January
Harry and Neville couldn't explain the sudden explosion in gossip at Hogwarts. They both knew girls liked to gossip, hell, even guys were prone to swapping stories if the stories were good. But all the sudden no secret – and no one – was safe.
Neville got zinged when he walked into NEWT Herbology and his dragonhide gloves had been emblazoned with "Neville Loves Luna". The letters blinked from bright yellow to neon orange and back again. He barely made it through class, he was so flustered, a first for Neville and his beloved plants. (Ron thought it was rather sweet of Luna to just give him one of her spacey smiles and kiss him on the cheek when she saw the gloves.)
Harry, on the other hand, was destined for big things – so his secret came out in the middle of the Great Hall during supper the second week back.
"Eh, Potter, I heard you might need this," snickered a leering Malfoy, as he dropped a package in front of Harry. Harry (feeling a bit brash now that the whole Lord MoldyWart thing was over) opened the package despite the protests from his (much more levelheaded) female companions, Ginny and Hermione.
The Gryffindor table grew silent, while the rest of the hall fell into convulsing giggles at the sight of a blow-up goat, an anatomically correct girl goat. Amazingly the first one to come to her senses wasn't Ginny, who was looking rather like a tomato, the way every exposed piece of her skin was turning a deep shade of red. (In fact, she sort of matched Ron, at that moment.) Hermione was on her feet, and gave the goat a rather unmagical poke with her wand – sending it soaring about the room as the air let out.
"20 points from Slytherin for being an ass," Hermione said.
"Accio Extendable Ears!" cried Ron, very proud of himself for figuring this out all on his own, and before Hermione and Ginny did.
Unfortunately, the sheer number of flesh colored strings that flew at Ron was disgusting. Some still had remnants of earwax. He gingerly pulled them off his face and head and dropped them in front of him.
"Ron? How did you accio them?" Harry asked, because the Professors (and Prefects and Heads) had been trying that for the last few months.
"It's because they've been used. They're somehow charmed against accio until they've been used," Ginny explained, wiping a bit of wax off of Ron's cheek.
"And you know that how?" Harry questioned his girlfriend.
"Because the Professors – " she began.
" – And Prefects and Heads –" interrupted Hermione.
"Because the Professors have been trying to accio them since school started. Don't you think that would have been the easy way to find them? And since most items can only be used once, it hasn't been a very successful sting." Ginny finished, adjusting her tie and fixing the diamond still stuck around her neck.
Harry sighed, and felt almost as bad for Ginny as he felt for himself (he was still working on the empathy/sympathy issues of a teenager).
Hermione wrapped an arm around Ginny's waist and led her out of the hall, their heads together, plotting the nefarious deeds that teenage girls plot.
Well, that or planning out their study charts for the next month.
Ron and Harry could never tell with those two.