into a cuddle, "have you lost weight? You look beautiful. I hope when I'm your age..."

"Get inside and don't even think about finishing that sentence, Ginny Weasley!" the irate-looking witch said as she pushed her daughter away from her and stood her upright before cautiously letting her go.

Harry fought not to laugh as he followed his tipsy girlfriend through to the living room where they were hit full in the face by an eye-watering vapour in the air.

"Woah, what the hell is that smell?" Harry reeled as he put his hand to his face to shield himself from the fumes.

Ron appeared from beneath a tea-towel, unleashing a cloud of steam.

"Eucalyptus, camphor oil and cumin seeds," he said muggily, "I've got a..." Ron suddenly had a small coughing fit, which worsened as he began to laugh.

"A cough?" Harry ventured a guess.

"A cold actually," Ron managed to strain as his eyes watered from the menthol fumes.

"Coughing's just like a bonus then?" Harry smiled sympathetically.

Harry's remark was about to be answered, but another coughing fit pushed ahead of Ron's words. This second wave lasted considerably longer.

"Merlin, Ron, pull that towel back over before your insides come out," Bill shouted over the splutters.

"The Ronald Weasley coughing extravaganza starring...Ronald Weasley!" Ginny said with a flourish of her arms.

"Don't," Ron begged his sister as another laugh-cum-cough seized his whole body, "mum, tell her to stop making me laugh."

"She's not making you laugh, she's making you cough," Mrs Weasley said as she cast her jovial daughter a disapproving look.

She took a seat beside her sick son and pulled the towel back over his head.

"So, drunken sister of mine," Bill grinned, "where have you two been?"

"We went to a party," Harry said, catching sight of himself in the mirror, realising that he had a dopey expression on his face, and trying to shake it off.

"Well, we knew somebody would be up when we came home," Ginny said as she tripped and fell into an armchair, trying to make it appear as if she had meant to sit down all along, "'Cause, y'know?" Ginny shrugged and pointed at Ron, bent over the bowl of home-made cold remedy beneath a tea towel, "somebody's always up in this house."

"So you thought it would be acceptable for you to stagger in and wake the whole household because of that, did you?" Mrs Weasley said as her jaw stiffened and her lips were pulled into a tight, scowl.

"'S my fault, Mrs Weasley," Harry decided to see if his golden-boy immunity still worked with his surrogate mother.

"Well, you should be ashamed of yourself then, both of you!" she barked.

Harry cringed and hung his head. Obviously golden-boy immunity was overruled by protectiveness of an unwell baby boy in the world of Mrs Weasley.

"Oh come on, mother," Ginny scoffed, "If it's so late, then why are you all still up? Why are you even here this late anyway," Ginny suddenly frowned in confusion and waved a hand towards her mother before looking across to Hermione, who was sitting at Ron's other side, "you too. Isn't it time you both went home instead of having a go at us for coming home late?"

"Ginny, don't be so sodding rude!" Bill hissed from where he stood before the fireplace.

"What?" Ginny protested with indignance.

"Hermione has been taking care of your brother all day, she missed work today to see to him," Mrs Weasley said while Hermione pinked a little in the cheeks and looked down into her lap, "and I will be staying here tonight in case he needs me."

"Mum, I told you..." Ron began to pull the towel back away from his head but his mother pushed his head back down and slapped the back of his hand away from the tea towel, "Ow!"

"Stay under the towel, Ronnie!" she ordered.

While Mrs Weasley silently seethed and Ginny glared back at her grumpily, Harry sat down on the arm of the sofa uncomfortably and shared a wary glance with Hermione. They smiled at each other briefly before Bill cleared his throat.

"So this party, was it an old friend from school, Ginny?"

"What?" Ginny said as she slowly shifted her focus from her mother to Bill, "Oh yeah, Lisa, she likes to start her parties late because she's an insomniac."

Mrs Weasley blinked on hearing this before frowning.

"I had that when I was pregnant with Ronnie. What does that have to do with throwing late-night parties?"

Everybody looked at Mrs Weasley in bewildered confusion; even Ron's head turned beneath the tea towel, and Hermione broke the silence with a nervous correction.

"Actually I think you might mean anaemia, Mrs Weasley."

