A/N The opening of this chapter is taken directly from Spike Milligan's novel 'The Looney' and is the opening of the chapter entitled 'The Day of Himself'. Full credit goes to the superior writer and I hold up my hands and apologise for putting my inferior text directly beneath it.

Many people consider the word of God to be sacred. I do too. But to me God is a man called Spike!

Changes

"It was the day, March the Seventeenth, that Drool celebrated its favourite saint. The Saint and Scholar pub reeled under the alcoholic assault. Irishmen in steaming clutches lay stupefied in a series of grotesque positions, there were happy cross-eyed idiot smiles on their faces. From either end they expelled a mist of only-drunk-once whiskey fumes, one match could have set off the first Celtic atom bomb. From inside the pub further groups of Irishmen were training to join the unconscious alcoholics outside on the pavement. At intervals, to drunken singing, fresh bodies were carried out and let go with a thud on the pavement. There was a time-honoured ritual of emptying the man's pockets. An old Drool saying goes, 'What good is money to the unconscious?'"

Ginny laughed and looked at the cover of the book she was reading from. Ron grinned at her lazily from his hospital bed.

"You say Hermione's been reading you this?" she said in disbelief.

Ron nodded. His breathing was a lot better now but he still made a strained sound whenever he inhaled. He had been given several more potions on top of his treatment for the Nex Ultionis and had been pretty much semi-conscious even since he had been admitted. He was groggy but still awake enough to get very bored just lying in the bed all day.

"This doesn't seem very Hermione," Ginny said as she fanned through the pages of the book.

Ron's eyes closed as he smiled even wider. It was as if he couldn't concentrate on keeping his eyes open and smiling at the same time. Ginny put the book down and took his hand.

"They'll take you off the potions soon," she said happily, "Then we'll be able to have a proper conversation."

Ron squeezed her hand back and his eyelids grew heavier for a moment before he frowned and winced. Ginny knew what that meant. She carried on talking to him as if nothing was wrong while reaching out for the small basin that floated at the side of Ron's bed, pulling her brother onto his side and rubbing his back vigorously.

"Who'd have thought I'd miss having conversations with you though, eh? Pain in the arse that you are, it just doesn't feel right for you to be so quiet."

Ron threw up nothing more then the remnants of his last dose of potion and the nutrient drink he had been forced to down half an hour ago. Ginny kept rubbing his back, just in case the nausea hadn't quite passed yet, and sighed breezily.

"Fred and George have spoken to the Healers and they reckon that the Firewhisky and honey concoction of theirs might be worth a go, for your throat, y'know?"

Ron spat into the basin and rolled back onto bed, wiping his mouth and coughing a little to clear his throat.

"Mm," Ron said with a nod, brief sounds were the only thing that didn't hurt his sore throat at the moment and the twins had been working on something to soothe him enough so that he could start talking again.

They too found it too eerie to have Ron being so quiet with them.

"Want some water?" Ginny asked as she released the floating basin and gave it a little shove away from her.

The receptacle drifted off to the disposal area and a fresh one appeared in its place. Ron nodded and Ginny tapped his bed with her wand to sit him up. The bed moved him up into the sitting position while Ginny poured a glass of water from the jug on Ron's bedside table and brought it to his lips.

"You might come home tomorrow," she said in a carefree tone, "We'll have to lay a mattress and two dozen heavy blankets on the bathroom floor so you don't catch cold again this time round."

Ron's eyes lifted from the glass he was still steadily drinking from and she saw that little sparkle she could always raise with her teasing and grinned.

"Although it's going to be quite uncomfortable for Bill and Harry whenever they want to take a bath if you're sleeping right next to them, isn't it? Oh well, I'm sure you've seen it all before on both of them. I know I have."

Ron snorted his mouthful of water back into the glass and Ginny beamed with utter delight. Her mission for the visit had been accomplished. She had made him laugh.

"Ow, bugger!"

Harry hobbled across the room to fall backwards onto Ron's bed and massage his foot. Hermione was moving her books back in and had dropped them onto his poor toes.

