- Chapter 7 -
Mr. Weasley's desk chair moaned when his owner let himself flop into it. Mr. Weasley wiped his hot forehead with the sleeve of his robes and took out a small pack in creased dark blue paper: his lunch. He folded the paper open and eagerly grabbed one of the thick white sandwiches. Ha, Molly had put Pumpkin Sandwich Spread on them, his favourite, he concluded contently as he took a large bite. What a morning, what a morning, he thought. As soon as he had entered the Ministry this morning, a colleague had grabbed him at the shoulder, and before he knew it, he was off again. Some lunatic had decided to bewitch the fruit department of a large Muggle supermarket. When Mr. Weasley had Apparated outside the store, the banana's were running past him, tackling Muggles they passed by… Inside the supermarket, strawberry's and apples had been bouncing around violently, knocking over shelves and hitting customers on the head as they went. Arthur had had to summon all of his department and they had been stunning fruit and casting Memory Charms all morning. And now… the paperwork. Mr. Weasley heaved a deep sigh and started on his second sandwich. Fat salty bacon with eggs. Molly was really trying to fatten him up lately. She was probably trying to feed up Harry and him at the same time. Oh, Harry, Mr. Weasley suddenly thought. He had forgotten all about all of that! Ashamed of himself, he rummaged through the pile of papers on his desk with haste, until he found the little notebook with feathers printed on it. He had promised Molly to look up the file on the magical book this morning at work, just to check whether everything really was all right. Requesting the file on the book "The Princes of the House of Woldshire and the Dark Wizard", he scribbled across the paper. "Arthur Weasley, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office", he signed it and he tore the piece of paper of the notebook.
"To the archives," Mr. Weasley said, and the piece of paper folded itself two wings and flew out of the room, off to the archives. Well, that was settled. The file would come up to him later and everything would be fine. He just hoped that his twin sons were not teasing his youngest son and his guests too badly. Mr. Weasley took another bite of his sandwich and dipped his quill into the ink to start working on documenting the happenings of the morning with a deep sigh.
Meanwhile, Harry, Ron and Hermione were still riding through the forest, and dark looming castles were nowhere to be seen. Only a few sentences described their journey in the book and were spoken by George's voice, but in the minute in which that voice described their days of travelling, the three adventures really experienced that full days of journeying. Already their first day of riding seemed to last for ages. Hermione's leg hurt, as she would have expected, but the rest of her body was becoming sore too. She sat on the edge of the saddle and expected that that the imprint of that edge was hewn into her butt by now, and her back was hurting because she was leaning forward on to the horse's neck all the time: it would only make things complicated if she would lean against Ron now. Ron himself was leaning as far back in the saddle as he could and was starting to feel the strain as well. Yet he couldn't properly complain about hating horses to Harry, because Harry kept riding a few yards in front him, forcing Ron to ride harder than he felt comfortable with.
Harry's muscles were aching too, but he didn't really care. He was looking forward to some adventuring, he felt himself being pulled towards the danger and he had decided to give in to that feeling. He had this itching feeling for excitement more often. Usually he tried to suppress it, as it got him into trouble most of the time, but now he felt he could use some diversion. He had the feeling that looking behind him to the two dear fiancées wouldn't improve his mood. Harry softly put the heels of his boots in the sides of the horse and made it trot even faster.
The great pace led them through the forest quickly. When the sun started tickling the tops of the trees, they had covered a great distance and a small village came into view, with lovely crooked white houses with thatched roofs, as one would expect them in a fairytale. Ron and Hermione felt that this would be a good place to spend the night. Harry, however, kept riding on stoically without slowing down when they rode past the first houses.
"Harry," Hermione said, sounding worn out. "Harry," she repeated more loudly and then Harry's grey horse stopped and Harry looked at her over his shoulder. "Could we please stop?" she asked. "I'm very tired." Ron's horse walked on till it stood next to that of Harry and then started nibbling on some clover, which grew in between the orange stones of the road they were standing on. Harry didn't say anything, but got off his horse and grabbed the reins without looking at them.
"Guess that's a yes," Hermione said under her breath. Then she cramped when Ron put his hands under her arms to lift her off the horse without telling her first. Of course Ron recoiled immediately at this and then Hermione clumsily dismounted herself by holding on to the horse's neck and letting herself slide down (which was a lot easier when the beast was standing still) and she managed to land on her right foot. Ron jumped off the horse after her and grabbed the reins as sulkily as Harry had done. Hermione sighed as the two boys walked off all grumpy. She had to correct herself. It was not true that all men were pigs. They were pouting toddlers.