The entire room erupted into laughter; Mrs Weasley shook her head and sighed before breaking into a smile of resignation that now even Hermione was showing her up as the batty old fool she sometimes must have felt she was. She sighed and shrugged at Hermione. This seemed to make her feel a little better about correcting her mistake and she smiled back. Ron's head emerged from beneath the towel again to join in with the levity.

"Get back in there, Ron," his mother ordered.

"I can't," Ron moaned, "it's giving me a headache."

"It's not this that's giving you a headache, all that coughing is," she fussed as she tried to push his head back down over the steaming bowl on his lap.

"No, I'm alright now," Ron said, clearing his throat.

On hearing this, Mrs Weasley leapt to her feet.

"Good, so I can get you something to eat now."

The confrontation with Ginny seemed to have upset Mrs Weasley a little more then she wanted any of her children to notice, and she looked as though she needed a distraction. She was on her feet and scurrying for the door to get Ron something to eat when he called after her.

"Oh no mum, my guts are turning over just thinking about it," he shuddered.

Harry slid down into Mrs Weasley's vacated seat, grabbed Ron by the shoulders and pretended to shake him melodramatically.

"EAT...SOME...FOOD! I beg you!"

"Get off," Ron laughed wheezily, "or I'll reveal your horrible secret."

"You wouldn't dare," Harry said defiantly before leaning in close and whispering, "Which one?"

Ron looked smugly back at him.

"Mrs Weasley," Harry called out to the kitchen, "a four-course meal for my dear friend Ron, he asked for it."

"Right away," she called back in a singsong voice.

"No mum, I really can't," Ron called through the open door desperately, "I'm not joking, I mean it."

Harry's smile faded a little and he gave Ron a slight nudge to make sure he was all right. He smiled back at him before looking back at the door where his mother was now standing with an apron tied around her waist.

"Not on top of this," Ron pleaded with her before motioning down to the bowl on his lap, "I can't."

His mother gave him a nod of understanding before swallowing and then looking from Harry to Ginny and straightening out the creases in her apron briskly.

"What about you two?"

"Um..." Harry said as he looked at Ginny. Frankly, he was starving, but he didn't want to interfere with this apparent peace-offering between mother and daughter.

"We could share a plate of chips, I suppose," Ginny said with a small shrug as she glanced back at her mother apprehensively.

"Alright, but you'll have to eat in the kitchen," she said as she turned to leave.

Ginny smiled and nodded; her mother seemed to loosen up again, the tension having been broken.

"No, it's okay," Ron said, stopping his mother in her tracks, "they can eat in here."

"Are you sure?" Ginny asked him.

"Yeah, it's fine," Ron nodded.

Twenty minutes later, Harry and Ginny were knelt around the coffee table in the living room eating their large platter of chips while the rest of the family listened to a late-night news bulletin on the radio. They still enjoyed the novelty of not hearing a list of deaths and wounded as they used to have to do during the war. Mrs Weasley was looking ready to turn in, Bill was upstairs checking on baby Luke and Hermione was still refusing to go home until Ron had gone to bed.

Harry glanced up to look at his best friend and noticed that he was beginning to take slow, deep breaths. This was something Harry had grown used to ever since he had moved into the house. This was what Ron did whenever he was feeling nauseated and trying to control it. Harry leaned across the coffee table and put his hand on Ron's knee.

"You alright there, Ron?"

At that, Ron put his hand to his mouth and leapt to his feet. The bowl with its concoction toppled over and spilled all over the rug while Ron ran into the tiny downstairs toilet, followed by Hermione.

"It's not your fault, you two," she called behind her as she went, "he said you could eat in here."

"Yes dears, finish your supper," Mrs Weasley smiled before crowding into the tiny downstairs toilet with Hermione.

Harry could see that the younger witch was behind Ron, rubbing his back and murmuring encouragement.

"That's it, that's it Ron, let it all out," she said while Ron bowed over the toilet bowl, his back arching every few seconds, "Give it time. It'll pass, you're okay."

Ron coughed and spat into the bowl before reaching out and shoving Hermione backwards and out the door blindly.

"Sit back down Hermione, go and talk to Harry and Ginny," he said as Hermione stepped back into the cupboard-sized toilet and put her hands on her hips, "Go back into the other room."