"Oh sorry, Harry, but I did warn you I was lowering it down again," she said with a flustered sigh as she directed Bill where to put her trunk; he levitated it into the room and set it down gently.

"You didn't warn me, you said 'and down' and dropped it on my foot!" Harry protested.

Bill tried not to show his amusement at this as he left the room without a word, while Hermione began to put her clothes back into her empty half of the wardrobe.

"Moving is a stressful business, Harry and you're really not making it any easier, you know?" she snapped before marching over to Harry on the bed and peering down at his sore foot. "Oh really, all this fuss over a broken toe. Sano!"

Harry's foot numbed and then tingled before feeling absolutely fine again. He wriggled his toes and then put his sock and his shoe back on again. He would have started a snippy little banter with her at any other time, but at that moment he thought it was probably best not to. Hermione was stressed in so many different ways that not only would he lose any argument with her, he'd probably want to kill himself afterwards as well. Hermione's tongue was so sharp she could disembowel you with it if she chose to.

She had announced to Ginny, Bill and Harry over dinner the previous night that she was moving back in and looking after Ron whether he liked it or not. It was one thing for her to sit across the road while Ron was struggling with his illness, but a whole other agony for her to have that huge gap between them when he got out of hospital from pneumonia and had to deal with two recoveries at the same time.

Ron hadn't wanted her to see him at his worst. He felt ashamed of himself for being weak and sick in front of her. He thought it was humiliating, so Harry guessed. Hermione had done her best to make it easier for him. She had backed off just as far as she could stand to give him his space and what little dignity he had left, but this latest development had been too much for her. She had cried on Harry's shoulder, and then George's, which had shocked everyone, including George himself, when they had been told to go home and leave Ron at St Mungo's to rest.

Nobody had been prepared to lose Ron any time soon. They'd all known that the treatment was going to be dreadful, but they had also known that Ron had the resilience to stand up to it. He was getting better, the bezoar was breaking down, and, apart from the awful side effects, everything was going well for him. He was at low risk and Ginny's never-endingly confident attitude was a testament to that.

Ron was suffering to some extent, but he wasn't going anywhere.

The pneumonia had blindsided them all, and the family had all been pretty shaken up at how quickly it had taken hold of Ron. Now that he was recovering from that too, the family confidence was returning and the 'of course Ron's going to be alright' attitude was being projected from them one and all. It had been the final straw for Hermione, though.

"Weasley ego be damned, I'm not leaving him alone anymore!"

She had screamed the words into Harry's chest with such force it was like a punch. Ron hadn't been consulted about her moving back into the house, let alone his room...his bed, and nobody was going to bother to tell him either. Ron's stubbornness made him impossible to reason with so they'd by-passed reason and gone straight for doing what they wanted and would dare him to challenge them when he found out.

Harry hoped Ron would accept this change. Hermione needed to look after him, and everybody else in the house needed to know he wasn't going to be alone in his bedroom finding other ways to make himself ill without realising it.

Harry knew that it was much more then all that, though. He knew that Hermione just missed her boyfriend. She missed him desperately and painfully, and now she had him back no matter what he had to say about it.

"I think I'll put up a barrier around the bed so he can lean out of it to reach for a drink or his bucket but he can't get out of it to set up camp back in the bathroom," she pondered aloud as she looked down at the bed Harry was sitting upon.

"Confining him to his bed, Hermione?" Harry frowned, "He won't like that."

"Tough," Hermione said with a short shrug, "he's doing what he's told now, puppy eyes or not."

Harry smiled and followed Bill back downstairs while Hermione began working on her flexible barrier charm. Hermione had quite a temper when she had just had a fright and Harry didn't want to aggravate it. Ginny's temper always came out of frustration rather then fear.

He pondered upon that thought. When Ginny was frightened she would become unusually quiet, almost as if she was shy, and sometimes she would get pushed to the limit of her fear and then seem to grow stronger from it. She would stand up and set her jaw with determination and face that fear head-on: always quietly though, never snapping, shouting, crying or wailing. Fear brought out Ginny's strong, silent side.