However, their first concern at the moment, was to find a place to spend the night. The village didn't look big enough to have a something like a hotel, Hermione thought. But Ron and Harry were the rulers of all these people, or at least the future rulers, so surely they would have to be able to find a decent place to spend the night. Hermione saw something which looked like a pub to her left and decided that asking around there would be the best thing to do. She wanted to send Ron and Harry inside, not liking pubs very much herself, but when she called out their names, the boys seemed to consider it too much of an effort to even answer her and only managed a dull stare.
"Fine," Hermione said to herself. "Fine! I'll do it myself. There's more I can contribute to this quest than falling of my horse," she grumbled.
She swung open the dark wooden door and clammy air filled with smoke and smelling heavily of beer flew into her face. All of the male population seemed to have gathered here, even though it couldn't have been any later than five in the afternoon. Trying not to limp to badly, she started making her way to the bar. She felt eyes were looking at her but did the best she could at ignoring that. When she reached the bar, she leaned on the counter and addressed the girl that was wiping mugs with a rag, who seemed to be the only woman in the whole room.
"I'm looking for a place to stay the night," Hermione said to her, but the response came from someone else. A flabby looking man with beer trickling down his chin turned towards her and sprayed little drips of beer on her as he spoke.
"You can stay at my place," he said, sounding drunk and laughing in a way which Hermione did not like at all. The girl behind the counter giggled and swayed her blond hair behind her back. Hermione considered it unwise to respond the man directly and did it through the girl.
"It's for me and two others," she clarified. "Just for tonight, tomorrow-" Another drunk voice interrupted her, this time from behind.
"What's happened to you, missy?" a young man with fair hair asked her, Hermione saw as she looked over her shoulder. His friends at the table laughed. Trying not to look too thoroughly irritated, she turned to the girl again. However, the girl was looking at the man who had just spoken and treated him with a smile she probably considered to be seductive. Hermione sighed.
"Been doing wild things in the forest, have you?" the same man asked. This time Hermione couldn't control herself and turned around to answer him.
"What on earth are you talking about!" she snapped, but then she looked down on her skirt. It was torn on the left side, with blood stains, and the large brown coffee stain was still on it too. And she had laid in the mud face down… She tried to wipe her face with her hand, but the men only laughed.
"Listen, I'm here with two strong men and they can walk in any minute, and they're the Princes of the House of-" she started, trying to silence the men by impressing them with the titles Harry and Ron bore and perhaps a bit of bluff, but her voice drowned in the drunken noise.
"Two strong men, were they? That would explain it!" The men roared with laughter. Hermione was past feeling angry now and felt downright threatened, and she tried to get out of the room. She would arrange something else. Enthusiastically, the men started banging their mugs on the table and looked at her very amused. "Please, just-" she stammered as her way was blocked, but then a door at the back of the pub opened.
"Hey boys! Keep it down, will ya!" yelled the fat man in the door opening. "What's all this about?" he said and then he saw Hermione standing in the middle of the uproar. "Ah, leave the poor girl alone!" he said and he walked out to her. The men continued laughing for a bit and then started drinking again, though still a lot more boisterous than they had when Hermione had just entered.
"I'm sorry about that, my girl," the fat man said to her kindly. A large red moustache adorned his face. Hermione's shaking somewhat lessened. "Most of them have had a few drinks too many, but hey, I've got to make a living as well, don't I? I'm Tom, by the way. I own this place. Anything I can do to make it up to ya?" he asked her.
"Well," Hermione said, her voice still kind of wobbly, "there is. Me, and two of my friends, are looking for a bed for the night. And somewhere to keep our horses. Can you help us?" she asked him.
"We've got some spare beds," Tom said. "We have no stables, but your horses can spend the night in our garden, all right?"
"Yes," Hermione answered him, still feeling too much put of her balance to thank him as she should. "I'll go and get the others now." She went outside as fast as she could, dragging her left leg behind her. When she opened the wooden door, she saw Harry and Ron sit on either side of a rock, throwing little stones as hard against garden fences as they could, still sulking. They really didn't care… Hermione snorted angrily.
"We will sleep here. You can put the horses in the garden," she said curtly and she stomped back inside, or at least, attempted to with her right leg. The door of the pub closed behind her with a bang and for the first time that afternoon, Harry and Ron looked at each other. "Girls…" they both mouthed.