"I'm not going anywhere, Ron," she said fiercely, "What on earth makes you think I would?"

"I don't want you to see me puke, okay?" Ron yelled before the strain on his throat caused him to have another coughing fit.

"Oh," Hermione said quietly as she seemed torn between crouching beside him and giving him a cuddle and running as far away from him as possible. Instead she chose to reach out for him to gave a brief pat on the back before stepping backwards out of the toilet and watching him from the hallway with her arms hugging herself, "I don't think any less of you just because I see you like th-" she began to say shakily.

"Get out!" Ron snapped and Hermione jumped and turned right into Mrs Weasley's body.

The stout woman grabbed Hermione tightly and enveloped her in a hug that almost seemed to swallow her whole. She stroked the back of her bushy brown head and swayed from side to side while Hermione seemed to struggle not to cry. Bill had come back down the stairs to order everybody to keep their voices down when he saw the scene before him. He paused and took in a deep breath before marching purposefully past his mother and Hermione into the toilet.

"Ron?" he said forcefully.

"Sit down, Bill," Ron turned and looked up at his brother, "you know me, I'm here for the night now."

"No you're not, up," Bill ordered, "get up. Get your head out of there and get up. You've hardly eaten, so you've got nothing to puke, have you?"

Hermione drew a shuddering breath as she pulled away from Mrs Weasley and the two witches frowned at Bill's tough tactics.

"I can't eat, Bill," Ron's ragged voice responded.

"Yes, you can," Ginny shouted from the living room, "Cheese! When he's like this he can only keep hard cheese down. We sat up one night and he ate a whole brick of it."

Bill looked from Ginny back to Ron.

"Cheese? D'you think you could keep it down?"

There was a pause, followed by the sound of Ron spitting into the toilet bowl, before he lifted his head and nodded.

While Ron was being force-fed cheese by the ton, Ginny and Harry had gone up to bed and were sharing a little pillow talk.

"So why blue?" Harry frowned.

"It just took my fancy," Ginny smiled with a shrug, "but mum would go spare if I did it."

"Can't you just change it magically for the night and then put it back the way it was?"

"Do you know anybody who hasn't messed up a charm like that?"

Harry thought back to his yellow eyebrow and shook his head.

"I'd ask Hermione, but she has this thing about hair vanity, it's a sensitive spot for her," Ginny sighed before laying her head upon Harry's bare chest, "I really wish I were like Tonks and just be able to change colour like that," she clicked her fingers.

Harry chuckled and kissed the top of her head.

"So what different colours would you want to try?"

"Nearly all of them, except pink," she said with a look of distaste.

"Blonde?" Harry asked with arched eyebrows.

Ginny shook her head with great conviction.

"No way, too bimbo for me!"

Harry pretended to be disappointed and Ginny dug her fingers into his side, making him let out a girlish laugh and squirm away from her.

"No tickling, that's not fair!" Harry said warningly, "Otherwise all truces are off and I'm free to blow raspberries on your bottom to my hearts content."

"That was never agreed!" Ginny warned him before he grabbed her arm, her finger still waggling at him on the end of it and pinned it to the mattress beneath him.

"I can blow raspberries wherever I see fit," Harry declared, "you broke the tickle/raspberry agreement so I no longer have to abide by the rules of said agreement," Harry declared, victoriously.

"Oh, watch it, Potter," Ginny said with wide eyes, "you sounded a lot like Percy just then!"

Harry took in a deep breath, lowered his face down between Ginny's bare breasts and blew an enormous raspberry. Ginny cackled and thrashed about beneath him as he covered her body with big wet raspberries until she managed to give Harry a dig in the ribs and then throw him off her. As Harry wiped his wet mouth and chuckled proudly Ginny launched herself on top of him and pinned him down with that wicked look on her face.

"Revenge, revenge, revenge...oh, what can a girl do to get her revenge?" Ginny rocked back and forth on Harry's hips as she looked to the ceiling and thought aloud.

"You can keep doing that if you like," Harry grinned.

Ginny stopped rocking and leaned right over Harry to look at him nose to nose.

"I think you could do with some colour, Potter," she said gleefully.