At the moment Ginny was more relieved then scared. She was playful and jovial and being very helpful around the house, much to Bill's amusement. She would be back from visiting Ron soon and Harry thought about taking her out for the night. It was a horrible thought, but while Ron was in St Mungo's, his housemates had some of their freedom back and were quite enjoying it. They didn't have to come home early. They didn't have to keep it down. They could eat smelly food in the living room. It would have been great, if it hadn't been for that empty feeling that woke them at three o'clock in the morning and made them tiptoe to the bathroom just to make sure it was empty.

The front door banged and a cheerful voice called out along the hall.

"S'me!"

"Hello, Smee," Bill said with a chuckle, "have you seen Ginny?"

Harry chuckled to himself as he saw Ginny punch her brother on the arm playfully before jumping on his back and being carried on piggyback through to the kitchen where she greeted her squealing nephew.

"Look Luke, daddy's a big strong horsey!"

"Auntsie Gin on your back!" Luke yelled.

"Is she really?" Bill said as he spun around on the spot to classic puppy-chasing-tail comic effect.

Luke cackled and Ginny slid down off her brother's back. Harry crept up behind her and curled his arms around her waist and spun her around.

"I've got her, Luke!"

Luke and Ginny made the same high-pitched sound of amusement before Harry set her down and gave her a brief kiss.

"So how was he?" Harry smiled, knowing he'd like the answer due to his girlfriend's degree of levity when she arrived home.

"He's great, they'll ease his throat this afternoon and that wheeze thing'll be gone overnight the healers say. We can bring him home tomorrow as long as we do something about the bathroom slumber parties."

"Oh, Hermione's sorting something out about that now," Harry said as he pointed up at the ceiling above his head.

Ginny laughed and looked up.

"She really came back then?"

"Of course she did: came back...moved in...broke my foot...now she's warding the bed!"

"Brilliant!" Ginny beamed.

Harry must've looked a little grumpy, as her face fell into an expression of deep sympathy and she pulled his head down to her chest and stroked his hair.

"I mean, poor Harry and his broken foot," she said in a mocking tone.

"I'd shove you except I'm actually enjoying having my face in here," Harry murmured from between Ginny's breasts.

"I could stamp on your other foot, that'd take your mind off it," Ginny said in that tone of hers that Harry could never decipher was joking or serious.

He pulled his face away from the warmth of her body with a pout and Ginny grinned at him and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"So this is our last free night for a while," she sighed up at him, "and I was thinking..."

"No need for thinking, Ginny," Harry said boldly as he struck a manly pose, "I have planned our night. You are coming with me into town and we will paint it Weasley red!"

Ginny choked on her laughter at Harry's uncharacteristic display of machismo before giving a whoop and dancing around the kitchen with a bemused Bill.

Harry tripped as Ginny pulled him into a darkened corner of the club and began nibbling at his neck while sliding her hands beneath his shirt. He was thoroughly enjoying the sensation, but also felt as if every pair of eyes in the place was watching them.

The saviour of the Wizarding world and the Weasley girl getting up to mischief in plain view of anybody who cared to look.

At first Harry had been polite and said hello to the total strangers who had approached him. Then he had cast a look of apology at an impatient Ginny as he signed a couple of autographs. A predatory platinum-haired witch with slinky movements nudged Ginny aside with her hips and draped an arm across Harry's shoulder before asking him to dance.

"Um..." Harry had met Ginny's livid eyes, fearing the worst for this poor unsuspecting woman, "I don't think that's a good ide-"

Ginny thrust her own hips back at the willowy witch and flicked her long red hair over her shoulder, whipping the woman in the face with it before pulling Harry into her and planting a possessive kiss on his lips.

"Let's dance, Potter," she said, with no room for argument.

"Yes, Ginny, whatever you say, Ginny," Harry said meekly before throwing a helpless shrug to the outraged fair-haired witch as he was dragged past her, "What can I say, she's got my bollocks in that handbag, I have to do what she says!"

They had danced as much as Harry's un-coordination would allow, Ginny had found it impossible to understand how such a good Seeker could be so clueless when it came to moves.

"Ron can do it and his feet are huge!" she had exclaimed.

"Ron can't dance," Harry snorted.

"Oh yes he can," Ginny nodded before standing Harry still and ordering him to twirl her.

"Since when?" Harry said as Ginny threw herself into Harry's arms and snapped that he was to dip her now.

"Since forever," Ginny huffed, "the point of a dip is that at some point I come back up again, Harry!"

"Oh," Harry blinked before lifting Ginny back upright. She made some kind of movement that crossed his arms over while she nestled her back into his chest and they moved from side to side as if they were made to fit together like that.

"All the Weasleys can dance, even Percy, when he pulls the Minister of Magic's hand out of his arse long enough to do anything for himself," Ginny scowled, "dopey-arsed puppet!"

Harry noticed that a nearby couple were staring at Ginny as if she was the most unladylike witch they had ever seen in their life. Harry uncrossed his arms, spinning Ginny back so she was facing him again and smiled at her before kissing her on the lips proudly and lifting her arm so she could twirl again. Ginny seemed delighted by this and started spinning.

"See I knew you had it in you if you just relaxed a bit," she said as she stumbled into him giddily.

Harry curled his arms around her and they danced cheek-to-cheek.

"So if Ron can dance, why won't he ever do it then?" Harry mumbled.

"Same reason nobody in their right mind would dance in our family, Fred and George," Ginny explained, "They tease us all enough as it is without adding dancing to their armoury."

Harry laughed at this and felt thankful indeed that the twins weren't around to deride his attempt to manoeuvre their sister around the dance floor.

"But all Weasleys have got some moves, that's why so many of us are naturals at Quidditch - sport and dancing are in our genes," Ginny said as she rubbed her hand up his back. "Charlie told me it was the red hair."

"Huh?" Harry frowned.

"He said that red-haired people have natural rhythm because of the years of persecution," Ginny looked up at Harry and shrugged, "I don't quite know what he means, but it's one explanation, isn't it?"

Harry kissed her again before seeing the moody-looking platinum blonde witch glaring at them, along with several other nosy people who just seemed to feel that Harry Potter was public property and shouldn't be hogged by one silly little fan all night. He felt suddenly self-conscious and whispered something into Ginny's ear. She smiled up at him sympathetically before dragging him into the darkened corner where they were now succumbing to some secret passion. Well as secret as they could get, anyway.

Ginny raked her fingers down Harry's back and he sucked on her tongue before licking across her bottom lip and pulling at it between his teeth teasingly. Ginny jumped up at him and curled her legs around his waist to dive into his mouth deeply with her tongue. Harry supported her by slipping both his hands beneath her buttocks. They kissed like that until they had to break apart for breath.

"Wow," Ginny gasped.

"Thanks," Harry panted back into her face with a smile.

"You've never kissed anyone else while you were away all that time?" Ginny frowned.

"Honestly," Harry said, trying to convey the truth with his most honest expression.

"Mmmm," Ginny sighed and she leaned in for more, "'cause you're really good at that."

Harry beamed proudly.

"Y'know, for somebody so out of practice," Ginny blinked matter-of-factly.

Harry dropped Ginny back down and looked back onto the crowded dance floor.

"Right, where's that tasty little number from earlier on? I'll get some practice in for you, Ginevra."

"Don't you dare!" Ginny warned as she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him back towards her.

They both laughed before smuggling into each other and swaying absent-mindedly in time to the music. Harry stroked Ginny's hair and sighed.

"I wish you could have been with me at all those places where I wasn't known. I wish you could have just been that beautiful girl with that speccy guy as we walked along the shores of Sri Lanka. I wish I could be that lucky little sod who was kissing the gorgeous bird that was way out of his league in Costa Rica. I wish we could be that anonymous couple dancing in Cuba or swimming in Koh Lan."