"No!" Harry said, his eyes wide, "whatever you're thinking, no!"

Ginny looked down at Harry's groin before her face lit up and she looked back into his eyes in a way that made him fear for his penis.

"I could turn your pubic hair green and make it look as if your Willy's got the sniffles!" she grinned so widely that her whole face seemed to glow.

"No," Harry said fearfully, "No green pubes Ginny, not on me, not on you...not on anyone. There will be no green pubes! You said yourself you couldn't pull of a charm like that properly and this is my bollocks we're talking about."

Ginny seemed delighted at the reaction she had coaxed out of him and lowered herself down to silence his protests with a deep kiss. By the time Ginny pulled back Harry was looking dazed and his mouth was still hanging open before he came back to his senses.

"Green's not so bad," he said eventually.

Ginny rolled off him and wriggled tightly into his side as she curled her arms around him.

"Would you consider white instead?" Harry asked, "It'd be nice to know what it'll look like when I'm an old man."

Ginny's whole body shook with laughter.

"I went out with an albino once actually," she found herself confessing, before wincing and hoping that Harry wouldn't get all strange at this talk of her sex-life without him.

"Really?" Harry said as he sat up on his elbow.

"Yeah," Ginny nodded and waited for Harry's next response.

"This thing with that is," Harry said with a thoughtful look on his face, "they have great hair and beautiful skin but the eyelashes really freak me out. They're really long and really white!"

"Really?" Ginny smirked.

"Reeeeally!" Harry said, disregarding Ginny's sarcasm and resuming his ramble, "I try not to be one of those people who stare but you can't not look, can you? I saw a Japanese Albino girl on my travels and she was the most fascinating person I had ever seen in my life...and I've seen Hagrid!"

Ginny snorted at this.

"But the lashes didn't look right on her eyes and when they blink, God, it's like a pair of butterflies flapping about her face. How it didn't get on her nerves I'll never know."

Ginny propped herself up on her elbow now.

"Well, do your eyelashes get on your nerves?" she asked him.

"No, but I can't see mine," Harry declared as if Ginny was some kind of idiot for saying such a thing.

"Well I'm sure they can't see theirs either."

"Well, if you're gonna use logic," Harry grumbled.

The following morning Harry and Ginny had come down to breakfast, far too late, together.

"Morning, Ron," Harry said cheerily.

Ron gave him a halfhearted nod and poured himself a glass of the glowing nutrient drink with a scowl of disgust at his own actions.

"How's your cold?" Harry asked again, determined to maintain his jovial manner and infect everybody around him with it.

Ron shook his head and pointed to his throat, mouthing the words 'I can't'.

"You've lost your voice?" Ginny said, stepping forward and holding Ron's face in her hands with a serious expression on her own, "When's the celebratory party?"

Ron slapped Ginny on the arm and she cackled before giving him a hug of apology.

"I haven't lost it," Ron croaked before putting his hand to his throat and wincing.

"Oh sorry," Ginny said as she broke away from him, "it hurts?"

"D'you want me to get someone? Hermione maybe?" Harry suggested.

Ron shook his head just as Bill walked in.

"Hermione's gone to work," he said as he opened a paper packet of something that stunk just as badly as Ron's steam treatment the night before, "She did give me something called Fisherman's Friend to give to you though."

"Do fishermen have a lot of friends then?" Ginny frowned as Bill popped one of the tiny little stone coloured things into his mouth and immediately spat it back out onto the floor, "Apparently not!"

"Ugh," Bill said as he scraped at his tongue with his fingers, "whoever makes these must really hate fishermen to have named such a foul tasting sweet after them!"

Ron was really struggling not to laugh at his revolted brother and managed to limit his amusement to one painful cough.

"Don't make him laugh, you two," Harry said sympathetically, "I'll get you some Tunes or Lockets or something Ron, they're sweeter and you can get cherry and blackcurrant flavours."

Ron gave a silent nod and forced the nutrient drink down his throat while Harry and Ginny put on their jackets to head out for the day.

"See ya, Ron," Ginny waved.

"Yeah, keep it down, mate," Harry grinned as he held the front door open for Ginny, "we have got neighbours, y'know?"

Ron scowled at them and gave them a two-fingered salute.