"You've been everywhere, haven't you?" Ginny said in awe as she started into his eyes.

"Everywhere nobody knows me, yeah," he nodded.

"And I've been...here," Ginny said, her body going limp in his arms and her face falling with disappointment.

"You've been looking after your brothers, and don't tell me you regret that, Ginny Weasley, or I'll hex you with your own bat bogeys!" Harry threatened.

Ginny broke into a smile again and her arms tightened around his body again.

"Of course I don't regret that. I just regret that it had to be that way. I regret that Bill only had the love of his life for such a short time. I regret that little Luke won't ever know his mother. I regret that Ron gave up on a normal childhood to fight a war, and all for what? So he could voluntarily poison himself for a year and a half!"

Harry held Ginny even tighter and kissed the top of her head.

"Don't think like that, Ginny."

"But I do think like that, and then I feel like a bitch for resenting them all for holding me back and ruining my fun. I want to have fun, Harry. I want to see the world like you did. I want to have dark blue hair and damn what my mother has to say about it. I want to be allowed to dance with my boyfriend in public without getting funny looks for any other reason other then the fact that he can't dance to save his life. I wan-"

Harry kissed her deeply, slowly and for a very long time before letting her go again.

"I want you to keep doing that," Ginny gasped.

With a shudder and a loud bang from the exhaust, the twins' car pulled up outside the house and Bill carried Luke out to the street to welcome his brother back home.

Hermione got out of the back of the car, looking a little pale and traumatised from her journey, and ran around to get Ron's door for him. Ron had already opened it and was pulling himself out of his seat by the time she got to him, and they had one of their snappy moments of 'Let me give you a hand' and 'I'm fine' until Fred climbed out of the driver's seat and strode over to the kerb to slap a heavy hand around Ron's shoulders and grinned one of his most mischievous grins.

"Let's get inside and fight there Ronniekins!"

Ron chuckled and shook his head, and Hermione exhaled some of her anxiety and took Ron's hand as they all headed back into the house. Harry felt Ginny's body lean into him and he gave her a one-armed hug as they watched Bill explaining to Luke why Uncle Ron couldn't carry him right now.

Ginny took a bracing huff and stepped out of the house to give Ron a cuddle. Harry watched as Ron gave a slight wince before he caught Harry watching him and winked cheekily. He was, though Harry hadn't thought it possible, even thinner now and his freckles were the only colour in his face at all. His baggy jumper hung off him and he was walking as if he'd just climbed a thousand stairs. Harry flashed his best 'isn't everything great?' grin as Ron reached the doorstep where he stood waiting.

"Welcome home, mate."

"Cheers, Harry," Ron smiled before hesitating awkwardly for a moment, "Well are you going to let me in, or have we installed a password?"

"Oh!" Harry said as he jumped aside as if electrified, "Sorry, in you come."

"Straight up to bed!" Bill was yelling from the front garden.

"Godabed!" Luke mimicked as he pointed up the stairs and pulled his 'grumpy daddy' face.

"Bloody hell," Ron shook his head ruefully, "not even in the bloody door and they're bloody starting on me."

"Shut up yer moaning and do as yer told!" Fred said, enjoying being bossy for the right reason for once.

"Yeah," George agreed, "I want to see the look on his face when he finds out that Hermione's moved back in."

Ron spun around so fast that he almost fell over.

"She's WHAT?"

Bill and Harry heard the commotion coming from the upstairs bathroom and frowned at each other.

They climbed the stairs to see what all the racket was about. They weren't concerned, though: it didn't sound as if Ron was being ill, it sounded like laughter. Ron's throat was clearing up now and Harry could hear his voice; no, he could hear two voices.

Bill pushed the bathroom door open and stood, totally aghast, at the sight before him.

He saw his youngest brother standing over the bathtub with a pair of rubber gloves on his hands and the shower nozzle in his hand running at full power over his sister's head where she crouched over the edge of the tub. Her long hair was falling into the bath as the shower rinsed the most horrendous coloured water down the drain. There were splashes of it up the walls, around the rim of the bathtub, over Ron's face. There was a big dark handprint on the side of the sink. Bill and Harry took it all in.

Bill was the first to speak. He was very calm.

"What are you doing?"

Ron and Ginny held their breath and bit their lips, their shoulders juddering up and down with suppressed hysteria at the look on Bill and Harry's faces. Ron nodded to a pile of boxes in the sink. Bill looked; they were boxes of hair-colouring equipment from a Muggle shop. He looked at them, then back at the debris around the bathroom, then back at his brother and sister again.

"Well, keep rinsing it before all her hair falls out then," he nodded to Ron.

Ron moved the showerhead over Ginny's hair a little more.

"It's okay Bill, it won't fall out," Ginny called from under the mound of wet dark hair.

Harry saw from the boxes that this was permanent hair dye and wondered why Ginny hadn't just got a professional beautification witch to perform the spell for her. Ginny seemed to have read his mind and smiled at him, upside down, between her legs.

"As soon as mum saw it she'd change it back with a flick of a wand," Ginny shouted over the running water.

"And she can't change it if it's coloured the Muggle way?" Harry blinked.

"Uh-uh," Ron grinned.

"Well," Bill said after a short pause, "when you've finished colouring your sister blue, come down and have something to eat."

"Will do," Ron nodded.

Bill and Harry stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door behind them. They heard the raspberries of repressed laughter spurt out of the two youngest Weasleys. Harry had a little smile to himself. Ginny might be a pain and a nag and have the worst and most spiteful arguments with her brother, but she always knew how to cheer Ron up.

A short while later, Ron was seated at the kitchen table eating some scrambled eggs, while Ginny brushed her tangled navy blue hair.

"Y'know, you're pretty crap at that, Ron, my hair's never normally this bad," she grumbled.

"Leave it," Ron said with his mouth full, "I'll have a go with it when I'm finished."

"Nah, don't bother, I'll just leave it to dry a bit and then have another try."

"Ginny you're hair's a good eighteen inches long, how long is that going to take to dry naturally?" Bill scoffed as he washed up the pots and pans.

"Only a couple of weeks," Ginny said with her deadpan delivery.

Ron shovelled another forkful of eggs into his mouth before pushing the plate away from him, only half the food consumed.

"No, let me do it for you, I get the tangles out of Hermione's all the time," Ron said as he pulled his sister into the empty chair beside him and took the brush out of her hand.

Ginny stared at Harry with wide eyes and a shocked grin spreading across her face. Harry laughed, but chose not to say anything about what he had just heard. Bill wasn't so tactful, however.

"Blimey, Ron, are you a wizard or a hairdresser trapped in a wizard's body?"

Ginny chortled at this and Harry let himself smirk before his face cracked in two with the effort not to. Ron gave a tut and scowled at Bill before smirking himself.

"Well it'd have to be a pretty stupid hairdresser for it to choose this body, wouldn't it?"

Bill threw his tea-towel at him; he still wasn't happy with Ron talking about himself like that.

"Are you done with those eggs?" Bill pointed down to the half-empty plate.

"Yeah, thanks, Bill," Ron said distractedly as he set about running the brush through the ends of Ginny's hair.

Bill cleared away the plate and seemed to be holding back from making a big deal out of the fact that Ron had eaten something substantial without putting up a fight. Harry moved forward and nudged Bill.

"Want a hand with the washing up?" he mumbled.

"No, I'm fine, thanks, Harry," Bill smiled.

Both of them knew that Harry was really letting Bill know that he had seen it too. Ron was getting better.

"Saying that your inner-hairdresser is stupid doesn't really convince me to let either of you loose on me with a brush and a wand," Ginny snorted.

"Behave, or I'll make it all mad like Trelawney's!" Ron warned.

His threat got the better of her: for the first time since he had fallen ill, Ron Weasley got his sister to shut up.